Mike Prisuta: Crosby a Worldwide Leader

Mike Prisuta
TRIBUNE-REVIEW
Friday, June 2, 2006

In the end, Sidney Crosby's experience at hockey's World Championship in Latvia was both invaluable and bittersweet.

Although he punctuated his resume with an exclamation point, Sid The Kid was unable to deliver the gold for his native Canada (or the silver or bronze for that matter). Crosby also had injury added to insult when Swede Mika Hannula delivered a cross-check to Crosby's jaw in a quarterfinal matchup.

Hannula earned a game misconduct for trying to rearrange Crosby's face.

Crosby was provided with a prime example of how competitive it can get when the participants are playing for something other than a paycheck.

"That's part of it sometimes," Crosby said Thursday morning, when the Penguins made him available for an informal get-together with local media. "I was able to come out of it fine.
"The guy might have thought that I was whacking the goalie, because the puck was there. I guess that's a possibility."

Another possibility is that the Swedes had identified Crosby as a player they were not going to allow to beat them.

Crosby, 18, was well on his way to earning Most Outstanding Forward honors by then. While doing so, Crosby became the youngest player to lead the World Championship in scoring (with eight goals and eight assists in nine games), a distinction that had belonged to Canada's Gordon "Red" Berenson since 1959.

But beyond the statistical brilliance he was able to maintain, Crosby was exposed to an environment and atmosphere that will accelerate his development as a leader and a winner in the NHL.

The World Championship isn't the Stanley Cup final, but nor is it the World Junior Championship. The tournament is held in high regard around the globe, and the Europeans who take part are serious about winning, regardless of whether they're NHL regulars.

No wonder no North American "phenom" had dominated the proceedings as Crosby did since Wayne Gretzky.

"It was a high level," of competition, Crosby said. "The European game is a little different with the big ice.

"And when you're playing with guys that want to be over there, that want to play for Team Canada and are finished the (NHL) season but still are there competing, you benefit in that way because you're still playing at a high level and pushing yourself as you would in a playoff situation."

Crosby didn't sniff the playoffs as an NHL rookie.

But in his first World Championship he got an education, not unlike the one Mario Lemieux received playing in the 1987 Canada Cup.

"Playing with a guy like Brendan Shanahan, he's a great leader and he's won Stanley Cups, and getting to know him, seeing how he leads a team is unique," Crosby said. "You go there and you want to play well. If you're not going there with the frame of mind of playing well and winning the gold medal you shouldn't be going. I think we all realized it's important to play for your country and I think we all had a great time doing it.

"I'll definitely benefit from the experience."

So will the Penguins.

Mike Prisuta is a columnist for the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review.