Students at Sidney Crosby’s former elementary school were very excited when they heard Crosby was coming by for a visit yesterday.
They were even more excited when they got to pet him.
Crosby, the RCMP’s newest K-9 officer, came by to visit students at the Colby Village Elementary School in Cole Harbour yesterday morning.
The young German Shepherd was named after the Pittsburgh Penguins captain and Cole Harbour hero by Grade 6 students at the school, who entered a countrywide contest to give the newest batch of police dogs names.
When the dog came by to thank the students for his name, the sound of aww’s — from students and adults alike — was deafening.
Grade 6 teacher Graham Pierce said when the students submitted the name in March, they didn’t expect to win.
“(We) didn’t expect to win, because there were almost 10,000 names submitted across Canada,” said Pierce. “I told them the probability of being chosen was very small, but we were.”
The rules of the contest stated all submissions had to begin with the letter “C.” According to Pierce, students were somewhat torn between submitting “Colby” and “Crosby.”
Pierce said after a discussion of the role of the police dogs, however, his students unanimously agreed “Crosby” would be the more suitable name.
At the assembly, Sydney Carroll, 12, read her class’ submission — one of a record 9,125 names suggested for the 10 new pups in the RCMP’s “Depot” division.
“It’s really cool, ’cause a lot of people in my class really love animals and dogs,” she said as her classmates played with the puppy. “When Mr. Pierce told us and we got to name the puppy, we all got really excited and started talking to each other and jumping around.”
There are currently 135 multi-purpose operational dog teams working in Canada, along with 24 specialty dogs that detect narcotics or explosives.
