after the sunshine swing, novak and rafa don't play each other again until the quarters in rome - and rome, of course, becomes a fixture in their rivalry over the years.
but before we get there i'd like to talk about two of my favourite photos of them, taken by clive brunskill in april 2007:
(continued under the cut.)
an interesting aspect of rafole to me is they participated in a lot of the same photoshoots, promos, etc. in the first decade or so, in large part because they shared an agent, benito perez-barbadillo; this is what brunskill said about this photoshoot
novak would go on to lose to ferrer in the monte carlo masters, while rafa beat roger in the final.
but now, here we are: we are in rome.
(they're so tiny. they're so small.)
the match was on clay, and rafa on clay was still too much of a force of nature for novak to beat at this point in his career; he won the match 6-2 6-3 and continued on to win the tournament.
novak's insane self-belief, which had been visible after their first match at roland garros, was back on display, but this time he had a lot more to back it up with.
they would go on to play again in the semifinals of the french open and wimbledon. rafa won the first of those in straight sets (though you wouldn't know it from any photos of the net exchange)
before doing what he generally does at the french open.
while novak retired partway through the third set in their wimbledon encounter after they were at 1 set apiece.
retirement with various physical issues was something that would continue to plague his matches for a few more years.
he got his rematch in canada on the hardcourt, though, and here he won in two
before defeating roger in the final to win the upside down ice cream tophy.
it was a bit of an omen: he would then make his best ever run in a grand slam, reaching the final of the us open.
during that run, he also impersonated rafa for the first time in public
and while he lost in the end to roger, in a reversal of their montreal match, with this he cemented himself as a major player in tennis.
near the end of that season, this is what he and rafa had to say about each other:
they're a little awkward about it, as you can see, and even though it's been noted before this point that they get along pretty well, their friendship picks up a lot more over the next couple of years.
at the end of 2007, both are among the top players in the world, and they play the tour finals ― for novak, it's the first time. they have one match, which rafa wins
but more importantly this year is the start of their rivalry being a real fixture at the top of the sport, and not just a novelty.
if you saw the full video of carlos alcaraz and his team watching rafa's retirement announcement, perhaps you noticed that his coach seemed, dare i say it, reluctant to join in. if you follow juanki and/or jcf academy on social perhaps you noticed that amidst effusive tributes from across the spanish tennis establishment both were conspicuously silent. why the seeming reticence from one spanish great to the spanish great? well. WELL.
juanki, rafa, and the case of the green-eyed monster
("but user alacants, in creating this post aren't you ignoring the vagaries of human nature in favor of imposing a narrowly crafted narrative onto a twenty-year relationship that is probably both more complex and less contentious than you make it out to be?"
of course i am. what are you, new?)
davis cup 2004
prior to 2004 juanki was Mr Davis Cup. he often cites the 2000 cup (where his win decided the tie) as the most meaningful title of his career, more so than roland garros. then 2004 rolls around, spain makes their third final in 5 years… and the day before the tie begins juanki is dropped from the lineup in favor of some 18 year old who's never even played a match at roland garros. (<- actually. isn't that crazy??)
"obviously i am not jumping up and down with happiness." and to be fair to him everyone else sounded baffled as well. and then… the 18 year old had the nerve to play andy roddick in front of a record-breaking 27k home crowd and win.
to twist the knife: at the last minute juanki got named to the doubles match alongside tommy robredo and they got CRUSHED, just absolutely destroyed, by the bryan brothers. held serve once in three sets.
so it is maybe not a surprise that afterwards juanki does not exactly look happy despite nominally winning a major trophy.
it's noticeable enough to make the news. rafa is forced to tell the press nooooo, it's not true that they don't get along. juanki then goes on the record to say that on the trip back from sevilla the captains were only paying attention to nadal and moya, the winners, and ignoring him and tommy, the losers. while this may be true there is no way to make it sound good that you're saying it, yk.
