Well, at least the ice on the hockey rink provides a "level playing surface" :)

Do you think the quote might have been the result of an interviewer analytically seeking the secrets of Gretzky's success, like a focus group seeks ways to control a market or to confirm pre-prepared plans, but may only succeed in hearing what people say, not what they mean?

The quote does have attractive meme-like qualities, perhaps due to the simple language, lacking the complicated multi-syllabic abstraction of most management speak - it could even make a great strap line for those wickedly funny (un)motivational posters. Of course, to use another cliche, "there is no i in team", and the use of "always", in the quote, raises more alarm bells, of post event rationalising and, to paraphrase Phil Jackson, not "realising the power of surrendering we over me". The idea of weak-signals brings to mind information processing, but also stronger links (in social network theory) to Jackson's use of the triangle offense - we can see the puck/ball, but the changing space between the fast moving players can instill confusion, through information overload, too much complexity for an individual opponent to absorb. And Weick talks of "when events don't play by the rules", which captures it well.

Jackson's Sacred Hoops book, describing his time at the Bulls, was a good read: do you know what happened when he went to the Lakers, or if the follow up book is as good?

P.S. There was some aussie rules on the box tonight - wow, they even measure the outcome of multiple players following the same strategy (ball following), it seems to be reflected in the match statistics - which listed "significant injuries" (e.g. punctured lungs, collarbones, broken legs etc.). Ouch! Easy to see why hockey has protective padding to guard against the effects of competitors arriving at the same point in space and time :o)

Hockey as always seemed to me a form of organised thuggery in which I can never see the puck anyway! However I think you have it right. Its not about predicting where the puck will be, its abouting positioning yourself to cover possibilities. So sensing weak signals of a likely action (which in effect is havingmore patterns in your brain) will make the system more resilient. Older players as they loose speed can still compete as they have more savvy (patterns) so they can often be in the right place without really knowing why, whereas younger players rely on speed.

If we take a real game - Rugby (and I mean Union not heritic games involving 13 players) then a good team will be able to pass a ball into space, knowing that someone will be there to pick it up ....

Gretzky's qoute sounds like an application of John Boyds "OODA loop" theory.

In a nutshell, Action (going to the puck or where it will be) comes from a decision cycle called Observation where an individual observes the many aspects of his and his enemies immediate environment, Orients himself to it and makes an intuitive Decision based on his observations and Acts on it. Observe, Orient, Decide, Act. Whoever moves through this cycle quickest wins.

I think Gretzky's qoute illustrates the fact that whomever Observes, Orients, Decides and Acts with the best intuitive feel of a subject/sport/market will be succesfull more often than not. Gretzky won a LOT of hockey games with finesse and quickness of foot and mind. In a league where thuggery and defensive play was the norm.

Gretzky's quote, "I skate to where the puck is going to be, not to where it has been." is a quote that refers how he studied the game when he was growing up as a kid. His father, Walter Gretzky, used to make Wayne draw a picture of a rink on a sheet of paper and follow the puck with a pen on that sheet of paper with the rink on it. After every period he'd look at the sheet of paper to see what areas of the rink were the darkest. This is what he refers to when he talks about being able to "predict" where the puck is going to go next.

John, Gretzky played in a league where thuggery was pretty normal, but defense was nowhere to be seen at that time. Even the defensemen were more offensively minded. Defensive play in the 80's and early 90's, Gretzky's best years, was not nearly as refined as today's edition of the league.