In a day when even Rocky is 'roiding it up.

In a time when Tom Brady being tagged as a father of a baby makes headlines on SportsCenter.

And in an era when the NBA All-Star game — and I use the term loosely — is considered entertainment, even though elementary school hoopsters show more fundamentals and the pros travel more than a circus, it's nice to have at least one athlete to idolize.

Sidney Crosby.

Sure. I admit it. I'm not a hockey fan. Counting Crosby, I probably couldn't name 10 players in the NHL.

And the ones I do know, I make fun of for their names.

Like Vincent "Chevy" LeCavalier and Martin St. Louis (I pronounce it like the city).

And who can forget Miroslav Satan. Any dude with Satan as a last name should be avoided.

I joke that my favorite player is Harry Derriere.

I quip that my hockey name is Mikal Kilroy (pronounced Kil-wha like Patrick Roy.)

But I might have to put away my NHL joke book. It's hard to make fun of something that you kind of sort of are starting to, gasp, like.

I thank Crosby for that.

Two years ago, the NHL was pretty much dead. There was a lockout and no one seemed to really give a flying puck about it.

And to top it all off, the Pittsburgh Penguins were awful.

Then Crosby came along. He was to Pittsburgh as LeBron James was to Cleveland — a poster child for hope.

And he is really just a child. The kid is 19, after all. I don't think he's had to shave yet.

He doesn't even have his own pad yet. He lives with Mario Lemieux. I envision a SpongeBob SquarePants poster hanging on the wall of his room inMario's crib.

It's that boyish innocence that leads me to believe he has his head screwed on straight, despite the intense scrutiny he receives.

I've seen parts of the two interviews he did for Pittsburgh TVstations and he handled them pretty well.

He appeared humble, sincere, and it seems like he won't appear in any police blotters any time soon.

And, he's on a winner.

The Pens are good now. They have a lot of young talent around Crosby like Marc-Andre "Snow" Fleury, Evgeni Malkin and JordanStaal.

It's enough to make even a hockey cynic like me pay attention.

But, knowing my luck, I will finally give myself willingly to the Pens and the sport of hockey, become a rabid fan, start pronouncing these guys' names correctly and the Pens will up and move to Kansas City or Las Vegas or Death Valley or some other locale that should never have a hockey franchise.

Here's my rule of thumb about hockey franchises: If it never snows in your city, or the lowest recorded temperature makes it impossible for water to freeze, you should never have a hockey team.Crosby needs the ice. Pittsburgh needs the Pens and, gulp, so do I.