Sidney Crosby

Describes motivation process for creativity with emphasis on intrinsic motivation by Corey K Katir

This week Sidney Crosby returned to the ice after a ten month hiatus while he underwent rehabilitation for a severe concussion.

Crosbyas performance suggests that the rest and rehabilitation has served him well. He appears to be back in top form, one of the best in the NHL.

Sidney’s Injury Was a Good Thing

Don’t get me wrong. What happened to Sidney Crosby was terrible and not something I would wish on any athlete. But I do think what happened to Sidney has been good thing for amateur athletes. In fact it has been good thing for anyone who has suffered a minor traumatic brain injury.

Why?

Brain Injury in the News

Sidney Crosby is so famous; his injury has catapulted discussion of concussions and brain injury from the pages of medical journals to the front page of newspapers and to the lead story of mainstream television and radio news.

But donat take my word for it. Take a look at this graph. It shows the increase, since 2004, in the number of online searches for the term aconcussiona.

Sidney Crosby has always been a great ambassador for hockey and amateur sports. Now he has become an ambassador for brain injury awareness.

In fact, a recent CBC news story was titled Sidney Crosbyas Concussion a Teaching Tool.

Increased Awareness

If you Google aSidney Crosbya and aconcussiona you will get more than 850,000 results. Doing a similar search on the terms aSidney Crosbya and abrain injurya yields 250,000 results. What this suggests to me is that hundreds of thousands of people around the world are finally realizing that a concussion is a brain injury!

That is good news for those of us that support brain injury survivors. Because you don’t take steps to prevent something until you know it’s dangerous.

The Sidney Crosby Effect?

When Oprah first started her television book club, any book Oprah read immediately became a best seller. This became known as athe Oprah effecta. Is it possible that Sidney Crosbyas concussion will have the same effect for brain injury awareness?

Stefan Fatsis, Josh Levin, and Mike Pesca discuss the opening weekend of March Madness. Jon Wertheim also joins to talk about women’s hoops star Elena Delle Donne, and Greg Wyshynski comes on to parse Sidney Crosby’s treatment upon his return to the NHL.

In its first year, the Bell Let’s Talk campaign managed to rally more phone traffic than the 2010 Olympics moment when Sidney Crosby scored his famous game-winning goal, a previous Bell volume record

So Bobby Sanguinetti has been shipped back to Hartford (AHL) today, making it seem very likely that Wade Redden will be ready to play in Buffalo on Saturday.

Although 21-year-old Sanguinetti was unimpressive yet solid in his two-game NHL debut, he does not affect what is the real problem with this team. Whether itas Redden or Sanguinetti or Corey Potter or Mike Sauer (or any other youngster in Hartford) this Rangers team is still too easy to play against. Itas a simple sentiment, but itas been abundantly true in the last month and a half.

And you know whatas a dead giveaway how easy it is to show up against the Rangers and play your game?

Last night, as Sam Rosen called the game on TV a a 5-2 loss the Penguins at home a he got overly excited about agreat poke checksa by the Rangers defensemen. Now, no offense to Sam, who continues to do a great job, but really? Great poke check! Whatas next, This Michal Rozsival poke check will last a lifetime!

This team, for all of their talent, is mediocre. And they will continue to be mediocre unless the mentality changes. They need to stop playing such nice-guy hockey and need to start aggravating their opponents.

One of the great things about hockey, and this has been passed down from generation to generation, is that the gradual annoyance of your opponent eventually shows up on the scoreboard. Itas how a stick to gut here, or a glove to the face there, in the end gives you that one tiny advantage that results in game-changing plays.

And thatas how the Rangers are losing right now: by small mistakes that result in game-changing plays.

Itas really nothing that big, nor is it a philosophical deficiency in the way John Tortorella wants to run this team. He wants them to aGo, go, go.a He wants them all to have asafe is deatha tattooed on their hearts. But he also wants them to be defensively responsible. He wants them to control the puck. He wants them to be better down low. All of that can jive. Itas called a complete hockey team, and we havenat seen one on Broadway in, oh, letas see, 14 years, five months and 16 days.

Another thing Tortorella wants is this team to be tougher. That doesnat mean that the guys on this team arenat tough. They are. All the evidence you need is written in black and blue all across Dan Girardias body.

But, unlike his predecessor, Tortorella shows he wants to instill this rigidness by making tangible changes. That means putting Sean Avery on the first line with Marion Gaborik and Vinny Prospal, as he did last night.

