LEWISTON – Sidney Crosby turned 10 years old the day after my son was born.

I say this not hoping that it will mysteriously impart a modicum of coordination to this genetically cursed boy, whose old man’s best sport is candlepin bowling while the opponent is enjoying a good buzz.

It’s a factoid you should digest while considering that my progeny still sometimes tries to eat his Play-Doh and pounds down pixie sticks as if there’ll soon be a sugar famine.

Watching Crosby perform surgery on the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League, it’s easy to forget that the Rimouski Rifle won’t turn 18 until the first week of August.

He is, by even the most distorted standards, still a boy skating circles around a man’s world. He’s at the dawn of a paradoxically pampered and pressured adult life that maybe one in 100,000 of us will ever understand.

It doesn’t take a nuclear physicist’s brain or Wayne Gretzky’s sixth sense, however, to discern that Crosby might be the greatest thing to happen to hockey since the Zamboni. This, of course, in a North American sporting tradition I have yet to comprehend, gives the crowd in every host arena license to shower him with all the love and adulation due an Internal Revenue Service agent on tomorrow’s tax deadline day.

Hero worshipping behavior Wednesday night at the Colisee ranged from unimaginative to unnecessary. The crowd of 3,114 booed without hesitation every time Crosby’s name was muttered begrudgingly over the public address system. And they cheered without class when an apparent blow to the midsection sent a bowled-over Crosby reeling to his bench late in the first period.

There is the prevailing notion that Crosby receives the Shaq treatment from anyone wearing a striped shirt. Also, that he is overrated.

I’ll grant the first point, but the second one is farther off than the end of the National Hockey League lockout.

If anything, Crosby is better than advertised.

Having never seen Crosby on anything but a public access cable television tape, I couldn’t fully appreciate his speed and skill until Games 3 and 4 of Rimouski’s quarterfinal series with Lewiston.

My conversion took, oh, maybe eight seconds.

Crosby split two godforsaken defenders on an end-to-end rush. Only Donald Trump would be mugged more viciously if he woke up one morning and decided to ride the No. 7 train just for giggles. Yet Crosby averted a certain concussion and somehow unleashed an off-balance laser that forced Maineiacs goaltender Jaroslav Halak to summon every ounce of his own NHL-worthy talent to make the stop.

In an environment where tenths of a second make a world of difference, Crosby’s quickness lives in its own galaxy.

His composure is otherworldly, too. If subjected to the same desperate behavior that masquerades as defense every night, most of us would be handcuffed and hauled downtown while screaming that our actions were self-defense.

Crosby is unselfish to a fault. He was on the ice for every Rimouski goal in Wednesday’s merciful, 5-1 series-ender. The kid scored once.

As he did more than a hundred other times this season, Crosby dished out three assists. Even those were breathtaking, no-look, behind-the-back stuff.

You won’t catch me getting involved in the silly comparisons to Gretzky and Mario Lemieux.

Crosby’s Creator empowered him with every tool he needs to evolve into one of the five greatest artists ever to play the game. For now, that ought to be enough.

Are there roadblocks to immortality? No question. Let’s remember that Crosby is 17, and 17-year-olds, even well-adjusted ones, are notorious for making stupid, life-altering decisions. Let’s get him through adolescence first.

The injury bug is no respecter of persons. And talent and work ethic are known for about a 50-percent divorce rate. Crosby’s competitive fire could fizzle, especially if the NHL’s interminable billionaires-versus-millionaires dispute doesn’t get resolved until he’s 21 or 22.

In his present incarnation as wunderkind, though, Crosby left me grateful to have watched.

And let it be known that the Play-Doh enthusiast’s growing sports memorabilia collection now includes every shred of proof that Dad was there, just in case.

Kalle Oakes is a staff writer. His e-mail is [email protected].