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mostlysignssomeportents · 1 year ago

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The moral injury of having your work enshittified

This Monday (November 27), I'm appearing at the Toronto Metro Reference Library with Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen.

On November 29, I'm at NYC's Strand Books with my novel The Lost Cause, a solarpunk tale of hope and danger that Rebecca Solnit called "completely delightful."

This week, I wrote about how the Great Enshittening – in which all the digital services we rely on become unusable, extractive piles of shit – did not result from the decay of the morals of tech company leadership, but rather, from the collapse of the forces that discipline corporate wrongdoing:

https://locusmag.com/2023/11/commentary-by-cory-doctorow-dont-be-evil/

The failure to enforce competition law allowed a few companies to buy out their rivals, or sell goods below cost until their rivals collapsed, or bribe key parts of their supply chain not to allow rivals to participate:

https://www.engadget.com/google-reportedly-pays-apple-36-percent-of-ad-search-revenues-from-safari-191730783.html

The resulting concentration of the tech sector meant that the surviving firms were stupendously wealthy, and cozy enough that they could agree on a common legislative agenda. That regulatory capture has allowed tech companies to violate labor, privacy and consumer protection laws by arguing that the law doesn't apply when you use an app to violate it:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/04/12/algorithmic-wage-discrimination/#fishers-of-men

But the regulatory capture isn't just about preventing regulation: it's also about creating regulation – laws that make it illegal to reverse-engineer, scrape, and otherwise mod, hack or reconfigure existing services to claw back value that has been taken away from users and business customers. This gives rise to Jay Freeman's perfectly named doctrine of "felony contempt of business-model," in which it is illegal to use your own property in ways that anger the shareholders of the company that sold it to you:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/11/09/lead-me-not-into-temptation/#chamberlain

Undisciplined by the threat of competition, regulation, or unilateral modification by users, companies are free to enshittify their products. But what does that actually look like? I say that enshittification is always precipitated by a lost argument.

It starts when someone around a board-room table proposes doing something that's bad for users but good for the company. If the company faces the discipline of competition, regulation or self-help measures, then the workers who are disgusted by this course of action can say, "I think doing this would be gross, and what's more, it's going to make the company poorer," and so they win the argument.

But when you take away that discipline, the argument gets reduced to, "Don't do this because it would make me ashamed to work here, even though it will make the company richer." Money talks, bullshit walks. Let the enshittification begin!

https://pluralistic.net/2023/11/22/who-wins-the-argument/#corporations-are-people-my-friend

But why do workers care at all? That's where phrases like "don't be evil" come into the picture. Until very recently, tech workers participated in one of history's tightest labor markets, in which multiple companies with gigantic war-chests bid on their labor. Even low-level employees routinely fielded calls from recruiters who dangled offers of higher salaries and larger stock grants if they would jump ship for a company's rival.

Employers built "campuses" filled with lavish perks: massages, sports facilities, daycare, gourmet cafeterias. They offered workers generous benefit packages, including exotic health benefits like having your eggs frozen so you could delay fertility while offsetting the risks normally associated with conceiving at a later age.

But all of this was a transparent ruse: the business-case for free meals, gyms, dry-cleaning, catering and massages was to keep workers at their laptops for 10, 12, or even 16 hours per day. That egg-freezing perk wasn't about helping workers plan their families: it was about thumbing the scales in favor of working through your entire twenties and thirties without taking any parental leave.

In other words, tech employers valued their employees as a means to an end: they wanted to get the best geeks on the payroll and then work them like government mules. The perks and pay weren't the result of comradeship between management and labor: they were the result of the discipline of competition for labor.

This wasn't really a secret, of course. Big Tech workers are split into two camps: blue badges (salaried employees) and green badges (contractors). Whenever there is a slack labor market for a specific job or skill, it is converted from a blue badge job to a green badge job. Green badges don't get the food or the massages or the kombucha. They don't get stock or daycare. They don't get to freeze their eggs. They also work long hours, but they are incentivized by the fear of poverty.

Tech giants went to great lengths to shield blue badges from green badges – at some Google campuses, these workforces actually used different entrances and worked in different facilities or on different floors. Sometimes, green badge working hours would be staggered so that the armies of ragged clickworkers would not be lined up to badge in when their social betters swanned off the luxury bus and into their airy adult kindergartens.

But Big Tech worked hard to convince those blue badges that they were truly valued. Companies hosted regular town halls where employees could ask impertinent questions of their CEOs. They maintained freewheeling internal social media sites where techies could rail against corporate foolishness and make Dilbert references.

And they came up with mottoes.

Apple told its employees it was a sound environmental steward that cared about privacy. Apple also deliberately turned old devices into e-waste by shredding them to ensure that they wouldn't be repaired and compete with new devices:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/09/22/vin-locking/#thought-differently

And even as they were blocking Facebook's surveillance tools, they quietly built their own nonconsensual mass surveillance program and lied to customers about it:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/11/14/luxury-surveillance/#liar-liar

Facebook told employees they were on a "mission to connect every person in the world," but instead deliberately sowed discontent among its users and trapped them in silos that meant that anyone who left Facebook lost all their friends:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2021/08/facebooks-secret-war-switching-costs

And Google promised its employees that they would not "be evil" if they worked at Google. For many googlers, that mattered. They wanted to do something good with their lives, and they had a choice about who they would work for. What's more, they did make things that were good. At their high points, Google Maps, Google Mail, and of course, Google Search were incredible.

My own life was totally transformed by Maps: I have very poor spatial sense, need to actually stop and think to tell my right from my left, and I spent more of my life at least a little lost and often very lost. Google Maps is the cognitive prosthesis I needed to become someone who can go anywhere. I'm profoundly grateful to the people who built that service.

There's a name for phenomenon in which you care so much about your job that you endure poor conditions and abuse: it's called "vocational awe," as coined by Fobazi Ettarh:

https://www.inthelibrarywiththeleadpipe.org/2018/vocational-awe/

Ettarh uses the term to apply to traditionally low-waged workers like librarians, teachers and nurses. In our book Chokepoint Capitalism, Rebecca Giblin and I talked about how it applies to artists and other creative workers, too:

https://chokepointcapitalism.com/

But vocational awe is also omnipresent in tech. The grandiose claims to be on a mission to make the world a better place are not just puffery – they're a vital means of motivating workers who can easily quit their jobs and find a new one to put in 16-hour days. The massages and kombucha and egg-freezing are not framed as perks, but as logistical supports, provided so that techies on an important mission can pursue a shared social goal without being distracted by their balky, inconvenient meatsuits.

Steve Jobs was a master of instilling vocational awe. He was full of aphorisms like "we're here to make a dent in the universe, otherwise why even be here?" Or his infamous line to John Sculley, whom he lured away from Pepsi: "Do you want to sell sugar water for the rest of your life or come with me and change the world?"

Vocational awe cuts both ways. If your workforce actually believes in all that high-minded stuff, if they actually sacrifice their health, family lives and self-care to further the mission, they will defend it. That brings me back to enshittification, and the argument: "If we do this bad thing to the product I work on, it will make me hate myself."

The decline in market discipline for large tech companies has been accompanied by a decline in labor discipline, as the market for technical work grew less and less competitive. Since the dotcom collapse, the ability of tech giants to starve new entrants of market oxygen has shrunk techies' dreams.

Tech workers once dreamed of working for a big, unwieldy firm for a few years before setting out on their own to topple it with a startup. Then, the dream shrank: work for that big, clumsy firm for a few years, then do a fake startup that makes a fake product that is acquihired by your old employer, as an incredibly inefficient and roundabout way to get a raise and a bonus.

Then the dream shrank again: work for a big, ugly firm for life, but get those perks, the massages and the kombucha and the stock options and the gourmet cafeteria and the egg-freezing. Then it shrank again: work for Google for a while, but then get laid off along with 12,000 co-workers, just months after the company does a stock buyback that would cover all those salaries for the next 27 years:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/09/10/the-proletarianization-of-tech-workers/

Tech workers' power was fundamentally individual. In a tight labor market, tech workers could personally stand up to their bosses. They got "workplace democracy" by mouthing off at town hall meetings. They didn't have a union, and they thought they didn't need one. Of course, they did need one, because there were limits to individual power, even for the most in-demand workers, especially when it came to ghastly, long-running sexual abuse from high-ranking executives:

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/25/technology/google-sexual-harassment-andy-rubin.html

Today, atomized tech workers who are ordered to enshittify the products they take pride in are losing the argument. Workers who put in long hours, missed funerals and school plays and little league games and anniversaries and family vacations are being ordered to flush that sacrifice down the toilet to grind out a few basis points towards a KPI.

It's a form of moral injury, and it's palpable in the first-person accounts of former workers who've exited these large firms or the entire field. The viral "Reflecting on 18 years at Google," written by Ian Hixie, vibrates with it:

https://ln.hixie.ch/?start=1700627373

Hixie describes the sense of mission he brought to his job, the workplace democracy he experienced as employees' views were both solicited and heeded. He describes the positive contributions he was able to make to a commons of technical standards that rippled out beyond Google – and then, he says, "Google's culture eroded":

Decisions went from being made for the benefit of users, to the benefit of Google, to the benefit of whoever was making the decision.

In other words, techies started losing the argument. Layoffs weakened worker power – not just to defend their own interest, but to defend the users interests. Worker power is always about more than workers – think of how the 2019 LA teachers' strike won greenspace for every school, a ban on immigration sweeps of students' parents at the school gates and other community benefits:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/04/23/a-collective-bargain/

Hixie attributes the changes to a change in leadership, but I respectfully disagree. Hixie points to the original shareholder letter from the Google founders, in which they informed investors contemplating their IPO that they were retaining a controlling interest in the company's governance so that they could ignore their shareholders' priorities in favor of a vision of Google as a positive force in the world:

https://abc.xyz/investor/founders-letters/ipo-letter/

Hixie says that the leadership that succeeded the founders lost sight of this vision – but the whole point of that letter is that the founders never fully ceded control to subsequent executive teams. Yes, those executive teams were accountable to the shareholders, but the largest block of voting shares were retained by the founders.

I don't think the enshittification of Google was due to a change in leadership – I think it was due to a change in discipline, the discipline imposed by competition, regulation and the threat of self-help measures. Take ads: when Google had to contend with one-click adblocker installation, it had to constantly balance the risk of making users so fed up that they googled "how do I block ads?" and then never saw another ad ever again.

