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[ryajewels]

🔥 SHARE GOAL #2 💚

This cute Dreamnap sticker made by NeonInk will be included in all physical orders if the share goal is met! We only need 200 likes and 150 shares to unlock it!

We still have preorders up at our shop if you're interested in snagging a copy of the c!Dream zine with 110+ pages of fanfic and art, or the various, limited run merch that comes with it!

🛒: https://cdream.bigcartel.com 📆: Ends Feb. 7, 11:59pm CST

[ryajewels]

dreamnap hockey au drabble

Dream feels it all the time, feels it pumping in his veins and his blood when he’s around him. It’s like a gravitational pull in his gut, an invisible string connecting them to each other so Dream always knows how to come back.

It’s an obsession, and Dream knows it. He doesn’t know when it started, doesn’t even know what started it, but he knows it’s been there for a long time. 

It’s hard to control when they’re in the locker room and Sapnap is half-dressed, compression shirt sticking to his curves and leaving his body open and exposed, hard to control when all Dream wants to do is put his hands all over him and dig, mark him up so he knows who he belongs to. 

He’s surprised Sapnap hasn’t caught on yet, surprised he hasn’t said anything about Dream poking and prodding at his bruises even though he winces from the pain. Maybe Dream is more careful about it than he thinks, hiding behind his role as a captain to get Sapnap to practice alone with him. He tells him it’s for the good of the team, says whatever he needs to for Sapnap to agree. And he does agree, always follows him to the rink hours before they need to, too loyal to the team to walk away from something that will help them win. 

He keeps finding himself surprised by how much Sapnap can take. Dream is strong, has to be after spending hours nearly every day in the gym working up his muscles, and each puck he shoots at Sapnap flies towards him over 80 miles an hour. And everytime, Sapnap launches himself towards it. Sometimes even Dream can’t keep track of his own puck, doesn’t know where it went until Sapnap’s tossing it back to him from his glove or kicking it away with his skate. 

He lets himself have this, tells himself it’s fine that he purposely aims where the pads don’t reach because it’s helping Sapnap with goaltending. The purple-black bruise on his stomach later that Dream keeps forgetting is there and accidentally hits only helps Sapnap with his endurance. It’s not like Dream actively wants to hurt Sapnap — he’d never harm his best friend. But, like, that’s his job as a captain, to make sure everyone is operating at the best of their abilities. And he can’t have their goalie afraid of a little pain. 

That’s what Dream tells himself as he lines up his next shot, sliding the puck back and forth on his stick until he finds an opening. He swings backwards, gathering his momentum before putting his weight into the shot and watches as it rips across the few feet of distance between him and the net. For a second he thinks it might actually go through, but Sapnap blocks it with his forearm before it can connect. 

“Fuck,” he cries out as he cradles the puck in his glove once it drops down. “Dream, that fucking hurt.” 

“Sorry,” Dream says. “You alright?” 

“Dude, I felt that through my pads. Goddamn. Can’t hold back even a little?”

Dream huffs a laugh and reaches down, pulling Sapnap up so he’s standing again. “You know I can’t do that,” he says, thumping him lightly. “Can’t have you gettin’ soft on me. Us. The team.”

Sapnap sighs and Dream sees him roll his eyes behind the cage of his helmet. He wants to push some more, wants to stay on the ice with Sapnap a little longer and test the limits of his pain, wants to see how many bruises he can mark up on his skin before Sapnap breaks. “Let’s wrap up,” he says, and Sapnap’s shoulders sag in relief. 

Clean up is easy and goes by fast, the two of them clearing out the ice in no time at all. Dream skates back to the boards and props Sapnap’s feet up to help with his skate guards, patting him lightly before they walk back to the locker room. 

Here’s the thing about Sapnap: he doesn’t feel shame. Or, if he does, not about his body. They step inside the locker room and he’s immediately stripping down without any warning, takes off all his gear until he’s just in his briefs. Sweat coats all of his body, his skin shiny and wet as he pads around the room. Dream moves slower than he does, carefully stripping himself of his upper body gear but leaves his base layer on. He knows Sapnap likes him like that, always has a compliment to give him about the muscles on his back and shoulders, sometimes will even grope at his chest. 

