I could see the front-page headline already: Moose Pursuing Junior Sensation. Crosby On Verge Of Signing With AHL Club.
It turns out Chipman has not contacted Crosby or his agent about the possibility of joining the Moose next season, assuming the NHL labour war continues to rage through the summer.
That doesn't mean the idea is impossible, though.
It's certainly crossed Chipman's mind.
"Yeah, it has," he said. "Who doesn't think about names like that in our business? I'm sure it would create a buzz. Sidney Crosby would be a good American League player. And he's a very dynamic guy. He's a household name. That's all intriguing."
Not to mention potentially lucrative.
With the NHL locked out, Crosby is the name in hockey right now, already compared to Wayne Gretzky and probably the brightest young star since Mario Lemieux came out of junior.
Earlier this week, the QMJHL standout attained superstar status off the ice by signing a lucrative marketing deal with Reebok, putting him in the same corporate family as NBAers Allen Iverson and Yao Ming.
With a personality to match his talent, the guy is a marketer's dream.
And if an AHL team managed to sign him this summer, there wouldn't be a rink big enough to hold everyone who'd pay to watch him.
Already, there is speculation the Chicago Wolves will go after Crosby. The AHL's big kid on the block has never been shy about spending money.
But let's face it -- the best bang for the big bucks you'd surely have to pay Crosby would come in Canada.
The 17-year-old has been the subject of constant scrutiny for a couple of years now, peaking when he led Team Canada to the gold medal at the World Junior Hockey Championship in Grand Forks, N.D., right after Christmas.
That tournament barely registered south of the border.
Somehow, Crosby has sustained that level of interest up here ever since. This isn't so much a peak as it is a plateau. And the edge is nowhere in sight.
In Canada, an appearance by Crosby is almost guaranteed to fill the house.
So what's he worth to a team like the Moose?
Assuming he'd pack the unused upper levels of the new, downtown rink, that's about 6,200 fans per game.
At $20 per ticket (they'd have to increase the price, wouldn't they?), that's an addition $124,000 a game. Or around $5 million a season.
Think Crosby would play for a good piece of that?
He's already said he wants to play professionally next season.
I didn't even get into the numbers with Chipman, but this is one idea he and every other Canadian-based AHL owner would be crazy not to at least consider.
Sure, Crosby will be pursued by a few of the wealthier teams in European leagues.
But there are advantages to him playing in North America.
"It's not as though he's got to prove himself," Chipman pointed out.
And in the next breath ...
"The advantage is you're going to play 80 games instead of 48," Chipman continued. "You're going to play in a North American system and a North American style."
Against many of the young players he'll be competing with for the rest of his career.
You could almost hear Chipman warming up his sales pitch.
What's he got to lose?
