New level of pressure for Crosby
Storybook ending gives way to new challenges this year
Sidney Crosby was already a Stanley Cup winner and the face of the NHL when he arrived at the 2010 Olympics in Vancouver. He’d performed under pressure before, but it was never quite like this.
Canadians were counting on winning a gold medal in their own country. And they expected him to deliver it.
Most of Team Canada felt the pressure too, but the game’s best player carried the weight of an entire country desperate to erase the failures of 2006 and reassert its dominance in the sport.
“That amount of pressure is probably the most I’ve felt in my hockey career,” Crosby said. “Because it was right there, you were in Canada, there was so much going on. Everyone’s talking about it. You’re in a Canadian city.”
It was so evident that his parents could see it.
“There was so much at stake,” said his mother, Trina. “When you’re the goaltender’s parent, you just feel so responsible because it’s your kid in net. And then, when you’re Sidney’s parents, you always feel like he’s the one who either has to set it up or score. You just feel it. It’s pressure.”
Crosby delivered in a big way, scoring the overtime goal against the United States to win the gold medal for Canada.
“It was a storybook ending,” Trina Crosby said.
Crosby’s new challenge is just beginning. He enters the 2014 Sochi Olympics as Canada’s captain and arguably playing the best hockey of his professional career, only this time, he’s able to draw from his experience in Vancouver.
Needing to live up to that gold standard again means the weight hasn’t lifted from the 26-year-old’s shoulders.
“I think the pressure is there regardless. I think it’s always going to be there no matter where it is,” Crosby said. “As far as my game and my mindset, I think that having gone through Vancouver hopefully will help.”
Crosby was an alternate captain in Vancouver at the age of 22. By that time, he’d already done almost everything in the NHL, including making two trips to the Cup final, capturing a Hart Trophy as MVP and winning the scoring race.
When the Pittsburgh Penguins named Crosby captain in 2007, he was the youngest in league history. He then validated that trust by winning the Cup in 2009.
But when it came time to pick the captain for the 2010 Olympics, veteran defenceman Scott Niedermayer got the call. Crosby was the thirdyoungest player on the team, but Niedermayer still thought “Sid the Kid” was ready.
“He was probably ready when he was 16,” Niedermayer said in November at the Hockey Hall of Fame’s induction weekend. “The thinking was he’s going to have enough pressure on him just from who he is and things like that, that he doesn’t need one more thing to worry about, give it to some old guy that’s just trying to figure things out out there.”
That’s when Crosby’s apprenticeship began, wearing an “A” alongside experienced Olympians Jarome Iginla and Chris Pronger. Of course Niedermayer set the standard as captain.
“Everyone knew what had to be done, what was expected to be done,” Niedermayer said. “There was not going to be a lack of emotion or energy for everybody getting dressed. It was just a matter of being level-headed and staying focused.”
Canada hasn’t won back-to-back gold medals in men’s hockey at the Olympics since 1948 and 1952, before the country had even adopted the red and white flag Crosby waved after winning gold in 2010.
But history isn’t as important as the present and a tournament that’s taking place on Russian ice against a home team that will be as motivated as Canada was in 2010.
Crosby hopes that, four years later, he and Canada are in the best situation possible to win gold. Because that’s the only expectation in Sochi.