Hockey’s lesser-known Crosby
IN HER third year at St Cloud State, Taylor Crosby has become absorbed in ethics and philosophy courses. “I like those because they’re openended,” said Crosby, a goalie on the Huskies’ women’s hockey team. “There’s like a billion answers.”
Through much of her adolescence, hockey seemed to be the only topic anyone wanted to discuss with her. That’s natural when your older brother is one of the sport’s biggest stars.
The comparisons, the constant questions from the news media and strangers wanting to know more about her brother, Sidney, were overwhelming and invasive at times. Carving her own identity, particularly on the ice, became more challenging as her only sibling’s spotlight grew with each Stanley Cup (three so far) and individual accolade.
Taylor Crosby has always been proud of her brother’s success. And at 21, she has come to peace with the merits of her own hockey career by recognising that the game does not have to be her defining legacy.
“The older I get, the more I see how important that is,” Crosby said.
Since she was 2 weeks old, the rinks around Cole Harbour, Nova Scotia, became Crosby’s second home. There, she watched her brother garner national media attention as he dominated youth and junior leagues. Crosby was an invested fan and protective sister, yelling at players when they hit her brother. But she never had much inclination to play, at least at first.
When she finally decided she wanted to try being a goalie, it took her two years to persuade her parents, Troy and Trina.
Troy, a former goalie who was drafted by the Montreal Canadiens, relented and bought her a set of pads when she was 10.
“Both my parents were a little sceptical,” Crosby said. “I think they wanted to make sure I wanted to play for me and not just because of my brother. They wanted me to feel like I was my own person, and I didn’t pick goalie just to be kind of different from him, but that I actually wanted to be a goalie.”
Crosby attended Shattuck-St Mary’s in Faribault, Minnesota, a hockey talent factory whose alumni include several members of the US women’s national team. (Her brother also attended the boarding school for one year.)
When she was 17, Crosby, too, started gaining recognition at the highest levels of women’s hockey. During the summer of 2013, she was invited to a junior camp held by Hockey Canada and travelled to Sheffield, England, for a camp run by the International Ice Hockey Federation.
After graduating from Shattuck, Crosby enrolled at Northeastern. But she never found her footing in Boston and transferred after one year. The invitations to prestigious camps and tryouts also tapered off. As her hockey career reached its first detour, she began thinking about the game in more abstract terms.
“To sum it up, it just wasn’t the right fit,” Crosby said. “It seemed like the right fit at the time, but when I got there, whether it was playing time – it just didn’t feel like home.”
Crosby thought a return to Minnesota could be stabilising. At St Cloud State, she was not given any promises for playing time, but she saw an environment similar to Cole Harbour’s. With Shattuck classmates in abundance there, the small-town atmosphere meshed well with the pace she sought in her life and granted her a degree of anonymity.
When a new class arrives on campus, incoming freshmen can become star-struck when they discover Crosby’s lineage. But older teammates have become cognizant to quickly address any overbearing inquiries.
“We try to tell them she has a name too – it’s Taylor,” the junior forward Jordan Stewart said. “Regardless of her brother, get to know her for her. But she’s pretty open about it.”
New teammates also recognise Crosby’s presence as a team leader. Before games, she breaks up tension by dancing or emitting primordial animal sounds. Between periods, when not in net, she relays feedback to forwards on where the ice is opening up and the opposing goalie’s tendencies.
Crosby is currently a backup goaltender for the Huskies, who are 3-12. In an exhibition game on October 13 against the Minnesota Whitecaps, a semipro team consisting of some of the Midwest’s top players, Crosby made 35 saves in a 2-1 win.
Carrying indecision and wonder of most college students her age, Crosby embraces the current ambiguity surrounding her future. It also brings peace to her brother, watching his little sister come of age on her own accord.