Sidney Crosby Timeline (Primer) Part 1
Jun. 29th, 2012 01:51 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
maskitheclownThis is my first primer ever and I'm absolutely brand new in hockey fandom (seriously, I still don't know half of the rules of the game). But I had a hard time figuring out the timeline of his life (which as we all know is very important) so I decided to make a handy list and then it grew. For fandom purposes I'm callingueg this a primer. :P
What that also means is that I'll probably add to this every now and then, and also this will be long. LONG.
I think competence is a major turnon and reading all the awards he picked up is kinda like reading porn for me, but there's so many of them that I'll just occasionally list the few fun ones and the rest you can read on wikipedia.
Basic data time!
Sidney (Patrick) Crosby was born August 7th, 1987 - hence why his number is 87, and why he's on a $8,7mil contract since 2005. Also, the hockey world nicknamed him "Sid the Kid" because THEY HAVE NO IMAGINATION.
He's a captain of the Pittsburgh Penguins and looks like this:
I picked some good ones, someone posed him here. If left to his own devices, Sidney Crosby will put his hands in his pockets. He was trained to.
This is Sidney Crosby in :30 seconds. That's ok, this primer will still be here when you stop sobbing.
He is 5' 11" (1.80 m) which in the world of hockey makes him tiny.
He is "the face of hockey" today, which means some people adore him, some hate him, some think he's an arrogant ass but a great player, some think he's a horrible player and a whiny baby, some think he's a good player but the media hype is too much...
People have opinions about him is what I'm saying.
Objectively, he is one of the best, even if you don't like his game it's true that he won medals, cups, points etc. in quantities that put him on top of the game. Media is media. They will carry him all the way to the top, then dig a hole and push him down the mountain and into the hole. It's what they do.
Whether he whines too much, is he a faker, does he lack a personality, is his playing style not your thing, is his ass in fact TOO big, these are the questions you have to answer for yourself. :)
He grew up in Cole Harbour, Nova Scotia and as fic will tell you anyway, he has a younger sister called Taylor.
He started playing hockey when he was 2 years old.
When he was 5, Sidney played for the Cole Harbour Timbits in Cole Harbour, Nova Scotia. He was 3' 11", wore jersey number 8 (because he hadn't yet realized 87 existed?) and played center.
From age twelve to fifteen, he went to Astral Drive Junior High School. But, on ice other players were constantly trying to injure him, which in hockey I guess is normal, but not this "I remember being in Pee-Wee [12 yo], a guy trying to break my leg. It wasn't even during a play: I was going to a face-off, and a guy just two-handed it right at my knee—like a baseball bat."
But players AND THEIR PARENTS OMG WHAT IS WRONG WITH PEOPLE were verbally abusing him off ice too, so much that he stopped wearing his jersey between tournament games while he waited to play so that he wouldn't be recognized.
"Men in the stands, frustrated at the way Crosby overshadowed their sons, would yell about breaking his neck, how he was going to get killed."
HE WAS A TINY LITTLE GENIUS BABY HOW COULD YOU. Fuck them though, he's a rich badass genius now so whatever.
Anyway, partially because of all of this he decided to switch to Shattuck-Saint Mary's Boarding School in Minnesota for the 2002–2003 season. (Yeah, that school looks just like it sounds.)
Some other hockey players who went there were Zach Parise (who Sidney is now trying to get to play for the Penguins), Jonathan Toews (who I ship with Sidney like there is no tomorrow, sorry Kane), Drew Stafford, Jack Johnson... aaand that's about it as far as people I recognize go. :) Other famous names too.
In 57 games with the Sabres (SSM's hockey team, yo), he recorded 72 goals and 162 points, leading the team to a U18 AAA national championship.
Sidney on SSM:
"It was my first experience away from Nova Scotia, and I had to catch up academically. I struggled with it at first. But I loved the atmosphere. You can have friendships wherever you play, but at Shattuck, you lived together, went to class together, traveled and played together. You get to know each other—everyone—a lot faster and a lot better. Leaving Shattuck was the hardest decision I've had to make."
14yo Sidney (not his first interview). I think this is the first mention of the famous dryer though:
Also look at him emoting all over the place at the end when he talks about doing what he loves for a living :)
So, I mentioned Jack Johnson. They are friends!
I'm gonna give you the basics from that article:
"Michigan freshman Jack Johnson and Pittsburgh Penguins rookie Sidney Crosby first met in the fall of 2002, when they began their sophomore year at Shattuck-St. Mary's."
...
"The two aspiring hockey players were the lone underclassmen to make the Shattuck prep team."