It’s with that thought that Dream approaches Sapnap and crowds him in from the back, pretending he’s grabbing a towel from up over his head even though they shouldn’t be there. He takes a breath, smells Sapnap’s sweat so strongly he can almost taste it on his tongue, eyeing the way droplets roll down the side of his face and neck. He lets his free hand drift down, hovering slightly on the small of his back before he’s grabbing at Sapnap’s ass. Pressed this close together means Dream can see the flush on Sapnap’s ears when he does it, moving quickly over the back of his neck. Dream squeezes a little harder just to watch how he winces before he’s shoving him off with a laugh. 

“You’re such a freak,” Sapnap huffs. 

Dream shrugs, and Sapnap shakes his head with another laugh before darting out of the locker room and to the showers. 

[ryajewels]

doing this hockey date thing bc it seemed so cute and fun and the perfect way to get me back into writing!!

[ryajewels]

Hockeyblr Coffee Dates

it's (been) january (for months in both directions) and me n the mutuals are having a hard time creating things and leaving the house and staying sane so i'm inviting whoever feels like it on a virtual coffee date.

this saturday @ whatever time works for you:

find somewhere to go (a cafe, the library, a friend's house. ideally you'd leave your house for a bit)

get a hot drink and a treat (take a picture of said treat)

work on a project of your choice (a fic, a poem, a drawing, maybe bring some knitting)

post a picture of your treat + a snippet/screenshot/picture of what you've been working on on tumblr dot com (use the tag #Hockeyblr Coffee Date & tag me (@karlkapri) or some friends in the post if you'd like some feedback/engagement)

i will be doing this every saturday. everyone who feels like they could use the creative boost (or a treat) is welcome to join.

much love x kapri 💌☕🤍

[ryajewels]

A prince coming to rescue a damsel in distress.

[ryajewels]

My god, why does every NHLer have such profound daddy issues

i don't know if you wanted a serious answer but this sent me into an absolute spiral. it got very long and more in-depth that i intended so big disclaimer that this should not be taken too seriously! the f in rpf is for fiction! if you don't want to read about me psychoanalyzing nhlers and their daddy issues don't keep reading!

easy answer is just: hockey just facilitates weird, intense father/son relationship. the long answer is more like, who knows. but i've given it a shot below.

the best way i know how to frame this is through a personal anecdote. if you've had no interaction with youth hockey, believe me when i say that the most insane aspects of the game are just. Always Like That. even when the players are seven years old and not good. even when they're seventeen playing on the worst level of a rec league, there is something strange and unsettling if you take a closer look. and that's probably especially the case at the highest level, where the guys playing have known nothing but hockey for their whole lives.

my brother played hockey until he went to university, so i grew up in rinks watching him play. he was consistently in tier one of a house league which is like... pretty good for minor hockey, but minor hockey is Not junior hockey. so he played with a lot of guys who were good, but not quite good enough (no one makes the jump from house league to the dub, basically). most of the guys (and more importantly, their parents) didn't have any illusions about that fact: they played hockey because they loved it, and most parents accepted this and would cheer their sons on like you would expect.

there were notable exceptions that are so thoroughly burned into my brain that my heart rate picks up when i think of them.

i watched a grown man be thrown out of a peewee (u13) game because he couldn't control his temper. i remember another instance where a ref had threatened to give one of the novice (U9) kids a penalty if his dad couldn't mind his language. he had to follow through in the end, because the guy just would not shut up. one of the dads on my brother's bantam (U15) team was allowed to drop his kid off, but not come into the rink, even for practices, because he was just such a hardass. there are certain swear words that i first heard during esso minor hockey week from parents who took the quarter finals that seriously. hockey parents are fucking insane.

hockey is a pretty all-consuming sport. nhlers are usually skating from the second they can walk, often because their dads are a) also hockey players b) hockey fans or c) canadian. obviously that's not always the case but hockey is just so generational. in a bit of perfunctory looking around i did find some pretty interesting thoughts about the ways in which sports acts as a way for fathers to socialize their sons to masculinity. this study is particularly insightful, and well worth a read. it interrogates the motivations of fathers and what would be considered an appropriate level of involvement in their sons' teams.

