About 30 minutes after Team Canada practiced at Hovet Arena, Sidney Crosbystood in the right circle before methodically skating toward the net and firing a shot. The goaltender denied it with a sprawling save, then aimed his glove directly toward Crosby’s face and grinned.
After a 21-year NHL career, Marc-André Fleury is going out on his terms, saying goodbye with his favorite captain by his side.
Fleury, who retired from the league after the Minnesota Wild’s season ended May 1, is enjoying a swan song at the World Championships before his playing career truly ends in the next few days. And he’s doing it with Crosby, his Pittsburgh Penguins teammate for 12 seasons.
Neither star would have it any other way.
“This is kind of perfect,” Fleury told The Athleticlast week. “And you know what I miss the most about playing with Sid? Days like this, just staying on the rink for an hour after practice, just challenging each other. Days like this, I don’t want to leave the rink.”
Around the time Crosby was making that decision to go to Worlds, he received a text from an old friend.
“I never even thought about the possibility of playing with him over here,” Crosby said. “But then Flower texted me. He had gotten word from Kyle, and he was thinking about going. So, then I told him I was going to go. Within a couple of days, he decided to come over, too.”
Fleury’s decision wasn’t difficult.
“Think about it,” he said. “Why wouldn’t I come over here? You get to keep playing hockey a little while longer. Get to play with Sid one last time.”
There was something else, too.
Fleury has had a strange relationship with Team Canada over the years. A misplay in the 2004 World Junior Championship against Team USA haunted Fleury for quite some time, and only once was the future Hall of Famer selected to play in the Olympics, where he never saw a minute of playing time in Vancouver in 2010.
“But,” Fleury said, pointing to the Canada logo on his chest, “wearing this sweater still means the world to me. To do it one last time? It’s everything.”
“This is so nice,” Fleury said. “Me and Sid, we spent so many years together, so much time together, just talking about hockey, life. We won a lot together, too. It’s been a few years since we could really sit down and talk, spend some time together. It’s been perfect. I really thought I was done after we lost to Vegas. So, just to have one more chance to play? To keep going a little bit longer? I couldn’t turn that down. I’m glad Kyle called.”
He’s the ultimate hockey junkie, but in seasons when the Penguins’ campaign ends without a parade, Crosby usually prefers to vacation in Europe instead of watching the playoffs.
Not this year. He was watching when Vegas eliminated Minnesota in Game 6 because he knew it was the last time he’d see Fleury in an NHL sweater.
“I was watching his last game but it never really occurred to me at the time that we could have this opportunity,” Crosby explained.
Fleury doesn’t know when he’ll return to Pittsburgh again, but make no mistake, he will. Players don’t sign one-day contracts to retire where they started as often in hockey as in other sports. But …
“I don’t know,” Fleury said. “Not my decision, right? But I have many great memories from Pittsburgh and my time there, I’ll tell you that. That’s the team that gave me a chance, the team I won with. That city always means a lot to me and always will.”
“It’s important moving forward that we honor Flower the right way as an organization,” Dubas said. “It was so apparent in October when Minny came to Pittsburgh, just what he means to people. Not just the staff or the players. I’m talking more about the fans, the reaction they had to him. It was incredible. Hockey doesn’t really do the one-day contracts and stuff like that. But other sports do it in a certain way, too, bringing former players back. It’s something we are thinking about, a way to honor him properly. It’s important that we honor him the right way.”
When their post-practice showdown ended, Crosby and Fleury departed the ice — not because they wanted to but because the Swedish ice crew made them leave. Two vacant stools sat outside Canada’s locker room, so Fleury plopped himself down on one and Crosby followed, sitting on the other, their skates dangling a couple of feet above the floor like a couple of kids enjoying the sport they love.
“This is great,” Crosby said with a smile. “Being out there with Flower, the way he’s still running his mouth. It’s perfect.”
“I’m having so much fun right now,” he said.
incredible sidflower from the athletic today
