Posted by Jason Spezza on January 31, 2008

My first all-star game was a pretty fun time. Just being around the guys was great and it was a pretty relaxed atmosphere. You always welcome those kind of things. It was fun to spend time with my family and girlfiend, too. I got to bring all of them down.

These games are all pretty much the same. It was pretty busy, and the skills day was a long day with lots going on. But nothing really jumped out and surprised me about the weekend.

I brought the guys back some T-shirts from the game, and grabbed some hats and stuff as souvenirs for my cousin. I kept all of my gloves and kept a few sticks and different stuff for my own keepsakes.

I’m someone who likes to collect sticks from guys. I get them from certain guys along the way, and guys who look like they’re going to be retiring soon. I just try to grab some memorabilia just so I’ll have it when I’m older. I’ve got a whole room back home with a bunch of memorabilia and I just try to add to it. You get to know guys and you want some guys’ equipment and stuff, and it’s cool to have. I collect stuff from certain players because I like the way they play or I grew up watching them. But there’s no real criteria for any of it.

It was fun playing on a line with Alex Ovechkin in the all-star game. He’s full of energy, he’s all over the ice and he likes to score goals. He’s a guy who wants the puck a lot. But you don’t get much of a feel in a situation like that. You just wing it. Me and Marty St. Louis know each other from Olympics and stuff so if anything, we probably had more chemistry than me and Ovechkin did. Marty’s a pretty smart player and likes the give and go a bit. He’s a speedy little guy and it was fun to play with him.

Vinny Lecavalier is a guy I enjoy watching, but we’re both centremen and both kind of play similar styles, so playing on a line together probably wouldn’t work too well. But he’s still a guy that I’d like a chance to play with in that situation.

Posted by Jason Spezza on January 25, 2008

I’m very excited about heading to the all-star game in Atlanta this weekend. It’s always a pretty neat thing to be around everybody and to be recognized by the league this way. It’s definitely an exciting time because it’s my first one, too.

For me, the biggest thing is to be around all the guys and to see everybody and see everybody’s equipment and that kind of stuff. As much as we’re players, we still enjoy seeing all that stuff from other guys, too.

Usually, all-star games are just fun times. I've got a few memories from watching them when I was growing up or later on in my career. The year I saw Owen Nolan pointing and scoring on Dominik Hasek, that's one game I remember. When Fox introduced the glowing puck that showed up on the screen, that was kind of a moment. Mario had a couple of big nights and those are the kind of things I always enjoyed watching.

My mom, my dad, my sister and my girlfriend are coming in for the game. For my parents, I think it’ll be pretty exciting. It’s pretty special for them. My dad is pretty excited to be going to an all-star game with me. I think it’s a good time to pay tribute to your parents for all the work they’ve done in helping you along the way. It’ll be nice to hang out with them this weekend and spend some time with my girlfriend and sister. It’ll be a good weekend, I'm sure.

Posted by Jason Spezza on January 10, 2008

I’m excited to see Steve Yzerman is being honoured here this weekend. Mario Lemieux was No. 1 and Steve Yzerman was 1A for me growing up. They were my two favourite players. My uncle played junior with Yzerman, so I got to meet him when I was a kid. I’ve got pictures of me when I was a kid with Yzerman. He’s always been a guy that was kind of close to my heart that way. For him to be in the building and to get inducted into the Ottawa Sports Hall of Fame, that’s another great honour for him. I definitely look up to him.

I’ve heard Steve is supposed to be dropping the puck before our game against the Red Wings on Saturday night. I know I’ll be cheering for him at that moment. By no means are we going to let them beat us so he can feel good about himself. But Steve’s a guy that deserves a lot of accolades and he deserves the respect of the players who are playing the game now. He paved the way for a lot of guys and we’ll definitely pay our respect to him.

Steve was an offensive guy, he was pretty good with the puck and he played pretty hard. Toward the end of his career, he won a lot of Stanley Cups. He took a lot of criticism early in his career, but it didn’t seem to bug him too much. He found a way to become a winner, he was a great captain and just a good guy to look up to.

Everyone’s already talking about Saturday’s game against Detroit. When we play Toronto and Montreal, it’s usually a big game and Buffalo’s become a big rivalry for us. This is just something else to look forward to on the schedule, because we don’t play Detroit that much. Both teams are first in their conference, so it makes it extra special that way.

Any time you play a good team, you want to show them you’re a good club, too. There’s a little bit extra that goes into it, but it’s not like if you lose, you’re out, and if you win, you’re in. You don’t want to put too much stock into it, but you definitely want to show them you’re a good hockey club. It is more than just another game, but it’s not like we’re looking ahead to it and not worrying about other games. When we get to it, I’m sure it’ll be an exciting game, being that it’s on a Saturday night.

The final all-star rosters get announced on Friday. It’s definitely something you want to be a part of and you want to get recognized in that light. For sure, I’m looking forward to seeing what happens, but I won’t lose sleep over it. I’ve done all the work I can do up to now. If they pick you, it’s because of what you’ve done already.

Posted by Jason Spezza on January 4, 2008

The world juniors are getting a lot of attention in Canada these days, as usual. And it’s true in our dressing room, too, especially among the Canadian players on the team. Any time your country is being represented, you want to watch. So we have it on every day here at the rink before practice. It all depends on the time of the games, but we do go out of our way to watch it.

Alfie and I were watching the Sweden-Canada game together the other day. But it seems to mean more to Canadians than anyone else. We seem to have the best TV coverage of it and we’ve kind of grown up with the tradition. So we pay more attention to it. There’s a few gentleman’s wagers on the go with some of the non-Canadian guys on the team about the games. You try to make a few bucks off your teammates. It’s all friendly stuff. I still haven’t heard the end of Volchy scoring the game winner for Russia against us when I played, and that was a few years ago now. It’s something that gets talked about for a long time, and it’s good memories for a lot of the guys.

Just the guys you meet is probably the biggest thing you remember about world juniors. You meet so many guys along the way, and now you’re playing against them at the NHL level. It helps your relationships out now. That’s probably the biggest thing I remember, meeting the guys and being around the guys. Some still remain friends to this day. I played junior with Steve Ott and roomed with him at world juniors. Jarret Stoll is a guy who I played with at world juniors and still talk to regularly.

Me and Heater first became buddies at world juniors. We thought back then that there was a chance we might end up together in the NHL. He was drafted by Atlanta and the next year was my draft year, and the Thrashers were picking first. So we thought there might be a chance. But once I got drafted here, I thought there would be no chance whatsoever of us playing together. Of course, that’s all changed now. Unfortunately, our world junior memories aren’t all as positive as some of the other guys on our team here. We have some positive memories, but we didn’t win any gold when we were there. So there’s maybe not quite as much reminiscing going on as with some of the other guys.

All of us who played in the tournament still feel a connection to the Canadian team. We try to send them an email every year wishing the guys luck, and let ’em know that we’ll be watching. We definitely want to see Canada win.