http://sports.espn.go.com/nhl/index

Here's the text:

A League Of His Own: This season has given NHL fans an incredible rookie class, but none have received as much hype as the Penguins' Sidney Crosby. ESPN The Magazine's Eric Adelson tells us why there's a clear reason for the hoopla and why fans should be happy about it.

Just three days after A.O. puts an end to the Calder race, here comes the Secondary Syd rehab. As far as I could tell, ESPN.com never gave A.O. headline treatment like this after "the goal" and if you look over to the left, "the goal" is still the most searched for NHL highlight on ESPN.com.

Disgusting. I'm sure the article itself (which you have to be a paid subscriber in order to read) is even more revolting, why we should be happy an 18 year old whiny crybaby punk is getting more hype than he deserves??????????????

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Everybody Wang Chung......

Please load brain before shooting off mouth.™

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2006/writers/allan_muir/01/11/inside.nhl/index.html

I'm glad the little b-tch is finally getting the recognition he deserves.

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Everybody Wang Chung......

Please load brain before shooting off mouth.™

Sidney Crosby: A league of his own

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By Eric Adelson
ESPN The Magazine

He wants to speak their language. He wants to please. He grew up dreaming of performing for these people. Now is his chance to win them over. So Sidney Crosby is going to do it. He's going to appear before a roomful of Montreal reporters, in his Reebok underwear, and speak French.

He doesn't have to go through with this. It's not like Wayne Gretzky or Steve Yzerman ever did. They just played and scored, and won. Even Crosby wonders, minutes before the moment arrives, if he should scrap the whole idea. But as the cameras whir, he gets up there with only a bottle of water to shield him and he fields the first question.

How does it feel to play here?

"C'est spéciale," he says softly. "Montréal est toujours mon équipe favorite." ("It's special. Montreal has always been my favorite team.") Nice, but now come the hard questions, like the one about Don Cherry. Crosby is asked if he's upset that the notoriously acerbic commentator9Canada's hockey judge, jury and executioner9has continually ripped him for being a showboat, a baby, a diver, a visor-wearer and an undeserving alternate captain.

Gulp. "Je ne pense beaucoup de ça," Crosby answers. "Je ne change rien. C'est mon style." ("I don't think a lot about it. I'm not going to change anything. It's my style.")

After a few more thrusts and parries, the French reporters quiet down and the English speakers pipe up. Back to normal9if normal is 75 people at a rookie's pregame press conference. Near the end of the hour, another writer hurls a question in French. Crosby makes eye contact, starts to talk, then stops to ask, like a cashier at a Tim Hortons, "Would you like that in English or French?" THE NHL wants to speak our language. It wants to please, to win us over. But it has always stumbled. Remember the blue puck? How about the change from catchy division names9Norris, Patrick, Adams9to boring geographical categories? The league made the crease off-limits to skaters in 1991, called the infraction all mind-numbing season long in 1998-'99, and then somehow Brett Hull's skate became invisible on the Stanley Cup-winning goal. How about the North Americans vs. the World in the All-Star Game? And cheerleaders in the stands? And replacing shrines like The Forum and Chicago Stadium with McArenas? Don't forget expansion: trying to woo crooners in Nashville, exfoliators in Anaheim, Buckeyes in Columbus and the Star-crossed in Minneapolis-St. Paul. The only constant was clutch-and-grab, which felt like wallet-clutch-and-land-grab. Even a truly good idea, the Olympic break, ended up introducing us to a product that made us wonder why the NHL couldn't offer anything even close.

The league tried to be all things to all people, but it proved to be nothing to anyone. Then came the lockout, and nobody south of Windsor really cared. The league came back with 'S' a new logo! Two-line passes! Lots of penalties!

Weird diagonal lines behind the goal! But there were still too many teams and not a big enough playing surface. And, oh yeah, another attempt to cozy up to us: "My NHL." Whose NHL? The true believers in Montreal? Rowdies on Long Island? Vickophiles in Atlanta? Go to any rink and look at the CEOs in the lower bowl and the diehards in the rafters. Hockey has as many different meanings to these groups as snow has to Inuits. My NHL? Mon dieu.

