Quotes from Jarome Iginla

I mean, sometimes if you're not always going to win on the scoreboard, you want to make sure that you're there physically.

I always wanted to be like Mark Messier and I loved Wayne Gretzky, the same as other kids. But it was also really special for me to see the Black players that were in the NHL.

I would like to be in the playoffs. I would hope that there is some opportunity to go and play in the playoffs. Those are the best games, the most fun for sure, and you have a chance to win.

Competing is very, very important me.

I grew up here in St. Albert, which is a city just north of Edmonton, and I went to Grade 10 here at Paul Kane High School. But then I went to junior in the WHL, Western Hockey League, at age 16. So I left and went to finish school at Norkam High School in Kamloops for grades 11 and 12.

I believe in God, stay close, and pray daily. I have to pray, believe, and do the work. Once I go on the ice, I do the best I can and I leave it. If the goalie saves my first shot, my next shot's going in.

Sometimes you get into fights if a teammate is getting taken advantage of, sometimes just from competing and you feel someone takes a cheap shot. It's just the intensity. It's an intense game, sometimes you just get too fired up and fights happen.

The first step is to believe that it's possible. Once I had a taste of success, you start to believe in it a little more.

Each goal, each win, going to different buildings, the rivalries, the excitement - it is something. I try to catch myself, you know, in the warm-ups, when you're on the line and the anthem and you get to some milestones and stuff. It's such a neat experience.

I was a big fan of Grant Fuhr. I was a big Oilers fan growing up. I started out playing goal, but there wasn't enough action. So I decided to play out, and I'm thankful, 'cause goalie is a tough position.

I played on a line with Theo Fleury and German Titov, and I was actually center on their line.

A legacy, or things like that, I've never really been a big thinker in that way. You know, it's kind of just been trying to go each day.

It was tough leaving Boston with a great city, a great organization and a great bunch of guys.

It's an amazing honor to be the fourth Black hockey player to go into the Hall of Fame. It's a huge thrill.

I have a favorite line that I ever got to play with, and that would be at the World Cup. I got to play with Mario Lemieux and Joe Sakic. I got to be the right winger on their line.

I'd love to be a role model for black kids, whether they play hockey or not.

But once I left home to play hockey, it was a commitment to be the best I could be and try to make the NHL.

I remember starting hockey at age 7 and going to my first tryout and dreaming about how great it would be, and it's been even better. These 20 years in the NHL, it's been better.

Where I grew up, hockey was the sport that 90 per cent of black kids at school played.

In hockey, you get to meet a lot of different people and become friends with them. It is definitely a special sport. I love that part of it.

I was a better hockey player than I was a baseball player.

To see Grant Fuhr starring, to see Claude Vilgrain and Tony McKegney, it was very important for me to see to follow my dream.

Just like Grant Fuhr and Tony McKegney showed me it was possible to do what I'm doing, I want to be someone who shows kids that it's possible to be whatever they want to be.

At times during hockey, I know myself, you get so wrapped up in it, you squeeze your stick a little too much, all those things, or you're too focused.