(if you click through you will see that in the same interview he describes himself and rafa as "good friends." rafa goes on to describe them as friends on several more occasions! juanki does not.)
three months later, spain went out in the first round of the 2005 cup, 4-1 to slovakia. juan carlos was not part of the team lmao. and indeed a qualification play-off in september would be his last taste of davis cup action for several years. (that last call-up was ferru's first btw. red string of fate. SORRYYYY I KNOW IT'S NOT ABOUT THEM.)
roland garros 2005
unfortunately if you're juanki it did not get better. here he is in 2005 "[accusing] spanish media of a nadal obsession." (that link will also give you a taste of the contemporary fan discourse lmao.) he was baited, but also, they baited him because they knew he'd rise to the occasion.
rafa nadal btw had just played his first roland garros, which he won. juanki at rg: "unlike the media-designated extraterrestrials i'm just a HUMBLE PLAYER trying to win matches. i'm not one of the favorites but maybe if i keep trying…" he was then forced to deny he was jealous.
(this was shortly after rafa beat him for the title in barcelona, resulting in this cheerful take: "when you're on a high like nadal is everything seems to go right - but it doesn't last forever.")
rafa, meanwhile, is not helping:
QUESTION: Other than Carlos Moya, were there any other Spanish players you grew up watching, admiring? Did you follow Juan Carlos at all when you were growing up?
RAFAEL NADAL: No, my favorite was Moya.
rome 2008
the hits continue. by 2008 rafa nadal is THE spanish tennis man, he's the guy everyone thought juanki was going to be. (ouch.) and now they are about to meet in rome. rafa btw has been undefeated on clay since the famous federer hamburg final, for an overall record of 117-4 since 2005. he's never lost in rome.
so imagine the reaction when juanki actually wins.
—wait did you think it was something like "ferrero shocks king of clay in tantalizing return to form." lol of course it's not, it's "nadal suffers freak loss due to blisters." harsh? rafa didn't think so: "i congratulate juan carlos, but today for sure was not my best tennis."
never mind that juanki was also playing through injury, bad enough that it took him out of barcelona then functionally killed his roland garros. (safe to assume that after 2004 he's more or less always injured.) this is typical sports media syndrome, nothing new or particularly unexpected. but once again: juanki is not, like, shy about expressing his thoughts.
QUESTION: The fact that Rafa was injured - he complained about the foot injury at the press conference here - what does that take away from your win? Do you feel it takes a little bit of shine away from your win?
JUAN CARLOS FERRERO: [...] When you go to the court and you decide to play, I think the injury is not reason to say yes or no… You know, at the end I play a little bit better than him. I don't know if it was big reason to don't play at his best level, the injury.
QUESTION: How much do you think this loss and the injury is going to affect Nadal's preparation for Roland Garros?
JUAN CARLOS FERRERO: I don't know. Maybe you have to ask him.
fortunately (???) this match was immediately followed by an explosive spanish tennis row that ended with top players including juanki and rafa joining hands in solidarity to push the president of rfet out of his job, so this did not become the topic it might have otherwise.
davis cup 2009
it's now 2009. juanki hasn't played a davis cup tie since 2005. he's just dropped out of the top 100. and then… rafa and ferru get injured. juanki gets a dc call-up. he heroically saves the qf tie! he wins his sf rubber! his teammates are tossing him in the air, the crowds are chanting his name! he doesn't make the final roster bc everyone is healthy but he's a reserve, he's there with the team. they sweep the tie, the heroes are undisputedly his special friend ferru (epic comeback) + verdasco/lopez (deciding win over undefeated opponents). …and then they go for the obligatory meeting with the prime minister who's like, RAFA YOU WON THE DAVIS CUP FOR US THANK YOU SOOOO MUCH WE LOVE YOU.
a lot of people were unhappy about this, presumably (??) including actual rafa. afterwards, juanki says, "most of the team thought it was disrespectful." one wonders who was not included in "most."
