Attitude

 Keith Ballard's attitude amazes me, he never pulls the 'poor me' card, takes responsibility for his play and accepts all challenges. He didn't run out right away and point fingers for his recent injury, something that seems to be done a lot lately.

I've found a few quotes that stick out

 Check out this clip:

Keith Ballard talks Injury

I love how he says he doesn't feel unlucky and he's went so long playing without one until more recently. He had hip surgery this summer, a concussion earlier in the season, and now this knee injury. He's still his usual laughing, smiling self even though he's still not sure of the extent of his injury.


He had this to say on his roll playing for the Canucks, where he sees less ice time then he would on other teams:

“Mentally, you have to be very strong. Everybody here at one point has come from somewhere where they were ’the guy.’ That group of people gets smaller and smaller the higher up you go, and now I’m seeing what it’s like for the first time to play on a successful team. I was a go-to guy on other teams, but they weren’t as good. My role right now  is to play a good, solid 15 (minutes) and be reliable. I’ll take that on a successful team. You’ve got to take a back seat a little bit and put the personal things aside”

 He was  a healthy scratch earlier in the season and had this to say:

 “If I have to put my personal pride aside, that’s OK… It’s up to me to play better. With a strong core you have to earn time.  I’ve played games (before Van) where I should have been a scratch, but you don’t have that luxury on a good team.”

When asked about the fact that he makes $4.2 million a season, for a roll that would usually get much less:

“I understand it, If you look at it strictly from the numbers, it doesn’t make sense. In the salary-cap world, it’s probably not the ideal situation. But they’re trying to build a deep team, build a team for a long haul. So that kind of stuff, I try to just put it aside and not worry about it”

He  talks about Chris Tanev quite a bit, a rookie Defenceman with the Canucks for now, as he even mentions in that video clip. He seems to be helping him out a lot and even Tanev says  that Ballard is a tremendous help with talking to him, and keeping him calm. If Tanev makes a mistake Ballard will be the first to say " That's alright, we'll do this next time"

Now  if  I could find more stories on charity work he's done Id be able to brag about him a bit more, until then that part belongs to Dan Hamhuis.