The gray flecks in Sidney Crosby’s hair these days are an obvious indication that he no longer is Sid the Kid.
What he still is, however, in this, his 20th NHL season, is one of the elite players in the game.
And on Monday night, in front of his parents, in front of NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman, in front of a national television audience in Canada, the 37-year-old has the opportunity to reach yet another magical career milestone, this time in one of his favorite buildings, Bell Centre in Montreal.
Crosby (592 goals, 1,007 assists) needs one point to become the 10th player in NHL history to reach 1,600, joining Wayne Gretzky (2,857), Jaromir Jagr (1,921), Mark Messier (1,887), Gordie Howe (1,850), Ron Francis (1,798), Marcel Dionne (1,771), Steve Yzerman (1,755), Mario Lemieux (1,723) and Joe Sakic (1,641). The fact that he has the chance to do it in the home rink of the Montreal Canadiens, the team that picked his dad Troy, a goalie, in the 12th round (240th overall) of the 1984 NHL Draft, is just added motivation, not that Crosby ever is lacking in that area.
“I think just the atmosphere there, growing up watching them, my dad being drafted by them, it’s a team that has so much history,” Crosby told NHL.com. “You can feel that when you go there. It’s a fun place to play.”
As such, it’ll be a relatively big stage for the Pittsburgh Penguins forward to take the next step in his legacy, even this early in the season. And there will be no shortage of eyeballs focused on his attempt to do it.
Indeed, Crosby will be the marquee figure featured on the inaugural edition of “Prime Monday Night Hockey” (7:30 p.m. ET; RDS, Prime, SN-PIT), which will stream all national regular-season Monday night NHL games in English for the 2024-25 NHL season in Canada. And what better way to mark the debut of the weekly showcase than to see No. 87 make history yet again.
“I think it’s just an honor to be part of that group,” Crosby said Sunday, referring to the 1,600-point club. “To be honest, I don’t think about it a whole lot. Hopefully there’s a lot of time to reflect after the fact. But it’s just a huge honor to be in that group of guys.”
Any one of them in particular he’d like to join? Lemieux, perhaps? After all, after being selected No. 1 by the Penguins in the 2005 NHL Draft, he spent his first few seasons living at the home of Lemieux, the team owner at the time, and his family.
Now, almost two decades later, he’s just 124 points behind his mentor on the all-time points list.
“I’m a long way behind him,” Crosby said. “He got that number in probably half the amount of games that I’ve played. But ya, like I said, all those guys, definitely Mario, to be near there. But near is a unique word, I guess.
“There’s still a long way to go there.”
* * * * *
Monday is Canadian Thanksgiving. And hockey fans from coast to coast north of the border, from St. John’s to Squamish, are very thankful that they can call a national icon like Sidney Crosby one of their own.
Two weeks ago, Penguins coach Mike Sullivan put that narrative into perspective when hundreds of kids, many of them too young to have seen him hoist the Stanley Cup most recently, in 2017, were chanting his name 30 minutes before the Penguins bus had even arrived for the 2024 Kraft Hockeyville red carpet at the Sudbury Community Arena.
“When Sid comes to Canada, it’s the Beatles,” Sullivan said.
Sure, he authored one of the most memorable moments in Canadian sports history when he scored the overtime winner against the United States in the gold medal game of the 2010 Vancouver Olympics. But Golden Goal or not, it’s his humility off the ice, like he exhibited in Sudbury, when he signed hundreds of autographs, that has added to his reputation.
His graciousness was again on display last week at Little Caesar’s Arena in Detroit.
A young fan had a Crosby Rimouski Oceanic jersey, one representing the time Sid spent with the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League from 2003-2005 and dangled it down the wall of the visitors’ tunnel in the hopes it might get signed.
Instead, an arena security guard grabbed the jersey, crumpled it up, then tossed it back into the stands, much to the chagrin of the Penguins captain who saw it all unfold.
Acting quickly, Crosby asked the Penguins security officer to retrieve the jersey, autographed it, then had him return it to the grateful spectator. In Crosby’s mind, it was the only thing to do.
“I think that’s something that regardless of playing in the NHL, not playing in the NHL, I think you always remember being a kid and how much things like that meant to you,” he said this weekend. “Those experiences, I still remember them to this day. So no matter how long you’ve played you always appreciate to be able to do that. Doesn’t mean it’s always the case, doesn’t mean it always works out, but you try to do your best.
“But it’s definitely nice when it does.”
On this occasion, like many others in the past, it did.
* * * * *
To be fair, you don’t have to be a kid to be a Crosby fan.
In fact, plenty of his NHL peers are one.
During the 2024 NHL North American Player Media Tour in Las Vegas last month, NHL.com polled a number of them regarding Crosby. Their support of him -- at times awe -- was overwhelming.
“I remember the first time I played against him,” St. Louis Blues forward Robert Thomas said. “I was pretty starstruck. I was taking a face-off against him and I don’t think I even reacted when I dropped the puck. I kind of froze a little bit.
“It was pretty neat.”
So was young Robert’s reaction in his hometown of Aurora, Ontario, when Crosby scored his Golden Goal to give Canada the 3-2 victory against the United States. He was 11 years old.
“I remember we all reacted to that goal and jumped into the snowbank,” Thomas said. “It was fun.”
Chicago Blackhawks forward Connor Bedard was only 4 at the time.
“It was in my hometown,” he said. “I was really young. But I remember it though. I just remember my parents and everyone on the street going nuts.
“Everyone was going nuts.”
The admiration for Crosby isn’t limited to Canadian players.
“He’s been my hero since he came into the League,” Vegas Golden Knights forward Jack Eichel, a native of North Chelmsford, Massachusetts, said. “Still is.
“I remember my first time playing him he had two or three points in the first period. I was more like a fan than playing. I was like, ‘My God, watching this, this is incredible.’”
Informed of the reaction from his fellow NHLers, Crosby said he was humbled.
“There are few things better than having the respect of your peers,” he said.
He definitely has that.
And then some.
All-time greats usually do.
