helen, do you know things about hockey? i've been trawling reddit and asking people and trying to get a sense of what the culture is like generally and what the nhl is really like about gay people bc i don't know anything and i'm very curious, and the more people say the less i feel i know
i do! i watched it very actively for about 5 years (2013-2018ish) and went to games until 2022/23, and still keep up with a few players who i'm fond of. i would say that the nhl is pretty weird about gay people, in some expected 'major sports league' ways but also in some very men's hockey-specific ways (in my opinion, anyway - the nhl is the only major sports league i've ever paid very close attention to, so this could be off-base). some thoughts below:
the big thing is that there has never been an openly gay nhl player, active or retired (luke prokop is an out player who was drafted a few years ago but he has not played an actual nhl game and probably never will). the line for a while was that there were no gay hockey players at all, which is why no one had come out (statistically obviously unlikely, also absurd). since the early 2010s it's been a Known thing that there are gay players but they aren't coming out For Some Reason. if you're curious, it's worth reading this 2015 article about an organization that the nhl partners with called You Can Play, which encourages inclusion and acceptance in hockey, etc etc.
a relevant excerpt from the interview:
Then, Burke said, there's the question of hockey culture itself.
"Hockey is all about the team. Hockey culture hates individualism," said Burke. "Whether that's right or wrong, hockey culture is that you do not stand out. You do not make yourself different from the team. We've had players in our league that have been yelled at for high-fiving too aggressively. So I do wonder from talking to a bunch of different players in the league that this is a team sport and almost an obsessively team culture and I think there are guys out there that are nervous about the idea that them coming out would somehow be going against that."
burke's not exaggerating here, there's a huge emphasis on conformity in hockey culture that's also extremely tied up in the idea that the Ideal Hockey Player is a "good [white] canadian boy" who doesn't stand out or rock the boat in any serious way, especially not politically. a small but notable example would be michel therrien, a horrible person and former coach of the montreal canadiens, banning a specific handshake/high-five that two of his players used to do (pk subban and carey price; notably neither of them are white). therrien later justified the ban by saying
"...we had to change the culture of the team. We wanted to remove the individualistic side of each player and institute a collective concept.""
anyway, at this point the official party line of the nhl and most players is that they would be fine with a gay teammate, and it's entirely possible there are guys who are out to some degree to their teams, but who knows. i don't think any of this is particularly shocking for men's sports in north america, although there are some levels of racism and xenophobia, and things like the billet system, that maybe add some more dimensions to it than you might see in e.g. major league baseball, idk.
where it gets weirder and messier is on the topic of how the nhl feels about gay fans. the thing that made me stop buying tickets and going to games was the league announcing, in 2023, that they were banning all 'theme night' jerseys and on-ice displays related to "special initiatives", including the use of pride tape (rainbow-colored hockey stick tape) because a very small number of players (about 5 of the 900 active players) had not wanted to wear themed jerseys on pride night during the 22-23 season. for context, every team in the league hosted a pride night at the time, along with many other theme nights (hockey fights cancer, military nights, etc etc). theme nights have special jerseys that are usually auctioned off after the night with proceeds going to specific charities - worth noting the jerseys aren't worn during games, just warm-ups, so for about 20-30 minutes total. that's it!
that banning jerseys and "displays" was the league's answer to not liking the bad publicity james reimer & co gave them by being too homophobic to spend 20 minutes wearing a jersey with a rainbow on it is wild, but what was really bizarre was the weasel-y, ambiguous way they framed it in a league-wide memo:
"Players shall not be put in the position of having to demonstrate (or where they may be appearing to demonstrate) personal support for any Special Initiatives. A factor that may be considered in this regard includes, for example, whether a Player (or Players) is required to be in close proximity to any groups or individuals visibly or otherwise clearly associated with such Special Initiative(s)."
when the "special initiative" you're concerned about is lgbt pride, one begins to wonder what exactly "close proximity to individuals visibly or otherwise clearly associated with" pride might mean! the nhl ended up clarifying/walking back some of the memo, and unbanning the use of pride tape after a player used it anyway (i guess fining or suspending him for that would have been even worse publicity), but clearly not because they have any integrity or moral clarity. the overwhelming impression i and many other people got from this whole situation was that the league was ready and willing to throw even the most nominal moves towards inclusion under the bus when it was deemed a distraction. not shocking that a sports league would prioritize finances over anything else, but it did make me completely unwilling to spend ~700 dollars a year on hockey tickets.
after 2023 i pretty much stopped following most nhl news, so i don't know if the league has improved in any way, but given the current political climate i doubt it. my impression of the nhl over a decade of following it very closely is that they have managed to be on the wrong side of most social issues - not in the name of open bigotry, but because taking a specific political stance would be 'distracting' from the sport of hockey. officially, Hockey is For Everyone. unofficially, they have made it very clear that welcoming queer fans to the sport is not worth any trouble whatsoever.
eta: this post also sums up a lot of my issues with organizations like you can play and the nhl's relationship with them and with addressing homophobia. my tags on it from march 2023, when the league's memo first went out: #it turns out that even ‘your money is as green as anyone else’s’ is a political statement!#but even if it weren’t. it’s frustrating that the league feels it has cover to pretend#that some neutral middle ground actually exists between real inclusion and blatant homophobia and transphobia.#let alone that this is a middle ground the league or sport in general can lay claim to#neither of these things is true! let's be honest about it.
@amailboxlemur and I, certified Canadians, have heard some people are interested in maybe writing some hockey! So here is a total beginners guide to the codified bar brawl that is this sport. This is angled more towards people who want to write or read hockey romance fic and not as a how to guide for watchers.
Overview:
hockey overview
team structure
important rules and penalties
FIGHTING IS ABOUT HONOUR
playoffs
the draft
fun facts
What is hockey?
Hockey is a prank invented by Canadians to sell zambonis.
It’s a full-contact sport on ice. Two teams of 6 (1 goalie, 3 forwards, 2 defensemen) face off on a rink and try to get pucks in the net. Critical to get pucks on net, we gotta get pucks on net.
Hockey is played in 3 periods of 20 minutes but! They stop for commercials (real. they skate around in circles waiting for the commercials in the broadcast to be over). Also, the clock stops whenever play stops, so a game can take upwards of 2.5 hours. In the regular season, if a game is a draw at the end of regulation they play a 5 minute overtime of 3 vs 3. Once a goal is scored the game ends immediately. If no one scores, there’s a shootout where teams take penalty shots until someone wins. Unlike football fans, hockey fans hate the shootout and think it’s stupid.
There are 82 games per team in the regular season and then playoffs. In my experience, this means there is always hockey and you can never escape. The 2025 hockey playoffs ended June 17. June!! Even in Edmonton the snow has all melted.
Actually playing hockey is fun. Watching hockey is a bit like watching fish at the aquarium, they are swimming back and forth very smooth on their skates and then every once in a while big steam goes off to let you know they scored. Some people say they can see the puck and they are fucking liars.
