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Question: Wouldn't it be better to trade Sidney Crosby now for a couple of prospects and get some quality picks for him while he's so overrated before the rest of the hockey world realizes he's a bust?

George, Carbondale, Pa.

MOLINARI: Absolutely.

If Ray Shero is half the general manager some of us believe him to be, he ought to be working feverishly to foist Crosby off on some unsuspecting rival. With luck, maybe he'll even manage to steal a couple of conditional fifth-round draft choices in the deal.

Clearly, for a guy who's already reached the advanced age of 22, Crosby really has accomplished very little at this level. Once you get beyond that league scoring championship and MVP award he's won, along with that minor footnote about being the youngest captain ever to lead a team to a Stanley Cup, what has the guy achieved?

It's a pretty skimpy resume, to be sure. Makes you wonder why, in a poll of general managers conducted by TSN, the Canadian TV network, last season, Crosby was their choice as the player around whom they would want to build a franchise. Then again, what would GMs know about a hockey player's talent and value?

Seriously, if people want to debate whether Crosby or Malkin (or Alex Ovechkin or Henrik Zetterberg or whoever) is the better player, that's fine. Anyone outside of Crosby's immediate family who believes he is a no-brainer choice for that distinction simply isn't giving the other world-class talents in the NHL the respect they deserve.

But to characterize Crosby as a bust is beyond asinine, and gives the concept of being clueless a bad name.

We're now going to have a slight deviation from the usual format, albeit only for one day.

What follows is not a question (or an answer, for that matter), but a note from longtime Penguins fan and Q&A regular Bill Ratay, who now resides in Apopka, Fla. He recently took in what might have been his last game at Mellon Arena, and passed along his reflections about the place, which is in its final season as the Penguins' home rink.

An excerpt from his note:

"I returned home to recently watch the Pens beat the Panthers in a shootout (Oct. 23), and while I watched the game, my purpose was to be in that old building one more time, and to relive my childhood memories, before it enters its well-deserved retirement.

"While the Civic Arena, which will always be its true name, will never be remembered as one of the toughest venues in which to play (for opponents), its unique traits and characteristics will remain distinct in my mind.

"To see all the places they shoved seats to get to its current capacity since it opened, to notice the old curved aisles between sections, to walk through the extremely cramped corridors, to sit in seats that appear to not have been cleaned since the 1960s, and to use the cattle troughs in the restrooms, those are memory-laden.

"Yet nothing will be as memorable as looking up at the banners in the rafters and seeing the outline of the arena's round ceiling. While the old building wasn't created to capture sound, as are today's multipurpose facilities, I would bet that if someone had the chance to spend some time up there with their eyes closed, they could still hear the old echoes of "Go home Buffalo" chants or the cheers associated with another dramatic Mario Lemieux goal or the "BAR-klee, BAR-klee" chants (for St. Louis defenseman Barclay Plager).

"Yes, I watched the game, but taking photos of the old house, while soaking in the memories, was more important to me."

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