#Sidney Crosby

[intheupside]

“sid’s actually been playing me some music lately. great big sea to drake, it’s a bizarre playlist”

[flintsdragon]

literally me learning Pittsburgh penguins lore

Oh i get it now. I'm going crazy

[goatisbetheres]

oh we know troy… also some great stories here

[stuckinnet]

dedication is going into 4 nations with 87 points

he’s going to go mental on ice during the tournament if sid isn’t there with him

[badangle]

the little smiles and that vocal fry...

[tangerwoll]

sidney crosby on shootout loss to devils / 02.04.25

[raskallion]

I never thought I'd find him on the Jets bluesky, but there he is 😍

[intheupside]

The game has been Crosby’s professional life. It’s who he is and what he talks about. Hockey is his everything. And it’s what matters most to him.

Once or twice a season, when Ray Shero was general manager of the Penguins, he would invite Crosby to his office for a brief meeting that was never brief. “Usually it was about four-hours long. I’d say to Sid, ‘What’s on your mind?’ And he’d say ‘Not much.’ And then we’d talk hockey for hours, usually all afternoon.

“Detailed talk about the game, the team, getting better, training, he has such an active mind. He’s always thinking about everything. He asks good questions. He wants good answers. And often the last thing he thought about — which tells you a lot about Sid — is money.

“One time, just after he signed his second contract in Pittsburgh, I took out a calculator in our meeting. I told him the season was 180-some days long and players got paid by the day. I then calculated how much money he was going to be getting paid each day.

“I slid him the calculator and he said, ‘What?’

“I told him that’s what you’re going to be paid every day.

“He said ‘You’re kidding, right?’

“I said no, that’s the number.

“He just stared at it and said ‘Holy cow. I guess I shouldn’t skip any optional practices.’

“That’s Sid being Sid. It was never about money with him. He’s left a lot of money on the table over the years. But when he saw how much he was making in his first big contract, how much per day, it shocked him. He’d never looked at it that way before.”

When Jimmy Rutherford took over as GM of the Penguins, he made it a point to meet with Crosby almost immediately. “I flew to Pittsburgh to have dinner with him and from the time you shake his hand, and you listen to all his input and all his knowledge, you just walk away and say ‘Wow.’ He’s more special in person than you might have thought he was before you got to meet him.”

“They play their best in the biggest moments,” said Ken Holland. “You saw that with Steph Curry at the Olympics last summer. Ultimately, no matter what the circumstance, Sid drove people to greater heights. It’s not just how they play, it’s how people follow them and jump aboard.”

“How committed are they? How much drive do they have? How motivated are they? How singularly driven are they? It’s not an accident that he scored the Golden Goal. That’s what winners do. And he’s one of the greatest winners of all time.

“Everybody loves Sid. He treats people well. He hangs out with everybody and he’s one of the guys. And the respect level for him, and for the game, is through the roof. When you’re around him you see he’s just a regular person but an extraordinary player.”

Kyle Dubas is in his second season with Crosby in Pittsburgh. Like everyone else who has been around Crosby over the years, he has been taken aback by the dedication he has to practice. “He works daily on the mastery of his craft,” said Dubas. “And he takes nothing for granted.”

But what has impressed Dubas the most is the way in which Crosby interacts with his teammates on a team struggling to find its way.

Kyle Dubas is in his second season with Crosby in Pittsburgh. Like everyone else who has been around Crosby over the years, he has been taken aback by the dedication he has to practice. “He works daily on the mastery of his craft,” said Dubas. “And he takes nothing for granted.”

“Recently, we were in Anaheim and we have a rookie defenceman, Owen Pickering, who was struggling. Sid is purposely hard on Owen in practice, competing full out against him, not maliciously, just showing the kid how hard he’s going to have to work to compete with him. Sid’s mindset is, I have to do this. If he’s going to get better, I have to do this. The kid got a little frustrated by the practice and you could see it was hard on him. He wasn’t feeling good about himself. The next day, Sid goes and gets the kid and takes him for a haircut. It’s a little gesture but on a team looking to build, it’s an important one. That’s the kind of thing Sid does on a daily basis. The kind of thing most people won’t notice.”

Five years ago, during COVID, the Penguins were upset by Montreal in the preliminary round of the playoffs. The disappointed team flew home from Toronto, where games were being played at Scotiabank Arena without fans.

The team scattered, as teams tend to scatter at the end of every season. Crosby didn’t scatter. He went from the airport to the arena. He wasn’t happy with how the season ended.

He got on the ice and practiced alone that afternoon. That was Sid being Sid.

a good day to have fond feelings about sid

[annieqattheperipheral]

PP1✨

the sidnate has begun...💕

[goatisbetheres]

oh… he’s beautiful

[croszukis]

oh this one is particularly devastating

[tangerwoll]

i miss them :(

[idontlikeem]

getting emotional about sidney crosby again, how’s your monday going?

[gongyussy]

the h in nhl stands for homoerotic

bonus intricate rituals:

[gyudons]

imagine you’re tailgating and the view is sports rpf