6 SIDNEY CROSBY Crosby and the Penguins seemed to be fading They just weren’t winning like they used to But grit determination and endless practice turned things around and brought them back to the Stanley Cup finals two years in a row The young athlete also has had to deal with crippling concussions concussions These head injuries caused him to miss forty-eight games in the 2010 2011 season and twenty games at the start of the 2011 2012 season Through it all Crosby has stayed humble modest and true to his hometown roots always returning to Cole Harbour Nova Scotia where he grew up and learned to master the sport The biggest thing for me is the passion that I’ve always had for hockey said Crosby I remember growing up no matter what I did in life my parents always told me to try to do my best at it and be my best I can say going through different things that that passion is the most important part It’s not skills or talent or any of that stuff
CHAPTER ONE A NATURAL-BORN SKATER If you go to the Nova Scotia Sport Hall of Fame in Canada you’ll see a curious sight a clothes dryer riddled with black marks and dents That dryer has become a symbol of the hard work it takes to succeed in professional sports It once sat in Sidney Crosby’s family home When the hockey hero was growing up his parents Troy and Trina set up a makeshift hockey rink in their unfinished basement It was complete with lines painted on the floor and a hockey net Sidney spent endless hours there honing his slap shot His friends would come over too often on rainy days They would put on roller blades and practice practice practice When Sidney missed a shot however the Whirlpool would take the blow A loud clang would resound throughout the house Crosby said that his parents didn’t get upset as long as the dryer kept working As a top player in the National Hockey League at age eighteen Crosby was invited to appear on The Tonight Show For a gag the host Jay Leno asked Crosby to shoot pucks into a dryer Ironically many thought the appliance had served as his goal growing up but it really was the object that took the brunt of all his missed shots His parents also didn’t mind the dryer getting banged up because they were devoted hockey fans His mother has two brothers who 7
8 SIDNEY CROSBY The dryer from Sidney Crosby’s childhood home bears the marks from his missed practice shots were avid players one tried out for a minor league team in the Canadian Hockey League CHL Sidney’s father competed in the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League and in 1984 the Montreal Canadiens drafted him as a goalie Other work opportunities however took Troy in another direction and he never had the chance to play in an NHL game BABY BOTTLE IN ONE HAND STICK IN THE OTHER Sidney Patrick Crosby coasted into the world on August 7 1987 also written 8 7 87 That’s why his jersey number is 87 Although he wasn’t born wearing a pair of skates he seemed to have hockey in his blood from day one In fact a photo at the Nova Scotia Sport Hall of Fame shows the baby Sidney drinking from a bottle while holding a hockey stick When he laced up his first pair of skates at age three the future star athlete appeared to be a natural He almost instantly mastered the basics of stick handling One of the first times he was on the ice the other kids were wobbling around but he was shooting the puck off the boards his father said His father encouraged him and gave him his full support in pursuing the sport Although Sidney originally wanted to be a goalie like his father his dad steered him to be a forward A forward’s main role is to assist and score goals
A NATURAL-BORN SKATER 9 Troy taught Sidney all he knew and the young hockey fan absorbed everything about the game like a sponge Downtime was often spent together in front of the TV watching the Montreal Canadiens compete When a game wasn’t on his dad might pop in a video like Gretzky’s Greatest Goals about Canada’s legendary hockey star SID THE KID As a toddler Sidney demonstrated his special gift for the game playing on a Timbits Hockey team The Tim Hortons donut chain started this program for children ages four to eight Tim Horton himself was a stellar athlete like Crosby and grew up dreaming to be an NHL hockey player Even as a three-year-old Sidney excelled at ice skating and showed impressive stick-handling skills for a child his age
