BOSTON — When Drew Doughty got his first taste of best-on-best hockey, he was the youngest member of Team Canada at the 2010 Vancouver Olympics, and things didn’t start so well for him.
Naturally, it was a conversation with one of the “veterans” that helped him reverse course and turn the event into a career-shifting experience.
Never mind that the player was just two years, four months and one day older than Doughty. It was the type of player who was born a veteran.
It was Sidney Crosby.
“He was young,” Doughty recalls, “but I remember after one of our first practices I was walking onto the bus and he was like, ‘Hey, come sit beside me.’ That was the first time I had a real conversation with him. He knew I was nervous as hell, and he brought me in and sat me down.”
On the surface, that’s a pretty simple anecdote. But it starts to take on more heft once you see the pattern repeat itself again and again in stories shared by Canadian players and staff who have worked with Crosby under the searing heat lamp of the national team environment.
In addition to the physical and mental gifts that made him one of the sport’s few truly generational players, the 37-year-old possesses a level of awareness and emotional intelligence that have taken him to another level entirely.
As close friend Nathan MacKinnon puts it: “I’m sure there’s a lot of successful people that no one really wants to be around, but guys just gravitate towards him. He’s got an awesome personality. He’s a great storyteller. He’s just a fun guy to be around.”
It’s no coincidence that Crosby now finds himself in position to claim a fourth consecutive best-on-best tournament victory when Canada faces Team USA in the championship game of the 4 Nations Face-Off on Thursday night.
His ability to connect with teammates shines through most in short-term, high-pressure tournaments, where even NHL stars battle nerves. Not only does Crosby understand how to bring a team together, but also he helps keep it together when the pressure spikes. Remember that these events typically feature multiple single-game eliminations, an outsized amount of attention and the uncertainty built into a game decided by a bouncing piece of rubber on ice.
“When he’s in your locker room, you always think you’re going to win,” says former teammate Matt Duchene of Crosby, with whom he won an Olympics, a world championship and a World Cup.
“It’s just the aura he gives off in there. The quiet intensity and confidence he has — you know there’s no moment too big for him. Even if he maybe feels nerves or whatever inside, he sure doesn’t show it.”
Even as the oldest participant at the 4 Nations, Crosby continues to demonstrate an impeccable sense of timing. When Finland scored twice with its goalie pulled on Monday afternoon, it was Crosby who halted the freight train by delivering an open-ice hit on Mikael Granlund before firing the puck into an empty net.
“He’s a leader,” teammate Brandon Hagel says. “He’s the best in the world, in my opinion. There’s no guy that does it like him — the way he portrays himself and how humble he is. It’s incredible to watch. Even last night, it gets a little close, who is it that puts the icing on the cake?
“It’s Sid.”
This has been a different national team experience than those that came before it.
MacKinnon says it’s Crosby’s first time playing with a team full of his biggest fans and, while half-joking, that sentiment rings true. Doughty and Brad Marchand are the only players he’s previously won with. And ask the younger players on the roster about their personal encounters with No. 87 during this event and they light up.
Mitch Marner says his overtime winner over Sweden was surreal because it came on an assist from his boyhood hero. Thomas Harley calls Crosby a “god,” adding, “You’ll go blind if you look at him too long.” And 23-year-old Seth Jarvis is still buzzing about the fact Crosby took the time to introduce himself following a Carolina Hurricanes-Pittsburgh Penguins game in January.
“Well, f—,” Jarvis says. “I wasn’t about to approach him. I’d be a little starstruck.”
Those personal touches go a long way toward creating a comfortable team environment.
Ryan Getzlaf, who won two Olympic gold medals alongside Crosby and now serves as Hockey Canada’s player relations adviser, says, “Sid’s a different cat” in a best-on-best setting because of how eager he is to diagram plays and break the game down to a minute level.
Asked if that would be intimidating for a team of players who grew up idolizing him, Getzlaf replies: “No, not at this level. If he’s talking to you, you probably feel good.”
At his core, Crosby is a details guy.
Nathan MacKinnon and Sidney Crosby have been among Canada’s top 4 Nations performers. (Maddie Meyer / Getty Images)
When he met Hockey Canada executive Scott Salmond for breakfast in Calgary in October, Crosby already knew which countries were seeded in the same pool as Canada at the 2026 Milan Olympics. He asked questions about club teams playing in the Champions Hockey League in Europe. Salmond doesn’t think he’s ever had a more thorough discussion with a player.
Throughout the 4 Nations tournament, head coach Jon Cooper has raved about Crosby’s impact on the group. While wanting to keep specific details in-house, he notes that a book could be written about the way his captain conducts himself and helps put the team in position to win.
“There’s no shock or surprise about why this kid has won as much as he has,” Cooper says. “There’s not a flaw in him, in any way. You talk about cool things to be a part of. This is a cool thing to be a part of because he’s here.”
As a reminder of how long Crosby has been doing this for Canada: Cooper was still coaching in the USHL when he scored the Golden Goal in Vancouver. Crosby’s the only member of the Triple Gold Club to complete all three legs as a captain, and Scott Niedermayer, the last man to wear the country’s “C” before Crosby, believes he was ready to be a leader even as a 22-year-old under an intense spotlight at the 2010 Games.
“He could have been captain in Vancouver, too,” Niedermayer says. “He understood what it took to have success not only as an individual but probably more importantly as a team.”
The national team has gone 47-6 with Crosby in uniform, dating to the 2004 World Juniors. Prior to that, he once served as a stick boy for a Canadian world junior summer camp in Halifax.
You can take the boy out of Cole Harbour, Nova Scotia, but fame and fortune never took any of the Cole Harbour out of Crosby.
Marchand could only chuckle during a recent dinner at his buddy’s house in suburban Pittsburgh when he walked into the living room and saw a rocking chair made entirely out of wood from Halifax.
“That’s what he sits in every day,” Marchand says. “He’s just a very down-to-earth guy, which at his level and the things that he’s accomplished doesn’t happen often. A tremendous amount of respect for him.”
Everyone here does.
There are no shortcuts to the unfathomable heights Crosby has climbed. His trophy case is spilling over, and still he grinds on for more, putting up five points in three games during a 4 Nations tournament where he’s played through injury. He’s built a compelling argument to go down as the most accomplished Canadian men’s hockey player of all time.
Crosby believes the best leaders command a room simply by being themselves, and so as the hours and minutes tick down to puck drop on Thursday’s 4 Nations championship he won’t stray from a highly focused and concentrated gameday routine. And any teammate looking in his direction will have full confidence that Captain Canada is ready to lead the way.
“He has a calming effect,” Duchene says. “I remember at the (2014) Olympics really feeling that way. I was 22 years old and looking at him and guys that had been there, done that, that helps you feel a little bit more brave going out there representing Canada.”
(Top photo: Vitor Munhoz / Getty Images)
