There's a new feature story on the main site (top story panel #3) about former Atlanta Flame Bobby MacMillan. I spoke to him for about 45 minutes and I opted to let his words tell the story in the feature. He had a lot of great things to say about Atlanta and that's the theme of the piece as the Flames return to their old stomping grounds tonight. He had some other interesting things to add that I didn't work in to the article though, and here they are verbatim.

On signing with the WHA's Minnesota Fighting Saints after being drafted 15th overall by the Rangers in 1972:

"I'm not sure what that was all about. You go through life and you make decisions and some of them aren't so well thought out or whatever. At 19 it wasn't the right thing. It worked out okay, but I shouldn't have done it. If I could do it over I wouldn't have went. I was 19 and I grabbed the first contract that was offered, even though I went pretty good in the draft. I look back now and it wasn't a huge mistake, but like everybody else you look back at what you would have done differently, and that was one of those things I'd have done different."

On where his nickname, Bobby "The Knife" came from:

"To be honest I don't know. It just takes one reporter to write it up and then it sticks sometimes they're taken from a song or whatever. I did get a lot of breakaways so maybe it had more to do with splitting the defense. Kind of cutting through and getting the perfect pass from Chouinard or Vail. You can tell Eric I got a whole lot more from Guy than him."

On what type of player makes the best coach:

"It's a funny thing. I played for New Jersey (1982-1984) and at that time we were the worst team. We'd gone 18 games I think without a win. That's a month and a half. It was pretty dismal. But off of that team there are eight guys at least that are head coaches or assistants. Don Lever coaching in the American league. Mike Kitchen in St. Louis. Dave Lewis coached last year in Boston. Joel Quenneville in Colorado. Rick Meagher is the head scout in St. Louis. The list just goes on. Davey Cameron coaches in the AHL (Ron Low has coached in the NHL as well and Pat Verbeek is scouting for Detroit). And the reason why, I've come to figure out, is because the big stars like Orr and Lafleur and the Brett Hulls- the superstars- they didn't have to pay attention to the coaches. They could just go out and they had so much skill. But a not very good team of players with so-so skill- just enough skill to get to the NHL- they've got to do everything in their power to stay in the NHL and they listen to every little thing that the coach says and every little trick that will help them stay in the league. At the end of their career they take all of that experience of how to play the game the right way and they translate that into a coaching career. The superstars just played and didn't have to worry about soaking up the details as much. They had so much skill they didn't need to. That's one reason you don't see the great ones turn into coaches. That's my take on it anyway."