The QMJHL to retire Crosby’s number 87
The Quebec Major Junior Hockey League Commissioner, Gilles Courteau, announced tonight during Sidney Crosby’s jersey retirement ceremony that his number 87 will be retired across the QMJHL starting with the 2020-21 season in order to honour Crosby’s contributions to the QMJHL and to hockey.
Crosby, who holds rank number three on the QMJHL’s Top 50 all-time player list as determined by a panel of experts during the League’s 50thanniversary celebrations last year, played two seasons with the Rimouski Océanic, collecting 303 career points.
A native of Cole Harbour, Nova Scotia, Crosby was the first overall selection in the 2003 QMJHL Entry Draft.
The forward burst onto the scene, scoring a hat trick in his first major junior game. It would be the beginning of an outstanding junior career.
The Nova Scotian gathered plenty of hardware, winning multiple QMJHL and CHL awards along the way. He captured the prestigious Paul-Dumont trophy awarded to the League’s top personality twice, two Michel-Brière trophies as Most Valuable Player and one playoff MVP crown (Guy-Lafleur trophy). He remains the only player in history to win back to back CHL Player of the Year awards. Crosby also captured silver at the 2004 World Junior Championship and gold the following year.
In July 2005, he became the eighth player in QMJHL history to be chosen first overall at the NHL Entry Draft when he was picked by the Pittsburgh Penguins.
Crosby has become one of the QMJHL’s and hockey’s greatest ambassadors worldwide. He has helped the Pittsburgh Penguins win the Stanley Cup on three occasions (2009, 2016 and 2017). Twice, he won the Hart trophy as NHL MVP and the Art Ross Trophy as League’s top scorer. He was also the recipient of two Maurice-Richard trophies, two Conn-Smythe trophies and two Ted-Lindsay awards. At 32-year-old, “Sid the Kid” is still widely heralded as the best player in the NHL.
His legacy includes the celebrated golden goal he scored in the championship final of the 2010 Olympic Winter Games in Vancouver against the rival United States. Crosby is one of only ten Canadians to have won the “Triple Crown”: Olympic gold, World Championship gold and the Stanley Cup. Only Patrice Bergeron belongs to this exclusive club among QMJHL alumni.
