The wait was worth it. The pomp. The circumstance.
Montreal at its loudest and its best for hockey. Mario Lemieux standing at centre ice before the game, almost blushing from the sound of the crowd, his crowd in his city, his face growing more like the colour of the goal light as one of hockey’s greatest was applauded in the place he grew up, in the place that invented hockey atmosphere.
The wait was worth it, the eight years since the last World Cup of hockey, the 10 years since a one-sided Olympics was played not far from the beach in Russia. Sidney Crosby then. Sidney Crosby now.
Sidney Crosby forever.
He scored the Olympic winning goal in 2010 in overtime in Vancouver. He scored in the 3-0 shutout gold medal win in Sochi. He didn’t score on Wednesday night in Team Canada’s hold your breath, 4-3 overtime win over Team Sweden in a game that was close to putting Canada on the brink in the 4 Nations Face-Off tournament.
He didn’t score a goal himself — all he did was set up three of the four Canadian goals. He did that when it wasn’t certain he’d be playing in Game 1. He did that as the elder statesman on Team Canada, years older, years slower now than Nathan MacKinnon and Connor McDavid, but to date, he is also years smarter. He did that on another big night for Nova Scotia: MacKinnon scored, Brad Marchand scored.
And this is who Crosby is and what Crosby does. For all his hockey life. This stage wasn’t supposed to be his here: He’s supposed to be a best supporting actor in this show. With MacKinnon leading the NHL in scoring and McDavid being thought of as the best hockey player on the planet.
And Crosby, the captain of Team Canada, finding ways to do things no one else sees or discovers or even attempts.
His first assist came from a behind the back, almost blind, backhand pass, enabling MacKinnon to score on an early power play.
His second assist came with Gustav Forsling, one of the sharpest defencemen in hockey, draped all over him. Crosby had no room, had no real play to make, except somehow he protected the puck, somehow he did what Sidney has been doing for the past 20 years, he created room and space for himself when there was no room or space. The puck was fed to Mark Stone, playing for the first time with Crosby, who scored and gave Canada a 3-1 lead.
It was a lead that wouldn’t hold up until Crosby made the unlikely pass behind centre ice to Mitch Marner, who wasn’t a factor most of the night, but took advantage of Crosby’s vision and the open ice in front of him, and he wound up scoring with 1:06 to play in a 10-minute overtime with the kind of shot you rarely see from Marner.
That was Marner’s biggest moment in Montreal hockey and when the game ended, the crowd began simultaneously chanting Crosby’s name. Before he was named game’s first star. Before he was named player of the night. The kid from Cole Harbour, not a kid anymore at the age of 37 in his 20th NHL season, almost looked a touch embarrassed to be centre of attention. Like he always seems to be.
Team Canada almost blew out the Swedes in the first period of Game 1 and almost blew the game in the third period and overtime, leaving some concerns for coach Jon Cooper to work through over the next two days.
But this isn’t like the great Swedish teams, like the one that won Olympic gold in 2006. There are no Mats Sundins on Team Sweden, no Peter Forsbergs, no Nick Lidstroms, no Sedin twins, no Henrik Lundqvists in goal, not that Filip Gustavsson wasn’t overly sharp in goal in the overtime loss to Canada. Team Canada almost lost in the third period and almost lost in overtime and Jordan Binnington, after letting in a softy or two, was very sharp when the game was on the line.
But anyone watching this, this opening tournament game in this short form of a tournament with only seven games and four teams involved. This return for NHL players in a competition like this one, this kind of excitement and passion, a passion made better because it’s hockey in Montreal where there isn’t a lot of significant games played anymore, and if Wednesday night was good, expect Thursday and Saturday to be even better.
This is how we like our hockey now. This is what we’ve been missing for far too long, and it just gets better with so much at stake, with so much noise, with Montreal being Montreal, overtime being overtime, Sidney Crosby being Sidney Crosby again.
Welcome back to the international game. It’s so nice to see you again.
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