On Tuesday, I caught up with Logan Couture during his last few hours in Switzerland for an interview on 95.7 The Game. After 23 points in 22 games with Geneva-Servette, he’s headed back home, and says he will not look to play anywhere else but the NHL this season. Here’s a transcript of the interview:
On making the decision to stop playing in Switzerland and head back to Canada:
“It was something that I looked at doing for a couple weeks. My main goal was to come over to Switzerland and get in shape for the NHL season, and be ready when it starts. At this point where I’m at right now, I think I’m ready if the season were to start in the next couple weeks. I’m in game shape, played 20 plus games and got my timing down and everything. I think I looked at it as a risk-and-reward type thing, where if I continue to play over here and something bad did happen, I would regret it. I’m coming back to Canada to spend some time with my family, which I don’t get to do very often during the season, it’s going to be nice to spend the holidays with them, but I’m hoping a deal does get done soon and we get back to playing hockey.”
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On how Swiss hockey compares to the NHL game:
“It’s a lot different, obviously the rink is bigger, it’s much wider. The players are smaller and much less physical. You get a lot more time with the puck over here. Players lack the high end skill, but they can all skate. That’s one thing I realized over here, all the Swiss players they’re fast. They can really skate in the open ice and they use the extra ice that there is out there, with the space. It’s a lot different hockey. I can count the times I was physically hit with a body on one hand over 20 plus games so it’s a big difference.”
On what he will take away from his experience in Switzerland:
“Probably just being in a different country. This is the first time where I’ve been able to spend an extended time overseas in Europe. I was lucky enough to get some time to travel; I went to Paris for a couple days and went to Italy, just going around Europe a little bit. But I’m a North American guy and I really miss being home, and the one thing that was being tough on me was during the baseball playoffs, not being able to watch. Games don’t come on over here till 2 or 3 in the morning.”
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On being alone in Europe:
“I’m all alone, I lived in a hotel for basically the first 2 months, and you know it got tough. That’s one thing that was tough on me was being in a single hotel room for 2 months and being away from my family and the time change was tough.”
On how players view the owners, individually or as a whole:
“I haven’t spoke to any of the owners, except for two. I was in a meeting in July, when the NHL gave us our first proposal. (Boston’s owner Jeremy) Jacobs was there, and the owner from Minnesota (Craig Leipold) was there, and you just get the feeling in those types of meetings with those two, that they are all about themselves and making money, they could care less who the players are. We all introduced ourselves to the owners, those two owners. And they probably couldn’t tell, us, who we were. They don’t know who the players are, stuff like that. It doesn’t mean it’s that way for all 30 owners. The players, we don’t know (about the owners) because they’re not allowed to talk. We haven’t spoken to Sharks owners, anything like that; we don’t know how they feel about it. So that’s what we’re hoping to learn.”
On the communication process with owners:
“We’re going off what we’re hearing from players at those meetings. We’re living off that. It would be nice to hear what they (owners) all think. I think Bettman only needs 8 of them to vote with him and get something to pass. It’s tough for any of the players to gauge where they’re at, because we don’t hear a thing from them (directly).”
On his gut reaction, if there will be an NHL season:
“I hope so. That’s what we all want to do as hockey players. I’ve played it my entire life for 19 years since I was 3 years old, you know it’s tough waking up not going to the rink, not getting into that game day groove, or to practice. I hope we get this figured out soon.”
Logan’s plans to stay in game shape:
“I’m going to get back into the gym probably starting next week. This first weekend I’m going to check out one of my brother’s games, I haven’t been able to watch him play in 6 or 7 years now. That will be nice to do, just get back and enjoy some time with my parents. Spend some nights and days; really I haven’t seen them in 2 months and it’s been hard to keep in touch with the time change. Probably start working out next week and looking for some ice. I’ve got some buddies, I know Corey Perry (Ducks) and Drew Doughty (Kings) are home in London (Ontario) skating, and just go from there.”