And then came Sidney.

He belongs to the casual fan. Can't follow the puck? Just follow No. 87. Sid the Kid had 303 points in two years in the juniors, and the NHL hasn't slowed him down much. A behind-the-back pass here, a shot from the knees there, a skate-off lamplighter from anywhere. He scored 21 goals in his first 44 games, which is plenty for an 18-year-old rookie, but even more impressive when you consider that Crosby netted just one goal in nine games after taking a shot off his foot on Nov. 25 in Florida. When new Penguins coach Michel Therrien moved him from wing to center, his natural position, Crosby scored seven goals in six games.

Even hockey neophytes can see why he's so good. Imagine you're humming along on the open highway, maintaining a steady speed of 65. Easy, right? Now imagine you're fiddling with the radio, taking a sip of soda, checking the rearview mirror and talking on your cell phone. Still going 65? Not so easy, eh? The point is, Crosby excels for the same reason Dwyane Wade and LaDainian Tomlinson do: he has the ability to adapt quickly and do at full speed what others must slow down to accomplish. Oh, and he also has the thighs of a Greco-Roman wrestler and the first step of a bank robber.

He belongs to the discerning fan. We all know that Gretzky predicted Crosby would threaten his records. And no one is surprised that Sid's boss and landlord, Mario Lemieux, says things like, "He reminds me of Peter Forsberg9very physical. He has great vision." But listen to how each of the following stars sees his own specialties in Crosby. Here's Forsberg, known for his cleverness and ferocity: "He's quicker than I was. Maybe a better shot, too. He plays every single night. I like that. That makes average players great players." And Mike Modano, known for his versatility: "He can play an open style; he can play an aggressive checking style. The league hasn't had a guy like this in a long time." And Paul Kariya, known for his awareness and vision: "He sees the game really well. He has tremendous poise and patience. He's an amazing hockey player."

How much fun is Crosby to watch? Just ask this group of channel-surfin' puckheads who've gathered around a TV in Tampa after getting off work one night in November. Hey, check it out: Pittsburgh and Montreal are going to shootouts. Whoa, nice save there. It's down to the last shooter. Here comes Crosby! The rookie jabs his left leg out, faking a wrist shot, then dekes Jose Theodore into the concession stand and deposits the winner. The guys in Tampa love it. Nobody needs Barry Melrose to explain the beauty of that move. And so what if these guys just happen to be known collectively as the New York Rangers? They're fans too. "Unbelievable," veteran forward Ville Nieminen says of Crosby. "It's his league now." He belongs to the traditional fan. You know, the guy who buys VHS tapes of fights between Bob Probert and Dave Manson. See, El Sid is one tough hombre. When he was playing three years ago for Shattuck-St. Mary's prep in Minnesota, the school's baseball coach recruited him and pal Jack Johnson (picked third in the 2005 NHL draft by Carolina) to play some JV ball.

Crosby pitched, and heard all sorts of comments ("overrated!") from the other team. So he and Johnson came up with a plan. When Johnson stepped up to bat the next inning, he stood on the plate, got plunked and charged the mound with Crosby right there next to him.

Then there was the time Crosby got heckled in a midget game by the mother of a future NHL star. She was sitting in the corner of the rink, right behind the glass, so 15-year-old Sid could hear every word. Before a faceoff in the opponent's zone, he scrapped the original plan to tap the draw back to Johnson on the blue line. "I'll take this," Crosby said. Then he controlled the puck, skated in, scored9and circled over to the loud mom, putting a hand to his ear. The woman (he won't say who) didn't make a peep for the rest of the game.

Look back at NHL phenoms of years past. Gretzky had Marty McSorley and Dave Semenko protecting him; Yzerman had Probert; Modano had Shane Churla; Kariya had Stu Grimson.

Even Forsberg had Chris Simon. Crosby has ... Andre Roy, who is under doctor's orders not to fight. Not that there's much fighting in the new NHL. "Sid doesn't have a lot of people who come flying in," says Johnson, still defending his guy now. "I think he deserves it9someone to watch his back at all times."

