Sidney Crosby

Hockey Player

• Born: August 7, 1987
• Place of Birth: Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada

SPORT: Ice hockey

Early Life

Sidney Patrick Crosby was born on August 7, 1987, in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada. His father, Troy, after an unsuccessful professional hockey career, became a facilities manager at a law firm. His mother, Trina, worked at a local grocery store. Growing up in Cole Harbour, a community in Halifax, Crosby began showing an interest in hockey at an early age. As a two-year-old, he spent countless hours in the family basement, shooting pucks at the family’s clothes dryer.

After first getting on the ice at three years of age, by the age of five, Crosby was competing in some of the local leagues in Cole Harbour. Hockey was expensive, and his mother did odd jobs, such as handing out flyers, to help pay for equipment. By the time Crosby was seven years old, he had been featured in newspapers and was the talk of youth hockey across Canada. His talent stood out at every hockey camp he attended.

The Road to Excellence

Beginning in his early teens, Crosby became a standout performer for the teams on which he played in Nova Scotia. As a fourteen-year-old midget-league hockey player, he scored forty-four goals in thirty-one contests against players two to three years older than he. He also led his team, the Dartmouth Subways, to second place in the Air Canada Cup, the national championship for this hockey division. On the way to this finish, Crosby scored eighteen points in five games and became the tournament’s most valuable player.

Despite standing approximately five feet six inches in his early teens, Crosby was skilled enough to compete in the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League but could not participate because of his age. He enrolled at the Shattuck-St. Mary’s School in Faribault, Minnesota, a top preparatory school that focused on hockey, so that he could better prepare himself for a future playing the sport he loved. This decision was a welcome one, considering the attention he got everywhere he went in Canada.

Crosby grew to five feet nine inches and 160 pounds while playing for one year at the school. He scored seventy-two goals in a fifty-seven-game schedule against other prep schools from around the nation. In 2003, at the age of sixteen, he was the only player under the age of eighteen to be chosen to play for Team Canada during the World Junior Hockey Championships. This was a remarkable accomplishment considering only three other sixteen-year-olds had ever been chosen to play for Canada in the event's history. Crosby’s exploits began to be noticed across Canada at this point. When a reporter asked the great hockey player Wayne Gretzky about Sidney, the former National Hockey League (NHL) star said he felt that Sidney was the only player who could have an opportunity to break his numerous records.

The Emerging Champion

In 2004, Crosby was offered $7.5 million dollars for three years to play in the World Hockey Association but chose not to leave junior hockey because of his love for the league. After he was named major junior player of the year for the second time, he began preparing for his lifelong dream of playing in the NHL. The buzz surrounding him was so high that the 2005 NHL draft was nicknamed the "Sidney Crosby Sweepstakes" by the sports media. In 2005, he was selected first overall by the Pittsburgh Penguins. In no time, he brought excitement to a team that had a proud history of success in the early 1990s. Season tickets sales for Penguins games rose dramatically when Crosby joined the team. He was given a three-year contract worth $10 million and a host of endorsement deals.

In his first professional game on the road, Crosby recorded an assist and narrowly missed scoring a goal in a 5-1 loss to the New Jersey Devils. On the night of his first home opener in Pittsburgh, against the Boston Bruins, he scored his first goal and had two assists. By the end of October, he had registered two goals and twelve assists in eleven games, on the way to designation as the NHL Rookie of the Month. Unexpectedly, Crosby became a temporary alternate captain because of the sudden retirement of his teammate and hockey legend Mario Lemieux.

Despite the criticism Crosby received from many in the hockey press, he proved worthy of the alternate captain title. Combining his skills of speed, intelligence, awareness, and anticipation, he quickly showed improvement. As he became more successful, he had conflicts on the ice. Initially, because of his skill, he was targeted by veteran players and was routinely hit after the whistle stopped. In one instance, he had his front teeth knocked out. Along with this, Crosby was also accused of complaining too much about officiating.

Crosby was disappointed when he was not chosen to play for Team Canada in the 2006 Winter Olympic Games. Although frustrated, he played like a champion for the Penguins. His leadership and maturity, along with his sixty-three assists and 102 points for the season, solidified his place in professional hockey. At the end of the 2005–6 season, he finished second in voting for the Calder Memorial Trophy, the award given for the rookie of the year.

Continuing the Story

Crosby's second season in the NHL was better than his first. In October of the 2006–7 season, he scored his first hat trick, and in December, he registered his first six-point game, consisting of one goal and five assists. When he finished the season with thirty-six goals and eighty-four assists at the age of nineteen, he became the youngest player ever to win the Art Ross Trophy—given to the top scorer in the NHL. Crosby also had the distinction as the youngest scoring champion in any major North American professional sport. In 2008, as the youngest team captain in NHL history, he helped to take the Penguins to the brink of greatness—the Stanley Cup Finals, where they lost against the Detroit Red Wings. In 2009, he took the next step when the Penguins beat the Red Wings to win the Stanley Cup.

