still thinking about how mack’s coach at shattuck looked to fourteen-year-old macklin for reassurance when he was nervous about their team losing a tight game
all the adults in mack’s life have always placed the weight of the world on his shoulders and he’s always born it without complaint. growing up, he was always by far the best player on every team, and so the responsibility of dragging his team to wins always sat with him. if mack didn’t shine, they lost. this is not something new or unique to his time with team canada and the sharks. it’s the grave weight he’s carried pretty much his whole young career. the sharks only won two games last season where mack didn’t record a point, and mack had a point in every single terriers win except one. his coaches and his teammates and everyone watching knew it. if they won, it was because of mack, and if they lost, mack believed it was because of him, too.
that kind of pressure on a kid for so long has to have had a lasting impact, and yet everyone who’s ever talked about him can’t help but gush about how kind and fun he is, how he conducts himself exactly like sid off the ice, how he cares more about the game than anyone they’ve ever met and still treats everyone so well. mack clearly still struggles with anxiety and the pressure and his emotions, and there are times when he can’t hold it in and it ruins him a little, voice cracking, eyes watering, everything bursting through the cracks as his body shakes and he can’t seem to keep how upset he is at bay, but he’s always quick to compose himself after and stuff everything back down behind an “i’m okay, i was made for this, i can handle it, this is what i was built for” mask as he smiles again and forces himself not to express any insecurities out loud, knowing that the next day, the cycle will repeat again. everyone will rely on him again. and he can’t afford to let them see how desperate he is not to let them down. and how responsible he feels whenever he isn’t enough
saw this macklin edit and cried btw even when he’s talking about going through things that affected him he brushes it off by saying he’s been very fortunate 🥲
will who decided to leave college a year early after the sharks won the first overall pick so he could play with mack. cherny who bought out the final year of his contract in moscow when he was drafted to the sharks because he wanted to join the team as soon as possible and called mack the best player in the league before he even played a single game with him. and ivar who was asked what swedish hockey players he looked up to and said he really liked macklin celebrini then immediately looked mortified, realizing what he admitted. macklin what crazy pheromones are you putting out into the world, all these other boys were hooked on you from the start
my favorite part about mack’s childhood crush on bedsy is how connor was always so nice and gentle to mack growing up but mack seemed awkward and too scared to accept connor’s attempts to connect beyond surface level stuff, and they only ended up getting closer once mack was in the nhl and had shifted his attention to will. so i can see will being jealous about one of mack’s first loves eventually becoming one of mack’s closest friends who mack trains with all the time and spends most of the summer with, even though mack doesn’t see it that way and is just happy to have moved past that and think of bedsy as a friend
yesss exactly!! bedsy and mack obviously ran in similar circles and interacted quite a bit over the years (and they’ve been liking each other’s instagram photos since 2020), but baby mack seemed a bit shier and more awkward, as his friends from that era seemed to always say that mack was a really sweet kid but quiet and kept his head down until you got to know him, and that’s when yaplin would come out. but a huge theme seems to be that all the people who got closest to him (cole, jayden, shane, greener, and will) all had to pursue him first and make the first move. the only person mack seemed to chase first was lane
we all know mack started playing as a defender because he idolized aiden, but my friends and i have this headcanon that he remained as a forward when rick and his coach switched him because he idolized bedsy. like he’d see the way bedsy played and was able to carry his team in a different way and thought, “sorry, aiden, i wanna be like him now instead”
and mack probably told will about his switch to forward when they were first bonding during dev camp, and since will never forgets anything and remembers every little detail mack tells him and can read mack like a book, will probably inferred the part about mack’s crush, even if mack didn’t explicitly disclose it. so when mack texts him excitedly over that first summer about how he’s gotten so much closer to bedsy and they’re spending all their time together and getting photographed training together and playing golf together and going to engagement parties together, will has to clench his jaw and pretend that’s fine. it’s fine if his crush is getting close to someone he used to love. will is soooo okay with that, uh huh, not pissed one bit
meanwhile mack doesn’t even think of it like that, he loves will now and just really enjoys being bedsy’s friend (he loves being around people who are as hockey obsessed as he is), but it’ll take a while for will and mack to get on the same page lmao. their dumbass pining means they spend far too much time thinking their love is unrequited
Oblivious Omega Mack au where he thinks Will isn't into him, and he invites a random Alpha back to his place to get laid but the random Alpha leaves almost immediately because he can scent a different Alpha (Will) all over the place and thinks Mack is cheating on someone.
