A NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR
It’s hard to end a project like this.
The first time I sat down to write this author’s note, it came out comical and put-upon. Oh, how ridiculous am I for writing something this intense and in-depth? That isn’t the final impression I want to leave any readers with. I shouldn’t minimize my own work and passion. I’m so fiercely proud of this biography.
I worked on BOY KING for three years—not consistently; this project lived and breathed in bursts and spurts. I would pick it up and put it down, gathering more sources as they rose to the surface.
During those three years, my life changed dramatically. When you’re my age, three years is a long time. When I wrote BOY WONDER, I was a very lonely, very sad college student. Three years later, as BOY KING hits the internet, I’m in a new city—a new state—graduated and employed and happy.
In 2018, I procrastinated on my finals by frantically writing a primer, sitting at my cramped dorm desk and wishing I was anywhere else. In 2021, as we emerge from a global health crisis, I sit on my couch, grateful to be where I am. What a treat that is. What a privilege that this project has carried me on its wings for so many nights.
Hockey changed my life. It’s given me friends, community, a new start. Through it all, torchtoburn has remained largely secret. It’s hard to open up about what you really love, and I love doing this. Only a few friends know about it, and even though I’ve bored coworkers to tears talking about Sidney Crosby’s childhood and confused my parents by trying to explain the tangled web of my research, I’ve kept the scope and heart of this project mostly to myself.
Mostly.
I’ve been so lucky to open up to a few cherished friends over the last year. They listened to my fears and worries about this project. They provided happy encouragement and hours of proofreading through four rounds of edits. That’s exactly what has made a lifelong hockey fan out of me: the people I find through this sport.
Thank you to everyone, from my editors to my friends to my coworkers to each and every one of you reading this biography.
And, of course, thank you to Sidney Crosby.
Gushing is uncouth, isn’t it? It feels immature. It makes me feel exposed. But, in the spirit of being earnest—the same earnest dedication and interest that fueled me for three years—I’ll say this:
I love boy wonder narratives. I love prodigy narratives. I love stories of young people being placed under unreasonable conditions and seeing if they thrive or crumble.
And Sidney Crosby is a story. He’s a miracle of placement: right time, right place, right person. His entry into the NHL could not have been better timed. He wouldn’t be who he is culturally if not for the precise timing of his life. What luck that being born on 8/7/87 would literally situate him perfectly to assume the mantle of the NHL’s golden boy in the return of the league after a lockout. The number that he ascribes some sort of magical thinking to actually matters. It’s fantastic.
Sidney isn’t as much of a divisive figure as he used to be. The Stanley Cup repeat in ‘16 and ‘17 finally cemented him as one of the greats. His past transgressions and temperament were largely overwritten by fawning articles.
That wasn’t quite what I wanted, though. People seemed more inclined to say He’s grown up now, he’s not so immature anymore, as if they wanted to brush aside who Sidney was when he was younger—as if the boy who entered the league was just a whiny kid who needed to become a man.
That wasn’t what I saw. When I looked at that emotional spitfire in the ‘05-’06 season, I saw a person who’d already lived an extraordinary life by the age of 18. I felt like I knew something these people didn’t. There was an exceptional person buried under all the media narratives and popular opinions. Beneath it all, there was the boy who loved hockey so much, more than anything.
He’s grown up now, but he makes so much more sense when you see a glimpse of that boy beneath the surface.
I loved working on BOY KING, even when my wrist started aching from scrolling through newspaper databases, even when I had to purge my hard drive to cram more video footage onto my laptop, even when I went cross-eyed from scribbling on my iPad for hours. This project has meant so much to me, and it’s sort of daunting to release it out into the world.
Nonetheless, here it is. I hope you love it as much as I do.
And, because I can’t quite bring myself to end this with an entirely straight face, here:
