Pittsburgh Penguins captain Sidney Crosby celebrates with teammates on the bench after scoring against the Edmonton Oilers during their NHL game in Edmonton last week. Crosby will lead Team Canada in defense of its gold medal at the Sochi Winter Olympics next month. Derek Leung / Getty Images / AFP

Heroics in 2010 turned 'Sid the Kid' into Canada's 'Sid the Savior'

The gold medal, the one that electrified a country and forever cemented Sidney Crosby as part of Canadian hockey royalty, is "tucked away" somewhere out of sight and, Crosby insists, out of mind.

While he has brought it out once or twice upon request, Crosby doesn't sit around holding it in his hand.

Sure, it was a "nice moment" -Crosby's go-to phrase when asked to describe his golden goal 7:40 into overtime in the 2010 Vancouver Olympics final against the United States - but it was just that, a moment.

"I've kind of moved on," he said.

Fate didn't give him much of a choice.

Crosby's glove-flinging celebration in the corner of Rogers Arena as Maple Leaf flags draped the stands in a sea of red and white capped his ascendant rise from Sid the Kid to Sid the Savior.

His goal provided a fitting bookend to Crosby's triumphant hoisting of the Stanley Cup eight months earlier, when the youngest captain in NHL history led the formerly moribund Pittsburgh Penguins to their first title in 17 years.

Four years later, on the surface not much has changed.

On the ice, the 26-year-old remains one of the top players in the world. He's the NHL's leading scorer for one of the league's premier franchises and is the unquestioned face of Team Canada as it looks to defend its gold medal in Sochi next month.

Off the ice he remains the ever-polite, ever-humble son of Cole Harbour, Nova Scotia, a man who refuses to get caught up in his own hype.

It all looks so normal these days, it is easy to forget just how close Crosby came to nearly losing it all. The launching pad Vancouver was supposed to provide for his evolution from superstar to icon instead turned into a cautionary tale.

Less than a year removed from his golden goal, Crosby's career was at a crossroads. Concussion-like symptoms sustained in a loss to Washington in the NHL's Winter Classic on Jan 1, 2011 turned him into a reluctant touchstone for head injuries.

As weeks turned into months and 2011 turned into 2012 and the symptoms persisted, he was forced to watch the game go on without him.

He missed two years in his prime, playing just 28 games during a 744-day span from Jan 5, 2011 to Jan 19, 2013, a bystander of sorts as teammate Evgeni Malkin, Chicago's Patrick Kane and Washington's Alex Ovechkin tried to wrest away Crosby's unofficial title of the game's best player.

It seems like a long time ago now. The questions that lingered when Crosby declared himself symptom-free at the end of the NHL lockout last January have vanished.

Ironically, he is one of the few players on the Penguins who have remained healthy this season as injuries have cost nearly a dozen regulars - including Malkin - significant playing time.

The Crosby who will wear No 87 in Russia looks an awful lot like the one who dashed to glory in Vancouver, only wiser and perhaps more comfortable in his own skin. More consistent, too.

"One of Sid's best abilities is to challenge himself and get better," said Penguins coach Dan Bylsma. "He's gotten better with his demeanor and the maturity with which he plays the game."

It's a maturity that's hard won.

Crosby has spent most of his life dealing with overwhelming expectations while trying to be deferential to his more experienced teammates. He never let it get to him in Vancouver, even though it was Crosby, and not veteran players like Jarome Iginla or Scott Niedermayer or Martin Brodeur, who faced the most scrutiny.

"He has gone through a lot," said Steve Yzerman, general manager of Team Canada.

"Playing in the Olympics in Vancouver was a tremendous experience for him. There was so much pressure on Sid - more so than anybody in the entire Canadian Olympic program - and he scored the winning goal. Four years later, he's going to be more comfortable."

Press Crosby on what could he possibly do to top what happened in Vancouver and the hockey nerd in him emerges.

He points to the long rivalry between Canada and Russia - dating all the way to the Summit Series in 1972 - and the unique challenge of trying to win Olympic gold in Russia.

"If you have a record in the Olympics prior to this one, you're not settling for that this time around," he said. "You want to do better."

And last he checked, two gold medals were better than one.

Ask Crosby if there is room in his house for a medal beside the one he grabbed in Vancouver and he nods.

"Yeah, 100 percent," he said with a laugh. "For sure, 100 percent."

(China Daily 01/19/2014 page11)