But once Google seized the majority of the mobile market, it was able to funnel users into apps, and reverse-engineering an app is a felony (felony contempt of business-model) under Section 1201 of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. An app is just a web-page wrapped in enough IP to make it a crime to install an ad-blocker.

And as Google acquired control over the browser market, it was likewise able to reduce the self-help measures available to browser users who found ads sufficiently obnoxious to trigger googling "how do I block ads?" The apotheosis of this is the yearslong campaign to block adblockers in Chrome, which the company has sworn it will finally do this coming June:

https://www.tumblr.com/tevruden/734352367416410112/you-have-until-june-to-dump-chrome

My contention here is not that Google's enshittification was precipitated by a change in personnel via the promotion of managers who have shitty ideas. Google's enshittification was precipitated by a change in discipline, as the negative consequences of heeding those shitty ideas were abolished thanks to monopoly.

This is bad news for people like me, who rely on services like Google Maps as cognitive prostheses. Elizabeth Laraki, one of the original Google Maps designers, has published a scorching critique of the latest GMaps design:

https://twitter.com/elizlaraki/status/1727351922254852182

Laraki calls out numerous enshittificatory design-choices that have left Maps screens covered in "crud" – multiple revenue-maximizing elements that come at the expense of usability, shifting value from users to Google.

What Laraki doesn't say is that these UI elements are auctioned off to merchants, which means that the business that gives Google the most money gets the greatest prominence in Maps, even if it's not the best merchant. That's a recurring motif in enshittified tech platforms, most notoriously Amazon, which makes $31b/year auctioning off top search placement to companies whose products aren't relevant enough to your query to command that position on their own:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/04/25/greedflation/#commissar-bezos

Enshittification begets enshittification. To succeed on Amazon, you must divert funds from product quality to auction placement, which means that the top results are the worst products:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/11/06/attention-rents/#consumer-welfare-queens

The exception is searches for Apple products: Apple and Amazon have a cozy arrangement that means that searches for Apple products are a timewarp back to the pre-enshittification Amazon, when the company worried enough about losing your business to heed the employees who objected to sacrificing search quality as part of a merchant extortion racket:

https://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-gives-apple-special-treatment-while-others-suffer-junk-ads-2023-11

Not every tech worker is a tech bro, in other words. Many workers care deeply about making your life better. But the microeconomics of the boardroom in a monopolized tech sector rewards the worst people and continuously promotes them. Forget the Peter Principle: tech is ruled by the Sam Principle.

As OpenAI went through four CEOs in a single week, lots of commentators remarked on Sam Altman's rise and fall and rise, but I only found one commentator who really had Altman's number. Writing in Today in Tabs, Rusty Foster nailed Altman to the wall:

https://www.todayintabs.com/p/defective-accelerationism

Altman's history goes like this: first, he founded a useless startup that raised $30m, only to be acquired and shuttered. Then Altman got a job running Y Combinator, where he somehow failed at taking huge tranches of equity from "every Stanford dropout with an idea for software to replace something Mommy used to do." After that, he founded OpenAI, a company that he claims to believe presents an existential risk to the entire human risk – which he structured so incompetently that he was then forced out of it.

His reward for this string of farcical, mounting failures? He was put back in charge of the company he mis-structured despite his claimed belief that it will destroy the human race if not properly managed.

Altman's been around for a long time. He founded his startup in 2005. There've always been Sams – of both the Bankman-Fried varietal and the Altman genus – in tech. But they didn't get to run amok. They were disciplined by their competitors, regulators, users and workers. The collapse of competition led to an across-the-board collapse in all of those forms of discipline, revealing the executives for the mediocre sociopaths they always were, and exposing tech workers' vocational awe for the shabby trick it was from the start.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/11/25/moral-injury/#enshittification

#pluralistic #moral injury #enshittification #worker power #google #dont be evil #monopoly #sam altman #openai #vocational awe #making a dent in the universe

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boombox-fuckboy · 1 year ago

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Hey!!! You commented on my post about limetown haha which is why I’m here. You offered to give podcast recs! What are your favorites?? I’m looking for some new ones

I completely forgot I had this ask, excuse the delay. Here's a selection of 30 podcasts I enjoyed from a broad range of genres: hopefully at least one appeals.

Let me know if you're after something more specific.

Arden: (Investigative, Comedy) On the 25th of December, 2007, heiress and young actress Julie Capsom crashed her car into a tree and fled into a nearby forest clearing, leaving a trail that seemingly vanished into thin air, and a dismembered torso in the trunk. A decade later, Bea, the first reporter on the scene, and Brenda, a detective on the case, are hosting a true crime podcast about it, and neither is remotely impressed with what the other has to say. Arden is also a retelling of various Shakespeare plays.

Desperado: (Supernatural, Adventure, Horror Elements) In a modern world of gods and magic, three young people, all under the patronage of death dieties, embark on the same adventure for different reasons: for safety, for revenge, and to kill The Old Man in the Sky. Fantastic banter and killer action sequences.

The Far Meridian: (Magical Realism) An agoraphobic young woman wakes one day to discover her lighthouse home has travelled to somewhere entirely unfamilar. As this continues to happen day after day, she uses the opportunity to search for her missing brother. A really unique and charming piece of fiction.

Gastronaut: (Sci-Fi) Interstellar travel audio blog of a former food critic as he travels to an active warzone to get firsthand experience with unfamilar cuisine. ft. Disgruntled martian nobility, sinister businessmen, explosive mushrooms, forbidden snacks, rogue revolutionary artists, and the consequences of your actions.

Girl in Space: (Sci-Fi) The Girl In Space lives alone on a space station, doing science, making cheese, rewatching Jurassic Park, and tending to the plants, animals, and artificial sun entrusted to her. It's a little lonely, but not a bad life. Would be a shame if someone came along to ruin it.

The Goblet Wire: (Microfiction, Weird Fiction) A surreal microfiction with horror elements, taking the form of phone calls to an audio-based game in which the voice of the mysterious Dictator leads each player through fantastic and horrific world and story.

Hello From The Hallowoods: (Horror, Supernatural) A dramatic entity beyond your comprehension visits your nightmares to tell stories of the people (in varying degrees of human and alive) that inhabit the strange, deadly, and beautiful Hallowoods, as they find meaning and sometimes eachother.

Hi Nay: (Supernatural Horror) A year after moving to Toronto, sound designer Mari finds herself drawn into helping people around the city with various horrific supernatural encounters due to her babaylan (shaman) family background. It quickly becomes apparent that there's something much more sinister and complicated happening in the background.

Inco: (Microfiction, Sci-Fi) A perpetually exausted interstellar information trader and her peppy AI find a mysterious (read: bratty) boy floating in space and are inadventently pulled into a world political intrigue.

Inn Between: (Fantasy) Ever curious about what the D&D characters get up to at the tavern between sessions? A generally lighter-hearted (with some exceptions) with richly-written and always-growing characters. A really interesting format, too: a lot of the adventure appears in the "next time" and "last time" segments which makes it all flow really nicely. Not a tabletop podcast.

Janus Descending: (Sci-Fi, Horror, Tragedy) A xenoarcheologist and a xenopaleontologist are sent to a study a dead city on a distant world. Nobody likes what they find there. A unique format, with one set of logs presented first to last, and the other last to first. I'd recommend listening to the supercut for this one.

The Kingmaker Histories: (Steampunk, Weird Fiction, Adventure, Fantasy Elements) In the Valorian Socialist Republic 1911, on her 25th birthday, tailor's apprentice Colette experienced the worst headache of her life. As a result, she fleed from town with a human artificer and a fae chef - both now smugglers - pursued by an utterly furious flesh-crafter. I'm not sure I'm selling how good this podcast is but it's very good.

Life With Althaar: (Sci-Fi, Comedy) A human repairman moves to a space station on the edge of human territory that is perpetually on the edge of self-destruction, and ends up with a less-than-ideal last-minute roomate. Althaar is polite, friendly, deeply interested in human culture, and eager to be friends. Unfortunately he belongs to a species that sends humans into a visceral panic at a glance.

Lost Terminal: (Sci-Fi, Hopepunk) Seth is a very lonely AI living on a satellite. His crew were left stranded aboard with no hope of return, and it's been longer than he can count since then. The Earth below him has changed dramatically, and with only a few other AI down there to talk to, he's very lonely. But! He has a plan to make some new friends.

Love and Luck: (Romance, Slice-of-Life and Urban Fantasy Elements) Voice messages cataloguing two young men falling in love and opening a queer dry bar together.

Midnight Radio: (Light Supernatural, Romance) Sybil McIntyre, host of the ever-popular 1950's nightly radio hour, begins exchanging letters with an old fan who has reluctantly returned to visit Sybil's beloved town.

Midst: (Weird Fiction, Western, Sci-Fi and Fantasy Elements) The old-western planetoid islet of Midst floats, rotating steadily, in a sea of reality-warping darkness. Down in the town of Stationary Hill, things are in movement, and vistors from the light above are about to bring unanticipated change. ft a monocycle-riding monster-hunter, radio-famous airship paladins, deadly mica, the universe's peppiest cultist, good dogs, and a really strange businessman.

The Mistholme Museum of Mystery, Morbidity, and Mortality: (Weird Fiction, Supernatural, Urban Fantasy and Horror Elements) A friendly AI tour guide leads you on a tour of the Mistholme Museum, explaining the strange and often alternatural story behind each item.

Monstrous Agonies: (Supernatural, Relationship Advice) An interpersonal advice show for supernatural entities and other people living liminally in the modern world.

Night Shift: (Urban Fantasy, Investigative) Set in a modern world with the addition of magic, which manifests in small inherited skills/traits, can warp people in horrific ways, or can be manipulated with the right science (and intense work) to induce superpowers. Sebastian Fenn is a barista at Night Shift Coffee, but since things are slow he's decided to start a podcast to talk about various mysteries, crimes and conspiracies around the city, and of course finds himself deeper in them than he'd intended.

The Pasithea Powder: (Sci-Fi, Thriller Elements? I think?) The last major interplanetary war was full of atrocities, but none more infamous then the creation of Pasithea Powder, a memory altering drug which was used to horrible effect and landed it's entire team of creators in prison. So when decorated war hero Captain Sophie Green sees one of them wandering free, worlds away from his prison, she gets in touch with a very old, estranged friend: one Dr. Jane Gonzalez, who's behind bars for the very same reason.

