Re: your tags on the Crosby post and picturing him as a coach, my personal daydream about what he’ll do post-retirement is disappear for a couple years and then come back to the Pens and run the development program, working with all the young and future Pens players
Like as someone who works in coaching a sport, as soon as I saw that other post about how being his liney is a super demanding position simply because of how much he tries to get those around him to focus on micro-analyzing plays, reviewing tape on the bench, giving and receiving constant growth-focused feedback, I was like “oh, oh he definitely has a Coach Brain, he’s just perfectly wired for it huh”. Hearing that he’s also very effective at making guys feel like valued members of the team, while also paying attention to them as individuals, only cements to me that he’d be extremely well-suited for that kind of role, once his body eventually tells him he can’t keep doing that AND playing at the same time.
I too wouldn’t be surprised if he takes a few years “off” immediately after retirement to do something slightly less intense, though I don’t think he’s psychologically suited to actually doing nothing — I know he’s very passionate about his Hockey School summer program in Cole Harbour, and I could honestly see him spending a few years right after retirement just chilling in his lake house up here, and pouring full-time focus into that program to make it into something permanent with the funding and structure to outlast his own lifetime/involvement. Perhaps get to have a bit of a personal life and a family while he’s at it, too (which he deserves).
But I also know Sid’s a compulsively competitive person who is always trying to push himself to some new level, and I know that hockey has been the singular centrepiece of his life since he could stand up and hold a stick. So I think we will see him return to the NHL inevitably at some point — whether that be coming back to micromanage a few generations worth of Pens prospects and rookies to peak performance, or finding his way behind a bench somewhere because fuck it, why not try for one more Stanley Cup or a few more medals, eh? “First person to reach the Triple Gold Club separately as a player AND a coach” certainly sounds like a very Sidney Crosby achievement (assuming someone else hasn’t already done it) and I absolutely would not put it past him to try.