...
" Johnson and Crosby quickly bonded on the ice"
...
"Instead, their success only made them that much closer. "
...
"'Prior to (the 2002-2003 season) I was one of the smaller guys on the team,' Johnson said. 'I couldn't really check the other guys, because they were usually bigger than I was. He was the first time I kept an eye on someone, and because we were such close friends I didn't want anyone to give him a cheap shot or anything. I enjoyed doing it.'"
...
"Ask Crosby about his memories from Shattuck, and he doesn't even mention hockey. His favorite moment with Jack occurred on the baseball diamond, not a sheet of ice. 'Jack was a pitcher for our high school team,' [...] 'And in one game, the other team's pitcher threw a pitch that came real close to my head. Then the next pitch actually hit me. The next batter was Jack and when the kid threw another pitch that was really far inside, Jack charged the mound and started a huge brawl between both teams.'"
I've seen a lot of photos of the two of them throughout the years, but back then they were bb friends and there are videos to prove it.
Observe 16yo Sidney Crosby being the worst wingman ever:
while at the same time somehow making all the girls want to lick his face.
In 2003 he was selected first overall in the Midget Draft by Rimouski Oceanic - a junior ice hockey team in the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League (QMJHL).
He was the league's leading point-scorer, overall rookie of the year and most valuable player, becoming the first QMJHL player to win all three major awards at once. (Things like this keep happening.)
Here's a bad quality vid with Sidney from back then, with some comments from his teammates.
In 2004 and 2005 he also won the The Paul Dumont Trophy AKA "Personality of the Year" award. I'm just gonna leave this here.
Around :34 Getzlaf talks about pranking Sidney during World Juniors - that would have been 2004, not 2005:
They won gold in 2005 (Dec 25th 2004 to Jan 4th 2005).
Being an almost kid, again with Jack Johnson (July 30th 2005, Ottawa):
He was selected first overall in the draft by the Pittsburgh Penguins that day, in the Sidney Crosby Sweepstakes.
Then, wikipedia gives us this: "Crosby lived with the Lemieux family in Sewickley, Pennsylvania from 2005 until 2010." Which is such a beautifully out-of-context sentence. (That's Mario in the pic above, not below :) )
Right, so Mario Lemieux, if you're like me and don't know anything, is a "Canadian American former professional ice hockey player and co-owner of the NHL's Pittsburgh Penguins [...]. He is widely acknowledged to be one of the best players of all time."
"During Crosby's amateur years, Wayne Gretzky was asked if he thought anyone could break his records. He answered that Crosby could, while adding that he was the best player he had seen since Mario Lemieux."
Lemieux retired (for the second time) in 2006 because of health issues, after playing some 26 games with the Penguins and Sidney.
Sidney wasn't the first player to live with Mario, but I'm guessing he's the one who stayed the longest. Mario has a wife and four kids and from what I've seen, it gave Sidney a family atmosphere he was missing, living in a new city and a new country on his own at (maybe) 18. Sidney actually lived in theirguest house - new sources say it might have been his attic. There is no good option here. Also, Lemieux has been quoted saying Sidney made a handy babysitter for his kids.
Anyway, in 2006 he did buy a house, but in Nova Scotia (where he likes to fish... *shrug* Canadians), which isn't in Pittsburgh. Much later he bought a place in Sewickley Heights, then stayed at Mario's while it was being renovated, then gave up on it and found a place I guess closer to Lemieux's and then... oh hell, just read the article here.
The point is though, as of 2012 he supposedly has a place of his own, but despite all the teasing over his living arrangements he just did whatever the hell made him happy and basically found himself a family. Good for you, bb.
And for some creeper info - they are all one big family now basically.
In 2007 he gave this pretty neat interview that I can't embed where he talks about living with Lemieux's.
He also says here that he "went through it a little bit earlier than most people" but I'm not sure if he means meeting (failing to meet) girls or puberty in general or partying... either way, I'm suspicious about the whole idea so a quick note regarding girlfriends. When he was 18 he is quoted in a book saying "I’m not saying I don’t want to meet girls. If the right one came along, I’d do it, but if it’s going to get me away from what I’m doing here, it’s not the right time." and I'm kinda convinced this is still his attitude towards relationships.
I feel so weird talking about his personal life, idk, much worse than talking about his ass :)
Back to the timeline. Sidney joined the Penguins. And there was so much hype about him and so many expectations, but his first season (2005-2006) with the Penguins sucked - for the Penguins. Mario had to retire due to irregular heartbeat, they replaced their head coach mid season and they finished with the worst record in the Eastern conference.
