thoughtsafter3am

melissa | she/her/hers | proverbial night owl | a doctor (not the medical kind) | some mixture of aroace and bi | bookworm | dreamer | geek | feminist | sometimes a (women’s) sports commentator, apparently | clearly I’m a millennial with all these labels. it's nice to meet you.

[pixiedustandbluebutterflies]

Being bi oriented aroace is a trip because it's like ...

In THEORY I'm into everyone

In PRACTICE I'm not really into anyone

[pwhl-mybeloved]

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Victoire fans right now after seeing the tweet about the press conference re: a medical update about Marie-Philip Poulin:

[double-pad-stack-glove-save]

y’all are right, the entire team deserves to be on child leashes.

rip kori chevrie

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Welcome “Emma Maltais? Emma. Mal.tais” and Jessie Eldridge and her pink scrunchie.

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Catch me longingly looking at what’s in the Canada shop.

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Every other team looking at the Sirens’ net right now:

(jk I hope Daoust has been doing shenanigans with free agents because otherwise this is such a questionable leadership vision)

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The Fleet-Sirens games are going to be iconic: “Oops all defenders!” vs “the best defense is a good offense.” Together they’d have both halves of a hockey version of a best friends necklace.

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Now, if the Sirens don’t pick a goalie, does that mean it’s just constant 6-on-5 play? Because that could really be something. Can’t score if they can’t get the puck. Maybe Daoust is playing 3D chess…

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Shout out to everyone live-blogging the draft as I am unable to watch. You will be reincarnated as a lotus flower 🪷.

[hearteyesilya]

WIFE LINE LIVES ON BABY!!!!

[sheepshot]

While I do find the league's manner of going about the draft order to be ridiculous, I do think many people insisting the logic of "We want the expansion teams to be competitive" as an invalid or otherwise irresponsible fear of the league to be completely missing one of the biggest concerns to the league as a whole: The Persistent Idea That The Women's Game is Inferior, Boring, and Inherently Less Competitive than the men's game.

Having BOTH expansion teams struggle this season is detrimental to the goal of dismissing those concerns/rhetoric, which are far more commonly espoused in Male-fan dominated spaces. The league does not want to risk 1/3 of their teams further proving the sexist points of these groups. The league wants these groups to be potential fans- not just because it's an established, tested, and plentiful market, but because it will make all of the teams far more appealing to any future owners.

It is becoming abundantly clear (anecdotally and recently statistically proven) that women's leagues are bringing in a new type of fan- Fans who may have never been into sports before, or fans who were tangentially aware of local and family allegiances to franchises, but did not participate openly in the community around those teams. That's great for these leagues! Those fans are now going to fill seats and post content and open their wallets for a sports team when they never would have before- but those fans aren't quite proven yet. They might not have the tolerance for bullshit that these older fans have. These new fans could jump ship at the drop of a hat- and the league knows it.

But, the number of current fans they piss off with these decisions are nothing compared to the hoards of fans who may have their minds changed with competitive local teams. Losing a few thousand, maybe 10,000 fans now? Absolutely worth it when you could potentially gain millions more from the NHL franchises (or lack thereof!) in these expansion markets.

While the current PWHL fanbase may not comprise of many/a majority of cross-league fans at the moment, the future of the league is going to depend on breaking into the existing markets. Not because the league explicitly has to 'demean itself' by catering to male dominated fanbases, but because if it does not attempt to enter these spaces and prove the Women's Game is just as interesting as the Men's, it'll be stuck in gender-limited spaces it's always existed in. Separate But Equal is not a viable solution here, and I'm glad the league does at least seem to understand that.

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How some of y’all are treating Hilary Knight right now:

This narrative about the Hilary Knight trade being simultaneously the Worst Move Ever™ and a calculated Machiavellian-esque manipulation of the rules is wild. It’s not like she’s Father Time out there on the ice, trying to out skate the Grim Reaper or that Detroit has shot their season in the foot by drafting one of the most recognizable and franchise-igniting players. Show some respect to Captain America.

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They might have been silent the first few days but, man, seeing the draft order and how they are (allegedly) picking twice in the first round, the real winners of expansion might truly be Las Vegas.

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BREAKING: PWHL draft order to be determined by which GM can scale the Aggro Crag the fastest. In the event of a tie, the tie will be broken by who can complete the Shrine of the Silver Monkey.

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Maybe the reason Detroit hasn’t drafted a goalie isn’t just because this whole expansion process has been a cluster but because secretly Manon is trying for the elusive GM/goalie combo in a “be your own boss” kind of situation after seeing Troy Ryan become both GM/coach in San Jose.

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I think the PWHL must have outsourced the creation of expansion rules to Ben Wyatt because they have big “Cones of Dunshire” energy:

Like phase three just ended but I am still so confused. (And I play super crunchy and rules heavy board/tabletop games so I love convoluted rules.)

I’m treating players as being under Schodinger’s Protection: players are both protected and unprotected until we take that metaphorical lid off and we’re either overjoyed or crushed.