#k talks stanley cup playoffs

[seedlessmuffins]

enough with all this "being normal" bs it's time for the playoffs

#scp24 #stanley cup playoffs #nhl playoffs #k talks stanley cup playoffs

[c4tth3w]

matthew Q&A for GQ <3

Here’s a recap of everything that’s happened to Matthew Tkachuk over the last five weeks. First, he and the Florida Panthers took down the Boston Bruins in one of the biggest upsets the NHL has ever seen: Florida came back from a 3-1 deficit in their first-round series to oust the team with the best regular-season record in league history. Both Games 5 and 7—elimination games for the Panthers—went to overtime, and Tkachuk was heavily involved. He netted the game winner in the fifth game and assisted on the Game 7 knockout punch that sent Florida to the next round.      

The Panthers completed a gentleman's sweep of the Toronto Maple Leafs in the second round, and shortly after that, Tkachuk was named a finalist for the Hart Trophy, given to the NHL’s Most Valuable Player. The Eastern Conference Finals pitted Florida against the Carolina Hurricanes, a juggernaut that would have had the league’s best record if not for the Bruins going supernova. The Panthers only needed four games for them. The final fixture of that series provided the biggest moment of Tkachuk’s career. With just 4.3 seconds left in regulation, Tkachuk buried the goal (his fourth game-winner of the playoffs) that clinched Florida’s first trip to the Stanley Cup Final since 1996.

The Panthers have one more challenge standing between them and Lord Stanley. The Vegas Golden Knights, owners of the best record in the Western Conference, are no slouch. Bringing down a fourth 100-point team would be a fairytale ending to the Panthers’ postseason march—and very much in line with the fairytale that the 25-year-old Tkachuk has been living. (He uses the word “unreal” frequently.) As his Panthers have climbed the postseason ladder, Jimmy Butler has worn Tkachuk’s jersey, strengthening the bond between two South Florida underdogs gunning for improbable championships. Tkachuk has also appeared on Inside the NBA, and by sweeping Carolina, he’s had some leisure time to soak up the sun before starting the Stanley Cup Final. In his first year in Florida after six with the Calgary Flames, Tkachuk has adjusted accordingly to the tropical lifestyle. As he told GQ in a recent interview, there are far worse places to be.  

You’ve had a lot of time to chill. What the hell have you been up to?

I’ve been hanging out and going to the beach a lot. I’ve taken a few quick trips. One of the perks of living in Florida is you have the ocean right there. It’s super good for your body and mind to go in there—it’s pretty peaceful in there. I’ve gone out a couple times for dinner. But mostly I’m just staying quiet at the house. I don’t know, I’m really trying to put everything into the Stanley Cup Final. I’m at the rink every single day, some days to skate and some days to recover. Obviously, I’m using everything in the basket to try and win it all here. 

Oh, I went to the Heat game the other night! I got to see Game 6 and sat with Charles [Barkley] and Shaq for a little bit.  

How fun was it to guest on Inside the NBA and witness that legendary Charles and Shaq energy up close?

It was awesome! It all happened last minute—literally that morning I was asked if I wanted to come to the game and talk with Charles and Shaq. Hell yeah! Let’s do it. But what was really cool was talking to those guys off camera. That’s when we were really talking. Hockey, sports, golf, just talking about everything, getting to pick their brains, and learn about stuff I don’t really know about was super entertaining. 

Are you more of a Charles or a Shaq?

That is tough. It was crazy that I got to meet them. I think that [dynamic] would be a great comparison for how me and my brother [Ottawa Senators captain Brady Tkachuk] are. We bicker a lot. But we’re really tight and actually best friends. Always there to chirp each other and have fun. They were both unreal players too. I watched more of Shaq, because he was closer to my generation, but I just watched Charles in the Dream Team documentary. I don’t know who I would be.

You’re in South Florida now, but I just learned that you went to high school in St. Louis with Jayson Tatum. So who were you rooting for in that Heat-Celtics series?

I honestly just loved going to watch Jayson and Jimmy Butler. I didn’t care about the final score. I know all the people in St. Louis would be pissed at me if I was rooting against Jayson and all the people here probably wouldn’t be happy if I was rooting against the Heat. I thought it’d just be easier to root for a couple players. Now that the Heat are in the Finals and I have zero allegiance to the Denver Nuggets at all—if the Heat can pull off the upset it’d be unreal for all of South Florida. 

The idea of playing hockey in Florida always has this kind of funny connotation. It’s a relatively new franchise, you’re playing in warm weather in the south, it’s a very opposite idea of what most people have in their head when they think of the NHL. But you’re making it all sound pretty great.

It’s the top destination in the NHL. When you look at it—this is my opinion, and I would say most people’s opinion—the top two destinations in the league right now are the Florida teams. Third would probably be Vegas. It’s funny how that’s who we’re playing in the Final. People probably don’t look at Florida as the biggest hockey market, but Tampa’s won all these Cups recently and been to a bunch of Finals, the Panthers had some good runs before I got here, and when you go out West, Vegas has been right there at the top. Dallas has been right there too. These warmer climate markets aren’t the same as Toronto or Montreal, but the success that everyone’s had down here is no secret.  

When I chose to come here, the number one reason was to be on a competitive team, compete for championships year over year, right behind that was the way of life. But you’re not just coming here to live the Florida life, you’re coming here to win. It’s just a perk that you get to live in Florida on top of all that. My life has changed so much since coming [to Florida]. The lifestyle has been unbelievable. The way I’m able to live down here is insane. It doesn’t get better, anywhere. Playing in the U.S., having these opportunities with people like Jimmy Butler and Charles Barkley, having way more nationally-televised games, competing for the Stanley Cup, that’s made not only myself but everyone on the team more of a name than we were before. 

Have you become a boat guy since moving to Florida?

I have not. I’ve gotten as far as a few jet skis. I’m not a boat guy. I like to go on boats, but I don’t want to drive a boat. No chance I could park it. 

How many texts did you get after scoring the game-winning goal to go to the Final? Was your phone just unusable?

I don’t know, probably close to 400 or 500. This run has been unreal. 

After scoring that goal, when did reality set in?

I don’t think it felt real until the next day. With that goal, I knew there wasn’t much time left. When Ryno [Sam Reinhart] shot it off the post, I figured we had about ten seconds, maybe a little bit less. The next few chances, whether it was one or multiple, had to be on the net quick. I sort of just walked out from behind the net. I knew I had a little bit of time to make a move, but not much. Once I saw it go in I was the happiest person ever. First thing I did was look up to see if I got it in on time, and saw there was four seconds left or whatever. I don’t know what I was thinking after that! I did the slide [celebration] and it felt like the roof was going to come off because it was so loud. Then I got a little nervous because [the Hurricanes] challenged it [for goaltender interference], and you never know with challenges. But, it was obviously a good goal, and that was the moment where I was like, “Holy shit. That just happened.”

When I got back home I hung out with some family and friends and talked about how crazy of a night that was. I woke up the next day, which thankfully was an off day, and just thought, “Wow, Stanley Cup Final, here we come.” I’ve seen enough highlights of the goal just from being in places where it’s on TV—and trust me, I love seeing it—but I don’t want that goal to define the season. 

When the puck drops on Game 1, it’ll be your first game since May 24. Is the concept of rust mostly a myth, or is that something that you guys are actually talking about and acknowledging?

You know what? We had a week off before the third round and maybe there was a little bit of rust in the first period. That’s something that we’re going to learn from. In the playoffs, with days off—even if there’s ten of them—it’s great for players that have some bumps and bruises.

You’ve gotta be pretty beat up at this point of the year. Does everything hurt when you wake up? 

When you win it doesn’t hurt that much.

From your perspective, why is a lower seed making it all the way to the Final much more common in hockey than it is in other sports?

Well, it’s happening right now in basketball, too! But it’s really just, once you get in, everything resets back to zero. We got into the playoffs by one point. When it came down to that—then we realized, holy shit we’re playing the Boston Bruins, the best regular season team in NHL history. [But] none of that really mattered anymore! It was 0-0. Let’s go. It gave us confidence. We do a great job of keeping our focus solely on each game. That’s what’s made us have a lot of success.  

It’s gotta be that plus whatever they’ve put in the water down there that’s given you and the Heat superpowers.

[chuckles] We’re feeding off each other.

I know that hockey players are famously superstitious, but I’m wondering if you’ve allowed yourself to think about what you would do with the Stanley Cup if you get your day with it. 

It’s natural to think about that stuff. But every time I go down that road I pinch myself and try not to. The one thing you do think about constantly is that feeling you’d have from lifting the Stanley Cup for the first time. That’s gotta be the most amazing thing in your whole life. One team is going to do it—hopefully it’s us.   

What’s up with Brooks Koepka? He seems to be the Panthers’ fan ambassador right now, and he’s intense! It’s clear that it’s not an act at all—he really cares! 

I actually just met him right after Game 4. He wanted to come down and meet me. I got a picture with him and got to chit chat for a little bit. He’s really excited. It’s great to see support from other athletes. Success in a tight community makes everyone pull for each other. Him and the rest of the fan base has been unreal. This building is so loud. We were talking about in the offseason—which is hopefully a few weeks from now after winning the Stanley Cup—maybe we can link up and golf somewhere. 

#LEGEND #matthew tkachuk #txt

[liverpool-enjoyer]

hi max!

max appreciation day might’ve ended on the east coast but here on the west coast i’m still celebrating so i thought third’s would be the perfect time to tell you how much you mean to me!

i know self doubt is truly heinous but honestly you are a joy!! you make me laugh so hard you don’t even know, you truly know how to make me lose it with your tags. all your asks and comments on my posts and replies to my asks are always so thoughtful and i enjoy reading and replying to them each time because it is a joy to interact with you. more max is always appreciated!! i treasure your presence every day 🫂

you’re so supportive of my crazy hockey rants or my neymessi delulu i appreciate it so much. every time i see you spam liking my posts i feel very warm inside, you spark so much joy as marie kondo would say. i appreciate your support more than you’ll know.

i see you in every yellow flower i see, because you are a ray of sunshine. every time my silly little hockey podcast talks baseball i think of you, and any time i get liverpool tiktoks i think of you. you are constantly on my mind, and every time i think of you i send a little wish into the universe that your shoes stay ties, you see an abundance of little yellow flowers, and the food you’re craving is in your fridge.

ilysm max, please never doubt your importance here. you are incredible and idk where i’d be without your max moments

🫶 k

KAYYYYYYY (i realize thats not how you spell your name but i needed to elongate it to like,,, express how im feeling.)

what a lovely thing to wake up to 🥹 i wanna write you something equally as heartfelt but im truly at a loss for words. more than usual.

you have no idea how much this means, man. actually you probly do now that i think abt it youre smart lmao. i'll likely come back to read this whenever im dealing w those lovely feelings a being no ones favorite.

k, im bad w words n especially bad at being sincere, but i can only hope that i am as good a friend to you as you are to me, n to everyone else for that matter!! you have so much love to give, i wonder where you keep it all <3 i cant,,, word it well, but know that i love you too n am thinking a you always :)) you know, you KNOW, when those stanley cup playoffs come around im jus gonna be thinking "damn,,, hope k's having fun w this one" for the entire time that theyre happening 😭😭

yknow this time last year i was going through what was (hopefully) the loneliest time in my life. now when i pray to God i thank Him for giving me friends like you.

oh n i hope your shoes are tied too cause it would suck if you tripped tbh

#K I LOVE YOU 📢 #SAID SO LOUDLY THE SOUND BARRIER CEASES TO EXIST #you are actually the kindest soul #now if youll excuse me im gonna check my fridge #also im going out today n if i do see lik yellow flowers im gonna scream (mom will be confused but idc) #ty for the ask <3

[lumosinlove]

do you have any sw drafts/ deleted scenes you would like to share? i’m missing our hockey babies today

Not exactly a scene, but here are some fun notes I made along the way:

- REMUS LIKES IT WHEN SIRIUS DRIVES

The brief moment Remus was going to be substituted in during the playoffs because so many players were injured. Ended up just feeling so unrealistic to me.

HAVE TO SUBSTITUTE REMUS IN FOR SOME REASON? PLAYERS GETTING HURT?

“Remus,” Sirius said suddenly. “Remus can play.”

Sirius crowded him up against the wall. “We’re going to do this.” “Sirius, I’m not—“ “You can do it. And…I don’t know how many times someone told you that you can’t,” Sirius smiled a little, repeating an echo of Remus’ words. “But I’m going to make you forget every one.”

Remus gearing upppppp

Commentators: “The first time in NHL history, to have a member of the Lion’s equipment team, gosh, Lee, if any equipment team to be substituted as a left winger in a playoff level game. I can’t say I’m not worried that the Snakes are going to take advantage of this man’s inexperience. But I also can’t say that I don’t wish him the very best. Let’s go Lions!”

win the stanley cup with Remus on the ice—Remus assists Sirius (James is gone to Lily?)

Early Cubs:

tREMZY AND KNUT MOMENT!!!

Finn jfc fuck (today, I don’t know what I was talking about)

Having fun with Coops:

REMUS WEARS JERSEY (“Are you Sirius Black? Captain of the Gryffindor Lions? Wickedest slap shot in the league?”—and Sirius is sort of laughing but then Remus switches it on him “Kindest heart out there? Makes me smile and cares about me? Took me skating when I was too afraid to do it myself?” Then softer. “Changed my life?”)

I don’t know this just sounds thirsty:

- k u n y b a b y

[himbeaux-on-ice]

please tell them my name [anonymous]

Rated: G | No Warnings Apply | Words: 2,014 | Chapters: 1/1 | Date: 16 Jun 2021

Characters: P. K. Subban, Carey Price, mentions of Habs past and present | Relationships: Carey Price & P. K. Subban, Carey Price/P. K. Subban

Additional Tags: 2021 Stanley Cup Playoffs, Ambiguous Relationships, Phone Calls & Telephones, Light Angst, Star-crossed, Friendship/Love, Montreal Canadiens, Can be read as gen, Long-Distance Friendship, get in kids we’re going for a feels trip

Summary:

There’s a long pause, filled only by the sound of distant traffic on PK’s end of the call and the dimmed sound of the tv on Carey’s. Then, “You didn’t call me just to talk about Romy’s hitting, did you? Usually when you have something short to say you just send me a text.”

PK pantomimes offence to an audience of none, scoffing. “What, I can’t just want to hear the sound of your voice? You wound me, Pricey!”

“…PK.” Chiding, stern, but not at all unkind. Fond, even. The nostalgia of that sound is nearly enough to choke on.

———

Catching up, across time and distance, after game 1 of the semi-finals.

Read “please tell them my name” on AO3

#hockey rpf #might as well pass around my favourite coping mechanism for this particular nostalgic angst again #I am proud of it but also oh boy it hurts #Carey Price #PK Subban #triple low five #rpf #my fics #this isn’t even especially shippy it’s just. man. *man.* two people who care about each other and never stopped doing so #not gonna tag this with teams #ok to reblog. if I’m sad I might as well get something outta it

[welllpthisishappening]

Confirmed Reports

They expected her to freak out. 

And, well, that was kind of reasonable. But there wasn’t really any way to hide it anymore and Emma had other things to worry about and maybe they could all use some kind of media training rehash. 

Plus it was kind of nice. It was absurdly nice and even more sentimental and just a hint romantic, but she wouldn’t ever say that out loud. 

Probably. She wasn’t the one going on the record. 

Word Count: 9.6 K and I don’t remember writing that many words. Rating: There is kissing. Obvs. AN: I wrote this a million and two years ago (read, several months) because I wanted to write more about the second Cup run and an absurdly overprotective hockey team. And then I sent it to @distant-rose​ who has recently been dubbed my “enabler” by the internet, but is actually just a goddamn delight of a human and the biggest fan of this story and the aforementioned absurdly overprotective hockey team. Someday I really will write them telling the Vankalds about Matthew Jones. And anything else you guys send because I hoard all of those prompts and flail at every single one of your messages. 

Also on Ao3 if that’s how you roll. 

“This is ridiculous.” “You’re supposed to be sitting.” “You’re only saying that because Killian thinks I’m supposed to be sitting. I am fine.” Merida flushed, making it difficult to see where her hair ended and the rest of her face actually began and Emma grinned like she’d won...well, the Stanley Cup. Again. Maybe. No, definitely.

For sure.

Absolutely.

She was certain and confident and they could clinch that night, but she was so goddamn exhausted that she wasn’t entirely sure she’d locked the apartment door when she left, so, really, she didn’t have a metaphorical leg to stand on.

If she was standing.