(Amber note: it is incredibly obvious oiler #25 has the puck in this screenshot, just sayin. Phnelt counterpoint: yeah it's obvious in a PICTURE)
Types of players:
Forwards: forwards go forward with the puck and try to score
Defensemen: defensemen stay behind and stop the opposing team’s forwards from scoring. That said, defenders play very far up in comparison to other sports and might be expected to score, if that's the case they play both ways and are called a two way defender (trying to resist making a bisexual joke rn)
Goalies: goalies stay near the net and stop pucks from entering it. Goalies are strange and peculiar creatures, you have to be to willingly take a job where players shoot vulcanized rubber at your head at 100 miles an hour. They can also go into the full splits to stop a puck from going through their five hole (space between their legs).
Shifts and lines:
While the game takes place in 3 20 minute periods each player only plays ~45 seconds at a time. This is called a ‘shift.’ Shifts are taken with a skaters linemates (lineys). Players can decide their shift is over at any time by basically leaving the ice. Once they leave the ice the next shift hops over the boards and play continues.
This is different to most other sports where substitutions are organised and can lead to the best penalty that exists in any sport: too many men. Sometimes they just get excited and then there are Too Many Men.
Snoop Dogg explains line changes with visuals of how that works here: Hockey 101 with Snoop Dogg | Ep 5: Line Changes
For my money, if you’re writing a fic about hockey players putting in lines and line changes is the most important thing to give it a realism feeling. Also! The bond between linemates. Those are each other’s guys. They have to move like a multi-bodied single organism, sensing where each other are, passing puck to stick, positioning themselves correctly, and celebrating together.
Organising lines: The forwards are organised into 4 lines of 3 players each. The best forwards are on the first line and then less good as you go on. Each line of forwards consists of a centre and a left- and right-winger (the joke writes itself - aren’t they all right-wingers).
There are 6 defensemen organized into three pairs. Again the first pair is the best and the 3rd pair is the worst.
Skill Players v Goons:
This is not a thing so much in hockey anymore because it’s kind of a waste of space on a team to have a guy who is just a brute but there is still a rough distinction between star players and guys who are more ‘physical’ aka violent. In hockey, a goon is the guy who comes out to rough up an opposing player or fight them.
We don't do that anymore.
But doesn't mean that some players aren't huge dicks on the ice.
An example of a modern player who is known for his reputation is Brad Marchand. He’s notable for having aggressively licked opposing players on multiple occasions. Let’s also remember these guys are sweaty and have disgusting facial hair and he licked them.
(stil can't believe he did this)
Wait, there’s fighting? Boy is there ever.
Fighting in hockey:
Hockey is a full-contact sport but in addition to that players can literally fight each other.
Fighting is a mini-game inside of a hockey match that can be triggered in the event of a transgression against a team member. It’s important to note that fighting isn’t spontaneous and can’t be done whenever. There must be a clear insult or infraction that is visible to an outside observer and that can trigger a fight.
Example scenario: The Oilers star forward Connor McDavid (also known as McJesus) attempts to score against the objectively evil Florida Panthers. When he is skating around the net to get into position, an evil Panther comes up behind him and pushes him into the boards. Next shift, a defenseman approaches the offending Panther, drops his gloves, grabs his jersey, and punches him in the face. Opposing members of the team match up and hold onto each other while the fight goes on.
Let’s break that down:
skills player interfered with
pushed from behind! only push when they can see it coming so they don’t get really hurt
designated fighter on the team squares up against the transgressor
fight is 1:1
gloves are dropped to indicate intention to fight. The other guy can decline to fight but that’s a huge blow to his honour so it never happens
grab the jersey - this is critical because of Newton’s second law. Punch a guy while wearing skates and you will sort of glide away so you gotta grip on
Opposing team members match up so no one ends up in a pile on. Fights must never be uneven numbers
Beatings continue until morale improves. There’s no hard and fast rule for how long a fight can go on for but eventually the ref will break it up and the fighters get a penalty but crucially keep their honour which matters more.
Other no nos that can lead to fights are hitting younger players (rookies), hitting someone in the head or hitting a goalie. Sometimes notable fighters will fight on special occasions like their 1000th game or if they’re playing against another notable fighter.
Yes, this sport is toxic masculinity on ice.
Penalties and the Sin Bin
To explain penalties it first helps to explain what IS allowed. It’s allowed to push a player out of your way. It’s allowed to get close to the goalie and make contact with them (though that might get you fought) (it also might be goalie interference but no one knows what that is). It’s okay to push someone into the boards. It’s okay to skate behind the net.
What ISN’T okay is anything that is considered too dangerous and anything that prevents play or unbalances the game.
Minor penalties (2 mins in the box) (these are what they sound like. Well. they aren’t. Because they sound like street crimes. But imagine them on ice)
tripping
hooking: wrapping your stick around someone so they can’t skate where they want to go
holding
high sticking: hitting someone in the face with your stick
slashing: hitting someone not in the face with your stick
cross-checking: holding your stick with both hands and shoving someone with it
interference: messing with a player who doesn’t have the puck. As pundit Steve Dangle notes, that would include kissing an opposing team player. No rules against kissing teammates.
Major Penalties (5 mins in the box)
boarding: pushing someone into the boards from behind
checking from behind
fighting
minor penalties can become major if the ref feels it was particularly egregious. what makes something egregious? no one knows
If a penalty causes a player to bleed, it becomes 4 minutes
Non-violent penalties:
too many men: too many misters not enough sisters
delay of game: when a player doesn’t want to get scored on so he shoots the puck into the stands
Penalties are punished with a trip to the penalty box aka sin bin. Go in there and think about what you’ve done.
There’s no limit to how many players can be in the penalty box.
When players are in the box play continues and that’s called a ‘power play’ because the other team now has more players on the ice. The team with a player in the box is on the ‘penalty kill.’
A power play is over when the team that’s up a player scores and when that happens the guy in the box is allowed out.
Non penalties that are also against the rules:
icing: thwacking the puck to the other side of the rink. Puck must be accompanied by a player. Icing is allowed for a team that is on the penalty kill
offside: when a forward crosses into the offensive zone ahead of the puck. To prevent this forwards try to cross the blue line together so they’ll like charge forward and then wait until they can go forward as a unit
high stick (not to be confused with with high sticking): hitting the puck with your stick above your shoulders like a baseball bat
hand pass: throwing the puck to your teammate
Playoffs
The entire purpose of the regular season is to get enough points from winning to get to the playoffs. Nothing from the regular season matters aside from that and uh, sometimes you can tell when a team is saving themself after getting enough or when they’ve collapsed into a puddle of demoralisation.
Playoffs are run geographically and in a series of best of 7. We’re not going to get into the details of this aside from that. Just know that it’s not single elimination, each playoff matchup is best of 7 so they have to play each other at least four times.
Players drop a ton of weight during the playoffs due to the intensity. They become gaunt husks of their former selves with terrible facial hair. Glory isn't glamorous.
The winner of the playoffs wins the Stanley Cup, the highest honour in hockeydom.
It’s traditional to put your baby in the cup.
