By Shelly Anderson, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
http://www.post-gazette.com/sports/?m=1
Pam Panchak
The Koch Family - Bob & Sherrie with their children Josh, 12, Matt, 13, & Ryan (twins) - chat with Penguins captain Sidney Crosby after he delivered their season tickets to their Bethel Park home Friday.
At this point, the offseason cannot end fast enough for Penguins center and captain Sidney Crosby.
He has one more week before the team hits the ice at training camp, a little more than four months after a Game 7 loss to Montreal in the second round of the playoffs.
"I'm looking forward to it. I just want to get going now," Crosby said Friday. "You want to get out there, start competing and preparing. We've all kind of prepared individually, but you just want to get together with the guys and start working."
In what has become an annual ritual that helps mark the end of the summer for the Penguins, Crosby and several of his teammates delivered about 30 sets of season tickets to fans around town. His first stop was at the home of the Koch family in Upper St. Clair.
Parents Robert and Sherrie watched as sons Matt, 13, and twins Josh and Ryan, 12, played a little street hockey with the star player in their driveway after the family chatted with Crosby.
The Kochs, second-generation Penguins season ticket-holders, had pulled the boys out of school late in the morning, fibbing that their father was getting an award.
"They were disappointed to leave school," Sherrie Koch said. "Needless to say, this will be a very memorable day for them."
Crosby took turns with the boys shooting the puck and played a little goaltender.
"This is something we've gotten used to doing every year," he said of the fourth year for the ticket deliveries. "It's been enjoyable to meet some of the fans and thank them personally."
Crosby, the reigning co-winner of the Maurice Richard Trophy after scoring 51 goals last season, has been skating for a while in preparation for 2010-11.
The previous two summers were much shorter as the Penguins advanced to the Stanley Cup final in June against Detroit.
He has increased his training this year.
"I think you can do a little more," he said. "You have a lot more time. You're able to skate a little bit more, that kind of thing.
"You're trying to gain things more so than just maintain, as we were the last couple of summers."
Crosby has been working out mostly in Pittsburgh lately but took a trip to Vail, Colo., over Labor Day weekend to attend a high-altitude clinic with a handful of other NHL players. He said it was not so much about the altitude as it was about the chance to get in some good practices.
Such clinics are set up by his personal trainer, Andy O'Brien, but Crosby had no time to attend them before this year.
Things started off with a scary moment. The players were enjoying an ATV ride -- by all accounts leisurely rather than anything approaching daredevil territory -- when an accident left Minnesota's James Sheppard with a shattered kneecap.
"That could happen to anyone," Crosby said. "It was an accident, a tough thing for sure."
He was still able to benefit from the trip.
"I found myself at that time just wanting to skate, and it happened to be a pretty good group of guys," he said.
Crosby will hit the ice in a week with a more familiar group of guys, his teammates
Shelly Anderson: shanderson@post-gazette.com.
Read more: http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/10254/1086726-61.stm#ixzz0zDenq5Sz
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