(honestly? probably feli lopez.)
valencia 2013
speaking of actual rafa, did he notice and/or care about anything of this? i mean he definitely noticed. but i assume he didn't care. (rafa experts are welcome to chime in here.) after all, a couple years later rafa spoke at juanki's retirement ceremony. there was a hug and everything!
so like, ok, they are cordial, they are friendly, rafa's place is cemented in history and juanki is retired anyway. THEN less than a year later rafa pulls out of juanki's beloved valencia open to enter a different more lucrative tournament instead and he is fully dead to juanki who is calling him out in the press like, i think it's his DUTY as a SPANIARD to support a spanish tournament.
which event did he choose instead, btw? Roger Federer's Basel™. which he hadn't played since 2004. and then he ended up withdrawing anyway. there was some conspiracy theory type thinking at the time that he only committed to basel so he had an excuse not to play valencia (well that and the $$$) which is almost certainly untrue but is also very funny.
meanwhile juanki sooort of backpedaled like i mean we don't understand his decision but we respect it… sure, juanki.
late-career detente (?)
juanki has since repeatedly gone on the record noting 1. the only player he ever felt inferior to was roger federer 2. who btw is the best player of all time. these are not neutral statements coming from a spaniard and no one is taking them that way.
now having said that, he has also had plenty of nice or at least diplomatic things to say in recent years about rafa's will to compete, etc. "i wouldn't like him to get [to roland garros] and not win matches." while also dropping gems such as:
q: which of the big three was the hardest to play and why?
juanki: federer. but i'm just glad i managed to beat all three of them before i retired. :)
with all of this in mind, the aforementioned video of carlos and team watching rafa's message. is. so. funny. JUAN CARLOS GROW UPPPP. like presumably the academy at least will say something once the big moment rolls around but when literally every other spanish tennis player under the sun is posting their glowing tributes and you are Haughtily Silent it's so obvious!! son!!!
additionally: this makes juanki spending the olympics at home so fucking funny. yeah, i bet you DIDN'T want to watch your special friend and your beloved protege coo over rafael nadal for two weeks. like in the year 2024 there's no way it's that serious, nothing more than "my annoying ex-coworker i still have to be polite to." just, they're not friends. and ferru and rafa (and now carlos) are. and it's very funny to me personally.
in conclusion: "rafa largely to blame for ferrero's downfall" (espn, 2012)
Connor Bedard and Fraser Minten; through the years - a primer
before we get into it i wanna say that @tor16 and i have been working on this primer and compiling as much as we could over the course of a couple months so we could have everything in one place. we tried our best to link our sources to everything also to double as an archive for them. ok thats it thank you go nuts!
Connor Bedard and Fraser Minten met in the spring of 2017. Fraser was 13 Connor was 12.
“First time meeting Connor (around spring 2017) I was 13 and I remember he came out to a skate with my spring hockey team,” Minten told the Tribune in a text conversation. “Everyone was young at that age and didn’t really pay attention to who’s who or what’s really happening. Just go out on the ice and have a blast with your friends. So Connor was just another body. But I distinctly remember, right away we were doing this 1-on-1 battle drill out of the corner, and Connor went up against our best player, first rep, and the way he was able to stick-handle around him and then finish it off was insane. He made our best player look silly.”
Fraser studied his shot and stick-handling the entire time they practiced.
“The creative plays he was making just didn’t happen at that age. I would try and shoot as quick as him in my rep and the puck would barely get off the ice.”
He mentioned seeing Connor out on the ice with NHL players like Ryan Nugent-Hopkins and Matthew Barzal and thinking he was “just as good if not better than them.”
"He was shooting the puck just as good if not better than those guys. And that was probably when I realized it was pretty world-class, that release."
Fraser has talked a lot about noticing how skilled Connor was even when they were still so young, how he always expected to see him succeed.