SCP: Find Us Alive: (Weird Fiction, Supernatural, Horror and Slice-of-Life elements) You don't need to know anything about SCP to enjoy this. A research team gets trapped in an underground research facility when the complex collapses and the building is dragged into a pocket dimension. The tear it was designed to study begins creating tiny copies of itself, generating strange entities the team needs to deal with. And as if that wasn't enough, the entire situation physically resets itself every 30 days. And yet, this is genuinely also an office comedy.

Second Star to the Left: (Sci-Fi) Audio logs of a scout sent to explore and establish early infastructure new world, and the communications with the minder in charge of keeping her alive.

Seen and Not Heard: (Slice-of-Life, Drama) Seen and Not Heard follows Bet, who's still adjusting to life a year after a bout of severe illness, and the resulting hearing loss it caused. It's about the ways we make connection, and food, and art, and different kinds of grief.

The Silt Verses: (Horror) In a modern world where gods are abundant, frequently both commercialised and restricted, two devotees of an outlawed river god go on a pilgrimage.

SINKHOLE: (Sci-Fi, Weird Fiction) Forum posts from a data restoration community in a near future where the human brain is its own computer and one city hosts a massive void.

Starfall: (Fantasy) Seeking to escape her mysterious past and find some purpose, a young swordswoman joins a travelling actor's troupe. This new life is unfamilar and sometimes stressful, but she's taken under the wing of stagehand Fel, who's determined to help her feel welcome as she experiences the figurative and literal magic of the theatre for the first time.

The Tower: (Weird Fiction) A low-key, meditative podcasy about a young woman who decides to climb a seemingly endless tower. Gorgeous sound design.

The Vesta Clinic: (Sci-Fi) New GP Dr. Fae Underwood, with the expert transcription skills of resident AI Sec, writes up patient reports on human and alien patients of The Vesta Clinic, a medical clinic on the edge of human space. Really comfy and creative.

Victoriocity: (Steampunk, Mystery) Set in the steam-powered Victorian city of Even Greater London, an aspiring journalist and a tired detective find themselves working together to solve a strange murder. I say Victorian but as queen Victoria is now an extensive grandiocity of cyborg components following seven only-kind-of-successful assassinations, you may need to adjust expectations a little.

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grantmentis · 16 days ago

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Women's Hockey Roundup: October

Woof, I fell off of these for a while. Blame baseball and college! Anyway, I'm going to just do what happened in women's hockey in October (and maybe the last few days of September) for all leagues. This is only confirmed news and games, so rumors are not included

If you're new, i recap the top stories from around club play women's hockey (so not collegiate) and try to give more detail on european women's hockey, since that's less reported on in north america :-) Feel free to add if i miss anything!

PWHL (USA/Canada)

The PWHL schedule has been released! We have a few TBD's in venues, most likely for playing select games in bigger venues or neutral sites. we do not currently have streaming/television info, so stay tuned for that. There will be a preseason, but not open to the public.

Training Camp Begins November 12, with preseason/mini camps The 19-22. New York's training camp roster is here. Boston's is here. Minnesota's is here. Montreal is here. Ottawa's is here. Toronto's is here.

Nov. 27: Deadline to finalize rosters of 23 players and 3 reserves

Abigail Boreen signed a three year deal with the Montréal Victoire. She played with the Minnesota Frost last year, including in the playoffs, as a reserve player.

Ronja Savolainen signed a three year deal with the Ottawa Charge. She played with Luleä most recently and is a star of the Finnish national team.

Sarah Lefort, most recently with Montréal Victoire, has announced her retirement

The PWHL has begun the process of expansion for 2025-2026, targeting two new cities

SDHL (Sweden)

Fanni Garát-Gasparics signs with Brynäs IF, though is still rehabbing the injury she sustained last year with the Ottawa Charge

Dutch national team legend Savine Wielenga signs with Leksands IF

Rookie Reece Hunt of Luleä is out for the season with a torn knee ligament

Frölunda general manager Kim Martin Hassons is extended to 2028, and head coach Erika Holst is extended to 2026. Frölunda has been massively successful thus far this year, currently in second place in the standings and coming off a big win against firs place Lulëa

While Luleä and Frölunda are at the top of the table, MoDo is making noise in third place, having won six of their last eight.

A couple key story lines: -> Finish National Team forward, Elisa Holopainen (Frölunda) is lighting the league on fire in her first year in the SDHL. She has 9 goals and ten assists in 13 games -> We have a few wonderful comeback stories this year. Hanna Olsson (Frölunda) is back to her old self after missing most of last year with injury, with 16 points in 13 games, good for fourth in the league. Erica Reider, (Luleä) who did not play for two seasons, looks like she never left, currently leading all defenders i the league in points. And Kassidy Sauvé (SDE), who missed almost two full season's with a hip injury, currently leads all goaltenders in save percentage. -> MoDo Hockey is being powered almost entirely by a youth movement: top producers Ebba Hedqvist, Adéla Šapovalivová, Mira Hallin, and Lovisa Engström are all 18 or younger and playing prominent roles on the 3rd place team

Auroraliiga (Finland)

Canadian Emma Hall joins KalPa after playing in the NDHL (Sweden's second division) last year

Kärpät will retire the number 20 in honor of long time legend Saija Tarkki. After 21 seasons with Kärpät as well as the Finnish national team, Tarkki retired in 2019. She will be honored Novembe 23rd.

A Couple key storylines: -> 18 year old Czech forward Barbora Juříčková i having a breakout year with HPK, already surpassing her point total from last season with 22. She joins Emma Ekoluoma (Ilves), who was a star on the U18 Finnish team last year, as one of the young players to keep an eye on in this league -> Kiekko-Espoo sits at the top of the table, with Ilves right behind. Last year's champions HIFK are feeling the loss of several star players and sit in fourth place. -> Sister's Jennika , Joanna and Jatta Ojala all played for the same team together for the first time at the top level for Team Kuortane

SWHL A / Postfinance Women League (Switzerland)

Not technically league play, but since they play in this league too ill put it here: EV Zug won the EWHL Euro Cup, which is played at the beginning of the season including select club teams across europe! They bear the German league's Memmingen to do so. Noemi Neubauerova, who is set to play with the Toronto Sceptres when the PWHL game begins, scored the game winning goal

Sponsor PostFinance announces that in 2025/2026, they will only financially support men's club teams that have a women's counterpart

Nadine Hofstetter of EV Zug is out three weeks with a broken finger. She is one of the team's veteran defenders who also plays for the Swiss national team. Vanessa Ryhner, Nina Harju, and Julia Näf are also out with injury for EV Zug, though Rhyner should be back any day now.

ZSC Lions Fraun is hit with injuries: Slovakian forward Tereza Lahova is out for the year with injury, and Aurela Thalmann and Alena Polenská (aka Alena Mills) are also injured. They are calling up Univ. of Saskatchewan alumni Sophie Lalor

A few storylines: -> Elizabeth Lang (HC Davos Ladies) is leading the league in points in her rookie year and scoring at a goal per game pace. She graduated from University of Calgary last year -> Lara Stalder (EVZ Women's team) continues to do Lara Stalder things and is tied with Lang in goals, but newcomers Michaela Pejzlová (HC Ambrì-Piotta Girls) and Clara Rozier (SC Bern Fraun) who were stars in last year's finnish league are close behind. The top scorer race for this league will be exciting, and that's not to mention old friends like Rahel Enzler and Estelle Duvin, among others. -> HC Davos Ladies is currently at the top of the standings, but EV Zug and SC Bern Frauen are very close behing them -> 18 year old Ivana Wey (EVZ Women's Team) has been off to a blistering hot start, a lot of hype surrounding her after a strong performance at both u18 and senior worlds. Another interesting young player is Lucie Tenenbaum, an American set to play at Minnesota State next year but is spending this year in Switzerland. The 18 year old has 5 goals and two assists with HC Davos Ladies so far

EWHL (Central/East Europe)

EV Bozen Eagles are currently dominating the league, with the help of players such as import Kristin Della Rovere, who has 16 points in 9 games. The Bozen eagles are part of a larger plan to help get italy's women's national team ready for the 2026 olympics

HK PSRZ Bratislava are undefeated thus far this season, after winning last year's title.

Canadian USport alumni are thriving in this league; Cassidy Maplethorpe, Hannah Tait, and Lauren Nicholson among top goal scorers

Slovak Ema Tothova continues to be the young player to watch, after her breakout seeason last year the 17 year old forward has 10 goals in five games. She is also competing in a boy's league in Slovakia while playing in the EWHL

OTHERS

watch this space for Czech forward Adéla Mynaříková to mak the u18 team this year. She's 15 and just steamrolling people in the Czech top league, with 15 goals and 5 assists in 8 games playing against a lot of grown adults

Norweigan forward Une Bjelland Strandborg, who was arguably one of the best NCAA DIII players of all time and graduated last year, is killing it in Germany's league with newly added Austrian team HK Budapest. She has 7 points in 6 games

#pwhl #sdhl #ewhl #aurora liiga #auroraliiga #swhl #postfinance women league #hockey #women's hocky #i am scheduling this at 12pm when i will be asleep #bc im currently writing tis at 3:30 am #so if some major news breaks between now and then my bad

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misshoneyimhome · 6 months ago

Note

how do you think willy pulls girls in toronto? & what do you think he’s like in bed?

This is not going to be a short reply - but I’ll try and keep it simple 😉🤍

How William Nylander picks up girls + how he is in bed - NSFW (according to moi)

- Willy is just confident and laid back when picking up girls

- nothing’s eager or desperate

- maybe it’s at a private party or during a night out, but he just simply starts chatting you up and dazzling you with his charm

- knows he’s good looking, but his personality leads the way - just so damn charming with laughter and cheeky jokes

- maybe he’s already spotted you in the crowd before he makes a move, or maybe you’re just coincidentally sitting next to him - regardless, he simply just starts flirting cause he’s attracted to you

- doesn’t really care why, but if he’s keen on hooking up with you he’ll just go for it - read confident without being a dick

- maybe he challenges you in a game of shuffleboard or vice versa

- it’s just all a lot of fun with him

- pretty blunt about what he wants

- gets perhaps a little touchy if he’s had a few drinks but nothing douche bag like

- seems just overall pretty calm

- before you even hit the bed you’ve tasted his tongue

- Willy likes kissing and he’s fucking good at it

- hands are everywhere and lips are attached every possible second

- if you’re in a relationship, he’ll most likely mark you as his with hickies

- speaking of lips, this boy knows how to please a woman with his mouth

- not afraid to get messy - sheets will get soaked when he’s working between your legs

- prefers your moans loud - if authentic, which they of course are

- he’s always prepared with condoms

- pretty much any surface will work to have sex

- quite creative with positions

- likes it when you ride him, but doggy is def also a favourite

- doesn’t have any specific “out of the ordinary” kinks, but likes to play around - handcuffs def exist in his drawer

- light hair pulling may occur, maybe a spank or two

- likes to take charge but also letting you be on top, as def enjoys the view

- loves yours blowjobs!