it essentially made a distinction between inclusive masculinity and orthodox masculinity. inclusive masculinity involves positive reinforcement in the vein of ‘it doesn’t matter if you win, as long as you have fun’; whereas orthodox masculinity places the emphasis on winning and competition. the study found that the former provided the most enjoyment for kids; they can see that their parent is involved and cares how they’re doing, but it never toes the line into too much investment or pressure. over-investment on the part of their fathers decreases enjoyment, for obvious reasons.

in trying to see whether this phenomenon was written about in the mainstream, i stumbled across a quote that just absolutely floored me for about five minutes:

"Further complicating matters is that we fathers are not quite sure how "professional" we want the on-field relationship with our sons to be. The identification between man and boy, after all, is never so close as on the athletic field, where the kids become walking advertisements for the potency of the father's testosterone." (from here)

like yeah. YEAH! that's it! the son is the extension of the father. you can live out your dreams through this little boy who just loves playing the game. he doesn't get why you're so hard on him, but that's okay, because it'll all pay off one day. he doesn't like that you yell at him after a loss, but that's okay! he doesn't like that you call him soft in front of his team, but that's okay! he's a hockey player, goddamnit.

hockey is about enforcing masculinity over and over again, and who better to do it than the father. so of course, when you're met with something like that, you're going to crave affection from someone who maybe could be your father, but isn't him.

(if you're still reading, here is where this actually does get into very firm rpf territory. i will be diagnosing daddy issues of various nhlers. you've been warned.)

the aforementioned study led me down a bit of a rabbit hole of speculating where certain nhl dads would fit into a study like that, and as a result of that i feel like hockey father/son relationships need to be sorted in one of three categories which all have the capacity to be troubling in their own way.

normal father and athlete son

athlete father and athlete son

coach father and athlete son

normal father athlete son

first off: normal father and athlete son would refer to a dad who never played sports at a professional level, but might've done it recreationally. plenty of normal players fit into this category. mitch marner also fits into this category but in a very not normal way.

this video (BIG warning that it's just not fun) about his father from when mitch was 12 is a pretty clear illustration of the kind of hockey dad his father was. it's a very tough watch due to the fact that paul yells at his kid, tears apart every aspect of his play, says, directly to his son: 'you better get fucking skating, mitch, i swear to god'. to a twelve year old.

i don't want to make assumptions about paul marner's behaviour or say that he's a bad father. it's just that... if that's the way you act about your 12 year old son when there are cameras from cbc news pointed at you...

it's maybe not hard to see why mitch has been historically Weird about various older nhlers (see patrick marleau and sidney crosby). when patty was asked to give marns some advice, he said: "for you i would just realize how good you are. i don't know if you realize how good you are. how great you are" and mitch can't even look at him for a moment (source here). it's a lot. (as an aside that's very interesting to me personally, mitch marner wore sidney crosby's number when he was young. do with that what you will)

all that to say, this is one of the most blatant examples of just looking for something you've never had before. feeling like you're cracking open because someone actually recognizes that you're good, not that you could be better.

this kind of relationship between a guy who is quote unquote normal and his son who is obviously great is very interesting. there's maybe an aspect of living out some kind of unfulfilled dream. there's maybe an aspect of wanting to feel like the financial investment into your kid pays off. but the relationship is weird no matter how you spin it. you cannot yell at a 12 year old about how fucking bad they are at hockey and not have it leave some kind of scar. much to consider.

athlete father athlete son

i'd categorize an athlete as just someone who has played professional hockey at some point. because hockey is such a family sport there are lots of examples of hockey dads putting their sons into hockey. plenty of them are like a really good player who you google one time and then find out their dad played, like, three seasons for detroit in the 80s, or something. sidney crosby would fit into this category: his dad was drafted and even though he never played in the nhl, you cannot argue that sid would be Sidney Crosby if his dad wasn't a hockey player. other examples would be like, william nylander, nolan patrick. famously fun guys to project issues onto.

but the specific example i'm thinking of where the father/son relationship is just Really Something would be the tkachuks.

