Sidney Crosby marked his 32nd birthday Wednesday by giving fans a rare treat.
The Penguins captain, who typically takes a low profile publicly, opened up in a long-form interview with former teammates Ryan Whitney and Paul Bissonnette, hosts of Barstool Sports’ Spittin' Chiclets hockey podcast.
The trio covered a variety of topics about Crosby’s life on and off the ice. Some, including his preference for privacy, were serious.
“I always felt like hockey was so scrutinized,” he explained. “There’s so much expectation that came with that, and there was a certain level of, when it came to my personal life, I just liked having that for me.”
Other moments were much lighter and, in trademark Barstool fashion, a bit crass.
For example, Crosby famously lived with Penguins owner Mario Lemieux early in his career. The arrangement was immensely helpful in his transition to superstardom, but it also wasn’t without its, uh, crappy moments.
“They convince me get a dog right away,” Crosby said. “So I was like, I don't know if I need a dog right now. I can barely do my own laundry. So they convince me to get a dog. I have a puppy, still have the puppy to this day. Fourteen-year-old Sam. But anyways, so I come back after the game and I smell something. I’m like, ‘What is that?’ The puppy definitely [relieved himself] somewhere in the house, and I've got to find out where this is.
“So I'm looking everywhere, like all over the house, and finally I come around the corner, and [Lemieux] is cleaning up all of this [waste]. Like everywhere in the kitchen. I'm like, ‘Oh my God.’ So embarrassing. Mario Lemieux's cleaning up my dog [waste.] Like, this is so backwards, this should not be happening."
Probably not! But the relationship has worked out pretty well regardless, as Crosby has led the Penguins to three Stanley Cups since.
Those runs provided plenty of fodder for discussion, too. Here are some of the hockey talk highlights.
● On his personal rivalry with Washington star Alex Ovechkin: “We've been kind of built up against each other from Day 1, but we've had some good moments and bad ones. But that just comes with playing against him so much.
“I think it's just it's an easy story line, right? You’ve got the Canadian kid, the Russian kid. The rivalry there between just two totally different people as far as personalities are concerned."
● On goalie Marc-Andre Fleury’s final years with the Penguins, when he lost his starting job to Matt Murray at a couple different points: “We kind of take that for granted, but the way he handled it ... I mean, you couldn't handle it any better. And especially being a goalie, there's that little, you know, it's a little different, a little more competitive in that position.
“It automatically wasn't a distraction. Obviously you feel for him; we're teammates. He got us to that point and we didn't know [in the 2017 playoffs] if they're going to rotate [when Murray returned from injury], if Murray was gonna go all the way. So you try not to read into it too much. It's part of the position, and we just try to go with it. But it worked out."
● On the infamous “bad breath” comments by Nashville’s P.K. Subban during the 2017 Stanley Cup final: “I was a little irritated, yeah. I mean, I think you could tell at the time when I was doing the interviews. It's just like the last thing I wanted to be talking about. But I mean, maybe that was part of it.
“That's just kind of little. You know, that's just mind games. It’s nothing. Me and him had some good run-ins throughout the whole series. I was playing a lot against him. You know, I don't have anything against him for that. I just got kind of annoyed that I had to answer."
The hour-plus conversation also included plenty of superstition talk and discussion of former teammates. It’s worth a listen, because Crosby does not speak this openly often.
Adam Bittner: abittner@post-gazette.com and Twitter @fugimaster24.
First Published: August 7, 2019, 4:34 p.m.
