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I'M ABOUT TO GET REAL MELODRAMATIC ON Y'ALL
Krug and Marchand got into a fight during practice. Oh little children, is the pressure of being a complete train wreck GETTING TO YOU? LOOK, WHAT'S THAT IN THE DISTANCE? Is it your wild card spot? It seems to be flying south for the winter, heading straight for Florida. The projected probability is that Boston has a 28% chance of making playoffs. What is the algorithm on this? There's a lot of hearts scraped raw, the silences a little heavier, Kells' pep talks a little razor-edged, and Tuukka has no patience for anyone or anything, except maybe Sveddy, who as a backup goalie is kind of off to the side and has a bird's eye view that no one else has. Sveddy's just trying to stay out of everyone's way. He's just trying to help. During TV breaks, Tuukka skates over and strategizes with him in a vindictive voice, and Sveddy adjusts his Bruins cap and listens.
Gametime shouldn't be a death knell. I take back what I say about Sveddy's bird's eye view. It's not just him. What about the kids? This season's revolving door between Boston and Providence, AHL players rotating in and out of the show with no time to really sink their teeth into this, outside looking in. Another kind of bird's eye view. Someone underwater looking up at the sun, nothing ever really focusing. Lungs burning, eyes stinging. The works.
Marchand claimed the fight was ye olde "im taller than u" debate, which, yes, they are both dumb enough for this to be plausible, but it is also acceptable to go with: Marchy just said this to appease the journalists and calm the waters. The loss to Carolina has only amped up trade rumors and there are some real anxieties backstage about who's gonna be the next guy to go. Jacobs fired some warning shots this morning, and Chiarelli has had a really wacky trigger finger lately. You never know.
It's the nature of the job. Everything's kind of ephemeral up here, people come and go, but this season, it's also adding insult to injury. The team hasn't cohered, nothing has coalesced, no kind of team chemistry is happening because guys keep going down, guys keep being shuffled to Providence, and there's nothing to hold on to. And soon there's going to be even less. Krug does something graceless on the ice, usual stuff, but when Marchy chirps, "Careful, they'll be sending you off to Edmonton next", something snaps.
There are no punches thrown, just desperate grappling, harsh breathing taken out of context. The guys pull them apart and they laugh it off, they can laugh anything off. But later, idle thoughts start drifting through Marchand's brain like a preemptive strike: maybe it won't be so bad somewhere else, maybe you can play for a winning team, maybe it'll be nicer, maybe it'll be cool. There are no more games until the middle of the week so he ends up at Krug's place again with too many beers, with all his mental detritus seeping out of his brain and out of his mouth, and that is a strategic error. Krug's face goes kind of taut, asks, "Really? You wanna go somewhere else?"
You can laugh off anything, but apparently not this. Anyway, that's not what Brad means.
The sex that night leaves marks - scratches and bruises all up and down his body, but neither of them come, Marchand too drunk for it and Krug rolling away once Marchand gives up. "I can--um, c'mere," Brad says, reaching for him, full of good and drunken intention, but Krug seems to have little interest in the offer. Says he's tired and is probably gonna turn in, and that's Marchand's cue to leave.
So he leaves. The other shoe's gonna drop soon. It hasn't been a real winter in Massachusetts this year, alternating between mild wetness and freezing dryness, no inbetween, no snow that sticks around for longer than day. It's all wrong, all sitting sideways inside him. He refuses to chalk this up to a lost year, and he heads home before he loses his resolve.
Gametime shouldn't be a death knell. I take back what I say about Sveddy's bird's eye view. It's not just him. What about the kids? This season's revolving door between Boston and Providence, AHL players rotating in and out of the show with no time to really sink their teeth into this, outside looking in. Another kind of bird's eye view. Someone underwater looking up at the sun, nothing ever really focusing. Lungs burning, eyes stinging. The works.
Marchand claimed the fight was ye olde "im taller than u" debate, which, yes, they are both dumb enough for this to be plausible, but it is also acceptable to go with: Marchy just said this to appease the journalists and calm the waters. The loss to Carolina has only amped up trade rumors and there are some real anxieties backstage about who's gonna be the next guy to go. Jacobs fired some warning shots this morning, and Chiarelli has had a really wacky trigger finger lately. You never know.
It's the nature of the job. Everything's kind of ephemeral up here, people come and go, but this season, it's also adding insult to injury. The team hasn't cohered, nothing has coalesced, no kind of team chemistry is happening because guys keep going down, guys keep being shuffled to Providence, and there's nothing to hold on to. And soon there's going to be even less. Krug does something graceless on the ice, usual stuff, but when Marchy chirps, "Careful, they'll be sending you off to Edmonton next", something snaps.
There are no punches thrown, just desperate grappling, harsh breathing taken out of context. The guys pull them apart and they laugh it off, they can laugh anything off. But later, idle thoughts start drifting through Marchand's brain like a preemptive strike: maybe it won't be so bad somewhere else, maybe you can play for a winning team, maybe it'll be nicer, maybe it'll be cool. There are no more games until the middle of the week so he ends up at Krug's place again with too many beers, with all his mental detritus seeping out of his brain and out of his mouth, and that is a strategic error. Krug's face goes kind of taut, asks, "Really? You wanna go somewhere else?"
You can laugh off anything, but apparently not this. Anyway, that's not what Brad means.
The sex that night leaves marks - scratches and bruises all up and down his body, but neither of them come, Marchand too drunk for it and Krug rolling away once Marchand gives up. "I can--um, c'mere," Brad says, reaching for him, full of good and drunken intention, but Krug seems to have little interest in the offer. Says he's tired and is probably gonna turn in, and that's Marchand's cue to leave.
So he leaves. The other shoe's gonna drop soon. It hasn't been a real winter in Massachusetts this year, alternating between mild wetness and freezing dryness, no inbetween, no snow that sticks around for longer than day. It's all wrong, all sitting sideways inside him. He refuses to chalk this up to a lost year, and he heads home before he loses his resolve.