V. u18 jwc

The Rimouski Océanic owned the first pick in the 2003 QMJHL Draft, and team owner Maurice Tanguay was not going to sit idly by as American colleges wooed Sidney across the border.

The Océanic had struggled mightily the past season, winning only 11 games and scraping together 25 points, the worst record in the entire CHL. Landing a player of Sidney’s caliber could change everything, so Tanguay rolled out the red carpet [291].

As a first step, Pat Brisson and Sidney’s parents went to visit Rimouski as the Océanic’s guests. They were wined and dined by Tanguay and then invited to a home game to see the team play [291]. Tanguay got along incredibly well with the Crosbys and said it was “an extraordinary honeymoon” [321]. The Crosbys were equally impressed: Trina called right after their trip and told Sidney “...you’re going to love it here” [249, 1:36].  

“They adore their son and they want him to have a good career. I always have had a good relationship with the family. Sidney was like a son to me. We always chatted together.” - Maurice Tanguay, Rimouski Océanic owner [321]

There was a risk to the Océanic using their draft pick on Sidney. Much of their success in the coming season would hinge upon him, and if he chose NCAA hockey and refused to report to the QMJHL—as two players had the previous season—the Océanic would be out of luck. The Océanic had to be certain that if they took Sidney, he would report to training camp [291].

Sidney had long considered major junior hockey to be his primary path to the NHL [43]. At the training camp he’d participate in on P.E.I., he would ask Brad Richards about going to Rimouski and being an English-speaking kid in a French town [114]. At the 2002 World Juniors evaluation camp in Halifax, Sidney talked with Jason Spezza and Pierre-Marc Bouchard about what it was like to play major junior at a young age [272]. When he finally made his decision to commit to the Océanic, he was confident it was the right one. Nonetheless, a few rumors circulated that he was going to jump over to Europe to play. Troy and Trina denied the speculation, Troy telling the media, “There’s still a lot for Sidney to learn in juniors. It’s still the best place for him to develop” [66].

The Rimouski Océanic drafted Sidney first overall on June 7, 2003 [19, Taking the Game…, p. 79]. Sidney had splurged for the occasion on a new suit from Domenico Vacca of Giovanni Clothes in Montreal. Brisson had gotten Sidney in for a fitting, adding Sidney to the star-studded clientele Vacca served. Vacca had been working with NHL players for years, including many of the Pittsburgh Penguins—Mario Lemieux among them [225]. 

Sidney was proud at the draft, admitting that it had been a goal of his to be drafted first overall [256]. He’d woken up early that morning at 6:30 and hadn’t been able to sleep much after, but he calmed himself down only to wind himself back up when he got to the draft just after 9 a.m. and saw that the place was packed. Once his name had been officially called, he was finally able to relax [290].

“I set this goal, probably a year or two ago, and now that it’s here, it’s good, but I want more. I’m happy, but I don’t want to be complacent and just be happy to go No. 1. You’ve got to prove why you go No. 1. I have a lot to prove—I haven’t stepped foot in this league yet. I have to make sure when it’s time to play, I can prove that I deserved to be No. 1. Rimouski did their part. Now, I think it’s time to do mine.” - Sidney Crosby [290]

“Doing his part” would include facing intensified media demands when Wayne Gretzky told The Arizona Republic in June that Sidney could be the player to break his scoring records [19]. Sidney was told about the high praise over the phone by an interviewer, and he was momentarily stunned into silence before saying, “I hadn’t heard that. That’s something else. That’s pretty special for Wayne Gretzky to say that. I don’t think his records will ever be broken. That’s a compliment for him to say that for sure” [174].

Sidney was disbelieving of the praise. “There’s not going to be another Wayne Gretzky,” he insisted. “It isn’t even a question for me to put that kind of pressure on myself. He’s a once-in-a-lifetime player.” That didn’t stop him from using Gretzky’s comments as fuel, though. “I mean, to get a comparison like that is a compliment and, in a way, it motivates you,” he said. “People see something in you that maybe they don’t see in other guys” [333].

Sidney tried to insist that he was a normal 15-year-old both on the ice and away from the rink. The media was a necessary part of hockey, and so he’d handle it best as he could. “To be honest, the easiest way to describe it, I just try to deal with it when it comes, and just not think about it at all when it’s there,” he said about the attention. “I just try to stay level-headed, and just be normal” [256].