- generally good at keeping things interesting

- can last pretty long, and makes sure you get you to come at least once (his mouth alone can do it, but his cock works wonders as well)

- will most likely loose all control when he feels his peak approaching

- loud moans, deep grunts, sweat, skin slapping; you’ve got it all during a night with Willy

- if you’re in a relationship, maybe he’ll try to start slow and sensual, but he quickly gets riled up and it all gets pretty intense

- but you can’t complain 💦

#my asks #let's talk william nylander #william nylander imagine #william nylander #toronto maple leafs

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brian-in-finance · 3 months ago

Text

Caitríona Balfe attends the "Ford v Ferrari" press conference during the 2019 Toronto International Film Festival at TIFF Bell Lightbox on 10 September 2019 in Toronto, Canada.

Image: Roxstar Entertainment

Collider Media Studio Returns To TIFF With Some of the Biggest Names in Hollywood

With the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) just around the corner, we’re thrilled to announce that Collider Media Studio will be returning to the Toronto International for another round of exciting interviews with support from Range Rover Canada. This year we have one of our bigger line-ups ever with scheduled talks with the top talent of the festival including Bobby Carnavale, Tom Hiddleston, Karen Gilian, Cobie Smulders, Ben Foster, Olympic Gold Medal Boxer Claressa Shields, Chloë Sevigny, Henry Golding, Beatrice Grannò, David Gordon Green, Pamela Anderson, Max Minghella, Orlando Bloom, John Turturro, Caitríona Balfe, Soul Rasheed, Brett Goldstein, Imogen Poots, Jee Young Han, Dakota Johnson, Demi Moore, Margaret Qualley, Alicia Vikander, Elizabeth Olsen, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Paul Rudd, Kate Mara, Jude Law, Nicholas Hoult, Tye Sheridan, Ron Howard, Ana De Armas, Isabella Rosellini, Ed Burns, Shamier Anderson, Minnie Driver, Brenda Song, Kiernan Shipka, Ryoo Seung-wan, Sandra Oh, Haley Joel Osment, and Gretchen Mol to name a few.

The program is produced by Leading Hollywood Events and Communications group, Roxstar Entertainment and their successful hospitality platform, the Cinema Center. Our sponsor partner Range Rover will help get the talent to our media studio with the 2024 Ranger Rover Sport, the official luxury vehicle partner of the Cinema Center and Collider Studio. Celebrities can enjoy the latest Range Rover Sport’s blend of sportiness, refinement, and connected convenience, ensuring they arrive at their red-carpet events in style and comfort.

Additional supporting sponsors include poppi soda, the better for you soda brand made with ingredients you love, like fruit juice and apple cider vinegar that create a mouthwatering soda with only 5 grams of sugar and 25 calories. Beloved by celebrities like Post Malone, Hailey Bieber, Kylie Jenner, Billie Eilish, Russell Westbrook, and Olivia Munn, poppi is revolutionizing soda for the next generation. poppi is now available at major retailers across Canada, including Loblaws, Real Canadian Superstore, Metro, Save on Foods, Maxi, Safeway, and Costco and key ecommerce retailers amazon.ca, instacart.ca and well.ca.

In addition, the Cinema Center will be serving up a themed cocktail menu featuring the ultra-premium Tequila Don Julio, as well as Ketel One Vodka, Tanqueray Gin, and Bulleit Bourbon. Don Julio’s luxury tequila is renowned for its use of only the highest caliber, fully matured and ripened Blue Agave that has been hand-selected from the rich, clay soils of the Los Altos region of the state of Jalisco.

Other partners include Canada’s new premium spring water brand, Legend Water co. and Peoples Group financial services will all be engaging our talent and guests with product offerings and special brand experiences onsite.

Check out the poster below and stay tuned to our socials for updates on this year’s Collider Media Studio at TIFF.

Collider

Caitríona Balfe attends the "Ford v Ferrari" press conference during the 2019 Toronto International Film Festival at TIFF Bell Lightbox on 10 September 2019 in Toronto, Canada.

Remember the return to TIFF?

#Tait rhymes with hat #Good times #The Cut #2024 #Collider #30 August 2024 #World Premiere #Special Presentation #49th #Toronto International Film Festival #TIFF #5-15 September 2024 #Toronto Ontario Canada #Thanks castlemaine123

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0xeff · 11 months ago

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Here we go again

(Mirrored from MxRP Discord #server-announcements)

As many of you are likely aware, my housing situation hasn't been very stable. I've moved (temporarily) to a place out in the woods with my mother after my lease ended a couple months ago. The plan was to spend a while here, save up our money, and get ourselves a place somewhere in the Greater Toronto Area.

It turns out this might have been a mistake. Our food gets stolen. Our landlord causes arguments, constantly finds reasons to complain, and it often times leads to shouting and threats of eviction if she doesn't get her way.

We're close to securing a place for ourselves before it can come to that, but we need some financial help to get there. First and Last month's rent payment for a new place is out of our reach, and we also need to buy furniture, dishes, utensils, and various other necessities once we do move.

Do note, however, that my situation does not jeopardize the beta in any way. It's not hosted on my hardware, and will continue to run regardless so long as the server bill is payed. The only impact it may have is in the frequency of updates.

If you're feeling generous, please consider donating to my GoFundMe.

#dreambubble #mxrp #cherp

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empressgeekt · 4 months ago

Note

So I had a read of your version of Trolls and I have one question; who is part of the Council in your AU? Because fun fact: in my Strange Friendship AU, I explore the concept of the Pop Trolls having a Council as well.

Well that's an interesting question.

The way I'm setting up the council is that there's one representative for different occupations and sub-tribes. Most of them will likely not be named however, an example, would be Sky Toronto, who would stand for village supplies and as a rep for Glitter trolls. Doctor MoonBloom for medical needs and a rep practitioners etc.

And of Course the King or Queen who's supposed to represent the people as a whole and lead military plans. Technically They should be one step above the council and said council could only advise the ruler. However, the role of the Royal family shifted once the bergens held the Pop tribe captive. During that time the council switched all focus on survival, which meant keeping people happy so the Chef would leave them alone until Trollistice rolled around. Passing holidays, putting in Hug Time, anything to keep the populace colorful, after a few generations this just became the norm.

Cut to post escape and now the practices that kept them alive, are now hurting the populace with forced toxic positive. Only all the Council are older trolls, who are very traditionalist, and believe what kept them safe in the tree is enough to keep them safe in the woods. Making them hesitant to change anything that might upset people, since negative emotions were once a death sentence. Much to the frustration of Branch, who knows that they are using old tactics on the wrong playing field.

Poppy in this au is going to have a lot of clean up work to do, especially when the other Tribes join up, since the old ways aren't really the old ways and are not working anymore. (

(this is the same for all my Trolls aus, though in Burning Branches, the changes are more swift considering Char was heavily involved in Rock kingdom politics and knows how to fix things even if the Rock trolls government is different system)

#dreamworks trolls #trolls #trolls branch #canon divergent au #field of forgetmenots au #queen poppy #worldbuilding #governments are so much more simple on paper #fanfic #sky toronto #dr. moonbloom #king peppy

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couldawouldashoulda50 · 11 months ago

Text

A heart full of regret - William Nylander

A/N - This fic still falls under William Nylander and the fem reader who is a global super-star.

Just a side note (for anyone that might be wondering), I have been honestly struggling to find my way back to The Distance and the Time between Us . Between my work and personal commitments, it’s been super challenging to get back in that headspace. Admittedly, my perception changed a little of William since the Sweden trip so I have been reworking a few things in my head about him too.

I tried to tie this side piece into the main Distance and Time series as well so hopefully I can get back to outlining some of the earlier years between William and the reader and have it all flow together. I tried to make sure I’m well on my way with getting Part 2 completed of this piece before I posted Part One. I apologize if I seem all over the place sometimes.

Thank you to everyone for giving this a shot 🙂

Word count 8k+

Warnings: 18+ content, general smut (p in v, oral m receiving, c*ck massage), swearing, angst, reflections of the end of a relationship, casual sex

Late November, 2023

A familiar chime echoes once again through the condo, signalling a step closer to yet another tryst for William Nylander. This time, it’s Trina; a lively and pretty young woman in her early twenties whom he crossed paths with recently while out for his daily walk with Pablo and Banksy.

Prior to the trip to Sweden for the NHL Global Series, William wouldn’t go too many days without a casual encounter with an attractive female, which would lead to introductions and further chats, and often enough, to the bedroom of whomever's place was closest. Ever since Williiam moved to this upscale part of the city, he noticed there was no shortage of beautiful and stylish women that lived within a short distance of his doorstep. Now having returned from his beloved Stockholm, where he shone even brighter than the spotlights themselves, there had been a further surge of interested parties coming out of the woodwork.

William had been in committed relationships for long periods of time prior to this season, but throughout the other periods of time when he was single, he felt there was no harm in having small feasts of women here and there to satisfy his sexual appetite.

William had consistently been very low-key about divulging (m)any details about his personal life, whether it be in interviews or across all the social media apps. He was no stranger to his name being thrown around in the news by reporters hungry to spawn a certain narrative about his game performance or even his personality; many times, he was not cast in a favorable light but somehow his laid back personality carried him through. Regardless of what kind of attention he received, William never came across like any of it went to his head, to any great degree anyway.

However, after his well-documented week in Sweden, and the internet exploding after his appearance on the “Bianca” show where he provided some very personal details of his own sex life, William was reaping the benefits of his re-energized superstardom. As a result, he was getting more notoriety with being a handsome, talented, virile, and notably single, professional hockey player.