Crosby though was named Alternate Captain by the new coach (which got some nasty negative reactions because he was so very young). He also got records in assists and points for a rookie and became the youngest player in NHL history to score 100 points in a single season. As one does.
His first year with Penguins is also when his rivalry with Alexander Ovechkin (Russian captain of the Washington Capitals who is the image opposite of Sidney) started being relevant even though it actually started in 2005 World Junior Championships in Grand Forks where Canada beat Russia. Here's a handy (and seriously beautiful) manifesto on Ovechkin/Crosby.
Since he was still mostly a baby during this season he complained a lot and earned himself the title of a whiner. As far as I can tell, he's over that, he curses like a boss now, but people who hate him still call him a whiner when they want to put him down.
(Also, Fleury, their goalie, says they used to hide baby clothes and baby shoes in his stall when media was calling him a whiner, so really it all resolved itself rather maturely.)
At the start of Sidney's second season with the Penguins (2006-2007), Ovechkin got replaced as the main Russian in Sidney's life by Evgeni Malkin. You should read their own wonderful manifesto here but what you need to know here is that Malkin is a superstar in his own right and together they make magic happen.
This is a good place to break for Sidney superstitions. Apparently hockey world works on superstitions and rituals and if they are broken everything goes to hell. (Or nothing at all happens but no one has tested THAT theory yet.)
Sidney's pre game rituals include (but are probably not limited to) not passing the visitors locker room when he enters the center, sticks taping, eating certain brand peanut butter sandwich at 5pm, playing some kind of pass the ball (soccer kick-around) with some other equally invested team members, stretches, and wearing his gross at least 10 years old protective cup that someone actually has to stitch and fix all the time because it's falling apart on him.
He does the thing where he, I guess, blocks out everyone and everything and focuses on the game, since he was 16 at least.
There are more rituals I noticed the team does together but I'm not even getting into those.
Also, Sidney and Malkin have a special handshake they do before they go on the ice because Sidney was always the last to exit, but when Malkin came he had seniority what with playing in the Russian professional league for 3 years and he wanted to go out last, so they made up a "handshake" which I guess the Universe has accepted as a good enough compensation for Malkin going out last instead of Sidney. I DON'T KNOW.
And by handshake they apparently mean fist and headbumps.
But that's just the every day stuff, they also have special occasion rituals like how he put a dead worm above his lip when he was on a scoring streak. I don't know how he kept it glued up there but it was pretty impressive.
Anyway, Sidney continued being the youngest person to win everything ever, but with Malkin and Staal there, the Penguins started getting better too.
Part 2
What that also means is that I'll probably add to this every now and then, and also this will be long. LONG.
I think competence is a major turnon and reading all the awards he picked up is kinda like reading porn for me, but there's so many of them that I'll just occasionally list the few fun ones and the rest you can read on wikipedia.
Basic data time!
Sidney (Patrick) Crosby was born August 7th, 1987 - hence why his number is 87, and why he's on a $8,7mil contract since 2005. Also, the hockey world nicknamed him "Sid the Kid" because THEY HAVE NO IMAGINATION.
He's a captain of the Pittsburgh Penguins and looks like this:
I picked some good ones, someone posed him here. If left to his own devices, Sidney Crosby will put his hands in his pockets. He was trained to.
This is Sidney Crosby in :30 seconds. That's ok, this primer will still be here when you stop sobbing.
He is 5' 11" (1.80 m) which in the world of hockey makes him tiny.
He is "the face of hockey" today, which means some people adore him, some hate him, some think he's an arrogant ass but a great player, some think he's a horrible player and a whiny baby, some think he's a good player but the media hype is too much...
People have opinions about him is what I'm saying.
Objectively, he is one of the best, even if you don't like his game it's true that he won medals, cups, points etc. in quantities that put him on top of the game. Media is media. They will carry him all the way to the top, then dig a hole and push him down the mountain and into the hole. It's what they do.
Whether he whines too much, is he a faker, does he lack a personality, is his playing style not your thing, is his ass in fact TOO big, these are the questions you have to answer for yourself. :)
He grew up in Cole Harbour, Nova Scotia and as fic will tell you anyway, he has a younger sister called Taylor.
He started playing hockey when he was 2 years old.
When he was 5, Sidney played for the Cole Harbour Timbits in Cole Harbour, Nova Scotia. He was 3' 11", wore jersey number 8 (because he hadn't yet realized 87 existed?) and played center.
