For Sportsnet magazine’s What If issue, I wrote a feature that strikes near and dear to my heart and wallet. The hypothetical that brought me to tears while I typed it: What if the Mighty Ducks of Anaheim had won the 2005 NHL draft lottery and landed Sidney Crosby? It sounds silly now, but back then it seemed imminent. And so did a big payday for yours mostly truly.
Here’s a quick backgrounder for those who are too young or too old to remember how Crosby almost landed in California, Carolina, Minnesota or (his fingers crossed) Montreal.
Back in the mid-summer of 2005, every GM in the National Hockey League thought he had a shot at Sidney Crosby. And they were all absolutely right.
Coming out of the never-played 2004–05 season, that awful campaign lost to the war between management and labour, the league was in a completely unsettled state. Teams were going to have to adapt to the salary cap (and the salary floor for stragglers). Half the players in the league were free agents. In short, the league was going to look an awful lot different and it didn’t seem quite right to stick to the standings of the last season played, 2003–04, when the Lightning beat the Flames in the final. A draft order had to be determined that was random, if slightly weighted to favour recent underachievers.
The league in its infinite wisdom came up with this: All 30 teams had a ball in the bingo-ball tumbler: 16 regular contenders each had one ball; 10 underachievers had two; and the four that constituted the dregs had three apiece — Pittsburgh, Buffalo, Columbus and the Rangers.
In the Joyce household, the chant of GO RANGERS started the day the lottery was announced.
During the NHL’s lockout season, I commuted from Toronto to Rimouski, Que., with detours to Halifax, Quebec City, Fargo, N.D., and, ultimately, London, Ont., the course of Crosby’s last season of junior hockey. During that time I wrote a biography — as much of a biography as you can write about a kid counting the days to his 18th birthday. The book was slated for a late September release. If Crosby landed on Broadway… well, it evokes the great Sanford and Son “Whiplash” episode (go to the four minute mark), when Fred’s truck was rear-ended by “a white man in a black Cadillac.” My friends in publishing told me what Fred Sanford’s friends told him: “You’re sitting on top of a gold mine.” Crosby in New York would translate to sales in the six figures.
Flash ahead to draft lottery day. The Rangers number was called early. Montreal made it all the way down to the fifth overall. And then the last two: Pittsburgh and Anaheim. If it wasn’t New York, Montreal or Toronto, arguably the best news for my financial interests would have been Crosby landing in SoCal. I heaved a sigh when the envelope was cracked open and the Penguins were announced as the winners. I was tens of thousands of dollars for the poorer. The book still sold 40,000 copies, but what might have been.
Crosby as a Duck? A Ranger? A Canadien or Maple Leaf? I lay my head on a pillow at night and these images dances through my head, Photoshopped by my subconscious.
Read Joyce’s and more than 20 other “What If?” stories in our Alternative History of Sports, in the current issue of Sportsnet magazine.