Which she wasn’t. And not because Killian was an overprotective weirdo – and she’d lost control of her vocabulary at some point too, delving into middle-school insults over text message and FaceTime throughout this entire playoff run – but because her ankles had swollen to the size of the grapefruit that Matt Jones, apparently, was.

And her back hurt like hell.

Her office chair was not helping much at all, even with that memory foam pillow thing that had just appeared before the playoffs started. She had a few suspicions as to where it came from.

“Boss,” Merida sighed, but Emma was already standing up, wincing slightly when it felt like every single one of her muscles somehow expanded and contracted at the same time. “C’mon, it’s not like that at all.” “How many times has Killian texted you?” “Today? Or just like...in the last hour?” Emma rolled her eyes, sinking back into her chair, a wave of exhaustion and emotion and, maybe, just a bit of frustration rolling over her. Hormones were, easily, the worst thing ever invented. Did that make sense? No, right?

Hormones were just a product of biology and she hadn’t taken a biology class since her junior year of high school and junior year of high school had happened in two different states because the first house she’d been living in had been shut down just before December and…

“Boss,” Merida repeated, snapping the title slightly like it wasn’t the first time she’d said it. It probably wasn’t.

Emma didn’t remember closing her eyes. She shook her head quickly, licking her lips and glancing at the phone on the corner of her desk, flashing like it was masquerading as some sort of Times Square billboard and she had so much to do before puck drop, it was enough to make her head spin.

God, she slept like garbage when Killian wasn’t there. And when Matthew Jones seemed intent on leaving a permanent footprint on her gallbladder.

They’d found out, officially, a few weeks before – in between the second round and the Eastern Conference finals and Killian had absolutely gotten fined because Arthur might have been alright with him missing practice, but the league didn’t really care about things like sonograms and confirming the existence of Matthew Jones when there were media requests and media requirements and something about getting mic’ed up for some special on MSG that already had Ruby pulling her hair out.

Metaphorically.

He’d skipped anyway, shaking his head when Emma tried to argue and it really hadn’t been much of an argument because she wanted him there. She knew he kept that sonogram photo in his equipment bag.

It made her heart swell just thinking about it and she had absolutely lost control of her hormones, however she’d gotten them, because it left her brushing away tears that were decidedly out of place in the middle of her office with a slightly frazzled assistant staring at her and a Stanley Cup just a few hours out of reach.

She wished she was in St. Louis.

She couldn’t be in St. Louis because she had an event to run in Bryant Park – a huge, important event and everyone else was in St. Louis except Merida and Mary Margaret and David and Killian was going to get fined again if he keep trying to text message all of them at once when he was supposed to be at a pregame scrum.

Ruby was going to kill him.

Or at least shake him. Forcefully. She was still on that whole protect Matt Jones at all cost kick.

“How many times?” Emma asked and Merida’s eyebrows nearly flew up her forehead.

“I don’t understand the question,” she admitted. Her phone buzzed – loudly – in her pocket and Emma just widened her eyes, nodding towards the noise as Merida did her best to bore a hole into the carpet.

“How many times has he texted you? We’ll include that one.”

Merida pursed her lips, sighing as if she were battling some kind of immovable force and she might have been because Emma was nothing if not stubborn and, at last count, she’d been texted somewhere in the realm of several dozen times that day.

It wasn’t even five o’clock yet.

And David had wanted to follow her around all day to make sure she ate at some sort of hourly interval. She didn’t even bother asking where he got those instructions from.

It would have been frustrating if it weren’t so goddamn adorable.

“Uh….that’s not Cap,” Merida said, nodding towards the phone in her hand. Her eyes widened and Emma was momentarily concerned, something about faces and them sticking that way, but it only lasted as long as the relative silence in her office.

And the silence didn’t last long.

Her desk phone rang shrilly, shaking like it was trying to tell her something, and her cell phone rang and vibrated at the same time, an impressive feat she didn’t entirely know was possible, but she’d been calling her fiancé an overprotective weirdo and trying to figure out the origins of hormones for most of the day, so, all things considered, the technology of her phone was last on a the list of things she was willing to spend much time thinking about.

“Jeez, it’s like we’re under attack,” Emma mumbled, grabbing the desk phone and Merida made some kind of noise in the back of her throat, like that was, somehow, surprising. 

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” Ruby said, not even letting Emma get a greeting out before delving into apologies that didn’t make sense.

Her cell phone was still ringing. Merida was talking to someone else.

Ruby took a deep breath, ignoring whatever noise of protest Emma made and Matthew Jones kicked, what felt like, both of her kidneys at the same time. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry...wait, did you just gasp? What’s going on? Are you ok?” “I have no idea what’s going on,” Emma said, leaning forward to press the heel of her hand into the bottom of her spine. “Except that we’re supposed to be getting some kind of balloon arch thing for the game tonight. Mer, did that arch thing come yet?” Merida nodded distractedly and Emma got the distinct impression she was being placated. She sighed again, but it sounded a bit more like a growl and Ruby hissed in more air from St. Louis, the sound of a very lively locker room barely audible on the other end.

“Em, the arch is going to get there,” Ruby said, but there was a hint of desperation in her voice and it sounded like she was jogging. Or running. It sounded like she was running somewhere, the sounds behind her quickly fading out until Emma could barely hear the shouting.

“Yuh huh,” Emma muttered, resting the phone against her shoulder and reaching up to toy with the ring around her neck. Merida’s eyes were absolutely going to get stuck that way.

And her cell phone was going to vibrate off her desk.

She glanced down at the screen, not sure if she actually wanted to see who was so desperately trying to contact her when she had balloon arches and security issues and signed merch that was, probably, somewhere on 6th Avenue, to worry about.

Ah, damn, she’d left her lunch on the counter at home.

“Mer,” Emma called, ignoring Ruby’s continued apologies for whatever, and sitting up straighter in some vaguely desperate way to realign her spine.

Merida nodded, mumbling a few words to whoever she was talking to. “You want Pret again?” “What?” “Pret. I mean that salad with the cranberries has been like...your life force all postseason.” “How do you know that?” Merida blinked, holding up both of her hands like it was obvious and it kind of was because Emma had actually lost track of the number of times she’d ordered that one salad with cranberries from Pret in the last month and a half. She was fairly certain the teenage kid behind the counter thought she was stalking him.

Killian thought it was hysterical.

And kept bags of dried cranberries in a jar on their kitchen counter. Next to the Conn-Smythe they’d never given back.

“Emma,” Ruby shouted and she’d entirely forgotten there was still a person on the phone. Mary Margaret was texting her. There was barely any time between one message and the next and her cell phone had only stopped ringing long enough to start again and David was probably breaking some kind of police rule by calling her when he was absolutely supposed to be on duty.

“Still here,” Emma said, but she was, admittedly, distracted by thoughts of cranberries and a little annoyed that Merida wasn’t on her way to get cranberries, especially when Merida started muttering names under her breath.

“Well, just tell him that it’s just The Daily News,” Merida said quickly, still waving her hands through the air and pacing a tiny circle into the carpet. “They don’t even have a celebrity section. I know, I know he’s not a celebrity, Scarlet. It’ll probably just end up in the corner of the sports. If you guys win, it’ll be a blip on the radar.” “Scarlet,” Emma echoed, nearly screeching out the word and Ruby made some kind of strangled noise in St. Louis. “Oh my God,” she sighed, a quiet thump on the other end of the phone that might have just been her entire body collapsing on the floor.

The office chair, somehow, felt even more uncomfortable than before. And her spleen was going to be bruised if her kid didn’t stop kicking her.

Killian had told her the website claimed Matthew Jones could hear things at this point, was vaguely aware of the outside world and needed nurturing sounds and classical music and the general breakdown of the New York Rangers front office just a few hours removed from Game 5 of the Stanley Cup Finals, in goddamn St. Louis, did not seem to fall into either one of those categories.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” Ruby chanted again, the sound of her heel scraping on the floor in whatever hallway she was in sounding like nails on some kind of metaphorical chalkboard.

Will was still talking to Merida.

And Emma still didn’t have any dried cranberries.

Or whatever dressing they used on that salad. She was incredibly hungry.

“Rubes, you’re not actually telling me what is going on,” Emma said, doing her best to keep her voice even. It didn’t really work.

Ruby sighed, sounding as if she were trying to monopolize the oxygen in the entire city of St. Louis. Emma wasn’t sure where to look. She groaned when her phone let out another long string of vibrations, certain her inbox was just a few messages away from combusting, and grabbed the stupid thing, slamming her thumb into the screen until it felt like she’d actually strained a muscle.

Mary Margaret had texted her forty-seven times. In the last five minutes.

The last few just seemed like a string of consciousness that didn’t really make much sense, but it had been that kind of day and Emma still hadn’t gotten confirmation about the goddamn, fucking balloon arch.

Ok, so just take deep breaths.

And maybe get Merida to find you some sort of Bach or Beethoven or something. Because that’s supposed to be calming, just generally, and good for the baby. All the websites say that.

Not that I’m reading websites.

I mean, that’d be weird, right? I’m just...you know, me.

David says I should tell you that I’m totally reading websites. He claims it’s breaking the rules otherwise, but I think he’s just making those rules up now and absolutely downloaded some symphony onto his phone so he could play them for Mattie the next time you guys come over.

Post-Cup, obviously. He made me type that too.

Emma, this is David now. I did not make her type that. I suggested she type that and also told her you wouldn’t even be remotely surprised that she was looking at websites because that is, easily, the most Mary Margaret thing that has ever happened.

She wants to ask you and Killian about what color you’re going to paint Matt’s room, but she’s too nervous

Also. Answer your phone.

As if to prove his point, Emma’s phone rang in her hand. It shouldn’t have taken her by surprise, but there was a metaphorical grapefruit sitting on several different internal organs and she still had no idea what was going on and Merida was still trying to get Will to calm down.

At least that’s what it sounded like.

“What?” Emma snapped, lifting her cell phone to her other ear and Ruby started answering the question. “No, no, not you, Rubes,” she said quickly. Her head was starting to spin. She was going to pop every single balloon in the balloon arch and enjoy it.

“Who else are you talking to?” Ruby demanded. “He’s still in media. I just walked out to warn you.” “Is that Ruby?” David shouted, like he could scream loudly enough for his voice to be heard in St. Louis. It worked. Of course it did.

Ruby clicked her tongue impatiently and Merida was absolutely going to rip the carpet if she didn’t stop moving. “Isn’t David supposed to be working?” she asked. “I thought he switched shifts so that he could be at the Park and make sure you actually sat down at some point.” “What?” Emma yelled, frustration settling at the base of her spine when she realized she couldn’t throw her hands up the way she wanted to. She was holding two different phones. “Whose plan was that?” “I’ll give you one guess,” Merida muttered, flashing a slightly cautious smile Emma’s direction.

Ruby mumbled something again and David sounded like he was actually trying to swallow his laughter while Mary Margaret shouted, possible, encouragements from wherever they happened to be. Maybe they were in Bryant Park.

Maybe they knew about the balloon arch.

Emma opened her mouth – not sure who she was going to direct her question to or if, maybe, she should just walk to Pret herself and buy her own goddamn cranberry salad. Without the avocado. That part was gross.

The teenager behind the counter absolutely knew she didn’t get avocados on her salad. They probably had her photo up in the back room with explicit instructions not to put avocados on that crazy pregnant lady’s salad.

“She’s fine Scarlet, jeez, relax,” Merida growled and there was an edge in her voice that Emma didn’t entirely expect. Ruby cackled. Or possibly just started the rather quick descent into insanity that Emma was fairly certain began as soon as she had run onto the ice in South Korea.

MSG wouldn’t stop playing that clip. It had a questionable number of hits on several different YouTube uploads that Emma probably shouldn’t have looked up, but she was curious and maybe, in some perverse way, fascinated by the interest and David had told her that the subReddit had started some kind of board guessing what they were going to name their kid.

The subReddit was totally fucked up.

And Emma hadn’t looked at that board.

Or actually confirmed anything.

They hadn’t really decided on it – although Ruby had tried to stage that very awkward conversation a few weeks after the Olympics and then, again, just before the playoffs started and Killian had glared at her and, well, that was that.

There was no confirmation. There was no announcement. Emma wasn’t the famous one. There were just rumors and speculation and, God, that one Perez Hilton article like it was 2008 and Perez Hilton was still relevant or Killian was actually Tom Brady or something.

Which would probably mean Emma was Giselle in this muddled analogy she’d come up with, but she was fairly positive Giselle’s ankles had never swollen this much.

“Scarlet, jeez,” Merida continued, stopping mid-pace to glare at open air and Ruby was still laughing. David was trying to ask Emma questions.

She stood up abruptly, nearly knocking her chair back and, good, the chair deserved to be on the losing end of whatever it was they were, all, collectively staging a few hours before puck drop.

“What is he talking about?” Emma asked, staring at her assistant until Merida actually retreated a few steps. The phone in her left hand made noise and David was still mumbling under his breath. “God, no, David, not you. Will. Where is Will, Mer?” “In the hallway with me,” Ruby answered, almost immediately. Merida rolled her eyes towards the ceiling, looking like she was only just barely hanging on to her control. “Hey, Scarlet,” she continued, like any of this made sense and Emma resisted the urge to actually kick her chair.

Will shouted something unintelligible, what might have just been a string of increasingly impressive curses and what sounded like Cap’s a goddamn idiot and Ruby hummed in agreement.

“Will someone tell me what the fuck is going on?” Emma shouted, jumping slightly like that was a good idea or would get anyone to actually acknowledge her.

Merida opened her mouth to reprimand her – jumping was probably on that list of things Emma isn’t supposed to do that Killian had definitely come up with at some point – but Emma just shook her head and she could hear David’s quiet sigh from, probably, somewhere on the island of Manhattan.

“Scarlet is worried about you,” Ruby explained, kicking at something that might have been Will’s shin if the not-quite-quiet yelp on the other phone was any indication. “Because, uh…” “Cap’s a goddamn fucking idiot,” Will finished. He made a noise when Ruby tried to disagree and Emma’s eyes darted towards Merida, glancing down when another phone found its way into her eye line and there was a Twitter feed on the screen.

“What is this?” Emma asked, shifting her shoulders again so she actually had a free hand. “Scarlet, if you’re going to keep making noises, you’ve got to at least try and turn them into actual words. I’ve got balloon arches to worry about, I can’t spend my day trying to translate your grunts.”

Will chuckled, mumbling under his breath to shove over, Lucas and the phone changed hands. “That was actually pretty funny, Em.” “Yeah, that’s been known to happen. What’s going on? C’mon, David sounds like he’s having a conniption on the other phone.” “Isn’t he supposed to be at work?”

“Why do you know that?” “If you don’t think Cap’s got David’s entire life scheduled to make sure you sit at some point during the game tonight, then you’ve been possessed by aliens or something.” “I’m not sure that even makes sense.” “Eh, I’m kind of distracted.” David was swearing in her left ear, a string of insults directed at some name Emma didn’t recognize, but she did hear internet cretins several times and Mary Margaret trying to quiet him. “By Killian being...how did you phrase it? A goddamn fucking idiot?” Emma asked and Will laughed again. “You know you’ve got to work on your insults. Does this have something to do with whatever Twitter thing I’m not actually looking at?” Will hissed in his breath and Emma wasn’t quite prepared for their sudden dive into serious. She was fairly certain it was anything except what it absolutely was.

“You really might want to look at this, boss,” Merida said, twisting her wrist slightly until Emma’s eyes fell back towards the phone screen.

The timestamp said it had been up for fifteen minutes.

There were several thousand retweets.

“Oh my God,” Emma breathed, met, almost immediately with another kick to an internal organ she didn’t realize she had until Matthew Jones developed a penchant for kung fu. “He...he actually said that?”

“We’ll go over media training again in the offseason, Em,” Ruby promised. She had to shout the words when Will refused to give up the phone and it sounded like she was actively trying to check him against the wall.

“How did this even happen?” “He was baited into it,” Will answered. “God, stop punching me, Lucas. I can’t think when you do that. And it wasn’t entirely his fault, Emma. There were a lot of questions about playing for a second straight Cup and history and then some guy from the Daily News asked what his motivation was since last year was about resigning and it was like someone flicked a switch and…”

“And we ended up with a thousand retweets,” Emma said.

“Plus a subReddit that is absolutely losing its mind,” David added, a note of something that sounded like a mix between anger and disbelief and the deep-rooted need to play older brother in his voice. “Hey, you eat yet?” Emma shook her head, well aware that the only person who could see her was her slightly overwhelmed assistant, still holding her phone out. “That sounds like a no,” Mary Margaret said, the first time she’d joined the conversation in vocal form, but Emma barely registered the words, too busy staring at Merida’s phone.