All of the resurgence of popularity does not come without a flipside - a downside to which the descent is much longer lasting that the ascent to stardom. William knew this and he was fortunate that he had people in his life that would remind him to be careful of the traps and pitfalls tied to such celebrity. The trouble is there was no one quite like that here in Toronto that he could just call and hang out with, that he could just “be” with; the people that cared for him most, and that he cared for, were all dispersed between the US and Sweden. And as much as he loved his two beloved dogs, they weren’t great for a two-way conversation.

William’s phone chimes again.

Be there in 5 😘

William acknowledges the text and heads into the washroom to do his traditional freshening up routine.

“She's nice, boys - you met her on our walk”, William said to Pablo and Banksy as he returned to the living room; the dogs cock their heads to the side in response. William gives them both a hearty and affectionate scratch behind their ears, and chuckles as their rumps move in unison showing their adoration for their dog dad.

William flopped down on the couch and continued to absent-mindedly scratch the dog's backs and scrolled through some more messages on his phone.

After glancing at numerous DM's received as of late, something shifted in William’s mind; an empty feeling that he only just recognized at that moment. He realized, rather suddenly, that he really wasn’t into Trina at all and the dread of her impending arrival started to build within him. William had only invited her over for one purpose. She was merely coming to scratch an itch, an itch that would still linger long after she’s long gone from his bed. He didn’t have the heart to cancel on her with her just being literal seconds from his door, but he made up his mind right there that this would not be a long visit.

Say you’ve got a migraine he thought to himself.

William’s phone rang, a picture of his mom appeared on the screen.

“Hey, Mom…how’s it going?” William smiled.

They exchange some light-hearted small talk for a few moments when William hears a soft knock at the door. He takes his mom off speaker-phone and starts walking toward the door. He thinks he should probably just tell his Mom he has company and end the call but he’s come to realize that he would much rather talk to her than the girl on the other side of the door. Trina will just have to come in and wait.

“Mom, two seconds - just letting someone in”.

“I can let you go - there’s just something I need to discuss with you about Christmas so we’ll need some more time to talk. I’ll talk to you later William, ok?”

“No - Mom, please…if it’s about you guys coming for Christmas, I’d like to get that sorted out, ok? Just gimme a sec.”

He opens the door for Trina and mustering a smile, he invites her in. She glides past him and gives him her best “come fuck me” eyes, ghosting her fingers along his covered abdomen. William catches the scent of her perfume; between that and the deep blue bodycon dress she’s wearing under a sleek, belted wool coat (the dress he feels is a little over the top given he didn’t plan to leave the apartment), he momentarily forgets his migraine plan as he stares at the contour of her cleavage and her ass as she enters the living room.

She approaches the couch where the two dogs are waiting anxiously, but politely, for some affection. Trina looks at the dogs and tries to give a command for them to get down off of the furniture; looking back at William she said “sorry, I just don’t want the dogs slobbering all over me”.

There’s a sinking feeling in William’s stomach; he really wants to get out of this now.

Migraine plan is back on. Say you’ve got a migraine right after a few sips of wine correcting his first thought to himself.

“Boys….off,” William commands. He feels like shit watching his cherished companions skulk off the couch.

He motions to the phone, “It’s my Mom, she’s just got a quick question but I won’t be long, just going to take in here” nodding toward his bedroom. “There’s a bottle of white wine in the fridge; help yourself. I'll be right out”.

William enters his room, closes the door and lets out a long sigh.

Switching to his native tongue, he resumes the call.

“Ok, Mom…what’s up?”

“You sure I’m not interrupting? You have a guest, William”.

“It’s ok, she’s good…it’s fine, Mom”.

“So Dad and I have been figuring out what might make sense for all of us to get together for Christmas. We’ve had an interesting offer if we come to Toronto, but we wanted to talk with you about it first.”

William senses that his mom seems tentative; her tone just seems off.

“...oh - okaaay?...”

Camilla hesitates and then begins. “Well, we recently received a phone call from Y/N”.

William’s stomach is no longer sinking. It’s plummeting. His heart begins to race hearing your name.

“She reached out to ask if she could borrow back that guitar she gave your sister a few years ago. There’s an exhibit that was running in London but has now moved on to Toronto showing the different guitars she’s collected over the years and the stories behind each one”.

William remains silent at the other end. His face is drained; any colour he had initially has been swapped out with a dull, achy feeling.

“She was very apologetic for calling but she explained that although it wasn’t part of the London exhibit, she would really love to have it included at the Toronto exhibit, given it’s in her hometown and she has a strong sentimental attachment to it”.

Camilla was only met with further silence from William. She knew this would be difficult for him, given the history you and he shared.

“She ended up coming to Stockholm to pick it up herself. We invited her to stay for a meal so we had a long visit, which was nice.”

William could barely think to form a sentence; a million thoughts ricocheted off of one another in his brain.

“So, anyway, she asked if we were coming to visit you in Toronto this year for Christmas. I said we weren’t sure. I told her that when we were there last year, it soaked up a lot of our time trying to get anywhere since we were split up between your place and the hotel.”

Although William didn’t speak, he agreed silently in his head that it was chaotic from time to time last year to line up the logistics with the various designated meeting places and transporting his family in the heavy downtown traffic.

“Are you still there darling?” Camilla asked.

“I’m here, Mom.” William quietly responded.

“Getting to the point, she said that if we wanted, and if you were comfortable with it, that we could use her house while she’s away visiting her family. She said she would be happy to arrange anything we needed so we can just relax and spend time together. Your Dad was impressed that she came up with the idea at all…then she just offered it up straight away.”

Turns out, when he tells Trina that he has a migraine, it may not be far from the truth.

“Sounds like her - always going above and beyond for everyone”, William said. His tone was indiscernible; it was hard for Camilla to tell whether her son was just emotionless or if he was really hurting.

“You don’t need to answer right away, but it really would be such a great option for us. She told us a bit about the layout; it would almost be like being back at one of those villas in Saint Tropez….only in winter. I suppose you already know that.”

William knew what his Mom was saying was true. He knew and loved your house, and not just for all the grandeur of the amenities; the indoor/outdoor pool, the games room and the theatre room to name a few. He loved how it felt whenever he was there with you. It didn’t matter if it was just the two of you, or if it was a get together with friends, you always made it so warm, comfortable and inviting for anyone that came to visit.

“Yeah, ok Mom, I’ll think about it and will call you back”. William ends the call and remains in his room, trying to regroup.

Ugh. Trina’s out there waiting

He walks out and sees Pablo and Banksy lying on the floor by the entrance door. He had forgotten he had banished them from the couch so apologetically, he told them to hop up on his bed. If they’re sad, they can at least be comfortable.

“Hey you,” Trina smiles warmly.

“Sorry about that - with the time difference and all, it’s hard to sometimes get a chance for my Mom and I to talk”, William fibbed.

William sits beside Trina on his couch and sees she has poured a glass of wine for her and him.

Take a drink, say you have a headache, get her out of here.

“Was it not a good call? You don’t look well…” Trina said, her perfectly shaped brows furrow.

“Nah, it was fine - I just feel a headache coming on I think”.

“I’m sorry…can I do something? I know this thing - like a massage for your neck that helps reduce pressure from your head.” Trina’s hopeful tone was apparent.

William thought for a moment and then reluctantly agreed. She positions him in the exact spot she needs and readjusts herself sitting on her knees behind him. She instructs William to lower his chin to his chest and he obliges.

William closed his eyes and let Trina’s hands try and work out the pressure that has built in his head since the phone call. You used to do the same; the strength and dexterity in your hands from years of masterfully playing guitar, piano and drums always succeeded in releasing pressure from one area or another. It usually led to a thoroughly enjoyable activity after the fact as well.

His memory calls William back to a night, many years ago, with you in his bed and you sheepishly asked if you could give him a cock massage, while he is blindfolded. You said you had seen a video (he got you to admit you were actually watching porn while travelling back to Toronto after a performance) of a woman giving the most insane massage to her boyfriend’s member and you desperately wanted to try it with William upon your return.

[December, 2016]

“Isn’t it just like a hand-job?” William chuckled, lying on his back, his muscular everything fully exposed.

“Maybe a little - but it was more sensual than her just pumping away on it until…” you made an exploding hand gesture with one of your hands.

William watched you, grinning ear to ear. He felt his cock twitch, not just at the thought of your hands working his member but from the purely awesome sight of your beauty. You were standing lighting candles by the bed in a short, black silk negligee that you had bought in Florence that summer. You had bought it for yourself - you loved how you felt in it and oftentimes when you were alone at home, you would pad around the house on a lazy day wearing only that…and it felt wonderful. Your long curls laid loose down your back; your sandy blonde mane layered with dark brown lowlights was tousled at the crown of your head from the passionate make-out session that had just occurred. This was one of those nights where every open mouthed kiss was more delicious than the last and neither you could bring yourselves to stop.

You grab your black sleeping mask and with a coy smile, you put the flexible band of the mask between your teeth so it’s dangling from your mouth, and you crawl slowly from the foot of the bed toward William. Your eyes are fixed on his stunning blues that appear to be darkening with pure hunger for you.

You straddle his midriff - fucking god, his hard abdominal muscles against your entrance has you clenching your walls, wishing he was inside you. Your pussy is primed and wet already for his cock but you’re able to push those urges aside. You carefully place the mask over his eyes and gently expand the band, fitting it around his head. Now fully blindfolded, you lace your fingers through his and bring his hands up to your tits as you rock back and forth.

Fuck, he feels good. You fight with that ongoing urge for his cock to drive into you fast and hard; first, you want to make him writhe and squirm with ecstasy with just your touch. With this, you push the thoughts of him fucking you into oblivion to the side and stay with what you planned initially.

Willing yourself to NOT put his cock in your mouth as you descend down his body, was a chore unto itself. ‘It's right there, Y/N - just a little taste…’, your thoughts taunt you as you shake your head, trying to stay focused.

Finally, you seat yourself in a comfortable position and you help Willam shift his bum down towards you a little further.

You generously apply some warming oil around his (shaved) pubic area and begin the process of smoothing the oil around, somewhat teasingly avoiding his growing erection.

Applying a little more, you strategically drip the oil around just above his balls. The liquid slowly trickles down from the base of his member and across the sensitive skin of his sac, his cock continuing to twitch from the sensation; you smile as you hear a small moan from William as he bites his bottom lip.

