Phenom: Everybody's talking about 'The Next One'
by Deborah Nobes
for CBC Sports Online

Not much intimidates Nova Scotia hockey phenom Sidney Crosby -- on or off the ice. The 15-year-old has faced the bright lights and microphones of North America’s sports media and stared down bigger and meaner opponents on the ice without flinching.

But mention the word “girlfriend” and the charming brown-eyed teenager gets all squirmy. “I don’t have a girlfriend,” he admits, voice trailing off. “At least not yet.”

Scouts say Sidney Crosby has "the whole package" on the ice

And then comes the tease from his father, Troy Crosby, a brawny former NHL draft pick who taught his son the tricks of the game in the unfinished basement of their Cole Harbour home: “Did you see the sign they had at the game, Sidney? It was a girl and she had a sign that said ‘Sidney will you marry me?’”

Sidney blushes and grins. He didn’t see the sign, but that’s no surprise. When he’s on the ice, playing for team Nova Scotia at the 2003 Canada Games, or for the Minnesota prep school he attends, Crosby is all game.

The Hockey News has compared the young player to Wayne Gretzky, calling him “The Next One.” Online sports message boards are filled with glowing comments about him. Scouts from the Quebec Major Junior league are hoping he’ll leave school and play with one of their teams next year, when he’s 16 and old enough to qualify. NHL scouts are salivating in the stands, watching him become a superstar they badly want.

“He’s got the whole package,” gushes Mark Seidel, a scout for Red Line Report, which sells player information to the NHL. “He can skate, he has a low centre of gravity, he’s hard to knock off the puck and the nastier the game gets, the better he plays.

“Sidney Crosby will play pro hockey and he’ll play for a long time.”

Crosby is one of the youngest players on his Canada Games team, and he’s the captain. He scores easily and often -- 13 goals in this tournament alone -- and floats through virtually every defensive tactic his opponents can muster. The tougher it gets, the harder he works.

“And that’s a very interesting thing,” adds Seidel. “Because a lot of kids who are gifted offensively are physically intimidated by the challenge. He seems to get better as the game gets more physical and more nasty.”

Crosby learned to skate at three years old and was playing hockey with the Dartmouth Timbits at five. His dad says he knew right away his son was different.

“He seemed to pick up hockey easily,” he said. “The skills of it, shooting and skating, came easy to him even at five. You could tell he was advancing more than kids his age.”

Crosby’s parents, Troy and Trina, kept up with his skills by putting him on teams with older kids, and making hockey a family focus. That meant a big financial commitment, no vacations that weren’t hockey-related, and lots of early mornings at the rink.

But the biggest sacrifice by far has been to let their son go away to a private boarding school in the United States, where he can hone his skills with the best and brightest young players in North America, and get out of the media spotlight for awhile.

“It was a big adjustment. We have a lot more free time on our hands,” says Troy.

Sidney admits the move was hard. He missed his little sister and parents, but says the change has been worthwhile. “It has been lonely. At the start it was really hard, but once I started playing hockey every day and the guys were really good to me, it got easier,” he says.

The young player is working hard to keep his wits about him in the midst of all this attention. He says the buzz puts pressure on him to perform, but he responds by focusing on the game. He’s a remarkably modest, level-headed kid who is trying to take the hype in stride, sticking up for his teammates on the ice and passing the puck.

It’s that politeness, that leadership, that makes his mother Trina beam with pride whenever her son’s name is mentioned.

“He completely understands the concept of enjoying things while they’re here because he knows they could be gone tomorrow,” she says. “It’s neat for him to be a role model, and for kids to knock on our door at Halloween and say ‘Is Sid home?’ It’s neat for us too, for the kids to look up to our child like that.”

Now that the Games are over for Crosby’s Nova Scotia team, he’s going back to school for another three months to finish Grade 10. After that, he has a big decision to make about whether to jump into a Quebec Major Junior team or stay where he is and keep working. He’s not giving up any clues about what decision he’ll make, only promising that it will be the right choice for him.

“I’m trying not to worry about it right now. It’s something that will take a lot of time to decide, it’s a life decision and I’m not going to rush it. I’m just going to have fun playing hockey and at the end I guess I’ll have to figure out what I want to do with my life.”