Sidney Crosby has been voted the most superstitious player in the NHL by his peers, finishing ahead of more than 100 others in an NHLPA player poll. After 20 years in the league, his rituals have been listed, dissected and joked about so many times that there shouldn’t be anything left to find. Now, a new one has turned up that nobody knew about.
The known list is long enough on its own. He eats the same peanut butter and jelly sandwich at the same time before every game, tapes and re-tapes his sticks between periods, and won’t let anyone touch a stick once it’s taped – if someone does, he strips the tape and starts over. He walks around one specific garbage can in the dressing room on the way out, stickhandles over the McDonald’s logo on the ice during warmups, and refuses to touch the soccer ball before the team’s pregame game of keep-up. He’s worn the same protective cup since his high school days at Shattuck-St. Mary’s. He also doesn’t speak to his mother, Trina, or his sister, Taylor, on game days, after a run of injuries that happened to follow those conversations.
Sidney Crosby’s mystery belt
It extends to the people around him, too. Former Penguins assistant Rick Tocchet once described being pulled aside during the team’s Cup run over an $1,800 blue suit he’d bought for the playoffs. “Tocc, you know that blue suit you’ve been wearing? You’re 0-2 with it. Please put it in the closet,” Crosby told him, Tocchet said on TNT.
All of which is why the newest addition is such a surprise. Appearing on Sportsnet’s 32 Thoughts podcast, Crosby was asked by Elliotte Friedman whether he had a lucky belt – and confirmed it on the spot, seemingly before realizing where the conversation was heading.
“We don’t really need to go and boil it down,” Crosby said.
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Friedman pushed, asking whether he’d really worn the same belt on game days for roughly 20 years. Crosby gave up nothing beyond a “could be,” but didn’t deny it either.
“I’m not going there. I don’t talk about the belt much, but yeah, you’re onto something,” Crosby said, before taking a shot at Friedman’s reputation for digging up information nobody else has. “You get every scoop on everything. You find out about my belt.”
He did offer one detail on how a two-decade-old belt has lasted this long.
“I don’t know how it’s still going. I’ve fluctuated a little bit over that time, so yeah, it’s still hanging in there,” Crosby said.
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