To the cheers of crowds along Brunswick Street in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Penguins center and captain Sidney Crosby carried the Olympic torch for about 300 meters tonight, part of a relay across Canada that eventually will include 12,000 runners before it reaches Vancouver, site of the 2010 Winter Games.

Halifax is across a harbor from Crosby's hometown of Cole Harbour, Nova Scotia.

"It was really nice," Crosby said of the experience. "It was a lot of people. We get spoiled by the support people show here, but the torch was something pretty special."

Wearing an Olympics-issue warmup suit that was white with a green and blue Vancouver Olympics logo on one side, a white tuque and big red gloves, Crosby held the lit torch in his right hand and waved to the crowd with his left.

Crosby became the youngest NHL captain to lift the Stanley Cup. He was 21 then in June and has since turned 22.

The torch he carried weighs 3.5 pounds, 10 percent of what the Stanley Cup weighs.

After passing the flame to Olympic snowboarder Sarah Conrad, Crosby was scheduled to fly to join his teammates in Ottawa, where the Penguins play tomorrow night.

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