do i ever write about anything else these days

[whynot]

Twice last week now, I burst out laughing 'cos I was reading fic on my phone and people around me were like "why are you laughing" and bros why do you think i laugh, i laugh because i am happy! i laugh because the world is a Beautiful Place. But I'm not going to tell you that it's because I'm reading fic about how Brad Marchand is sometimes a literal cat and how Sidney Crosby is about to partake of a consensual gangbang. Not in the same fic, but who's counting??

Pens friends! I have a Sidney Crosby question, for maybe research? First of all, what is real? Why this motif in fic where Crosby gives the Most Canned Answers to the media? I mean, yes his answers are canned, but they don't don't sound any more canned than the media answers of other athletes in the league or even in other sports? But why is fic emphatically all "of COURSE Sid is circumlocutory at journalists" and making a thing of it? I feel like I am missing something, which is entirely probable because I am a n00b. Mostly I've just watched the stuff linked to on here and some 'In the Room' episodes.

Question-ish #2: have you contemplated your own mortality today? Sometimes I'm reading a fic and I get skeptical about a thing a character did, but then I'm like, "What if I'm only thinking that because they are basically children and I am no longer Kids Today and am losing touch with the youth? Maybe that IS what all the kids do. Maybe I'm just old and don't understand." Am I old? will i die someday.

3: OK, but in the page of videos I linked to up there, probably the first one I watched was the Sid vs. Ovi thing because I'm predictable. And one line of Sid's has stuck with me, basically something about how the rivalry wasn't personal, mostly started out as everyone being excited about young talent, but now the media is trying to make it personal and sometimes it succeeds, sometimes it becomes personal to him and he doesn't really like how it feels. FIC PLS. Ovi all "lol, don't let them get in your head".

Comments

[snickfic]

Honestly, Sid really is more canned, more consistently than everyone else. It's not a meme just in fandom - it's generally agreed upon by the larger hockey community, for example here. He's known - even more than most people - for using buzzwords, for basically repeating back exactly what you said, and for saying absolutely nothing whatever of note. (His answer re what started his fight with Dubinsky last week: "Nothing really. It wasn't much of a fight." This after only his 7th fight in like 10 years of hockey, with the guy who repeatedly crosschecked him in the head without penalty in the playoffs last year.)

He in general is very, very careful of the image he presents to the public. For example, there are multiple anecdotes/photos of him deliberately making sure alcohol is kept out of pictures of him. His image control is really impressive.

[whynot]

Ohhhhhh. I see, I see! Augh, that fight with Dubinsky was amazing. What is, like, the weirdest thing Sid ever got image-controlley about?

[snickfic]

I think the alcohol one is the weirdest one I've heard about.

[theladyscribe]

I did not know that about the alcohol! Fascinating!

This only furthers my intense desire to find a way to finagle an oral history interview with this dude. Like, I just want to make him talk until he runs out of media-speak and actually spills all the dirty deets of everything. This is what I want to do with my life! It is a thing that needs to happen!

[snickfic]

I SUPPORT YOU IN THIS ENDEAVOR.

[whynot]

They just showed an NHL Rivalry profile episode on the NHL network and of course it was Sid/Ovi, lolololol. So now I'm curious all over again! Which is why I just asked Snick. But also now I want to ask you, what do you reckon Ovi thinks about this ~rivalry? Increasingly it reminds me of the first chapters of imogendisease's David/Lourdes series.

[theladyscribe]

I don't really know?? I've been trying to research this actually, because fic. My guess is that Ovi and Sid have pretty similar feelings about it--it was mostly media-manufactured (and I think encouraged by the NHL, who desperately needed some spark at a time when there was a lot of fan disillusionment with the league), so it's sort of like just part of the job for them? Maybe? That's the interpretation I'm going with for my fic, anyway, though I'm not sure how much that actually bears out in real life.

[whynot]

I think one of the interesting things is how their teammates of course gets pulled into this fray. It seems to light a fire under all their asses. That game they just played? Oh my jesus. BENCH FIGHT, and then Geno and Ovi yelling at each other in Russian, oh and also, before the game with Wilson's Geno-pushing? A media-manufactured rivalry may be one thing, but I imagine that when you're standing up for your bro, shit gets at least a little real and the bodychecks get hella vicious. And the question is, how much does the bad blood follow them off the ice?

[whynot]

How do you think he feels about this ~rivalry with Ovi? I've heard both sides, that the rivalry is a bit "meh" but also that he is unimpressed by Ovi's shenans. I suppose these aren't mutually exclusive attitudes though; one can be casually disdainful of someone about some things and hobnob spectacularly for promo reasons.

[snickfic]

You know, I honestly could go either way. I think the talk of direct Sid vs. Ovi rivalry has died down a lot, and honestly as far as I can tell it was mostly manufactured by the media to begin with. They're such different players, and they don't even play the same position. So I would be surprised if Sid gives much thought one way or the other to Alexander Ovechkin: Personal Rival. I suspect he gives a lot more thought to Alexander Ovechkin: Key Player for Division Rival.

That said, all their differences in both hockey and personality (ESPECIALLY personality) make them a really fun ship. :)