what to do with no buds on hop crown yet?

So i have a 2 year old Centennial hop plant, I bought it last year and grew to be the tallest of the three hop plants. But now this year there is no growth on the hop crown at all. All of my other plants are doing great, 3 feet tall, so this is making me mad. The hop crown is sticking above the ground about two inches, same as last year, and being a newbie grower I didn't cover it up with compost or dirt for the winter season, so I'm wondering if the freezing temps killed the plant. I dug it up completely last week to find any shoots that might have not emerged yet, and could not find any, but the root system looked fine, lots of roots and they seemed to be healthy. and today I was looking at it again, hoping for some hint of growth, I tried to break back the top of the crown to maybe help it along, and the top part of the crown split in half, and the inner half of the crown was white, but the outer half was brown. so I'm hoping that it still has some life left, and I can revive it back to life before the season is over. Any advice for this situation? Is there anything I can do to help it, like cutting the top of the crown down so that the part that is alive can be exposed to sunlight? Thanks in advance for any replies.

I suspect you have managed to kill the plant. If you had left it alone, shoots probably would have come up eventually from the side roots. But by digging it up, you've disconnected them from the nutrient stores in the main root. There is also the possibility you've got downy mildew.

Shoots that come up a few inches from the old bines tend to be much stronger. I've never had a shoot from an old bine do much.