As tough as Avery is, he canat do it all. With that, there needs to be mention of Gaborik fighting his own battles as well. How many times have we seen this guy doing the shoving all by his lonesome? Last night, he takes a gratuitous hack at Mark Andre-Fleury with the puck in the air about an inch from Fleuryas chest. Sidney Crosby pushes him, Gaborik pushes back, then in steps Billy Guerin to give Gabby a nice face wash that was . . . you guessed it, not retaliated!

This guy is arguably the best pure goal scorer this franchise a franchise, established 1926 a has ever seen. Not to mention heas injury prone. And there he is, in a swarm of opposing players harassing him, with no help. Who in their right mind would come into The Garden and not do that?

The face wash is one of the small things that gets under the skin of opposing players, and results in frustration. Frustration leads to mistakes, mistakes lead to goals, and goals lead to wins. The Rangers donat instill any frustration, and are therefore voluntarily giving up that edge. Itas a shame.

But, as hockey is played between the whistles, itas really not about the things after the play that matter. The lack of toughness isnat about someone coming to shove Guerin to the ground fifteen seconds after the play ends. Thatas merely a byproduct of the proper mentality.

The lack of grit is evident when a defensemen watches an opposing player on a beeline to Henrik Lundqvistas chest, and decides to go for a stick check. Or itas evident in battles in the corner, when the chosen method to win the battle is by lifting the stick and kicking the puck. Or itas evident in Mike Rupp beating people to the puck in front of the net and getting two chances on goal before anyone even lays a finger on him. (Mike Rupp, hat trick. Really? Mike-freaking-Rupp!)

This is hockey, for goodness sake! Yes, getting the puck and controlling it is the point, but how you get the puck to where itas supposed to be a behind the other teamas goalie a is not always by making a slick move with the stick. Itas like the need to go to the body in a heavyweight fight. Itas not going to get you style points, but eventually youare going to wear down your opponent, heall get tired, make a mistake, and thatas when you put him away.

Now, thatas exactly what is happening to the Rangers. Tough teams are wearing them down and theyare cracking in the third period. Yes, theyare young, especially on the backline. But the mistakes being made are not aggressive mistakes. Theyare not pushing the game, not pushing their opponents, and theyare letting the other team dictate the style of play.

One more note in this conversation has to be the presence of Donald Brashear. So heas now on the second line, got 11:37 of ice time last night with Chris Drury and Ryan Callahan, and still refuses to play physical hockey, as it hardly seems heas concerned with hockey at all. I think it was against the Panthers last Wednesday when he was against the sideboards and the puck came to his feet and he didnat even acknowledge its existence. He was trying to pick a fight, for no other reason then to pick a fight. If he thinks his job on this team is strictly to pick fights, heas wrong. Heas also there to play physical hockey, with some emphasis on hockey, as well. He needs to be ready to hit people who have the puck.

So all of this talk about the lack of an edge in the Rangers play is not about the ability of one guy on your team to be able to punch in the face of a guy on the other team. Nor is it about shoving a guy to the ground after the play because he just hit your star player.

Itas about being in the midst of play and playing hard, tough, and physical. Itas the Rangersa game between the whistles that needs to be tougher, not before or after the puck is frozen. Dropping the gloves is a part of the game (which, in its current incarnation, has me thinking it shouldnat be, but thatas for another time.) Brashear, if heas going to continue to get this much ice time, can be a factor in making this team tougher to play against. All he needs to do is show he can bodycheck someone during the course of the game that will make a team not want to come across the middle of the ice with the puck again. Avery can do the same on the top line, by adding some grit and physicality and throwing off the opposing teams best forwards.

Until this team start to play nastier, until they learn how to be annoying and pesty and play like they sincerely donat like you, theyare going to continue to be mediocre. Maybe there are just too many nice guys in this locker room. Almost everyone in there is affable and willing to converse and talk about the forecheck and systematic differences. Theyare a smart group, a talented group, and, to a man, a tough group. But they donat play with that edge that great teams do. Very few guys on the roster who get significant ice time play with a chip on their shoulder, and thatas a problem.

So yea, Gaborik is going to win you some games singlehandedly. So will Lundqvist. And no, odds are they wonat miss the playoffs because theyare too talented.

But to make an impact, Sam Rosen is going to have to see something on the ice thatas more exciting than poke checks.

In its first year, the Bell Let’s Talk campaign managed to rally more phone traffic than the 2010 Olympics moment when Sidney Crosby scored his famous game-winning goal, a previous Bell volume record

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