first of all, love them or hate them, you cannot watch brady or matthew play and not immediately draw the parallel to their dad. their style of play is just the same, and it harkens back to a different era of hockey. and it's obvious that the tkachuks are a really tight knit family! keith is proud of his sons! watching him sob over matthew winning the cup really got to me, and at the time i was also busy sobbing because the oilers had just lost the cup. like keith loves his sons. however.

there's like a lot of discourse about brady being keith's favourite child and like i don't know if that's true but his interactions with matthew in particular are super interesting.

like that time in 2023 when he said that the panthers were soft and he was disappointed in how matthew was playing. he said that publicly. it was heard by every member of that team, by the coaching staff, by the equipment guys. that dynamic is fascinating: you want to be taken seriously by this new team that loves you, unlike your old team, and your dad is just openly talking about how your team is not like your brother's team. and then keith went on sp*ttin ch*clets (here) and talked about how after he made those comments matthew didn't talk to him for a while and basically banned him from speaking to media about how the team was doing. and then everyone on sp*ttin ch*clets laughs, because the idea of a grown man setting boundaries with his father is funny in a hockey setting. of course it is: hockey is openly hostile to difficult conversations.

that father/son relationship is also interesting when you consider that it's always been matthew and brady competing against each other. and there's definitely this element of wanting to live up to your father, wanting to be better than your brother. it's not clear cut in a 'keith neglected him' way or anything because keith loves them both.

keith loves matthew. he's proud of matthew. but does he like him? keith refusing to throw a hat for matthew's hat trick. allegedly starting a 'brady's better' chant. like you get it. right?

and you can also frame this in comparison with, say, the hugheses. another american family with athlete parents who produced two phenomenal players. and also luke.

i don't think any of the hughes brothers have daddy issues. in a way they're almost more interesting when you look at them through the lens of their mother, who was a phenomenal athlete who was robbed of true greatness because she was a woman in a time when women's sports weren't taken seriously. but she was absolutely instrumental in their careers. like she taught them to skate!!! they are a part of her legacy!

anyways i think they're a well-adjusted family (Please let me know if this is not the case so i can diagnose them in my google docs) so it's interesting to dissect them in order to understand what makes them different from the tkachuks. quinn hughes is cursed by something not of this earth, but matthew tkachuk is cursed by just... wanting to impress his dad. like maybe it really is that simple.

coach father athlete son

almost at the end. the hughes brothers also all fit in here because of their parents background and the fact that they were just getting an insane amount of hockey tutoring very early on through their father. super interesting how his role with the maple leafs in player development translated to his sons. but they all seem well-adjusted (if a little haunted). anyways they're not the specific relationship that i made this section for. that honour goes to rick and macklin celebrini.

this article in the athletic is a foundational piece of macklin daddy issues scholarship. this video is objectively insane.

i think what makes this relationship so crazy right from the outset is how immediately obvious it is that there's no space between rick as his father and rick as his coach. there's a quote in the athletic article about how workouts on macklin and his older brother aiden would be tougher when their dad had a tougher day at work, because he brought that through the door with him. he took this intensity, this drive to always be doing something, and he drilled it into his kids.

the way rick's players talk about him is the same way rick's children talk about him. like functionally that relationship is very, very similar. and not necessarily all for the worst: draymond green calls him a guy you can confide in. he's someone the players trust. a father figure, if you will. he loves and cares about his players.

but then there's the flipside of that! at home he is not just a father but also a director of player health and performance! 'what are you doing to get better today' was the motto of the celebrini family. apparently rick would set up training courses on family vacations (source). there was literally not a single second where this guy was just dad. 'do the kids really need to hear that every single moment. can you maybe just watch a movie.' you know. 'there's no doubt he treats his kids just like he treats his players.' YOU KNOW?

people are already having discourse about whether you should or should not project daddy issues onto macklin but like. even if you refuse to acknowledge the weirder parts of his relationship with his dad, there's no denying that he is just way too intense for an 18 year old. and if you try to find the root of that intensity, it leads to his father. you cannot come up in that kind of environment without it fundamentally shaping you.

part of it is probably also just natural talent. aiden celebrini was drafted 171st overall whereas macklin went first. LET ME BE CLEAR: 171st is nothing to scoff at. being drafted at all is an insane accomplishment. but the framing of this family is very much like, rick is proud of the payoff for his investment. macklin going first validates rick. he is proud because he has shaped this player.

there's also this aspect of macklin being super similar to his father, even if he doesn't admit it. like they dressed the same the morning of the draft. they argued about who had woken up earlier. the celebrinis aren't big on declarations of love. they don't wear their hearts on their sleeves.

so of course this 18 year old is loudly looking for that affection elsewhere. of course he is father-ifying his prettyboy teammate. of course he is latching onto anyone older than him. it's not hard to understand at all, actually.

