Article from Saturday's Herald:
Biggest ‘by far’
Estimated
75,000 crowd Cole Harbour route to celebrate Crosby’s first Cup
By BILL SPURR Staff Reporter
Sat. Aug 8 - 4:46 AM
IF JOANNE OAKLEY and her friends seemed a little giddy at Sidney Crosby’s Stanley Cup celebration Friday afternoon, it wasn’t just because of the positive reaction to the banner they held, which said We Are Crosby’s Cougars.
All three had worked a night shift and hadn’t slept when they arrived at Cole Harbour Place. Oakley and Stephanie Pard work at the youth detention centre in Waterville, and one of the inmates there made their banner.
"We’re independent, older women. Actually, I’m the only older one, but we got awesome reactions. (Maxime) Talbot liked it; he told us he was a cougar," said Oakley, who’s 39. "We did get more of a reaction than we expected, but Crosby didn’t give us as much attention as we wanted."
Oakley, Pard and their friend Lindsay Cooley all play on a Dartmouth women’s hockey team called Conrad’s Cougars, which gave them the inspiration for their banner.
"One guy yelled over, ‘My last name can be Crosby,’ and I asked him, ‘Do you have the eight-point-seven to go with it?’ " said Oakley, referring to Crosby’s annual salary. She also jokingly threatened to take her Sea-Doo out to Grand Lake to try to crash Crosby’s private party there.
A crowd estimated at 75,000 lined the streets of the parade route and jammed the parking lot at Cole Harbour Place, a gathering a Hockey Hall of Fame official described as the biggest Stanley Cup celebration "by far."
The Cup arrived Friday morning at a private terminal at Halifax Stanfield International Airport, where it was met by Crosby and his father. Talbot, Crosby’s Pittsburgh Penguins teammate, flew down from Montreal to be part of his friend’s day.
"When we won the Cup, I talked to some guys that won it before and they said to try to enjoy it and try to stay as close as possible to the Stanley Cup," Talbot said. "Sid’s a good friend of mine and I wanted to share that day with him today. I knew Sid was going to do it the right way."
A Sea King helicopter took the group for an aerial tour of Cole Harbour before doing a low-level pass of the Halifax waterfront, with the Cup perched next to an open side door, before landing on the flight deck of HMCS Preserver. When Crosby got out of the Sea King, he was wearing an air force ball cap, and held the Cup aloft for an appreciative crowd of sailors and their families that numbered in the thousands.
"The military is obviously an important part when you think about your country as a whole," Crosby said when asked why he had made the military such a big part of his celebration. "Being brought up here, I see the dockyards, I see the ships every time I drive over the bridge, so this is something that I thought was important. There’s a lot of troops that are overseas but, for the ones that are here, I thought they would get a kick out of it. As you can see, it’s been a pretty good turnout."
Crosby posed for photos with 50 different groups of military personnel from Halifax, Greenwood and Gagetown, N.B., before climbing into a Light Armoured Vehicle with the Cup, leading a procession of LAVs en route to a visit to the IWK Children’s Hospital.
"It’s a pretty neat experience and to be able to share it with everyone is something that I wanted to do. You never know when you’re going to get this opportunity again. Hopefully, it’s soon, so you just try to enjoy it as much as you can," he said.
"It’s almost like a dream. That’s the special thing about getting the Cup. It’s one thing to win, but there aren’t any other sports that give you this opportunity to spend time with it and share it with others, and I think that’s what we get a kick out of as players."
At Cole Harbour Place, there was a good crowd already in attendance at 11:30 a.m., four hours before the parade was scheduled to conclude there. An army of volunteers barbecued, sold thousands of posters and T-shirts, hauled wagons of Gatorade, and swept up. Lineups for food were so long that waits of 40 minutes were common. All that was missing was a sunscreen booth, and people staked out the few shady spots, including the pavement underneath a big Farmer’s Dairy truck.
One poster told Crosby that It’s Worth Getting Blisters to See You and Stanley.
The crowd was something to behold, and one visitor from Toronto said, "Don’t tell me this city can’t support a CFL team."
Crosby, riding in the parade with the Stanley Cup in an antique navy fire truck, seemed a little overwhelmed by the size of the throng, and when he took the stage with the trophy the crowd reacted as if a rock music god had arrived — a rock god, minus the attitude.
During the tail end of the celebration, Crosby and his teammate took questions from fans. Queries ranged from hockey to whether or not the athletes had a Facebook site.
Crosby smiled and said he doesn’t have a social networking page.
"No Facebook for me — sorry," he replied.
He then suited up for an evening roller hockey game with friends, donning goalie gear to guard one of the nets.
The game on the tennis courts came after Crosby thanked everyone, and said he wanted to speak especially to the young hockey players in attendance.
"I once had the same dreams that you have now," he said. "The proof is right here that you can do it."
(
bspurr@herald.ca)
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