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Sidney Crosby and Roger Federer meet for first time; No word on if they ate any birthday cake

Sidney Crosby, Roger Federer

Tennis star Roger Federer, right, celebrates his 29th birthday with Pittsburgh Penguins forward Sidney Crosby at a photo opportunity at the Rogers Cup tennis tournament in Toronto on Sunday, Aug. 8, 2010. (AP Photo/The Canadian Press, Gregory Strong)

AP

Hockey and tennis are two wildly different sports. One is a team based game that requires considerable physical sacrifice and features plenty of violence. The other is a sport of one-on-one competition in which you can only really blame yourself for defeat (aside from maybe a few quibbles with line judges).

Still, they are both sports that reward high levels of fitness, great hand-eye coordination and competitive drive. (They also are dominated by people from countries outside of the U.S., appeal to a richer demographic than most sports and occasionally feature epic “overtime” matches.)

TSN reports that two of the best players in their prospective sports - the NHL’s Sidney Crosby and tennis’s Roger Federer - met each other for the first time this weekend at the Rogers Cup. As you can imagine, the quotes were pretty dull, although Crosby did discuss tennis’s popularity among NHL players.

Crosby said there are a number of NHL players who enjoy playing tennis in the off-season, but no one is head and shoulders above the rest.

“Maybe Jay McKee, the way he talks,” Crosby said with a laugh. “He’s pretty good. Usually you have a few guys who can play and it’s not unusual to have a few guys on every time who like to play pretty regularly.”

Both Federer and Crosby celebrated their birthdays this weekend. Crosby might have the easiest birthday to remember in all of hockey; his jersey number is the key (87 represents the month [8 - August], the day [7] and year he was born ['87]). No word on whether Crosby threw a big party in Mario Lemieux’s basement, though.