There were more retweets now. She wished she hadn’t knocked her chair over. There was nothing to dramatically sink into now.

Emma reached out, grabbing Merida’s phone without a word and she wasn’t really as upset as everyone seemed to assume she would have been.

Should have been? They hadn’t really talked about it. There hadn’t been a need. They’d been ignoring the rumors and the reports and there was a Cup on the line. Again. Win first. Plan...everything else later.

Except there was no way to really hide it anymore – even the oversized jersey she had on didn’t do much to hide the swell of her stomach and that guy behind the counter at Prett probably would have gone on the record to several different dailies about Emma’s cranberry salad consumption.

And, well, there were quotes now.

Emma’s eyes traced over the tweets again, like she was trying to will every single letter into every single corner of her mind and if she actually had a free hand, she probably would have rested it on her stomach.

Cap on his motivation for this run: It’s a personal thing. I’m not really playing for me. There’s bigger things than hockey here.

Yeah, yeah, you know, I've got a family here in New York and my fiancée and I...well, this Finals run has kind of been about that…

I guess I've just kind of been waiting for a run like this. Last year was incredible, don't get me wrong, but this is a lot bigger.

[Not] playing for me or the extension. This is about my future and my kid's future and leaving a mark on a sport that's changed my life.

“They kind of lost their shit after the kid part,” Will mumbled, jerking Emma’s attention away from Merida’s phone and whatever it was her heart was doing against her ribcage. She winced at another kick. “Wait, what was that? Are you ok?” “I’m fine, Scarlet,” Emma promised and it was the truth and she really just wanted that stupid cranberry salad. “The kid is just painfully aware of when he’s been discussed in the press.”

Will let out a strangled sound that might have been a laugh or just choking on a surplus of oxygen in some hallway in the Scottrade Center and David might have actually whooped on the other phone Emma forgot was still pressed up to her ear.

“David, don’t you have a job?” Emma asked. “Are crimes being left unsolved because you were worried about my reaction to the internet?”

He scoffed, but that was kind of an answer and Merida almost looked looked like she was breathing at a normal level again. “I took the whole day off,” he mumbled, sounding like he was admitting to one of those crimes he wasn’t solving and Emma’s laugh seemed to just bubble out of her.

God, she was an emotional, hormonal, still-hungry mess.

“Of course you did,” she said, leaning against the edge of her desk in an attempt to stop the dull ache in her back. It didn’t work. She almost didn’t mind.

She was happy and charmed and this absolutely was not the plan – there hadn’t been a plan – but her mind kept repeating those words she’d tried to will into every inch of her consciousness until it felt like a metronome for her heart and her kid’s kicks against her spleen and maybe they should start planning a wedding.

They were absolutely going to win. Again.

“Rubes, why are you in the hallway?” Emma asked, the question dawning on her suddenly. “Shouldn’t you be in there yelling at people?” “Ok, well, that’s kind of rude,” Ruby started, a noise that sounded like another elbow to Will’s side when he didn’t immediately give up the St. Louis phone. “And Scarlet already told you, he walked right into it. I still can’t quite believe it actually happened. Cap just kind of started talking and said the word kid out loud, like that was something we’d decided was ok and, well, I knew it was going to be everywhere and I wanted to make sure you had some kind of warning.” “So you called to apologize?” “Because apparently all my media training has not sunk in at all.” “And I’m a much better mini-Jones defender than Lucas is,” Will added, yelping when Ruby smacked at his shoulder. “God, Lucas, you’re going to bruise me before I even get on the ice. You really didn’t eat though, Em? Cap’s going to murder me when he finds out.” “Or Locksley,” Ruby corrected and Will hummed in agreement. “That was his job.” “I’m sorry, what?” Emma asked and Mary Margaret actually laughed, apparently gifted with the power of super sonic hearing.

“Emma, for real?” Mary Margaret asked, disbelief in the question and they all might have been on speaker for how easily it was to hear each other. Will was laughing again. “There was a whole list of things. There has been since the Olympics. Every road trip. And it’s not because he doesn’t think you can't feed yourself, although you do get slightly single-minded...it’s because he is so excited. That’s why he stumbled into the questions today. He’s...like bursting with it. It’s obvious every single time he glances your direction.”

Her heart was going to explode.

Or maybe she was going to cry.

They were strangely similar feelings.

And Emma was half a second away from just hanging up on all the phones she was still inexplicably holding and calling Killian when she heard a commotion on the St. Louis side of the conversation and her heart, suddenly, was threatening to beat its way out of her chest.

“Give me the goddamn phone,” Killian said, the words perfectly clear even when it was obvious he was standing up and Ruby mumbled yeah, Cap, God, calm down under her breath.

There was a shuffling in St. Louis and Emma was dimly aware of Merida grabbing the New York phone away from her shoulder, muttering something to David and Mary Margaret that sounded a hell of a lot like the location of the goddamn balloon arch.

She didn’t listen.

She was too focused on her heart and the grapefruit and the way Killian seemed to just sigh “Swan” into the phone as soon as it was in his hand.

“Hey,” Emma said, the smile easy and the kick immediate and her hand dropped to her side quickly. “Are you ok?” “Are you? Did you eat?”

“Yes and no.” “Swan.” “I’ve got balloon arches to worry about. And the precinct is being just, like, one collectively large dick about security because they think there’s going to be a riot if you guys win or something, like we didn’t do this last year too and…” “Swan,” Killian repeated and she could barely hear footsteps making their way back down the hallway. She snapped her jaw shut, glancing towards Merida who just nodded and mouthed cranberries at her before jogging out of the office.

“The whole battalion rallied, Cap,” Emma said, smiling when she bent down to turn her chair upright. “They were all very worried I was going to have some sort of pregnancy-induced mental breakdown over a string of tweets.” He didn’t say anything immediately and Emma’s heart seemed to pick up at that, her pulse pounding in between her ears and possibly under the hand that still hadn’t left her stomach. “Did you know that the first arena the Blues played in was actually just called The Arena?” she asked and Killian laughed softly, several thousand miles and one not-quite disastrous pre-game press conference away.

“Not very creative,” he said and she didn’t need to be next to him to know his hand was in his hair and he’d absolutely sat down at some point, one leg stretched out in front of him.

“Right? Where’s the fun in that?” “Was that a joke, Swan?” “A poor attempt, but only because I’m kind of exhausted.” Killian sighed and the hand probably moved or tugged on the back of his hair and Emma scowled at her office wall. “That is not some kind of secret message,” she continued. “That is just...your kid practicing breakaways or something.”

He laughed again and the sound seemed to work its way down Emma’s spine and into her soul or something equally absurd and he’d said my kid during a press conference. She was probably going to think about that all night.

“I don’t know how any of this happened,” Killian muttered.

“The kid? You were there, I think.” “That was another very bad joke, Swan.” “That was funny,” she argued, fingers finding their way back to her ring and Killian probably rolled his eyes. “C’mon, admit it, that was definitely funny.” “I’m not acknowledging bad jokes, love and you know that’s not really what I meant.” He took another deep breath, huffing it out like he’d been holding it for days or, possibly, since a pre-game presser that had fallen completely off the rails and there was probably a story to go along with the tweets now and Emma was almost surprised that the group text on her phone hadn’t just dissolved into both Vanklad sisters screaming things.

She had no idea where Merida put her phone.

“Yeah, I know,” Emma said. “And I really am going to eat. Mer went to get that one salad from Pret, so stand down on whoever you were supposed to kill because they didn’t remind me to eat. There are a couple other things going on here, you know, Cap.”

“I’m fairly positive I don’t care about any of those things.” “Sap.” “Honest.” “And suddenly absolutely horrible at answering questions,” Emma muttered, leaning back until her hair fanned over the top of her chair and there was a dull buzz coming from some corner of the office.

The Vankalds had arrived – via text message.

“Lucas is going to kill me,” Killian sighed. “I thought her eyes were going to actually fall out of her head as soon as the words were out of my mouth.” “A lovely picture.” “Ah, well, Scarlet and Locksley both threatened to check me into several different boards in the middle of the presser, so, there’s apparently some kind of line.”

“Everyone on this team needs to relax. Did El and Anna call yet?” Killian hummed. “I have no doubt, but my phone is in my locker and will stay there, possibly, for the rest of time. I’m thinking I’ll just get a new phone when I get home. And only give you the number. Everyone else can...whatever.” “Eloquent,” Emma grinned, glancing up when Merida appeared out of thin air with a salad in one hand and lemonade in the other. “Also the food is here, so cross that off the list of worries everyone knows you made.” “That was a more metaphorical list than anything. It’s not like I wrote it all down.” “Just threatened teammates a few hours before you could clinch a second straight Cup and make history and…” “Confirm reports that we’re having a kid without meaning to,” Killian finished, sighing again and Emma wished Merida would teach her how to teleport so she could get to St. Louis and back before the balloon arch issue evolved into a complete debacle. “And I’m glad you’re eating. I was kind of worried about that.” “Kind of?” “Incredibly. Absolutely. Completely. Any of those work?” “Those are all pretty good, actually,” Emma mumbled through a mouthful of salad and Merida had absolutely picked the avocado off because there was still a hint of gross and if Scarlet was determined to defend her honor maybe he could beat up on the kid at Pret.

She’d clearly lost her mind.

“I’m sorry, Swan,” Killian said after a few moments of silence and every letter felt strained. She narrowed her eyes, glaring at the wall again like any of this was a problem and Mary Margaret was right.

Mary Margaret was always right.

“For what, exactly?” Emma asked, downing half the lemonade in four gulps and stabbing her fork into the salad until it could stand up on its own.

Killian took another deep breath, sighing it out with the kind of drama that did not belong in a playoff run or a season that had been so close to perfect Emma kept waiting to wake up.

She didn’t.

They kept winning.

That was some kind of metaphor.

“I don’t...I have no idea how that happened. The guy asked about what this whole run meant and there were dates thrown around and something about history and it was like my brain just dissolved into the absolute truth and Locksley kept mumbling shut up and Scarlet kept trying to elbow me in the side without anyone seeing, but everyone saw and then Lucas did that thing with her eyes and, suddenly, I realized I’d said my kid and it was...every single word of that was true, Emma, but we hadn’t actually decided and…” “Shut up,” she interrupted and Killian sounded like he was choking. “Just...agh, shut up for two seconds and stop apologizing for being a giant sap and just…” They were horrible at finishing sentences.

They should probably finish that. Parents finished sentences. My kid. Jeez.

Emma slumped in the chair – as much as she was able, digging her heel into the carpet and her fork was still standing up, perfectly vertical in a mound of salad that she couldn’t possibly be expected to eat when she was feeling every single human emotion at once.

“Did they take the avocados off your salad?” Killian asked softly and Emma might have laughed or just dissolved and she should probably screenshot those tweets.

Anna probably had.

They’d probably end up framed in the brownstone.

“How could you possibly know that?” Emma countered.

He scoffed, skate guard sounding impossibly loud when he tugged his leg back up and she only just realized he’d called her Emma.

That felt like cheating. Skating into the crease. Or an offsides that didn’t get called. Or something. There’d probably be a review on that.

She had definitely lost her mind.

And forgotten about the balloon arch entirely.

“Swan,” Killian muttered, groaning slightly when he stood back up. “Give me a little credit here, love. I think you’ve scared that poor kid behind the counter for life.” Emma made a face. At the wall. They should have had this conversation on FaceTime, if only so she could actually see Killian’s face and maybe stay on some kind of track in this moment that seemed questionably focused on the well-being of Pret employees. “Don’t poor kid that teenager, Killian,” she argued. “They don’t even take orders now. You press buttons on a machine and they ignore my no avocados caveat completely nine times out of ten. Mer definitely took avocados off this salad.” He must have nodded because she could hear something that sounded decidedly like playoff scruff scraping against the phone and that almost felt normal and not apologetic. “You called me Emma,” she added, squeezing one eye closed when it sounded like an accusation and the whiplash of this conversation was exhausting.

She hoped Matthew Jones stopped practicing breakaways later that night. There’d be more work if they won. She really wanted to sleep.

They were definitely going to win.

“Yeah,” Killian admitted. “It felt like a kind of big moment type of thing.” “There’s probably eighty-seven stories out there now. I think David was trying to fight the internet before. Or figure out how to arrest the entire subReddit.” “That part wasn’t actually because of me. He’s just supposed to make sure you sit down at least six times after puck drop.” “Seems like an arbitrary number.” “At least twice a period for five minutes.” “Of game time?” “No, David claimed that was too much math to try and figure out. He was very serious about using the timer on his phone though.” Emma rolled her eyes, but every single human emotion had, at some point, evolved into just plain old happiness and she didn’t care about the headlines or the stories or even the quotes if their kid was the reason behind some sort of historic Stanley Cup victory.

“Yeah, that doesn’t surprise me at all,” she said. “He tried to get me to come uptown yesterday, but Reese’s was scandalized at even the idea of me sleeping on anything except an enormous bed, so that got shut down pretty quickly.” Killian chuckled, but there was still a note of something in the sound and Emma was standing before she even realized she’d decided, mumbling hold on and stalking across her office to try and find her phone. It was behind a box of signed merch that, apparently, hadn’t made it to Bryant Park yet.

“God damn,” she groaned, pushing the box out of the way and swiping her thumb across the phone screen. There were twenty-four text messages in the group chat.

She didn’t read any of them, just clicked on the camera and ignored the bags under her eyes and whatever it was that one piece of hair was doing, clicking on buttons before her mind could actually catch up. “You have to delete that later because that’s Ruby’s phone and she probably doesn’t want pictures of me in your jersey,” Emma said, rushing over the words and Killian exhaled like he’d been holding his breath for the entire conversation.

“Swan,” he breathed and maybe she was the one blushing now and maybe she should sit down again because her knees suddenly felt a bit more wobbly than usual.

“I’m happy,” Emma said, trying to infuse every bit of honesty and meaning and important into two words. “And excited and slightly terrified and I wish I was in St. Louis because we’re going to win again and I know we didn’t really talk about confirmation or a plan, but as far as either one of those things go, just stumbling your way through an explanation of why you’re playing works pretty well.” “There was no stumbling involved, love.” “No?” “No,” Killian said. Someone was shouting his name at the other end of the hallway, but he didn’t take a step. Or, at least, it didn’t sound that way. “I am absolutely playing for our kid. And I am also excited and slightly terrified and happier than I can ever remember being.” She sniffled. Of course. “Do not point out that I am crying,” Emma mumbled, dragging a knuckle underneath her eye and she was fairly positive she heard his answering smile. “As the photographic evidence proves, Cap, we weren’t going to be able to keep this one under some sort of metaphorical hat for much longer. No matter what Ruby and Scarlet may believe.” “They’re taking their roles very seriously.” “I know they are. So you are.” “I think we both are, Swan,” he said softly and she couldn’t seem to stop crying, but our kid sounded even better than my kid and Emma just wanted to sleep through the night again and organize another Stanley Cup parade and then, probably, live happily ever after or something. “And I slept like shit last night. I thought Locksley was actually going to smother me with his pillow at one point.” “Go win a Cup and come home then.” He was smiling. She was positive. “Fairly simple marching orders, General. Anything else besides just generic winning?” “Nah. A win works. We don’t need Mattie Jones picking up any other pointers on new ways to destroy my organs with fancy on-ice moves.”

There was another Jones, seriously, get the fuck in this locker room and Emma dropped back into her chair, head thrown back and her whole body shaking with laughter and Matthew Jones seemed to pick up on that as well.

“You probably don’t need to worry about Locksley killing you later, Arthur’s going to do it in the middle of the hallway,” Emma muttered. “You better go or you’re going to get fined again and the website claimed we’re supposed to be starting some kind of savings account at this point.” “Because the cost of raising a kid is nearly $226,000.” “Why do you know that off the top of your head?” “I read. I’ve got...time.” “When you’re not sleeping?” Killian hummed, a noncommittal sound and someone was sprinting down the hallway, stopping close enough to him that he mumbled a string of curses at the person Emma could only imagine was Ariel. “Yeah, yeah, I’ll be there in five seconds,” Killian muttered, swatting at something. “My hand is fine, Red. Go talk to Scarlet about that bruise on his thigh.” “Is that from that blocked shot here?” Emma asked and Merida was back in the doorway, tapping a finger on a watch she wasn’t actually wearing and they were all going to get fined.