Crosby has always taken hits. Once, when he was still playing back home in Halifax, he turned up ice just in time to see a thug coming full speed the other way and crashing into his knees. Then there's all the stuff that happens behind the play: the shoves to the back of the head, the chops to the hands9the usual. "For every whack I've given," he says, "I've gotten four or five." But Crosby can fend for himself. Like when Philly defenseman Derian Hatcher carved up his face (twice) and knocked his teeth out in November. The refs missed it, then threw Crosby in the box for unsportsmanlike conduct. He listened to the Flyers fans hurl all sorts of pleasantries9"Stuff I'd never heard," he says9then scored a bloody-mouthed game-winner on a breakaway in overtime to give Pittsburgh just its third victory at Philly in 11 years.

Crosby spun around to hug his teammates, looking like Jack Nicholson in The Shining. "I was really angry," he says. "I wanted to beat that guy so bad." He belongs to the blue-collar fan. Look past the fact that he signs every autograph and accepts every media request. Forget the boy-next-door looks and the mailbag full of prom date requests.

People don't want a golden child from a house of privilege. They want some grit, some pain, some lessons learned. Crosby's got that, too. His dad, Troy, was a fierce, aggressive "Ron Hextall type of goalie" (Troy's words) in the Canadiens' junior system before becoming a facilities manager at a law firm. (He's now happily unemployed.) Sidney's mom, Trina, was a cashier at a grocery store and delivered flyers to help raise money for hockey equipment. Both parents lost their fathers at an early age. Trina's dad died of a heart attack when she was 11. Troy says his dad walked out on his three kids when Troy was 7.

Troy's mom, Linda, lived on welfare, and Troy lived with a chip on his shoulder. "My way to succeed was in hockey and sports," he says, "to show we're not a failure as a family." Troy sat Sidney down a few years ago and told him about his biological grandfather. He didn't make it a big deal, and Sid didn't say much. "It's not something I like to talk about," the teen says now. It's just a cautionary tale about accountability and honor. "Troy and I both have learned how difficult it is to lose somebody who's important to you," Trina says. "We have a very strong idea of being grounded. We understand the real world and how it works." Come to a Penguins practice and see who's last to leave the ice. Come to a game an hour before faceoff and see who's there in tennis shoes, stretching with teammate Max Talbot. (When Talbot was sent down in December, Crosby called him just to say, "Don't worry, I won't get a new partner." He went out on the ice alone until Talbot was recalled.) Johnson tells stories about Crosby turning down party invites and movie tickets just to play shinny.

“ He's quicker than I was. Maybe a better shot, too. He plays every single night. I like that. That makes average players great players. ”
— Peter Forsberg on rookie Sidney Crosby

"We'd have practice in the morning, and he'd want to play road hockey in the afternoon," says childhood friend Mike Chaisson. "Hockey, hockey, hockey. He was pretty much born on skates." Stay after a game to see Crosby doing plyometrics and sprints and footwork late into the night9after doing all the interviews and signing all the autographs. "His work ethic is incredible," says former Penguin Phil Bourque. "If you took five guys and gave them the same talent, he'd still be better than them all. You shake your head and go, RIs he really 18?' " He belongs to the honest fan. Yes, he's had media training at the hands of IMG. Yes, he comes across as polished as a brand-new skate blade. But this is no puck-bot who spews eye-rolling lines about focus and playing 110 percent.

Crosby will challenge teammates older and younger, openly and quietly, after losses and wins. Even when the Pens got a tough road point in Toronto, he barked, "We didn't deserve to win that game anyway." Pittsburgh has its share of ring-bearing veterans in Lemieux, Mark Recchi and John LeClair, but the team only turned around when Therrien jumped up from Wilkes-Barre to the big club and made rookies the centerpiece. (The Penguins regularly play up to nine of them now.) "Challenging someone is good," Crosby says. "You need to do it. Sometimes they don't even realize you're doing it, like when you joke with a goalie, RWhat's wrong today? You losing it?' " Just the sort of thing any 18-year-old coach-on-the-ice would say.

