I am open and accepting of all opinions, and I refuse to put myself in an echo chamber. However, you are going to be subjugated to me talking about him a lot on every account I have.
Look, Laura, you can’t just tag-rant the thing about Roland and Matt and air hockey and promotional videos and then not write the thing. That’s not how this works. Your adoring public (or at least I) demand it. Please. It’s too cute/hilarious not to. Please? Yes.
Look, I am incapable of turning down asks like this. I just want to write what you guys want to read! And it blows my mind that you want to read anything I write! It is very nice! So the tag-rants being talked about are here and have spawned I don’t even know how many words here about Roland Locksley and Matt Jones and being forced into preseason NHL videos together.
Age-wise, Roland is 32, Matt is 23, Henry is 37, Peggy is 20, Chris is 14, Lizzie is 24 and Leo Nolan is 21. Also making sure to thank @wholockgal for sending a very similar, equally nice ask. You guys are the best.
“So. Who has the better wrist shot?”
The laugh flew out of Matt – loud and entirely uncontrolled, his whole body lurching forward with the force of it and he wasn’t entirely surprised by the forearm that slammed into his stomach. It hurt, but he wasn’t entirely surprised. “Did you see that?” Matt asked, not entirely sure which camera he was supposed to be looking into. This was, apparently, a multi-camera operation. “He totally just mom’ed me.”
He didn’t have to look to his left to know Roland rolled his eyes.
He could practically hear it.
And nearly two-dozen years of experience had prepared Matt perfectly for this moment. Playing a newlywed-style game in an NHL-produced preseason video. If he didn’t stop laughing, he was going to bend his whiteboard in half.
They’d totally given them whiteboards.
“You have no control over your limbs,” Roland grumbled, his own voice tinged with laughter. The whole thing was, fundamentally, absurd. It was, after all, called The Broleywed Game and Matt wasn’t sure how that spelling worked, really, but he supposed they’d lucked out his first few seasons in the league and Ruby kept telling them it was only a matter of time until something like this happened.
It wasn’t really that bad.
He was kind of excited.
He was totally going to win.
Competitive weirdo.
“That doesn’t mean I’m going to impale myself on this table,” Matt argued. Several different production assistants looked a little stunned. This probably wasn’t part of the script.
Technically, or whatever. Because the one production assistant who’d met with them that morning had just told them to have fun with it and Matt was definitely having fun. If only because, at some point around his twelfth birthday, he’d made it his personal mission to get Roland to sigh as dramatically as possible as often as possible.
He was very good at it.
Not as good as shooting a wrister, but—
“I am really not feeling all that confident about that, actually,” Roland said, and Matt knew that look too. The idiot thought he was winning. He flashed a grin – a smile that Matt used to tell him had far too many teeth, but that only ever made his mouth widen even more, a glint in his eyes that never boded well for anyone.
Especially defensemen.
Roland was stupid good at passing.
“Oh, shut up.”
Roland snickered, digging his elbow further into Matt’s spleen. “Tell the people at home how many times you’ve crashed into things, Matthew David.”
“Aw, c’mon!”
“Tick tock, you’re disappointing the waiting public.”
Matt squirmed in his seat, well aware that the whole thing was dissolving into juvenile mess much quicker than even he expected it to and he was only slightly hopeful that Ruby wouldn’t be too disappointed. It’d probably make both his dad and Uncle Robin laugh.
“You know what,” Roland continued, another far-too-confident smile, “I’ll tell. Alright, when Matt was six he decided he was going to stage his own personal game seven in the restaurant where we used to go after games—“
“—Oh my God, shut up.”
Roland shook his head, moving his arm and for one second Matt could breathe normally, but then the arm moved around his shoulders, yanking him half off his chair and he kind of felt six years old again. “No, no, no, this is good. Honestly, this is the best story you guys are going to hear all media day. Where was I?”
“I’m six,” Matt grumbled. “Probably breaking things by now.”
The laughter was starting to get absurd.
“Right, right, ok, so Matt is six. He’s practicing wristers and one-timers and we’re uptown after a game. He decides he’s going to reenact a game seven and starts taking practice shots against the wall.”
Matt wasn’t sure who gasped, but it might have been the entire studio and he couldn’t possibly roll his eyes hard enough. “So,” Roland added, “he’s taking the shots and leaving dents and then he gets one past my brother who, at some point, he’d recruited to play goalie.”
“There is no reason to do any of this if you don’t have someone to play goalie,” Matt muttered, a hum of anything except decidedly sarcastic agreement out of Roland. “Also, this is definitely Henry’s fault. You hear that, Henry? You should have had quicker reflexes.”
“This is probably why he’s not a professional hockey player,” Roland reasoned. “Hey, but read his book though!”