“He’s fine,” Killian promised. “And why are you quoting the site, Swan? How much not sleeping is not sleeping?” “That’s a convoluted sentence. And you really need to go get dressed.” “I’m, at least, three quarters of the way there. Tell Matt Jones to stop beating up on your organs, Swan. Two minutes for roughing.” Emma groaned, but the muscles in her cheeks were starting to ache from overuse. “Look who’s making bad jokes now. I retract my previous marching orders. We would both like a goal. Also, in this scenario do I outrank you?” “Well, there are no generals on hockey teams,” Killian laughed and Arthur sounded like he was dissolving into hysterics at the other end of the hall. “But a goal seems doable, so I guess in the grand scheme, yeah. Also you said we.” “As long as he’s kicking my internal organs, I get to claim the kid as part of the demands too. Plus, that website was totally right. He totally knows it’s you. There are flips and kicks and slashes every time you talk, which seems like playing favorites, but whatever.” She thought Arthur had walked down the hall, grabbed the phone and crushed it one hand. There wasn’t a single sound in St. Louis. She couldn’t even hear Killian breathing, let alone respond and Emma widened her eyes when she waited for an answer.

“Killian,” Emma said slowly and his breath hitched. “You ok?” He must have nodded again, but that still wasn’t an actual answer and she tried to reign in her impatience. “Is that….” he started and Emma was an idiot. She was going to start crying again. “He really does that?” “Yeah,” she said. “Like clockwork.” He exhaled again and no one was shouting for him anymore. “Hey, Mattie,” Killian muttered, softly enough that Emma could barely hear him. “Could you stop slashing your mom? Like, at least, for the night? She’s got stuff to do and I know she hasn’t actually eaten that salad Merida brought her. So if you could just give her a couple hours to figure out balloon arches, that’d be great. Plus you don’t want those penalty minutes.” Matthew Jones kicked in response. Hard.

And Emma had given up even trying to tempering whatever hormones were in control of her entire being. Merida looked a little glossy-eyed too.

“Sap,” Emma mumbled again, but Killian just laughed and maybe she didn’t really have to wait for happily ever after. “And you’re some kind of weird soothsayer. We should forget this whole hockey thing, just parade you around the country and let you predict people’s eating habits.”

“I think that’s just your eating habits, love,” Killian countered and, well, that was probably true. “Eat the cranberries, please. And sit down at least twice a period. I’m going to skate like shit otherwise.” “Oh, that’s cheating. I can’t be held responsible for your skating habits.” “I’m pulling out all the stops here, Swan.” “Yeah, I don’t think you have to worry about that. Between Reese’s and David, it’s a wonder I’m not just working in some kind of bubble-wrap suit at this point. I will sit down three times a period if you can promise me a goal.”

“But, like, a real chair. Not one of those terrifying things that they have in the Park.” “Do you hear yourself?” Emma asked. “You are critiquing chairs.” “Emma.” “Killian.” “Boss,” Merida cut in, a pained expression on her face and Emma would probably have to buy her assistant several somethings to make up for the insanity that had been pregnancy and playoffs. “We’ve really got to go or we’re going to hit traffic up Broadway.” Emma nodded, tugging on the ends of her jersey when she stood up. “A goal, Jones. And a Cup. Mostly a Cup. I don’t want to see any bad headlines. Only celebratory ones that Mrs. V can frame downstairs.”

“That’s fair,” Killian said. “And I’ve got every intention of ignoring every single headline from here on out, but I’ll see what I can do about winning.” “Good. We love you.”

He was smiling. She knew it. They were going to win.

“I love both of you too,” he said. “More than anything.”

David brought a chair. And, really, Emma shouldn’t have been surprised because of course David brought a chair, but she wasn’t entirely ready for him to actually follow her around Bryant Park with it, muttering statistics that he’d never admit to actually looking up, only pausing long enough to get bottles of Powerade from Mary Margaret because, as he put it, you have to stay hydrated, Emma, it’s humid out.

Mary Margaret took pictures of it all.

And that included Emma kicking the chair and David’s scandalized face and Mrs. Vankald’s slightly stunned face because Mrs. Vankald had stayed in the city and brought Emma cookies, actual cookies,  like she’d just gotten an A on a term paper instead of planned a Stanley Cup Finals event, and then offered to let her stay in the brownstone that night if she wanted.

Emma absolutely was not prepared for that.

She probably should have been.

“I told Anna and Elsa not to yell at him too much,” Mrs. V said, just a few minutes left on the clock and Killian had scored in the second period and Mary Margaret had taken a picture of Emma’s reaction.

Emma blinked, jerking her head to the left and Mrs. V was smiling. Beaming. God, the whole lot of them were emotional maelstroms. The Rangers were winning.

“It’s because he’s excited,” Mrs. V continued, reaching out to squeeze Emma’s hand. “This is…” She took a deep breath, blinking a few times before she started talking again and St. Louis had pulled John Blues or whatever his name actually was out of net. “He’s waited a long time for this. A family. And something bigger than the game and I am so happy for both of you.”

Mrs. V didn’t wait for a response before she was hugging Emma and Mary Margaret was still taking pictures and someone yelled when the buzzer went off in St. Louis. It might have been Emma. She wasn’t really sure.

They’d won.

Again.

“Oh my God,” Emma breathed, mostly into Mrs. V’s shoulder and that just sparked an even tighter hug and more shutter clicks and several kicks to a variety of organs when it sounded as if every person in Bryant Park started jumping up and down at the same time.

That might have just been David.

And eventually Mrs. V let go of her and Mary Margaret stopped taking pictures, but only long enough to announce we’re coming home with you and, well, that was that and Emma was on some kind of emotional high that she was sure would, eventually, wear off. She kind of wanted David and Mary Margaret there.

Killian called from the locker room and Scarlet asked if Emma had eaten again and Robin wanted to know if she’d actually sat down at any point, Roland shouting in the background and Henry asking to lift the Cup and Emma’s cheeks were still a bit sore by the time all of them got back uptown.

She didn’t even bother taking her jersey off when she collapsed on the bed, Mary Margaret and David camped out on a small mountain of blankets in the living room.

She thought she was dreaming at first – David’s voice drifting down the hallway and Mary Margaret asking questions when it sounded like the front door swung open. Emma pushed out of bed, grabbing a blanket and knocking several pillows on the floor as she padded towards what sounded like an argument.

She dropped the blanket.

“Killian,” Emma muttered and he didn’t even bother saying anything, just dropped his bag on the floor and pushed past David and Mary Margaret and his left hand landed on her stomach when he tugged her towards him.

One of them probably kissed the other one first, but it didn’t really feel that way and she wasn’t about to argue specifics when he was there and they’d won and he wasn’t supposed to leave St. Louis until the next morning.

There was a schedule. She’d seen it.

Matt Jones kicked his dad’s hand. Hard. Killian practically jumped back, eyes wide and he hadn’t even put a tie on. He was still wearing a Stanley Cup champions shirt.

“Are you still wearing my jersey, Swan?” he asked, just a bit breathless and Mary Margaret was already starting to fold up the blankets on the floor.

Emma shook her head, trying to make sure she was actually awake and she only realized she was gripping his shirt like a vice when Killian winced. Mary Margaret mumbled something about leaving and call us...later and Emma didn’t notice when she and David walked out of the apartment.

“How...how are you here?” Emma asked, tugging on championship merch. “You’re not supposed to be here.” Killian grinned at her, ducking his head to brush his lips across hers quickly as his thumb moved across her side. “Yeah, I didn’t really care about that,” he said. “I had places to be.” “Yeah? Wait, did Reese’s and David leave? Is that what David was yelling about?” “He was told to be more quiet by both me and Mary Margaret, but I wasn’t really interested in explaining myself when I used my own key in my own apartment.” Emma laughed, head falling against Killian’s shoulder and he couldn’t seem to stop tracing his hands over every inch of her, moving across her shoulders and down her back and he was much better at working out that knot at the base of her spine than she was. “Oh, shit, yeah, right there,” Emma mumbled. “God, that feels good.” “Did you sit down at all, Swan?” “David took his job very seriously. He brought a chair.” “He mentioned he was thinking about doing that. Locksley offered to give him one, but, apparently he just had one?” Emma nodded, not even objecting when Killian directed her back towards the hallway, toeing out of his shoes and she was, suddenly, exhausted and determined to sleep and he’d come home early.

“They brought chairs for the Pens game last year too,” Emma muttered, eyelids fluttering when Killian pressed his fingers into the small of her back again. “God, you can’t do that, we’re supposed to be celebrating or something. You guys made history. They’ll probably have some kind of exhibit in the Hall of Fame.”

“You know I’ve never actually been to the Hall of Fame.”

Emma didn’t actually remember laying down or Killian, more or less, collapsing on the other side of the bed across from her, but she pulled her head up to stare at him speculatively and the slightly nervous smile on his face. “For real?” she asked and he didn’t really nod, just moved his eyebrows and let his hand drift across the front of her jersey again and they were going to fall asleep on top of the blankets.

“For real,” he echoed, inching forward until their legs were twisted together and he probably knew Mrs. V offered to let her stay in the brownstone. “Seemed kind of self indulgent. And we only played in Toronto a couple of times before Liam got hurt. He wanted to go to some haunted lighthouse instead.” “Spooky.” He kissed her and she could feel the smile and hear the laugh and he came home for them – a few hours after history. “And boring as all hell, honestly,” Killian muttered. “There were no ghosts, just Scarlet making ghost-type noises and infuriating Liam and the tour guide.” Emma made some kind of noise that might have been an actual giggle, burrowing against Killian’s chest and a small pile of pillows. “You want to go?” she asked.

“Where?” “The Hall of Fame. I mean, not now, obviously, but, you know, eventually. We can carry on some kind of Jones family tradition and make sure Mattie’s a trivia savant too.”

He didn’t answer her immediately, just gaped at her like he was trying to make sure that had really just happened. “Yeah,” Killian said eventually, but it came out like a whisper and a hope and playing for my kid and Emma bit her lip so she didn’t actually dissolve into hormones again. “I would...I would love that, Swan.”

“Deal.” Matt kicked Killian’s hand and his eyes widened again, the smile on his face was probably enough to get them to Toronto if Merida ever explained the secrets of teleportation to them. “Hey, kid,” Killian said, twisting the blankets underneath him as he moved level to Emma’s stomach and the hormones won when he kissed right where his lips landed. “We won again.” He kept muttering words against her, fingers tracing absentmindedly over her hip and her back and Emma didn’t realize she’d fallen asleep until she woke up.

And there were, as promised, headlines – analysis of game play and legacy and history and Emma didn’t care about any of them except one story in the Daily News sports section, three pages inside with a headline that left her blinking more than the probable human average.

A Cup and a Kid: Cap Lifts Blueshirts to NHL Royalty

She never really read the whole story, just skimmed until she found the post-game quite and the page didn’t quite tear perfectly when Emma ripped the article out of the goddamn newspaper.

“I’ve had a lot of ups and downs to my career,” Jones said after the Rangers clinched their second-straight Cup on Thursday night. “But this is as good as it’s ever been and it’s got nothing to do with the ice. I got engaged during the Olympics and my fiancée and I are expecting our first kid and it’s…”

Jones took a deep breath before continuing, a wry smile on his face when he glanced around the locker room, gaze flitting over teammates and bottles of champagne and someone pressed a championship t-shirt into his hands.

“They’ve changed everything, you know?” he asked, shrugging and taking a swig of champagne when Scarlet dropped next to him in front of his visitor’s locker. “It’s all worth it now.”

That article never got framed in the brownstone basement. It sat on Emma's desk instead, flanked, eventually, by family photos and an overpriced picture in front of the hockey Hall of Fame.

#cs ff #captain swan #cs #captain swan ff #cs fic #blue line one shots #killian jones has officially lost his chill #is basically the moral of the story

[your-dietician]

What will ESPN’s coverage of the NHL look like next season?

New Post has been published on https://tattlepress.com/nhl/what-will-espns-coverage-of-the-nhl-look-like-next-season/

What will ESPN’s coverage of the NHL look like next season?

The network’s coverage starts with the July 21 Seattle expansion draft, hosted by Chris Fowler on ESPN2. John Buccigross will host the NHL Draft two days later. Those shows will be produced by NHL Network.

When Gross spoke over the phone this past week, ESPN (which reportedly paid $410 million a year for seven years of NHL rights) and Turner ($225 million a year over the same period) still hadn’t divvied the games. The NHL had yet to release its 2021-22 schedule. Its puck- and player-tracking data has not seen the light of day.

“One thing we’re trying to get our arms around is what analytics teams and coaches use to showcase in our game coverage, our studio coverage,” Gross said. “Camera positions is another thing we’re looking at, talking to the league to see how we can showcase and document the games.”

Strategy and speed are the buzzwords Gross hears in his daily conversations with NHL people. Capturing both, while serving hard-core fans, hooking viewers from the massive pool of casual sports viewers who don’t give hockey much thought, attracting diverse genders and backgrounds . . . all are among Gross’s concerns.

“There has to be a level of entertainment without it being forced,” he said. “There’s really nothing worse on TV than forced fun. We have to find our spots, when we get [Chris] Chelios and [Mark] Messier together, who have a relationship. We’ll mix and match with other folks.”

Chelios and Messier, along with Steve Levy, will likely work the major events. “We know how that works,” Gross said. Hearing the two Hall of Famers, owners of some sharp elbows, chime in on player safety decisions should be interesting.

While he may not be hockey’s answer to Charles Barkley, Chelios does seem like a straight shooter. In a phone call, he acknowledged he wasn’t looking for a gig when he reached out to ESPN after the announcement. He was calling as a dad, hoping that his daughter, Lightning TV reporter Caley Chelios, was on the network’s radar.

“I like to think I’ll call it like it is,” said Chelios, 59, “Even though it’s a little different than when I played, hockey’s hockey.”

Messier, Chelios, Hilary Knight, Ray Ferraro, Brian Boucher, and Cassie Campbell-Pascall were among the first names Gross mentioned when speaking about his roster, but a lineup has yet to be solidified. He noted that women will be featured prominently in on-air roles.

The list of local connections is long, from Boucher (Woonsocket, R.I.), A.J. Mleczko (Nantucket/Harvard), former Red Sox play-by-play man Sean McDonough (Boston), Buccigross (who has Boston roots), Rick DiPietro (Winthrop/Boston University), ex-Boston College Eagles Blake Bolden and Bob Wischusen, and Emily Kaplan, a former Globie.

Gross said another fan favorite from the past, play-by-play announcer Gary Thorne, remains an option. He spoke with the agent for Thorne, 73, this past week.

“We’re not done yet,” Gross said. “We want to see what the schedule looks like, and what other decisions we have to make. We still have time.”

What’s the game-changing idea that will separate ESPN? It won’t be glow pucks and robots (fun as they were for younger fans in the ’90s). What’s hockey’s version of the K-Zone?

“Some people thought the first-and-10 line would be too intrusive,” Gross mused. “Now you can’t really watch a game without it.”

AWARD SEASON

One voter’s ballot in depth

Connor McDavid became the first unanimous MVP since Wayne Gretzky in 1982, collecting all 100 first-place votes for the Hart Memorial Trophy.DARRYL DYCK/Associated Press

I consider it a privilege to vote on year-end NHL awards as part of my duties with the Professional Hockey Writers Association. I’m not alone. My peers and I want to get it right.

When it came to this season’s MVP, I believe we did.

Connor McDavid earned all 100 first-place votes for the Hart Trophy, becoming the second unanimous MVP ever (Wayne Gretzky, 1982). McDavid’s 105 points in 56 games goes down as one of the most dominant seasons in league history. He was playing at a different speed than everyone else.

In the voting bloc — trimmed from about 175 to 100 members, and dispersed regionally to address imbalances created by the divisional-only schedule — we saw some refreshingly progressive thinking, and as always, some strange calls. One Edmonton writer voted McDavid’s teammate, Leon Draisaitl, second for the Selke. Draisaitl made strides this season, but it would be generous to call him an above-average defensive forward, much less elite.

In this space last year, I delved into my methodology, which blends in-person viewings, video study, and number-crunching. Obviously this season, I relied more on the latter two. I was among the few beat writers who traveled all season, but I only watched the East Division up close.

My ballot, and some quick takes:

Hart Trophy — 1. McDavid; 2. Auston Matthews; 3. Nathan MacKinnon; 4. Aleksander Barkov; 5. Brad Marchand.

Relatively easy calls. McDavid was incredible, and the other four were the driving forces on good teams. Marchand was ranked as high as No. 2 on six ballots.

Norris Trophy — 1. Adam Fox; 2. Cale Makar; 3. Charlie McAvoy; 4. Dougie Hamilton; 5. MacKenzie Weegar.

