Penguins' Sidney Crosby Earned 'Man Of Steel' Label In 2012 Edition Of THN Magazine

Pittsburgh Penguins icon Sidney Crosby has earned many laurels in his Hockey-Hall-of-Fame career. And in this cover story from THN's Dec. 17, 2012 edition (Vol. 66, Issue 12), writer Josh Yohe penned a spotlight story on Crosby with the headline 'Man of Steel':

By Josh Yohe

It's a Monday morning during the NHL lockout at the Pittsburgh Penguins practice facility in Canonsburg, Pa., and a familiar figure pushes a net across the ice for a scrimmage while his teammates take a breather.

He also coaches the practice, handles interviews without team officials, co-ordinates travel plans around the continent, sharpens skates for himself and teammates, signs his daily barrage of autographs and somehow does it all with a smile on his face.

‘Sid the Kid’? Nah, try ‘Sid the Man.’

At 25, Sidney Crosby has won a Stanley Cup, scored Canada’s Golden Goal, reached the pinnacle of his sport, dealt with a career-threatening injury and now finds himself heavily though not happily involved in the lockout.

This isn’t child’s play.

Surviving a 15-month battle with a concussion put the smile back on Crosby’s face. But the stigma of the league’s continuing lockout has become extra-ordinarily-frustrating. “It’s hard for me to explain exactly all of what Sidney has been through during the past two years,” says Pat Brisson, Crosby’s longtime agent. “When he was dealing with all the concussion problems, it was the worst time of his life. People don’t even know what he went through. It was hell for him. Total hell.”

Crosby’s hell may finally be over, but heaven can’t happen until the NHL and NHL Players’ Association strike a new collective bargaining agreement.

If the lockout finally ends, Crosby plans on producing a season befitting of a hockey god. Whether he’ll get a chance to do so this winter is anyone’s guess. “The whole thing is so frustrating,” Crosros by says.

“I just want to play hockey.”

Crosby still doesn't like speaking about Jan. 1, 2011, when Washington’s David Steckel delivered a blow to his head and triggered concussion symptoms that lasted 15 months. Until that point, Crosby’s hockey life had gone according to script, ‘The Next One’ living up to the name, his sport’s biggest megastar since Mario ‘The Magnificent’ Lemieux.

Then, Crosby’s health was forever a story and it took more than a year to resolve. “It was a scary time,” Crosby says. “One day I would feel good, the next day I wouldn’t. I remember being on the beach in Florida while I was out with the concussion. All I could think about was how much I missed hockey.”

Crosby isn’t particularly introspective. He doesn’t spend an inordinate amount of time thinking about himself and he especially isn’t interested in remembering the days when the concussion symptoms were peaking.

Brisson, though, speaks clearly of that dark period. “I felt bad,” he says. “Hockey is secondary here. I felt bad for him because he was miserable and we didn’t have an answer for a long time. He had one good day. Then he had a couple of bad days in a row. He had to stop working out. Then he felt better. It was the ultimate roller-coaster.

“It was so hard for me seeing him that way. We tried different treatments, learned about different things. You think you’re going in the right direction, and then he hurt some more. It was such a hard thing to see.”

From the day he was drafted by the Penguins as a 17-year-old, Crosby has never failed to be anything other than polite. The fans and media in Pittsburgh adore Crosby, his easy smile and unfailingly friendly demeanor making him a rock star in Western Pennsylvania.

However, there was an uneasy edge to his persona in recent years. He almost went out of his way to be boring while being interviewed, avoiding hurting anyone’s feelings with great precision while remaining a steady but quiet locker room presence.

These days, he speaks with more authority. He doesn’t mind if he says something that ruffles NHL commissioner Gary Bettman’s feathers.

Crosby is no longer flanked by team officials because of the lockout and the steadiest presence in his life – his dad, Troy – hasn’t been visible at any of the dozens of workouts in Canonsburg that Crosby has participated in.

Additionally, his right-hand PR man, Frank Buonomo – a consistent presence during Crosby’s first seven NHL seasons – was dismissed by the Penguins in July. This is a new world for Crosby in many ways, though he has remained typically poised throughout the process.

All alone during a strange time in hockey history, Crosby is quietly upset about the labor situation, but has never appeared more content with his life. “I don’t know exactly what it is,” says Penguins defenseman Matt Niskanen, “but he does seem a lot different this year, and happier. You can see that Sid is in a very happy place right now. He seems like a different person. He’s smiling all the time now.”

Lemieux, no stranger to health ailments, once said, “health is everything in a person’s life.” Crosby may not have understood before, but he sure does now. “It was a tough time,” Crosby says. “But I feel great and I’ve felt great for a long time.”

So how has he spent his time during the NHL lockout? It’s a simple life for Crosby, who practises with teammates four times a week. “Just like anyone else in Pittsburgh,” Crosby says, “I watch Steelers games and other stuff on TV.”

Crosby is also building a new house in Pittsburgh and has taken a great interest in even the minute details, which isn’t surprising, given his almost spastic game-day routines and superstitions. “It takes up a lot of my time,” he says of his new home. “I work on a lot of things during the day there.”

Although Crosby's cameo late last season ended in bitter disappointment against Philadelphia in the playoffs, his performance was typical. It may have gone unnoticed, but Crosby produced 37 points in 22 regular season games, a spectacular 1.68 points per game that translates to 138 points over 82 games.