Normal was out of reach for Sidney by this point. Over the summer, Jack Johnson came up to visit Sidney in Nova Scotia and witnessed people camping out on the Crosby family’s property, sometimes slipping items under the door for Sidney to sign [55]. Sidney had to stop watching Taylor’s power skating practices because he kept getting swarmed at the rink [313]. 

The Crosby Effect was ramping up to full speed, and it bought Sidney a ticket to the international stage: the 2003 Junior World Cup.  

Sidney flew to Calgary, Alberta on August 1, 2003 to participate in Canada’s National Under-18 Summer Team Development and Selection Camp. He spent a week at the Father David Bauer Olympic Arena competing with 40 other boys for a place on the 22-player roster. Canada was aiming for an eighth straight victory at the U18 tournament, having won every gold medal in the competition since its inception in 1997 [186, 231]. Sidney was selected to the roster on his 16th birthday and was the only 1987-born player at camp [22, 141].

Held from August 11-16 in Breclav of the Czech Republic and Piestany, Slovakia, the Junior World Cup would be Sidney’s international hockey debut. He was a year younger than all of his teammates but expected to play a “pivotal” role on the team. “He’ll play a lot,” said Canadian head coach Bob Lowes. “He’ll be one of the go-to players offensively. He’s proven that through camp. I really think he’s a great kid and really well grounded. He’s a good person and being a good player is part of that” [141, 231]. 

“That was a central theme in Sidney Crosby’s life story to this point: he made anything possible. Moreover, he never seemed disheartened by long odds and daunting challenges. He was a little ball of positive energy.” - Gare Joyce, Canadian hockey writer [Taking the Game…, p. xiv-xv]

In Canada’s first game in the tournament, a narrow win over Finland on August 12, Sidney stole the show. With a tying goal late in regulation and the winning shot in the shootout, he led the Canadians to a 4-3 victory. Sidney was pleased with the win but would’ve preferred to end the game in overtime “because a team has more control of the way the game ends.” Even so, he had been confident going into the shootout because of Team Canada’s roster, saying “[we] have a lot of firepower and great goaltending” [161, 186, Most Valuable, p. 88].

The next day, Sidney was just as valuable against Switzerland—valuable enough to become a target. In the second period, at least three seconds after the play was whistled dead, Swiss forward Mathias Joggi cross-checked Sidney in the head, just above his temple. Sidney dropped to the ice face-first and barely moved [Taking the Game…, p. 86, Most Valuable, p. 91-92].

Only four sets of Canadian parents had come to Europe for the tournament, and the Crosbys were among them. Troy “was in full throat—the Swiss player should get tossed out of the game. Meanwhile... Trina covered her mouth, horrified...” as Sidney was helped up by his teammates and the team doctor. He “staggered to his skates and made his way woozily to the Canadian bench.” He slammed his stick against the boards and immediately started jawing at the Swiss. He missed maybe two shifts, if anything [Taking the Game…, p. 8-9, Most Valuable, p. 91-92]. 

When he was released back onto the ice, he was out for blood. Unlike Gretzky or Lemieux, he had a nasty streak, a willingness to finish every hit, and an ability to power through hooks and slashes. He wasn’t looking for revenge on the scoreboard; he wanted to show each and every player that he couldn’t be intimidated. As soon as he was back in the game, he “started running the biggest Swiss players he could find” [Taking the Game…, p. 9-10].

His third period performance was both grit and grace. With the game tied, Sidney scored once—disgracing two Swiss defensemen and shaking off a hook from a forward—and then twice. He wasn’t finished. He set up a beautiful goal to put Canada up 6-3 in a decisive win [198, Most Valuable, p. 92].

“What’s really great [about Sidney] is the fact that the kid looks after himself on the ice. He fights his own battles. He doesn’t just take it. He dishes it out. He’s fearless out there.” - Tim Burke, head of scouting for the San Jose Sharks [Most Valuable, p. 89]

Sidney had come to the tournament meaning business. From the start he had been easy to pick out at team practices, as he was often the only one taking the drills seriously [Taking the Game…, p. 4]. He was the first one on the ice and the last one off it, would attentively listen as coaches drew up power plays on whiteboards, and would ask for video footage and scouting reports on his opponents [Most Valuable, p. 94, Taking the Game…, p. 89]. To Sidney, representing Canada meant he had to compete harder: “Every time you step out on the ice,” he said, “your game should elevate even more by just wearing that jersey” [278].

