The Blogging Psychologist: Case Study #3: Sidney Crosby

Sometimes we, the friends, who write Down Goes Spezza are accused of only being self-promoting, self-centered writers who are only in it for ourselves (come to think of it, we're attention whores). This isn't true, we're performing a very important important public service. We are diagnosing psychological issues in the NHL and giving them hope to recover from their issues.

1: How many more Dives
I will take, just one more
dive and I will never
dive again

Today's patient is someone we see a lot of during NHL broadcasts. This guy has won a few awards and some giant trophy that has his name engraved on it. His name is Sidney Crosby. Sid the Kid seems to always end up on my television, and believe me, I hate that.

Now I am not here to write about how Gary Bettman has a huge man crush on Sidney. I really cannot judge people for man crushes as we all know that I have a huge man crush on Chris Pronger (and this goes back to his days with St. Louis, so yeah, I've always loved those amazing elbows). (Jaye from PKLC and Jason from DWYDN are probably thinking 'oh god, here he goes again')

Anyway, onto looking at possible problems with the psychological state of Mr. (or Ms) Crosby we see quite a few possibly things that could be wrong. I've come up with several possible diagnoses and I happen to be prepared to present my findings.

Now, I'm looking at a category of psychological illnesses called the Somatoform Disorders. What are they, well I'm looking at two diseases known to most people as Münchhausen's Syndrome and Conversion Disorder. Also, on the list of things to look at is Histrionic Personality Disorder.

Now, many Philadelphia fans have questioned Sidney Crosby's gender identification and sexual orientation. I am NOT here to talk about that as they are not any kind of psychological disorder. If Sidney wants to live as a woman, that's his choice and there are plenty specialists who can help him with those issues.
(Editor's Note: Both Matt and Amy of DGS are huge supporters of LGBT rights and same-sex marriage in the USA)


Münchhausen's Syndrome: This condition is characterized by frequent usage of faking injuries and illnesses in order to gain the attention of others. Sidney's embellishment and love of diving is definitely falls under faking injuries. However, there seems to be one problem, someone with this condition would frequently miss time in order to get these injuries treated. Since he doesn't seem to always be running to the training staff and because Crosby has a habit of popping right up after a hook or a trip is called so, he doesn't seem to have this condition.

Conversion Disorder: Conversion Disorder is a psychiatric condition that shows itself by the patient feeling intense amounts of pain when a mild stimulus is presented. This would explain why Crosby dives and cries every time someone looks at him the wrong way. This disorder is not physical in nature, rather, the reason the for the excessive pain is usually emotional in nature. This emotional pain comes from a lack of self-esteem.





Pretty sure there's some legit reasons to feel sad their. Sid wants to be loved, and appreciated, but he's in the wrong sport.

This just in, the DGS SuperSpies apparently were in a church sitting next to Crosby as he prayed, and apparently it went something like this:

"Dear God, My name's Sidney, and I've won a Stanley Cup but these people seem to think that I absolutely suck."

At this point, there was a white light, and the heavens opened up and gold himself was standing before Crosby, and he replied, "Well, Cindy"
Crosby went, "But my names Sidney"
god said, "IT DOESN'T MATTER WHAT YOUR NAME IS"


Histrionic Personality Disorder: This one also seems like Sid. It's characterized by sexually provocative behavior, (his reciprocation of Bettman's man crush, love of himself and Malkin, and this.) Exaggeration of emotional states (all the whining) and physical responses (all the diving). Come to think of it, Sidney Crosby is the textbook definition of this condition. One more thing, fun fact of HPD: almost 90% of people who have it are of the female gender. Interpret that as you wish.
(Editor's Note: We're not saying Crosby is a woman, we're just reporting a fact about the condition we were discussing, it's up to you to do what you want with that.)



I think it's safe to say, no matter what he has, I think that Crosby Sucks.

(Editor's Note: Sucks is defined as, being someone we have absolutely no respect for because the player in question is a total d-bag. Crosby's on ice stats are, impressive but inflated due to the coddling of referees.)

Seriously though, the treatment is to get Crosby to overthrow Bettman and insert a commissioner who won't stand for the dives. Sound like a plan? Who's with me?

