Motivation Quote by Steve Yzerman

The charm of Steve Yzerman's line is how aggressively ordinary it is. "We have two tables on our airplane that are set up with the games" reads like a logistical aside, the sort of sentence you toss off to a beat reporter while half-thinking about the next shift. That plainness is the point: it frames elite performance not as mystery or myth, but as routine infrastructure.

The specific intent is pragmatic. Yzerman is describing how a team kills time while traveling, but he's also quietly answering a recurring question athletes get: how do you stay sharp, stay bonded, stay sane across a season that is basically airports and arenas? The tables are a small, controlled environment inside the chaos of travel. They make the airplane less like a liminal space and more like an extension of the locker room.

The subtext is culture-building. Games on a plane aren't about competition; they're about creating an easy, repeatable ritual where hierarchy softens and camaraderie can happen without speeches. It's leadership by environment: you don't demand "chemistry", you set up conditions where it has a chance to form. Two tables suggests something else, too: a team is never one single unit. It's clusters, friend groups, veterans and kids, introverts and talkers. You accommodate that, you don't force it.

Contextually, this is the NHL's long-season grind in miniature. Yzerman, long associated with professionalism and method, offers a glimpse of the machine behind the mythology: greatness supported by folding tables and a few familiar games, because consistency is often built out of the smallest, repeatable comforts.