Olympic Hockey, Random Thought (or Thoughts) 2

• I adore Scott Niedermayer. Scott Niedermayer spent YEARS playing for a franchise that ruined hockey (I despise what Jacques Lemaire & the NJ trap did to hockey for approximately a decade), and I have always, perpetually, consistently adored Scott Niedermayer. And just listening to that wonderful interview, I still love Scott Niedermayer. Calm, cool leadership. Strong head on his shoulders. An absolutely great player, made even greater by the way he's always carried himself.

• I'm a lifelong fan of the Pittsburgh Penguins, and I think most of the "whining" of which Sidney Crosby was once accused was blown way out of hysterical proportion. Still, there was an interesting juxtaposition in and after the first period. Near the end of the first period, an NBC camera caught Sidney Crosby doing what Crosby can do: voice his emotions. Loudly. Clearly. A Crosby "detractor" might claim that Crosby was "complaining" or "whining."
  

I don't think Crosby "whines" or "complains" so much as he is--even at 22, captain of the defending Cup champs--still a young man driven primarily by emotions. He's learned how to harness his emotions, most of the time. But, simply put, Crosby's an emotional player. Always has been, always will be. And in that glimpse of Crosby's emotion--juxtaposed with Scott Niedermayer's calm and cool interview after the first period--I can't help but believe that Steve Yzerman made the right choice when he chose the captain for the 2010 Olympic team.

Not that Crosby would have been a bad captain, or a poor choice for captain. Not that Crosby's on-ice play--how far he raises his game to the level of superstardom--isn't going to play an important part in whether Canada captures gold. But just a simple note that Crosby's still a young man, still, in some sense, growing up, and that while it's an old hockey cliche, when it comes to a short-term tournament played in a home country with all the pressure on, if I'm putting together a team, I want the leader who answers the bell after an unexpected first period tie to be the perpetually cool and controlled defenseman who's done it all and seen it all and who, while offering up some of the same platitudes Crosby would have offered in such an instance, had the international and NHL experience to back up the truth of those uttered platitudes.

Tangential, related aside, prompted by the fact that the Olympics inspire me to dream: Scott Niedermayer is a defenseman. I dream of the day when the youngest defenseman of the 2009-10 Pittsburgh Penguins can stand before the media the way Scott Niedermayer just did. Be calm, cool, and collected--and play that same calm, cool, collected--and oh yes, completely confident--way on the ice. All the time.

Other Note: Crosby will always be an emotional leader. It's highly unlikely he'll ever be, for example, the kind of more stoic, calm leader a young Jordan Staal could become. Whether a player's emotional or stoic or somewhere in between is moot. The only thing that matters is if the player raises his game when the stakes are the highest, and who--whether through channeled, strong emotion or calm, cool control--is able to take his teammates along with him and raise the whole team's game when a championship is on the line.