“I ended up on the ice with him a lot over the next spring/summer as I started going to the North Shore winter club … and every day (my friends and I) would go there, Connor would be on the ice. It seemed that he was always there before we arrived and was still on the ice as we were leaving. Whether it be specifically practicing one-timers, doing shootouts for hours or just gliding around flicking pucks around, talking about different scenarios, he just simply loved being on the ice and playing around and the joy he got from it seemed inexhaustible. By the time I got to play with him for the first time the following year at West Van, I was not surprised at all at the level he was playing at. I’d seen him make goalies years older than him look like sieves, scoring crazy releases that kids that age didn’t even think about. He knew how to get defenders to put their stick exactly where he needed them and then slip it under, go around them and the puck was through the goalie’s five-hole before they had even set for the shot.”
The next year they were teammates for West Van Warriors and became good friends.
“He never treated you like he was way better than you, even though he was, and wouldn’t get frustrated with you when you would make mistakes. This made it really easy to learn from him and made playing with him so much fun.”
According to their coach, Minten learned a lot from playing with him.
“He identified he had one of the best shooters on the planet in Connor Bedard on his team. He said, ‘I’m going to have the courage to stay as close to Connor in shooting practice as I can’.”
Some pictures of them from their West Van era (both from Minten’s instagram)
This would pay off, because the two of them led the team in shooting percentage that year.
Their stats during their time playing together.
You can see them playing together here, Connor is wearing #98 and Fraser is #16.
Connor was given exceptional status to play in the WHL despite being a year younger, he was drafted to the Regina Pats and Minten was drafted to the Kamloops Blazers. Despite no longer being teammates, they still kept in touch and remained friends.
Minten was asked about Connor Bedard before he was set out to play against him in the Regina vs Blazers game in Kamloops.
“Yeah he’s one of my good friends back home, great guy, excited to play against him.”
Q: Have you talked to him about what it’s like to go through this media frenzy?
“No, I haven’t really talked to him about it. I’m sure he’d rather just not hear about it for once. I think it’s pretty crazy for him, it probably feels a little surreal at times–he’s just trying to play hockey and have some fun and he gets a lot of attention for sure.”
Q: What do you think it would be like to be in his shoes?
“Yeah it’d be tough I bet. It’s pretty hard to deal with the outside noise when you’ve got that much of it all the time but if there’s a guy who can deal with it well, it would be him.”
Even during the off seasons, they spend a lot of time together training, skating, and even doing inline hockey. In a media availability in 2024, Minten talks about how often they see each other in the summers and that they’re still pretty close.
Q: How much are you still in touch with Connor Bedard?
“Yeah I still talk to him quite a bit, I mean in the summer we get to see each other almost every day training, so hopefully get to go say hi to him after this.”
Some pictures of them together during the offseason. training pics from their trainer's website.
This is a post from the inline hockey league they competed in, and this is a video from one of the summer tournaments they played in together.
They also like to interact with each other on instagram so here are some of their replies on each other's posts:
During the NHL draft in 2022, Connor Bedard, who was slated to be the first-overall pick for the 2023 draft, flew out to Montreal to watch the draft.
Coincidentally, this year was also the year that Fraser Minten got drafted to the Leafs. The draft happened on July 7, 2022, just two days after Minten’s birthday. According to this tweet, he had arrived at Montreal on his birthday, and would be rooming with Connor Bedard.
“I remember before our bantam season, he wasn’t even really projected to get drafted into the WHL,” says the 17-year-old Bedard, who helped Canada advance to Saturday’s final at the world junior hockey championship at Rogers Place. “He put up, like, 70 points or something like that, so I knew he was going to be the steal of the draft. To see him going as high as he did to Toronto, one of the biggest franchises — he was pumped. It was really cool for me to see that.”
“He was obviously a big help in my career,” Minten says of Bedard, “from playing with him and just learning so much from being by his side, and watching how hard he works every day and how much he gives to the game ... So, it was really cool for him to be there and it was really good for him, as well, getting a bit of a look at what it’s like in person prior to (his draft year).”
