Sunday, on national television, delivered stark relief—for most observers not named Sports Illustrated or ESPN—of the now plainly apparent contrast. From his first NHL shift Sidney Crosby skated with an air of entitlement, a prima dona’s presumption of protectionism. The ever-unassuming Ovechkin scores, screams, jumps for joy as if he’s scored his first-ever goal, and seeks to be buried in the embrace of teammates. But he also plays the game the way of its etched-in-stone-ethos: he’d just as soon hurt you with his shoulder as with his wrists. He plays with a readily apparent joy, and his greatest joy is celebrating with teammates and making his rink a breathtaking bowl of bedlam.

yes…Yes…YES!  And why are we putting all of our marketing efforts into a whiny, prima dona, hack, with the personality of a footbath?

Posted by Animal Drew from A Nightmare on Helm Street on 02/24/09 at 08:41 AM ET

Joke

Posted by Caedi on 02/24/09 at 09:15 AM ET

Crosby is Damned if he does, Damned if he doesn’t.
Ovechkin gets a Free pass.

However, the NHL does need to step up it’s marketing and tone down the Crosby hype a bit.  Give a push to AO and some of the other stars.  So many great players are complete unknowns in the states.  Selling the game on one guy makes it easy to fault the sport and that player.  If the NHL is going to claim it’s rightful spot back in the big 4, you can’t rely on one guy to get you there.  NFL, NBA, MLB, all have multiple faces to sell their games.

Posted by RussianRocket on 02/24/09 at 09:39 AM ET

Agreed.

Drop the “CROSBYCROSBYCROSBY!!!”.

Push Ovie.  Push Pav and Z.  Push Mike Richards more.  Push Rick Nash.  Push Anze Kopitar.  Push Steven Stamkos even.

But for god’s sake, get off the Crosby bandwagon before it careens into a playoffs-less ravine.

Posted by Primis on 02/24/09 at 10:30 AM ET

To be honest, I’d probably dislike Ovechkin if he was pushed as much as Crosby currently is. I have a natural aversion to being told who I should watch, like, and cheer for. As a lifetime hockey fan, I’m sure I can figure that out myself. The NHL helped create the Crosby backlash by shoving him down out throats, the rest he has done himself with his on ice behavior.

And I do like Ovechkin; I like his reckless abandon, set the ice on fire, got a problem with it go talk to Brashear, style of play. The guy is intense, and the only thing that sets him apart from the glorious power forwards of the past is his lack of dropping the gloves - and that’s not a knock on him, it’s just not part of his game.

By all means market this guy more, but market the other guys as well. There are other aspects to this game Gary, in case you forgot. How about the hard hitting defensemen, the cagey vets, the great back checkers, the skilled passers, the hot young goalies, and (dare I say it) the crashers and enforcers that are the fan favorites in every NHL city.

Posted by JAMESinMI on 02/24/09 at 11:24 AM ET

To be honest, I’d probably dislike Ovechkin if he was pushed as much as Crosby currently is.

Ditto.  There are a lot of good players, and fans are more interested in those they see more often, so choose a variety to promote and let fans follow their favorites.

I wonder if part of it isn’t the disconnect between the fans and the NHL office people - they might be more comfortable promoting the players that are more familiar to them, culturally and in personality, than players who are quite different and more exuberant, but resonate more strongly with fans because of that.

And some of the blame has to go to Crosby’s handlers.  He’s probably been coached to within an inch of his life as to how to appear in public since he was young, and any natural spontaneity has been suffocated.  It’s too bad.

Posted by Baroque from Michigan on 02/24/09 at 12:09 PM ET

Great article Paul.  Master of the obvious.  Jump on the OA bandwagon and kick Crosby.  Seems all the rage these days.  Does anyone think Crosby wants to be the face of the NHL?  What was he to do?  As someone else stated, damned if he does…..

No doubt right now AO is the better player.  Last year it was Malkin and or Crosby.  Next year. who knows??

Crosby is rightfully frustrated.  Although the national media somehow wants to pin the Pens plight on him, he is certainly not the reason Pittsburgh will likely miss the playoffs.

It’s pretty simple, the Caps are last years Pens.  Lets see if they can carry over their wonderful season into the playoffs.  Time will tell.

Posted by marty on 02/24/09 at 12:31 PM ET

Marty, you are of course entitled to your opinion, but I want to point out I did not write the article.

Posted by Paul from Motown Area on 02/24/09 at 12:34 PM ET

Great article Paul.  Master of the obvious.  Jump on the OA bandwagon and kick Crosby.  Seems all the rage these days.  Does anyone think Crosby wants to be the face of the NHL?  What was he to do?  As someone else stated, damned if he does…..

You do realize that Paul didn’t write it, he just linked to it, right?

Posted by Baroque from Michigan on 02/24/09 at 12:37 PM ET

I disagree that it’s anything but a mistake to push just any ONE player.

How’s that worked for the NBA?  Lebron James hasn’t been all that, IMHO.
How has that worked for baseball?  Oops, steroids…
How about the NFL?  “BrettFavreBrettFavreBrettFavre”... Oops, there goes another INT…

You don’t push ONE player… you push a good CROP of them.  Ideally a good /young/ crop.

Posted by Primis on 02/24/09 at 12:41 PM ET

Crosby reminds me a bit of Donovan McNabb, quarterback of the Philadelphia Eagles.  There is just something in his personality that rubs people the wrong way.  The NHL’s marketing campaign has made it way too easy to hate him. Its disappointing to me that Datsyuk and a whole bunch of other players weren’t even mentioned by NBC in listing the games best players. The league is so fortunate to have so many young and veteran players with such skill, passion and personality.

That said, Crosby is extremely talented and plays the game very hard.  He seems to have reached a bit of plateau this year, and I think he looks to pass too often and too early which has made him predictable.He is also playing with a lot less talent than Ovechkin or Datsyuk or Richards or Lecavelier, yet he is still putting up pretty good numbers. He has been expected to be the face of the NHL, pretty unfairly, since he was really a kid. Talk about being under the microscope (though I’ll gladly try it for 8.7 mil)  Lets be fair, while he rubs many the wrong way, he is not Terrell Owens, Barry Bonds or Ryan Leaf or Alexander Daigle.

The league is making a mistake putting so much emphasis on one, or even a few players. Gretzky’s (and Lemieux’s) dominance on the scoresheets will likely never happen again precisely because the quality of athlete from top to bottom is so strong now. Its pretty easy to make the case for a player being the world’s best when he is scoring twice as many points as the second place finisher.  Doing it now breeds too much resentment and is a bit like having all your money invested in the stock market.

I’ve mentioned before as a kid I was a huge Mike Bossy fan/ Wayne Gretzky hater.  As an adult and fan of the game, I have grown to like and appreciate Gretzky, his accomplishments, and how he acted as an ambassador for the game, but I still resent that Bossy (and the Islander dynasty in general) is essentially forgotten about because of Gretzky and the Oilers. The NHL is doing this to 29 other teams and their players and fans today.

Posted by dip from philly on 02/24/09 at 01:07 PM ET