You begin smoothing your hands up the length of his dick and down the shaft towards his balls. You repeat various motions, concentrating on his body reactions to the touches and stroking that your hands are providing. You're pleased to hear William start to moan; his hips begin to move to the rhythm of your strokes. When a large, translucent bead of fluid appears from the tip of his penis, you let out a soft moan. It takes everything in you to not lean over and run your tongue through his arousal. Although you love sucking his cock, you abstain as it's not on the menu tonight, not just yet. Instead, you smear the precum around the tip using your thumb and forefinger, over and over again.

William’s head falls to the side as a long moan leaves his mouth, followed by a curse word or two. You experiment a little by grabbing the thick base of his cock, balls included, firmly in one hand, and with the other, you stroke his shaft of his member and his balls masterfully with your hands, using his seeping fluid for extra slickness.

As his breath quickens, William’s muscles in his abdomen flex and contract as you continue to alternate stroking the head of his cock and using his arousal to glide your hand up and down his shaft and over his balls. Soon, his hips instinctively rise and fall with every stroke, while louder grunts echo when you smooth your hands over the now purple head of his throbbing dick at a faster pace. Veins are protruding from his pelvis all the way to his shaft and you sense William is getting close, as he grits his teeth and grasps at the large towel that covers the comforter on his bed.

As breathy gasps escape from his mouth, you can see and feel the eruption bubbling up through his shaft as his balls flex and constrict. You hold his impressive cock firmly in place and continue to work the head of his cock with your fingers and hand until finally thick streams of cum shoot out of his tip. Instead of just finishing him off with a few more pumps of his cock, you follow your recollection of the video and keep using his seed to lubricate his shaft and tip to keep stroking his cock, looking to draw out a longer and more intense pleasure.

As you stroke and manipulate his member after his first orgasm, William becomes even more vocal…only managing short sentences through his strained voice, blurting out his gratification which was mixed with a whole lot of profanity. More and more, his thigh muscles are flexed leading to more contouring of his hips and accentuating that god damned “V” that literally makes you throb at the sight of it.

A long, strained growl marks the next explosion followed by a forceful “Fuuuuuuck mee” from William, almost chuckling as the cum spills out in thick ribbons. You smile at the sight of him panting through his naturally pouting lips; this experience with William was even better than what you had hoped for and as it turns out, it was just as fulfilling for you too.

As William laid there, sprawled out and spent, he slid the blindfold off his eyes, leaving it resting on his forehead. He gazes at you sitting in front of him not understanding how he could have ever gotten so lucky to even be able to kiss you, let alone have you give him two of the most earth shattering orgasms, within minutes of each other, with just your hands.

He was certain that he would lose his mind as he watched you slowly lean over his cock and lick the last remnants of cum from around the head.

William inhales sharply as you flatten your tongue against the rounded tip for a more substantial taste. And just because you could not control the urge anymore (he tasted and felt that good in your mouth), you slid the length of his softening cock all the way in your mouth until it touched the back of your throat. You withdraw him from your mouth and gently lay his cock in back on his midriff. Yep, he's definitely done for now.

“C’mere…that was just fucking amazing. Seriously….fucking amazing, Y/N” William said with a low, gravelly tone as gently pulled you on top of him.

You’re not sure where it came from but a brand new need for William washed over you. It was something beyond sex; you yearned for him to just bring you into his sculpted arms and have them fully envelop you. Gently, you slide your one hand under William’s head and you nestle your face into the crook of his neck, pressing your lips against his skin. Your legs flank William’s torso and your other arm has looped under his other underarm. In turn, William slid his one hand up all the way up from your thigh, along your spine up to the nape of your neck, gently grasping a small handful of your gorgeous locks. His other arm slid around your waist, the silk fabric of your neglige gathered in his hand. Although your core had pressure building from being in the position you were in, the overwhelming sense of calm and safety had momentarily usurped the need for his cock to be buried deep inside you.

After a few moments, William gently rolled you both on your sides, never releasing you from his hold. You remained intertwined as William kissed your forehead, temple…wherever he could rest his lips against.

“Kap’s going to be here tomorrow night with his new girl - think you could make it to the game and we can sneak back to your place after? I might have some ideas to try out on you now…”

“Mmm-hmm - would love that” you said drowsily, nuzzling into William even further.

William kisses your head again and breaks from the embrace for a moment; leaning over top of you, he proceeds to blow out all the candles. As his body pressed against yours, you take the opportunity to run your hands over his muscular flank, marvelling at the look and feel of such a beautiful physique.

As sleep found you both, you each drifted off with the quiet thoughts in your heads, that there was something very unique and special developing between you.

William snapped back to reality. He had to admit; Trina’s hands felt pretty good and with that, William let out a groan. With the memories of you consuming his mind, William began to get hard as Trina continued to work on loosening his tense muscles. William’s burgeoning erection caught Trina’s attention, and she wasted no time in moving her hands from his neck to his shoulders, down along his broad back muscles to his hips.

“You like that, Willy?” Trina said, her tone low and sultry.

“Mmm-hmph”

“What about this?” Trina’s hands brazenly reach around to cup his balls while sucking on his earlobe, slightly north of his diamond earring. She palms his still-clothed dick and rubs his erection in slight circular motion.

“Mmmm….good….” William responds, his voice slightly strained.

William’s mind slides back and forth with conflicting thoughts, like a car fish-tailing on ice. Images of you, your face, your body, your mouth, your taste, your touch - his desire for you - had penetrated his brain. But the voice. It’s not your voice. It’s some random girl’s voice in his ear and William’s gut twists at the thought.

Meanwhile, Trina was determined to seize her moment with the hockey star. She stands up from her position on the couch and gently nudges William to turn so he’s facing her as she stands in front of him.

William's eyes are fixed on the hem of her dress which has ridden up to the top of her thighs. Trina follows William’s gaze and looking down at William, she smiles sweetly and begins to pull her hem up even further.

“You make me so hot, Willy” Trina said, the ‘v’ of her scarcely covered cunt now on display.

She brings one of William’s hands up towards her need, opens her thighs slightly and positions the palm of his hand right against her drenched entrance.

“Shit” William said gruffly; his sweatpants have done little to mask his rigid dick. Figuring he might as well have some fun, William’s mind all but dismisses his previous thoughts concerning you and concentrates on the girl in front of him.

William runs his middle finger from the top of Trina’s folds and firmly inserts the same finger deep inside of her. Trina gasps with pleasure and both of her hands encircle William’s wrist holding his hand in place, she begins to rotate her hips over his digit, encouraging his finger to move deeper and curl inside of her.

William obliges by inserting his ring finger alongside his middle. As William gyrates his hand, Trina’s head snaps back when he connects with her sweet spot. William continues to finger fuck Trina; she releases her grip around William’s wrist and begins to knead her breasts.

“Oooooh - Willy….your thick fingers feel so fucking good inside of me” Trina whines as William continues move his fingers into her wet core.

“Let me suck your cock…I want your dick in my mouth”.

William again obliges, removing his fingers from her centre. Trina steps closer to William and lowers herself between his legs. She closes the distance between them, leaning in for their first kiss. Trina places a sloppy, open-mouthed kiss on William’s mouth. Immediately he tastes a faint mint flavour mixed with something else, something stronger.

Weed maybe, he thinks to himself.

Whatever it is, it's not doing much to improve his mood.

If there's anything William’s past sexual encounters have taught him, it was better in the long run to feign enjoyment than to show ambivalence or dissatisfaction toward the girl of the moment. William is hopeful he won't have to fake anything at this point - fuck - he needs a distraction and goddammit, Trina’s just gonna have to be it.

Thankfully, Trina moves on from William’s mouth and starts pulling his sweatpants and shorts off.

Moving right along…., William thinks to himself.

Trina licks a long strip up William’s shaft; she spits on the tip and begins to stroke his cock, trying to make him a little harder.

The spit dries out without Trina even realizing it as she continues to pump his cock. William flinches at the rough and dry sensation that her too firm of a grip left on his member.

She lowers herself down to lap at his balls, enveloping one in her mouth at a time, and withdrawing it with an audible ‘pop’.

She’s trying too hard, William pondered.

He watches her alternate from ball to ball, with a ‘pop’ each time she withdraws her mouth. Trina licks another stripe up his shaft. “You like that, right Willy? You like it when I lick your balls?”

William gives a faint smile and leans his head back on the couch; not because he was enjoying Trina’s attempts at pleasuring him but to try and think of his personal turn-ons so he can get through this.

William thought of you. He thought of the way you always made his toes fucking curl whenever you took him in your mouth. Deep in your mouth as you’d innocently, almost bashfully, make eye contact with him for just a few seconds here and there. He loved watching you working your magic with your tongue, mouth and your hands, smoothing back your curls to view the best angles of your face. You never just sucked his cock. You took your time. You savoured him. You made love to his cock and balls with your mouth and God, the moans you made while you tasted him always left him reeling.

As it turns out, William’s images of you in his head had the desired effect. Now with his diminishing erection reversed, William made some small adjustments to Trina’s methods in order to keep the momentum going in the right direction.

After a few more moments, Trina stood up and she fully disrobed in front of William.“Do you want to move to the bedroom?”

If she’s anything, she’s confident, William muses.

His dogs had already been displaced once and he’s not about to do it again.

“Let’s stay out here - on the couch…just gotta go grab something”.

William stands up, naked from the waist down, and saunters into the bathroom.

Trina eyes his chiselled body walk away, almost as though she’s stalking her prey. She had been hoping to meet William ever since she spotted him one morning leaving his building to go for a walk with his dogs. Though he was dressed down in baggy sweatpants, an oversized hoodie, and a backwards baseball cap, William screamed affluence with the luxury designer labels scrawled across the articles of clothing. He was wealthy, gorgeous, and seemingly single…three of Trina’s favourite qualities. William being a popular professional athlete only further tempted Trina.

Trina’s father, a wealthy executive of a real estate development firm headquartered in Toronto, had essentially gifted her a luxury condo unit in the same neighbourhood as William, once she had graduated from university (only graduating by the skin of her teeth [doing everything at university but apply herself to her studies]; regardless, it mattered not - she still had her degree).

Both Trina’s parents had long realized, after the fact, the detrimental effects of doting on their only child’s every whim for so many years. Privileged and spoiled were the two prevalent adjectives that described their daughter. Therefore after graduation, as an ultimatum, Trina got a luxury condo (and all living expenses paid) as long as she came to work for her father as a junior executive in his firm. Trina agreed, under the condition that her closest friend, Lara (really her only friend amongst a sea of party-goers and acquaintances), could come live and work with her too.

