Grange on Crosby: His father’s eyes

There are but a handful of hockey players who can really relate to Sidney Crosby and what he was before he suffered his career-threatening concussion and what he’s been through in the 11 months since.

Already the best in the game, he seemed poised to join the hockey’s pantheon – Gretzky, Lemieux, Orr and Howe. Monday night in Pittsburgh the quest begins anew.

But there are millions of hockey parents who can relate to Troy Crosby in the months since his son was sidelined and maybe especially in the anxious weeks since he began inching ever closer to playing again.

“When the day comes, as a parent I’m just going to be happy he’s happy he’s back doing something he loves to do,” the elder Crosby said recently as his son was in the final stages of his re-entry into the NHL fray. “And as a hockey parent I’ll be happy because I miss watching him.”

There’s a pleasure in watching your kids do well; in watching them excel at something they have a passion for. It gets shown funny ways sometimes. There are plenty of examples of over-reaching, shrieking, angry, blind and wacko hockey parents out there. Everyone has a story.

But most of the time, most hockey parents are good ones — happy to be part of it: a nervous roiling of the belly and a quickening of the pulse a sure sign that the Zamboni’s work is done and it’s game time. You hope they play well. Hope they have fun. Pray they get up when they thump into the boards in an awkward tangle of skates and sticks.

So imagine watching your oldest son do great things.

To emerge not only as the best player in the world, but as an athlete/citizen who has yet to set a foot wrong since coming into the NHL at 18 years old. And then slowly realize he won’t be playing any time soon, the uncertainty stretching from weeks to months with no clear end in sight.

Troy Crosby doesn’t pretend being Sidney Crosby’s Dad is no big deal. He doesn’t walk around with a sign, but he doesn’t take it for granted. His daughter plays hockey at a high school in Minnesota, and Troy watches her whenever he can too, but it admits it’s different: “She’s a goalie, I’m a nervous wreck.”

His son is special and loves what he does. Understandably his Dad doesn’t want to miss it.

The week before last when it appeared that Crosby was going to be coming back to play his father made his way to Pittsburgh from his home in Cole Harbour, NS.

That’s not unusual. He tries to see his son play as often as possible. He makes it to Pittsburgh at least once a month, any time there’s two or three games at home in a stretch. Road games in Florida in winter get circled on the calendar early. Montreal, Toronto and Boston – all easy flights from Halifax – are other favourite spots to go see his son play games.

But there he was a couple of weeks back perched all alone at the top of the lower bowl of the Consol Energy Centre watching his son practice.

You couldn’t blame him.

For a hockey fan or a hockey parent, watching Crosby practice might be even better than watching him play.

In practice whatever line that exists between the world’s best hockey player and the kid talking earnestly in those Tim Hortons’ commercials about how amazing it would be getting up every morning and working at what you love to do is obliterated.

Crosby’s the kid on one knee in the first row of the semi-circle as the coach goes over the breakout. He’s the kid cheating on the start in an effort to win every drill. He’s the one who keeps playing after the whistle blows, finishing the rush, deking the goalie and celebrating like it was the winner in Game 7.

His roommate during his rookie NHL season, current Toronto Maple Leaf Colby Armstrong, said Crosby used to talk about hockey in his sleep. I bet he still does.

“He has a passion to play the game and he has fun at it,” Troy Crosby said. “He’s like a kid out there. He’s been like that his whole life. Whether it’s NHL or Pee-Wee, he’s always played the same way. That hasn’t changed, whether he’s 12, 24 or 15.”

Penguins coach Dan Bylsma said the excitement in his franchise player’s voice when he was cleared to play Monday night was like a rookie getting ready to play his first NHL game; like a kid’s.

Thinking forward to that moment when his son puts months of painstaking rehab at risk in the rush-hour traffic of an NHL game Troy Crosby sounds like any other anxious hockey Dad.

“It will be a happy time but a stressful time for the parent,” he said. “There’s a lot of anxiety and stuff going on when that happens.”

Will he be holding his breath the first time his son gets put hard into the boards?

“You know what, it’s probably human nature that you will,” he said. “But you have put trust in him that he knows he’s ready and the doctors know he’s ready so then you can get back on the horse and go. Otherwise you shouldn’t be out there.

Monday night for the first time in nearly 11 months Sidney Crosby will be out there; cycling the puck, spinning off bodies in front of the net, finding teammates with seeing-eye passes and trying to bury shots through slivers of light left by unsuspecting goalies.

The hockey world will be watching. His Dad too:

“I’m the same as any typical Canadian parent, any hockey parent,” he said as his son was on the ice below, doing magic with a puck at the end of practice, in no rush to leave.

“I just love watching my kids play hockey.”