(and maybe most importantly: macklin called his father 'da-da' at least well into his teens, including when he hugged him at the draft. which tracks very well with everything else i have learned about him recently.)

in conclusion?

this is not really an answer at all. why do all nhlers have daddy issues? maybe hockey just attracts a certain kind of father. maybe hockey is what creates them. maybe i'm just projecting way too much. please advise.

[ryajewels]

macklin celebrini: daddy issues 102

at this point, if you’ve been paying attention to macklin, you’re aware of rick celebrini and his omnipresent presence in mack’s life. so let’s dig a little deeper into how he's shaped the narrative and get carried away with some analysis, because i cannot stop thinking about rick's impact and i need to write out my thoughts about it!!

(sorry, this post is a long one lmao. my bad!!)

part I: timeline

ok first, a quick mack timeline (courtesy of wikipedia/elite prospects so hopefully accurate) to give us a little framework to work with:

DOB 6/3/06

hometown: vancouver, canada

in 2018 or 19 the family moved from canada to the bay area in california when rick became director of sports medicine and performance for the golden state warriors; mack played for the jr. sharks during this time period (rick got the job in 2018 and the family moved a year later so not sure of specific move date)

attended shattuck st. mary’s during 20-21 and 21-22 seasons

played for the chicago steel in 22-23

played for BU (along with brother aiden) in 23-24

part II: TSN triptych

OK! there were so many ways to approach this post, but I am most compelled by the TSN triptych of the connor bedard, fantilli brothers, and now macklin features, both because these three families had vastly different approaches to raising their highly touted hockey prospect sons, and because TSN framed their stories through much different lenses. the narrative here isn’t JUST rick celebrini and his insane dual parent/director of player health and performance role in his children’s lives, but how the sports world embraces and normalizes it.

so as our starting point, let’s compare and contrast each feature (viewing not required, but all three are linked below if you're so inclined):

connor bedard: connor is the main character of his own feature, which is firmly rooted in his hometown of vancouver, where he is the center of the universe. they interview his neighbors for fuck’s sake! but the framing is very interesting – connor is presented as having this innate drive to work/improve that everyone around him encourages and embraces (for the most part). all of connor’s quotes are strictly about hockey and his craft. did you know connor bedard has a sister? you wouldn’t, watching this feature. (this isn’t a slight against connor – this is TSN’s framing.)

it is interesting to note there is some minor tension between his parents, who disagree on camera about their parenting approach and if they should have deferred to connor as much as they did. (dad had a policy of “no rules” (i.e., allowing connor to break things practicing hockey in the house), which mom didn’t love but apparently didn’t put a stop to. the family also let him bring his hockey gear on a trip to hawaii when he was like 10, so it’s just very clear no one set any limits with this kid when it came to hockey.) anyway, the clear messaging presented here is that a gift like connor’s should be nurtured & everyone else, neighbors included, should sacrifice to accommodate greatness like that when it comes along, and just allow a prodigy like connor to do his thing.

fantillis: adam and luca’s bond is the main character, and both parents are unified in talking about their brotherly bond and the differences in their approach to the game, but neither brother is presented as more 'elite' than the other, despite their obvious skill difference. adam’s quotes are about what luca means to him, and what it’s meant to get to play with his big brother vs. the development of his hockey skills.

this isn't the post to fully get into the fantilli family group decision making model, but there are some good quotes that capture their parenting style. their mom says they “[made] the right decision for each son based on their own circumstance at the time, and we were just really lucky and fortunate that it worked out that they got to be together.” but the most telling quote is from their dad:

“I don’t want it to end. It’s not a long ride that they’re going to get to play together and no matter where their hockey takes them, they’re going to look back at these three, four, five years that they play together as the best time of their life.”