He was wholly absorbed in the competition, including the micro-competitions that happened around it. During a volleyball warmup, he played with a sort of naive, youthful seriousness, as if he’d stay out in the boiling summer heat as long as he could to win. Though he was shorter than all his teammates at five-foot-nine, though he was younger than them all at 16, all he wanted was to win [Taking the Game…, p. 5]. In an ostensibly friendly game of ping pong with Devan Dubnyk, Sidney refused to leave the table, even though Dubnyk was an absolute shark and won game after game. Sidney “seemed sure that he was going to beat Dubnyk if he just tried harder, a self-belief that was childlike—perhaps not always ideal in the material world, but a virtue in the arena” [Most Valuable, p. 97].

“He was one of our best players if not the best player. I think he wants it real bad. He doesn’t like to lose. He wants to keep proving himself.”

- Bob Lowes, U18 Team Canada coach [196]

His teammates were impressed with his skill, if a bit befuddled. Summer tournaments like the Junior World Cup often produce a mixed bag of results. Players are put into new situations (and, in some cases, differently-sized rinks) that they don’t see in a regular season. Their lineups are “cobbled together with players who can barely keep their teammates’ names straight, let alone develop any on-ice chemistry,” and most players haven’t skated in game situations for months [Most Valuable, p. 90]. It can be difficult to garner a real appreciation for any player’s game.

Sidney, as he often did, set himself apart. He seemed to be “wired differently” in a way that allowed him to see things on the ice that other players couldn’t. “I'm telling you he’s the best player you’ll see all year,” said Tim Burke, an NHL scout for San Jose who was in attendance. “Nothing you'll see over here [in Europe] will measure up” [Taking the Game…, p. 4-7].

Wojtek Wolski of the Brampton Battalion in the Ontario Hockey League was one of Sidney’s linemates at the tournament. “I’ve never played with someone who does the things that [Sidney] does,” Wolski confessed. “He forces you not to take your attention off the puck for a second. It could be coming anytime” [Most Valuable, p. 93]. Every player on Team Canada could see how hard Sidney worked and how good it made him. None of the older boys resented Sidney’s increased ice time according to Wolski. “I never heard anybody complain. And nobody really can complain,” he said [Taking the Game…, p. 95].

They didn’t complain, but they also didn’t really connect with Sidney. Many of the other Canadians knew a few of their teammates from rep hockey or regional teams. Sidney was the only boy from the Maritimes, and moreover he was the only player who lacked the sort of hockey boy swagger that the others wore with pride. Sidney still dressed like he was “observing Shattuck’s dress code, while a few other teammates walked around in T-shirts with the sleeves cut off to reveal shoulder-to-wrist tattoos. [Sidney] was listening to country music, to Toby Keith and Shania Twain, while most of his teammates divided their listening between metal or hip-hop” [Most Valuable, p. 94]. 

Though Sidney was not lacking for friends—he had over 200 contacts on his MSN messenger: friends from back home, old teammates, boys he met at hockey camps—he was a fish out of water among his new teammates [Taking the Game…, p. 97-98]. Many of them were from regions with well-off teams and the culture that came with that sort of money—a “culture that often prices out even the middle class with $400 states, $100 sticks, and sundry other expenses that run up into thousands of dollars a season” [Taking the Game…, p. 99].

Sidney, meanwhile, “looked like he walked right out of a milk commercial, clean cut, freshly scrubbed” [Taking the Game…, p. 87]. Worse, though other boys’ parents had also come, was that Sidney spent comparatively more time with his parents during the tournament [Most Valuable, p. 94]. His coach tried to keep him involved; during the team’s breakfast routine where a trainer gave the players a riddle to solve, Coach Lowes specifically asked “Sidney, do you have it?” when Sidney was cut off by his teammates. Lowes didn’t do that for any other player—only for Sidney, the youngest, the Maritimer.

“...No,” Sidney said a little sheepishly. Even like this, Sidney didn’t want to be different [Taking the Game…, p. 88]. 

Sidney was incredibly self-aware. He did nothing on impulse or whim, and “as much as the spotlight found him on the ice, he seemed determined to get lost in the crowd and disappear into the background away from the rink” [Taking the Game…, p. 87]. It was hard to do while scouts watched him like a hawk and he had media appearances to juggle. He had to make Gare Joyce, a reporter, wait for an interview in his hotel room that he shared with Wolski and two other players while he called in to a radio station in Halifax. While Sidney tried to play down Wayne Gretzky’s compliments about him to the radio host, his teammates played noisily in the hallway with mock Uzis that shot plastic bullets. Sidney wasn’t amused [Most Valuable, p. 96]. 