He belongs to the Canadian fan. And this is important. The '90s brought the greatest talent the league has ever known, with world stars like Nicklas Lidstrom, Sergei Fedorov and Dominik Hasek, but the influx also threatened to take a nation's sport away. Although Yzerman and Jarome Iginla won gold in Salt Lake City in 2002 to help restore order, it sure helps Canadians to know that the NHL's brightest new star hails from the hard-driving but oft-overlooked province of Nova Scotia.

Crosby might have European skills, but he definitely has Canadian style.

"When you get a Maritime player, he's coming to work," says Columbus coach Gerard Gallant, who's from Prince Edward Island. "You're getting a quality person, a good teammate." The Maritime provinces didn't even have a major junior team until Crosby turned 6, so his rise from his hometown of Cole Harbour through Rimouski in Quebec juniors warms even the hardest secessionist's heart. Crosby grins when asked if he's motivated by the idea of making a permanent name for Maritime hockey. "We were kind of looked at as the lower end," he says. "I want to show it doesn't matter where you come from." Unless, of course, you come from somewhere outside Canada.

He belongs to the hometown fan. This isn't Eli Manning getting drafted by the Chargers. Pittsburgh may very well lose its hockey team without a new building, and Crosby knows it.

"I hope it doesn't happen," he says. "I want to reward this city. Pittsburgh is a great hockey town." He says this a week after his team was booed at home9during the introductions. Crosby knows the history. He knows Lemieux also came in with a franchise on the brink and saved it not once (by winning two Stanley Cups) but twice (by buying the team). Hockey's had holes torn in it by the movement of clubs from devoted communities like Winnipeg, Quebec City and Bloomington. Now Pittsburgh bigs know a new arena will house Crosby, which will dramatically boost the team's TV and marketing worth.

That's part of why Penguins GM Craig Patrick said a little prayer right before the final lottery draw last spring. "The way things had gone here," he says, "I didn't think we had an ounce of a chance to get him. I was holding a little clover in my hand. I've won the Stanley Cup, won gold medals. Getting Sidney Crosby was the happiest day of my life." And yet, for some reason, Crosby won't belong to the Olympics fan. Not yet. He wanted that last roster spot9so much so that he called his agent, Pat Brisson, 15 minutes before the announcement came and asked him, Would I have gotten a call by now? Yes, Brisson answered. That's when Crosby knew. Not this time. Hey, every gold-medal club needs a Shane Doan.

So Crosby's right there with the NHL in this one way: he has something yet to show us, something more to prove. For the league and for him, that may take years. But this is a beginning, and a pretty damn good one. A gold medal? My NHL? Maybe someday. But at least for the meanwhile, and hopefully for a long while, we can all brag about Our Sidney.

Eric Adelson is a senior writer for ESPN The Magazine.

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Everybody Wang Chung......

Please load brain before shooting off mouth.™

"And then came Sidney.
He belongs to the casual fan."

Puke. So, he belongs to everyone. He's blue collar and works hard and plays tough or pretty. He's perfect! That time he didn't score for many games? Hey, that's a positive if you pretend those games don't count and artificially pump up his points per game!

Ow, make the pain stop.

I think I prefer the SI article.

First, while I do believe AO has put himself in first place for the Calder run, the season is just half over. Caps Nut, don't be handing him any hardware yet.

Second, ESPN the Magazine (the source for the article) had that article already a go well before Ovechkin's goal. ESPN is all about cross-promotion. This week ESPN.com was going to be pushing Sidney Crosby because of the article in the magazine. So, the fact that the article is out there and promoted predominantly is not all that surprising. You even point out that the goal is the most searched video, so trust me ESPN takes note of that. ESPN the TV networks have been all about AO this week...to the extent they cover hockey. In fact, I actually heard ESPN report on the decision in the AO court case yesterday. They butchered the reporting, but they did report it. If he hadn't scored that goal on Monday then it doesn't get reported. If AO has a goal tonight (and I pray he has a beauty) it will be one of the predominate highlights on ESPN. AO, created a name for himself with the goal and the press coverage will only get bigger if in his next game he does something spectacular again...and as fans we know he does something jaw dropping almost every game.