From age twelve to fifteen, he went to Astral Drive Junior High School. But, on ice other players were constantly trying to injure him, which in hockey I guess is normal, but not this "I remember being in Pee-Wee [12 yo], a guy trying to break my leg. It wasn't even during a play: I was going to a face-off, and a guy just two-handed it right at my knee—like a baseball bat."
But players AND THEIR PARENTS OMG WHAT IS WRONG WITH PEOPLE were verbally abusing him off ice too, so much that he stopped wearing his jersey between tournament games while he waited to play so that he wouldn't be recognized.
"Men in the stands, frustrated at the way Crosby overshadowed their sons, would yell about breaking his neck, how he was going to get killed."
HE WAS A TINY LITTLE GENIUS BABY HOW COULD YOU. Fuck them though, he's a rich badass genius now so whatever.
Anyway, partially because of all of this he decided to switch to Shattuck-Saint Mary's Boarding School in Minnesota for the 2002–2003 season. (Yeah, that school looks just like it sounds.)
Some other hockey players who went there were Zach Parise (who Sidney is now trying to get to play for the Penguins), Jonathan Toews (who I ship with Sidney like there is no tomorrow, sorry Kane), Drew Stafford, Jack Johnson... aaand that's about it as far as people I recognize go. :) Other famous names too.
In 57 games with the Sabres (SSM's hockey team, yo), he recorded 72 goals and 162 points, leading the team to a U18 AAA national championship.
Sidney on SSM:
"It was my first experience away from Nova Scotia, and I had to catch up academically. I struggled with it at first. But I loved the atmosphere. You can have friendships wherever you play, but at Shattuck, you lived together, went to class together, traveled and played together. You get to know each other—everyone—a lot faster and a lot better. Leaving Shattuck was the hardest decision I've had to make."
14yo Sidney (not his first interview). I think this is the first mention of the famous dryer though:
Also look at him emoting all over the place at the end when he talks about doing what he loves for a living :)
So, I mentioned Jack Johnson. They are friends!
I'm gonna give you the basics from that article:
"Michigan freshman Jack Johnson and Pittsburgh Penguins rookie Sidney Crosby first met in the fall of 2002, when they began their sophomore year at Shattuck-St. Mary's."
...
"The two aspiring hockey players were the lone underclassmen to make the Shattuck prep team."
...
" Johnson and Crosby quickly bonded on the ice"
...
"Instead, their success only made them that much closer. "
...
"'Prior to (the 2002-2003 season) I was one of the smaller guys on the team,' Johnson said. 'I couldn't really check the other guys, because they were usually bigger than I was. He was the first time I kept an eye on someone, and because we were such close friends I didn't want anyone to give him a cheap shot or anything. I enjoyed doing it.'"
...
"Ask Crosby about his memories from Shattuck, and he doesn't even mention hockey. His favorite moment with Jack occurred on the baseball diamond, not a sheet of ice. 'Jack was a pitcher for our high school team,' [...] 'And in one game, the other team's pitcher threw a pitch that came real close to my head. Then the next pitch actually hit me. The next batter was Jack and when the kid threw another pitch that was really far inside, Jack charged the mound and started a huge brawl between both teams.'"
I've seen a lot of photos of the two of them throughout the years, but back then they were bb friends and there are videos to prove it.
Observe 16yo Sidney Crosby being the worst wingman ever:
while at the same time somehow making all the girls want to lick his face.
In 2003 he was selected first overall in the Midget Draft by Rimouski Oceanic - a junior ice hockey team in the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League (QMJHL).
He was the league's leading point-scorer, overall rookie of the year and most valuable player, becoming the first QMJHL player to win all three major awards at once. (Things like this keep happening.)
Here's a bad quality vid with Sidney from back then, with some comments from his teammates.
In 2004 and 2005 he also won the The Paul Dumont Trophy AKA "Personality of the Year" award. I'm just gonna leave this here.
Around :34 Getzlaf talks about pranking Sidney during World Juniors - that would have been 2004, not 2005:
They won gold in 2005 (Dec 25th 2004 to Jan 4th 2005).
Being an almost kid, again with Jack Johnson (July 30th 2005, Ottawa):
He was selected first overall in the draft by the Pittsburgh Penguins that day, in the Sidney Crosby Sweepstakes.
Then, wikipedia gives us this: "Crosby lived with the Lemieux family in Sewickley, Pennsylvania from 2005 until 2010." Which is such a beautifully out-of-context sentence. (That's Mario in the pic above, not below :) )
Right, so Mario Lemieux, if you're like me and don't know anything, is a "Canadian American former professional ice hockey player and co-owner of the NHL's Pittsburgh Penguins [...]. He is widely acknowledged to be one of the best players of all time."