The day after the win over Switzerland, Sidney woke up early and stared down at a Czech hotel breakfast: eggs floating in grease and a hot dog pretending to be a sausage. “I don’t want to get into any superstition that I can’t control,” he told a reporter. “I like my routines. I’m superstitious about a bunch of things. I dress right before left. After I finish working on my stick before a game I never let it out of my sight. I don’t just put it in the rack. But a pre-game meal, that’s something I can’t control” [Taking the Game…, p. 86-87].

His lackluster breakfast was a portent of what was to come. It was the Canadians’ third game in three days, and it would be a doozy against the host country [161]. The Junior World Cup in Breclav had “tough crowds, motivated home teams, and, worst of all, the shabbiest refereeing outside of professional wrestling.” On the ice, the Czechs elbowed and jabbed at Sidney relentlessly, setting up a neverending swarm of hooks and holds to stymie him. Sidney tried to get the attention of the refs; when that failed, he looked skyward, as if a divine power would give him a hand [Taking the Game…, p. 91].

Sidney’s parents were there to watch it all, Troy standing in the back of the stands while Trina socialized with the other Canadian parents. Troy’s mood was dark as he watched his son grapple with the Czechs, and he had little time for the media who sought his attention. As the family’s “gatekeeper,” it was his job to turn away those who wanted their time [Taking the Game…, p. 93].

“...during the second intermission I walked over to him and introduced myself. Troy stood up, revealing dimensions that suggested he might have been a hard-hitting defenceman or an enforcer and not a goaltender back in the day; his hands were like meat hooks, though he didn’t offer one to shake. He glowered when I mentioned I wanted to interview him. I told him I had spoken to one of Sidney's ‘advisors’ from IMG, J.P. Barry. That didn’t break the ice. ‘J.P. never mentioned you,’ Troy said, just before walking off.” - Gare Joyce, Canadian hockey writer [Taking the Game…, p. 92-93]

Troy’s poor mood had an understandable cause: the Czechs shut the Canadians out 3-0. The real insult would come after the game. This was only the preliminary round and wouldn’t hurt the Canadians’ chances in the elimination round. The Czechs, however, were gleeful after their win on home ice and sniffed out the Canadian dressing room to “[serenade] them with taunts.” Sidney waded into the inebriated crowd of fans and players to find his parents while the rest of his team waited inside. Though Sidney found his parents, they were all visibly shaken as the noise from the Czechs grew louder. The Canadian coaching staff summoned Sidney back inside, fearing a drunken fan might take a swing at him. The Canadians waited inside their locker room for an hour before the crowd dispersed [Taking the Game…, p. 93-94]. 

The mood of the tournament was growing tired and sour; the morning after the loss to the Czechs, the Canadians took a bus to Brno as a change of scenery from their countryside hotel. They wandered the city, taking a tour to a castle. The players seemed disinterested. Sidney, walking between his parents, spent most of the tour listening to Troy go over the previous night’s game [Taking the Game…, p. 94-95, Most Valuable, p. 94].

Things began sliding irrevocably downhill when the Canadians returned to the ice in Piestany. They faced Team USA in the semi-final. It was the latest installment in the U.S. vs. Canada rivalry, a matchup which often bred contempt, the brunt of which Sidney was about to bear [Taking the Game…, p. 102-104].

Sidney was slashed, elbowed, and punched wherever the Americans could find purchase. “They were counting on wearing him down and maybe even breaking him.” Luke Lucyk, the biggest U.S. defenceman at 6’1” and 210 pounds, wrestled Sidney down, pinning his back to the ice, a stick across his chest. Sidney, “who was contorted awkwardly as if he were locked into a submission hold,” looked seriously hurt until he started yelling at the refs for a call. He wouldn’t get one. In the words of an unsympathetic NHL scout at the game, this was simply the price Sidney would have to pay [Taking the Game…, p. 104-105, Most Valuable, p. 100-101].

“I don’t think about what's fair. I just make the most of whatever situation it is.”

- Sidney Crosby [Taking the Game…, p. 88]

It wasn’t just the American brutality that was wearing Sidney down. A heat wave had hit Piestany so badly that the ice was pooling into water in some areas of the rink. Temperatures outside the arena rose to a sweltering 86°F (30°C), and inside it wasn’t much better. The puck would sometimes get stuck in puddles during play [Most Valuable, p. 98-101]. Inexplicably, the Canadians had been provided only with carbonated water, which was impossible to drink mid-game. The Canadians played the full game without a single sip of water [Taking the Game…, p. 103-104, Most Valuable, p. 98-99].