A youth movement, and an ECAC/Hockey East top three. Makar (UMass) missed 12 games, or 21 percent of the season, leaving the door open for Fox (Harvard), who was the Rangers’ MVP in his second season. McAvoy (BU) might be the best five-on-five defender in the game. Weegar opened eyes after Aaron Ekblad’s injury. Eleven blue liners earned top-three votes. Victor Hedman was down-ballot for me, after an injury-plagued regular season. Don’t ask me why someone gave Kris Letang a first-place vote. Fun fact: Fox is the first player of Jewish descent to win a major NHL award.

Calder Trophy — 1. Kirill Kaprizov; 2. Jason Robertson; 3. Alex Nedeljkovic; 4. Josh Norris; 5. Igor Shesterkin.

Kaprizov (27 goals and 51 points in 55 games) was a slam dunk, though Robertson had a brief midseason run that made it interesting.

Lady Byng Trophy — 1. Jaccob Slavin; 2. Jared Spurgeon; 3. Barkov; 4. Roope Hintz; 5. Johnny Gaudreau.

I’ve said before that writers should not vote for this. Referees should. Slavin, an elite defender playing heavy minutes, committed one penalty all season (for shooting the puck over the glass). Good enough for me.

Selke Trophy — 1. Barkov; 2. Patrice Bergeron; 3. Joel Eriksson Ek; 4. Phillip Danault; 5. Joe Pavelski.

Barkov had a strong MVP case, but his 200-foot excellence was properly recognized here. Bergeron is still Bergeron. Could see Danault, after his lockdown playoffs, be front of mind for a lot of voters next season.

The PWHA does not vote on the Vezina Trophy (the general managers selected Marc-Andre Fleury), but we do pick the year-end All-Star teams. My goalies, in order, were Andrei Vasilevskiy, Fleury, and Juuse Saros. We also pick All-Rookie teams. I had Kaprizov, Robertson, and Norris as my forwards, Ty Smith and K’Andre Miller as my defensemen, and Nedeljkovic in goal.

ETC.

League will not rush to judgment

Commissioner Gary Bettman said the league is waiting for an independent review of the Blackhawks alleged cover-up of sexual abuse before proceeding.Karl B DeBlaker/Associated Press

The alleged cover-up of sexual assault by the Blackhawks was the leading topic in Gary Bettman’s annual pre-Stanley Cup Final news conference this past week. Rightfully so.

Bettman said the league learned of the allegations “relatively recently” and will wait for an independent review.

According to a lawsuit filed in May, a former Blackhawks player alleges he and another player were assaulted by then-video coach Brad Aldrich during the team’s 2010 championship run. The team’s leadership, which included current GM Stan Bowman, were allegedly informed of the incident by then-skills coach Paul Vincent, whom the players had told.

Aldrich later worked at a high school in Michigan, where he was convicted of sexual assault involving a student. He is now on Michigan’s sex offender registry.

Multiple ex-Blackhawks, including Nick Boynton, Daniel Carcillo (then with the Flyers), and Brent Sopel, spoke out this past week. One unnamed player told The Athletic that “every guy on the team knew.” Captain Jonathan Toews took issue with that, telling that outlet he didn’t hear about the allegations until the end of that summer. He said he couldn’t say for sure if the team “mishandled” the situation.

Bettman, a former lawyer, pumped the brakes. “Let us see what the investigation reveals, and then we can figure out what comes next,” he said. “I think everyone is jumping too far, too fast. This is going to be handled appropriately and professionally, and done right.”

Let’s hope so.

Beijing Olympics not a given

Commissioner Gary Bettman said the NHL has concerns over the feasibility of sending players to the Olympics next winter.Wilfredo Lee/Associated Press

Later in his Q&A, Bettman shared the league’s “real concerns” over whether it was “sensible” to have a two-week shutdown for the 2022 Beijing Olympics.

Wait, what?

After sitting out 2018 — and watching interest in Olympic hockey wane — the NHL and NHLPA last summer collectively bargained to participate in the 2022 and 2026 Winter Olympics, pending further agreement with both parties, the IIHF, and IOC. But there is no plan yet.

COVID-19 variants remain a worry, and NBC isn’t likely to lobby on the NHL’s inclusion following the expiration of the TV deal. The NHL hopes to release its 2021-22 schedule shortly after the Cup Final.

“Time is running very short,” Bettman said, which came as disappointing news to Tampa Bay’s Victor Hedman.

“The Olympics is one of the biggest dreams of mine and I haven’t been able to participate in one. This might be the last chance I get. That sucks to hear,” said Hedman, who was left off Team Sweden in 2014. “When you get an opportunity to represent your country on the biggest stage, it’s one of those things that you’ll probably never forget. For me, it’s obviously something I’ve been dreaming about my whole life and something I want to do before I hang up my skates.”

Pride working on title defense

The Boston Pride, two-time Isobel Cup winners, are preparing a title defense for 2021-22.Mary Schwalm/Associated Press

The NWHL’s Boston Pride are deep into an Isobel Cup summer, hauling the trophy from New England lake houses to the Grand Canyon.

As he preps for a title defense, coach Paul Mara is playing his cards close. After a few defections, he’s using his newfound salary-cap space — the league doubled the ceiling to $300,000 — to bring in some outside help.

“Working on a few things,” he said.

The NWHL is feeling momentum entering its seventh season. An influx of sponsorship dollars, visibility from its Isobel Cup playoffs broadcast on NBCSN, and a lot of player raises have elevated the mood.

Since last month, the four franchises under league control — the Buffalo Beauts, Connecticut Whale, Metropolitan Riveters, and Minnesota Whitecaps — were sold to private owners, making it a league of six independent clubs. Expansion is on the horizon, with Montreal a primary target.

Also notable: This past week’s draft, which was streamed on Twitch, included appearances from a range of pro sports personalities, including NHL league and team executives, and USA Hockey reps. The NWHL hasn’t always had such vocal support.

For all the growth, players aren’t yet earning a living wage. Contracts are yearly. Outside opportunities create a talent drain.

The Pride lost president Hayley Moore to the AHL (vice president of hockey operations), replacing her with 1998 US Olympian Colleen Coyne. They are searching for a GM, after Karilyn Pilch this past week signed on with the Chicago Blackhawks’ scouting and player development department.

They also need a few good forwards. Mary Parker, Carlee Turner, and Lexie Laing departed for job and school reasons. Czech standout Tereza Vanisova signed with Leksands IF in Sweden, which will better help her participate in a demanding Olympic training schedule.

League MVP Jillian Dempsey, recovered from shoulder surgery, returns with All-Star linemates McKenna Brand and Christina Putigna, the No. 1 defense pair of Kaleigh Fratkin (two-time NWHL Defender of the Year) and Mallory Souliotis, and netminders Lovisa Selander and Victoria Hanson. That crew, plus whomever Mara can lure to town, should keep the Pride near the top of the standings.

Unlike last season, when the Pride got a boost from No. 1 overall pick Sammy Davis (BU) and six drafted rookies, the draft won’t have a major impact. Because they lost their 2021 first- and second-round picks when they traded up to select Davis, and dealt their third-rounder to Buffalo for future considerations, the Pride picked in the fourth and fifth rounds (Weston’s Finley Frechette and Beverly’s Abby Nearis, both forwards).

The NWHL’s player pool was thinned after the NCAA granted players an extra year of eligibility, leading many of the top draft-eligible players to return to school. Because of that, Boston isn’t the only team that believes next year’s draft will be loaded.

Loose pucks

Bruce Cassidy (left) has been promoting from within, with assistant coach Jay Pandolfo (center) leaving for Boston University.Winslow Townson/Associated Press

The Bruins have promoted from within of late, calling up coaches from Providence and the player development ranks. It makes sense that fourth-year P-Bruins coach Jay Leach would replace Jay Pandolfo on Bruce Cassidy’s staff, but player development staffers Chris Kelly and Jamie Langenbrunner will also get a look. Like Pandolfo, they were two-way forwards with long NHL résumés . . . As for Pandolfo, the move to BU gives him a shorter path to a head coaching gig. Albie O’Connell, who is entering the final year of his deal, has had a spotty run . . . Bruins strength and conditioning assistant Kenny Whittier also made the move to BU . . . A few first-timers joined NHL benches this past week, including two ex-players, Alex Tanguay (Detroit assistant) and Tuomo Ruutu (Florida assistant), and André Tourigny (Arizona coach). The latter move was particularly interesting, for a league that often recycles head coaches . . . Toews, after a year out of the spotlight with a mysterious illness, is back on the ice. He posted a video message to fans after a practice, saying doctors told him he has “chronic immune response syndrome,” a catch-all term for constant, debilitating stress reactions. Still dealing with a few symptoms, the Blackhawks’ captain believes the condition was brought on by a nasty bout with COVID-19 in February 2020, before the pandemic hit in full; the toll of 13 NHL seasons; and the year-round hockey training schedule he’s followed since he was a young teenager. “I think there’s a lot of things that just piled up,” he said, “where my body just fell apart.” He hopes to return in October . . . Edmonton trimmed Ryan Nugent-Hopkins’s $6 million cap hit, but took a beating on term, when it locked up the No. 2 center to an eight-year, $41 million deal with a full no-move clause. He will be 36 when it expires. “No contract is perfect,” GM Ken Holland acknowledged . . . Hurricanes owner Tom Dundon’s take on game jersey ads, which are coming to the NHL sooner rather than later: “If we look like Formula One or NASCAR, that’d be fine with me.” . . . Glad to see college athletes everywhere get a chance to make some cash off their name and image, following the Supreme Court’s hammering of the paternalistic NCAA. A small step, long overdue.

Matt Porter can be reached at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter: @mattyports.

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[multsicorn]

stanley cup coming out thoughts

[possibly up for revision!  who knows.  if not, we can ~agree to disagree.]

But I can’t seem to accept or believe that Bitty has an obligation to come out to his parents before he comes out to the world, or that Jack has an obligation to tell his team, his agent, etc., that he’s going to come out now before he does.

It would be nice, it would be probably helpful, it might possibly avert negative reactions of all sorts... these things are absolutely true, and I’m up for diving into them fictionally!

Whether it’s Suzanne being hurt that Bitty’s been hiding this from her, and guilting Bitty about it, making the issue into ‘didn’t you know you could trust me, am I a bad mother.’ - Which I think is in-universe the most likely thing to happen, though it’ll be glossed over super quickly if present at all on screen.

Or whether it’s George going ‘I was mad last night, but now I’ve moved on to being disappointed, you do realize that by doing this without talking to anyone you’ve made the fallout on everyone many times harder.’  And Jack feeling like this is unfair, but the rest of the locker room having mixed feelings.

But the point is that - one of my favorite things to think about in relation to omgcp has always been, just because you might need something from somebody, doesn’t mean they have to give it to you.  (er, this is mostly in relation to jack/parse, but the principle applies everywhere.)  Bitty and Jack coming out like this might hurt some people and frustrate others, people they care about, even, but it’s still.. their lives.  Their choice.

~

re: this being objectively a terrible time and place to come out.

For Bitty, that’s almost entirely about his parents not knowing yet, right, but he’s been wanting them to know, and hasn’t been able to tell them.  Coming out like this is so much more doable, probably, than doing it directly to them in any way... and it shouldn’t lastingly affect the type or degree of supportiveness (or lack thereof) they give him.

For Jack: either he comes out sometime or he comes out never.  (I would bet strongly that before he fell for Bitty, he wasn’t planning on coming out till after it wouldn’t be too big a deal.  Which means, maybe, ever).  But if he’s in love, in this committed relationship, then either he’s in the closet and he’s looking over his shoulder all the time to see whether he might be poking a toe out by accident, or... he comes out, and has to get shit from other teams, referees, media, whatever part of ~the whole world~ he sees... but at least he’s not terrified of being accidentally (or maliciously!) outed, anymore.

So!  If he were to come out, what better time than when he’s proved all the doubters wrong?  If he can win the Stanley Cup, he proves that he really belongs, there’s no doubt, etc.  And he already has an A as the rookie, and he got the game winning goal, and the Conn Smythe!, and the Cup, like... if there’s one moment when he’s on top of the hockey world, it’s here and now, there and then.  What better time to say, ‘oh, and also, I love my boyfriend, so if you have a problem with that, f you.’

(I DID NOTICE by the way and I’ve been predicting that this would happen since forever - that Jack came out to the world by saying, or, actually, by demonstrating, that he has a boyfriend, not by ID-ing himself out loud as either bi or gay.  I suspect that he’s never going to label himself onscreen in the comic, and this reluctance is interesting to me.... /sorry, tangent over.)

So, it would seem to me like a GREAT time for Jack to come out, save the factor of not giving his team or agent any fucking warning, which he should’ve done, but I bet he was probably too full of complicated fears, and I get that, and, further, it’d be just as true at any other time... I’m not sure how ‘planning’ would be s’posed to help, anyway.  The league, the media, hockey fandom, etc., is gonna have just as much homophobia in it no matter what he and/or his team do!

EXCEPT, there’s this thing about hockey culture.  (I gather from reading and osmosis - I don’t know that much about hockey!)  You’re not supposed to “draw attention to yourself.”  ... Here, I just googled “hockey” “draw attention to yourself,” and look at this quote from The Hockey News.  2015:

As for why no NHL players have come out yet, [Patrick] Burke [founder of You Can Play] believes it’s more a hockey culture issue – the team is always more important than the individual and you never want to draw attention to yourself – than anything to do with fear of acceptance. “There are a lot of people who know ‘out’ retired players,” he said. “Those players just don’t want to do a newspaper article on it. I mean, we’ve had players criticized for high-fiving too exuberantly.”

*screams quietly*

FIRST OF ALL, (unless there’s more than one such incident), those players who were criticized for high-fiving ~wrong~ were P. K. Subban and Carey Price.  (Their personal celly was banned by their team, the Habs, it was crazy!)  It is... not a coincidence, surely, that these are two of the biggest PoC stars in hockey, which is numerically an overwhelmingly white sport.  So... when it says ‘don’t stick out, fit in,’ it really means it, so much more so, if you’re not white.

Or if you’re marginalized along some other axis.  (You already ~don’t fit in!~)  Which, of course, everyone now knows Jack is...

To me it seems ridiculous, outrageous, that coming out would be bad cause it’s ‘taking attention away’ from the rest of your team.  No one would want all that sort of attention; it’s not their fault they would get it...!  But I’m not immersed in ~hockey culture.~

Where people would absolutely say ‘just like a -’ (well, I don’t want to write the rest of that sentence, but you know), ‘gotta be the center of attention all the time, can’t let ordinary people alone,’ and then some really gross sex metaphors., (and okay, i am making myself feel sick now, but, that is the world!)

And so you’ve got... I don’t even know WHAT sort of situation, where of course George and Marty and Thirdy and them are frustrated cause Jack gave them no cues as to what to say or do in this scenario, there’s no coordination, what interviews do we grant, we all wanted to be off elsewhere enjoying our summers, etc....

But also the press is being REALLY GROSS about Jack’s “selfishness” in making the Falcs’ first-ever Stanley Cup win “all about him” by kissing his boyfriend, cause like, it’s not like EVERY OTHER PLAYER who had one kissed their girlfriends or wives the exact same way.

And JACK, himself, also had a whole arc through the first couple years of the comic, of focusing on his own play to the exclusion of his team’s, epitomized in ‘it was a lucky shot’ and culminating in ‘learning to be a team player.’  ... BUT, that was with the Wellies, not the Falcs.  With the Falcs, we’ve seen him again beating himself up over his play in the playoffs, as if it wasn’t a team effort!  ... maybe he ‘knows’ better, in some sense, but focusing on things being all about you, a referendum on your inadequacies, even when you should know they’re not, is, in both my experience and my reading, a common issue with anxiety.

(I would bet he takes his anxiety out on other people on the Falcs, the same way he did with Bitty when they first met.  That he’s not that great of a team player, off the ice, even though it’s not about this thing, and that there’s some doubts in the room as to whether he’s earned his A.)

And then, THE COMIC, weirdly, though it includes quite a few of the Falcs as named and repeatedly-shown characters, also seems to be treating the Cup as a one-person victory.  Jack gets the GWG, and the Conn Smythe, and is the only one we actively see working on and worrying about the games, though we see the others just ~around!?  So.... it both adds bits of evidence to ‘boy has a self-centered approach,’ and, seems to justify this because a Jack-centered narrative of the playoffs is ~correct.

(And, I mean, clearly I’m being Jack-centered, when the narrative wants me to be Bitty-centered instead!  All sorts of biases and layers going on here.)