When asked about the pressure Connor was facing as the projected first overall pick, Fraser also said:
“I don’t think he worries about that stuff at all,” Minten says. “For him, it’s just about playing the game. He just loves the game, and everything that comes with it is a bonus for him. I don’t think he’s worried at all about what other people say … I think, by the end, he’ll be right where everyone hopes he is.”
Also worth highlighting that this is the title of the article all of these quotes come from:
Another fun fact about the 2022 draft; Chicago gave Toronto the pick that they used for Minten.
In a trade with Chicago, the Leafs traded Petr Mrazek and a first round pick (25th) in exchange for a second round pick (38th). The second round pick would turn out to be what the Leafs used to draft Fraser Minten.
“And like Cowan, the Leafs were set on Minten. Though they were slated to pick at 25, they began to believe they could nab Minten later on. He was still on the board on day two at 38 after a trade with the Chicago Blackhawks allowed the Leafs to pick high in the second round.”
Also, just for the sake of including this somewhere, they also share an agent.
The summer before the 2023-24 season began, the two of them lived together in Toronto for a few weeks. Why Connor was in Toronto is not actually known, but they’ve both brought this up multiple times—when they refer to living together, this is the time period they’re talking about.
In this interview, Fraser gets asked about the phone calls he made after making the team and says he “... called my good buddies from junior teams and bantam midget teams I played with right away.”
According to this interview, Connor and Fraser exchanged messages of support for one another during training camp. Minten was also asked who was the better player when they were linemates in West Van:
"Him, by a mile," Minten said. "By a mile. Hopefully we get to play against each other at some point."
After Minten made the Leafs roster, “his WHL pal Connor Bedard sent him a good luck message and said “I hope I play against you”.”
The Leafs and Blackhawks played against each other on October 16th 2023, which was their first NHL game against one another. Connor was asked about playing against him for the first time:
“Of course you dream about it, once I got picked and we knew he was here of course—we actually lived together for a little bit this summer in Toronto, so we talked about it a bit there. I don’t know if you guys [in the media] expected him to make the team. In his mind, he expected to make the team, and I never expected anything less from him. The way he earned that spot, he showed everyone,” Bedard said. “Right when it was announced he made the team, we were fired up, talking about how it feels like yesterday we were playing on a line in bantam. It’s crazy how time flies. It’s really special.”
Minten was asked what he remembers from their days of playing together, if they ever talked about playing against each other at the NHL level:
“I don’t think we ever talked about that, obviously we both wanted that to happen—probably him more than me at that point, he probably thought it was more of a realistic possibility. But I remember he was just unreal, better than everybody and could score at will, and was also just a super humble and hardworking kid.”
Minten also got asked “how to stop him”, and said “he can do everything, so you just want to limit his space, time, and get the puck away from him.”
Later in October, in response to a question about locker room arguments over CHL rivalries, Connor’s first example of another player who came up through the WHL was: “I grew up playing with Fraser Minten in Toronto, that’s pretty cool.”
In this interview, Minten gets asked: “I don't know how many people have asked you—probably a million—being Connor Bedards close friend and teammate, I'm assuming you're not surprised with what he's done since he left North Van, in the dub and in the NHL, probably not surprised at all?”
“No, no, not at all. He works harder than anybody else, like significantly. I think his teammates in Chicago would say the same thing. He's got a level of commitment and passion and dedication that is genuinely unmatched by some of the superstars in the NHL, I think. I think we’ll continue to see him defy people’s expectations, and even if he doesn’t he’ll be doing everything he can to, so, I wouldn’t bet against him that’s for sure.”
In 2023, Fraser Minten was selected to be the captain for World Juniors and Connor sent him a congratulatory message.
In this video with WJC Team Canada, in response to a question about the first time scouts started showing up at his games, Minten said:
“I remember there started being a lot of guys in black jackets at games when I started playing with Connor. There would be lots of them because he was special—still is.”
