SO HERE WE GO AGAIN.
One week off has turned into 1 month off and counting. The latest number thrown around is that Sidney Crosby will be re-evaluated in 7 to 10 days. There is even talk that he might not return to the ice until March, which invites this rather obvious question:
Why at all?
Oh, right. Because the Penguins need their 23-year-old captain if they are to make any serious run at a Stanley Cup.
"It's a bad day if we're making the Stanley Cup relevant to the conversation," Keith Primeau was saying yesterday. "It should be irrelevant to the thought process. We're talking about an individual's health. The game of hockey is only a certain part of your life. And you've got a lot more life to live beyond X-number of years as a professional athlete.
"If we're worried about the ramifications from ending one season of your professional sports career early for your health, then we are way off target."
Now here comes the irony. Primeau admits if he knew then what he knows now, he would not have been any more careful in managing the multiple concussions that forced him to retire at 34.
"That's the sad part for me," he said. "And that's why I know we're so far away. Because I don't think I would have changed much. Which is really sad."
Playing through injuries is as much about being a professional athlete as scoring and defending are. Doug Collins often boasts about his artificial hips and knees as if they are trophies. Most of us have banged our heads and gone to work the next day, which, by the way, Crosby may have done after receiving an open-ice hit from Washington's David Steckel during the Winter Classic on New Year's Day.
He wasn't diagnosed with a concussion then. Five days later, pausing dangerously along the boards behind the net after moving the puck, Crosby was banged by Tampa Bay's Victor Hedman.
The diagnosis then: mild concussion.
One month and a few days later, Crosby's return date keeps getting pushed back. Sound familiar? Pittsburgh's medical staff is feeling the same kind of heat the Flyers' medical staff felt in the cases of Primeau, Simon Gagne and Eric Lindros, the same kind of heat the Eagles' medical staff felt when they sent Kevin Kolb and Stewart Bradley back out to play in the season opener against Green Bay.
