Filed Under » Sidney Crosby

Nearly a year after suffering a season-ending head injury, Pittsburgh Penguins star Sydney Crosby returned to the ice for the first time Monday night, receiving confirmation from team doctors that his boo-boo was all better.

"The little guy took quite a bonk to the head, but he was very brave and hardly cried," said coach Dan Bylsma, who was there to hold Crosby's hand each time he went into the scary MRI machine. "It takes a real big boy to go back out on the ice after something like that happens, even if it takes 10 months to do so."

Crosby was triumphant in his return, notching two goals and two assists, acknowledging his mom with a cheerful wave after each.

"It was a really bad owie, and at first I didn't wanna do hockey anymore because it hurt so bad, but then I saw my friend Matt [Cooke] playing hockey, and I can do more pushups than him, and my dad said that he would take me to Coldstone if I tried practicing again, and so I did, and now I'm not scared no more," announced Crosby, who spoke to the media from a blanket fort he built in the locker room.

NHL superstar Sidney Crosby underwent another battery of tests for lingering concussion symptoms this week and the results are in.

"It's good news and bad news," said Dr. Emmitt Ralston of The Neurology Center at the University of Toronto. "The good news is that, despite Crosby's perception among many NHL fans, he's not being a big pussy. He's a tough kid. It's just that he has suffered a serious injury. That would be the bad news part."

Crosby last played in a game on January 5, 2011, and now it is expected he might miss training camp and the start of the NHL regular season — if not longer.

"Missing almost a year for a concussion sounds like classic pussydom," said Dr. Ralston. "And that's what I initially expected to find. In fact, at first we didn't even do any sort of neurological tests. We just sat Sidney down and said: 'Hey, man. Why you being such a pussy?'"

It was only after Crosby repeatedly insisted that he was still experiencing concussion symptoms that Dr. Ralston and his staff relented and conducted a series of brain scans.

NHL commissioner Gary Bettman announced today that the league has hired a Sidney Crosby look-alike that will play in place of the Penguins superstar who has been out for two months with a concussion.

Blake Rawson, a 20 year-old university student in Toronto, has long been told he bears an uncanny resemblance to Crosby. An NHL marketing executive spotted Rawson at a Tim Hortons and mentioned the idea of hiring a look-alike Crosby as a joke to Bettman. Within in minutes the commissioner had signed Rawson to a contract.

"I don't know much about hockey or follow it very closely," said Bettman. "But I know that Sidney Crosby's continued absence will hurt NHL ratings as the playoffs approach. Getting a Crosby impersonator in there was an obvious decision."

In addition to having Rawson suit up for Pittsburgh in Crosby's No. 87 jersey, Bettman is making him available for NHL-themed events and birthday parties. So far the Crosby look-alike is booked on weekends through April. Several requests in Philadelphia and Washington, D.C. were turned down when the league learned the "childrens' birthday parties" were nothing more than Flyers and Capitals fans hoping to beat up someone who looks like Sidney Crosby in an alley.