truly I don’t think you can tell a story about adam’s hockey origins without luca, so TSN didn’t really have a choice on how to frame this feature, but there is a clear difference in the fantilli parenting approach here vs. the bedards, and the value placed on that quality family time, the recognition of specific childhood/young adult time and experiences you can't get back, and the importance of not taking it for granted. obviously adam was the lowest draft pick at #3 of this group, and this might be the reason for it, but the fantillis appear to have valued raising a much more well-rounded kid with goals beyond excelling in sports.

also interesting to note there are no guest appearances in the fantilli feature; it’s a complete family affair.

celebrini: without question, rick is the main character of this feature. every opening quote is about him (including from draymond green!!!!), even if the voiceover starts talking about macklin a solid 30 seconds in, like they finally remembered this spot is supposed to be about their highly touted hockey prospect. and god, these quotes about rick include some DOOZIES:

“He cares so much, nobody else cares as much as he does.”

what an interesting word choice from mack’s mom here. we’ll get into what this “caring” looks like later, but clearly rick’s parenting style was being normalized and portrayed as care/love within that family. (which, from a fic perspective, is delicious to consider. how do you know if someone cares about you if they’re not pushing you to be better every day? if they’re not finding your limit and tasking you to go beyond it? can you trust that they really care about you if they’re not showing it in a way that tests your abilities to the brink?)

mack’s mom also says that mack is “lucky he’s got the resource of his dad,” and that mack hangs on every word – just reinforcing that there was no parent in that house questioning if this approach was good for mack as a person (there’s no doubt it was good for him as an athlete, but that's not what this post is about, is it?). mack’s brother aiden also has some really telling quotes:

“We always had to make it our priority to get better every day.”

or what, aiden? no, I don’t actually think this was a threat from rick lol, but clearly this was the value that he was pushing on all the kids, to the point it was most probably unhealthy. aiden also says this, which only reinforces that lack of healthy balance:

“He was our dad, but he was also our director of player health and performance. ‘What’s your plan today? What are you doing to get better today?’ That was his philosophy with us growing up.”

YIKES! these aren't just quotes either - there are clips of the rick "coaching" all four kids when they were little (including mack and aiden's younger sister and brother), doing squats and running up hills and shit. (so it should be pointed out - i don't think anyone explicitly says 'getting better' has to be physically, but it's strongly implied? they weren't cracking books open or improving their mental wellness, ya know? 🥴)

even steve kerr, GSW head coach, who of course was also interviewed for this feature, is like, uh? maybe chill with the kids??

“We joke a little bit with Rick, do the kids really need to hear that every single moment? Can you just – maybe watch a movie with the kids one night?”

granted, both kerr and aiden’s soundbites are given with a little smile, like ‘oh, you know rick – that’s just how he is!’ but it’s very clear why rick is the main character here lol. he is the one running the show in that house. aiden and mack are parroting his messaging, and his wife thinks he’s an invaluable resource who cares more than anyone about the kids, pushing them to be the absolute best so they can excel.

mack, too, has nothing but effusive things to say about his dad, about the hard, important work he’s put in with the athletes he works with, and the most intriguingly, trots out his dad’s philosophy like it’s his own, almost like he hasn’t realized that he’s completely internalized the messaging:

“Every day there’s always something you can do to get better. Doesn’t always have to be the hardest thing in the world. You can just go shoot pucks. It kinda becomes a habit, becomes a routine and what you do. It gets to that point where some off days, I’m like, I don’t feel comfortable not doing anything today.”

yeah bud. I bet you don’t 😭

obviously it takes the whole family, trainers, coaches, teammates, etc. for any hockey player to develop to an elite level, and you can only fit so much into a 5 minute feature, but it’s fascinating to me to see how TSN slices that cross section for each of these players. who can be cut from each of their stories? who is a load bearing wall that their narrative would crumble without? on the flipside, what sells? bedard is packaged as this almost lone wolf prodigy with some innate greatness in him that deserved to be nurtured by the community around him, adam the result of a close-knit family and a brotherly bond that transcends hockey, and mack a high caliber product hand-crafted by his father in some kind of sports lab created specifically to excel. what I’m saying is, we aren’t the only ones out here writing fanfic, you know?

