Herb Brooks Quotes – Olympic Coach from the 1980 USA Hockey Team

Brooks' original expressions were known by his players as "Brooksisms." According to Olympians John Harrington, Dave Silk, and Mike Eruzione, these are a few.[14]

 "You're playing worse and worse every day and right now you're playing like it's next month."  "You can't be common, the common man goes nowhere; you have to be uncommon."  "Boys, I'm asking you to go to the well again."  "You look like you have a five pound fart on your head."  "You guys are getting bent over and they're not using Vaseline."  "You look like a monkey tryin' to hump a football!"  "You're looking for players whose name on the front of the sweater is more important than the one on the back. I look for these players to play hard, to play smart and to represent their country.”  "Great moments are born from great opportunities."  "You know, Willie Wonka said it best: we are the music makers, and we are the dreamers of dreams."  "This team isn't talented enough to win on talent alone."  "If you lose this game you'll take it to your grave...your fucking grave."  "You were born to be a player. You were meant to be here. This moment is yours."[15]  "Write your own book instead of reading someone else's book about success."[7]  "Boys, in the front of the net its a bloody nose alley."  "Don't dump the puck in. That went out with short pants."  "Throw the puck back and weave, weave, weave. But don't just weave for the sake of weaving."  "Lets be idealistic, but lets also be practical."  "You guys don't want to work during the game?"  "The legs feed the wolf."

Also, this is taken from the DVD part of Miracle

On Coaching – I didn’t want to push them, I wanted to pull what is inside of them all the time. – Her Brooks

Sacrifice for the UNKNOWN. What could be. – Herb Brooks

On Head Games – I wanted them to be on their toes the whole time I was coaching them. Played head games with Jim Craig right up til the point we played Russians. I wanted to see how they would respond – Brooks.

Motivation – Each guy was motivated differently. – Brooks.