But we fans do not appreciate all that athletics do to get to where they are, whether high school, college, minor league, major league or Olympics. The practices, the repetition, the training, the dieting, the demands of coaches, management, teammates, or your own inner voice. And we don't appreciate when an athlete gets injured, has a slump, is traded halfway across the continent.
It's so easy to appreciate Sidney Crosby from the far distance of my Amish swivel rocker in front of my 55 inch tv. By all accounts Crosby is a winner. Two-time Stanley Cup champion with our Pittsburgh Penguins, two-time Olympic gold metal winner, World Championship in 2015, and just the other evening up in Toronto, the 2016 World Cup of Hockey, both for his native Canada. He captained both Penguin Cup winners, both Canadian Olympic winners, and the two international championships. As they say, he'll never have to buy a beer anywhere in Canada ever, after scoring "the Golden Goal" in overtime against the USA in the gold medal game of the 2010 Vancouver Winter Games.
But I really appreciate Crosby for how he conducts himself, the reputation he has carved, the kind of person he tries to be. Crosby is widely known for his work ethic of preparation and practice. Since the day he played his first game in the National Hockey League, he has been the "face" of hockey, with a microphone in front of him win or lose. He is gracious and self-deflecting in these interviews, playing up his teammates and passing over his own incredible feats. From news accounts he wants to be "just another guy," albeit one destined for the Hockey Hall of Fame and he's not yet 30 years old. A recent profile in the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review labeled him "polite, patient, humble." This past summer he began a youth hockey camp in his hometown of Cole Harbour, Nova Scotia. In that same article he says when his playing days are over he'd like to be a philanthropist.
It's also easy to overlook what every athlete dreds. In the 2011 Winter Classic on New Years Day here in Pittsburgh, an outdoor game in Heinz Field no less, Crosby received a vicious hit from Washington Capital Dave Steckel. Another hit a few days later, and Crosby's concussion became evident. He missed the rest of the 2011 season, and most of the 2011-2012 season. Many wondered if he could or would ever return to play from what were puzzling and painful symptoms of multiple concussions, much less compete at the world-class level of play we'd all become accustomed to see.
He did come back, roaring back, but the team did not. Quick departures from the playoffs over two years were disappointing to Crosby, his team and Pittsburgh fans. By now every hockey fan knows how a year ago Crosby began the 2015-2016 season in a dreary slump. At one time he was something like 165th in scoring in the league. But a change of coach, and change of tactics, righted the Penguin ship, and the team roared through the rest of the season and playoffs to earn its fourth Lord Stanley Cup in June.
It this adulation? Yeah, I guess so. But I appreciate all the aspects of this fine hockey player--captain, scorer, student of the game, hardest worker on the ice, fine human being off the ice.
After the conclusion of the winning game for Canada in the World Cup of Hockey on Wednesday, ESPN hockey analyst Barry Melrose said Crosby earned the MVP award for the tournament. He said, yes, he was the highest scorer in the tournament. But better, every time Crosby stepped onto the ice, he changed the flow of the game. "If anyone says that Sidney Crosby isn't the greatest hockey player in the world, he's crazy!" On the ice, and off.
May we fans in Pittsburgh and throughout North America have many, many more years of enjoying the skills and talents of Captain Sidney Crosby.
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