Celebrity on Ice

by John Gorman
Love of Sports Correspondent

Hey guys! Sidney Crosby here.

How’d you like my game three explosion? Pretty sensational, right? I’d been lurking in the weeds for two whole games just to bust out a night like that.

See, it’s not enough that I provide the NHL with unprecedented excellence in my infantile age. Sure, I could have made Octopus soup by skating circles around those Swedish bums that the Red Wings call their “defense,” scoring goals and setting up Hossa like I was an obese Polish pipe-fitter at a Comedy Club. However, there’s no ka-ching(!) in a short series. There’s no excitement when the only adversity you face is trying not to trip over your own goaltender when emerging from the locker room for the pregame skate.

Sustained excellence is boring, friends! Do you remember when the Red Wings and Devils were sweeping teams out of the finals in the late 90’s and early 00’s? I pop in one of those highlight reels when I need a cure for my insomnia. My teddy bear helps, too… a little.

So before this year’s Stanley Cup, I did the only thing I possibly could. I got on the phone with my boy Gary Bettman and gave him my word that I’d turn up the juices later on in the finals. Look, the commish may finish first in a Kevin Spacey look-alike contest, but he’s more of a Keyser Soze than a Verbal Kint. The man knows what’s at stake here. We need a seven-game series this time around, with Malkin and I playing starring roles, so that the NHL can ride my shiny coattails to national prominence again.

He informed me that the perfect way to achieve maximum flair for the dramatic was to inject some much-needed finesse and fight into this series starting in game three. Did you see my two goals? They were beauty, eh? That’s exactly the type of riveting theatre this league so desperately needs. Of course it was going to be I who provided it. Who did you expect? Sergei Gonchar?

Imagine what would happen if I score the overtime-winner in game seven. TV ratings will go through the roof! I’m going to max out all my endorsement deals. An entire new generation of hockey fans will be lining up at the turnstiles in arenas across the country, hoping to catch a glimpse of “Hockey Jesus.” I’m going to be swimming in women - cougars who want to feel young and wild again, and college-coeds who have posters of me up on their dorm room walls, right next John Mayer and Shia LeBeouf.

I’m going to be sipping on some Alize from the Stanley Cup in Cabo while my agent, mistress, coach and the Prime Minister all wait on hold. I can picture myself going five-hole on some puck-bunnies all summer long.

You better recognize my skills, friends. The Crosby era is imminent. Watch me go off in game four to the tune of another goal and three assists. It’s gonna be sweeter than licking honey off a powdered waffle cone!

“The Kid” doth becometh “The Man.”

No way am I the next Wayne Gretzky; I am the first Sidney Crosby.