I'm really trying to pay more attention to the Islanders this season, but it isn't going well. I think I've habituated to the hockey announcers, and I don't hate their commentators, but I'm trying to watch this interview with John Tavares and there is SO MUCH MUSIC playing behind them.

You're in New York, guys. How is your production staff so questionable?

Fake Hockey News from Dave Lozo, by way of Backhand Shelf.

3. Staal brothers retire to start boy band.

THUNDER BAY, Ontario – Feeling they have accomplished everything they could in hockey, Eric, Jordan, Marc and…who’s the other one again? Oh right. …and Jared Staal announced at a joint press conference in Thunder Bay, Ontario, that they were giving up hockey to start a four-man musical act that will perform internationally.

“We call ourselves, It’s Staal Right,” said Eric, who along with his siblings took the stage in white shirts, white pants, white shoes, and delivered a four-minute choreographed dance routine before answering the question in a sing-song voice.

“We’ve done everything we can as professional hockey players,” said Jordan. “I have a Cup, Eric has a Cup, Marc has seen us with the Cup and Jared has several plastic souvenir cups he has taken home after watching our games. We have been playing hockey since we were kids, and we decided we need a new challenge.”

It’s Staal Right will begin a six-continent world tour in September. They will also no longer be referred to as their birth names, instead adopting the blueprint that made the Spice Girls so popular in the 1990s. Eric Staal is calling himself Sporty Staal; Jordan will go by Scary Staal; Marc’s new name is Posh Staal and Jared will now be known as Other Staal, making the transition easiest for him.

“Staal power,” the group exclaimed at the conclusion of their press conference which was followed by the first public performance of their song, “Brothers Gotta Hug.”

I do sort of enjoy the horrible puns on NHL.com - the one right now is "Slava Lamp" for Slava Voynov's (goal-light-lighting) game-winning goal last night.


I do wonder how there aren't more rpf fics out there with horrible hockey puns. Like, surely someone has written "A Distinct Kissing Motion" or "A Distinct Licking Motion" right?

ETA aaaand having typed that, I now think that i remember there being a kane/toews fic out there that uses "dicking" for a title like that, but damned if I'm going to Google or ao3 search any part of that.

I worked really hard at volleyball last night, okay? There was sweat and everything, so clearly what I need to do today is watch 5 hours of hockey and have corn chips & avocado for dinner.

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A meme! via muccamukk
Tell me a little about a story I haven't written, and I'll give you several sentences from that story.

Fandoms I've actually finished fic in include:

Live Free or Die Hard (actually any Die Hard but 5, which I totally forgot to see), Inception, American Idiot the musical, Stargate Atlantis, Firefly, Valentine's Day, Smokin' Aces, The Unusuals, Justified, Veronica Mars, Sports Night, The Eagle of the Ninth.

Basically anything else I've talked about here is fair game - so, uh, Teen Wolf, Vikings, Hockey RPF, The Losers, The Breakfast Club... or anything you think I might have talked about at some point, if you don't mind that I write you something with the characters heads pasted on based on 5 minutes of wikipedia and youtube.

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Of relevance to basically no one on my flist, but probably proof of how little I care about the New York Rangers: until about an hour ago, I really thought Dan Girardi was a forward. Oops.

Slightly more relevant to some of you: in looking at the google a few minutes ago, I happened upon Taylor Pyatt, whose team I could not previously have identified for love or money. The top suggested google image searches are "taylor pyatt eyes" and "taylor pyatt shirtless" and "taylor pyatt hot" with which I concur. Mostly the eyes one. here, have a link to a tumblr image

I think a bunch of you are newly on the hockey-rpf-as-original-fic bandwagon, or at least newly since part 2 of this series was published. I'm pretty sure I've never been more excited or anxious (because what if , for some bizarre reason, the author ruins everything?!?) to get a fic notification than I was this morning.

It's a glorious, dystopian au where hockey is the central thing but not at all the whole story, framed around the careers-to-date of Carter and Richards. If you're already in the fandom, you know what their story is. If not, but you feel like diving in, I almost don't want to spoil it, but I will if you'd rather have the Cliff notes on their lives. I'm sure I have a link to a primer, somewhere, or its an easy google. This is the final part of three, bringing the events up to "present" for when ionthesparrow started writing, which was sometime after last season's playoffs.

The Rebel League (55928 words) by ionthesparrow
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Hockey RPF, Sports RPF
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Author Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Relationships: Jeff Carter/Mike Richards
Characters: Jeff Carter, Mike Richards, Dustin Brown, Dustin Penner, Jonathan Quick, John Stevens
Additional Tags: Los Angeles Kings
Series: Part 3 of Hockey at the End of the World
Summary:

Rome wasn't burned in a day.

Inconsistency, this is the problem.

The news ticker on NHL Network keeps saying Flyers "Despite odds, Pronger hopes to play again," and I keep thinking "me too!" But the problem is I sort of hope that for everyone. Everyone should get to play forever until they feel like quitting.

Except Giroux. Fuck that guy.

I remembered this existed today, and then I went to go re-read it, and then I clicked the Carter/Richards tag and sorted by hit count, and this wasn't at the top, which is a damn shame, so, fic rec! Heed the warnings in the author's note etc., but it's all pretty fanon-typical for dystopia fic.

Hockey at the End of the World (25386 words) by ionthesparrow
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Hockey RPF
Rating: Mature
Warning: Author Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Relationships: Jeff Carter/Mike Richards
Characters: Jeff Carter, Mike Richards, Patrick Sharp
Summary:

Jeff has a plan: Get to camp, skate well. Make the team. Do well. Make the Orange. Survive. Win Cups. Get free.

Easy.

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If someone wants to validate my opinion of its awesomeness, I will perhaps go rec this on bestthingever. Or you can!

ionthesparrow is also the author of the Teen Wolf Written Works series, which I remember really liking all of, but I don't actually remember what happened to Derek and Stiles (and Lydia and everyone else) in the first two parts after reading the unexpected awesomeness of the Allison/Lydia third part.

I am not a hockey fan. I've never lived in a community with the critical mass of interest, and while I went to a few of our games in high school, I can't remember why. I can only imagine that one of us had a crush on someone on the team.

I haven't managed to read all of this article yet, both because it is long, and I am at work, and because it's making me more sad with every sentence.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/04/sports/hockey/derek-boogaard-a-boy-learns-to-brawl.html

That said, also read some hockey RPF last week, and found a story from last year's RPF big bang, team Canada at the Vancouver Olympics (remember that month when winter games RPF took over fandom? Good times.) that is filled with such love for the sport that it almost makes me forget how utterly useless I find watching hockey on TV to be:

going up flying, going home (master post) (Sidney Crosby/Jonathan Toews, author warns for "explicit sexual activity, very mild breathplay, cutting, scarification, violence of the hockey-related sort")

I don't have anything even vaguely approaching an appropriate icon, so therefore, uh... Logan => Canada => hockey => angst => Logan...