I am not sure how to sum all this up.  Just - that Jack has totally, demonstrably, been guilty of selfishness vis-a-vis his teams before, and there are bits of reasons to think that he probably hasn’t stopped!, and also that I don’t think, personally, that coming out at that time, in that way, is fair to label as ‘selfish,’ (though it’s a shitty situation for George and the team!) and also, that I bet Don Cherry et. al. are talking about how ‘selfish’ Jack and Bitty are right now in a sickeningly homophobic way.  But that doesn’t invalidate any of the earlier clauses in that sentence... it just complicates things.  Can you call your teammate out on his self-centered-ness, (like, throughout the playoffs), when that’s blasting from every hockey TV thing?  Would you still want to?  I sure as hell wouldn’t.

... and what are narratives, #we just don’t know.

#questionable cake #omgcheckplease #I WAS SUPPOSED TO BE DOING OTHER THINGS THAN WRITING THIS

[seedlessmuffins]

hello party people! the stanley cup playoffs start right now, so in an attempt to tempt y’all to watch, i have compiled a list of playoff moments that altered my brain chemistry (as someone who has watched the playoffs every year since 2010)! even if you don’t want to watch hockey, the sport is pretty ridiculous so here is just a small sample of the extent of the craziness!

washington capitals vs. pittsburgh penguins 2009 (round 2 game 2): hockey’s messi and ronaldo, sidney crosby and alex ovechkin put on a show for the washington crowd as they each score hattys in the same game. the capitals would go on to win the game, but the penguins would win the series (and later the cup), but this game has some of the best highlights as the two best players in hockey at their peaks showed off their skills for sexy, sexy hockey! 

chicago blackhawks vs. philadelphia flyers 2010 (round 4 game 6): in overtime of game 6 of the stanley cup finals, a chicago player scored the game winner to win the hawks the cup. the weird part? nobody saw it go in except the player and his teammates. the crowd, flyers, and broadcasters didn’t see it go in. known as the “phantom goal” this goal won the hawks their first cup in almost 50 years.

 vancouver canucks vs. chicago blackhawks 2011 (round 1 game 7): this is the game that made me fall in love with hockey. little 7-year-old me was glued to my television screen all night watching this game. the blackhawks and canucks had matched up in the playoffs for three years in a row, and the blackhawks (at the time the reigning cup champions) had beat the canucks every time. this series had gone the full 7 games, with the canucks winning the first 3 and the blackhawks coming from behind to win the next 3. earlier in game 7, hero alex burrows had opened the scoring then missed a penalty shot. with the game tied at 1, just over 5 minutes into overtime, burrows gets the puck and scores, defeating the blackhawks to send the canucks to the next round. they would go on to lose the cup in the final, but this was the golden generation of canucks games and the vibe in vancouver? unmatched. it gave birth to two of the most iconic radio calls: “they slayed the dragon” by john shorthouse, and “its a wonderful day for an exorcism” from jim hughston. this defined my childhood fr

boston bruins vs. toronto maple leafs 2013 (round 1 game 7): mere weeks after the tragedy at the boston marathon, the bruins were down 4-1 with just over 14 minutes to play in the 3rd period. they were down 4-2 with 9 minutes left. with two goals in 30 seconds, with less than 90 seconds remaining, the bruins tied the game and patrice bergeron won the game for the bruins in overtime. the maple leafs, having blown a 3 goal lead, ended their season. as of right now, they have not won a round of the playoffs since 2004.

tampa bay lightning vs. boston bruins 2018 (round 2 game 4): the playoffs can get quite scrappy! in order to get an advantage over his opponent after a little scrum, noted league rat brad marchand licked a man. yes fully licked. previously in the playoffs he had kissed and licked another man, and this caused the league to outlaw licking. the bruins would go on to lose the series, even though marchand continued his ridiculous antics

vegas golden knights vs. vancouver canucks 2020 (round 2 games 5-7): in 2020, the playoffs were played in a bubble at one arena with no spectators. after game 4, that the knights won, it was discovered that the canucks goalie jacob markstrom had an injury. with the knights leading the series 3-1, the canucks needed to win 3 games in a row to move on to the next round. enter thatcher demko, a rookie goalie who had never played a playoff game before. over games 5, 6 and 7, demko made 123 saves, including a 48 save shutout in game 6, to keep the canucks in until game 7. he stood on his head, he was incredible, and he went over 100 minutes without the knights scoring a goal. unfortunately, with a knights shutout in game 7, the canucks wouldn’t move on, but “bubble demko” would live in infamy as thatcher demko’s intro to playoff hockey. hes my favourite goalie 

pittsburgh penguins vs. new york rangers 2022 (round 1 game 1): as both teams were ready to fight it out in the playoffs, this game was tied at the end of three periods. in the playoffs, overtime lasts 20 minutes with 15 minute breaks between them. in the 3rd period of overtime, and the 6th period of hockey evgeni malkin scored for the penguins after over 90 minutes of hockey. it was midnight at madison square garden. the rangers goalie, igor shesterkin, made 79 saves in the loss, and the penguins goalie louis domingue, who came on in the second overtime to replace an injured casey desmith, went viral for reports that he ate spicy pork and broccoli between periods to keep up his energy. this is one of the longest games in nhl history, and the rangers would go on to win the series in 7 games. 

edmonton oilers vs. calgary flames 2022 (round 2 game 1): the battle of alberta is one of the classic rivalries of the nhl, and the first game of last year’s round 2 delivered. the goalies seemed to be unable to keep the puck out of the net, and flames and oilers fans both watched as the two teams combined for 15 goals, with the flames winning 9-6. the oilers would go on to win the series, but the sloppy, goal-heavy hockey has stuck in my mind ever since last may

these are some of my highlights! i hope you all enjoy the playoffs (because i know i will), and all the beard-growing and towel-twirling that comes along with them. happy stanley cup season everyone!

#k talks hockey #k the hockey prof??? #stanley cup playoffs #k converts her footie friends to hockey friends! #the ridiculous shenanigans of nhl playoff hockey #happy hockey hunger games besties! #k talks stanley cup playoffs

[overstreetnews]

If you had cable any time during 2010-2015, you're probably very familiar with Chord Overstreet. The Glee actor melted hearts as Sam Evans on the hit TV show, not only for his jock-turned-singer persona, but for the musicianship behind the character onscreen. Flash forward two years, and you can now catch the singer-songwriter sitting pretty on the iTunes dance chart thanks to the success of his "Hold On" remix featuring Dutch DJ duo, Deepend.

Hot off a Today show performance and a tour with Gavin James, the "Homeland" performer is proving that he was vetted for the music biz all along. Currently signed to Demi Lovato, Nick Jonas, and Phil McIntyre’s Safehouse Records, Overstreet is set to release his debut album later this year. Counting down the day until its release? Same.

We got to chat with the Nashville native about his upcoming show in LA at Hotel Cafe, growing up in a musical household, and yes, Justin Bieber. Check it out below, and make sure to Track Chord on Bandsintown so you don't miss him when he comes to a city near you!

I’m obsessed with your new song “Hold On”. What was the inspiration behind it?

The inspiration behind that was life kind of just hit me in the face. I was feeling that way—I had been through stuff in relationships, with friends, and lost people close to me. I was going through a really difficult time, but the message that I wanted to convey was the unconditional love that you have for somebody, even when you're kind of getting beat down by it.

The acoustic version of the song is also really beautiful. I know you grew up in a musical household—how long have you been playing the guitar?

I probably started playing when I was seven or eight. I also started taking drum lessons when I was six and got my first mandolin when I was four, so I've been playing music for a long time now. I can pretty much figure out whatever—I play by ear on a lot of stuff. I play bass, guitar, piano, drums, harmonica, but I mean, I can't play violin or anything like that.

You were recently on tour with Gavin James. Do you have a favorite memory from that run with him?

Yeah I would say the Nashville show was pretty cool. There was a point when I was watching from the audience when he jumped offstage, unplugged everything and played a cover song in the middle of everybody. It was just a really cool live moment. Other than that, there was a lot of fun stuff. He's a cool dude and fun guy to hang with outside of playing music.

You have your own show coming up in LA soon at Hotel Cafe. What songs are you most excited to perform live there?

That’s a good question. The songs I like are the ones that I can vibe out on a little bit and get to really, kind of dig into lyrically. It’s different when you have a band, it's a little more fun to play up-y ones.

Is there one in particular?

There is, but I just wrote it so that's probably why. I wrote it like two days ago, so I’ll probably just play it to have fun with it. It's called “You Gotta Roll Your Own”.

If you could co-headline a tour with anyone, who would it be?

Man, I would love to do a show with Bob Seger. Him, or Creedence Clearwater Revival with John Fogerty and those guys.

Do you have a favorite interaction that you've had with a fan when you were touring?

I met a fan outside of a Montreal show when I was going into soundcheck, and he was wearing Nashville Predators gear. The Predators are in the Stanley Cup right now, so it was while they were in the playoffs. I guess P. K. Subban, one of the hotshot players from the Predators, played for the Montreal Canadiens. I talked to him outside the show—it was really cool to run into a Predators fan in Montreal.

Is there a personal item that you can't live without on the road?

I usually stop at Whole Foods every time I get to a new city and just stock up on healthy food. Kombucha, that’s kinda my thing—mangoes, bananas, apples. It's just like, if you're going to be eating on a road trip where you’re driving everywhere, if you don't have healthy food stocked up you'll just eat the worst food.

I saw that you recently posted a picture of Bieber's #Despacito look. Who would you say is your style icon?

I mean I would say that outfit right there—I just started laughing so hard because I have to love that he doesn't give a sh*t, but in the best way. It's humorous and self-deprecating.

But my style icon, I just love the Bruce Springsteen look. You know, jeans and a t-shirt. Very “American”. He doesn't need anything flashy, he just kinda like does his thing and he's The Boss. That’s like me, I like jeans and a t-shirt and that's pretty much all I wear. And a nice jacket.

Some Levis and you're golden.

Yeah some Levis, a shirt with a BBQ stain on it. Boom.

#Chord Overstreet #interview

[grumpyandgorgeous]

Today’s the day: it’s Emmy longlist day.

If you have followed me for awhile, you know I always do this; this year I thought I’d link back to my previous write-ups and realized there were eight previous posts for me to link back to. Eight! This is my ninth time doing this. I am just as surprised as you are. Here they all are, if you are interested. And here we go!

We start this year with Voice-Over Performance in animation, and Bojack Horseman breaks in with its first ever nomination, for Kristen Schaal as Sarah Lynn. I would be pleased if she took this--I just like Kristen Schaal--but honestly, this category is an enigma. Some years it seems to be about a celebrity guesting on the Simpsons, sometimes its about a nuanced performance in a long-running animated series, and sometimes it about the breadth instead of the depth by nominating a performance who just does a lot of characters on one show. There's some of all of that this year (if we're counting Kevin Kline's nomination for Bob's Burgers, which we so are). I don't know who will win this.

Likewise, I am not sure of what to root for in Animated Program, as the episode of Archer is just the premiere (which is fine, but not great) and the Bob's Burgers and Simpsons episodes are pretty week. Kind of nice to see Elena of Avalor get a nomination though, right?

I tend to not focus heavily on the casting categories when I haven't seen a majority of the nominees, but the Casting for Limited Series has to go to Big Little Lies, right? Even the children are excellent, just amazing. I'll be offended if this doesn't win. I understand how Fargo could win it... but it shouldn't.

A nice surprise in Choreography--Mandy Moore (not that Mandy Moore) gets nominated twice, but once for Dancing With the Stars, and once for So You Think You Can Dance. I don't think I've seen that before!

Heading back to Big Little Lies, I don't know how much of a chance it has in a lot of the technical categories, but I would be pleased if it saw wins for Cinematography, Contemporary Costumes, Single-Camera Picture Editing... the list goes on. (I think Handmaid's Tale probably has Period/Fantasy Costumes sewn up, ha.) I forget how much I liked the show until I think back on these aspects of it and remember, Oh wait, it was really very good. I would love for this to carry over to Directing too, but I am surprised as how strong The Night Of has come on in the technical categories, not because I doubt its merit, but because it wasn't really the buzziest thing on HBO this year. There must have been some heavy HBO campaigning, because I saw it turn up on a number of critics' lists to expect nominations, but I am still a little surprised.

In lieu of any Queen Sugar nominations, I would be pleased to see Ava DuVernay win a directing award for 13th.

Main Title Design! I was so excited for this and to be honest, the nominees are a little disappointing. The opening for Feud: Bette and Joan was in my mind the frontrunner heading in, and that hasn't changed in the slightest. The problem here is that three of these are the exact same set of titles. I actually quite liked the American Gods theme when I first started watching it, but then I saw the Crown... they're the same title design. So is Stranger Things, but at least it has the benefit of the image that it it focuses on in very tiny amounts on a black background being typography. Honestly, go watch them. These are all the same titles. It's amazing. Westworld's theme is nice, but Bette and Joan's is something special. I hope it wins. (This is possibly the one place I want it to win.)

Did you know Lifetime had mad a movie version of Suite Francaise? I did not either, but it got a nomination for Original Dramatic Score for a limited series or movie.

Original Music and Lyrics is weird. I don't really get the Mickey Mouse short nomination (although you should totally go watch it because there's a real Ren and Stimpy vibe to it which I never would have expected), and I'm not into the Lemonade homage from Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, so that leaves us with the songs from Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, SNL, and 13th, all of which I think have a reasonable shot. The Crazy Ex-Girlfriend song grows on you as it goes along, but "Last Christmas" and "Letter to the Free" both feel a lot more relevant and political. I could see this one going either way. SNL might win on a wave of SNL wins, but there are a surprising number of technical nominations for 13th that lead me to believe there's some real industry support for the doc and this could win from that. It's an interesting category.

I'm not so good at discussing the intracacies of music, so the Original Main Title Theme Music is a difficult category for me to assess. However, in my opinion anyway, I would rule out the themes to Victoria and The Good Fight right off the bat, and i would through Genius in there too were it not composed by Hans Zimmer, and so for that reason we can't rule it out. Stranger Things I think is the leader here, because it manages to be iconic and retro all at once. The Feud music is also nice, but I am actually very fond of the Westworld music, even if in the key changes it kind of reminds me of the Carnivale theme. (Miss you always, Carnivale.) Still, I think Stranger Things is almost a lock on this one.

Finally, the acting categories.

Lead Actor in a Comedy is basically all the same faces, plus Donald Glover.  It's the only one of these shows I watch, and he is wonderful in it, but I  feel its more likely he'll be taking awards for his work behind the camera. Jeffrey Tambor could take this again, but with Transparent not taking a series nom for the first time, it might be on its way out. Anthony Anderson then? I thought he would have won this already, to be perfectly honest. Who knows how this will go.

Lead Actor in a Drama is equally mystifying. Several of the actors in this category are overdue--Matthew Rhys, Bob Odenkirk--and some shouldn't be here at all--Liev Schreiber, Kevin Spacey, Milo Ventimiglia--and then we have Anthony Hopkins, who is legendary but maybe not for Westworld, and Sterling K. Brown. This Is Us broke a lot of ground this year, so I would not be shocked by Sterling K. Brown winning, but network dramas are always going to have a hard time going up against the prestige nominees on cable. This is one to watch.

Every time I think Sherlock is the worst its ever been, it wins awards in America, so I think Benedict Cumberbatch is a solid choice to win Lead Actor in a Limited Series or Movie. Should this go to Ewan McGregor for going all Tatiana Maslany? Probably. But honestly i have no stakes in this race. Just not Cumberbatch.

So both the leads of Grace and Frankie got nominations for Lead Actress in a Comedy, which I think means they will cancel each other out. There are a couple familiar names here (I keep waiting for Tracee Ellis Ross' moment but I fear it's not coming), and a new face in Pamela Adlon, which between that and her TCA achievement lead me to think she's a frontrunner here. But... Allison Janney has moved herself up to Lead from Supporting, and it is very hard to place bets against a prior winner, even if it wasn't for this specifically. So who knows? Here's a fun fact though: if Janney wins this category, she will have Emmys for Supporting Actress in a Drama, Lead Actress in a Drama, Guest Actress in a Drama, Supporting Actress in a Comedy, and Lead Actress in a Comedy. All she'll have left is a Guest Comedy Actress and the Limited Series awards! I don't know if this will be some kind of a record for sheer breadth of acting categories, but it would be fun for someone to find out.

But hey, can we talk about how for yet another year, there's nothing for Catherine O'Hara killing it on Schitt's Creek? Seriously, she is just straight-up nailing it on a weekly basis. David and Alexis are the heart of the show--and a good amount of the humor, yes--but Moira is just an eccentric actress delight. Robbed yet again. And if not Catherine O'Hara, why not her SCTV co-star Andrea Martin, so much fun all decked out in Chico's looks on Great News? She's the best part of the show, and I'd much rather see them here than Grace and Frankie.