"During Crosby's amateur years, Wayne Gretzky was asked if he thought anyone could break his records. He answered that Crosby could, while adding that he was the best player he had seen since Mario Lemieux."
Lemieux retired (for the second time) in 2006 because of health issues, after playing some 26 games with the Penguins and Sidney.
Sidney wasn't the first player to live with Mario, but I'm guessing he's the one who stayed the longest. Mario has a wife and four kids and from what I've seen, it gave Sidney a family atmosphere he was missing, living in a new city and a new country on his own at (maybe) 18. Sidney actually lived in their
Anyway, in 2006 he did buy a house, but in Nova Scotia (where he likes to fish... *shrug* Canadians), which isn't in Pittsburgh. Much later he bought a place in Sewickley Heights, then stayed at Mario's while it was being renovated, then gave up on it and found a place I guess closer to Lemieux's and then... oh hell, just read the article here.
The point is though, as of 2012 he supposedly has a place of his own, but despite all the teasing over his living arrangements he just did whatever the hell made him happy and basically found himself a family. Good for you, bb.
And for some creeper info - they are all one big family now basically.
In 2007 he gave this pretty neat interview that I can't embed where he talks about living with Lemieux's.
He also says here that he "went through it a little bit earlier than most people" but I'm not sure if he means meeting (failing to meet) girls or puberty in general or partying... either way, I'm suspicious about the whole idea so a quick note regarding girlfriends. When he was 18 he is quoted in a book saying "I’m not saying I don’t want to meet girls. If the right one came along, I’d do it, but if it’s going to get me away from what I’m doing here, it’s not the right time." and I'm kinda convinced this is still his attitude towards relationships.
I feel so weird talking about his personal life, idk, much worse than talking about his ass :)
Back to the timeline. Sidney joined the Penguins. And there was so much hype about him and so many expectations, but his first season (2005-2006) with the Penguins sucked - for the Penguins. Mario had to retire due to irregular heartbeat, they replaced their head coach mid season and they finished with the worst record in the Eastern conference.
Crosby though was named Alternate Captain by the new coach (which got some nasty negative reactions because he was so very young). He also got records in assists and points for a rookie and became the youngest player in NHL history to score 100 points in a single season. As one does.
His first year with Penguins is also when his rivalry with Alexander Ovechkin (Russian captain of the Washington Capitals who is the image opposite of Sidney) started being relevant even though it actually started in 2005 World Junior Championships in Grand Forks where Canada beat Russia. Here's a handy (and seriously beautiful) manifesto on Ovechkin/Crosby.
Since he was still mostly a baby during this season he complained a lot and earned himself the title of a whiner. As far as I can tell, he's over that, he curses like a boss now, but people who hate him still call him a whiner when they want to put him down.
(Also, Fleury, their goalie, says they used to hide baby clothes and baby shoes in his stall when media was calling him a whiner, so really it all resolved itself rather maturely.)
At the start of Sidney's second season with the Penguins (2006-2007), Ovechkin got replaced as the main Russian in Sidney's life by Evgeni Malkin. You should read their own wonderful manifesto here but what you need to know here is that Malkin is a superstar in his own right and together they make magic happen.
This is a good place to break for Sidney superstitions. Apparently hockey world works on superstitions and rituals and if they are broken everything goes to hell. (Or nothing at all happens but no one has tested THAT theory yet.)
Sidney's pre game rituals include (but are probably not limited to) not passing the visitors locker room when he enters the center, sticks taping, eating certain brand peanut butter sandwich at 5pm, playing some kind of pass the ball (soccer kick-around) with some other equally invested team members, stretches, and wearing his gross at least 10 years old protective cup that someone actually has to stitch and fix all the time because it's falling apart on him.
He does the thing where he, I guess, blocks out everyone and everything and focuses on the game, since he was 16 at least.
There are more rituals I noticed the team does together but I'm not even getting into those.
Also, Sidney and Malkin have a special handshake they do before they go on the ice because Sidney was always the last to exit, but when Malkin came he had seniority what with playing in the Russian professional league for 3 years and he wanted to go out last, so they made up a "handshake" which I guess the Universe has accepted as a good enough compensation for Malkin going out last instead of Sidney. I DON'T KNOW.
And by handshake they apparently mean fist and headbumps.
But that's just the every day stuff, they also have special occasion rituals like how he put a dead worm above his lip when he was on a scoring streak. I don't know how he kept it glued up there but it was pretty impressive.
Anyway, Sidney continued being the youngest person to win everything ever, but with Malkin and Staal there, the Penguins started getting better too.
Part 2