part III: dad's dual roles

this video from sportsnet is an interesting comparison to the TSN feature, as it's got very similar framing with rick as the dual dad/director of player health and performance, but does a slightly better job remembering that mack is supposed to be the main character. it's a little bit longer than the TSN feature, but it's fascinating how some repetitive phrases start to emerge that get at an important thesis statement here...

first, after a clip of rick coaching mack through some exercise, there's this exchange:

Mack: "I like this stuff." Rick: [laughs] "Because you grew up on it."

there it is in a nutshell! this is the closest anyone comes to acknowledging it aloud, though i'm going to get at it more in depth in a second.

then we've got these soundbites from mack and aiden during their individual interviews:

Mack: "He's our dad but he's also an unbelievable resource." Aiden: "He's been coach for us and manager for us and advocate for us. He's been our biggest fan and our harshest critic. It makes it really easy to have all those resources in one man."

sound familiar? who else has called rick a resource the boys are lucky to have? 🤔

and this final quote from the madman himself:

"When they needed empathy, when they needed support, when they needed, you know, a hug, I was dad, but the other times, I would be the disciplinarian, you know: you need to be on time, you need to go through your process, and get them, at a very early age, to understand what it means to have a professional approach. You're locked in and you're buying into a process that will allow you to achieve your goals. Your defined goals, not mine."

"your defined goals, not mine." okay sure rick! because you always knew exactly when they needed dad and when they needed director of player health and performance, and they for sure didn't internalized the messaging they had to improve every single day, and they came up with those goals all by themselves and weren't influenced at all by the adults in their lives, which included not only you and your wife but all those athletes they had exposure to who were so close to you guys they agreed to be interviewed for all these features about your family. uh huh. okay. i am for sure buying what you are selling here.

ok, switching gears a little bit, we have GOT to talk about this quote that's been floating around from this athletic article (and the context of it):

mack and rick are telling this story to the interviewer together, recounting how rick pushed the boys to their absolute limit on this particular day.

his "audacious" moment!! mumbling something under his breath, not even swearing at his dad, because his dad made him and his brother run like, insane sprints up and down a hill for 30 minutes after several hours of workouts earlier in the day because he was in a bad mood!! and MACK is the one being audacious! OKAY! talk about the power imbalance here being completely out of wack because you've got both father/son and coach/athlete roles overlapping!!

if you have an athletic sub, this article is SO good because they frame the entire thing around 'the hill' story and keep circling back to it, but this little chunk is probably the most intriguing characterization bit of all:

mack goes on to argue that this specific workout was going to fuck them for the week because they literally wouldn't have the energy for the rest of the planned workouts, that there wasn't going to be the time for rest/recovery or whatever, but he still listened to his dad and didn't quit during the workout itself. his big act of rebellion was to say 'we're fucked' afterwards!! and the way this article calls it the workout a VIOLATION of the indoctrination his dad preached, the philosophy mack was taught and internalized, that this story is so infamous that it's still being brought up and discussed in draft interviews... OOF!

but here's how the hill story ends after they got home:

makes me feel absolutely insane that this particular workout is presented as a violation of trust, that rick (for lack of a better word) exploited the family culture and his son's competitive natures/drive/ambitions, knowing they wouldn't quit, to push them to their absolute physical limits, beyond what they expected from a mental standpoint from their already insane workout schedule, lit mack up for a minor verbal dissent after he complied, and then mack's response afterward is physical affection and gratitude?? rick. rick what have you created. rick i don't think this is good!! have you taught your son to be careful who he trusts because if he goes blindly handing those reins over to the wrong person they are going to damage him!!

not that rick is going to let anyone take the reins.

part IV: rick in control

well i did warn you guys this post was going to be long, didn't i? this is the last section, i promise, but this section is vital.

from this athletic article, we learn how BU successfully recruited mack from these quotes from BU's coach and assistant coach:

rick arranged for mack and aiden to tour the campus, and the next thing you know both boys committed. whenever mack talks about it, he presents it like it was his choice to go to BU and that he liked the campus, which sealed his decision, but given how he's clearly spent his entire life internalizing everything his dad has ever said to him, makes you wonder how much rick even arranging the campus tour impacted this decision, you know? of course, mack literally being a 17-year-old college freshman, it makes sense his family/dad in particular would be involved in that kind of decision.

