His mother must be proud...

My 5-year-old loves hockey. More specifically, he loves the Pittsburgh Penguins. And to narrow it down even further: He loves No. 87, Sidney Crosby.

We watched the Penguins' home opener last night, and saw the Stanley Cup ("Mom, look how shiny it is!") get hit with the spotlight at Mellon Arena, and the championship banner raised at center ice. We clapped and he was as excited as if I had given him ice cream for dinner (ONE TIME when he was sick, ok?)

During the ceremony the camera caught Crosby looking up at the banner as it ascended into the rafters. He looked so young, but at the same time, respectful; he knows what a huge, big, giant deal it is to win Lord Stanley's Cup.

It got me thinking how glad I was that my little guy had picked someone who, for all intents and purposes, seems like a great role model. I'm not usually one to pick sports figures as role models (because most of them suck at it), but then remembered this video of a 14-year-old Crosby. He talks with absolute glee about how he can't imagine how great it would be "getting paid to do something you love to do." (3:11 in the video).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=neO44K7Awg0

It doesn't seem to me that Crosby has changed all that much since then. A reporter asked him during the last playoff season how he felt about the fans in Philadelphia yelling "Crosby Sucks" whenever he took the ice. "I don't love it," he admitted, ruefully. That's about as strong a criticism I've ever heard him give of another team or another player.

And after the win last night, there was a really nice, typically Crosby moment. A reporter noted that both Crosby's grandmothers were in attendance and got to watch him score a goal (ha ha, bite it, Rangers). "Do they still give you a dollar for every goal you score?" the reporter asked in an on-ice interview. Crosby smiled, "no, they stopped doing that a long time ago."

How do you not love this guy (be quiet Flyers fans, nobody cares what you think).

So as the Penguins start their final season at Mellon Arena, Dominic and I will be watching (sometimes covering his eyes when the boys get wound up, as it were) a player who loves the game so much it's contagious, even to a small fry as little as 5.