“Plural. He’s got multiple books.”
“And they’re really good. Seriously, we’re not just saying that.”
“I mean, we’re kind of saying that, but also—“ Matt cut himself off when someone coughed, gritting his teeth and squeezing one eye shut. Roland failed spectacularly at at trying to turn his laugh into a cough. “For what it’s worth, I was six and trying to get some more power behind my shot.”
“Because he was trying to copy my wrister,” Roland said with wide eyes and some kind of judgment that also felt a little sarcastic and a little familial and no one was ever going to ask them to do these videos again. “Anyway, Matt’s shooting, Henry’s having slightly slower reflexes and—for some reason there are—“ He glanced at Matt, brows furrowed in an attempt to remember the moment better. “What were they?”
Matt nearly fell off his chair. “Oh, you’re old! You can’t even tell the story!”
“That’s not an answer, though.”
“Old, old, old, old, veteran!”
Roland huffed, but he couldn’t actually dispute it, had been in the league for nearly a decade at that point and he’d done more of these videos than Matt could count. He’d been way more excited about this one. “They might have been onion rings? Like pieces of onion rings?”
Matt shrugged. They hadn’t been onion rings. “God, you’re no help at all,” Roland hissed, another dramatic exhale when he turned back towards the camera. “Whatever. There was food on the ground. Matt didn’t see it, was inexplicably getting a running start on his wrister and slid across half the restaurant. He slammed right into a table, nearly shattered his ribs, terrified his parents and—“
“—Broke the table,” Matt finished, something akin to scoring a game seven goal in his smile when he turned towards Roland. Who couldn’t flip him off on camera. “Which I think is actually an answer to your question. I definitely have the better wrister.”
“Destroying restaurant equipment does not equal talent!’”
“Ok, but it wasn’t equipment. Make sure you bring that up when you watch this, ok, Red?”
Matt waved at the camera while Roland continued to make a series of increasingly disgruntled noises and he could only begin to imagine the ridiculous stories this video was going to spark. The SB Nation headline would probably be some kind of pun.
God, he hoped he didn’t end up on Deadspin.
He’d never hear the end of it from Mar and Chris.
There was another pointed cough offscreen, someone with an actual badge around their neck, which probably meant that they were slightly more important and Matt sat up a bit straighter on instinct. “You are going to hurt your throat if you keep making that noise,” he hissed, but Roland made the noise again and—
“Ok, but you guys have to actually use the whiteboards,” the, possible, league guy said. “That’s—those are the rules, you know?”
Roland nodded solemnly, already writing on his board. “Right, sure, no problem.”
“What are you writing?” Matt asked when the marker didn’t stop moving, but Roland was playing some kind of metaphorical defense, hunched over in his chair.
The league guy looked distraught. “Can you guys flip ‘em over? The camera needs to see it too.”
Matt saluted. “Me,” he said, nodding towards the ridiculously large letters on his whiteboard. “I have the better wrister. So says my stats from last year.”
“Ah, who looks at stats?” Roland asked. He flipped his board over and it took a second for Matt to realize what he’d written. They’d have to edit what he said out.
“Are you serious?”
Roland grinned. “Read it.”
“No.”
“Matt…”
“Absolutely not.”
“You know I’m right.”
“I do not!”
“Fine,” Roland laughed. “I’ll read it. It says, and this is a true fact, Matthew David Jones learned how to shoot a wrister by copying mine when I was in college and he was ten. It’s cheating.”
Matt threw his whole head back when he groaned, slumping in his chair until his knees threatened to collide with the table. “That’s not even remotely true.”
“Fair, it’s not just me. It’s Hook too.”
“God.”
“It’s easy to prove. Put a side-by-side comparison of Hook, me my freshman season, and rookie sensation Matthew Jones and you’ll see. It’s all exactly the same.”
Matt jerked his head to the side so quickly he nearly yelped in pain, but he was a professional and he was still having some fun and also absurdly competitive. It was probably genetic or something. “They all look the same, huh?”
“What?”
“I think that means you copied my dad.” Roland’s eyes bugged, smile falling off his face quickly. “Ahahaha,” Matt cried, “I’ve got you, don’t I? You cheated first!”
“You just agreed to cheating!”
Matt clicked his tongue, but that was also kind of true and he’d spent most of his childhood imitating his dad and Roland Locksley. It only made sense most of it stuck. And got him thirty goals the season before. “Is there another question?” he asked, turning back towards one of the cameras and the nearest screen flashed with brand-new words.
What are you two most competitive about when you’re off the ice?
The video went live two days after they filmed – leading the NHL site and there were, several, different “think pieces” about it, links that dinged into the group chat almost immediately. Matt’s throat hurt when he groaned.
