Macklin Celebrini will remain Canada\u2019s captain for the IIHF World Hockey Championship even after Sidney Crosby\u2019s last-minute addition to the team.<\/p>\n
That was decided during a player-led discussion on the eve of the tournament in Fribourg and Zurich, Switzerland. Celebrini\u2019s teammates, including Crosby, were in favor of the 19-year-old superstar continuing with the \u201cC\u201d for what amounts to the passing of the torch for the Canadian men\u2019s program.<\/p>\n
Not only does it make Celebrini the youngest Canadian captain ever at a senior-level men\u2019s event, but it will mark the first time Crosby has represented his country without the \u201cC\u201d since the 2010 Vancouver Olympics.<\/p>\n
Instead, he\u2019ll join John Tavares and Ryan O\u2019Reilly as alternate captains for the team.<\/p>\n
Crosby was only added to the roster Tuesday \u2014 two days after Celebrini had been named captain and donned the \u201cC\u201d in an exhibition game. He certainly didn\u2019t sound too concerned about reprising his usual role while speaking with reporters before Thursday night\u2019s meeting to finalize the leadership group.<\/p>\n
\u201cYeah, we\u2019ll figure it out,\u201d Crosby said. \u201cThat\u2019s not something that we\u2019ll need to spend much time on. I\u2019m really happy to be here. (Celebrini has) had an unbelievable year. He looks amazing out here. I can see why he got selected.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s got so many great leadership qualities.\u201d<\/p>\n
Celebrini made such a strong impression on Crosby at last year\u2019s World Championship that he ended up earning an invite to train with him and Nathan MacKinnon in Halifax last summer. That was a precursor to his breakthrough 115-point season for the San Jose Sharks. He also made the trip to the Milan Olympics in February and led Team Canada with five goals in six games, being named to the tournament all-star team.<\/p>\n
The teenager has drawn comparisons to Crosby because of his competitive two-way game and easy-going demeanor. He\u2019s viewed as the future of Canadian hockey, which explains why he was chosen to wear the \u201cC\u201d from a roster that includes several accomplished NHL veterans, including O\u2019Reilly, Tavares, Mark Scheifele, Robert Thomas, Morgan Rielly, Darnell Nurse and Evan Bouchard.<\/p>\n
Celebrini called it a \u201chuge honor\u201d and praised Crosby, who is looking to add a second World Championship gold to his two Olympic gold medals and victories at the 2016 World Cup and 2025 4 Nations Face-Off.<\/p>\n
\u201cI mean, everybody knows he\u2019s Captain Canada,\u201d Celebrini said. \u201cHe\u2019s been the captain of the national team for so many years, and he\u2019s the face of (hockey in) Canada \u2014 the face of hockey in general.\u201d<\/p>\n
Just like at last year\u2019s World Championship, where Canada\u2019s unbeaten run was ended by a shocking quarterfinal loss to Denmark, it appears that Crosby and Celebrini will play together. They skated on a line with Scheifele ahead of Friday\u2019s tournament-opening game against Sweden.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Macklin Celebrini will remain Canada\u2019s captain for the IIHF World Hockey Championship even after Sidney Crosby\u2019s last-minute addition…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":575196,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[5,54125,4,100,168],"class_list":["post-575195","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-hockey","tag-mens-olympic-ice-hockey","tag-nhl","tag-pittsburgh-penguins","tag-san-jose-sharks"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/116576197273083849","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/575195","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=575195"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/575195\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/575196"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=575195"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=575195"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=575195"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}