The Draft
A very good hockey player will eventually be able to have some control over what team they play for. But not when they start. Unlike some sports where talent is scouted and then signed, hockey uses a common North American framework known as the draft.
To be drafted a player must be between 18-21 if North American and 18-22 if European. Then the teams enter the draft lottery and the worst team of the previous year gets to pick first.
It’s prestigious to be picked first in the draft because that means that the player’s junior career was really strong, but it does mean they are going to a bad team. That can be terrible if it’s a team that sucks and continues to suck (Sabres) and can be okay if it’s a team that is only sucking temporarily, possibly because they’ve tanked on purpose to try and get a really good junior player, or because they are currently building back up to being strong.
Fun Details For Writers:
hockey terminology. Hockey is a subculture with a lot of terminology. Some highlights include chirping (insults), flow (long hair that flutters enticingly), pigeon (common chirp for a guy who doesn’t do much), bucket (helmet), tarp off (shirt off), beauty (slang for good. everything is beauty. that beer’s a beaut. that goals a beauty), celly (celebration)
Playoff beards. Players always grow terrible facial hair during the playoffs and their masculinity is judged by how well they grow it
Billeting, junior tournaments, international tournaments, and the all-stars game: there are many ways that players who are not on the same team might end up playing together or living together. Junior players live at the houses of hockey families, and often rookies will also live for a year or two with an older player. Players also might be playing for their country which can be an opportunity to shove your homoerotic yearning but cruelly separated guys into the same space. Same with the all-star game
Dump truck ass. Because players spend their entire lives in a half squat they have cake for days. Buying pants is a well-documented challenge
and that's part 1! If you have questions about the actual rules, direct those to Amber. If you've got questions about how to opportunities for homoeroticism, you can come to me!
Other intro guides: hockey for newbies | Penalties | Goalies | Shots | The Draft | Herr Dr Professor Brofisting's Visual Guide
Pt 2: life cycle of a hockey player | Pt 3: hockey vibes
Alternate Universe - Modern Setting | Alternate Universe - No Powers | Alternate Universe - Activism | Activist Steve Rogers | Pre-Serum Steve Rogers | Protective Bucky Barnes | Appalachian Bucky Barnes | Direct Action | Meet-Cute | Meet-cute while locked to the same piece of construction equipment | Fluff and Smut | just a little angst | Happy Ending | Big Brother Bucky Barnes | Appalachia | Slow Burn | Probably too much description of how to lock down to a piece of construction equipment | But Also Pining | Pining | Eventual Smut | Virgin Steve Rogers | Not that it's any of your business he's kind of shy about it ok? | He's good at a lot of things but romance isn't one of them | Poor Bucky | Kid Fic | But the kids don't show up till chapter 11 | But then there are definitely kids | Southern Gothic | I meant to write a meet cute but this is actually a sprawling southern gothic | Sorry Not Sorry | Once things get smutty they get smut-tay if you know what I'm saying so just head up | Idiots in Love | schmoopy love stories | swimming in a sea of fondue level of cheese | bring your bread | the bread is to dip in the fondue | it's a romance novel | podfic
Author's Note: ZenaidaMacroura
... a meet-cute where boys meet while chained to a backhoe. Why are they chained to this backhoe? Well. I spent wayyy too much time thinking about that! I decided they are fighting a pipeline. There are a lot of pipelines people are fighting the construction of around the US and in other countries around the world. The specific pipeline for this story is fictionalized, but also, it is more or less the Mountain Valley Pipeline (aka MVP) (it's pictured in the moodboard)
Podficcer's Note: E_Greer
This novel caught my heart with its positive depiction of Appalachia, and the people who live here. As a native Appalachian who grew up a couple hours northward of the location in this fic, I heard my accent in this fic and I wanted to share the way I heard it with everyone. So yes, this is way I speak at home. A couple things may wobble as you listen—I speak with a slightly different "r" and though I've tried to represent ZenaidaMacroura's accent writing accurately, I might miss it on occasion. Also, this is a massive work, and if I tried to record only when I was well, it would not exist—I apologize in advance for those chapters where my voice is a little weaker. I'll try to post every other week, and in the end, my plan is to post the whole thing as an audiobook
In which Steve, Becca, and Natasha bring home something unexpected.
This one took me longer to edit because @zenaidamacrouras1 is so funny—I had to edit out all my giggles!
Hockey players are deeply superstitious on a personal level and it bleeds over into the team level.
Common personal superstitions/rituals include:
taping the stick. Using the right tape and wrapping it in the exact right way. If for some reason they couldn’t tape their own stick and another guy did it for them that would be more intimate than sex
special pre-game meals. Eating the same meal before every game
Not stepping on the crest. Every dressing room has a large team crest taking up the majority of the floor space and it cannot be stepped on.
Not washing some piece of equipment
the lucky jock
The amulet
Naptime
Building on naptime, hockey players are extremely routine oriented. They take the nap at the same time every day, they build a schedule and stick to it. Tying into superstitions maybe they do that out of magical thinking, maybe it’s to maintain consistency, your pick.
Traditions
What is the line between a superstition and a tradition? When you love it ♥️
Not to be confused with curses, which are real and are afflicting your fave. When other teams lose it’s because they are terrible, when it’s your team it’s the Curse and the correct sacrifices must be made.
Traditions are, instead, ways that hockey teams create a shared sense of identity with the team and with the barn (arena) in which they play. Hockey is a deeply insular in-group based culture and there are many signs and signifiers to help mark the in-group. Hockey uses specialised language in the form of slang, there’s a hockey accent that hockey players acculture to. There’s certain expectations around standards of presentation and deportment like suits for game day and being as bland as cardboard—that is cultivated and prestige. This is not a sport about being different. This is a sport about fitting in.
The height of fitting in is the locker room. Gotta to contribute to a good vibe in the locker room. Players have been traded for not fitting the locker room vibe, so it’s critical especially for new players to fall in. There’s lots of mechanisms that teams use to help that including hazing and the common practice of rookies living with vets.
Some famous team traditions:
fines. It’s the captain’s job to collect the fines. This is a totally non-official but widespread thing where the team has some rules and if a player breaks them they have to pay money of differing amounts. Like a swear jar but flexible. This is administered through ‘kangaroo court’ which is an informal mechanism for fining players for off ice infractions. Some are fun and minor but it’s also leaned on to attempt to manage serious player issues and crimes that should probably be handled through more serious disciplinary measures
team dinners, usually hosted by the captain
Sewerball warm ups
the team having a favourite song. For example, the oilers adopted Pink Pony Club and played it in the dressing room after every playoff win
Pranks!
If two players want the same number, the veteran or more star studded player will usually get it. The guy who gets to use the number will “buy” it from the other, often by getting him a rolex.
Not quite a tradition so much as it just happens - players on entry-level contracts (aka rookies) share hotel rooms on the road. Sometimes it’s work, sometimes it’s a sleepover
Other notable traditions
Playoff beards - my god there’s a whole wikipedia article
Flow - players want the sweetest flow so it can billow out behind their helmet like they are the world’s most majestic pony. Flow is the name for hair.
