Sidney Crosby's mom joins Women's Hockey League board

Sidney Crosby's mother has accepted an invitation to join the board of the Canadian Women's Hockey League.

She is making the move to become more involved in women's hockey because of a conversation with her 17-year-old daughter.

Taylor Crosby is a goalie at the prep school Shattuck-St. Mary's, where Sidney played before graduating to major junior hockey and then to the NHL. Taylor was identified by Hockey Canada as a goaltending prospect and was invited to a camp in Calgary earlier this year.

While at home during a break from school, Taylor lamented to her mother that she could already see the end of her hockey career.

"She started talking about how much she loved playing hockey," Trina Crosby recalled. "She said it's scary to think she'd have to give it up and wouldn't be part of her life.

"I said, 'What do you mean?' And she said she'd go to college and university and then what? What after that?"

Trina realized then that while Sidney lives his hockey dream playing for the Pittsburgh Penguins and winning the Stanley Cup, Taylor's prospects of high-level hockey after college depend on the CWHL.

"It stayed with me, so when (Canadian team captain Cassie Campbell-Pascall) asked, I immediately thought of that and thought, 'Well, even if I could help in some small way,"' Trina said.

She joins former Canadian team defenceman Cheryl Pounder, former U.S. forward Caitlin Cahow, and Toronto lawyer Jill McCutcheon as the new members elected to the CWHL board.

Campbell-Pascall, who captained the Canadian women's team to a pair of Olympic gold medals, is vice chairman of the five-team CWHL.

Almost 40 players who were in the league last season are preparing to represent their country at the Winter Olympics in
February. The CWHL opens its seventh season on Nov. 2.

Trina Crosby acknowledges that she doesn't know a lot about the CWHL, but expects to get a crash course Wednesday at a board meeting in Toronto.

"I have a son who is living his dream. He's living a wonderful life, too," she said. "I'm motivated to ensure that little girls
have some place to dream of. I've been around hockey a lot.

"I've been around Sidney being in the NHL for a lot of years now. I just have a perspective. I understand what's going on at the grassroots level for the girls."