Mack later complains to Will, none the wiser because he's so used to Will's scent all over him and all up in his personal space, and Will is secretly smug because he doesn't wear scent blockers at Macklin's place on purpose (he will eventually ask Mack out when he is finished constructing the Perfect Courting Plan™ and gotten approval from both Macklin's parents, Toff, and Team Canada because he is not half-assing this and wants people to know he's serious)
well we have another rick celebrini derangement article in the athletic, jock dads be normal challenge: impossible
the whole article is very fun and worth a read — written by TA’s warriors beat writer, who co-authored the earlier rick celebrini profile in TA, linked and excerpted here — but i extracted the story that forms the throughline of the article, which is more or less exactly in line with the kind of jockdad stuff that’s…well!
The Athletic | 06.30.2024 | Inside Macklin Celebrini’s NHL Draft Moment, forged from his family’s love and expertise | Marcus Thompson II
LAS VEGAS — Macklin Celebrini sat up and leaned forward, a big smile breaking across his face. It was just shy of 10 a.m. on Friday in this suite at the Venetian. He and his father were doing interviews. The infamous “hill” story came up.
“I was pissed,” he said, then dove into the story. “So it was at the end of a long week. And we just worked out for like two hours hard …”
His dad interrupted. The “hill” story from the summer of 2022 is important. It’s a window into who they are, how they function, why Macklin was hours from fulfilling his dream of becoming the top pick in the NHL Draft. But the 18-year-old had forgotten a small but central detail. So pops asked if he could start this one.
“OK, yeah,” Macklin says, reclining back on a soft brown couch.
So Rick Celebrini, 56, the highly regarded athletic trainer who plies his expertise as the vice president of player health and performance for the NBA’s Golden State Warriors, dove right in. Dad explained the pattern he’d concocted for training Aiden, 19, eldest of the three Celebrini boys, and Macklin. It consisted of speed and power work early in the week, while they’re fresh. Then he grinds them towards the end of the week.
Aiden and Macklin could tell what kind of session they’d have based on how pops entered the home after work. Most often, it’s a warm greeting. Hugs and hair-ruffling. Queries about their day. But those days when work frustrations survive the drive home, as can happen when existing behind the scenes in the NBA, dad is more hard. Fewer words. Dour vibes. A little grumpy, as he put it. His greeting is more a simple, “Let’s go.” Aiden and Macklin would look at each other, knowing the training session would be tough.
The story of “the hill” was one of those days.
At the end of the workout, they run up and jog down this hill at their house. They typically finish workouts with five minutes on the hill, 10 max. But on this day, 10 minutes grew to 12 minutes. And 12 to 15.
Asking when a workout will end is a great way to keep it going. They’d long ago learned that lesson. And dad is notorious for saying “one more” and not meaning it. Always one more rep. One more time. One more drill. So they’ve learned to just keep going until he says stop.
“So they’re looking at me,” Rick says. “But they know not to ask either. And they could tell the kind of mood I was in. So they’re going. Now we’re up to 18 minutes. And they’re looking at me. Not saying anything. … They’re not going to quit.”
The boys took turns rallying. Aiden would surge ahead while Macklin faded. Then Macklin would find another gear and push through while Aiden faded. The entire time, they looked into their dad’s eyes for a glimpse of mercy.
After 30 minutes, Rick finally called it off. They collapsed.
They eventually got up and started walking home. But Macklin mumbled under his breath.
“Now we’re fucked,” Macklin said with a laugh, recalling his audacious moment.
“And I go,” Rick chimed in, “‘What did you just say?’ And he goes, ‘Now we’re fucked for the week.’ I go, ‘Let me tell you something. On your first day of camp, they’re going to grind you. They’re going to backskate you. They’re going to have you out there for two hours. You think you’re going to get out of it? You think you’re not going to come back the next day and do it again, and do it again? So you better learn. If you want to be a pro, you gotta be able to handle this stuff and suck it up.'”