MAJESTIC. PRANCING.
Collectivism
V brief sidebar here. Hockey shuns individual achievement and acclaim except in specific circumstances that are all a little embarrassing for the players.
Being a hockey star is a bit gauche. Sidney Crosby makes up for being a star by advocating for the other hockey players. When everyone else went to Europe to keep playing during the lockout, he stayed to help negotiate terms, giving up a hockey season. He and McJesus (Connor McDavid) are also lauded for taking a salary hit so they could stay with their team. Let’s contrast this with flashy football (soccer) star lifestyles. In hockey it’s better to have a small personality and subsume it to the club.
We see this in play as well, it’s honourable and good to pass instead of going for the shot. Especially pass to captain. That’s being a good hockey.
Our watchword here is ‘ferda.’ For the club, for the sport, for the boys.
There’s a powerful loyalty and brotherhood but as we all know about insular communities built on machismo and a culture of shame, it has its dark sides.
The kangaroo court fines, for example, might be applied to situations where players should have faced more serious disciplinary actions, but hockey tries to handle everything quietly and in house.
Hockey has to come first. You have to want it more than anything—show that grit, show that drive.
The lifecycle guide touched on the idea that hockey isn’t a job to these guys, it’s an identity. It’s an identity they’re raised in and comes with a ton of expectations for what it Means To Be A Hockey Player. There is a package of ways of being that a hockey player must conform to in order to be a hockey player and be accepted by the locker room—and remember if you aren’t in the locker room, you’re out. It’s the way of talking, the way of dressing, it’s the language, the unwillingness to admit pain or weakness, it’s playing through an injury. It’s about grit, determination, hard work, acting humble, showing loyalty to teammates.
The identity slot is taken, no hyphenates.
You can see other ways in which this can make the world extra difficult for players with other marginalisations. And, the culture of conformity and silence makes it difficult to criticise and push for change.
If there’s interest, we can do expanded notes on the big four isms (homophobia, racism, classism, sexism) but we’d be remiss without at least noting the deep-rooted issues in the NHL with all of these.
The NHL is a very white organisation. The top decision makers, the staff, the most famous players are white. In this guide we’ve pointed to many expectations for deportment, presentation, and personality that place expectations on players to fit into a mould of behaviour that is also white. Being a person with flash and style is very unhockey. It makes it easy, then, for pundits and coaches to censure a player for acting in ways that are in keeping with their ancestral culture, when that heritage isn’t settler white without considering the ways they are forcing an expectation onto a player that separates them from their culture. The billeting system has to be taken into account as well, with families having to agree to send their 16-year old to go live with a white family and experience that cultural dislocation. That’s especially an issue for First Nations, Metis, and Inuit families.
The NHL is culturally homophobic. As a culture, not necessarily as individuals. When there’s been 108 years of the NHL, 8000 players, and not a single openly queer one, we have to grapple with knowing that there is a reason for that and it isn’t down to individuals. There’s that strong cultural pressure to subsume identity to the sport and not stand out and well, being gay would stand out, it would separate them from the core identity of hockey player.
Also, because of the insular nature of the hockey community and the way that social norms are passed down by these tight generational conveyances like billeting and hazing, the culture changes really slowly. Hockey is like 30 years behind. If we rewind 30 years like Ellen just came out. Will and Grace hasn’t even started airing yet. That’s where we’re at.
This is not intrinsic to hockey the sport! It’s the culture around the NHL and the junior hockey feeder structure. In Women’s hockey the players get married and have adorable babies and still play against each other on their respective national teams; Julie is American and Caroline is Canadian. This true hockey romance has happened MORE THAN ONCE. still complexities but like it dont gotta be like this.
Wives Julie Chu and Caroline Ouellette and their baby.
And there is a vibrant and active National Aboriginal Hockey Championship which gives space and good competition for players who are overwhelmingly excluded from the NHL.
WAGs and Puckbunnies
Hockey players gotta get married! If you’ve read this far you’ve probably noted a ton of things like hosting team dinners, billeting rookies, and moving a lot. Critical to have a wife to manage that. Someone has to pack up that whole house and ship it across the continent on short notice. Someone has to manage the money and the schedule. WAG of a hockey player is a full-time job with responsibilities. In addition to raising the hockey children WAGs also organise charitable events for the team and help host team events. The Avs Better Halves (their name) does a charity auction every year. WAGs in hockey are slightly less marketing forward than in some other sports but they are also representatives of their players and one of the traditions is that of the playoff jacket. The team wives all wear matching ones (conform to the group!!). Some are nicer than others.
actually when you see them lined up it’s kind of terrifying.
WAGs are also organised along similar lines as players, with a head WAG for the team as basically captain who directs things like the charitable auction and also makes sure everyone has their jacket. The Head WAG is usually the captain’s WAG but not always, but that expectation also reflects on whether a player is ready to make captain—do they have a WAG to co-lead the organisation? Money to organise all of this comes from the WAG Fund which every WAG is expected to pay into. It’s an official Relationship Step for a hockey player to have his WAG inducted into the group, and to pay her membership dues to do so. You are not real until the dues are paid, literal.
This is another way in which hockey makes being a gay player disadvantaged, how are you gonna advance through the stages of hockey player without a wife? And specifically a wife due the gendered nature of this labour.
Since this is such a specialised job and they need to lock ‘em down, how do hockey players find their WAGs? This is where the humble puckbunny comes in. Puckbunnies are women who want to be hockey wives and get into the hockey world for the purpose of snagging a husband. It’s very Bridgerton actually.
Like it’s great when romance happens but it’s also goal-oriented jobseeking for both parties.
Rookies are not expected to be married, slightly weird to be living with an older vet while married, but it can move swiftly after that. We can get David Attenborough mating cycle of the hockey player about this. During the juvenile phase hockey players learn and observe the proper standards for the hockey household. Then during the exploration phase they go out attempt the mating dance within the puckbunny pool. But also a huge number of hockey players marry their high school sweethearts as well. But they don’t get married, usually, until the career has slightly developed. After that, it’s marriage and hockey players only rarely get divorced.
Hockey players settle down young.
Not all of them are doing it like the Edmonton captain and alternate captain who married a pair of best friends and went on a joint honeymoon with them but since that is a thing that happened I have to mention it.
I need to be clear and specific these women did not marry each other.
If you would like to know more about hockey culture, here is further media to explore.
Hockey Media:
hockey sweater: a short story about how it’s not ok to like the maple leafs, a sentiment featured on our five dollar bill
goon: 2011 comedy film about a bouncer who becomes a hockey enforcer in the minors
indian horse: novel or film set in the 70s about a child in a residential school who pushes his way into hockey
shoresy: comedy about a AAA team in Ontario
we breed lions: non-fiction journalism about hockey culture
hello destroyer: film about the aftermath of an incidence of violence in a youth hockey game
Alright! If you have any questions, happy to answer but as always real questions should go to @amailboxlemur who knows things and jokes to @phneltwrites
many thank yous for consultations on this one: freilie, defractum, ofgeography, brofisting, and hockeywithhannah
post on the attitude towards queer people in the nhl feat. the collectivism and some actual quotes by leguin: here
Hockey players are deeply superstitious on a personal level and it bleeds over into the team level.