Mar, 11:07 a.m.: Did you really suggest, on camera, in front of everyone in the world that you were the best air-hockey player in this family?
Mar, 11:07 a.m.: Like, that’s honestly a thing that happened.
Mar, 11:07 a.m.: In the real world.
Mar, 11:07 a.m.: Also, they weren’t onion rings, they were mozzarella sticks and Rol is old.
Matt, 11:08 a.m.: You know, you can actually wait between text messages. It won’t kill you.
Mar, 11:09 a.m.: Lies.
Chris, 11:10 a.m.: And she does have a point. You were really bad last year.
Roland, 11:11 a.m.: SECONDED
Matt, 11:13 a.m.: Ok, you are just angry because you didn’t even get out of the first round and Mom had to tell you to stop throwing cookies in the basement.
Lizzie, 11:14 a.m.: Not your finest moment, really. Although the form was good.
Chris, 11:15 a.m.: Agh
Lizzie, 11:17 a.m.: middle finger emoji
Henry, 11:18 a.m.: Were you supposed to be hyping my book on air like that?
Matt, 11:19 a.m.: Nope.
Roland, 11:19 a.m.: Absolutely not.
Henry, 11:21 a.m.: Ah, well that’s nice. Stupid, but, you know, it’s the thought that counts or something.
Chris, 11:22 a.m.: I’m going to tell Grandma you said that.
Henry, 11:22 a.m.: L, how did you find that emoji?
Matt, 11:23 a.m.: Olddddddd man.
Mar, 11:23 a.m.: Olddddddd man.
Chris, 11:23 a.m.: Olddddddd man.
Leo, 11:25 a.m.: Whoa, Jones Line in surround sound. You guys practice that?
Matt, 11:26 a.m.: Nice of you to join us.
Leo, 11:28 a.m.: Some of us have early-morning batting practice—
Mar, 11:28 a.m.: Ohhhhhhh fancy
Leo, 11:30 a.m.: I am coming for your air hockey title, Pegs.
Mar, 11:31 a.m.: shaking boots gif
Chris, 11:32 a.m.: …..
Matt, 11:33 a.m.: What is that supposed to mean?
Roland, 11:35 a.m.: Maybe it’s code? Did we come up with a code and not remember it?
Henry, 11:36 a.m.: Nah, I would have written it down. Did Rubes say how many hits the video’s getting yet? It was a lot longer than I thought it’d be.
Matt, 11:38 a.m.: I guess we’re just that entertaining.
Mar, 11:39 a.m.: I AM GOING TO WRECK YOU ALL AT AIR HOCKEY THIS CHRISTMAS
Lizzie, 11:40 a.m.: Pegs, send that shaking in your boots gif again.
Chris, 11:40 a.m.: Ohhhhh that’s what it was.
Mar, 11:41 a.m.: Obviously. And you guys are all idiots if you think I’m relinquishing that easy. You suck.
Roland, 11:41 a.m.: The trash talk is legitimately scathing
He didn’t win the air hockey tournament that Christmas. But neither did Peggy – a Jones on Jones second-round matchup that left Matt in the finals and Lizzie on the other side of the table and she was much better at trash talk than he could ever hope to be.
She threw her hands up when she scored the final goal, getting several inches on her jump and there were shouts and cries, but she just leapt towards Roland, arms around her waist and feet still off the ground. And Roland grinned at Matt.
“You don’t get to claim this,” Matt said, but that was probably pointless and he was already past the twenty-goal mark that season.
And the seasons kept coming. Goals and a shooting technique that was more “borrowed” than stolen and, eventually, Matt had to do a preseason video by himself. It wasn’t as weird as he thought it’d be, just generic questions about his hopes for the season and how many points he was aiming for, straight-forward questions because he might have been the veteran and he was slumped in a different chair when the video went live, a ding of his phone and link sent in a message without any other recipients.
Roland, 12:32 p.m.: We figure it’s a little early, but the kid’s got to get tips from somewhere and you’re definitely the best hockey player he knows.
Matt’s fingers shook slightly when he pressed his thumb to the video, a clearly being held up by his mom Noah Locksley, the tiny hockey stick he and Claire had sent him a few months ago clutched in his hand. He couldn’t get much behind his shot, being a baby and all, but it was still pretty damn cute and Matt’s laugh soared out of him without explicit permission.
Matt, 12:34 p.m.: Good technique, keep the blade on the ice. The kid’s got a promising future ahead of him.
Roland, 12:34 p.m.: Yeah, we tend to think so. Score one later, ok?
Matt, 12:35 p.m.: Deal.
They taught Noah his first secret handshake when he could stand up on his own.
