Sid: It used to be much more common to have roommates on the road. Today only guys on entry-level contracts have them. In my first two years, my roommate is Colby Armstrong. He’d been called up from Wilkes-Barre, and he’s a great guy. He keeps things really loose.
For whatever reason, he loves the show Ellen. When we get up from our pre-game nap, Ellen is usually starting. She always dances with the audience at the beginning. So, Army always dances with her in front of the TV. That becomes my pre-game routine on the road: watching Colby Armstrong dance to Ellen.
You spend a lot of time together in hotels. We’re in Buffalo, and we always order room-service dessert when we get home from our meal the night before a game. Even if we’ve had dessert at the restaurant. These were slightly different times when it comes to nutrition!
So, we would order this big piece of chocolate cake at the Hyatt in Buffalo. We’re waiting for the cake one night, and for some reason, we decide to get in a full-on wrestling match.
We’re going back and forth, and now he’s on the ground and I come from the other side of the room to jump him. He sticks his knee up and gets me in a… well, a really bad spot, if you know what I mean. I just drop. I’m in a heap in the corner in agony. He thinks I’m joking. I’m not. I have some serious swelling.
So he starts to panic: “You’re gonna be okay— right, Sid? You’re gonna play tomorrow, right?”
But I’m not sure. I can’t move.
We decide we have to tell the trainer. He comes to the room and he’s not happy. He doesn’t want to tell the coach I’m going to be out because we were wrestling.
So, all night, Army is nervous. Every hour, he wakes me up and says, “Sid, are you okay?” He keeps telling me, “You have to play!”
He reminds me over and over it was his dream to play in the NHL, and his career depends on me playing. He thinks he’s going to get sent down to the minors for knocking me out of the lineup in a wrestling match.
So, I grind it out and play. Just for Army.
Army: I was so scared. Full panic. I’m still waiting for him to have a kid, so I can know I didn’t ruin the Crosby genetics forever!
But it was kinda Sid’s fault. He bull-rushed me. And if you mess with the bull, sometimes you get the horn! We tone down the wrestling after that.
Sid’s right about the cake. We love to eat. One night we get into Toronto late, around 11:30 p.m., and we’re off the next day. I’m not sure if we are supposed to go out, but a few of us do, just for a couple of beers. Sid is smart. He stays in and goes to sleep. I’m starving after the bar, so I go to McDonald’s and grab a couple of cheeseburgers. I sneak into our room quietly and go straight into the bathroom to eat. Don’t want to wake up the Kid.
I’m sitting on the edge of the tub, eating my McDonald’s. All of a sudden, the door cracks open a little bit and these tired, squinty eyes peek in. And this little voice says, “Hey, Army, did you get any for me?”
So at 1 o’clock in the morning, I sit on the edge of the tub, the best player in the world sits on the toilet, and we eat cheeseburgers. Life doesn’t get much better.
-Beauties: Hockey’s Greatest Untold Stories by James Duthie (2020)
