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It comes up randomly, and with little forewarning. No one could have guessed where the conversation would go or the revelations it would lead to.
Team Canada are having a day off from the preliminaries of the IIHF Men's World Tournament, and they are using it to its fullest. They had a skate in the morning to go over some last minute fine tuning, working on certain lines and special groups, getting to know each other's play even better, so as to improve the chemistry on the ice.
The chemistry is much improved from when the competition started, building and bubbling among the players happily. Some players already had well-established connections with one another, Sid and Flower's on-ice connection and communication had led to a conspiracy from half of their teammates that they had a psychic bond that allowed them to read each others minds while on the ice, being perfectly able to anticipate one another's moves and play decisions. The two of them had thought to remind their fellow players that they had played together for years, before some of the team was even born, and were simply incredibly used to one another and their play style, but they didn't want to open themselves up to teasing about their age. Instead, they allowed the psychic bond rumour to continue to circle, Flower finding it hilarious and Sid happy that the mischief his team was getting up to was harmless.
The team had headed back to the locker room after a successful practice, and it was there that things got interesting.
Everyone was mostly finished getting changed, stripped out of their gear and showered, and were all just sitting around and chatting away before they'd head back to the hotel. Conversation was loud as people discussed everything, from plays, to catching up about family and teammates, to random things people had seen on social media.
It was that last one that led to the revelation that shocked the entire room.
"Macklin," Sid called from where he was stood by his locker, fresh from the shower due to being one of the last players off the ice, "how up to date are you with internet slang?"
Mack, at hearing his name from his captain, whipped his head around to where Sid was stood, looking like some sort of over-excited meerkat, much to the entertainment of the rest of the team, if the snorts and guffaws echoing through the room were to be believed.
"Ummmmm, I'm okay?" He says it as if he's not sure, "I'd say I know a good amount?"
"People on the internet keep calling me 'acoustic'," he says it while putting his hands up and making quotation marks, "and I can't understand what on earth they are talking about. But so many people keep agreeing."
The locker room had drifted quieter and quieter as Sid first called for Mack's attention, everyone in that room almost programmed to quieten down when Sidney Crosby, Captain Canada himself spoke. By the end of his question, conversations had mostly died, a few still continuing but muted, everyone having an ear directed to what was going on, everyone waiting to see how Macklin would answer such an earnest yet hilarious question from their famously offline captain.
Mack sputters under the stare of his captain, fumbling over his words, "um, oh, haha, oh right. Didn't think that was where that question was going, haha," Mack pulled himself together, "it's nothing bad, it's just slang about you being autistic."
"But...but I'm not autistic."
Silence. The entire room is dead silent, the few quiet conversations dead as the entire room stares at Sid.
"...Yes you are." It's Flower who is first to speak.
"No? I'm not." Sid is genuinely confused, looking around at all of these players, who he has been playing with and against for years, decades in some cases, and every single one of them is looking at him as if he has told them he was secretly a Russian stealth agent, placed in Canada to usurp their hockey crown, gobsmacked faces all around.
"Yes, you are." Flower is insistent, he moves from where he was sat in his locker cubbie to stand right in front of Sid.
"No, Flower, I'm not. I don't know where you got that idea from."
Marc-Andre grabs his shoulders, gripping onto his upper arms, looking at Sid deeply, chasing his eyes until he holds eye contact. Sid has always hated when Flower does this, preferring not to have to make eye contact, but it was one of the many ways Flower showed he cared, and so Sid got used to having to deal with it. For his friends, Sid would do many things.
"You don't think you're autistic." Flower's voice is bordering on hysterical.
"No? Why on earth did you think I am?"
"So, you weren't diagnosed as a kid? You didn't just choose to not talk about it cause of all the shitty opinions and chirping when we were coming up?"
"No." Sid is genuinely baffled by this conversation, but looking around the room, he sees that this misconception is not restricted to Flower, everyone in the room is seemingly in agreement.
"You're not autistic? You? You're not autistic?!" Flower hysteria is growing and Sid feels need to de-escalate before the Quebecois goalie begins ranting in French, which he knows is one of Flower's next steps when he gets like this.
Before he is able to stop him, Marc-Andre continues, "Tabarnak! Not autistic my ass! You're fucking with me. This is your attempt at a joke, right?! If you're not autistic then what the fuck have you been doing for the last 20 years then?!"
Sid is just confused at this point, "I've been being a hockey player?"
A groan rips itself from Flower and he flings himself away from Sid, taking a lap around the locker room, passing by the equally confused faces of his Canadian teammates who are strewn around the room watching this show unfold in front of them.
Sid continues on in his confusion, "but, I'm not different? I'm the same as so many other players?"
"They're also probably autistic." Flower tone has moved from fury and passion to bone dead tiredness, as he continues to pace and drag his hand across his face.
"But me and Nate...we're pretty similar..."
"Sid, mon capitaine, mon ami, Nate is a walking billboard for autism and everyone knows it, including him."
"Nooo...."
"We're talking about Mr Neurotic himself here, the man had a locker room coup about sweet potatoes." It is at this point that Flower flicks himself around and turns to face Sid from where he was pacing. In doing so he catches the eye of exactly who he was speaking about, Nate sat a bit down from Sid, watching all of this happen with wide eyes.
"I mean, he not wrong, Sid." Nate himself chirps up.
"What?"
"I am autistic. I never really promoted it because I didn't want to get chirped to hell and back for it, so I kept it on the downlow, but yeah, I was diagnosed as a kid."
"What?! How come this never came up?" Sid is incredulous.
"I...I assumed you already knew. That you clocked me immediately. You're usually perceptive as hell. I just assumed you were treating it the same as you treat yours, keeping it quiet to keep it out of assholes hand's."
"But...I'm not autistic...?"
"Sid." It's both Nate and Flower, their combined glare enough to make even the strongest man quiver in front of them.
"Ok, ok, I'lll...I'll have a think about it. Look into some stuff. There might be something"
"There's definitely something."
"Ok then..."
After that, the silence begins to disperse. Its slow going and awkward, players moving to get their stuff together and heading out in pairs and small groups.
The team moving around and exiting, all while the core of Team Canada stays, confusion, shock and embarrassed horror warring across all of their faces.
It's official, after over 20 years in the NHL, Sidney Crosby finally discovers that the entirety of the league has been convinced he is autistic since the start.
And, as he sits there and thinks about his childhood and his superstitions, of the many things he schedules and organises in his life and the specific things he does and does not like, he can see that maybe they have a point.
He would need to do some more research, understand the subject material and then compare it to what fans had been saying. If the famously dense players had picked up on it, then fans who spent their lives analysing players every move definitely had.
Sid had a plan, and now he was prepared to execute it.
Perfectly.