Common personal superstitions/rituals include:
taping the stick. Using the right tape and wrapping it in the exact right way. If for some reason they couldn’t tape their own stick and another guy did it for them that would be more intimate than sex
special pre-game meals. Eating the same meal before every game
Not stepping on the crest. Every dressing room has a large team crest taking up the majority of the floor space and it cannot be stepped on.
Not washing some piece of equipment
the lucky jock
The amulet
Naptime
Building on naptime, hockey players are extremely routine oriented. They take the nap at the same time every day, they build a schedule and stick to it. Tying into superstitions maybe they do that out of magical thinking, maybe it’s to maintain consistency, your pick.
Traditions
What is the line between a superstition and a tradition? When you love it ♥️
Not to be confused with curses, which are real and are afflicting your fave. When other teams lose it’s because they are terrible, when it’s your team it’s the Curse and the correct sacrifices must be made.
Traditions are, instead, ways that hockey teams create a shared sense of identity with the team and with the barn (arena) in which they play. Hockey is a deeply insular in-group based culture and there are many signs and signifiers to help mark the in-group. Hockey uses specialised language in the form of slang, there’s a hockey accent that hockey players acculture to. There’s certain expectations around standards of presentation and deportment like suits for game day and being as bland as cardboard—that is cultivated and prestige. This is not a sport about being different. This is a sport about fitting in.
The height of fitting in is the locker room. Gotta to contribute to a good vibe in the locker room. Players have been traded for not fitting the locker room vibe, so it’s critical especially for new players to fall in. There’s lots of mechanisms that teams use to help that including hazing and the common practice of rookies living with vets.
Some famous team traditions:
fines. It’s the captain’s job to collect the fines. This is a totally non-official but widespread thing where the team has some rules and if a player breaks them they have to pay money of differing amounts. Like a swear jar but flexible. This is administered through ‘kangaroo court’ which is an informal mechanism for fining players for off ice infractions. Some are fun and minor but it’s also leaned on to attempt to manage serious player issues and crimes that should probably be handled through more serious disciplinary measures
team dinners, usually hosted by the captain
Sewerball warm ups
the team having a favourite song. For example, the oilers adopted Pink Pony Club and played it in the dressing room after every playoff win
Pranks!
If two players want the same number, the veteran or more star studded player will usually get it. The guy who gets to use the number will “buy” it from the other, often by getting him a rolex.
Not quite a tradition so much as it just happens - players on entry-level contracts (aka rookies) share hotel rooms on the road. Sometimes it’s work, sometimes it’s a sleepover
Other notable traditions
Playoff beards - my god there’s a whole wikipedia article
Flow - players want the sweetest flow so it can billow out behind their helmet like they are the world’s most majestic pony. Flow is the name for hair.
MAJESTIC. PRANCING.
Collectivism
V brief sidebar here. Hockey shuns individual achievement and acclaim except in specific circumstances that are all a little embarrassing for the players.
Being a hockey star is a bit gauche. Sidney Crosby makes up for being a star by advocating for the other hockey players. When everyone else went to Europe to keep playing during the lockout, he stayed to help negotiate terms, giving up a hockey season. He and McJesus (Connor McDavid) are also lauded for taking a salary hit so they could stay with their team. Let’s contrast this with flashy football (soccer) star lifestyles. In hockey it’s better to have a small personality and subsume it to the club.
We see this in play as well, it’s honourable and good to pass instead of going for the shot. Especially pass to captain. That’s being a good hockey.
Our watchword here is ‘ferda.’ For the club, for the sport, for the boys.
There’s a powerful loyalty and brotherhood but as we all know about insular communities built on machismo and a culture of shame, it has its dark sides.
The kangaroo court fines, for example, might be applied to situations where players should have faced more serious disciplinary actions, but hockey tries to handle everything quietly and in house.
Hockey has to come first. You have to want it more than anything—show that grit, show that drive.
The lifecycle guide touched on the idea that hockey isn’t a job to these guys, it’s an identity. It’s an identity they’re raised in and comes with a ton of expectations for what it Means To Be A Hockey Player. There is a package of ways of being that a hockey player must conform to in order to be a hockey player and be accepted by the locker room—and remember if you aren’t in the locker room, you’re out. It’s the way of talking, the way of dressing, it’s the language, the unwillingness to admit pain or weakness, it’s playing through an injury. It’s about grit, determination, hard work, acting humble, showing loyalty to teammates.
The identity slot is taken, no hyphenates.
You can see other ways in which this can make the world extra difficult for players with other marginalisations. And, the culture of conformity and silence makes it difficult to criticise and push for change.
If there’s interest, we can do expanded notes on the big four isms (homophobia, racism, classism, sexism) but we’d be remiss without at least noting the deep-rooted issues in the NHL with all of these.
The NHL is a very white organisation. The top decision makers, the staff, the most famous players are white. In this guide we’ve pointed to many expectations for deportment, presentation, and personality that place expectations on players to fit into a mould of behaviour that is also white. Being a person with flash and style is very unhockey. It makes it easy, then, for pundits and coaches to censure a player for acting in ways that are in keeping with their ancestral culture, when that heritage isn’t settler white without considering the ways they are forcing an expectation onto a player that separates them from their culture. The billeting system has to be taken into account as well, with families having to agree to send their 16-year old to go live with a white family and experience that cultural dislocation. That’s especially an issue for First Nations, Metis, and Inuit families.
The NHL is culturally homophobic. As a culture, not necessarily as individuals. When there’s been 108 years of the NHL, 8000 players, and not a single openly queer one, we have to grapple with knowing that there is a reason for that and it isn’t down to individuals. There’s that strong cultural pressure to subsume identity to the sport and not stand out and well, being gay would stand out, it would separate them from the core identity of hockey player.
Also, because of the insular nature of the hockey community and the way that social norms are passed down by these tight generational conveyances like billeting and hazing, the culture changes really slowly. Hockey is like 30 years behind. If we rewind 30 years like Ellen just came out. Will and Grace hasn’t even started airing yet. That’s where we’re at.
This is not intrinsic to hockey the sport! It’s the culture around the NHL and the junior hockey feeder structure. In Women’s hockey the players get married and have adorable babies and still play against each other on their respective national teams; Julie is American and Caroline is Canadian. This true hockey romance has happened MORE THAN ONCE. still complexities but like it dont gotta be like this.
Wives Julie Chu and Caroline Ouellette and their baby.
And there is a vibrant and active National Aboriginal Hockey Championship which gives space and good competition for players who are overwhelmingly excluded from the NHL.
