The 1,312,004th Blog Written About Sidney Crosby’s Return

Islanders fans - at least your goalie didn't get hurt last night (photo stolen from USA today)

As far as comebacks go, two goals and two assists isn't a bad way to do it. Even if you're not a hockey fan you might have heard that Sidney Crosby, or as I like to call him "Canada's Tebow", made his return to the NHL after post-concussion syndrome sidelined him for more than ten months. So much ink has been spilled about the topic I figured another 1000 words wouldn't hurt.

Normally, I would pass anything Penguin related to occasional guest columnist and hockey guru, Link. Unfortunately, he's currently on the DL himself recovering from some off-season surgery and making him bang out a couple of pages one-handed on an iPad seemed to be a bit cruel. So like Dave Johnson filling in for Pete Harnisch with the 1989 season on the line, I'll try my best.

Mixed in with all of the deserved superlatives that Crosby's performance garnered was the typical backlash that followed along. As with most of the anti-Sid animosity it seemed to be directed at the media "over-hype" then his actually abilities on the ice. To a point, I can agree with some of the rage that fans across the country felt seeing the U.S. and Canadian media descend upon Pittsburgh as if it was the seventh game of the Stanley Cup Finals. To listen to NBC/Vs. on-ice reporter, Pierre McGuire, spend most of the night in a state of rapture was particularly grating.

Why so delirious? Well, we can probably owe it to a couple of factors. First, the NHL has spent the last 10 months without knowing if its best player was ever going to lace up the skates again. Secondly, the never ending media machine needed something to feed on.
The NHL knows that with the NBA on an extended hiatus this is their best chance to garner the affection of the casual sports fan. They need their number one marketing tool on the ice, and that tool is Sidney Crosby. Link, despite his injury, did send me the following comment: "The NHL builds itself based on star players and rivalry matchups…no star (esp. in Canada) is bigger than Sid".

Look, I don't like it any more than the next fan. I rolled my eyes when McGuire rolled out his "one of the most glorious nights you can be a part of" line. However, I understand that NBC/Vs. doesn't care about me. I'm already hooked on hockey, I'm not going anywhere. They are trying to sell it to the mass public. If you know why "Alexander Semin plays the bongos" is funny, or follow BizNasty2point0 on Twitter, then the broadcast isn't aimed at you.

Should they sell other players in the league more? Of course. But, skilled Russians with limited English don't play in Peoria. For all of the magic that Pavel Datsyuk can wield with his hockey stick he isn't someone you plaster across a billboard. Alex Ovechkin had his shot to establish himself as the best player in the league while Crosby was out. Instead, all he led the league in was tramp stamps and time spent at Russian night clubs.

Crosby has the perfect blend of on-ice talent and off-ice humbleness that public relations folks drool over. The Duchess doesn't know the difference between icing and off-sides yet she knows who Sidney Crosby is ("Of course he's going to get attention. 'Cause he's hotter" were he exact comment). When you have a player you can market to everybody, it's in your best interest to do so. You suffer the discontent of your dedicated fans, because you know they're not going anywhere.

There are fans that argue Crosby isn't the best player in the league. They complain that he whines too much, or that he is a "diver". Heck, even I managed a "Crosby is a diver" joke last night at one point. Why? 'Cause it's an easy joke to make and I'm an extremely lazy writer. Does he yap at the officials? Of course he does, but so does Marty St. Louis and nobody calls him "Mary St. Louis". In fact, if you watch a lot of hockey, you'll notice that a majority of the stars in the league spend a fair amount of time jawin' with the refs. It's just part of the game.

The other reason everyone made such a big deal about "Merry Sid-mas" was the media itself feasting on whatever story they could. We have to live with the fact that moving forward, every news story is going to get blown out of proportion. When I was growing up, national coverage (i.e. Sportscenter) was in its infancy. Crosby's return would have gotten a lot of play locally, but only limited coverage across the nation. The Baltimore Sun probably would have devoted three A.P.-sourced paragraphs and moved on with what was wrong with the Orioles at the time.

Now, everyone gets to sound off about it. Look at me. I'm a Tampa Bay fan who lives in Chicago and I'll still get at least 40 page hits out of this post. And half of those hits will come because I'm posting a picture of Sidney without his shirt on (it's all about the page hits, folks!). So writers who actually have a large following need to cover the story and find new ways to do it.

Drink it in ladies. (photo stolen from GQ)

In my old industry, the phrase "trying to drink from a fire hose" was bandied about anytime a vendor came in to talk about the latest new product. Monday night NBC/Vs. did their best to fire hose the casual fan when it came to explaining why the game was so important. When McGuire interviewed Crosby between the first and second period I'm surprised he had the audacity to look his Penguin deity directly in the face.

Think of all of the words written while he wasn't playing. From February to November it seemed like a day didn't go by where there wasn't an article or two posted about his status. Was he coming back? Was he still sitting in a dark room? Should he retire? Will he be able to take a hit when he did come back?

The day he actually returned to play was predestined to be a spectacle. Now it's over and the hockey world can move on. We can also continue to hit the mute button anytime Pierre McGuire is talking.

