Sidney Crosby: An Intimate Portrait (Friend)
COLE HARBOUR, Nova Scotia - Seven-year-old Mike Chiasson was sleeping comfortably in his bed during an early Cole Harbour morning when the phone rang in the summer of 1993.
Chiasson could hear the faint voice of his mother leak through his doorway.
"No, I'm sorry he's still sleeping." With one eye opened, Chiasson read his clock: 7:30 a.m. That eye closed as he drifted back into a dream only to be awoken once again by the ringing phone and his mother's voice.
"No, he's still sleeping. I'm sorry."
Chiasson, like most kids during a summer unencumbered by school, reveled in the opportunity to sleep through the morning. But at 9:30 a.m., another phone call broke his slumber.
"Sorry, Sidney. He's still sleeping. I'll tell him to call you when he wakes up."
While Chiasson was drifting in and out of consciousness, across town was an eager 5-year-old boy named Sidney Crosby, who had risen early and was eager to begin a full day of activities.
"The guy just wanted to get up and get on the rollerblades, meet somewhere and play road hockey or some mini-putt," recalled Chiasson, now 31 years old, of his longtime friend Crosby. "He was always looking to setup a game."
Chiasson and Crosby, 29, began their friendship a quarter century ago when the duo played Timbits hockey together at Cole Harbour Place in Nova Scotia. Chiasson, who played his youth and junior hockey career as a goaltender, likes to take some credit for Crosby's ascent to the top of the hockey world.
"I'd like to think that I gave Sid a lot of confidence over the years," he laughed. "In practice he had my number more often than not. There's a reason I think he shoots five-hole a lot now."
Although their lives have gone in different directions as they matured into adults, Crosby and Chiasson remain as close today as they were as children. In fact, a similar theme exists between Crosby and all of his boyhood pals.
Crosby, the Pens captain for the past decade, has the same group of close friends at 29 years old as he did when he was 6. Their friendships have grown stronger and stronger over the years, but they were forged in the innocence and simplicity of youth.
Crosby may be a national hero in Canada, a three-time Stanley Cup champion, a two-time Olympic goal medalist and the greatest player of his generation, but to his close circle of friends, he'll always be just 'Sid.'
"At the end of the day he's just one of the guys," Chiasson said. "He just happened to be a lot better at hockey than the rest of us. He's got the same core group of friends. He always keeps in touch. It's very nice to see him have the success that he's had and at the level he has and still be the same person all along at the same time."
"We treat him the same," said Matthew Foston, another close companion of Crosby's from their youthful days. "We give him the gears if we have to and he gives us the gears. I still give him chirps on the golf course and they'll start to fly."
Foston spent a lot of time growing up at the Crosby family home, which is still occupied to this day by Sidney's parents, Troy and Trina.
"We would have sleepovers at his old spot, Trina making pancakes in the morning," Foston said.
The tandem spent the bulk of that time in the home's basement, where Sidney's parents set up a hockey net. Sidney would spend hour after hour shooting pucks at that net.
"It was a pretty cool basement setup they had for him," Foston said. "He was zinging (shots). He made the most of it to get the shot he has today. He was firing pucks every single day. My shot wasn't quite getting there. Any time he asked me to get in net, I would say no and put him in net."
Being in net was not unfamiliar territory for Crosby. He was, after all, a street hockey "All-Star" goaltender according to his buddy Jeff Kielbratowski.
"I always picked him as my goalie or tried to get him. If I had him in my net I knew I had a better chance at winning," said Kielbratowski, who rated Crosby's 'tending skills a 10 out of 10.
"We played the World Roller Hockey Championship," Kielbratowski continued. "Which was by no means the 'World' Roller Hockey Championship. It was six teams from Cole Harbour. I went with all young guys. He was my goalie. We were the underdogs and pulled off the victory. We picked the right goalie."
Kielbratowski, who is three years older than Crosby, acted as a chauffer during their school days. Kielbratowski had his license at 16 and would drive Crosby, who was in seventh grade at the time, to school.
"It's pretty amazing looking back on it," Kielbratowski said. "I would drive with another guy on my (hockey) team. We would drop (Crosby) off at his school on our way (to the high school). We turned up the bass in the car and hoped people would hear the music."
Kielbratowski, Foston, Chiasson and Crosby were members of a small, tight group of kids that coalesced around sports in a small town.
"There was a core group of us that always played on the same teams growing up," Chiasson said. "We played baseball together too, so we were together year-round."
And when the kids weren't participating in organized sports, they organized their own competitive sessions, and Crosby was the driving force.
"Whatever we were doing he always wanted to make it a competition or a sport," Chiasson said. "It hasn't changed since the time he was 6 or 7. It was always a series or championship on the line. I guess that's why he is where he is today."
Foston agreed.
"I don't think he likes losing anything," Foston said, "whether it's golf, road hockey or shooting at a crossbar. He wants to beat you. He's as competitive as he ever was."
Not that Crosby didn't have some shortcomings. Crosby and Chiasson's team made it to the Atlantic Championship in Mosquito A baseball, the Canada equivalent to Little League Baseball. Crosby was pitching and Chiasson was his catcher. The games were six innings long and Crosby pitched 5 1/3 before being pulled, though his team held on to win the championship.
"He ran into some control issues in the sixth," Chiasson chirped. "We had to yank him in the sixth and I never let him live that down."
Still, the friends took part in the usual childhood mischief. Whether it was "ripping up" someone's lawn during ball hockey, or playing 36 holes of mini-golf, but only paying for 18.
"It was a dollar before noon," Chiasson said of the mini golf course between their two houses. "We'd stroll up at quarter to noon and pay our loonie. The 18th hole automatically ate your ball. So we'd skip that and start over. We'd play 36 holes for a buck."
And, of course, with young boys there is always a modicum of rough housing that takes place. Like the time Crosby and Foston were boxing on the latter's back deck. Crosby already had a loose tooth at the time, but Foston caught him with a shot that knocked out a different tooth.
"He somehow walked into a straight left," Foston said with a smile. "We had to call his parents and tell them that he lost another tooth."
Those are the stories in life that will never die, the quaint moments where character is born and friendships are bred.
Crosby returns to his roots, Cole Harbour, every summer during the NHL off-season to surround himself with friends and family. In his heart, Crosby is still the same 5-year-old kid waking up early and calling his friends to get together.
"He's just as down-to-earth as he's ever been," Foston said. "His family is really well grounded and so is he. I think he just feels comfortable being around the people he grew up with."
That same group of friends that paraded the streets of Cole Harbour is still up to the same good-natured mischief. But they've traded in the mini-putt for the golf course, and some have traded in their street hockey sticks for families.
Their lives may have changed, but the chain that binds the friends together remains unbreakable. It all began 25 years ago with a small band of boys passing the time together in Cole Harbour, and continues on to this day.
"The best thing about (Crosby) is when he comes back and hangs out with his buddies, he just loves sitting around, hanging out and catching up old memories," Chiasson said. "He's got the memory of a hawk. He can relive these memories better than I can. He lives for that stuff."
Special thanks to Mike Chiasson for his assistance with this article.
To see parts 1-3 of Sidney Crosby: An Intimate Portrait, click on the links below:
Part 1: Native Son
Part 2: Prodigy
Part 3: Brother