Lead Actress in a Drama--I've heard zero buzz for How to Get Away With Murder this year, but she was a previous winner, and there is some recenty history of repeat winners in this category. I thought the Americans was going to win some acting trophies last year, but nothing came of it... and I wouldn't put it past the Television Academy to give an award to a show just as the critics have said it had a weaker season. So who knows, if the episode really sells Keri Russell, or Matthew Rhys back in Lead Actor, I could see it. The same goes for the perennially-nominated Robin Wright. My heart wants to give this to Elisabeth Moss though. This is Hulu's breakthrough year so this could be the winner.

Ooooooooooooof, the category that has been the heaviest now for two straight years. I have seen a LOT of awards prognosticators say this is Jessica Lange's, which shocked me, because I would have absolutely said it is Nicole Kidman's, because she was breathtaking, and Feud was only OK. But the problem here is that Jessica Lange and Susan Sarandon could split the Feud vote, and Nicole Kidman and Reese Witherspoon could split the Big Little Lies vote, and then where are we? Felicity Huffman for American Crime, or Carrie Coon for Fargo. I wouldn't mind either of these, necessarily--all the women nominated here are very talented--but this is a Big Little Lies award if there is any justice in this world. And Nicole Kidman, unlike Julia Roberts when she got that Normal Heart nom a few years ago, is not so snobby as to talk down about the Emmys while she's at the damn Emmys, so she's definitely a winner that TV could get behind even though she's primarily a film actress. I mean god, she went to the Stanley Cup playoffs and wore a jersey and everything. SHE'S OF THE PEOPLE NOW. Give this to Nicole, please.

Also, many apologies to Lauren Graham, totally shut out for the Gilmore Girls revival. One day you'll get something, Lorelei.

Supporting Actor in a Comedy is so many repeat nominees and winners, but if Alec Baldwin doesn't win this, it will be an actual honest to goodness upset. Who else has a chance? It doesn't matter if you don't like the Trump impression (which I don't, for the record). It was the buzziest comedy performance of the year. The president got angry about all of it. He's gonna win.

I don't know anything about Supporting Actor in a Drama except that I have been rooting for Jonathan Banks for like, many years now, on two different shows, so I would be very happy to see him win.

Supporting Actor in a Limited Series... I haven't seen The Night Of. I kind of figure it's going to go to The Night Of. But Alexander Skarsgard is very good at being very awful and having two faces? It feels almost cruel to reward him for being a good abusive husband but he's a very good abusive husband. I also enjoyed Alfred Molina's performance in Feud, so who knows where this is going.

As much as it pains me to say it, I think Anna Chlumsky has fallen out of her possible winning window for Veep, so I don't think it is ever going to happen at this point. But there rest of the faces for Supporting Actress in a Comedy are good ones. I think you have to give it to Kate McKinnon for just wearing so many hats this year, but I love Kathryn Hahn in absolutely everything she does, and Leslie Jones feels just as deserving as any cast member of SNL. And while I am not a huge Vanessa Bayer fan, I'd be happy for her to win just for that damn Totino's ad. No bad wins here.

Uzo Aduba hasn't won for Supporting Actress since Orange is the New Black switched to drama, right? I don't know if any women of the Handmaid's Tale are going to break through this one when they don't have quite the role recognition here as the other nominees. Millie Bobby Brown could win, as crazy as that sounds, considering that the cast won the SAG. Chrissy Metz is the name I am seeing from a lot of prognosticators. And Thandie Newton--well, how can you root against Thandie Newton. I'm going to give this to Millie Bobby Brown for now, but I am keeping my eyes on Chrissy Metz.

Regina King has now won the Emmy for Supporting Actress in a Limited Series for two years running, and I am not about to root against her for a third trophy, even if this year was the least buzzed about season of American Crime, and it was subsequently canceled. She's going to have strong competition--watch out for Laura Dern, I think--but she's had strong competition before. I liked Jackie Hoffman a lot in Feud, but i don't really think either of the Feud roles really hold a candle to the rest of the nominees here. Could be interesting on Emmy night but, once again, I am rooting for Regina King.

There is something a little insulting about the only nominees for a show called Girls being random male guest stars, right? A little bit? No offense to Riz Ahmed or anything. I don't love Girls by any measure, but it's a little weird. I would give this one to Tom Hanks because of David S Pumpkins but hey, who knows how these things work anymore. I certainly don't. Guest Actor in a Comedy--some host of SNL, a guy on Girls, or Hugh Laurie on Veep. I think Dave Chappelle killed his chances when he said to give Trump a chance, but it was a big deal for him to be on SNL, so I wouldn't necessarily discount that. If I had to nominate an SNL host here though, it really should have been Chris Pine. Boy was totally ignored.

I think Carrie Fisher has the sentimental vote for Guest Actress in a Comedy, but Melissa McCarthy honestly was much better as Sean Spicer than Alec Baldwin ever was as Trump. The thing working against her is she submitted her own episode, and it was arguably her weakest appearance.

Honestly, the best thing for the guest categories is Nightcap, the underseen heir to 30 Rock on Pop!, the channel that replaced the TV Guide Channel. Ali Wentworth knows a lot of people and they all seem game to come on and skewer their image in the most embarrassing way possible. There were a number of standouts in season one, but Gwyneth Paltrow as a kleptomaniac who doesn't eat "that goop shit" and who apparently goes around negotiating guys down to handjobs from blowjobs was my personal favorite, but really so many celebs were great. Debra Messing also should be really gunning for a nomination for this for next year with the episode that just aired this week. idk, I'm a fan.

I'm all in for Alexis Bledel for Handmaid's Tale as I frequently hear that she's a person's favorite part, but I don't know if that's likely. Ann Dowd is here after being a nominee in supporting actressi in a limited series, so maybe she has a real shot at one of them. And you can't rule out Barb, because the academy is just as dumb as the rest of America for nominating an extremely minor character who barely appears for an Emmy.

I know Ben Schwartz already has an Emmy that he shares with Dan Harmon for writing that "Recession Oscars" opening theme where Hugh Jackman said he hadn't seen the Reader , but if he can win outright for the Earliest Show, I am fine with that. Same for Lauren Lapkus, easily the highlight of Pete Holmes' Crashing, which is pretty weak overall.

I can't be the only one rooting for Martha and Snoop for reality hosts for their dinner party show, right?

Outstanding Comedy Series: the same old names, plus Atlanta. I'll root for Atlanta or black-ish. Veep had a very weak year and Silicon Valley was dreadful. This category needs some refreshment.

Outstanding Drama Series went the opposite direction: two repeat nominees in Better Call Saul and House of Cards, but five new faces in first season shows The Crown, Handmaid's Tale, Stranger Things, This is Us, and Westworld. Again, the SAG for best cast went to Stranger Things, so I would not be surprised at it coming through here too, even though it is not at all the type of drama the Emmys typically go for. I would think it comes down to Stranger Things or This Is Us, both of which got heavily nominated all over, but especially in acting.

Fargo did better in nominations than I think anyone expected it to, so it can't be entirely ruled out for Outstanding Limited Series. I want this to be for Big Little Lies, but female-centric domestic series don't have a good history here--I think this show was excellent in all facets, but its recognition really came down to the fact it has movie stars in it and a high-profile team behind it. I don't know if that's going to carry over to a win here, even if it absolutely should. The Night Of has done very well in nominations, and the subject matter is far more up the Television Academy's alley. Also, this category tends to be a good one for Ryan Murphy, so a Feud win isn't out of the quetion either. I am hoping level-headedness prevails and we get a Big Little Lies win. But I also know exactly why that won't happen.

Outstanding Television Movie will probably go to Sherlock because it wins at its worst, but I think it's very promising that Black Mirror got nominated here for San Junipero, the one episode everyone loved this year. The lack of nominations overall for The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, despite the attachment to Oprah's name, does not bode well for it. The Wizard of Lies has a healthy little group of nominations and this is Weighty Serious Stuff which the voters tend to go for, so that's my dark horse here.

A number of the nominees in Variety Talk had kind of breakthrough moments in the era of Trump. John Oliver won this last year and were it not for all these Trump-reactions, I'd give him an easy repeat. And that could still happen! He could be the new Daily Show. The voters are notoriously lazy--after all, we saw Modern Family get nominated again this year for Best Comedy and it is 2017. If I had to tip it away from him though, I would say this is Stephen Colbert's or Jimmy Kimmel's to lose. Jimmy got nominated elsewhere and made headlines for the stuff with his son; Colbert really turned it around and put Jimmy Fallon out of contention in both nominations and the ratings and that could be rewarded. I'll be interested to see where this goes.

Best Friends Whenever, also known as My Beloved Show About the Gay Teens, was never going to get a kid's programming nomination, but why did Girl Meets World get one for its worst season? Ughhhhhhhhhhhh.

I said several years ago we need a teen category for the MTV shows and Degrassi, and I still believe that. Several years ago they consolidated the informational children's into the scripted kid's stuff and that was a mistake--we should have like three or four kids categories, not one. If I ever get to be on the board, I will be address this, you better believe me. There are children who can vote, I am sure, and I want their opinions.

Very happy Leah Remini's Scientology show got a nomination for Outstanding Informational Series or Special. Good for Leah Remini.

BIG DEAL ALERT: in this year of Chip and Joanna Gaines being EVERYWHERE, will Fixer Upper win the Emmy for Structured Reality? I think they might. This would be huge for HGTV. And yet another puzzle piece in the Gaines world domination plan. I wouldn't necessarily mind that, but I don't want to live in Texas, and I don't want my furniture to have chipped paint on it, so maybe I do mind actually.

I think Born This Way is likely the lock for Unstructured Reality, but I wasn't even aware Gaycation had aired a second season to make it eligible and... I should give it another chance, probably. But why is this getting nominated when States of Undress is also on Viceland and it is fantastic? I know, I should shut up about States of Undress, but it's just so goddamn thoughtful. Even if Hailey Gates doesn't always get it quite right in her ending narration, I think there is something about her that makes the show so much more compelling than Gaycation. I think it goes to more interesting places--not on the map, but just with what it chooses to explore. I'm always enchanted by it, I always learn something. I just want it to have a million seasons forever.

oh my god am I almost finished please

Writing in a Comedy! This is a definite toss-up between "B.A.N." and "Streets on Lock" from Atlanta. I could see "B.A.N." winning just because of the sheer variety of what composes the episode, and because Donald Glover wrote it and the Emmys like to reward the mastermind of the series here. But I think "Streets on Lock" is actually the stronger episode, so Stephen Glover could get a win here. I don't think Silicon Valley or Veep have a shot, and Aziz won last year, and this category (unless you're a 30 Rock who stays around forever) likes to inject fresh blood. So this is an Atlanta win, but the episode has yet to be determined.

(Though if Veep DOES win the comedy writing, it'll have to be for Georgia, which is the most heartbreakingly painful episode of the season, and also the best one.)

I genuinely don't know where Drama Writing is headed. Stranger Things? Let's guess Strangers Things.

I can't believe I'm rooting for David E Kelley but--Big Little Lies for Limited Series writing, please! Please. Charlie Brooker has a nom here for San Junipero again, and that would be a pleasing result as well. And I even like the Oscars episode of Feud, but I think that would be a better win for direction than writing (was it even nominated for direction? I'm not going back to look now). Fargo, again. The Night Of, again. This could be a really good night for The Night Of, I'm thinking.

Seth Meyers gets his first Emmy nomination for Late Night in Variety Series Writing. (Sidenote: Vox wrote a thing about snubs and said he got no noms, which I tweeted them about, and then got a "we'll make it more clear." Which they then changed from "Seth Meyers--HOW DID IT GET ZERO, it needs to be recognized, it's so good, blah blah blah, why hasn't it made a breakthrough" to "SETH MEYERS--ONLY ONE?" which is not making it clearer, it's re-writing it, it changes your original point even when you don't change the text. I know people make mistakes but if you are a tv critic, and it's Emmy nominations day... read the longlist! Please! This is like when, oof what was it, Vanity Fair? I forget. But I think Vanity Fair--no, it was Harpers Bazaar--did an Emmys write-up and totally made up history by saying "oh, remember when Fargo controversially beat True Detective for best miniseries a few years ago" when THEY WEREN'T EVEN IN THE SAME CATEGORY. OK, these aren't the same, but I just get annoyed by things that can be very easily cleared up.) I think this is going to Colbert, Oliver, or SNL though. Probably SNL unless we're just staying in the John Oliver lane, or rewarding Colbert for overcoming Jimmy Fallon. (I realize I talk about Jimmy Fallon like he's a dragon, but I really don't like him.)

Now Variety Special Writing--here's where Samantha Bee has a very good chance with her Not the White House Correspondents Dinner.

And that's it! I did it! Like four hours... but I did it. And we'll be back next year, guys! My tenth edition then! But before that, we'll have Emmy night. :) Thanks for reading!

#emmys #no one's gonna read this lets be real alex

[iloveyoupittsburghpirates-blog]

You’re In Striking Distance, Pittsburgh Pirates

My Dearest Pittsburgh Pirates, 

Your offense certainly showed up this weekend. You scored twenty-five runs in three games and paid back the Mets for taking two out of three in Pittsburgh last weekend by taking two out of three in New York. Unfortunately you started the week losing two out of three at home to Arizona so that makes for a 3-3 week. You are 26-31, you are still in last place, and by some miracle you are only 3.5 games out of first place. Who would have guessed your division would be this bad? You’re still not quite performing like a true contender but there is reason for hope. You’re as healthy as you have been all season especially considering Jameson Taillon is on the verge of returning. You need more consistency in every aspect of the game. The offense comes and goes. The starting pitching looked like a strength a couple weeks ago and now looks more questionable than it has all season. The bullpen has a couple weak links but has overall performed admirably. You need to elevate your game in all levels if you want to make a run at this thing but you are still in it.

Jameson Taiilon had another extremely successful rehab outing on Friday. He will have one more start in Triple-A which means he will probably rejoin the rotation after that. Who does he replace though? Trevor Williams originally replaced him but he’s pitched too well (7 IP 7 H 1 ER 2 BB 3 K today) to remove him. My vote is Tyler Glasnow. Glasnow had another poor start on Saturday to raise his ERA to 6.97 and his WHIP to 1.87 in eleven starts. He’s only averaging 4.58 innings per start. Chad Kuhl has been almost equally as bad posting a 6.02 ERA and a 1.58 WHIP. Kuhl is also only averaging 4.48 innings per start but he had a start cut short by injury and another cut short by a rain delay. Ideally both would be replaced with someone better but that second person doesn’t exist right now until Nick Kingham gets more minor league innings under his belt. With all else being equal, I keep Kuhl in the rotation simply because of his fastball command, He has some and Glasnow doesn’t. That’s a prerequisite for pitching in the major leagues. Unfortunately, I’m starting to think that’s something Glasnow will never master which will be a problem throughout his career but send him down so he can figure it out in Triple-A and stop costing the big league team victories. 

Cutch might actually be coming around. Since his benching in the Atlanta series a little over a week ago he’s been on fire. Cutch highlighted it with a 3 for 5 performance today including a three-run homer. His splits since his brief hiatus are an extremely impressive .394/.500/.727 for a 1.227 OPS. They moved him down to the sixth spot in the order but his success hitting in that spot is only a coincidence. He’s finally hitting balls on the outer half of the plate to the opposite field. He’s not swinging at balls out of the zone. He’s not missing fastballs thrown right down the middle. He was doing none of those things prior to his break. Does this mean he’s back to being MVP Cutch? I’m far from assuming that. He hasn’t looked like MVP Cutch in two years and one week of domination isn’t going to change my mind that quickly. If somehow he is back to being great, that changes the outlook of this season tremendously. You’re still very much in striking distance in this division. You just need to iron out the rotation if you plan to contend, Taillon’s return will help that but other things need to happen like Gerrit Cole getting back on track and Cutch performing more like this on a regular basis. 

Yeah, Gerrit Cole has not been good recently. He started the season so well and now his last few starts have been a disaster. He got rocked on Friday night giving up seven earned runs over five innings. He did get hosed on pathetic defensive play by Gregory Polanco. A ball was lined directly at him that he managed to misplay leading to a two run triple but because the ball didn’t hit his glove it was deemed a hit. I don’t understand why a play like that can’t be a judgment call to determine it was an error. Regardless, Cole still pitched poorly. For the year, he has a 4.27 ERA, a 1.26 WHIP, and a 4.77 FIP. The biggest problem is the fifteen home runs he’s allowed this season. In no other season has he allowed more than eleven and we are only at June 4th. That’s a glaring problem. He’s still struggling to get lefties out with their OPS against him at .881 as opposed to .718 versus right handed hitters. I don’t know what the answer is and Cole doesn’t seem to either. If he gets hot again, do you trade him? I know I brought this question up previously but you need to seriously consider it especially if you fall out of contention. None of this really matters unless Cole turns it around. Here’s hoping he figures it out. 

