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TORONTO — Sidney Crosby is the best of Canadians in the sport Canadians do best.
That was the bottom-line reasoning that made the 20-year-old captain of the Pittsburgh Penguins the youngest winner of the Lou Marsh Trophy yesterday as Canada's top athlete of 2007.
In a close vote by sports journalists and broadcasters in Toronto yesterday, Crosby got the nod on the final ballot over two-time NBA MVP Steve Nash of the Phoenix Suns; alpine ski star Erik Guay, who was on five World Cup podiums last season; world champion kayaker Adam van Koeverden; and Steve Molitor, the International Boxing Federation super bantamweight champion.
Speed-skater Cindy Klassen won the award last year, narrowly defeating Nash in the vote.
A fan takes a picture of Sydney Crosby of the Pittsburgh Penguins as he stepped onto the ice for warm-up at Rexall Place on Dec. 05 in Edmonton. (Dale MacMillan/Getty Images)
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"Winning this award is obviously a tremendous honour and I'm humbled by it," said Crosby, a native of Cole Harbour, N.S.
He tried to put it into perspective, the whole idea of being the small-town kid who plays in a spotlight on his country's big stage. He is the first NHL player to win the Lou Marsh award since his mentor, Mario Lemieux, in 1993.
"To receive an award that's been won by guys like Mario Lemieux and Wayne Gretzky and other great Canadian athletes says it all. Growing up in Cole Harbour, you don't even think of things like this — being named Canada's athlete of the year," Crosby said.
"At the same time, I just want to keep improving and help my team and thank everyone involved in awarding me with this honour."
To put Crosby's youth into perspective another way, Gretzky won the Lou Marsh Trophy four times in his career, starting at age 21.
The first three times Gretzky won — 1982, 1983 (a co-winner with Rick Hansen) and 1985 — were before Crosby was born.
In the end, it didn't matter to the voters that Crosby is so young, that he has more and likely better NHL years ahead of him and will likely win more Lou Marsh honours.
He won the Hart Memorial Trophy as the NHL's most valuable player and was the youngest player to win the scoring race.
The Penguins captain was also voted by fellow NHL players as the league's best player, winning the Lester B. Pearson Award.
Crosby, the first pick of the 2005 entry draft was the NHL's sixth-leading scorer in 2005-06, with 102 points (39 goals).
He captured the Art Ross Trophy at 19 last season, with 120 points (36 goals) and thus became the youngest player and the only teenager to win a scoring title in any major North American sports league.
The level of adoration for Crosby was clear during last week's three-game road swing through Western Canada. A caravan of media rumbled through Edmonton, Calgary and Vancouver with reporters hanging on Crosby's every syllable as he made his first trip through the region. Cameras preserved every smile for the TV sports reports and the newspaper pages.
In Edmonton, where comparisons to the Gretzky era were inevitable, the Pens posted two security guards at his hotel room door so Crosby could get some rest.
"It was great to play in some new places," Crosby told reporters, after the Penguins completed their sweep of the Western teams with a 2-1 shootout victory against the Vancouver Canucks on Saturday. He didn't score a goal, but his mere presence made the trip a triumph.
"Everywhere we go he gets this attention. He's a great ambassador," teammate Georges Laraque told The Canadian Press.
"Hockey is lucky in the fact Mario and Wayne were great ambassadors on and off the ice. Crosby is taking over from them. He handles himself really good in front of the cameras. We're just lucky the NHL has such a great kid to be the face of the NHL."
The Lou Marsh award is named for a former Toronto Star sports editor and given annually by the newspaper.
The panel of voters comprised representatives from the Toronto Star, The Canadian Press, the FAN 590/Prime Time Sports, The Globe and Mail, CBC, Rogers Sportsnet, CTV/TSN, Montreal La Presse and the National Post.
