Past and Present Players: Sidney Crosby and Wayne Gretzky

In the first installment of my Past and Present National Hockey League player comparisons, I'll take a look at two forwards with non-traditional hockey numbers, who took the league by storm in their respective eras.

Only seven players have reached the 100 point benchmark in their rookie season, only five players have represented the Canadian National Junior team at the age of 16, only two players have been among the Time Magazine’s Top 100 Most Influential People, and only two players have been deemed the saviors of the National Hockey League in their respective eras. If you haven’t figured it out already, I speak of the “Great One,” number 99, Wayne Gretzky, and the “Next One,” number 87, Sidney Crosby.

Wayne Gretzky, the native of Brantford Ontario, is widely considered to be the greatest National Hockey League player of all time. He set 40 regular-season records, 15 playoff records, 6 All-Star records, won four Stanley Cups with the Edmonton Oilers, and won 9 MVP awards and 10 scoring titles. While Sidney Crosby, who hails from Cole Harbour, Nova Scotia, doesn’t have a trophy case just as illustrious as Wayne’s just yet, he is in the process of writing a script that will in all likelihood land him a comfortable spot next to the “Great One” in the Hockey Hall of Fame. In almost every opposing city that Crosby visits, half the fans in the building come to watch the home team while the other half usually come to catch a glimpse of Crosby in person. No player has ever had such an everlasting positive effect on the game since Gretzky, and Crosby is barely out of his teenager years!

At the innocent age of seven, Sidney Crosby gave his first newspaper interview, during which, he already sounded like a seasoned veteran playing in the National Hockey League, “They say you have to do your best and work hard and things will happen. You can make it if you try." And at the age of fourteen, he appeared on the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation's Hockey Day in Canada. Sidney Crosby was quite possibly the most hyped up teenager trying to make the break into the National Hockey League, well at least since Wayne Gretzky was trying to do the same some thirty years ago. Crosby’s draft year was even more so hyped up because it came directly after the National Hockey League lockout which lasted an entire season. For that reason, Crosby’s fate was determined by a weighted lottery system rather than the traditional drafting system, in which the Pittsburgh Penguins drew the ball for the opportunity to draft “Sid the Kid” first overall.

In addition, this past week Sidney Crosby won the Lou Marsh Award which is awarded annually to the top Canadian athlete, professional or amateur. Only eight hockey players have won the award since it inaugurated in 1936 and among those eight including, you guessed it, Wayne Gretzky who won it four times. Crosby was the first hockey player to win the award since his mentor Mario Lemieux did in 1993. If I was a betting man, I would guess that this isn’t the last time that Sidney Crosby will win the Lou Marsh Award as the top Canadian athlete.

If you still don’t buy the Gretzky and Crosby comparison, consider this. During Crosby’s younger years, Wayne Gretzky was asked if he thought anyone would break his plentiful amount of records in the National Hockey League, he answered that Sidney Crosby could, and added that Crosby was the best player he had seen since Mario Lemieux. If the “Great One” compared himself to Sidney Crosby, there ought to be some validity behind the comparison.