It worked well, or at least Trina’s father thought so. If not for any other reason, Trina’s father could, at the very least, keep a watchful eye on his daughter and at the very most, attempt to infect her with a better work ethic.

While her friend Lara seemed to fit right in at the firm, Trina longed for an even easier life. She wanted to be pampered, to be looked after - she did not want to get up every morning and head to an office just to do the bare minimum while she spent the majority of time shopping online.

The one skill Trina had become quite adept at was pretending to be what she needed to be in order to get what she wants, in any given circumstance.

She had her sights on William now. She could pretend to be a dog lover - that’s how she caught his eye to begin with. She could pretend to be interested in his beloved Sweden, his family, his friends - hell, even the team…there was more than enough eye-candy to snack on with the Leafs. She fit the bill of a trophy wife perfectly and whether she became one with William, or someone else, that was her ultimate goal.

Presently, Trina was pretending to be William’s personal pornstar.

Trina leaned back on the couch with her legs splayed, stroking her sensitive clit, awaiting William’s return. When he finally emerged, his cock semi-erect already covered by a condom, he laid a towel on the couch and then sat down on the middle cushion. He smiled at Trina who was now sitting in an upright position and motions for her to climb aboard.

Trina straddles William; her mouth devours him with more open-mouthed kisses. At this stage, William knew he was just going through the motions; there was zero chemistry, sexual or otherwise, between them.

Struggling to keep his erection, he breaks from her kiss and rubs the tip of his cock back and forth through the slickness of her folds. He positions the tip at Trina’s entrance. Eventually (and gratefully), his cock is rigid enough to slide into her.

Trina adjusted herself to William’s girth and began to slowly rock back and forth. William was cautiously optimistic about how good this is actually starting to feel. Trina had only succeeded in killing his hard-ons so far so he was hoping for a quick release; after she leaves he can just go to bed with his dogs and put this whole experience behind him.

William grabbed onto Trina’s hips and drove his frustration into her. She screamed in pleasure, calling his name as she bounced on top of him.

Fuck - my neighbours are going to hate me.

Trina continued grinding, bouncing and rotating on Wiliiam’s cock at a furious pace; her chest flushed with pink as she worked his cock and her tits bounced in William’s line of sight.

“Uh-huh, uh-huh, yes, Willy…like that” Trina whined emphatically.

It was clear to William at that moment she was exaggerating most of the sounds she was making. Hell, he had made you wail and scream with the most mind bending orgasms that you never thought were possible. William knew that with you, your cries and grasps were genuine and that he was witnessing the real thing, several times over.

William had been around the block with his cock enough to know Trina was overacting and it was getting on William’s last nerve.

Moan after moan, hitting a higher decibel each time, William had reached his limit. His hands circle Trina’s waist lifting her off his cock. With no verbal cues, he positioned Trina back on the couch so he could enter her from behind. He’s frustrated and annoyed at himself more than anything, so he’s just going to fuck her and hopefully the pillow she’s holding onto will muffle her noise.

William closes his eyes and enters Trina. It’s not long before she’s grasping the arm of the couch with the force of William’s dick buried deep inside of her. William grips her hips holding them steady as he continuously bottoms out, his encased shaft is slick and shiny with Trina’s wetness from her core.

“Faster, Willy! Faster….oh god, harder, Willy!” Trina pleads.

Jesus - she’s trying to kill me.

Miraculously, William’s close to release. His hips ram against Trina’s ass as hard and as fast as he could manage while Trina feverishly rubs her clit. A loud shriek signals Trina’s orgasm. Her pussy walls clenching helped William reach his own climax and a few thick streams of cum collect in the reservoir tip of the condom.

Thank Christ this is over.

Trina half collapses on the couch and rolls onto her back. Her sleek figure shines from the thin layer of sweat from their late afternoon’s strenuous activities.

“Oh my God Willy…that was so good, so fucking good…” Trina chuckles, still out of breath. A lazy grin adorns her pretty face. William, having already gotten up to dispose of the condom, returns to the living room, still naked from the waist down.

“Ha, yeah…well, I try” William smiles, grabbing a pillow to place on his lap .

William paused for a moment as he surveyed the situation and whether Trina planned on staying longer.

“I’m sorry to say this but I feel a migraine coming on - could we call it a night?”

Trina sat up and moved closer to William on the couch.

“Oh..I’m sorry, I was hoping that massage, and well, everything else I did would have helped”.

“No, no, the massage was great but I think the headache was already too far gone to really stop it. I just need to crawl into bed, not move and have no sounds around me, and hopefully I’ll sleep until tomorrow.

Trina offers to stay multiple times and William declines each offer. Although William was ready to snap, he kept his composure, pulled his pants back on, helped gather her things and politely escorted her to the door.

Trina leans in and plants another open-mouthed kiss on William’s mouth.

William’s lack of reciprocation went unnoticed by Trina.

“Feel better, Willy - maybe call me later…if you can,” Trina smiles and leans in, giving him a hug.

“Yeah, thanks - have a good night”. William waves as she enters the elevator and he then gently closes the door.

William hangs his head and exhales; there’s so much going on in his mind. He goes into the bedroom, kneels on the floor and brings his face close to each of the dogs.

“Sorry boys….fuck. Never again with that one”.

The dogs are quick to smother William with kisses.

“I’ll take you guys out in a few minutes, ok?”

William climbs onto his bed and grabs his phone. He pulls up his Mom's number and types a quick note:

Hey Mom… if you’re sure, let’s do the Xmas thing at Y/N’s. I’ll reach out to her myself

William’s stomach flips at the thought of contacting you. Despite the time that had long passed since William effectively removed you from his life, his mind would still betray him time after time with the many memories of you in his mind's eye. William often longed to reach out to you and in his quietest moments, William always held a very private and guarded hope that one day, you would wind up together.

These thoughts only intensified for William when, in late July this past summer, William spotted you at Mitch and Stephanie’s wedding. You had third-wheeled it with Tessa and Morgan, who had also tied the knot that summer in a much more secretive manner. With Tessa being one of your closest friends of the last 10 plus years, she knew you might need a crash helmet when you initially laid your eyes on him for the first time in forever, so she and Morgan invited you to come along with them.

When the moment came that you and William first glanced at each other, no air bag or crash helmet was needed. You and William shared a long and lingering look at each other amongst the guests that meandered around the dancefloor. Neither of you could control the wide smiles that spanned your faces. For not only did everything seem right in the world for a mere moment, your dress and William’s pants were the exact same shade of lilac. Your chosen outfits looked obnoxiously pre-planned and the comedy of your attire wasn’t lost on those in attendance that knew of your shared history. They laughed and gestured at you both, all of them getting a kick out of the sight of the two of you being all matchy-matchy.

It served as an icebreaker for you and William; you simply looked him up and down and commented, rather dryly, saying “well, I ain’t changing…I was here first” followed by a cheeky grin. William approached you and extended his arms for a hug. All the hurt from the past temporarily washed away in that moment, and you both felt genuinely happy to see each other.

The small talk flowed easily and you both quickly fell back into light and vivacious exchanges. William began to wonder if he might be able to steal you away before the end of the night. After all, being among the very few bachelors in attendance, it would be a fantasy-come-to-reality scenario to spend the night with you. When William finally managed to ask what your plans after the reception were, he was crushed to find out you would be leaving early, right after your last performance at the reception (oftentimes at weddings, you were not only a guest but were part of the entertainment as well).

Things never change, William thought. It was this main reason why he ended your affair so many years ago.

William couldn’t hide his disappointment. “Still not in one place for very long, eh?”

You were quick to react to his comment inside your head; a feeling somewhere between annoyance and hurt. You felt the sting of one of his last spoken sentiments to you all those years ago about always needing to leave where he was, yet again, for something else.

Quietly you respond. “Well…unfortunately it’s a rehearsal for a musical tribute in Ireland for a dear friend and a mentor of mine who recently passed, rather unexpectedly.” An intense urge to cry hit you without warning, and it took all your might, along with a hard swallow, to keep the tears from appearing.

What you really wanted, and you were thoroughly ashamed to admit this to yourself, was to go to William and lose yourself completely in his arms. After all these years, he still had an effect on you like no one you had ever known.

“I’m so sorry, Y/N…I didn’t mean to sound like an asshole”, William said quietly after seeing you struggle to hide the sorrow on your face.

“William, no, I get it - it’s ok. Honestly though, if I had it my way, she’d still be alive and I’d be having more fun tonight as opposed to belting out a few songs, nursing my Pink Whitney, and then having to catch a flight.”

William pulled you in for a side hug and kept his arm draped around your shoulder as you walked together to rejoin Rasmus Sandin and his girlfriend Lisa.

As you enjoyed the lively banter between the Swedes in attendance, mixed with Jumbo Joe Thornton’s boisterous brand of humour, you were summoned away from William’s side. You excused yourself from the group and as you walked away, you glanced at William’s face and smiled warmly. He leaned in towards you and gently placed his hand on the exposed skin on your lower back. With his voice lowered, just above a whisper, he said “Good luck up there. Come find me after.”

But as fate, or rather too many prolonged drunken speeches and several other delays, once you had finished performing (at Stephanie’s request) Taylor Swift’s “22”, you were whisked away, with no opportunity for goodbyes, into the awaiting car in order to catch your flight to Dublin.

As the car speeds along the Queen Elizabeth Way towards Pearson Airport, you busy yourself with sending a series of texts, starting with Mitch and Stephanie, thanking them and wishing them well for their honeymoon. A flurry of messages are exchanged between you and the other wedding go-ers until finally, you reach William’s contact information.

Feelings had rapidly thawed between you and William but there still was a palpable distance, a recognizable gap in which that great span of time apart, with no communication, had created. You wistfully type:

it was really great to see you…hope you’re having a blast.

Not long after you pressed send, your phone shows an image being received. After a few more seconds, a selfie appeared of Rasmus and William in sleeveless t-shirts with Zeus portrayed on the front.

You can’t help but laugh out loud.

You two…fucking adorable 😄

A lone heart acknowledges your message.

Back at the wedding, William stares at the screen of his phone.

Rasmus can clearly see his friend’s disappointment; he knew William well, and he was aware of the torch he had always carried for you. Rasmus could also see the sadness in your eyes whenever you looked at William. Rasmus knew how fortunate he was to have found his love in Lisa, and he felt strongly it truly existed between you and William as well. If only you could get on the same fucking page at the same time.