WAGs and Puckbunnies
Hockey players gotta get married! If you’ve read this far you’ve probably noted a ton of things like hosting team dinners, billeting rookies, and moving a lot. Critical to have a wife to manage that. Someone has to pack up that whole house and ship it across the continent on short notice. Someone has to manage the money and the schedule. WAG of a hockey player is a full-time job with responsibilities. In addition to raising the hockey children WAGs also organise charitable events for the team and help host team events. The Avs Better Halves (their name) does a charity auction every year. WAGs in hockey are slightly less marketing forward than in some other sports but they are also representatives of their players and one of the traditions is that of the playoff jacket. The team wives all wear matching ones (conform to the group!!). Some are nicer than others.
actually when you see them lined up it’s kind of terrifying.
WAGs are also organised along similar lines as players, with a head WAG for the team as basically captain who directs things like the charitable auction and also makes sure everyone has their jacket. The Head WAG is usually the captain’s WAG but not always, but that expectation also reflects on whether a player is ready to make captain—do they have a WAG to co-lead the organisation? Money to organise all of this comes from the WAG Fund which every WAG is expected to pay into. It’s an official Relationship Step for a hockey player to have his WAG inducted into the group, and to pay her membership dues to do so. You are not real until the dues are paid, literal.
This is another way in which hockey makes being a gay player disadvantaged, how are you gonna advance through the stages of hockey player without a wife? And specifically a wife due the gendered nature of this labour.
Since this is such a specialised job and they need to lock ‘em down, how do hockey players find their WAGs? This is where the humble puckbunny comes in. Puckbunnies are women who want to be hockey wives and get into the hockey world for the purpose of snagging a husband. It’s very Bridgerton actually.
Like it’s great when romance happens but it’s also goal-oriented jobseeking for both parties.
Rookies are not expected to be married, slightly weird to be living with an older vet while married, but it can move swiftly after that. We can get David Attenborough mating cycle of the hockey player about this. During the juvenile phase hockey players learn and observe the proper standards for the hockey household. Then during the exploration phase they go out attempt the mating dance within the puckbunny pool. But also a huge number of hockey players marry their high school sweethearts as well. But they don’t get married, usually, until the career has slightly developed. After that, it’s marriage and hockey players only rarely get divorced.
Hockey players settle down young.
Not all of them are doing it like the Edmonton captain and alternate captain who married a pair of best friends and went on a joint honeymoon with them but since that is a thing that happened I have to mention it.
I need to be clear and specific these women did not marry each other.
If you would like to know more about hockey culture, here is further media to explore.
Hockey Media:
hockey sweater: a short story about how it’s not ok to like the maple leafs, a sentiment featured on our five dollar bill
goon: 2011 comedy film about a bouncer who becomes a hockey enforcer in the minors
indian horse: novel or film set in the 70s about a child in a residential school who pushes his way into hockey
shoresy: comedy about a AAA team in Ontario
we breed lions: non-fiction journalism about hockey culture
hello destroyer: film about the aftermath of an incidence of violence in a youth hockey game
Alright! If you have any questions, happy to answer but as always real questions should go to @amailboxlemur who knows things and jokes to @phneltwrites
many thank yous for consultations on this one: freilie, defractum, ofgeography, brofisting, and hockeywithhannah
post on the attitude towards queer people in the nhl feat. the collectivism and some actual quotes by leguin: here
Antelopes eat the grass. Certified Canadians @amailboxlemur have returned with more hockey facts, this time with consults from ofgeography, hockeywithhannah, and defractum.
This Post Contains:
junior careers aka childhood what childhood
the ahl
the rookie-vet acculturation system
boom and bust of an nhl team and its parallels with your player
forced divorce (trades)
retirement
For the purposes of Heated Rivalry, only two countries exist: Canada and Russia, so we are only explaining the junior career trajectories of those countries to the NHL. Other hockeys do exist! But do they tho. In a more real way, do they. ok ill allow Finland.
Canada
Canadians start hockey early, very early, often as early as age 3 and play in kiddie leagues as a timbit.
A timbit is a canadian doughnut that is small and round and sold at Tim Horton’s. Tim Horton (the man) was a Canadian hockey player in the 1950s and 1960s who opened his first doughnut shop towards the end of his playing career. I cannot communicate the significant cultural connection between Tim Horton’s, hockey, and Canadian identity. I have not found a suitable analogue in any other country. It’s not like Dunkin’s don’t try me. Tim Horton’s sponsors a lot of children’s sports, and named that program after the small doughnut, it’s very cute.
In Canada, hockey is ubiquitous for boys and to a lesser extent girls (girls play soccer (football)). Finding out a boy didn’t play hockey is more unusual than finding out he did.
A good player might be noted by age 8 and would start playing on more skilled teams until they can get drafted into the junior leagues. Yes. The kids get drafted. So imagine you’re 15 (it’s usually 16 but exceptional players can go a year early), you’re a superstar, everyone knows it, you are barely in school because you are doing hockey and select hockey and hockey clinic and working with a coach 1:1 and then a junior team from absolute nowhere Ontario says ‘you’re the one!’ and they take you from your family and move you.
When junior players are drafted, traditionally they live with a local family, usually someone who also has a kid in hockey, but not necessarily. This is called billeting and there’s often multiple boys in one house.
This explains much about hockey culture.
separated from family early, curtailing growth and development
surrounded only by other hockey people, socialising into their norms even more than already
isolation in a remote community. tho Shane went to Kingston which has a population of 100k so would be considered QUITE LARGE by the standards of Canada. Moreover, Kingston is pretty close to Toronto, Ottawa, and Montreal so opportunities to see people not in hockey do exist for him. boy’s living in a cultural paradise.
high pressure environment. Everyone here is trying to either get to the NHL or get a university scholarship
Russia
All of that Canada stuff about starting really young is also true here.
Russia’s junior system is more similar to European football. Players are scouted and then join team academies with the goal of being signed to the MHL and then the KHL or NHL.
It’s typical to stay in the hometown, with the development being provided in the form of camps or with that local team until players reach the MHL.
Historically Russian players coming to the NHL was politically fraught and it can still be complex.
Also just a fun fact, the NHL can draft a player without their consent, which basically means IF this guy comes to the NHL he HAS to come to us which could create a scenario where a guy got drafted but was like nah I’d prefer to play in the KHL forever. But technically he’s drafted! Anyway, feel free to use that for AUs.
In both the Russia and Canada cases it’s impossible to do this without family support. Someone has to drive this kid to practice and buy their expensive kit and the sport is full of hardcore stage parents. Let’s all be disappointments with papa.
Junior International Hockey
In addition to regular team play, juniors can get selected by their national hockey federation to play in prestigious international tournaments. The most special of these is World Juniors.
This is a great arena for seething teenage homoerotic tension because everyone is in training camp and then in the tournament together and facing people they never played before. It also happens in December, so there’s potential for angst and homesickness at Christmastime.
World Juniors happens every year and changes locations every year. It is an important Christmas tradition in Canada. The tournament starts on December 26th and I have many nostalgic childhood memories of waking up early the day after Christmas to watch a morning game in my pyjamas. There’s always a rivalry game on New Year’s Eve (like Canada vs Russia) and the tournament ends with a gold medal game in early January. To canadian hockey fans, this tournament is as much a part of the holiday season as decorating a Christmas tree or watching the ball drop on New Year’s Eve.
