Crosby in Rimouski tonight (retired jersey)

[TheDawnOfANewTage]

I am from Montreal. (sorry for my english)

This week everybody in our province talks about the event of tonight (Rimouski Oceanic will retired his number 87) in Rimouski (Quebec).

Sidney will be in Rimouski tonight and will deliver a speech in French. Everybody loves the player obviously but also the man.

Guy Boucher (former coach of Tampa and Ottawa) was the assistant coach in Rimouski (junior) in 2003 to 2005. He gave an interview in French 2 days ago and everybody loved that interview. He talked about Sid's personnality at 16 years old. He said that he has never met an athlete like Crosby. At 16 he said, I talked to him and it was like I talked to a 30 years old man.

He said that Crosby trained since he was 9 years old, all summer long 2-3 times a day..

Also one day in Rimousky..Crosby was driving his car (17 at the time) and saw thousands of people all around the arena waiting in line in a cold day of March...
Crosby asked : What are they waiting for....and Boucher explained him that people waited for tickets sale for the upcoming playoffs.

Then Crosby decided to goTim hortons and purchased hundreds of Coffee , Donuts etc..packed it in his car and did many trips to the arena and gave that to the fans...shook their hands and thanked them to be there for the team .


The event of tonight will be broadcast live on RDS (French Sports channel in French).

Interview in French of Boucher about Crosby's unique personnality (amazing interview)

https://www.rds.ca/videos/hockey/lnh/lnh-guy-boucher-nous-raconte-sidney-crosby-on-jase-3.1337004

I mean, your English is better than half the native speakers on HF - no need to apologize for imperfections in a second language. Good stuff, glad ya shared.

 

[JAS 39 Gripen]

Eh.......?

 

[Voight]

Crosby is great and all but it's kind of ridiculous that his # is retired league wide but Lemieux's isn't.

Yea, it seemed kind of extra.

I get 87 isn't really that popular of a number anyways, but 66 isn't exactly common either.

 

[bobholly39]

Kinda of surprised they hadn't done this already.

Supposedly the team had wanted to do this for a while but he kept refusing, because he's humble/doesn't like accolades like this. But this is the leagues 50th year anniversary, and so the league/team insisted a lot and he accepted, or something like that. So that's why it hadn't happened before.

Crosby is great and all but it's kind of ridiculous that his # is retired league wide but Lemieux's isn't.

They're celebrating the league's 50th anniversary this year, and as part of it they did an all-time ranking of greats from the league. Lemieux was #1, Lafleur #2, Crosby #3 (kind of like the top 100 list from NHL recently).

So - them retiring his number isn't event mean to be "hey look he's better than Lemieux". I think it's just good timing that it coincided with the anniversary, and was a little something extra the league did for publicity/get fans excited since they were retiring his jersey. Don't see any harm in it

 

[FreeBobbyFarnham]

how to watch?

 

[Nick Hansen]

Does Crosby have any stains on his resume so to speak? Eerily reminiscent of guys like Sakic, Yzerman or Lidstrom...just pure class all the way through.

 

[Staniowski]

Supposedly the team had wanted to do this for a while but he kept refusing, because he's humble/doesn't like accolades like this. But this is the leagues 50th year anniversary, and so the league/team insisted a lot and he accepted, or something like that. So that's why it hadn't happened before.



They're celebrating the league's 50th anniversary this year, and as part of it they did an all-time ranking of greats from the league. Lemieux was #1, Lafleur #2, Crosby #3 (kind of like the top 100 list from NHL recently).

So - them retiring his number isn't event mean to be "hey look he's better than Lemieux". I think it's just good timing that it coincided with the anniversary, and was a little something extra the league did for publicity/get fans excited since they were retiring his jersey. Don't see any harm in it

I think it was Lafleur #1 and Lemieux #2.

 

[1967th Heaven]

Jeez I got a bit emotional watching that.

Crosby is a class act through and through, kids coming up and pursuing his level of greatness should focus just as much how he conducts himself off the ice as how he plays the game on it.

 

[bobholly39]

I think it was Lafleur #1 and Lemieux #2.

You're right. I was going off memory. Pretty crazy Lemieux didnt get #1.... not that Lafleur isnt pretty great too.

 

[Sakicfan]

You're right. I was going off memory. Pretty crazy Lemieux didnt get #1.... not that Lafleur isnt pretty great too.

Lemieux was the better Q player between the two, but they gave the nod to Lafleur because he lead his team to the Memorial Cup at a time when the QMJHL was in dire need of credibility as a major junior league.

 

[Barrie22]

Lemieux was the better Q player between the two, but they gave the nod to Lafleur because he lead his team to the Memorial Cup at a time when the QMJHL was in dire need of credibility as a major junior league.

Probably also helps that lafleur is a quebecer through and through. He was born there, grew up there, played junior hockey there, played nhl hockey there and will most likely die there.

 

[Boltswin]

I've always been a Crosby fan so thanks for sharing.
(P.S. There's nothing wrong with your English - I wish my French was that good!)

That seems to usually be the case when I see people apologizing for bad English. I tend to respond how you did. (“Your English is better than my German”, for example)

 

[Lebowski]

Living in Rimouski and seeing most home games live was a special time.

Insane to think it has already been 15 years.

 

[Jacob]

Does Crosby have any stains on his resume so to speak? Eerily reminiscent of guys like Sakic, Yzerman or Lidstrom...just pure class all the way through.

He pushed a guy in front of a subway train in 2007.

 

[Yackiberg8]

He pushed a guy in front of a subway train in 2007.

Source?

 

[ChelisChiliBar]

It’s cool to see organizations do this and recognize past star players, it is really good for the leagues recognition, too. I know the Oshawa Generals have retired Eric Lindros, John Tavares, Marc Savard, Red Tilson and I may be forgetting one more. Windsor, London have retired a bunch too if I remember correctly.

I think the other one was Tony Tanti

 

[Jacob]

Source?

It's been scrubbed from the internet, but those of us that were there will never forget.

 

[Ms Maggie]

It's been scrubbed from the internet, but those of us that were there will never forget.

In Crosby's defense, those damn walkers can really get in your way.

 

[heysmilinstrange]

Source?

Midnight Judges

 

[Bouboumaster]

Crosby is a special player: all class, almost to a canadian stereotype degree, and one of the best ever. 5th or 6th best player ever IMO
We are pretty lucky to have witness his career

 

[End on a Hinote]

That’s surprising that Kelowna hasn’t done it before, they certainly do have a handful of worthy players to honour at least. Do many other Dub teams retire jerseys?

It doesn't seem that way at least not anymore. The Blazers had retired several numbers earlier in their history but I don't think they've done it recently either. My guess is that its become only a special exception thing for truly great, future HOF's like Crosby, Lecavalier, Iginla, etc.

Although I should mention that the Rockets do have a wall of fame to honour past players located in the arena concourse. Even though some players on there have only played for them for a short time.