Sidney Crosby Dresses as Rocky Balboa in Pittsburgh Penguins’ Halloween Party

Pittsburgh Penguins team captain Sidney Crosby dressed as Rocky Balboa during his team’s annual halloween costume party this past weekend.

Pittsburgh Penguins team captain Sidney Crosby dressed as Rocky Balboa during his team’s annual halloween costume party this past weekend. 

Philly.com’s Frank Seravalli wrote about Crosby’s costume of choice in his Oct. 20 blog:

“No one has ever questioned Sidney Crosby’s creativity on the ice. But he /4/have just one-upped himself off it. 

“Penguins forward Evgeni Malkin posted a photo on his Instagram account over the weekend, revealing Crosby’s interesting costume choice for his team’s Halloween party. Malkin predictably dressed as a vampire. Others wore the facepaint and hair that KISS made famous.

“But did Crosby troll as Rocky Balboa, in an attempt to mock his favorite road city’s cultural icon? The chain and black eye in his photo looks awfully similar to this one of Rock. 

“If so: well done, Sid. Nicely played. 

“Hey whaddaya know, the Flyers are in Pittsburgh on Wednesday night!” 

However, it wasn’t Crosby who won best costume.

That distinction went to the foursome of Pauly Martin, Robert Bortuzzo, Beau Bennett and Nick Spalling, who dressed up as rock n’ roll legends KISS, per Michelle Crechiolo of the Penguins’ official website:

“It truly was no contest — the four Penguins players dressed as KISS won best costume at the team’s annual halloween party this past weekend. 

“‘I think the best one I saw was definitely Pauly Martin, Robert Bortuzzo, Beau Bennett and Nick Spalling dressed up as KISS,’ Brandon Sutter said. ‘They had the boots and the makeup and everything. It was unbelievable. That’s definitely the best I’ve ever seen, so that was above and beyond.’

Sidney Crosby dresses up as Rocky Balboa for Halloween http://t.co/hYuu4D0Rdp #Hockeynight #CBCSports pic.twitter.com/CO3gexMK6W— HockeyNightInCanada (@hockeynight) October 20, 2014

“Winning the competition was definitely the goal, said Martin.

“‘Beau and Borts’ won the year before,’ he said. ‘So they let me and Spalling be on their team (this year). So it was nice of them to do that.’

“Martin’s favorite part of dressing up wasn’t rocking and rolling all night — it was actually the ride to the party.

“‘The best part was we had to drive to the spot, so we were all in a car blasting KISS music with the windows down and we got a couple weird looks,’ Martin said. ‘So that was a lot of fun.’

“Each player adopted a different band member’s onstage persona. Bennett was KISS frontman Gene Simmons (The Demon), Spalling was Catman, Bortuzzo was Starchild and Martin was Spaceman.

“‘I think we just each grabbed a costume,’ Martin said when asked how they decided who was whom. ‘I’m not really sure exactly how it went down, but I think we made Beau be Gene (laughs). I don’t think that was his choice. But it worked out.’

“The four of them were walking around a costume shop looking for ideas when they saw the getups and Martin urged them into going with it.

“‘He’s a big music guy and were kind of just walking around and saw it,’ Bortuzzo said. ‘We figured if we were going to do it, we’d do it right. It was fun.'”

“…Malkin posted another photo with him and captain Sidney Crosby, who went as beloved Philadelphia cultural icon Rocky Balboa, a ficitional boxing character played by Sylverster Stallone in the film franchise. 

“Crosby said he tends to draw inspiration from his favorite movies when thinking of ideas for costumes. 

“”I was Maverick last year from Top Gun. I like the movie (Rocky) too,’ Crosby said. ‘Maybe (Philadelphia fans) will soften up on me because I picked that. It was all in good fun. I like the Rocky movies. There was nothing else behind it.'”

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