“The competition's profile is particularly high in Canada, and this is partly for historical reasons because prior to NHL players being allowed in the Winter Olympics, this was a rare tournament where the best western players faced the best players from the Soviet Bloc, and the only other tournament of similar stature where this occurred was the irregularly scheduled Canada Cup for senior sides.”
Okay Wikipedia that is fascinating.
This might be a good place to mention that the Canada v Russia hockey rivalry is REAL. If there is a country Canada cares about beating it is Russia. Genuinely sometimes unsure what would be more scandalous: gay hockey player or dating a Russian hockey player. (jk it’s the gayness)
Adulthood
Once they turn 18 they are eligible to be drafted into the NHL. Draft was covered in another guide.
There’s a couple of things that can happen when a player gets drafted.
VERY RARE: they go high (like top 5 overall), they were expected, they are put immediately into the main team
Most players continue playing with their Junior team, college team, or Russian/European team for a few more years.
Russian or European players can be sent to the AHL immediately.
Sidebar: the structure of the NHL
The NHL has 32 teams and each of those teams is paired with an AHL team. The AHL team is still professional but making significantly less money. AHL teams are geographically proximate to the NHL team but usually located in a smaller nearby town. Players for each team’s AHL team can be ‘called up’ to the main team to play at any time, for a single game, for the playoffs, or for a longer stint. These players get to play regularly, improve their skills, and serve to deepen the bench for the NHL. Some players spend their entire career in the AHL.
After being drafted a player is considered a prospect. Most players will continue playing with their junior teams until they age out at age 20. There are rules that prevent North Americans from playing in the AHL at age 18 and 19. Russians/Europeans are allowed that young, but will still often stay in Europe for these years. Then they’ll primarily play for the AHL team for a few seasons working on developing their skills and hockey sense. They might be occasionally called up to the NHL for a game or two or for the playoffs. By the time a player is about 25 he’s seen as developed into what he will be and is no longer a prospect. He’s either in the NHL full time or an AHL player who might be occasionally called up.
NHL
After doing juniors, getting drafted, staying with their junior team, going to the AHL they are in their early-mid 20s and have finally made it! Now our guys are in the NHL!
It’s common for rookie players to live with a team vet for a year or two when they first join the team. This is to help them settle in but also serves the purpose of reinforcing social norms. The chosen vet always has major dad vibes, often has kids of his own, and the rookie will act like a child and cause chaos in the vet’s life.
Mitch Marner continuing to torment Patrick Marleau even after no longer living in his house.
The hockey career is defined by the season. Players do their 82 regulation games and playoffs if their team clinches a spot.
This is your team, your family, your travel on the same bus together for roadies or fly together. Back in the day they used to share hotel rooms but the player union finally got teams to splurge for singles (sad day for the accidental bedsharing community). Rookies will still sometimes share a room on the road and treat it like a slumber party.
The bond between hockey teammates is intense.
In the off-season they go home and train. Most hockey contracts prohibit players from doing dangerous activities like skiing or surfing so these guys golf a lot. Sometimes hockey players train together, even guys from other teams, that’s not unusual. There are even very notable bromances between players on different teams.
Players will also usually go to Florida to lie on the beach.
Hockey players do a fair amount of media, but that’s usually as interviews. Reporters love to shove microphones in their sweaty oxygen deprived faces between periods or at the end of a game and hear scintillating soundbites such as “yeah uhhh we just gotta stick to our game and get pucks in deep.”
True standout stars might do some commercials and endorsements but all of these guys have cultivated the personality of cardboard so while other sports have been leaning into personalising the relationship between audience and player, hockey mostly sticks to traditional soundbites and game interviews.
If a player threatens to have a personality they have them taken out back. Barely kidding. It’s one of the ways in which racism pervades the sport. Nylander wore a coloured tie once and it was the subject of thinkpieces.
Watch out for this fashion radical!!!!!
Trades, Waivers
This is prime angst territory. Forced divorce! Who would split this family up!
Hockey doesn’t have a mechanism to lend a player to another team outside of the AHL/NHL swap but a player can be put on waivers and snatched up by another team if they need it, or a player can be traded with another team. Players don’t get a say in this outside of rare cases. Wake up one morning and now you have to live in Colorado.
Players who are very good can get no-move clauses in their contracts. Players who are mid-tier might find that they are getting traded every few years and then it’s a round of settling in, buying a house, getting the kids set up at school, rinse, repeat.
Right before playoffs is a common time to get traded as teams about to make a playoff run need to add depth to their bench as they anticipate players dropping for injury or just needing more strong players to increase their chance. Simultaneously teams that didn’t make the playoffs are trying to shed budget to prepare for a rebuild and hopefully better luck with the draft.
Occasionally this is a beautiful story where it’s like their old team didn’t appreciate them but they found joy and love at new team! Most of the time they get dropped after playoffs.
A reason for a star player to get traded might also be the salary cap. Each team has a ceiling for the combined total they can be paying their players, so if they get too stacked they might need to drop someone to get a few cheaper rookies. TRAGIQUE. This is yet another example of the American obsession with fairness ruining love and sports. Don’t get me started on penalty reviews.
As a note, trades don’t have to be 1:1 and teams can trade away future draft picks, so it’s like we traded Bradley to the Jigsaws for two future fourth round draft picks and their least favourite defenseman—insult on injury. But sometimes teams also trade someone with a buddy! So they don’t always have to go alone.
Stages of an NHL team
NHL teams boom and bust in cycles like the wheel of reincarnation or perhaps a phoenix if a phoenix petered instead of going out in beautiful fire and we can equate these to Shakespeare’s ages of man. All the world’s an ice rink and one player in his time plays many parts.
Same as the team has stages, so does each player. Except unlike the team which is everlasting and regenerates, the athlete goes through them and then retires.
First the infant, mewling and puking in the nurse’s arm: At the beginning of the cycle, an NHL team is bad. They get to draft high, and trade away many of their current players for draft picks and prospects. Rinse and repeat over a couple of years. Now the team has a few high draft picks making their debuts and lots of prospects developing in the AHL.
Then, the whining schoolboy with his satchel and shining face: As these prospects graduate to the NHL in their early 20s the team is considered a “young team”. They have a lot of potential! They have so much energy! They score flashy goals! They make silly mistakes! They’re constantly learning and improving.
Then a soldier seeking a bubble reputation: As this group of players reaches their late 20s, they’re in their prime. They still have speed and skill, their bodies haven’t been completely broken down. They’ve learned all their lessons and know how to play structured hockey as a cohesive team. The team is in win-now mode and trades away all their draft picks and prospects in the hopes of winning the Stanley Cup.
Then the justice, full of wise saws: As the players enter their 30s the team is getting old. Injuries are starting to catch up with them. The star players have high salaries but might not be producing like they once were. The team might need to trade one away to make the salary cap work. They traded away all their picks and prospects years ago, so there’s no young talent coming in. This can be a slow or steep decline.
Finally, the sixth age, world shrunk too wide: the team must commit to a rebuild and trade away their former high draft picks in an attempt to bottom out and increase their chances of drafting high and begin the cycle all over again.
