“After the commercial, Bettman stood at a podium in New York, held up a white envelope, and said, “The number one overall selection belongs to … the Pittsburgh Penguins,” as he unfolded the paper to reveal the team’s logo inside. Sawyer took one step back, almost as if he was falling. McMillan, conscious of the cameras on his face back in Pittsburgh, stood up, pumped his fist and quickly walked out of the room before he could embarrass himself. A television reporter later asked him where he had gone so quickly, and McMillan answered, “I was going outside to scream.” In the coach’s office down the hall, Black reflexively blurted out, “We just got a new arena.” He sprung to his feet, hugged Olczyk, and they started jumping up and down around the office. When Bettman announced that the Penguins had won the draft, it seemed like payback for all the years of frustration, a team insider said. … What Del Biaggio had not realized was that his deal actually had just fallen apart. Winning the Crosby lottery changed everything, and it meant the terms of the sale would have to change. “The deal wasn’t quite done, and obviously circumstances chanted,” Sawyer said. “This was like suddenly you were selling a piece of land and you just discovered gold underneath.” … Amid the hoopla in the team’s executive suite, Morehouse quietly slipped away into his office, a tiny former closet without windows. He quickly banged out an e-mail to Burkle: “Whatever deal you had just changed,” he wrote. “The Penguins won the lottery, and the player that is available is a once-in-a-generation player.” … Within days, the Penguins were off the market. Burkle and Lemieux had never talked with each other about what they would do if the team won the rights to draft Crosby. The odds had seemed too slim to consider, at least from the point of view of making a business decision. Sure, Crosby could end up in Pittsburgh, but it was more likely that he would go somewhere else. Even in the final moments, it had seemed that he might go to Anaheim. Then the conditions changed. “Remember the context,” McMillan said. “Everything was bleak, bleak, bleak, bleak. We had lost a year of hockey. What’s the future of hockey? The future of the team? Can’t sell the team. Can’t get a new arena.” No one had dared dream - at least not for anything more than a private, fleeting moment - about what it would mean to win the Crosby lottery. Then they won it.”
Andrew Conte, Breakaway: The Inside Story of the Pittsburgh Penguins’ Rebirth, pages 48-51 (via flyingwide)
#but tell me again how Crosby’s just a player#how he’s just an average player and yeah he’s good but there’s nothing special about him#that he didn’t save a franchise#that he didn’t save that whole damn league after the lock-out#when fans were bitter and angry and swearing they’d never watch another game#you want to know why Sidney Crosby gets the attention he does?#because his story is about so much more than just him#his story is the story of the Penguins#the league#and a kid from Nova Scotia who is magic with a stick in his hands (via flyingwide)
#the media narratives surrounding sidney crosby are so goddamn interesting and also so sad#because who wants to hold up the weight of a league in every answer to an interview question; in every shift on the ice#with the jersey on or with it off?#they made sidney crosby into hockey but a man can’t be a sport#(a boy can’t be a sport) (via sinsensory)
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