Occasionally in sports, there are perspective-giving moments that remind us just how fleeting a career – and, by extension, each of our lives – can be.
A fastball to the temple. A helmet-to-helmet collision that leaves an NFL player motionless. Or, on New Year’s Day of 2011, the Pittsburgh Penguins’ Sidney Crosby, the NHL’s brightest star, taking a hard shoulder to the face as he looked the other way, his head then whiplashing off the ice. It began a 10-month struggle with post-concussion symptoms that scared the crap out of Crosby, the Penguins and hockey fans around the world.
On Monday night at the Consol Energy Center in Pittsburgh, that scary uncertainty of the past year seemed, on the surface, to be behind us all. Sid the Kid was back in a big way, with two goals and 10 assists in seven games since returning two weeks ago. In the Penguins 3-1 loss to the Boston Bruins Monday, Crosby dashed around the ice, absorbing hits and taking five shots on goal. Fans cheered two fights and booed blown Penguins power plays.
On the surface, it was another hockey night in Pittsburgh, everything back to the way it once was.
But look closer and there’s something different in the air at The House That Sid Built. There’s a greater appreciation in watching the greatest hockey player of his generation, cherishing these moments that may not – will not – last forever. And there’s a knowing worry that the end can always be just around the corner.
And so, when Crosby skated near center ice halfway through the third period and collided with his teammate Chris Kunitz, the sellout crowd gasped. By NHL standards, it was a pedestrian collision, Kunitz’s head driving into Crosby’s midsection. Yet Crosby laid on the ice, struggling to stand up. The game went on, but the arena focused on the 24-year-old kid, hunched over his stick, slowly making his way to the bench. The Penguins’ trainer hovered over Crosby as replays of the hit hushed the crowd.
You could hear it in their silence: No. Not again.
This time, no, it wasn’t again. He’d only tweaked a knee, and two minutes later, the arena breathed as Crosby stood over a faceoff.
Yet players and franchises and entire fan bases are scarred by injuries like the concussion suffered by a transcendent player like Crosby. You never know if he’ll be the next Tom Brady, coming back even stronger after an injury – or if he’ll become the next Bobby Orr, the next Sandy Koufax, the next Bo Jackson, the next all-time talent whose career ended too soon.
Even Crosby himself admitted the past year has changed the way he looks at the game. Like any superstar athlete, Crosby used to be a young kid on top of the world. Then the world seemed snatched away from him.
“I think you just appreciate hockey more when you’ve been away from it for that long,” Crosby told FOXSports.com. “You always realize you love it, but any time something’s gone, or you’re not able to do it, you realize that much more how much you enjoy it… So once you get that back, you just appreciate it a lot more.”
It would be difficult to overstate the importance of Crosby to his franchise, this city and the NHL. He’s led the league in jersey sales since his rookie season, and All-Star balloting as well. After his gold-medal-winning overtime goal in the 2010 Winter Olympics, his status as Canada’s top sports hero was cemented. The Penguins – a franchise that has weathered bankruptcy, the worst record and lowest home attendance in the NHL, and talk of relocation – have sold out 222 games in a row. The sterling new arena, equally attributable to Penguins’ legend/owner Mario Lemieux and to Crosby, testifies to Crosby’s worth.
And then the biggest name in hockey became the highest-profile professional athlete to sit out nearly a full season with a concussion.
“It was kind of a sobering thought, that our franchise might have to go on without our best player,” said Phil Bourque, a former Penguin who’s now the team’s radio commentator. “When people allowed themselves to think it: ‘What if he can’t come back?’ Geez… But this is a man at 24 years old, and he has a lot of life to live.”
It’s that sort of perspective that’s on display now whenever Sidney Crosby takes the ice. More than any win-at-all-costs fanaticism, there’s a care and caution taken with the superstar, reflective of the greater awareness of concussion injuries across sports.
On Monday night, our worries over concussions were on display. Before the game Penguins coach Dan Bylsma announced two players were diagnosed with concussions; a return date wasn’t known. On the ice for the Bruins was center Patrice Bergeron, who missed close to a year after a 2007 concussion but is now one of their top scorers. But missing was center Marc Savard, out for the year with post-concussion issues from a 2010 injury. It could end his career.
After the game, Crosby sat at his locker, surrounded by a pack of two dozen media. He was not happy after the loss, but there was still a sense of appreciating this moment. He spoke about Tim Thomas’ stellar goaltending. He told reporters the third-period collision with a teammate was “a bit of a stinger but nothing major.” He talked about NHL realignment. At no point was the word “concussion” uttered.
Things were normal.
There’s little good to be found in a player like Crosby having to go through the past year. But seeing one of our invincible sports superstars go down to this mind-boggling injury reminds us all of our human frailty, and that these once-in-a-lifetime athletes are always a game away from their demise, like the rest of us. So appreciate it while we can.
You can follow Reid Forgrave on Twitter @reidforgrave, become a fan on Facebook or email him at reidforgrave@gmail.com.