Team Canada was down by one in the third, and Sidney—without either of his linemates, as Wolski was on crutches and Evan McGrath was limping—was sent out over the boards every other shift. His desperation was palpable, growing as the Americans hit him harder in response. With less than three minutes left, Sidney set up Mike Blunden for the tying goal [Most Valuable, p. 98-101, Taking the Game…, p. 105]. Sidney would get the overtime he had wanted for Canada’s first game of the tournament.

It wouldn’t last for long. Lucyk, of all players, threw a harmless-looking shot toward the Canadian goal, the first shot in overtime. It found the back of the net. The Canadians cried during The Star-Spangled Banner, having lost their chance to continue Canada’s gold medal streak. All they had left to compete for was bronze against the Czechs [Taking the Game…, p. 106, Most Valuable, p. 101]

Dehydrated and demoralized, the Canadians packed themselves back into their bus and headed to downtown Piestany for a post-game meal. They wound up at a smoky, jazz-themed restaurant. Posters of Billie Holliday, Miles Davis, and Duke Ellington stared down at them as they poked at their chicken-and-rice dinners. The lead singer of a cover band in the restaurant attempted to console them, saying in English, “We know you do not feel good tonight but you will be champions someday” [Most Valuable, p. 101-102, Taking the Game…, p. 106].

Sidney was quiet. He hated losing, enough that it was “a point of pride bordering [on] pathology for him.” He had come to Europe to continue his country’s dominant control over the Junior World Cup, and he had failed [Most Valuable, p. 101-102].

The Canadian team returned to Breclav to play for bronze. The morning of the game, the team arrived at the arena not to skate but to shower; the water was off at their hotel. Sidney was first out of their locker room, and he retreated to sit on the ground by the bus. 

“Rimouski called,” he said. “They want me to report [for training camp] right after the tournament. I was supposed to go home after the tournament for a couple of days to rest. I’ll have played six games in seven days. I’ll have flown from Halifax to Calgary for training camp to Vienna and back to Toronto and out to Quebec City or whatever. Get off the plane, go straight to practice. I’ve run out of clean clothes.” He paused. “That sucks” [Taking the Game…, p. 106-108].

Sidney was not an impulsive creature by nature. He had, however, been pushed to his limit, and on the bus behind him was the perfect object onto which he could channel his frustration. 

Team Canada’s bus driver was a local named Karl. Karl was not a particularly jovial man, and above his driver’s seat hung a Czech flag. The caterwauling that the Czechs had subjected the Canadian locker room to still pissed Sidney off. “The way they acted after the game made me sick,” he said. “We’re not riding to the game tonight with that thing there” [Taking the Game…, p. 108].

Sidney, though a bit of a black sheep among his teammates, had enough goodwill with them to stage a heist. Evan McGrath distracted Karl, luring him away from the driver’s seat by claiming the bus had a flat tire. Once Karl had rounded the back of the bus, Sidney balanced with one foot on Karl’s seat and the other on the steering wheel, reaching for the flag. McGrath stalled by making Karl check every single tire, and by the time Karl returned to his seat, the flag had been squirreled away. Sidney’s clean-cut, youthful appearance made his look of innocence all the more believable [Taking the Game…, p. 108-109].

The final hopes of Team Canada were crushed by the Czechs in the bronze medal game. The Canadians were loose cannons, trying to hit every Czech they could find. By the end of the second period, Canada had ten penalties. In the third, Sidney lost his composure and earned himself an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty. The home crowd jeered as he slammed the penalty box’s door. At the end of the game, Canada “rolled over and played dead,” losing to the Czechs 8-2 [Taking the Game…, p. 109, Most Valuable, p. 101].

Standing in the parking lot, in the echoing quiet of his most painful loss yet in hockey, Sidney was red-eyed, lingering next to the bus as Troy blasted Scott Salmond, Team Canada’s manager, about the Océanic demanding that Sidney go directly to training camp. Apparently the CHL and Hockey Canada had an “understanding” that had fallen through [Taking the Game…, p. 109].

“This was an embarrassment,” Sidney told a reporter about Team Canada’s ignoble loss. “I’ll always remember this. Next time you can write that we get the gold.” He boarded the bus, gave the flag back to Karl, and caught what little sleep he could [Taking the Game…, p. 110].

Rimouski was waiting.