q: "you mentioned the impact of bump and barkey and martone, and rick tocchet told us that speaking from his own experience, he knows that it's important for the young guys to have that group of young guys around— was that part of your thinking when you kind of brought them all up in that scenario [?]"
briere: "i mean, it was a big plus. you never know how they're gonna react, you know— call denver barkey and i told denver, i said you're just gonna be here for the weekend, i think we had a couple games, and then you're gonna go back and we plan on playing you the next game in lehigh. and then he had the big game in new york, and then we had a couple injuries and we said well, you're gonna stick around for another week, and we're gonna send you for the olympic break, we're gonna send you before that. and then he had earned— you know, he was playing so well, he had earned it— next thing you know denver never returned. so i'm sure the guys in lehigh were not too happy with me.
bump, kind of the same thing, we called him in at the end, we wanted to give him a game, but then he played so well and the coaches wanted him back in the lineup. there was a game i was gonna send him, and tocc said no, i wanna use him tomorrow in the game, can you keep him here for one more day? and he ended up scoring and stayed for the rest of the way."
