SIDNEY THE GREAT?

For a guy who is said to be carrying the weight of the NHL’s future on his back, Sidney Crosby is surprisingly light on his feet.

Of course, he is 18.

With energy and enthusiasm that bespeak his youth, and savvy and maturity that belie it, the No. 1 draft pick and soon-to-be Pittsburgh Penguin has glided confidently into his savior role.

Anointed as The Next One by those who regard him as the second coming of The Great One, Wayne Gretzky, Crosby shifted nimbly from serious to playful over the last few days.

It began in Montreal on Wednesday when he held talks with Reebok, one of three companies he has agreed to endorse so far among more than a dozen that have contacted his agent. By Thursday he was in Burbank shooting pucks into a clothes dryer for Jay Leno on “The Tonight Show.” On Friday he skated with NHL stars including Chris Chelios and Luc Robitaille and took time out for an interview.

Crosby did two more interviews Saturday, with Vanity Fair and ESPN the Magazine. He has a Vanity Fair photo shoot Monday, more business meetings Tuesday in Vancouver, Canada, and his first visit to Pittsburgh on Wednesday. That will wrap up a dizzying week as the young star takes part in a prospects camp and a news conference.

Oh, and today is his 18th birthday, which he’ll celebrate with his usual morning workout (four hours in a gym and on a track, supervised by a personal trainer) and an evening skate in El Segundo, sandwiched around a family barbecue.

“It never stops,” Pat Brisson, his Los Angeles-based agent, said backstage at “The Tonight Show,” where Crosby was trailed by TV crews from Pittsburgh and Toronto. “I could literally have him booked for the next month like that, every day. For hockey, I’ve never seen anything like this. Obviously, with a Gretzky or a [Mario] Lemieux, but this is a different era with the Internet, where the information travels so fast. It takes a levelheaded kid to really stay strong through these demands, because it’s a lot.”

The presumed future king of hockey is nothing if not levelheaded.

Crosby’s features may be boyish and his facial hair reluctant to sprout, but he has prepared himself for this day for years, perhaps since he first laced up a pair of skates when he was 2 1/2 in his native Nova Scotia.

“It does get a little bit overwhelming sometimes,” he acknowledged, “but I’ve gotten used to it. And I would never complain about it. I’d be the first one to tell you, I wouldn’t change anything. It keeps me busy, but for me busy is good.”

Crosby has been busy turning heads most of his young life.

Described by one reporter as “hockey’s LeBron James,” with the added burden of trying to revive a star-deficient league that lost its entire 2004-05 season to a labor struggle, the prodigy gave his first interview at age 7, to the Daily News of Halifax, of which his hometown of Cole Harbor is a suburb.

He hired a personal trainer when he was 13, and was featured in a segment on CBC’s “Hockey Day in Canada” when he was 14 and profiled in Sports Illustrated when he was 15, the same year he hired his agent. He was 16 when the Hockey News named him one of its 100 people of power and influence in the hockey world.

Along the way he also endeared himself to Francophile fans when -- “out of courtesy,” he said -- he learned to speak French as a junior player living in Quebec, even giving interviews in his non-native tongue.

Born Aug. 7, 1987, or 8-7-87, which is why he wears No. 87, Crosby signed a five-year deal with Sher-Wood, the stick company, before he played a junior game.

Grand prize in last month’s one-of-a-kind draft lottery, he is widely regarded as the sport’s top prospect since Lemieux was drafted in 1984 and had been the presumed top overall pick since the 2002-03 season, when he scored 72 goals in 57 games as a sophomore at Shattuck-St. Mary’s prep in Faribault, Minn. He was the first player to win consecutive most-valuable-player awards in the Quebec Junior league, which also had been a showcase for scoring wunderkinds Lemieux and Gretzky.

Among those who sat up and took notice was The Great One.

When asked two summers ago by the Arizona Republic whether a player might one day break his records, Gretzky said, “Yes, Sidney Crosby.”

It seemed a heavy burden to bear. But Gretzky has not wavered. When Crosby’s junior team reached the Memorial Cup finals last spring, Gretzky told reporters, “Obviously, he’s the future of the National Hockey League.”

Crosby has not flinched, even as the buzz surrounding him intensified tenfold because of the NHL lockout.

“It was a compliment, for sure,” he said of Gretzky’s comments. “But I don’t think I’m going to be another Wayne Gretzky. I think that’d be pretty hard to do. I’m not going to put that pressure on myself. I think there are similarities in what I’ve gone through, doing well at a young age, so I can see the comparisons there.

“But at the same time I don’t think I’m going to be another Wayne Gretzky. I don’t think there’s ever going to be another Wayne Gretzky.”

Not that Crosby is unsure of himself. He displayed no discomfort playing straight man to Leno, telling the late-night host after revealing that he’d been playing hockey since he was a toddler, “That’s what they do in Canada, right?”

Said Leno: “Well, that’s the law in Canada. You could be imprisoned if you didn’t. You probably got a late start.”

In interviews Thursday and Friday, Crosby smiled easily and answered questions without hesitation. His confidence was revealed subtly, such as when he said that playing with Lemieux, who has invited the teenager to live with his family, probably would take pressure off because “obviously he’s a great player too.”

A month before he is due to report to his first Penguin training camp, Crosby is not yet a great NHL player, of course. But that won’t stop a Canadian publisher from releasing an unauthorized biography this fall titled, “Sidney Crosby: Taking the Game by Storm,” or Reebok from launching signature Crosby lines of hockey gear and apparel, or using his image (along with those of Allen Iverson, Peyton Manning and the rapper Nelly) in its “I Am What I Am” ad campaign. Brisson, his agent, has been told that a script based on Crosby’s life is coming.

If greatness is Crosby’s destiny, the world will be ready for it.

The prodigy will be too.

Robitaille recalled a day several summers ago when he invited a group of young prospects to his home, among them a 13-year-old Crosby.

“He was the youngest one there,” Robitaille said, “and I’ll never forget, he just followed me around the house asking me, ‘What about this guy? What about this? How is that in the NHL?’ I was like, ‘Man, this kid is goal-oriented. This kid, hockey is his life.’ It was kind of neat to see. And when we were on the ice, he wasn’t out of place at 13.”

Nor will he be out of place in the NHL this fall, Robitaille predicted.

“This kid,” the King forward said, “can change our league.”

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Young lions

How NHL greats Bobby Orr, Gordie Howe, Wayne Gretzky, Bobby Hull, Mario Lemieux and Luc Robitaille fared in their first seasons:

*--* AGE PLAYER TEAM YRS. GP G A 18 Orr Boston ‘66-67 61 13 28 18 Howe Detroit ‘46-47 58 7 15 19 Gretzky Edm. ‘79-80 79 51 86 19 Hull Chicago ‘57-58 70 13 34 19 Lemieux Pitts. ‘84-85 73 43 57 20 Robitaille Kings ‘86-87 79 45 39

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