I'm following up a couple of avenues I'm looking into. It might be a week until I decide something or a month or so. We'll see.
Coaching: With the kids for sure. Right now just retiring I have no interest in starting as coach in pro hockey. I might change my mind, but for the moment no. I'm looking forward to having 30-34 weekends in the winter free. My wife has been doing that for years on the weekends with the kids and I'm looking forward to helping out with that.
There's a lot that went into the deicison. I thought I didn't have a great year, but I had a good year. It was a good time for this. Who knows what next year will bring? This year the first 20 games we really struggled. If something like that happens next year, maybe I would have been let go. We ended up on a good note. We finished well as a team. I had a respectable year. I thought it was a good time hockey-wise and family-wise. It's not when my kids are 15-16 and they don't care that I'm following them. Now I can help out on the weekends and watch Mitchell play hockey. I've been blessed that God protected me all these 21 years and I had very few injuries. Once you get older, and a little slower, who knows if injuries come up on you?
Deep down I knew the Komets were looking to get a little younger and faster. When David and I talked about it, I'm sure in a sense, it was a time where they are looking to get younger and faster. It was a mutal feeling that maybe this was a good time.
First of all, I really feel proud and blessed that God allowed me to be able to play for so long and have this calling. There were a lot of tough challenges for 21 years, but there was a lot of fun times and some of those challenges were fun to tackle. I felt so fortunate that I was chosen to have that calling, not only as a player but to develop a storng bond to a lot of the fans. That was part I'm going ot miss, that excitement before the game, the anticipation and all the friends and fans I knew who went to the games, feeding off their excitement.
I'm going to miss going to practice and striving every day to get better. I'm going to miss the competition. There are a lot of things I'm going to miss with the game.
Thank you to the fans for making it so special to me to play in a city that cares so much about hockey. It was tough when things didn't go well, but what a great city to play for when things were going well. What a great city and a great fanbase we have here. If I had played in a city that was luke-warm about how we did, it would have been a lot different.
It was definitely a special ride, and I felt very fortunate to be here for 21 years. God blessed me with a career that I have a lot of passion for. Hopefully in my next career I'll have as much passion. Most people don't get that lucky to have as much passion for what they do.
I had too much fun. There were a lot of challenges and tough times, too, but a lot of fun and excitement, too.
