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Crosby responds to Milbury's digs
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Pittsburgh Penguins center Sidney Crosby.
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BOSTON -- Penguins center Sidney Crosby said today that he didn't care to respond to critical remarks NBC hockey analyst Mike Milbury made about him during an interview with a Philadelphia radio station Monday.
And then, almost immediately, he responded, albeit briefly.
"I don't know what he's looking for, if he's looking for attention or what it is," Crosby said after the Penguins' game-day skate at TD Garden. "I don't have much to say there.
"I really don't know where that came from. You can twist something a certain way, and he's obviously shown he's more than capable of doing that.
"He's pretty good at twisting things around, that's for sure."
In that interview, among other things, Milbury labeled Crosby "Little Goody-Two-Shoes," referred to his coming back from "his 35th concussion" and said "he writes the book on whining."
Milbury also said that Crosby is "not the perfect gentleman" on the ice, something Crosby readily acknowledged today.
"As far as me slashing someone, that's hockey," he said. "I guess I'm not a gentleman out there on the ice sometimes, I'll say that.
"There are times when, it's a contact sport, and I do get involved -- but I don't think I've gotten one penalty in a scrum since I've been back."
He also suggested that opponents routinely target him for physical abuse.
"My style is not different than a lot of guys, to be honest," he said. "If you're to look at the way I play, I play the game to create offense and score goals.
"If you are to dissect everything and show my response to certain things sometimes, yeah, I do do things out there. But they're usually in response to probably two or three things that were done to me prior to that.
"If you really know the game, most players are going to go out there and try to provoke that stuff, to have me retaliate, or get me off my game. And there are times where that does happen.
"But I think that for the most part, if it was that easy to knock me off my game, guys would do a little bit more of it."
Not long after Crosby met with reporters, Milbury issued this statement through the NHL office:
"I reached out to (Penguins executive) David Morehouse and the Penguins about the comments I made yesterday on Philadelphia radio. In hindsight, I realize what I said was inappropriate and wrong, and I want to apologize to the Penguins organization and their fans."
First Published April 3, 2012 3:18 pm
