 |
 |
||
|
||
 |
|
|
It's a great day for hockey as 18-year-old Sidney Crosby STORY BY BILL MODOONO |
|
The boy - who, more often than not, would be sitting on a bench with the baseball cap on his head turned backward - was the savior. The game he had just finished playing was what needed saving. Everyone else was along to get it all down correctly. "It is what it is," said the boy one night early in the 2005-06 hockey season. Those who were gathered around him wrote this down. I did, too, although I have no idea now whether he was referring to the struggles of a losing hockey team, the way rules are being interpreted in the "new-style" NHL, or the rigors of adjusting to life as the teen savior of hockey. Perhaps, all of the above. "It's hockey," he explained. Yes, hockey, of course. The sport that disappeared from American consciousness for a full year in the winter of 2004-05 came back with a vengeance in Pittsburgh this winter, and the ritual with the boy and the reporters was a major part of the deal. Sidney Crosby didn't volunteer to be hockey's savior, but neither did he shrink from the role, whatever its demands. People traveled great distances to talk to Crosby this winter, and true to his upbringing, he figured the least he could do was talk with them. As long as they wanted, whatever they asked. In English or French, whatever it took. Did it matter that he basically told them nothing? Not really. He would dispense small nuggets of hockey wisdom that would glow, glisten and hang momentarily in the air, only to dissipate upon reaching the printed page. It's hockey. It is what it is. Actually, there is a hockey cliché that accurately describes the situation in Pittsburgh, but it is from a different era. As Bob Johnson, the late coach of the Penguins' 1991 Stanley Cup championship team, loved to say: "It's a great day for hockey." And it's great because of Crosby. This fact was obscured somewhat for Penguins fans in the early days of the 2005-06 NHL season. The Penguins - the team that won a draft lottery last summer and as its prize got to select the 18-year-old Crosby with the first overall pick - struggled to play well as a team in the early going as its combination of free-agent veterans and promising young players was more attractive on paper than on ice. Not that Pittsburgh hockey fans could be exactly sure of what they were seeing on the ice. The NHL, in an attempt to prove its relevance as a sporting attraction following an unprecedented one-year strike, made changes to its game. The league had been encouraging its referees to call every penalty they could see in an attempt to open up the action. Call enough penalties, or so the thinking went, and sooner or later players would adjust by reducing the clutching and grabbing and, thereby, increase the skating and the scoring. Improving the flow of the game was the intent, but you could be excused for thinking only the NHL would attempt to do such a thing by first whistling it to a halt. But this was the NHL's way of making the game a better place for Crosby, whose star power even before he had played one shift was considered potent enough to lead to a resurgence of popularity in the game. Appropriately enough, early in the season, Crosby was involved in a game in which six penalties were called against various players assigned to stop him, a heretofore unheard-of number for one player to generate in a game. That the Penguins would wind up losing that game in spite of the abundance of power plays no doubt only increased the confusion longtime local hockey fans were feeling as the new NHL worked out its kinks. And then after the game, it was Crosby - a veteran of nine games at that point in his career - who sat still for all the questions. It was this boy who had to tell everyone, "We have to find ways to win." It fell to him to remind the gathering that losing a late lead was "just the way it goes" in hockey. "There's not one guy in here that accepts losing," he said, telling us about the character of teammates he had known less than two months. The youngest man in the room was talking on behalf of others who knew more and were more responsible for what had just transpired, but somehow that was OK. Sidney Crosby was here to save the game. It is what it is. And it was good. The NHL has always had an affinity for seeking salvation in its young stars, some of whom carry titles with biblical overtones. Wayne Gretzky started it all a quarter-century ago and was dubbed "The Great One." When Mario Lemieux came along in 1984, he was instantly anointed "The Magnificent One" and given the number "66," an indirect reflection of Gretzky's "99." In Penguins lore, Lemieux is credited with "saving" the franchise on three separate occasions - first, as a teenage superstar when he gave the franchise its first whiff of legitimacy and kept it from being moved elsewhere; later, as a retired businessman-owner who rescued the team from bankruptcy; and finally, with a Lazarus-like return to action at age 35, resurrecting both the team's drawing power and hopes for a new arena. As you might have surmised, the NHL (which Lemieux once derided as a "garage league") needs lots of saving. A presumed lack of interest in hockey by the American sporting public is always considered the main reason. Long the unofficial "fourth sport" in America (behind pro football, baseball and basketball), hockey's status in recent years has been challenged both by auto racing and even televised Texas hold 'em. How to turn things around? What say we find a new star?
|
|
|
n odd but persistent ritual repeated itself continually this winter in North American cities where National Hockey League games are played. It involved an 18-year-old boy; a crowd of five, 10, 15 or more representatives of various news organizations; and the concept of salvation. |
|
WHAT'S GOING ON |
|
