Reliving the moment a decade ago that shifted the Penguins' history

On a Saturday afternoon in Ottawa, 10 years ago today, the Penguins chose 17-year-old superstar Sidney Crosby with the first overall pick in the 2005 NHL Draft.

And the crowd applauded politely, as if a PGA Tour player just tapped in for par.

This was an NHL Draft unlike any other.

As recently as a month earlier, things looked bleak for the team and the league. The Penguins were a bad hockey team with poor attendance and an uncertain future. Labor unrest wiped out the 2004-05 season and was threatening to drag on into another fall.

On July 13, things began to turn around. That's when the league and players reached a tentative deal on a collective bargaining agreement that included a salary cap and was friendly to small markets like Pittsburgh.

Nine days later, on a Friday afternoon, a draft lottery was scheduled. The Penguins had a 1-in-16 chance of winning.

“There was no way you came to work that day thinking, ‘Oh, we're going to get Sidney Crosby,' ” Penguins vice president of communications Tom McMillan said. “The odds were so much against you doing that. There wasn't any buzz that morning. I was thinking, ‘Hopefully, we're in the top 10.' ”

They ended up in the top 10 all right, famously winning the right to draft Crosby, thanks to the bounce of a lottery ball. A run on tickets began immediately.

“The phones started literally ringing off the hook,” McMillan said. “Virtually until midnight, they were taking calls. They worked all weekend.”

The NHL wanted to conduct its draft as soon as possible after the lottery, so it downsized. Instead of staging it at a 20,000-seat arena, it was held in a hotel ballroom in downtown Ottawa. Each team was assigned one table with six chairs. Players and their families were in a separate room. There were no fans in attendance, explaining the muted reaction to Crosby's selection.

“It was a surreal time,” McMillan said.

After he was picked, Crosby took to the stage to meet with co-owner Mario Lemieux, then-team president Ken Sawyer, GM Craig Patrick and head scout Greg Malone. Then he did interviews and posed for pictures — many alongside Lemieux, one holding a puck that had been set on fire.

It was an unusual day but one that started the team and the league on a more positive trajectory.

“Sid was a generational player, and everyone knew that, so it was going to be huge anyway, but the settlement had just happened a week before, so you had that adding to the frenzy,” McMillan said.

“Everyone was ecstatic. Here was this fresh-faced, polite, well-spoken, well-mannered kid who could be the face of the new NHL. That's probably the first day you heard the phrase, ‘The face of the NHL.' ”

Words to remember

When Patrick took the microphone to announce Crosby's name, his words weren't as memorable as when Eddie Johnston selected number “soixante-six” 21 years prior. They were historically significant nonetheless.

“It's a thrill for the Pittsburgh Penguins to be standing here in this position today,” Patrick said.

“It's a very, very, very lucky day for our organization, our city and our fans worldwide. On behalf of Mario Lemieux and the entire ownership group, the Pittsburgh Penguins select, from Rimouski in the Quebec Major Junior League, Sidney Crosby.”

No holds barred

The day before the draft, the NHL had a handful of prospects — Crosby, Jack Johnson, Gilbert Brule and Bobby Ryan — conduct a clinic for youth players in Ottawa.

Afterward, the players went back to the hotel, where Crosby and Johnson were roommates. Crosby arranged his shoes on Johnson's side of the room, so Johnson retaliated by pulling his damp hockey gear out of a bag to air out.

NHL Productions cameras caught the aftermath of the confrontation. “We had a couple of wrestling matches,” Johnson explained. “Things got thrown around a little bit. (The hotel room isn't) as clean as it used to be. Usually we're not this bad.”

Snake draft

Because the draft order was chosen by lottery rather than reverse order of standings from the previous season, the NHL decided, in the interest of fairness, to invert the order in even-numbered rounds. In fantasy sports parlance, it's known as a snake draft.

That left the Penguins with the last pick in the second round and the first pick in the third. One of those picks was a swing and a miss. The other was a home run.

With the last pick of the second round, the Penguins took defenseman Michael Gergen, a prep teammate of Crosby's at Shattuck St. Mary's. He never got past the ECHL. With the first pick in the third round, the Penguins took Kris Letang.

Meanwhile, in Minnesota

A few hours after Crosby pulled on a Penguins jersey for the first time, Joe Vitale was pulling into a church parking lot in Brainerd, Minn. He was at a summer training camp, and his family had stopped by for a weekend visit.

“Traditional Catholic, Italian family, we were going to Mass on Saturday night,” Vitale recalled.

Suddenly, his phone started ringing. A friend from back in St. Louis. Another friend. An uncle.

“I started to worry that something happened at home, so I picked up the fourth call,” Vitale said. “It was a buddy from St. Louis who I hadn't heard from in a while. He was like, ‘Joe, congrats buddy.' And I was like, ‘What are you talking about?' He was like, ‘You were just drafted by Pittsburgh.' ”

With that, Vitale, now 29 and about to enter his second season with the Arizona Coyotes, became the answer to a trivia question. Crosby was the first player the Penguins picked in the 2005 draft. Who was the last?

“Whenever someone asks me if I was drafted, I say yes, by Pittsburgh, and they always ask what year. I always say, ‘It was the Sidney Crosby year.' Anyone can relate to that,” said Vitale, who went with the first pick of the seventh round, 195th overall. “It's kind of cool, being drafted same year, same team as, in my opinion, the best player in the world right now.”

Jonathan Bombulie is a staff writer for Trib Total Media. Reach him at jbombulie@tribweb.com or via Twitter at @BombulieTrib.