It would be premature to say it’s over.

So let’s just say the intriguing and often heated debate over which player rules the hockey world, Sid the Kid or Alexander the Great, is on hiatus.

You know, taking a break. With Sidney Crosby having zoomed into another stratosphere while Alexander Ovechkin expresses his inner enforcer, there’s just not much of a debate to be had.

Too bad. The NHL would love the rivalry to be hotter than ever for a couple of reasons.

First, on Jan. 1, Pittsburgh and Washington will meet at Heinz Field for the Winter Classic, an event that has become one of the NHL’s signature events and prime marketing tools.

Crosby vs. Ovechkin, a rivalry long filled with intensity bordering on hatred, is to be the centrepiece of this year’s game. Having Crosby soaring and Ovechkin grimacing isn’t necessarily good for promoting the bejeezus out of another gimmicky hockey game in a football stadium.

Second, the league is positively bursting over HBO’s 24/7 program and the focus on the Pens and Caps this season, as well as the signature star of each team. NHL governors were shown a preview last week in West Palm Beach and certainly liked what they saw.

The struggles of one star compared to the new heights of another aren’t necessarily bad for the narrative. But the Capitals have historically been so sensitive to any perceived criticism of Ovechkin or suggestion that he is anything but Crosby’s equal (nasty anti-Russian Canadian media) that the temptation for Ted (Mr. Pursuit of Happiness) Leonsis to intervene or blog or whine will probably be irresistible.

Right now, Crosby would win the Hart, Richard, Art Ross and Ted Lindsay trophies at the very least. You could argue his continually polished 200-foot game might even earn him a Selke Trophy one of these days.

Crosby also has a Stanley Cup ring, freshly minted Olympic gold and a golden goal to go with that, and on Tuesday he could win his third Lou Marsh Trophy in four years as Canada’s top athlete.

The Pens have won 12 straight, all of them without Jordan Staal and the last four without Evgeni Malkin, a quartet of games in which Crosby has risen to the occasion with five goals to continue his spectacular points streak.

Ovechkin? He certainly has his trophies and an IIHF world championship on his resume and his peers voted him the best player in the game last season. There are some new personal sponsorship deals, although IMG’s dream of turning him into a hockey version of Roger Federer has barely left the ground.

He doesn’t have the team accomplishments that Crosby has, his game seems off — a continuance of the final stages of last season and the playoffs, really — and his team is mired in a deep funk with six straight losses, including losing by a converted touchdown in Manhattan on Sunday.

After his mediocre work in last winter’s Vancouver Olympics, Ovechkin didn’t score in 13 of Washington’s final 18 regular season games and then was controlled by the Montreal Canadiens in their first-round upset of the Caps, held to five goals in the series and none in the final two games.

If you add it all up, since Vancouver, the Washington captain has scored 25 goals in his last 57 games. That’s very good, but not The Great 8, as the vanity plates read.

By comparison, Crosby has 26 goals in 31 games this season. That sort of says it all.

On Monday, NHL.com was playing Dana White and gleefully promoting Ovechkin the gladiator, marketing his scrap with Ranger lightweight Brandon Dubinsky as a major news event. That’s certainly one way to camouflage the fact he and all the other top Washington scorers have gone cold.

Leonsis has been complaining in his daily blog that his team’s stars aren’t producing, this after questioning his team’s “hockey I.Q.” after the playoff loss to Montreal.

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So, times are tough in D.C., with the star having trouble finding the net and expressing that boyish exuberance that initially made him popular.

Whenever it’s mattered — the 2005 world juniors, NHL playoffs, Vancouver Olympics — Crosby has always come out on top over Ovechkin. That could change in the playoffs next spring, but right now it’s just a fact.

Until Ovechkin scores some kind of significant victory, this rivalry has gone a little cold.

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