Example timeline using the Pittsburgh Penguins:
2003: Marc-André Fleury is drafted 1st overall
2004: Evgeni Malkin is drafted 2nd overall
2005: Shane Hollander Sidney Crosby is drafted 1st overall
2007: Pittsburgh makes the playoffs for the first time with these 3 players
2009: Win the Stanley Cup
2016: Win the Stanley Cup
2017: Win the Stanley Cup (June 11th)
2017: Marc-André Fleury is taken by Vegas in the expansion draft (June 21st)
2018-present: all but 4 players that won the Stanley Cup in 2017 leave the team
2023: Pittsburgh misses the playoffs for the first time since 2006
Crosby and Malkin are superhuman for still playing as well as they are at the ages of 38 and 39, but the question remains - how long before Pittsburgh falls to the bottom of the standings and drafts first again beginning the cycle anew?
Retirement
Players usually retire between 35 and 40 if they’re lucky. Odds are higher that something in their body will catastrophically give out (hips is a big one because of the skating posture). Odds are higher still that newer, fresher talent will come in and push them out. Like all sports, the stars get to decide when they go out. Everyone else waits for it to happen to them.
Gather ye rosebuds while ye may.
It’s more common now than it used to be for a lower tier player to dip out a bit early and go play in the European Hockey League for a bit in order to get a role on the team with more minutes.
Right now the top goal scorer is the ancient (38) year old Sidney Crosby so unc still got it! Elder rights!
Post-Retirement
Post-retirement career paths include: restauranteur, coach, pundit. Broadcast pundit if they’re legit, podcaster if they’re less so. Remembering also that these guys have known each other since childhood due to junior hockey and international tournaments so there’s a lot of potential in someone commentating on someone they shared a hotel room with before.
All of these guys have a restaurant for some reason.
There’s a bit of a pity path available as well where a team will keep an aged out star on as a ‘consultant’ which seems to be mostly a way to keep them having a purpose and close to the organisation. An emotional support retired player, if you will.
It can be really hard to land for players after retirement. Hockey isn’t just their job, it’s their entire identity. Being an athlete means being in this brotherhood, it’s a system of meaning in addition to a structure to their day. This is why players will play well past the point of injury or utility, or will stay long past the point of winning.
Aaaaaaaaand that’s sports!
hockey overview | this is pt 2 so no link | hockey culture
just. please know. that giffing scenes like that is a fucking nightmare labor of love.
to wit:
bottom's the raw capture, middle's just flat curve correction to make the footage visible, top is the final coloring with /counts seven adjustment layers to add back in Literally Anything But Yellow
every giffer i know does it out of love for the game, but for the record it's not... easy. it's not just slapping the footage in a cap grabber and posting whatever it spits out. "professional" lighting and color grading has only gotten waaay murkier and flatter in the fifteen years i've been giffing on here, so uh. don't repost gifs, please!
I thought the bottom was a black bar. I didn't even realize that was footage.
Everyone say thank you to your neighbourhood GIF maker! Giffers are so important to the fannish ecosystem, but to so many people the amount of work involved invisible.
fixing arguments with make-up sex is rightly seen as a cheap cliche—but reconnecting and reassuring with sex after an argument and then talking is good, actually
every time someone says, "don't like AI fanfic, don't read" what I hear is, "I'm OK if you die."
Fuck this.
I refuse to be quiet about people dying because it's inconvenient to have discussions about AI. It might upset someone to think about AI in fanfic.
You know what's really fucking inconvenient? Dying on the steps of the ER because you can't fucking breathe.
I live in Appalachia, which has been an industrial sacrifice zone for a century. Some of the dirtiest coal fired power plants in the USA are where I live, and it's the reason why I have a home nebulizer, and my children all have inhalers. My cousin died of asthma, on the steps of the emergency room. She'll always be 36 and beautiful.
Our air is often dirtier than downtown Manhattan, but I don't get AQI alerts because the state Dept of Env Protection doesn't track it. Can't release data on fine particulates if you don't have the data!
a third of the toxic air releases in 2014 from power plants, factories and other facilities came from just 100 complexes out of more than 20,000 reporting to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. A third of the greenhouse-gas emissions reported by industrial sites came from just 100, too. Some academics have a name for them: super polluters.
Twenty-two sites appeared on both lists. They include ExxonMobil’s massive refinery and petrochemical complex in Baytown, Texas, and a slew of coal-fired power plants, from FirstEnergy’s Harrison in West Virginia to Conemaugh in Pennsylvania, owned by companies including NRG Energy and PSEG. Four are in a single region — southwest Indiana.
Those power plants were going to be shut down, but instead, PJM is building new power lines (and coal-fired power plants) to meet demand from Virginia data centers that process nearly 70% of global digital traffic.
Appalachians' bodies—and lives—are the sacrifices that make it possible.
Look how dirty that is. That's the pollution from a powerplant dedicated to the PJM Interconnection, funneling electricity to the maw in northern Virginia. My babies are breathing this because of AI data center demand.
Nearby sits the 502 Junction substation, connected to those plants and a third one about 43 miles away via existing power lines, which will serve as a terminus for a western prong of the PJM plan for new lines that will extend to another substation in Frederick, Md., then south into Northern Virginia.
The other two plants belong to the Ohio-based FirstEnergy Corp. utility, which had plans to significantly scale down operations there to meet a company goal of reducing its greenhouse gas emissions by nearly a third over the next six years.
After PJM tapped the company to build a 36-mile-long portion of the planned power lines for $392 million, FirstEnergy announced in February that the two plants will continue operating until 2035 and 2040, citing the need for grid reliability.
The wildest part? The owners are a secret. Not kidding:
Public Citizen ... urged FERC to require Longview to disclose the plant’s new upstream owners.
Tough to fight it when you don't even know who you're fighting. We're trying, though the local gentry at the state capital passed a law forbidding local government to object to data centers or their power plants.
Okay, my last reblog was too fatalistic so trying again. Okay. the more we pushback against data centers and AI the more we stop it and slow it down somewhere. I have been studying data centers for months and tracking clips and articles and I can tell you there are so many industry articles about "geez people are kinda mad how can we build these without making communities mad" like we aren't going to stop all of them, but we will stop some and make many that get built have higher standards so it's not a complete race to hell.
And maybe that isn't that optimistic, but y'all protest works. I've been doing advocacy for 20 years and it's always worked and it's working now.
It's never as easy as I want it to be, but it's always better than not doing it.
There are many delightful, very enjoyable, very entertaining fics that work with the concept the Bears try to identify Jane and/or figure out Ilya's "type," and it turns out he increasingly is going for women with dark hair and freckles. But in all of those, I have not seen, and really want to see, that Ilya's type also becomes women who are absolutely jacked. Women who can bench-press him. Women who are made of muscle.
Because if I'm going to buy the idea that Ilya was seeking out sexual partners with attributes that remind him of Shane, lets not forget that Shane is a jock.
I also think fandom!Cliff Marlow & co's reaction would be deeply entertaining to read