Crosby continued to be one of the top performers in the NHL over the next several seasons despite some setbacks. In the 2009–10 season, he scored fifty-one goals, setting a new personal record. In early 2010, he also made it to the Vancouver Olympic Games with Team Canada, serving as an alternate captain. He had the game-winning goal in the gold-medal round against the United States, a moment that cemented his reputation as a legend in Canadian hockey.

The 2010–11 NHL season began well for Crosby, but in January 2011, he suffered two debilitating hits and had to sit out the remainder of the season, as well as the beginning of the next, with recurring concussion symptoms. He returned twenty games into the 2011–12 season, but played only eight games before sitting out games from December to early March. Despite his injuries, he notched the six hundredth goal of his career, becoming one of the youngest players to reach that plateau.

In the summer of 2012, Crosby signed a twelve-year contract to stay with the Penguins. However, the 2012–13 season was another disappointing one. After a league-wide lockout ended in January, he came back with a flurry, initially leading the league in goals scored. However, he took a puck to the face, and his jaw was broken. Nonetheless, he returned for the playoffs and led the Penguins to the conference finals, where they lost to the Bruins. He rebounded strongly the next season, leading the league in assists with sixty-eight.

The 2013–14 and 2014–15 seasons were further strong ones for Crosby. In 2014, he was the Hart Memorial Trophy winner as the NHL MVP and also won the Ted Lindsay Award as best player, according to fellow players. That year, he also captained Team Canada to a gold-medal finish at the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia. In 2014–15, Crosby finished with the third-most points in the NHL, and in 2015 was part of the winning Canadian team at the Hockey World Championship. The latter victory made him a member of the so-called Triple Gold Club as a champion in the NHL, Olympics, and World Championships. He was also the first player ever to captain each of his winning teams.

The 2015–16 season would prove to be even more important for Crosby and the Penguins. Despite struggling somewhat at first, he surpassed the nine-hundred-career-point mark in December 2015 and played well throughout the rest of the regular season. He was named Pittsburgh's MVP and finished as runner-up for the Hart Memorial Trophy, helping lead the Penguins to the playoffs. The team advanced to the 2016 Stanley Cup Final, where they beat the San Jose Sharks. Along with his second Stanley Cup, Crosby was presented with the Conn Smythe Trophy for MVP of the playoffs.

In 2016, Crosby helped Team Canada win the World Cup of Hockey. His dominance continued in the 2016–17 NHL season. He surpassed 1,000 career points, made the NHL All-Star Game, and finished the regular season as winner of the Richard Trophy, runner-up for the Art Ross Trophy, and finalist for the Hart Trophy and Lindsay Award. In the playoffs, Crosby missed a game due to injury but came back to help lead Pittsburgh back to the Stanley Cup Final. There, they beat the Nashville Predators in six games, becoming the first repeat NHL champions since 1998. For his strong play, Crosby again received the Conn Smythe Trophy, becoming only the third player ever to win it in consecutive seasons.

In the 2017–18 NHL season, the Penguins lost in the second round of playoff games, and in the 2018–19 season, the team lost in the first round, though Crosby's performance remained impressive. In January 2020, a panel of NHL managers, staff, and commentators chose Crosby as one of the six players to be honored in the NHL 2010–19 All-Decade First Team, and his teammates selected him as the team's Most Valuable Player in the 2020–21 season. In 2021, he played his one-thousandth game with the Penguins, and in 2022, he scored his five-hundredth goal. Rivaling Wayne Gretzky, Crosby became the second player to average one point per game for nineteen seasons and the second-highest-scoring player in Penguins history behind Mario Lemieux. Despite these successes, the Penguins failed to progress to the playoffs in the 2022–23 and 2023–24 seasons for the first time since 2005.

Summary

Sidney Crosby demonstrated a passion for the game of hockey at an early age and he succeeded at every level of the sport. He showed a maturity beyond his years and the capability to make the Pittsburgh Penguins Stanley Cup contenders for years to come. His influence stood to impact professional hockey not only in North America but also across the globe.

Bibliography

Anderson, Josh. Sidney Crosby vs. Wayne Gretzky: Who Would Win? Lerner Publications, 2024.

Burns, Kylie. Sidney Crosby. Crabtree Publishing Company, 2014.

Fishman, Jon M. Hockey’s G.O.A.T.: Wayne Gretzky, Sidney Crosby, and More. Lerner Publications, 2020.

Frederick, Shane. Six Degrees of Sidney Crosby: Connecting Hockey Stars. Capstone, 2015.

Gillis, Charlie. “Can Sidney Crosby Save the NHL?” Maclean’s 118.19 (2005).

Joyce, Gare. Most Valuable: How Sidney Crosby Became the Best Player in Hockey’s Greatest Era and Changed the Game Forever. Penguin Canada, 2019.

Joyce, Gare. Sidney Crosby: Taking the Game by Storm. 3rd ed. Fitzhenry, 2007.

Richer, Shawna. The Kid: A Season with Sidney Crosby and the New NHL. Triumph, 2008.

"Sidney Crosby." NHL.com, 2024, www.nhl.com/player/sidney-crosby-8471675. Accessed 20 June 2024.