…
Another critical trait Macklin gets from his dad is attention to detail. Rick has engrained it in them from their earliest days. Doing the drills right. Eating breakfast. Packing a bag. Macklin remembers him telling them John Wooden’s story about how he taught his team how to put on socks to avoid blisters.
“Since we were younger, it has been about details,” Macklin said. “Even the little things. That stuff adds up and will actually make a difference. That’s one of the things he’s told us throughout our whole lives.
“You can only really get it when you’re older. And you start to understand how important it is.”
That’s why the “hill” story is so important. Because it was the son understanding the father’s lessons well enough to take such a bold stand.
They’ve been groomed to deem rest and recovery important. Rick was from the era of going hard. He pushed and he pushed. But he stresses to them to value and prioritize replenishment.
To Macklin, the hill story was a violation of that indoctrination.
“I want you to understand this workout,” Macklin said. “It wasn’t like normal hills.”
The Celebrini residence is a ranch in Livermore, a little over 30 miles northeast of San Jose. Known for its vineyards and its cowboy history, Livermore sits in a valley halfway between mountain ranges. It gets hot starting in late spring. By the summer, leather seats in the car become hot plates grilling bare thighs.
The driveway up to the house has an incline. But so does the path from the entrance of their property to the driveway. The hill included scaling both inclines.
“It’s 100-degree heat. It was, like, run up and jog back. Lunges up, jog back. Run up, jog back. Lunges up — and he just kept going,” Macklin said, rubbing his legs as if they were hurting thinking about it.
“I’m never opposed to work. I’ll work. But it was after, like, three hours on the ice. Plus another two-hour lift and a workout. And then we went into this hill. We still had Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday left. So I was looking at it like, ‘I’m fucked. I can’t do this anymore. I’m legit not going to have any energy. We’re fucked. Now we can’t do anything.’”
…
“Every athlete that he works with,” Macklin said, “you hear them say, ‘Your dad is a genius, pretty much.’ But you’re like, ‘Whatever. He’s dad,’ But we all know he’s the best at what he does. Everything he does is for a purpose. And he will never say his way is the right way, but I think his way is the right way. And it works.”
Then, with a straight face, and as matter-of-factly as possible, Macklin made one thing clear.
“But I’ll never say it publicly.”
…
The “hill” story doesn’t end on the hill. But in the house.
Eventually, dad’s fiery speech ended. Aiden and Macklin walked away. Everybody showered and got ready for dinner.
Dad was at the table when he heard the door open behind him. While he had justification for his tough love, especially with his son’s pro potential, Rick knows himself and his tendencies. He knows his kids. He knows what they can handle, how they respond. They’ve been granted the freedom to be their full selves, which for Macklin means being chill, and kind, and funny, and occasionally combustible. This was one of those moments where dad expected the tension from the hill to make it to the dinner table.
But Macklin, instead, wrapped his arms around his seated father from behind. The son squeezed tight enough to convey a love they don’t often declare.
“And he gives me a kiss on the cheek,” Rick said. “And he’s like, ‘Thanks, da-da.’”
The sentimentality, especially among the Celebrini men, is most often tucked away behind the chiseled family jawline and intense eyes. They don’t lacquer on the heartwarming.
“I don’t remember that,” Macklin said, fighting off a smile as he barely hung onto the bit. “At all. He made that part up.”
that sure is a family dynamic!
And a little bonus from Macklin’s mom:
“They’re a lot more similar than Macklin is willing to admit,” Robyn, Macklin’s mother, said. “The intensity of their personalities. Their competitiveness. … He was a little wild man. We were always just trying to find healthy outlets for his energy.”
…
“I sometimes, privately, remind him, like, ‘OK, you’re taking that a little too far,’” Robyn said, standing in the back of the Sharks’ suite at the Sphere. Macklin is off doing his rounds with the media. Rick is locked in a conversation with Joe Thornton, the Sharks legend who introduced Macklin as the No. 1 pick. “And he’s really open to that. … But he’s always put his relationship with the kids first. It’s just he’s so passionate. He can be pretty tough.”
Robyn’s expression changed. She tilted her head back. Rests her hand on her chest. Her countenance shifted to confidence.
“He doesn’t scare me,” she said, breaking character with a hearty laugh. “I handle him just fine.”
there’s sports daddy issues and then there’s the celebrini family. you crazy kids
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