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PITTSBURGH -- The temptation, of course, could be to ratchet up the charm, break out the political correctness, paint on a squeaky-clean veneer. Sidney Crosby seems smart enough to do those things. And what better setting than when he and several of his Pittsburgh Penguins teammates spread out across Western Pennsylvania every year just before training camp to participate in a promotion that has morphed into something of a ritual? Yet Crosby doesn't feel the need to be "on" when he shows up at a couple or three homes to deliver season tickets to Penguins customers. "It's easy to be myself," Crosby told ESPN.com Monday after making stops at two homes in the suburbs north of Consol Energy Center. "This is me. I would walk into my buddy's house or my family member's house the same way. I just probably would not ring the doorbell." Those who aren't necessarily in Crosby's corner -- any Philadelphia Flyers faithful still reading at this point? -- might have a difficult time absorbing the Rockwellian scene of the reigning NHL scoring champion and MVP sitting comfortably at someone's dining room table, visiting and gladly signing a pile of Penguins items, as he did Monday in the home of Reuben and Molly Bianchin. This is not the picture of an ultracompetitive hockey player dubbed by some as a whiner. Neither is it a looped recording of interview answers that have earned Crosby the behind-his-back nickname "Sidbot" in some quarters. In these interactions with fans, he doesn't just pet the family dog; he asks about the pet's name and age. He doesn't just accept a homemade chocolate chip cookie; he points out with boyish defiance that the team will have body-fat testing in a couple of days. "You're genuinely appreciative, and it's the least we can do," Crosby said. Those who spend some time around Crosby know that he is polite and patient and has a good sense of humor. Most fans don't get a chance to hang out casually with him and get a glimpse of that personality, hear him laugh, and notice that he asks them almost as many questions as they ask him. To make sure people are home, the Penguins have to spoil the surprise to some extent by calling ahead after they randomly pick several season-ticket holders for the special deliveries, although the recipients don't know which player is coming. It has become common for parents to pull their children out of school for the chance to hang out with a Penguins player. With the kids, Crosby is particularly attentive. He told the Bianchin brood, "I love going to the rink. Still do." Crosby seemed delighted that the three youngest of the family's four children -- all three of them boys -- had been or are Little Penguins, a learn-to-play program that bears Crosby's name, is partly sponsored by him, and provides all equipment and lessons. Seven-year-old Tyler Bianchin took the initiative and shyly asked Crosby if he wanted to play hockey in the driveway. Of course he did. Crosby is hockey's most famous center, but when he's playing with kids -- or pickup hockey with his longtime buddies, as he did when he took the Stanley Cup home to Cole Harbour, Nova Scotia, in 2009 -- he prefers to play goalie, the position his father, Troy, played. He began to maneuver for that spot Monday: "Who usually plays goalie? Want me to play goalie?" He was rebuffed by one of the boys because they wanted to see him shoot, but in no time Crosby had successfully but nicely cajoled his way into the net -- after making sure the boys would be shooting balls, not hard pucks. "They're pretty oblivious," Reuben Bianchin said of the scene. "Probably, I don't know how many years from now, when they look back on it, they're going to be blown away." In recent years, Crosby has driven his Range Rover to these ticket deliveries. On Monday, he was part of a small caravan of team officials and a scaled-down media contingent that headed to his second stop, the home of Marty and Lisa Kirsch. Crosby hesitated more than once before he let himself be directed to park in the family's driveway. The last thing he wants to be is presumptuous.  Inside, Crosby settled into the family room and did the autograph thing. Then came the photos. Like a scene from a wedding, Crosby posed with various family members and combinations of people.
Most were taken in front of the fireplace, but years from now, Julia Kirsch, 11, will come across one of the selfies Crosby took of the two of them sitting on a dark leather couch -- he thoughtfully snapped several, maneuvering the Kirsch's phone between each shot to try to get the angle and the lighting just right -- and see his big smile and her petrified expression. After Crosby said his goodbyes to the Kirsch family, they couldn't stop themselves from inching outside behind him, and so the conversation continued in the driveway. Crosby met their retriever, Wilbur, and Marty Kirsch passed along a few last stories. The Penguins have been doing the ticket delivery promotion since 2007. That year, Crosby pulled up in a rented Jaguar to the home of grandmotherly Alice Kilgore. She was shocked to see Crosby but became famous around Pittsburgh the instant she told him, "I don't think you'll win the Cup this year. Not yet. Maybe next year." And so it came to be, and in 2009 Crosby made the only return visit in the team's ticket delivery history when he showed up at Kilgore's house with the Stanley Cup. Kilgore made Crosby blush when she asked if he had a girlfriend and whether he liked older women, then planted a big smooch on his blushing cheek. The Crosby stops have gotten circus-like since then, with TV cameras and curious neighbors waiting on people's lawns before he arrives. "You can still enjoy it," Crosby said, "but I kind of miss that element of just walking up to someone's door and them having no clue." If there's a whiff of adventure, you can count Crosby in. "I can remember the first couple of years; I barely knew my way around Pittsburgh at that point," he said. "I remember getting lost going to some of these houses. It was only supposed to be 20 minutes and it would take me 40, and I finally get there and I'm not sure I'm at the right house. "That was a fun part of it."
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