In this Leafs TikTok where the prompt was to give a compliment to the person behind you, Minten points to his teammate’s jersey and says “best 98 out there.” Presumably a friendly chirp towards first overall 2023 draft pick Connor Bedard.
In this media availability from the Leafs-Blackhawks game in December 2024, Minten was asked what it was like to play against Connor again a year later.
“Yeah it's awesome, anytime it’s the uh—you know, it's the NHL and we’re playing against each other. If you told us that when we were 13-14 we would’ve found it really cool, so it’s special for sure.”
Fraser Minten scored his second NHL goal against the Chicago Blackhawks later that day.
(BONUS: Fraser usually has a crazy game when he plays against Connor. In the Pats vs Blazers game he was awarded second star for his 2 goals and 1 assist game, totaling 3 points in the Blazers 9-3 victory over the Pats. He scored his second NHL goal against the Blackhawks, helping Toronto win against Chicago 4-1. In 2025 after being recalled by the Bruins and playing vs the Blackhawks, despite a loss, he led the team in both SOG and shifts taken. Pasta went on to say that Minten’s line was the best line that night.)
After the trade to Boston, Minten spent a couple games playing in Providence before getting the call up to play for the Bruins, a couple days before the Bruins were set to play against the Blackhawks in Boston. There were no schedules the day before the game so they took the opportunity to get dinner together at Abe & Louie’s.
“They had the opportunity to go out to dinner last night. And for Fraser Minten, he just got to town. Asked, where’d you decide to go, where’d you take him? He said ‘I googled steakhouse and some place– Abe something came up.’ I said, good choice! Abe & Louie’s!”
BONUS: idk where to put this bc for some reason I can’t find where this came from but here’s a picture of Minten wearing a Chicago Blackhawks hat from 2021 (also, somehow the only NHL teams that Minten follows on instagram are the Leafs (drafted to) the Bruins (traded to) the Canucks (vancouver kid) and the Blackhawks (???)
(same hat just backwards, from minten's instagram)
4/16/25 - this is all for now. this primer will be updated anytime something significant happens.
UPDATE - 06/20/25
Clips (not mine) of Connor and Fraser taken in Vancouver for their summer training program with Kaivo.
08/14/25 - I'm adding this now bc i forgot to when i originally made this post but here is a post about Fraser's mom talking about Connor and his parents, what it was like to play with him and be his teammate
as a day 1 connor bedard lover i think it's so interesting, how differently each of bedsy's 3 major relationships (that we know of) have taken shape
with bedmint, everything is soft. years and years of freindship doesn't smooth everything over as much as it makes the rough parts easy to spot, easy to approach. i think we should talk about this. do you remember when you told me this back in bantam? mom asked me about you. minty probably doesn't know connor's routine anymore, but i bet he still knows all of connor's tells, because if there's one thing connor is more than stubborn, it's consistent. van city vignettes, childhood memories softened by that joy you get when you discover you're actually really good at this cool thing you like. and fraser watched connor get better, watched connor get first overall, but that joy never faded. not even when he was traded away from his forever city. because when they're together, that spark comes back
it's taking notes of places in chicago and toronto, then chicago and boston, to take him later. summers are special because they remind him of him. hiking around saint marks, watching the sun set over kitsilano, trying out new food in downtown toronto and fraser reminding the waiter connor's allergic to nuts because the waiter's too busy staring slack-jawed and connor never remembers to say anything. maybe they don't text as often as they used to, maybe they don't call every night like they used to, but there's photos. a lot of photos. i missed you. do you still like this flavour of ice cream? yeah i still play piano sometimes. oh you like baseball now? me too! see you in the world series >:) i bought this because i thought of you. they'll see each other again in the summer, and maybe at the olympics (not this one, but next one. or the one after. or--)
with bedkorch, everything is careful. not quite cautious, not quite anxious, but somewhere in between. slow, definitely. the second most important night of korch's life, he goes online to read articles about himself but the only thing they're talking about is this kid, connor bedard. the most important night of korch's life, the hawks post a video of it and they add text and korch's name is typed in a smaller font that connor's. but maybe it was for the better, because connor was there on the ice as a steady presence as kevin's legs threatened to give out, and they traded smiles after their rookie lap. smiles turned to heated debates over the dub to something that could be bigger. kevin knows he's not connor bedard, but he's learning how to be kevin korchinski, and connor promises him that kevin korchinski will be someone worth remembering too. i think they'll send me down to rockford again-- okay, and? you'll fucking light it up there. give it time.
