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NHL

Wings' Draper Claims Crosby Missed Lidstrom in Handshake Line

Posted Jun 13, 2009 7:10PM By Bruce Ciskie (RSS feed)

Filed Under: Penguins, Red Wings, Eastern, Western, NHL Videos

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The handshake line that follows every NHL playoff series is a great tradition. The teams battle it out for four, five, six, or seven games. When it's all over, the two teams line up at center ice, take the gloves off their right hands, and shake hands with each other.

This wonderful ritual continued Friday night after Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Finals. Pittsburgh won, and the two teams took part in the handshake line as usual. At least one Red Wing, however, is alleging that a prominent Pittsburgh player snubbed his team's captain in the line.

Red Wing Kris Draper is miffed that Penguins captain Sidney Crosby didn't shake hands with Detroit captain Nicklas Lidstrom.
"Nick was waiting and waiting, and Crosby didn't come over to shake his hand," Draper told an Associated Press reporter a couple hours after the game, as he was leaving Joe Louis Arena. "That's ridiculous, especially as their captain, and make sure you write that I said that!"
I'm all for a little controversy. It can spice things up sometimes.

But there's not much to this, other than impatience and exuberance. The video below shows CBC's coverage of the scene after the game. They start showing handshakes a bit after the 5:10 mark.



If you watch carefully, you'll notice Crosby at one end of the rink, celebrating with teammates. Lidstrom and some other Detroit players skated through the line, and they did it before all of Pittsburgh's players and coaching staff had gotten in line. You'll even see Detroit's Johan Franzen come back to the line before Crosby got to Henrik Zetterberg.

Crosby himself looked confused, and pointed in the direction of Detroit players who were heading off the ice.

As I mentioned, this is nothing more than a little impatience on the part of some Detroit players, apparently including Lidstrom, and a bit too much exuberance on Crosby's part. This doesn't appear to have been anything malicious or disrespectful on the part of anyone.

Should Crosby have hustled into the handshake line? Sure. He's got a very keen sense of the game's history and traditions, so there is no doubt he understands how this works, and he could have been more understanding of the Red Wings' desire to get off the ice and let the visitors celebrate on their own.

But there's no written protocol for this. There are no rules. Crosby and his teammates stood around and let Detroit celebrate in Pittsburgh last year, and there were no cries of people missing part or all of the handshake line.

In the end, though, this is only a big deal to Crosby-haters and sore losers.

Tags: henrik+zetterberg, johan+franzen, kris+draper, nicklas+lidstrom, sidney+crosby

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