NHL STANLEY CUP FINALS: MIGHTY DUCKS v DEVILS

June 9, 2003

Pat Burns

COACH BURNS: Best hat, yeah, oh, definitely. It feels real good. I was just telling some of the guys, I thought I was going to be a nervous wreck before the game but I wasn't. I was very calm. I told Bob Carpenter, "Am I supposed to be nervous"? He goes, "No, not really." It was exciting. The last couple of minutes, it was exciting. I'm glad for this team, because this team, I always thought about the team. There was a lot made of you haven't won it since '89 and that's all we've been hearing. I think the biggest thing is you're afraid to disappoint people. Not really for myself, but I was afraid to disappoint people, disappoint your family, disappoint the fans. I owe a lot to Lou. I was out of the game for two years and I read a lot of articles by a lot of people sitting right here, some of them saying that I was done and I wasn't; never going to get back in the game and I wasn't the style of coach that people wanted. And he believed in me. He came, and we sat down and we talked. When he left, he said, "You know what, we're going to do well." When I came here, he had the passion to believe that he wants to win. He has all of that commitment that you want to win, and that, for a coach, is so much easier. When there's a commitment to win, it makes things easier. People never believed that we would make it. The odds, we've got to beat the odds every single time; got to beat the odds. We were supposed to lose against Boston, we were supposed to lose sometimes against Tampa. We were not supposed to get by everybody but we did it. This team worked hard. This team worked hard to get home ice advantage. We had to beat a team by one point to get this possible for tonight. We beat the Flyers in the Atlantic division, to get the Atlantic division, to be able to get this privilege tonight of playing the seventh game, and that all goes to that dressing room in there. In victory, a lot of people look for credit, but sometimes in defeat, a lot of people get criticized. That other team on the other side, the Anaheim Mighty Ducks do not deserve any criticism whatsoever. That team worked really hard, Mike Murray, Mike Babcock, the staff, all the players, this was a tough team to play against; very, very tough team to play against. I looked at Mike and I see myself back in 1988, '89, starting and I see the same thing. He's got a great career in front of him and it's just a big feeling. Like I told him on the ice, "Don't be disappointed. Be happy."

COACH BURNS: We had Michael Rupp during the course of the season a couple of times. He went hard for a while and he faded off a little bit and we sent him back down to the minors. We decided to bring him up after the playoffs. We brought him up. We always kept an eye on him. He skated by himself with some other players, some other extra players. We know that this guy has talent. It's just to try to get to him, to make him -- force him to be able to get all of those attributes on the ice; not just one game, not just two games, but everybody single night. I kept on telling him, "You know what you have right now. You know the opportunity that you have right now." I kept on reminding him and he definitely took it.

COACH BURNS: I thought about it all night long and Oleg did not have a bad series or do anything wrong that I had to make that decision. It was probably the toughest decision that I had to make in the last 24 hours to make that decision. It was tough to make that addition to start the series with Oleg and Oleg did well, but something was telling me, you know -- and I talked to Scotty Stevens about it. Scotty said, "You know what, I think it would be good." We knew he wasn't going to get 20 minutes, 25 minutes of ice time but his presence -- and you saw the fans -- and I'm glad for him. You know, it's tough when you see the 19th goal coming. It's tough for a player. But, you know, to be able to get him in there one last time, to hoist that Cup was something for him I'm sure he won't forget.

COACH BURNS: Not a whole lot. I was just glad to look at my family and see my family up there. May son, Jason, and my daughter Maureen, came in from Montreal today, drove all the way down. My wife was there, friends and family from Quebec were there. I pointed the Cup at them, because sometimes you forget the people who are behind you, who were there when you when things don't go too good. They certainly always have been there.

COACH BURNS: You know, when you are sitting out, there was some teams talking to me at that time. But Lou took the effort to fly into a little town called Gilmonton (ph), New Hampshire that you probably would not know where it is. I picked him up and drove up to the farm and he says, "Where are he we going"? I said, we're going up to where I live. We sat there for about an hour on the porch and we talked, and when he left, I felt real good about it. But to have somebody believe in you like that means a lot and to give you that opportunity. Again, I don't know if I would have got that or maybe I would have but just goes to show you, people complained about the way we win, but what is the way you win? How do you win? What makes a difference, as long as you win and we proved that again tonight.

COACH BURNS: Hey, the kid had a great playoff. I can't make those decisions. If I would have, we certainly probably would have looked for a red and white Jersey but we don't make those decisions. Jean-Sebastien Giguere played well. He brought that team to where they are tonight, the way his performance was. I think that deservingly so, he should get it. You know, if it was my choice, it would be different.

COACH BURNS: I had a lot of choices on my team. I had Langenbrunner, I had Friesen, Brodeur, definitely, Scott Stevens. I wish I could have given it to all of the players.

COACH BURNS: No, I never believed that. I said it often, I said it many, many times. I remember one particular team when I was out the first year, and my name came up and I guess a reporter asked one of the general managers what about Pat Burns and the guy said, "What did he ever win?" So that right there was something that did spark me so today, I'm glad to say that; yeah, I've won something now. I've accomplished a lot in the years that I've been here and I have not always been easy with the way I get on in these press conferences, but what I think is important in my team, how my team feels about me.