Rivet Quote Overload

I am in the office waiting for a co-worker to return from tonight's Martin-Nixon game (a 35-26 Martin victory, by the way) and feeling very futile because I have done literally everything I can do for the daily until we get his story.

To avoid sitting around doing nothing, I have decided to share with you almost every single word spoken during today's Adam Rivet press conference. I'm cutting out Bryan Benway's introduction and farewell (Sorry Bryan!) and dividing things by the order in which they were spoken.

I'll break it up to protect your eyesight, but you might not want to read this all at once.

Coach Ruskowski:

One of the things we’ve started a while back, and I think it’s a great thing, we talked about it at lunch today Glenn and I, and we feel this is one of the things that draws attention to the players, to the people who are great sponsors of ours, to tell everybody that we’re here, that we appreciate our fans, appreciate all our sponsorships.

But we’re also here for a reason, to say that we have just re-signed Adam Rivet to another year contract. The reason that we’re doing that is because we’re really changing things up this year. We’ve already signed Igor Agarunov, we probably would have had a conference for him, too, but he’s a pretty shy guy, doesn’t like the limelight as much as Adam does. But we are very appreciative of him; he’s been with us from Day 1 (of his career). I think Adam’s missed one year with us.

He’s been a guy who’s been very, very loyal to the organization, he’s been a very good hockey player, he’s great in the community. What else can you say? He’s a defenseman who scores me probably 20 goals a year, pretty awesome stats; he’s been with us for a couple championships. What we want to do with this organization is to keep the winners together, keep the champions together.

We’re proud of what we’ve been doing, but yet we’re proud of what we’re going to do. Right from the front office staff to everybody who’s involved in the organization. We’re so proud to be back in Laredo and continue to try to keep the success that we’ve had in the past. This year’s going to be a bit more difficult.

We’re bringing a lot of new players in, it’s kind of a revamping year, but we’re going to do it. We’re going to be a little bit grittier, a little bit more determined, a lot more exciting than in previous years, I guarantee you that. We’ve got young talent in here that’s going to do a lot of stuff. But, saying that, when you have young dogs, you have to have some old dogs in the pen. As soon as we sign Besser, I think that will help us a lot, too, with the old dog part.

We’re still working on him, but with no further ado, as an organization, we’re very proud, excited and happy to have Adam Rivet come back for another year of playing, a stable person not only in the community and in the dressing room, but also in the front office trying to do the best he can to get the people to come out. But also, his playing style, his ability, his determination on the ice is a factor we want to build off of. So, with no further ado, we’d like to welcome Adam Rivet to the 1909, excuse me, 2009-2010 Laredo Bucks.

Rivet:

Thank you. Don’t worry; sometimes I mess my numbers up, too, Terry.

It’s a pleasure to be back. It’s my fifth year in Laredo, and I’ve always enjoyed playing here. The community, the team, the front office staff, the players and obviously the friends and the families that you meet in Laredo are awesome. It makes it worthwhile to play in such a city.

I’m looking forward to the season. It’s going to be a new challenge for us. Like Terry said, we’re going to be a younger team, and I’m just excited to have the opportunity to build something new again. Last year was a disappointing year as far as the team goes. We all want to do better, and I think this year, having some fresh legs in there, hopefully we can get back to that status that we’re known for as being one of the premier teams in the league. That’s where we want to go, and that’s where we want to stay.

I’ve been working hard this summer and hopefully it pays off, and we’ll see come October what kind of team we’ll have and new guys come in. I’m excited; I feel like a rookie again, revived and ready to go, so we’ll see when everything gets going."

Glenn Hart:

I want to welcome Adam back to our team for the Laredo Bucks. I want to say, obviously he’s a great player, as well, he’s won all kind of awards in our league, but the best thing about Adam Rivet is he’s a good human being. He’s a leader, he’s a model citizen, he’s the kind of guy you want to have on your team, not just for his playing ability.

He gives freely of himself for causes without compensation. For example, we co-host a hockey ministries hockey camp. Kids from all over Texas come to College Station to participate in a hockey camp that’s a combination of great hockey instruction by professional players, current and former, but also by guys who love the Lord and are interested in teaching kids the right way to live and learn a little bit more about the Bible, and Adam has come for a couple of years now and helped us at the Hockey Ministry camps.

He’s a great human being, he’s a great influence on kids… as great of a player he is, he’s a just great human being. I’m really elated to have him back on the team this year. Thank you."


If you made it through all that, congrats. And thanks, I guess. Only one brief part of one of those quotes will be in my story in tomorrow's Times; everything else is fresh content from my one-on-one interviews. I'll post the leftovers from those tomorrow.