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Sidney Crosby amassed a nice collection of NHL trophies in 2007. And by the end of the year virtually every media outlet in Canada had climbed on board of the Crosby bandwagon and named Sid some kind of Canadian athlete of the year.

The Penguins' captain is a great hockey player. But he was not the NHL's best in 2006-07 (or even in calendar year 2007). He got a lot of media attention in 2007 because he was a story — a league-leading 120 scoring points at the tender age of 19.

His hardware collection started with the Art Ross Trophy as the NHL's leading (point) scorer with 36 goals and 84 assists during the 2006-07 season. Then he added both the Hart Memorial Trophy as the "most valuable player to his team" (as selected by professional hockey writers) and the Lester Pearson Award as the NHL's "most outstanding player" (as selected by his peers, the players).

The Pittsburgh Penguins fueled the media fires by naming him as the youngest captain in NHL history. His stature grew when number 87 penned a contract extension averaging $8.7-million (U.S.) per annum.

Recently he became the first hockey player in 14 years to be named winner of the Lou Marsh Award, sponsored by the Toronto Star and selected annually by a panel of sports editors and broadcasters as Canada's "outstanding athlete". The Canadian Press also named Crosby winner of the Lionel Conacher Award as "male athlete of the year", with more sports editors and broadcasters doing the choosing.

Yes, a very good year for no-longer-the-kid Sid. And 2008 started quite nicely too — the key assist on the Penguins' lone regulation-time goal and a decisive shootout goal in the New Year's Day "Winter Classic" game staged for more than 71,000 fans and a North American television audience.

Sports editors, broadcasters and writers have a habit of turning shades of grey into black and white. When comparing athletes across sports, as is done in the Marsh and Conacher voting, there is little colour but grey to assess. Comparing the performance of a speed skater to a downhill skier to a hockey player is just about impossible. The media appear to resolve this by voting for 'the story'.

To qualify for consideration in these cross-sports comparisons an athlete needs to be the best in their sport. To win the award, an athlete must distance themselves impressively from their competition. Crosby hardly distanced himself from his peers. In fact he was not the NHL's true MVP in 2006-07.

First of all let's address the calendar year nature of these cross sports awards. Crosby won his recognition based on 'the story' — the confluence of his youth, which has nothing to do with excellence, and his leadership in the 2006-07 season scoring race:

But if you look at scoring in the calendar year 2007, the picture is different. Vincent Lecavalier is the NHL's leading point, and goal, scorer:

The Art Ross Trophy goes to the NHL's leader in scoring points, where a goal and an assist have equal weight. But there are nearly twice as many assists per goal in the NHL and, as there are no assists without a goal, few believe that an assist is as valuable.

Hockey analysts use a measurement I call "goals created" that better balances the value of goals and assists. The leaders (based on my version of goals created) from the 2006-07 season:

Again, no victory for Crosby.

If we simply focus on scoring we have missed other critical dimensions of the game. To evaluate the total impact of a player on a team you need to use an approach like my Player Contribution method that awards points for scoring, defence and goaltending in proportion to the impact of performance on points in the standings (ten PC points equal one point in the standings). The leaders in player contribution points, amongst skaters, during the 2006-07 season:

This most comprehensive assessment of impact on winning says that the "most valuable player to his team" during the 2006-07 season was Lecavalier in an admittedly close race (note that I have excluded goaltenders from this review). Crosby sits in sixth place in this appraisal. He is close to the lead offensively but displays the weakest defensive contribution on the leader board (Lecavalier and Hossa are no defensive gems but do stay out of the penalty box, unlike Crosby).

Crosby is doing exceptional things at a very young age. Earlier this year I predicted that Crosby would finish his career second in (point) scoring to only Wayne Gretzky. Although his performance this season lags slightly that of last year, it continues to support my view.

But Crosby was named by the media as Canada's top athlete in 2007 because of 'the story'. The media first made him into a hero and then lauded his heroics. The story was fulfilled.