A Little Bit of Hockey Talk

For most teams in the NHL the season is about three weeks away. Which, much like The Miz, IS AWESOME! Most training camps will open around the 15th of September and our long, hot summer will officially be over. Before the puck drops for the season opener I will have some sort of season preview posted (probably) detailing the Southeast Conference (maybe) and focusing on the beloved Lightning (of course). In the meantime, let us take a quick look at what transpired over the last 3 months or so of off-season.

If last season was the summer of Kovalchuk, then this season was the summer of unneeded worry. It started with the Steven Stamkos contract status and is drawing to a close with another round of Sidney Crosby concussion drama. For the 18th summer running the Phoenix Coyotes were in the running to move to Canada and were being courted by people with more money than me. Yet, they’ll be playing at least one more season in the desert.

In the end the biggest news was a team actually moving to Canada and a team blowing up it’s core to overpay a Russian goaltender. Unfortunately for Antero Niittymaki and his 176-0 record against them, the Atlanta Thrashers are no more. In less time then it took HP to release and then discontinue their iPad Killer, the team was sold and moved to the Great White North to the delight of thousands, if not millions, of Canadians.

Will they survive? Who knows? As a matter of fact, who cares? For the next three seasons at least the novelty of NHL hockey in Winnipeg will keep the team rolling along. Once they figure out the re-alignment issues next year the Jets won’t really be the Lightning’s problem any longer. As for now, the long commute for Southeast teams will make plenty of fodder for columnists all along the south.

As for the Flyers, well that was a busy off-season, eh? They cleared some cap space by trading away Jeff Carter and their captain Mike Richards. That space was promptly taken up when they traded for the rights to Ilya Bryzgalov and signed him to a nine year deal. Despite blowing their wad on a goalie that was only marginally better than the one the had the year before it didn’t stop them from being the number one thorn in Lightning fan’s sides for most of the spring/early summer.

Why is that? Well because they were going to sign Steven Stamkos to a 10 year $120 million offer sheet. Remember that? Now, in the aftermath, doesn’t it seem a little ludicrous? Doesn’t it seem like we all wasted a lot of thoughts on something that really wasn’t going to happen? Steven is happily signed to a reasonable deal (although it doesn’t seem he’s wasted any of it on a haircut) and no GM performed career suicide by sending in an offer sheet.

The Stamkos pseudo-drama was really the highlight of an off-season that GM Steve Yzerman put together in an efficient and lack luster manner. There was no mesmerizing of other teams in cap-dumping deals or deals that brought back beloved ex-Lightning players. Well unless you really liked Michel Ouellet, which I’m going to guess isn’t many of you.

Sure, play-off hero Sean Bergenheim took the money and his talents to South Beach but, for all he did last year, in the end he was a third line winger. Third line wingers are replaceable and hopefully Ryan Shannon shows that. Oh yeah, he re-signed ageless net minder and instant local hero Dewayne Roloson. So now we don’t even have a goalie controversy to bitch about during the pre-season. No fun at all that Yzerman guy.

Since there is nothing really exciting to talk about in the NHL right now (soccer kits!) the focus has returned to young Mr. Sidney Crosby and the condition of his brain. Depending on whose Tweets you read first he is:

A. locked in a dark room and moments away from retirement
B. scaling back his workouts as the new season approaches and there is nothing more to see here, move along, move along. Hey is that Sean Avery beating up a cop over there?
C. a whiney, untalented, poster boy for a league run by a midget megalomaniac who wants to annex Canada.

We can all agree that if the worst is true and he does have to retire, it will make for the greatest “What if” in hockey since Mario hurt his back. As in, “What if Sidney hadn’t gotten hurt, would he have challenged for second place in all the record books?”

“What if Crosby hadn’t gotten hurt, who would have had more goals- him, Stamkos or Ovechkin?”

“What if he hadn’t gotten hurt, would all of that Crosby-hate not been turned on Stammer?”

You can imagine the rest of the awkwardly phrased scenarios yourself. Go ahead, I actually have to go make lunch so I’ll give you some time.

OK. Where were we? Oh yea, now I remember. So despite him having missed anymore time since the end of last season we’re experiencing another round of Crosby Concussion Concern. Let’s face it folks, no one other than Sidney Crosby himself knows if he’s going to miss any games next season. As a matter of fact, he probably doesn’t even know.

Unlike a knee injury or a broken nose, there is no physical benchmark to know when you’re completely over a concussion. One day you can’t workout without seeing spots, the next day you can. There really is no rhyme or reason, and most frustrating no way to rehab it. If you blow out your knee you know that you can get surgery and then it’s a matter of doing your physical therapy and it will heal.

What can you do for a concussion? Nothing. Literally. That’s what you do. Nothing.

I don’t think Crosby’s career is over. It might be delayed, but I think he will be back. In the end, this will be a tale of a team and a player taking the safest possible route to dealing with an injury. Unfortunately, with the insatiable need for news that dominates sports these days, doing nothing is sometimes bigger news than doing something.