Crosby’s Power Move
In the first period, Crosby was called for tripping, which put him right in earshot of Lipeika, who had first row seats by the penalty box. Lipeika takes his Rangers fandom seriously. When the best player in the league is that close, he believes it’s his job to try and throw him off his game.
“I’m hoping he’s the guy who comes to the box and right off the bat, he does,” Lipeika said. “Right off the bat, I gotta roll with it. I gotta hit him with things.”
- Hey Crosby! For two minutes you and I are going to sit here, with no goals!
- When Gatorade was looking for endorsements in Canada, they were looking for a tough guy. Justin Bieber wasn’t available, so they used you!
- I heard Evgeni Malkin said he would have won a few more Cups if he had a better supporting cast!
Crosby smiled. So did the NHL official in the box. That just encouraged more and another Rangers fan, Michael Gross, started to join in. It might have been the Pierre McGuire comment that got him.
- Hey Sid! Pierre McGuire DOESN’T want you to have fun out there.
It was around that point where Crosby let some water fly from his squirt bottle in the direction of the Rangers fans.
“He sprayed me through the glass,” Gross said. “It was non-stop from there.”
Despite the best efforts of these Rangers fans to get inside Crosby’s head, it’s safe to say it didn’t work. The Penguins won. Crosby did what he does and had a goal and a couple assists. But perhaps his biggest upset was winning over these diehard fans.
Then came what Lipeika called Crosby’s power move.
Lipeika still isn’t sure why he was hanging around after the final buzzer but there was a payoff when Penguins assistant equipment manager Jon Taglianetti emerged with a stick and tapped on the glass. After the tap on the glass was a point in Lipeika’s direction. The stick was for him.
“My first reaction is I don’t know if I want this right now. I don’t think this is what I signed up for,” Lipeika said. “I could see something was written on it.”
To the left of Crosby’s signature was a message back to Lipeika.
“Good chirps. Take it easy on me next time!”
A goal and a win aside, winning over a section of Rangers fans might have been Crosby’s biggest accomplishment on Wednesday night.
“If he was a Ranger, I’m all in, couldn’t get enough of him. When the No. 1 guy in the league comes in, you want to hammer him,” Lipeika said.
And now?
“Now, things look a little different in my eyes,” he said.
It’s hard to hate a player who handles the trash talk like Crosby did.
“You can’t,” he said. “With a power move like that, you have to respect it.”
If Lipeika was on social media, it’d be blowing up. Instead Gross posted a picture on Twitter and his mentions have been flying. Lipeika heard from friends that he might want to break his social media avoidance to see the reaction. The picture of the signed stick was everywhere.
Lipeika still isn’t sure where he’s going to display the stick. But he’s got a great story, from one of the greatest players in the game. Not just him, but everyone around him.
“I had a buddy of mine who texted me, ‘So what do you think about Sid now?’” Gross said. “I was like, ‘Dude, he’s the man.’ You don’t see that. You just don’t. He took grief for three quarters of the game, had fun with it, and was like, alright, here you go.”