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It's sickening.

Yes, I saw the blurb on ESPNews last night (SC has become unwatchable) about the Di-na-mo case being dropped and it seemed as an excuse to run "the goal" again.

The cross-promotion is a nice "cover" but the fact still remains that ESPNguin didn't bother putting A.O. on the cover of the NHL page after "the goal" even though their Candian arm TSN, did.
Shmoo is right, this isn't journalism. It is flat out boosterism, and boosterism of a player who hardly needed it, until now...

As for the Calder, A.O. would have to disappear into a black hole and Secondary Syd would have to go insane for the rest of the season for A.O. to legitmatly lose the trophy. Secondary Syd scores the game winner in the gimmick and everybody applauses, but A.O. has owned EVERYBODY all year long in the gimmick.

My mother (who retired to Las Vegas and watches the Caps on Center Ice) tells me that the other team's broadcasters go into our game with them doubting A.O., but by the time the game is over, they're fans of him. While she admittedly does not watch alot of the Penguins games, she has yet to hear an annoucer who has seen both players choose Secondary Syd over A.O..

Maybe ESPNguin will start giving A.O. the credit he is due, but pardon me for not holding my breath on that one...

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Everybody Wang Chung......

Please load brain before shooting off mouth.™

Who is he battling for the Hart trophy at this point?

You all might be bemused by this...I wrote to the author of the SI article (mailbag link on the last page of the column) and got the following response within an hour:

Question
Allan, I got a link to your Jan. 11 column and I'm hooked right off the bat. This is the best hockey column I've ever found. Your honest portrayal of Sid the Kid's whining and diving makes the puff piece on Sid at ESPN.com even more embarassing by relation. Keep up the great work, Allan.
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Thanks for the kind words, Mike. Since 95 percent of the mail I've received on that column has been of the hate variety, it's nice to hear from someone who agrees with me for a change!
Thanks for reading, Al

The timing might have sucked, but what can you do. As for Sid getting dumped on, it is starting to happen in the hockey community, but not in the mainstream media. And to be honest, I don't want him to be dumped on in the mainstream media. A known name is important for hockey, whether I like the player or not. Awards are voted on by the hockey media and whether ESPN knows it or not, AO is on his way to winning the Calder. Remember, SI just had that feature on AO in their magazine and ESPN the Magazine did a short profile on him earlier this season as well.

Who cares if the decision was an excuse to run the goal again. If the decision had come down last friday, does it make the news at all? No. What this means is that AO is starting to get a name for the average fan to know. So, it was newsworthy for ESPN to put it on their network. Even if they did include the highlight again.

Would I have made a different decision on putting AO on the NHL page, yes. But consider this, AO's goal was (and perhaps still is) the most downloaded video on ESPN.com. That says something. ESPN is always slow on hockey. If AO garners that attention he will start getting better press...especially if the Caps start winning.

Who ever considered ESPN a bastion of journalism? I didn't. You are right it is boosterism. But think, if it were AO would you be upset about the boosterism? Part of the backlash against SC is the fact that his on ice reputation is not living up to the expectations. I don't mean in point production, I am talking about personality. AO is earning his reputation and ESPN will become a booster for him and he will have earned it. It will take time because he plays in Washington, on a bad team, and he is not a native English speaker.

I think AO is definitely in the lead for the Calder. It is his to lose, but it still can be lost.

I get all the games through Center Ice also. Early in the season it was SC, SC, SC, oh yeah the Caps have AO. Then it became SC and AO. Then it became AO is one of a great crop of rookies, led by him and SC. Now, it is AO, AO, AO, AO. I like it this way better, because he earned it.

ESPN always lags behind the hockey media. The goal jump started that reputation a bit for ESPN purposes. I think it was very important for AO to have a good game tonight, and he did. Because now ESPN and the DC local media can follow up the goal, with his sweet goal tonight, a couple of big hits and his shootout goal. Another big thing for the Caps was that Tony K. and Doc Walker were in attendance tonight. Hopefully they have good things to say tomorrow on the radio.

