This consummate team player is setting new standards of excellence

Funk and Wagnalls' dictionary describes dignity as "stateliness and
nobility of manner," which pretty much sums up Sidney Crosby's
commanding presence at the NHL Awards ceremony in Toronto on Thursday
night.

Crosby may not yet be accepted as the greatest player in the world by
his few remaining critics - whose most vociferous spokesman, Donald S.
Cherry, was conspicuously absent from the Elgin Theatre - but few can
argue that the young man from Cole Harbour isn't the classiest
professional star athlete extant.

As an old observer, who has watched the great ones come and go over
the last six decades, there isn't one who comes to mind with the
combined elements of skills, commitment, sincerity and articulation
that match Crosby as the complete package.

Among the NHL's legends of the last half century, there was the fiery
and dynamic Maurice (Rocket) Richard; Gordie Howe, the dominant but
quiet and understated farm boy from Saskatchewan; the elegant Jean
Beliveau, the game's all-time eminence grise; the electric Bobby Hull;
the graceful Guy Lafleur, who had flair; the shy and retiring
wunderkind Bobby Orr; and the magical Wayne Gretzky.

Their individual brilliance raised NHL skill requirements to new
levels, and there is no disposition here to diminish their
contributions, only to add to that distinguished cast.

Some modern pundits tend to compare Crosby, more or less, to one or
more of the above; others consider him as a composite of them all.

But Sidney is like none of them. Rather, he is the consummate team
player who is in the process of establishing new standards of
individual performance, as a model athlete and person: the Crosby
measurement.

He accepts the personal distinctions with class and dignity, without
the usual, "aw shucks, I'm just lucky to here" stock rhetoric, but
rather with mature and obviously genuine responses. He always
expresses gratitude to a deserving family that sacrificed much to
polish the star.

For example, here is his reaction to his onstage acceptance of his
three awards last week: "These are very special honours, but my main
mission is to win the Stanley Cup with my teammates and take it back
to Cole Harbour for a celebration."

All this from a teenager who doesn't turn 20 until Aug. 7 which, if
civic officials in HRM had their wits about them, would be proclaimed
Sidney Crosby Day.

If not in 2007, then sometime in the near future.

Can anybody think of anybody, past or present, more deserving?