what's more insane is this:

San Jose Sharks GM Mike Grier took us behind the scenes of Macklin Celebrini and Will Smith’s development plans on Monday. “There’s been a lot of thought and effort put into this from our performance group, led by Mike Potenza, the medical staff, the training [and] strength conditioning staff,” Grier said. Potenza is the San Jose Sharks’ director of high performance. Grier added that Macklin Celebrini’s father, Rick Celebrini, the Golden State Warriors’ director of sports medicine and performance, is involved with Celebrini’s plan, though not with Smith’s. “[With Rick] being in the sports science world as well, he had input and is on board with everything that we’re going to do with him,” Grier said.

(source) i am sure the sharks are absolutely thrilled about this (🙄) but truly, no end in sight for rick's over-involvement in mack's life, or for mack to have any realizations about how not-normal any of this is. of course mack wants rick involved! rick shaped his whole life, helped him get to where he is, has been there driving him every step of the way! and now mack is the face of a franchise only 40 minutes from home, where rick can keep close tabs on him and his development and continue to help him reach the next level.

from a (fic) narrative perspective, mack's at the perfect cusp-of-adulthood age to finally start having some realizations about how overly enmeshed his dad is in his life, to maybe start questioning his upbringing and what it cost him. maybe he'd still choose to make all the same sacrifices to get where he is anyway, maybe he can't carve out the parts of himself that have been so deeply embedded since childhood they feel like they're innate when they've actually been planted as seeds, maybe every eye-opening moment of realization changes nothing.

or maybe he's over at patty marleau's one night, playing ministicks with his boys and will in the basement, laughing so hard his belly hurts at something stupid, will letting one of the kids score on him because it makes his little face light up, and he thinks, oh.

finally, one last bonus quote from rick from one of the athletic articles because it didn't fit anywhere else and this is an insane thing to say about your son:

anyway, thanks for coming to my ted talk. the end!

[ryajewels]

dnap | mature | 5k words

Sapnap suddenly decides he doesn’t like Dream. The idea of it has been festering beneath his skin for a long, long while, but now, standing here and watching a new version of Dream who looks like nothing Sapnap has ever known and nothing like he’d ever expected, he decides he dislikes Dream. Maybe could hate him, if he tries hard enough.

read it here!

[ryajewels]

dnap | explicit | 12k words

Nick, Dream thinks, has been acting really weird lately. For a while, actually. And he’d noticed — of course he’d noticed. But it was weird enough that Dream hadn’t known how to approach him and ask what was wrong, and now, they’re stuck together with hardly three feet of space between them 496 miles away from Florida. And he’s pretty sure Nick’s giving him the silent treatment.

Okay. Okay.

It’s fine. Everything is fine.

read it here!

[ryajewels]

dnap | explicit | 14k words

“There you are,” he whispers, and Nick feels his lip wobble. “You back with me?”

Nick opens his mouth to respond but the words get stuck in his throat. He swallows around the lump and tries again in vain.

“It’s okay,” Clay says. “You don’t need to talk. Just stay with me, alright?” He offers his hand to Nick, who squeezes it gratefully.

Honestly, Nick isn’t that scared; Clay has definitely blown it out of proportion. He’s not slick, not even a little bit, and he knows Clay's trying to distract him from his fear. But the knowledge of him doing so—for him—has his heart squeezing in his chest.

read it here!

[ryajewels]

about me, for whoever wants to know

hi! im arya, im 18 years old, and i made this sideblog specifically for dreamnap

my twitter, tumblr, and ao3 are all alt accounts created for dreamnap/dreamnap week. if you notice im inactive randomly, that’s why.

ive been a dream team fan since 2020 + though my level of obsession wanes throughout the years, they’re always on my mind. if i ever feel like my interest in them is completely gone (extremely unlikely) i will say so and move on ((im not worried about that at all))

since this is an alt acc, it will be purely about dnap, snf, dnn, + the dteam as a whole. i will never talk about dnf as a ship and have never liked it. please respect that!

-16 dni pls, other than that go wild

hope you enjoy your time w me + im always open for chats :)