Playing the final 14 regular season games and all six playoff games gave Crosby the peace of mind that his head was OK. Feeling confident in his health again, he worked out like never before during the summer. The results have his teammates beyond impressed. “Sid has always been incredibly strong on the puck, probably the strongest guy in the league,” says Niskanen, who has been practising against Crosby the past two months. “And that hasn’t changed. But what’s different about him right now is how much faster he is. I’ve never seen him this fast, making plays with the puck at this fast of a speed. I’m telling you, it’s pretty scary what he’s going to do whenever we start playing again.”

Speed has always been an asset for Crosby, but apparently he requires more. Before the concussion, he always picked one facet of his game to improve during the summer. One season it was faceoffs, the next his wrist shot.

In the summer of 2012, it was…

“Just speed,” Crosby says. “I want to play the game at a faster speed, get back to that kind of game.”

Crosby wasn’t exactly slow last season, but he didn’t often showcase his patented bursts of speed. Even though he was healthy enough to play late last season, the 15-month bout with the concussion robbed him of huge portions of conditioning.

Everything is back to normal now, as Crosby transformed his body during the summer. He returned to Pittsburgh in September following summer workouts in Nova Scotia and Los Angeles, his arms and shoulders noticeably bigger than before. “We all know he’s going to have a huge year,” says linemate Pascal Dupuis. “I mean, look at him. He looks amazing on the ice, just like always – maybe even more than before. He’s doing whatever he wants to do out there.”

The Penguins’ workouts have ranged from the seven players present to 17. Crosby has been there for the duration, and though the competition hasn’t included an entire squad, his dominance is difficult to ignore. This has been a different Crosby, a player whose physical skills are still blossoming at 25. Even while practising against elite players like defenseman Kris Letang and goalie Marc-Andre Fleury, Crosby looks like a man among boys in these workouts, drawing daily gasps from the crowd of Penguins fans who turn out to watch him make magic.

He routinely leaves defensemen in the dust during one-on-one drills and scrimmages, beats goalies in shootouts with ease and just looks different. He is bigger, stronger and faster than ever before. “It’s pretty impossible to keep up with him right now,” Niskanen says while shaking his head. “I’ve been around him for a couple of years now, and he’s never looked anything like this. I mean, he’s flying out there. Just flying. It’s pretty hard to describe how incredible he looks right now.”

Brisson expects Crosby’s greatest hockey remains ahead. “There is no doubt in my mind he’s going to be better than ever,” Brisson says. “An athlete, a hockey player, usually hits his peak play between ages 25 and 29. Sidney hasn’t scratched the surface. He has more experience now.

“This season is going to be fun.”

Crosby's health scares made it easy to start pondering his career, where it has been and where it is headed.

Never once did Crosby admit his livelihood was in jeopardy because of his concussion problems, but of course it very much was. The truth is Crosby was dealing with headaches for more than a year, which is hardly a recipe for a long career in the NHL.

The greatest player of his generation refuses to consider his legacy, where it currently stands or where it’s going. “Not at all,” Crosby says without a hint of expression. “I guess there will be a time in my life when I sit back and look at what I was able to accomplish while playing hockey. But I’m not there right now, not even close. I don’t sit around and think about that kind of stuff. I really don’t. I just want to play.”

Ah, yes, Crosby wants to play. There’s that familiar theme. And in many ways, Crosby’s career is almost starting to mirror that of Lemieux’s. It’s an ironic twist, given Lemieux’s and Crosby’s respective on-ice styles couldn’t have been more different.

But the two share a tragic trait.

Lemieux was never able to produce the numbers his talent should have allowed because he lost hundreds of games to back and hip injuries, along with a cancer bout.

Crosby has now missed almost two full campaigns at ages 23 and 24. He missed another large chunk of the regular season at age 20 with an ankle injury and even during the most memorable night of his NHL career, Crosby missed almost the entire final two periods in Game 7 of the 2009 Stanley Cup final because of a knee injury.

His health is finally right again and, given his supreme training regimen, he appears a far greater candidate for long-standing health than was Lemieux.

The feud between the NHL and NHL-PA, however, could change everything. When will Crosby play again and how will the game be different when he returns? And is so much time away from hockey helpful? Including the playoffs, Crosby has played in 29 games since Jan. 1, 2011. Athletes who endure such inactivity often struggle to find their peak performance again.

The history of sports is littered with performers who faced large stints of inactivity for many different reasons. Muhammad Ali was banned from fighting for three years because of his refusal to participate in the Vietnam War. Ted Williams was out of baseball for three years during his prime due to combat. And of course there’s Lemieux, who missed three full seasons in his early 30s.

Will Crosby, who has already sat out so long, lose an entire season in his prime due to a labor dispute? “I hope that isn’t the case,” says Crosby, who may play in Europe if a deal isn’t reached. “I want to play. We all want to play.”

No one who has seen him play during these player-organized scrimmages believes he will perform less brilliantly than before his concussion problems. The truth is, not one person who has witnessed him play this fall has left without remarking that Crosby looks better than ever.

The workout is now over in Canonsburg. Crosby’s teammates have long since departed the ice, leaving him alone to practice his shooting drills. And so, Crosby does what he has always done – stay on the ice well after everyone else has gone. If Wayne Gretzky was great because of his playmaking and Lemieux was supreme because of his physical talent, Crosby is the player of his generation because he simply outworks everyone else.

Wind sprints, stickhandling drills and shooting drills are part of his regimen on this day. “It’s great being able to play hockey again and not worry about how you’re feeling,” he says. “Now, if we can just play.”

When his work is complete, Crosby skates to the net, turns and methodically returns it to where it belongs.

With the whole rink before him and a few Penguins fans watching his every move, Crosby looks at them and smiles.

He, too, is back where he belongs.

If only the same could be said of the sport he loves.