The story of Sidney Crosby might be that of any Canadian boy with the fanciful dream of playing the national pastime. He learned to skate shortly after he learned to walk. His parents dutifully drove him to countless practices in the cold dark hours before sunup. The boy improved. He got good.
But almost as soon as the tale begins, it veers sharply in a direction different from what it does for most boys.
The 16-year-old from Cole Harbour, N.S., tearing up the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League in his rookie season with the Rimouski Oceanic, has become the most alluring hockey prospect on the continent and is streaking toward, if nothing goes wrong, a dizzying future.
Entering last night's game against Cape Breton Screaming Eagles, Crosby had 27 points -- 14 goals and 13 assists -- in 13 games. Continue apace and he will finish the 72-game season with 150 points, putting him in elite company and beyond. He is second in league scoring behind 20-year-old right winger Jean-Michel Daoust of the Gatineau Olympiques, who has two more points in four more games.
Crosby's story is unfolding perfectly so far.
He was the first pick in the QMJHL midget draft in the summer. Toast of his teams at the Air Canada Cup and the Canada Games, he is bursting with hope and promise and courting the inevitable comparisons.
This year, Wayne Gretzky called the 5-foot-10, 175-pound centre "dynamite" and the best player he has seen since Mario Lemieux. The Hockey News anointed him the Next One. And though he is not eligible for the National Hockey League draft until 2005, when he is expected to be chosen first, scouts are already drooling.
But much can happen en route to the NHL, and even more once arrived. For every Great One, there is an Alexandre Daigle, a player who burns brightly and flames out in short order.
Crosby, who had 72 goals and 90 assists in 57 games at a Minnesota prep school last season, gets this. He understands potential is simply that -- something you build on rather than hard currency. So he does not think too much about his future.
"I try not to," he said. "It's important that I don't. I'm still young, and it's important that I try to enjoy being 16 and playing hockey in junior. Right now, it's all I want to worry about. A couple years down the road, if I'm drafted, that's great, but I have a long way to go before that happens. I'm trying to live in the present and take care of it."
Crosby made his first visit to Halifax on Thursday as the Oceanic beat the Mooseheads 2-1 in a game that saw the beloved hometown hero contribute one assist, nothing like some of the multipoint games he has been having. But he set up the game winner and caused a turnover that set up the other goal. Crosby's appearance drew the Mooseheads' first sellout crowd -- more than 10,500, counting several hundred relatives and family friends.
You could not blame the crowd for cheering this opposing player most of the night. The season is young, but Crosby was chosen as the campaign's first Canadian Hockey League player of the week after earning nine points in four games. He earned back-to-back QMJHL weekly honours after collecting 10 goals and eight assists in his first eight games.
Crosby began playing organized hockey at the age of 5. He did his first interview at 7. At 10, he scored 159 goals in 55 games in atom and finished the season with 280 points. He wears sweater number 87, for his birthday, Aug. 7, 1987. He had dozens of scholarship offers from U.S. colleges, but after much agonizing, decided major junior was the quickest route to the NHL.
He possesses hockey instincts beyond his years He sees the ice and anticipates the puck and the play in the manner of No. 99.
But his off-ice smarts are even more impressive. He is charming, forever cheerful, poised and savvy with the reporters documenting his rise.
So many wanted a piece of his time in Halifax, that the Oceanic organized a news conference. Yanic Dumais, a long-time front-office staffer with the Oceanic, said he has never seen anything like it.
"I just play hockey and take care of stuff when it comes," Crosby said. "If I'm doing well, it's because I am doing what I'm doing. If I stop that, I won't be so successful. I keep trying to play the way I know how and handle the other stuff as it comes along. It's all part of it."
Crosby credits his family for keeping him grounded.
"It's been amazing my parents sacrificed a lot," he said. "Up early in the morning, driving me to the rink. Never complained when they had to buy me hockey gear. I always had good equipment. Sometimes that wasn't so easy for them, and without that, I wouldn't be here today."
But his family says they had a lot to work with.
"We just tried to raise him to be a good person and treat people with respect and not think he's better than anyone else," said his father, Troy, a former goaltender with Verdun and a Montreal Canadiens draft pick, 240th overall in 1984. "He was pretty good from the get-go. He never had that age where you skate on your ankles. He always held a stick and shot the puck really well. You could always tell he was better, but I never dreamed where he'd go."
It is family Crosby longs for on the road. He misses his seven-year-old sister, Taylor, and spent the night before the Mooseheads game hanging out with his parents and reading books with her.
A 90 per cent student, he spends most of his time when he's not at the rink doing schoolwork and says he doesn't have a girlfriend because he's not a regular high-school student.
Still, he loves Rimouski, a hockey-mad city of 50,000. He is trying to learn French.
But he refuses to set personal hockey goals. It's too much to think about. He figures the points will come as long as he is consistent.
But he has been saving many of the pucks that mark achievements, scooping the rubber that scored his first QMJHL goal and his first hat trick -- all of which occurred in the first game.
If he keeps picking them up, Crosby will have more pucks than he knows what to do with.
His story has only just started.
WHEN THEY WERE YOUNG\
A look at how some of the great hockey forwards fared in their rookie junior or college seasons.
Name - Club, (League and year), Games played, Goals; Assists, Points
Guy Lafleur - Quebec Jr. Aces (QJHL, 1967-68) - 43 GP, 30 G, 19 A, 49 Pts.\
Wayne Gretzky - Soo Greyhounds (OHA, 1977-78) - 64 GP, 70 G, 112 A, 182 Pts.\
Mark Messier - St. Albert Saints (AJHL, 1977-78) - 54 GP, 25 G, 49 A, 74 Pts.\
Steve Yzerman - Peterborough Petes (OHL, 1981-82) - 58 GP, 21 G, 43 A, 64 Pts.\
Mario Lemieux - Laval Voisins (QMJHL, 1981-82) - 64 GP, 30 G, 66 A, 96 Pts.\
Pat Lafontaine - Verdun Juniors (QMJHL, 1982-83) - 70 GP, 104 G, 130 A, 234 Pts.\
Joe Sakic - Swift Current Broncos (WHL), 1986-87 - 72 GP, 60 G, 73 A, 133 Pts.\
Eric Lindros - Oshawa Generals (OHL, 1989-90) - 25 GP, 17 G, 19 A, 36 Pts.\
Paul Kariya - Maine Black Bears (NCAA, 1992-93) - 39 GP, 25 G, 75 A, 100 Pts.\
Joe Thornton - Soo Greyhounds (OHL, 1995-96) - 66 GP, 30 G, 46 A, 76 Pts.\