EDIT: ESPNEWS just gushes over AO from tonight. Saying he is a showstopper every night. Showed three highlights. AO's goal and AO's and Petty's shootout goals.

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Still, my favorite moments were the hustle plays. Alex knocked the snot out of at least two guys. I saw him race all the way back to his blue line on defense at the end of a shift.

My fave was when he lost control of the puck on a nifty move and St. Louis gained possession and started to move it out of the zone on the other side of the ice. Alex raced all the way over the the point and met a St. Louis player as the puck arrived and put it back in the zone...and the crowd actually cheered.

It won't happen overnight, but I think the casual fan will start to understand what we've got.

At least for the first half of the game, his teammates were inspired as well. I can't recall the last time I saw Zubrus pull off a spin-o-rama.

http://www.nhl.com/fancentral/livechat/ovechkin011806.html

I couldn't resist watching "the goal" one more time, linked in the story, even though the video clip is now set on a loop as the wallpaper/background of my new cell phone.

While I doubt that ESPNguin is going to win awards for journalism, they do have a large role in setting the pop culture standard in country when it comes to sports.

Remember Dick Trickle? He gained a legion of NASCAR fans because SC anchors (Keith Olberman in particular) worked a reference to him into every single NASCAR story they could. Now when college aged guys watch SC as often as they can (which I did when I was in College and Dick Trickle was still racing in NASCAR) they are going to pick up on these things. I would watch NASCAR races just to see where Dick Trickle was going to finish. Of course, when Dick Trickle left NASCAR, I stopped watching it, (I do like to see that Gibbs' racers do well, but that's a different story) but how many fans of NASCAR got into the "sport" because of ESPN relentlessly boosting Dick Trickle, a guy who never won a Winston Cup Race?

As a matter of fact, a friend of mine who is a bigger NASCAR fan than I ever was (and was a fan before I had ever heard of the name Dick Trickle) once showed me a picture of the guy and I had no idea it was him. Dick Trickle himself even got tired of relentless mentioning of his name.

While this post has rambled on longer than I intended to, my point is this, the average/generic sports fan is getting exposed to a falsehood with all this Secondary Syd worship. I could argue that he's living up to the hype by following rather closely in Mary-Oh!'s footsteps with the diving and constant whining at the refs, but let's face it, does Mary-Oh! have a general reputation of being a whiner and a diver? Not amongst your generic sports fan. Only hockey-diehards outside of Pittsburgh would assign that reputation to Mary-Oh!

ESPNguin is a powerful force. Too powerful I would say, hopefully OLN can challenge them, until that point arrives, we have to live with what is...

-------------------------
Everybody Wang Chung......

Please load brain before shooting off mouth.™

In fact, last night on Sportscenter (watching just to see if and where AO was shown) they started with the Rangers/Pens highlights and then followed it up with the Caps/Blues highlights. Let me repeat that, Sportscenter showed highlights of the Caps/Blues game...two of the worst teams in the NHL.

Guess what the first thing they said was (may not be exact). "I'll see your Sidney Crosby and raise you Alexander Ovechkin." And then they continued to gush about his spectacular play tonight after re-showing the goal from Monday. What highlights did they show? AO's goal and the AO and Petty shootout scores. AO is going to be a stapple on Sportscenter for the rest of the season.

It took a spectacular individual effort to get the recognition, but he is on the front page and is creating a buzz in Washington as well. Today Doc Walker was gushing about how much he loved going to the game last night and how great AO was beyond the goal he scored, but away from the puck and creating for his teammates. They had Halpern on the air and he told a great story which I thought I would share here. Apparently, the rookie dinner was a few nights ago. Witt got up to say something and all the players started chanting "One More Year! One More Year!" Fast forward to THE GOAL and the first player to AO was Witt and the first thing AO said to Witt was "One more year!"

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No need to go any further as the Crosby rehab is in full force now.

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Everybody Wang Chung......

Please load brain before shooting off mouth.™