Sidney Crosby skated on Tuesday morning during an informal practice for the Pittsburgh Penguins, which is great news considering it was announced on Monday that he had been diagnosed with another concussion.

When did he suffer the concussion? The Penguins claimed it was Friday during practice. Crosby said on Tuesday that he “just kinda got tangled up” during that practice, and woke up Saturday morning feeling headaches he suspected could be concussion-related. He consulted team doctors and entered the concussion protocol.

But the timeline of his head injury led some to speculate that the injury might have occurred at the World Cup of Hockey, and didn’t manifest until after the tournament. Crosby hasn’t played a game during the exhibition season for the Penguins, and the injury allegedly occurred in only his second practice of the preseason.

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There were good reasons to dispel that theory – such as the fact that there’s more hitting in a round of mini-golf than there was in the entire World Cup of Hockey – but the idea that the Penguins and the NHL would cover-up the injury in order to deflect criticism from the preseason exhibition tournament … well, that was just too delicious a scenario for Crosby Truthers to ignore.

Crosby smiled incredulously when asked about it on Tuesday.

“It happened on Friday in practice, so … I mean, uh, I think the team stated it happened on Friday in practice. So I don’t know why there’d be speculation about it happening in the World Cup,” he said.

So what exactly happened in practice?

“How many people were here at practice on Friday?” Crosby asked the assembled Pittsburgh media. “That’s not up to me [to say]. It happened. I’m not making this up, so if nobody saw it, I don’t know what to tell you.”

(Conspiracy Theory No. 2: Both Crosby and Sullivan are trying to protect the player who was “tangled up” with Crosby so as not to have angry fans demonize him.)

As for Crosby’s status, the Penguins star said the concussion protocol is what it is, but that he’s optimistic.

“I feel confident and comfortable that I’ll be OK. I feel good,” he said. “You understand the process. I think that progress is a good thing. You go day by day. I was happy to be able to skate today.”

Crosby missed 107 games from 2011 to 2012 for the Penguins, and this most recent concussion led to concern that Crosby could miss another large chunk of games. But he said that much has been learned about concussions since his battle with them, which will help with his recovery. “I think that the fact that so much has been talked about, and we’ve learned so much in a short period to time, there’s a really good structure in place.”

It was naïve to think this couldn’t happen again for Crosby, as even he was ready for another concussion to occur. “They happen. They happen in a lot of different sports. Guys have multiple concussions,” he said. “You just have to treat them the right way.”

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Greg Wyshynski is a writer for Yahoo Sports. Contact him at puckdaddyblog@yahoo.com or find him on Twitter. His book, TAKE YOUR EYE OFF THE PUCK, is available on Amazon and wherever books are sold.

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