CALGARY — As Team Canada’s prospective men’s Olympic hockey team gathered over three days last week, there was no shying away from how real the threats are to its dominance in best-on-best international competition.

But those in charge of selecting the roster for the 2026 Milano Cortina Games believe they’re equipped with the countermeasure needed to maintain the country’s stranglehold on gold.

“Well, we talked … about if there’s any advantage anymore for Canadians, or for our Canadian team,” said Scott Salmond, Hockey Canada’s senior vice-president of high performance and hockey operations. “And there is. There’s one. That’s Sidney Crosby. When you look at our biggest competition, I don’t think anyone else has that.”

It should come as no surprise that there is such admiration for the man who delivered Canadians the “Golden Goal” at the 2010 Olympic tournament in Vancouver and has captained his country to victories in four significant events since delivering that dream finish.

But what’s truly unique about Crosby is the fact that he’s still able to inspire that level of confidence with his current level of play at age 38.

Not only is the Pittsburgh Penguins captain riding a record-setting run of 20 consecutive NHL seasons averaging at least a point per game, he also tied Connor McDavid for Team Canada’s scoring lead at the 4 Nations Face-Off with five points earlier this year while producing a team-best plus-3 rating.

What Crosby has already accomplished and how much he means to younger teammates is one thing. Those are intangibles. But the fact that he’s still a difference-making top-six forward in the most competitive games imaginable is why the Canadian brass feels it has a pathway to fending off its most serious challengers as the NHL returns to the Olympics following a 12-year hiatus.

“I’ve got unbelievable admiration for how (Crosby) performs, how he plays,” said Doug Armstrong, Team Canada’s general manager. “The level he’s playing at in the NHL right now, you don’t do that unless you’re a determined, consistent athlete. The sacrifices he makes personally, I think, go unnoticed for what he can do from 7 to 9:30 most nights.

“He’s a freak of nature.”

Indeed, Crosby may now be on the cusp of adding another piece to his legacy as one of the rare superstars to defy Father Time into a third professional decade. His continued performance for a retooling Penguins team will contribute to that, but it’s with the national team that he’ll likely be pushed hardest.

When the Games begin in Italy this February, Crosby is set to become the third-oldest NHLer to pull on the Maple Leaf at that level of competition ever — and he’s only days younger than fellow 38-year-olds Martin St. Louis (2014) and Al MacInnis (2002) were as Olympians.

With respect to those players, who both were part of gold-medal champion teams, Crosby is likely to fill a role more central to the 2026 version of Team Canada than they did. In fact, during last week’s camp in Calgary he was unofficially named captain by McDavid, who will likely be the man to one day succeed him in that role.

“What Sid means to me, I think that’s been well-documented,” McDavid said. “For our generation, and for him to still be here and being the captain and still playing a massive role, it’s special. It’s special for all of us.”

That much was apparent throughout the 4 Nations tournament, where Nathan MacKinnon observed that Crosby was surrounded in the dressing room by a group of his biggest fans.

Last week in Calgary, the audience grew to include an expanded 42-man roster of men’s players, including teenager Macklin Celebrini, plus 30 women’s hockey stars and 20 Paralympic athletes who attended a unique orientation camp that brought together three teams aiming to strike gold in Italy.

Crosby was a magnet from start to finish, whether it was during the welcome reception Hockey Canada threw at an upscale restaurant in downtown Calgary or when the players and staff trekked into the mountains for a round at Kananaskis Country Golf Course.

Watching it unfold at arm’s length, Armstrong marveled at how effectively Crosby put everyone at ease in that setting.

“His ability to honestly look at himself as no different when everyone else looks at him as different, it’s an amazing trait,” Armstrong said.

That sentiment was echoed by the 19-year-old Celebrini, who is too young to have firsthand memories of the goals scored by No. 87 in either the 2010 or 2014 Olympic gold-medal games.

Asked how he’d describe to friends what it’s been like to get to know Crosby this year, Celebrini replied: “He’s just a great guy. Just an awesome person. Makes you feel comfortable. Wherever you are, whoever you are, he makes you feel welcome and appreciated.”

It just so happens that he’s the same guy who appeared in multiple highlights included in an aspirational reel shown to the players when they gathered inside the Wildrose Ballroom at the Calgary Sheraton for a welcome meeting on the first full day of camp.

While Crosby spoke with gratitude in anticipation of a chance to chase his third Olympic gold in Milan — “you never know, it’s a tough sport and it’s competitive” — he also told reporters that he didn’t fret about the possibility that opportunity might have been taken away when the NHL pulled out of the 2022 Games in Beijing because of concerns related to COVID-19.

“I try not to think too far ahead and just try to let it play out,” he said. “I was pretty confident that we’d find a way to get back, and I wanted to be a part of that, obviously. I guess I kept the belief.”

Just hearing that answer was a source of inspiration for teammate Sam Reinhart, a 29-year-old forward coming off back-to-back Stanley Cup wins with the Florida Panthers, who was seated alongside Crosby on stage when he shared it.

“It’s not lost on us, our generation,” Reinhart said. “It doesn’t look like the window’s closing for him any time soon. He’s a day-by-day kind of guy, focused on the now, and that’s motivating for us.”

For Team Canada, Crosby has been at the heart of a golden generation that won the 2005 World Juniors in dominant fashion before reeling off best-on-best triumphs at consecutive Olympics, the 2016 World Cup of Hockey and February’s 4 Nations tournament.

It’s an impressive run that can’t and won’t last forever.

Team USA is unquestionably on the cusp of a major breakthrough, having beaten Canada in the 4 Nations preliminary round before falling one converted overtime chance short against them in the championship. Others who will arrive in Italy with dreams of disrupting that golden sweep include the Swedes, Finns and Czechs.

However, those on the Canadian side aren’t ready to cede any ground. And they believe Crosby remains their X-factor even at this advanced stage of his hallowed career.

“I believe that there’s this belief within the team and the players that they don’t want to let him down,” Salmond said. “These players have the weight of the nation on their shoulders, but they look at Sidney Crosby and they want to carry on that legacy that he’s created. You can never underestimate it. I think what he brings to Hockey Canada, the way he carries himself, the way he represents Canada, is incredible.

“And it’s a huge advantage for us, no question.”

(Top photo: Leah Hennel / Getty Images)