Monday is another off day which will be helpful given you only have one more off day over your next nineteen games. You have an odd two game series in Baltimore against the Orioles on Tuesday and Wednesday. You immediately travel back home to begin a ten game homestand starting on Thursday with four games against the Miami Marlins. These are winnable games especially considering the week after brings the wildcard leading Colorado Rockies and the defending World Series champs, the Chicago Cubs. Take advantage of this week because next week could be rocky (pun intended). No one wants to win this division the way they are playing right now. This offense can be very good. The pitching needs to improve but once Taillon returns you have a legit top of the rotation if Cole can get it together and Nova keeps pitching this way. Your defense has even improved over the last month, minus the Polanco play, to the point that it’s almost a strength. Winning the division is a possibility. You need to defend your home field and find a way to beat some very good teams. If you can’t beat good teams, then you can’t win the division. It’s as simple as that. Keep swinging those bats and I look forward to talking with you next week. Love you bunches!!

                                                                                          Your Prudent Partner,

                                                                                                         Brad

P.S. still stands for Pens’ series. The Stanley Cup finals have began and it started off beautifully. The Pens won the first two games at home to take a 2-0 lead. They dropped the first game in Nashville last night to put the series score at 2-1. They play game four in Nashville tomorrow night. If they can manage to steal that game, then they only need to win one out of the last three games and two of those will be in Pittsburgh. The power play needs to improve and they just need to play better than last night. They’ve bounced back after every bad game in these playoffs so no reason to believe they can’t do that again. LET’S GO PENS!!!

[227snewfacebookfries]

227's™ Facebook Fries!¡' (aka YouTube Chili' NBA) #Nike'Spicy'Tunes Trending News! New Orleans Chili' Pelicans Mix! Rajon Chili' Rondo! WWE’s Chili' Jericho challenges Carrie Chili' Underwood to Chili' Jets-Chili' Predators Spicy' bet #Walmart'Spicy'

The 2018 Stanley Cup Playoffs stoke some great rivalries. Last night, we enjoyed the latest, twist-filled chapter in Sidney Crosby vs. Alex Ovechkin. There was a Battle of Pennsylvania and a Battle of California in the first round. [NBC’s Stanley Cup Playoff Hub] So what about … Chris Jericho vs. Carrie Underwood? No, this isn’t the latest wrinkle on “The Mixed Match Challenge,” although it would be fascinating to find out what kind of gimmick Mike Fisher would run with. Instead, it turns out that Jericho (on behalf of the Winnipeg Jets) called out Underwood (Nashville Predators, of course) to put together a friendly, $10K wager. Here’s the Instagram post from the pro wrestler/sports entertainer/Fozzy singer: As Global News notes, Jericho said that he’d donate that $10K to a charity devoted to treating Type 1 Diabetes. So far, it doesn’t seem like Underwood has respondedeither way. Maybe Jericho needs to win the Intercontinental Title first? He’s certainly cutting a promo on Fisher to try to get more attention on the wager, stating that Underwood is “married to a fourth-line winger,” which you’d think would get Y2J on her list. Both seem pretty busy, but here’s to this bet being honored. Maybe Jericho needs to put his scarf on the line? WWE ✔ @WWE The scarf is on point as @IAmJericho enters the Greatest Royal Rumble Match at #5️⃣0️⃣! #WWEGRR 2:48 PM - Apr 27, 2018 4,478 1,472 people are talking about this The Predators have seen their fair share of pro wrestlers show up at games, so maybe Jericho could shift his sights to Rusev? Hey, there’s still plenty of time to make another challenge … https://www.msn.com/en-us/sports/nhl/wwe%E2%80%99s-jericho-challenges-carrie-underwood-to-jets-predators-bet/ar-AAwrx9J

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[actutrends]

Toronto Maple Leafs: Full line combination predictions for 2018-19

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As we approach the outset of the 2018-19 NHL season, let’s hypothesize on the Toronto Maple Leafs’ future line mixes.

For the first time in a long while, the Toronto Maple Leafs are legally one of the very best groups in the National Hockey League.

After a frustrating conclusion to an exceptional run in the very first round of the Stanley Cup playoffs versus the Boston Bruins, the Buds entered the offseason with expectations abound. The rumor mill operated in complete swing, rumblings of an administrative shakeup were translated into a reality, the most discussed gamer in the hockey world was contributed to the team’s roster and conversations of captaincy overflowed the talk circuit of news.

As we await the Maple Leafs’ October 3 house opener against the Montreal Canadiens, let’s check out a topic of prevalent rumination: the concern of who, in specific, shall form the basis of the club’s line combinations. After all, this set of players could be effectively function as the opportunity through which Lord Stanley’s trophy is lastly reminded the city of Toronto.

TORONTO, ON– APRIL 2: William Nylander #29 of the Toronto Maple Leafs commemorates his objective on the Buffalo Sabres with colleagues Auston Matthews #34 during the 2nd duration at the Air Canada Centre on April 2, 2018 in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. (Picture by Kevin Sousa/NHLI through Getty Images)

Forwards: Line One

Patrick Marleau-Auston Matthews-William Nylander

When the Maple Leafs acquired John Tavares– arguably the most sought-after totally free representative in the history of hockey– on July 1, 2018, head coach Mike Babcoc k was open about the vision that he had for the group’s leading offensive units.

Undoubtedly thrilled about the possibility of having the ability to run the equivalent of multiple “first” lines, Babcock expressed a determination to change the dynamic that had informed his implementation of Auston Matthews over the course of his very first two seasons in the NHL. To the surprise of the club’s fans, this indicated two things– first, that Zach Hyman would be (tentatively) gotten rid of from the 20- year old’s left wing, and second, that veteran forward Patrick Marleau would (tentatively) take his location at Matthews’ side.

As such, we can expect the Buds’ top line to be composed of the abovementioned Marleau, Matthews and the soon-to-be-extended William Nylander. The shakeup assures to combine offensive expertise with defensive astuteness, with the hope that the addition of the 38- year-old Marleau– who is coming off a season in which he tallied 27 goals and 47 points– offers an even deadlier threat to the currently excellent games of Matthews and Nylander, respectively. Fans have longed to stand witness to a moment in which Marleau is slated alongside the 2016 very first overall choice, so try to find the Maple Leafs’ top 3 to maximize the opportunity at hand.

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The post Toronto Maple Leafs: Full line combination predictions for 2018-19 appeared first on Actu Trends.

[tylerarltunl]

Tyler’s Takes 10.0

May 6th, 2018

Welcome back to Tyler’s Takes everybody. Hope you had a good week. The weather has officially made a turn for the best here. It feels like spring may very well just not happen this year. I like the 60 degree weather but will not complain about 80s and sunny so let me jump right to the takes!

College Basketball

-Joey Baker reclassified to the 2018 Duke team. This means he was supposed to be a 2019 recruit and then decided he could graduate high school early and start college a year ahead of schedule. This now means that Duke in 2018 has 4 5 star players and Tyus Jones little brother who is 4 star point guard. Talent wise they are going to be loaded but I do not if that will translate to wins on the court. If anyone can make the talent mesh I trust in coach K.

College Football

-Nebraska signed a 4 star running back out of New Jersey. This staff is pulling kids heavily from the east coast and Texas. I like this strategy more than the previous staff trying to go out West for a bulk of their recruiting because with Maryland, Penn State, Rutgers, and Ohio State all relatively close to the Eastern Seaboard it is easier for kids to see and know Big Ten football than out west.

-Just think we are a summer away from the pads crunching and my favorite sport coming back into the fold. I cannot wait for college football!

Major League Baseball

-Cannot complain about the Red Sox week. I actually got to watch them win some games during my day off and two series wins will get the job done. Beating the Royals and Rangers is nothing special and the Sox head to New York for a series with the Yankees who are white hot right now. I just do not want the Red Sox to get swept it will be interesting to see if the bad blood continues into part two of the season.

-The Royals got their first series win of the season this weekend and it was a four game series win which is tougher to do. A four win week for the Royals is a great building block and as bad as they have been the Central leading Indians are 17-17.

-The Cardinals have won four in a row after getting swept by Pittsburg. They lead the division and were one of my picks to make the playoffs. They are 19-12 right now but the central is a mess with Cubs in fourth place at 16-14. Sunday night baseball is Cubs and Cardinals tonight as the Cardinals go for the sweep. This division will settle down with the Cubs and Cardinals reigning supreme.

-The Braves and Phillies continue their impressive start to the season. Both of these teams have young talent and are probably a year away. I enjoy watching young teams play well and that is what both of these teams are doing right now. I hope both of these teams keep winning.

National Basketball Association

-Okay I was dead wrong about the Eastern Conference. LeBron owns the Raptors. I mean the Raptors were not the greatest one seed but they still should not be getting embarrassed by this Cavs team.

-Philly is playing like the young team they are and also Brad Stevens is a genius and the the best x’s and o’s coach in the game right now. The fact that he is going to get this roster to the Eastern Conference Finals is minor miracle. 

-That brings me to the Cavs vs. Celtics.. Brad Stevens has taken that roster as far as he can. Sadly the Cavs are going to make it out of the East because I was hoping for some new blood because this Cavs team stands no chance against the Rockets or the Warriors.

-I still think it will be Rockets vs. Warriors in the Western Conference Finals. The Warriors started their death line up today and it won to the tune of a 30 point victory. 

-The Rockets take on the Jazz tonight trying to get a 3-1 series lead. They will do it.

National Football League

-Yay! No more pre draft analysis! This is the best part of the NFL off-season when all is quiet. 

-Where do you think Dez signs? He turned down a deal in Baltimore.. I think he wants to play on a contender but money talks a lot. I still think he should sign with the Giants. Him, Odell, and Barkley could make that offense look impressive.

National Hockey League

-My Bruins are done.. Lost four in a row to the best hockey team in the regular season. Just could not score enough to keep the games close.

-My attention turns to the Vegas Golden Knights. Would love to see a Sabres Golden Knights series to decide who goes to the Stanley Cup Finals. The Golden Knights are in year one as an expansion team and what they are doing is historical if it was not hockey and was baseball, football, or basketball what they have accomplished already would be a huge story. Sadly they will have to win it all for them to get the recognition they deserve. 

That will do it for Tyler’s Takes! The sports seasons are winding down and the summer will be the slowest part of the year for Tyler’s Takes I am excited to continue writing and will keep everyone posted even if there is not a lot to talk about. My golf game update for the week.. Shot a 43 in tournament hole locations yesterday. I will take it.. I am just waiting for all aspects of my game to come together at once and I will be good to go! Im out of here thanks and I hope you enjoyed it.

[flauntpage]

Is Philadelphia vs. Pittsburgh Really a Rivalry?

I haven’t written anything about the Flyers this year because I don’t know anything about ice hockey. That’s Anthony’s beat anyway. He’s got you covered.

What I do know is that I hate Sidney Crosby and his fat face. I hate his smug demeanor and childish attitude and his 89 points. I hate his three Stanley Cups and his seven All-Star selections and his pair of Conn Smythe and Hart Trophies.

When it comes to Pittsburgh, however, that’s about it. Obviously Wawa is better than Sheetz, and it’s “soda,” not “pop,” but I really don’t dislike anything else about the Steel City.

But it’s not about me, it’s about you, the readers of Crossing Broad dot com, who overwhelming said that Pittsburgh and Philadelphia are not rivals:

Seems accurate to me.

When you go down the list of sports teams, it’s hard to find a ton of meaning:

Penguins/Flyers

Metropolitan Division rivals. Frequent games, playoff history, exciting matchups.

Steelers/Eagles

One AFC team, one NFC team. Infrequent games, no playoff matchups even possible outside of the Super Bowl.

Pirates/Phillies

It used to be something special before the Pirates moved to the National League Central back in 1994. You could go back to the 70s and find 10 NLCS appearances between the two teams, an era of success that saw the Pirates win it all twice (’71 and ’79’) and the Phillies once (1980). It’s been tempered since then, and when the Pirates began to turn the corner about five or six years ago, the Phils were sliding back to mediocrity after the 2008 and 2009 World Series appearances.

Sixers/no one

Pittsburgh doesn’t have an NBA team.

Union/no one

No MLS team, but Pittsburgh does have a USL team, the Riverhounds, who play Bethlehem Steel a few times a year.

Colleges 

Pitt kind of sucks in all sports now, so it’s hard to find meaning there. They don’t play Temple or Villanova anymore, and those football and basketball games weren’t rivalries anyway. What else is out there? Duquesne? Carnegie Mellon? The Point Park Pioneers?

I think that’s it, really, it’s just the Penguins and Flyers for real substance and meaning.

I hear a lot of people say that the Steelers/Eagles thing is much more apparent in the central part of Pennsylvania where the fan bases start to bleed together. If you were a Penn State student, you probably experienced shit talking with Steeler fans who had, until this year, experienced exponentially more success than the Eagles.

Relatives of mine live in Greensburg, about 45 minutes east of Pittsburgh. We used to go visit them every August for our family reunion, which would bump into the first week of Steelers training camp at Saint Vincent College in Latrobe. We went once or twice to check out practice and it was very, very similar to what you used to see at Lehigh – big crowds, active participants, passionate sports fans who seemed to know what they were talking about.

That’s my opinion in a nutshell. I don’t think Pittsburgh fans are much different than us. They come from a “lunch pail” steel town that has a lot of the same rugged and non-cosmopolitan features as Philadelphia. Even at WVU, surrounded by Steeler fans, I always felt like they were dedicated and knowledgeable, unlike Cowboy fans who came across as entitled front-runners.

Certainly the geography plays a role here. You can throw in the “Battle of Pennsylvania” thing with Pittsburgh, but it takes longer to get out there than to go to New York, D.C., or Baltimore.

I made a helpful infographic:

Someone made this point in response to the poll, and I kind of agree with it – he views Pittsburgh in the same way as Baltimore. Regional city, but a pair of teams in the Orioles and Ravens that don’t play the Phillies or Eagles on a regular basis. In the cluster of Mid-Atlantic/Northeastern rivals, Baltimore is just sort of “there.” I think most Philadelphia sports fans probably show similar indifference towards Baltimore and Pittsburgh.

There’s also this line of thinking, which I’ve heard before:

I sensed a bit of that when I lived out there, but I didn’t think it was too bad. I didn’t find the Pittsburgh distaste towards Philadelphia to be as severe as the Philadelphia distaste towards New York. And if reciprocity is the key, at least the Giants, Mets, Rangers, Islanders, Knicks, Nets, Red Bulls, and NYC FC play in the same divisions and conferences as Philly teams.

If some of those “rivalries” are considered to be a one-way street, then I think Philly/New York has ten-thousand times more substance than Philly/Pittsburgh.

There’s also a non-sports thing going on, where a lot of people, not just Pittsburgh residents, view Philadelphia as this evil east coast metropolis that sucks up state funding and spreads pansy liberal influence all over the state. I feel a lot of that outside of the Delaware Valley. There’s certainly the notion that Pittsburgh and Philly are the two blue cornerstones of the state, while the rest is “Pennsyltucky,” but only Allegheny County voted Democrat in the 2016 presidential race. Every surrounding Pittsburgh county voted for Trump, while Delco, Montco, and Bucks County (barely) went for Hillary.

That’s all I care to know or share about the political thing.

Another thing is that Pittsburgh has this moron:

There are no worse fans in sports than Philly fans. I'm guessing many — not all — are subhuman. I wanted to laugh watching their "celebration" Sunday night but I was too busy crying. What a joke they are. What an embarrassment.

— Ron Cook (@RonCookPG) January 22, 2018

And this moron:

Why the ***k is the Cup in Philadelphia? It should get there honestly, or not be there at all. Put on your white gloves, &get it the ***k out of there. https://t.co/y8FTLNbfqu

— Mark Madden (@MarkMaddenX) April 6, 2018

I’m told Pittsburgh sports fans don’t take these guys seriously, which is good.

There’s also the cheesesteak vs. Primanti Brothers thing, and I think the Yinzers use the term “sprinkles” to refer to “jimmies.”

Otherwise, I don’t really think there’s much of a difference. The people out there are mostly blue collar, sports-crazed assholes, just like us.

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