The Blogging Psychologist: Case Study #2: Alex Burrows

Seriously, my GM is out
to get me. He changes
the uniform every year.

So in today's second installment of my blogging psychologist profiles, we look at Vancouver Canucks Alex Burrows. I know it's been a while since we did our first profile, Chris Pronger, but do check it out if you need to remember how this works.




Anyway, Mr. Burrows has presented with claims of feeling that a Mr. Stephane Auger is out to get him. Now some of these feelings may be based on Mr. Burrows inability to process what's real and what's not. Others may be an overreaction to legitimate concerns. Luckily we here at Down Goes Spezza were able to analyze the data that we were given. Unlike Mr. Pronger who showed traits of many mood and personality issues, Mr. Burrows only displays the traits of one personality disorder. Mr. Burrows appears to suffer from Paranoid Personality Disorder.

Bro, I heard you're good at
defending, well defend me
from Auger, please.

Kesler dude, can you see if
he's out to get me?

Mr. Burrows has had a feeling that many people are out to get him. We all remember his little tiff with NHL referee Stephane Auger for being out to get him. Now Burrows spent a lot time in the penalty box which proves that he was either making an excuse for being a horrible hockey player, or, he was right, Mr. Auger was out to get him. Now, I think we should side with Mr. Burrows as Mr. Auger has made a near infinite amount of some questionable calls.

Wait? Even goalies are out to
get me. FML.

Now of course, Mr. Burrows has shown flashes of talent on the ice. But he also seems to have some other complaints. For one, he keeps talking about the Sedins as if they are one person. He sometimes  attempts to deny the existence of Daniel Sedin.

All in all, I feel like it's safe to say that Mr. Burrows is slightly paranoid in that he feels like the referees are out to get him. But hey, you never really know with these guys, suffice it to say that Mr. Burrows probably has Paranoid Schizophrenia, not Paranoid Personality Disorder. This is because of his hallucinations regarding the lack of existence of one "Daniel Sedin".

Luckily, the prognosis is good for Mr. Burrows. We must talk through his feelings about people like Mr. Auger and maybe have him hang out with both Sedin twins. Hopefully Mr. Burrows will then be able to function on society.

The Blogging Psychologist: Case Study #1: Chris Pronger

Well, as mentioned in an earlier post, DGS is a student of the art of psychology. Now with my nasty case of writer's block over the last few days, I've been trying to find something to write about, and it finally hit me, why not use my knowledge of psychology to develop profiles on NHL personalities. Depending on the success of this post, I might keep doing it, or this could be a one off. (Warning: DGS reserves to the right to just forget that this existed and write other stuff as well.)

You think Lauren was the only one
who wanted out of Edmonton?

With that being said, I've picked one of my hometown boys to be my first victim target patient person to study.
The lucky winner is: Flyers Defenseman Chris Pronger

Be mindful of the fact that I am evaluating Chris Pronger's actions on the ice/during interviews as basis for these observations, so I could totally be wrong about Chris Pronger the human being. (As for Lauren Pronger, that's another post for another time.)


Kleptomania: A lot of people think that Pronger's love of swiping pucks during the Finals may have been caused by kleptomaniac urges; but that's not all that kleptomania is. See if he was a suffering from this disorder he'd be stealing everything. Goalies water bottles, stick tape, Rick DiPietro's MRI results, Brian Gionta, and Kerry Fraser's hair.


Narcissistic Personality Disorder:  Chris loves attention. Narcissists love attention. Chris talks down to everyone (see Gibberish comments, anything involving Adam Burish during the Finals). Chris gets jealous of other people's success and retaliates by elbowing their skulls off. Chris considers himself to be the best in the world at what he does. Chris is awesome. Chris is the NHL's apex predator, coiled like a viper, ready to strike when the moment is right. Yeah, Chris Pronger is NPD alright.

I have that hardware, and
I love myself

With that, I have finished my ideas on Pronger. Coming up later, Sean Avery, Daniel Carcillo, Alex Burrows and Stephane Auger.

Please feel free to request any profiles as well.