it's growing pains. it's sophomore slumps. it's connor not knowing how to be there for kevin when his father passes so he awkwardly offers video games. chel nights become a staple. it's kevin not knowing how to distract connor mid-fit after an equipment manager moves his shit so he ropes connor into sewer. connor kicks the ball right into kevin's face and kevin never lets him live it down. they coach kids together, do a podcast, do all the things rookies are supposed to do and kevin's the one watching connor break out of his shell. kevin's scared, about his body never catching up with his mind and the hawks prospect pool swallowing him whole. connor's scared, about the weight of the world on his shoulders and the buzz in the back of his head that threatens to take over whenever he breaks routine. kevin gets sent to rockford and they don't talk about it, but it's okay. kevin watches all connor's games, all his media avail. not taking any shit. connor spins every night into a solid wall. he checks the icehogs socials to make sure korch isn't concussed. slowly, carefully, it'll come back
with bedzar, everything is light. he can't feel anything in his lungs when he laughs that hard. sometimes it feels like he's floating. dude this new tiktok game is so hard you have to scream and the chicken gets hit by a car i keep fucking it up. comedy movies they don't watch, endless memes they quote at each other, party games connor takes way too fucking seriously on the plane. going back to hotels because frankie got connor hooked on big ten ncaam, since he knows connor loves ball and maize pride still runs in his blood. teenage sleepovers never felt this fun. frankie has so many uofm stories, and most of them aren't even funny but he laughs at his own jokes and that makes connor laugh too. was this what connor missed out on? frank's alarm is so fucking loud that it shakes the whole room, but connor likes it anyway
it's breakout seasons, power rankings, foundations of a team that's starting to shape around them. pickles, spence, kaiser, the pieces falling in place with connor and frank at the heart of it. everything is shared, because everything is theirs together. dude dude show me that video from last night, i forgot to save it yeah yeah you know the one. boards, checks, scrums, fuck yous, wicked sharp grins on the bench right after. connor likes every reel he sees of frank crawling out of the brawl pile to hit the celly. frank screenshots connor getting in tucker's face to use as his contact photo. 6 fucking 7, every minute every hour. it's not funny anymore. it's the funniest shit on the planet. october sped by and they're still flying. hitting the ice has never felt as freeing for connor as it has when it's with frank, and frank's shouting first to the crease pays for dinner. they're 50-50 on that, they're 50-50 on practically everything other than their fantasy teams (bedsy's winning. frankie makes excuses) it's locked up. they're not worried at all
yet somehow, they all come down to the same thing, of carving out a smaller space for connor. i think a lot of people equate relationships as growing something bigger, making something bigger, but for connor, having something smaller is more key to his character. bedsy's gone his whole life only existing in big spaces: big skates, big shoes, big block text reading FIRST OVERALL THE NEXT NEXT ONE SIDNEY CROSBY CONNOR MCDAVID SENSATIONAL GENERATIONAL FIRST FIRST FIRST.
but all three of them have given him something small, something that's just for them, a small thing that's easy to count and keep track of and put in his pocket so he doesn't misplace it. photos of celtics games. facetimes about dub brackets. instagram reel notifications saved to look at in the morning.
small steps small moments small days small seasons, bit by bit by bit
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