http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/sports/penguins/
Sunday, March 21, 2010
"Everyone has different personalities, and for me it's when I set out to do something I probably focus purely on that task. I'm not the best guy at multitasking or doing something, leaving and coming back to it. I've always been like that. It's the littlest things. That's just my personality."
- PENGUINS CENTER SIDNEY CROSBY ON HIS DRIVE TO BECOME A BETTER GOAL SCORER THIS SEASON
Already a winner of the Hart Trophy as league MVP and Art Ross Trophy as scoring champion, Sidney Crosby awoke last June 13 with the Stanley Cup in his grasp. A summer of celebration should have followed. Instead he spent the months leading up to his 22nd birthday fidgeting with sticks and peppering one of his close friends, a goalie, with pucks during on-ice workouts.
The Penguins' Sidney Crosby shoots against the Bruins at Mellon Arena. Chaz Palla Tribune-Review file
"It was just a mindset," he said. "With each year, teams were playing me more to pass and that wasn't allowing me to be as dangerous as I should be. I was in the areas you need to be in to create chances, but I wasn't creating as much from shooting.
"I felt like if I could shoot the puck a little bit more and keep guys honest, other things would happen."
Crosby is five goals shy of his first 50-goal season. His previous best was 39 during his rookie season. Crosby, a center, was 45.5 percent on face-offs during his first season. He was at 56.2 percent before the Penguins played Carolina on Saturday at Mellon Arena.
"I've heard that term associated with him - 'hockey genius,'" coach Dan Bylsma said. "I believe he is a 'success genius.' He is a master in the art of learning, and you would see him be like that if he was playing chess or working in business.
"Sid would be one of the people in any field who keeps getting better, not just hockey."
People that know Crosby best shared stories about Sid the Student with the Tribune-Review:
The youth coach
Paul Mason, 45, coached Crosby in baseball and hockey during his formative years in Cole Harbor, Nova Scotia.
"He was younger than every kid in our baseball league, two years younger than most of the kids. At that level of baseball you put your best players up the middle: catcher, pitcher and shortstop. He was a middle-player after the first practice.
"As a pitcher in games he would walk slowly back to the mound, and later I discovered he was measuring in his mind how long it took the hitters to run to first base. When he moved to shortstop later in the game he started throwing everybody out at first. He just snapped it there. It wasn't until later that I realized he was adjusting his throws to first based off the way hitters ran to the bag when he was a pitcher. Sid was 9."
The childhood friend
Mike Chiasson, 24, played youth hockey with Crosby until they were 14. He is a goalie for Acadia University (Halifax, Nova Scotia), and he works out with Crosby during summers.
"Last summer was different. He was pretty fussy with trying to find a new stick. Reebok made him over a dozen before he found one he liked. They all looked identical to me, but he told me the curve was different. I'm, like, 'Sure.'
"Sid was on the ice for one practice with the stick he's using now and that was it - he knew he had it. I could tell right away. It was the release. The puck is always hard to pick up off his blade because he doesn't advertise where he's going, but he always loved to go 5-hole on me, and he had that straight curve so he could hit the 5-hole pretty consistently. All of a sudden he was going high over my shoulder and over my glove. I looked at him and he winked. He knows when he's got the right twig. I knew those NHL goalies were in trouble."
The father
Troy Crosby, 43, is Sidney Crosby's dad. He was drafted by the Montreal Canadiens as a goalie in 1984.
"Rimouski is a town that's almost 100 percent French-speaking. It's a small town on the St. Lawrence River where everybody knows everybody. It's a lot like Montreal, only smaller. When he went there to play junior (hockey) he wanted to learn how to speak their language out of respect for those people. The family he lived with included a school teacher who was bilingual, and every night he talked back and forth with Sidney. One day while talking to me Sidney said, 'I'm going to tell him to stop speaking English.' In his mind that was the only way he could learn French.
"One of my proudest moments was in 2005 at the league awards banquet in Montreal. By then Sidney was speaking French fluently, and he gave his speech in French. The whole banquet was done in English, and Sidney was really annoyed because there wasn't more French to it. He had made himself learn the language - just repetition and determination. I see a lot of the same things to his success in hockey."
The mentor
Mario Lemieux, 44, has housed Crosby for five years. He is a hockey Hall-of-Famer and the Penguins' all-time leader in goals, assists and points.
"He's able to see the game before anybody else. That's what makes him great. He's able to read the play much better than other players. He's able to know where everybody on the ice is all at once. That's the sign of a great player. Plus, he's got that attitude. He is the hardest worker. Oh yeah, he's an extremely hard worker, for sure. He's only interested in being the best."
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