By Jeffrey Petts
The Pittsburgh Penguins defeated my beloved Detroit Red Wings in the most-watched Stanley Cup Finals game in 36 years. Witnessing your favorite team falter with a 2-0 lead in a seven-game series is painful. Having them lose to a team ‘led’ by the NHL’s poster boy is worse.
Let’s call a spade a spade… Sidney Crosby is a very, very gifted player. He’s a great playmaker and scorer. Crosby also has a lot of charisma and the NHL is doing their best to capitalize on that. Considering his age, Crosby is only going to get better. He’s the youngest captain to win a Stanley Cup. He’s going to be around for a while. Now that he’s got his name onto the Cup, the NHL will promptly start the campaign to have Crosby considered one of the hockey greats.
(Watching the CBC feed of the game, as the clocked ticked 0:00, the Canadian announcer cheered, “Sidney Crosby and the Pittsburgh Penguins win the Stanley Cup!” I found this laughable and quipped to a buddy, “Didn’t Crosby stop playing two weeks ago?”)
And this is where the canonization of Kid Crosby becomes troublesome for us few fans (besides those in Pittsburgh and the NHL Offices in Toronto and New York) that still follow the NHL. I’m sure living with a legend is great, but maybe Mario should spend some time teaching the Kid how to be more like a captain. Right off the bat, real captains persevere, they don’t dive.
(It’s funny how many videos there are of Sidney Crosby diving and whining. It’s as if he has a reputation for this type of behavior. Very captainly indeed.)
Between the diving, the whining and some of the little snippy stuff, Crosby isn’t doing anything that isn’t commonplace throughout the league. But most of the time, it’s the players that relish wearing the black hats committing the offenses. It’s hard to be the face of the NHL when many in the league consider you to be a sneak.
This was further demonstrated when Captain Crosby spent the moments following the end of Game 7 by hugging any- and everyone in the Penguins organization. There’s nothing wrong with this except for that whole handshake thing that’s been going on since the beginning of hockey. (This tradition is so ingrained in hockey that beer leagues have handshakes for every game. It’s virtually impossible to be a North American player and not know this is the first order of business.) Though I doubt this was a deliberate snub of the Wings, it does illustrate where Crosby’s head is. Rather than at the front of the line to acknowledge a vanquished foe, he was lollygagging with trainers and hangers-on. A captain should be at the front of that line, leading his team.
One of the storylines from this series was the fact Red Wing Marian Hossa opted for a cheaper one-year contract from Detroit over a long-term deal from the Penguins. When he signed, Hossa said, “…I felt like I would have a little better of a chance to win the Cup in Detroit.” The Penguins organization justifiably felt snubbed. Now that he’s back on the wrong end of another Stanley Cup battle and again facing free agency, where does Hossa stand a year later and a bit wiser? He’s indicated he wants to stay in Detroit. If Hossa does stay, what does that really say about the differences between the Red Wings and Penguins? Maybe some captains instill more confidence than others. Maybe the antics of a certain captain – champion or not – are more than some players want to align with. Marian Hossa might feel disappointment about losing the Cup (again), but he probably doesn’t regret his decision to defect to the other team.
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