Rasmus puts his arm around William’s shoulders. “Sorry she left, bro. But at least you got a chance to talk to her again”. Rasmus paused before ending with “You never know.”

Rasmus, one of William’s closest friends and forever the optimist, smiles and motions for him to put his phone away. “Let’s just fucking enjoy the rest of the night”.

William stuffs his phone in his pocket and the two friends venture off toward the dancefloor where the sound of whoops and hollers co-mingle with the guests screaming out the lyrics to Rasputin by Boney M.

William quickly distracted himself enough to diminish the thoughts that had been circling his mind about you, and concentrated on having a night with his many friends and former teammates.

By the next day, with William’s eventual departure back to Stockholm and you deep in the throes of rehearsals in Dublin, any feeling that may have arisen during the brief encounter between you and William seemed to dissipate. It seemed apparent, at that moment at least, too much time had passed for either of you to feel secure in contacting the other.

William resumed his off-season activities and on the surface, his brush with you had no real impact on his current life. He saw whomever he wanted to, slept with whomever he wanted to and detached from whomever he wanted to. Even after your name made it into the headlines across Europe and North America regaling your poignant and stunning tribute to the late, great Sinead O’Connor, William simply scrolled past the article on his phone. It was better for him to have you remain out of sight and therefore out of mind.

You had mixed feelings, however. You couldn’t never quite grasp, never quite understand why William’s mere presence affected you so profoundly. You surmised that’s what made you you, and what made your musical career so successful was the depths in which your feelings ran, and how it was converted to song. On the other side of the coin was, once again, the realization - that slap across the face, that William did not feel the same about you. You had allowed what transpired between you and William to completely derail you for years. You simply hadn’t been interested in meeting anyone. Love had shown it’s occasional cruelty in the past but unrequited love was pure unmitigated torture and you enabled it enough to shut down the myriad of advances from men. But It was enough now; you just needed to let go.

And the fog you had been in did eventually lift. You had come to terms that you were ready to find that person; a partner to build a life and a family with. You were approaching 31 years of age and you had deep desires for an exciting future with someone by your side. William’s life seemed to be on a completely different trajectory than yours; his recent admissions during his stint in Stockholm during the Leafs visit had people buzzing that William might be more of a fuck-boy than they had originally thought. And all judgements aside - he’s allowed to blow off steam and decompress however he wants - that version of William that the media was salivating over now was of little interest to you.

[back to the present moment]

William remains on his bed, continuously starting and deleting a text addressed to you. He repeats this 5, 6, 8 times before his frustration with himself boils over. He tosses his phone away from him as if it suddenly had turned into a hot potato.

William rubs his eyes with a bit too much force, almost in an attempt to diminish the gnawing feeling he has in his stomach.

Fuck.

Letting out a long sigh, William turns to Pablo and Banksy who had started to play fight on the bed. “Alright boys, let’s make this quick - it’d be my luck that girl is still hanging out somewhere around the building” William said as he picked up each dog for a quick nuzzle and then set them down on the floor to get ready.

#william nylander #willy styles #nhl imagine #hockey fic #smut #hockey smut #nylander x reader

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fannyyann · 2 years ago

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Matthew Tkachuk, the Panthers’ goalie-goading throwback, delivers hits — and wins — when it counts

by Hailey Salvian and Jeremy Rutherford

Matthew Tkachuk put his father in “timeout.”

That’s why Keith Tkachuk, an 18-year veteran of the NHL and one of the league’s best American-born players, wasn’t available to talk about his son’s remarkable run that has taken the Panthers from “biggest disappointment” to one win from the Eastern Conference finals.

On a Toronto radio station in March, the elder Tkachuk called the Panthers “soft.” By many accounts, that assessment was accurate at the time, and the words seemed to light a fire under the team — as did Paul Maurice’s tirade on the bench the same day during a game against the Maple Leafs.

Florida won its next six games and went 6-1-1 down the stretch to qualify for the playoffs.

Now, there’s no time for distractions, and Matthew wants to keep a lid on his pops, who informed The Athletic of his “timeout” via text.

After upsetting the 65-win Bruins in the first round, the Panthers are the betting favorites to win the Stanley Cup, leading 3-0 in their second-round series against Toronto with a chance at a sweep Wednesday at FLA Live Arena.

And the 25-year-old Tkachuk — in the midst of another career year that would have been MVP-worthy had it not been for Connor McDavid’s otherworldly season — has led the way, from scoring game-winning goals and delivering rousing speeches in the room, to delivering cross checks and goading goaltenders into fights.

He’s the player people love to hate, and he’s building a following of haters as he pushes the Panthers along in the postseason.

And even though the person who’s been most influential in Matthew’s career isn’t talking, others are. The Athletic spoke with a dozen people who for years have tracked Tkachuk’s brand of hockey — he’s a highly skilled agitator (a modest 6-2, 201 pounds) who opponents hate to play against.

Keith — known as ‘Walt,’ a nickname given to him by Winnipeg Jets teammate Eddie Olczyk because his surname was so similar to former Ranger Walter Tkaczuk — was traded to the Blues in 2001. Matthew, only 3 years old at the time, would start playing hockey with a youth program in St. Louis. Let’s just say he wasn’t a phenom.

Chantal Tkachuk, Matthew’s mom: They thought they were getting this ringer of a kid. We went to his first game and he was terrible. He was by far the worst player on the ice.

But that wouldn’t last long. Tkachuk improved steadily, adding a diverse skillset, and working through minor hockey, the U.S. national team program and the Ontario Hockey League.

Jimmy O’Brien, longtime family friend, owns OB Clark’s bar in St. Louis: They had a goal in their backyard, and 50 pucks would be lying in the driveway. Anytime you pulled up to the back of the house, you had to watch from running over the pucks because the driveway was littered with them.

Jon Benne, longtime family friend and strength trainer: I used to take wrist shots at him, and he’d knock them into the net. So when I see him tip a goal in now, I’ve seen that a million times.

Jordan Janes, St. Louis Junior Blues coach (2009-10): Matthew would do some of these between-the-legs (moves) before anybody was doing that. I would always look over at Keith and smile because in my mind I’m thinking, “Holy s— ,” like this is incredible that a 14-year-old is doing this. But you could tell that Keith, who was a “go to the net hard” type of guy, it drove him crazy.

O’Brien: His father told him, “If you ever do that stuff in a game and it doesn’t work, you won’t get off the bench.”

Taryn Tkachuk, sister: He’s not going to do that stuff just to do it. The through-the-legs goal against Nashville, he was like, “There was no way I could’ve shot that regularly.” He practiced that all growing up, so he knows he’s going to be able to do it.

Rob Simpson, assistant general manager of the London Knights: He would try new things all the time. It speaks to how smart a player he is. He was always trying to be creative in different ways to produce or make plays based on what he is seeing against defenders or what they’ve done against him before. He’s always been a creative, out-of-the-box thinker.

There are elements of Tkachuk’s game that can be traced back to the fact that he is Keith Tkachuk’s son.

Don Granato, Tkachuk’s coach with the U.S. National Team Development Program (2013-15): I think you can give some credit to — if not genetics, then just being around his father over the years.

Chantal Tkachuk: When Keith was still playing, they got to go down to the rink, skate after practice. Some of the players would play around with them.

O’Brien: He was a rink rat. He was always hanging around his dad, always going to his practices.

Barret Jackman, Blues defenseman (2002-15): I remember the coaches would have to come by and say, “Hey Walt, practice was supposed to start 10 minutes ago. Can you get Matthew off the ice?”

Benne: Matthew would be sitting on the bench the whole practice, and Keith would come over and say, “Watch T.J. Oshie. Watch how he goes into that corner and comes out.” Matthew would just be sitting there with a helmet on, just absorbing it all.

O’Brien: It’s hard to get a better education in the hockey world than sitting there with professionals and watching them at a young age.

Chantal Tkachuk: Every night, we always watched hockey. The boys would get up before school and the first thing they would do is turn on NHL Network.

Taryn Tkachuk: That was the only thing we really watched on TV. We never really watched other shows on Disney channel.

Chantal Tkachuk: Keith retired in 2010 and stepped away from his career and took almost five years off. In that time, he totally devoted all his time to youth hockey. That happened to align with the most important developmental years of the boys’ lives.

Janes: Keith knew what it took to get there. He demanded a work ethic out of his boys. Goals or not, assists or not, he just wanted to see you work. If you worked, Keith was happy. He knew if you did that, everything else would come.

O’Brien: One of Walt’s favorite things to say is, “Hey, you didn’t win? Play better!”

Taryn Tkachuk: Oh, he says it all the time. If someone didn’t play as well and maybe they’re complaining, like, “The ref did this or that,” or, “The other team wasn’t letting me do this,” my dad is just like, “Play better!” Nothing else. It’s just “Play better!”

Janes: That quote is the most Keith quote I’ve ever heard.

Growing up, Matthew was always competing with his brother Brady (23), and sister Taryn (20). Whether it was roller hockey, basketball or a made-up game they called “trampoline football.”

Benne: Matthew, Brady and Taryn would be on the trampoline, which was enclosed, and I would throw the football in the air as high as I could into the trampoline. It became an MMA wrestling match to see who got the football.

Taryn Tkachuk: I don’t even know how the game got made up. I just remember it being very physical. Literally whoever had the ball, you were about to get decked.

O’Brien: We were playing a two-on-two basketball game, and there were some of the most violent fouls you’ll ever see in your life. I had a bloody nose when we were done.

Taryn Tkachuk: If we were playing basketball, Matthew would never let me just go in for an easy layup. Of course he was going to foul me.

Jackman: I remember during one of the lockouts, Matthew was 15 at the time, and he skated with some of the NHL guys. I went into the corner with him, thinking I was going to play him hard. He tried to reverse hit me, and then he came out of the corner with the puck on his stick. He didn’t back down, even at 15, and I was in my early 30s.

Chantal Tkachuk: The most somebody hates to lose, that would be him.

Tkachuk committed to play at the USA Hockey National Team Development Program a few years before his first season there. But, at 16 years old, there was a learning curve playing with the national team and in the USHL, an under-20 league. In his first USHL season, he scored only 17 points in 33 games. He would double that production one year later in fewer games.

Granato: We knew of his talent, but in his first year, his production wasn’t there.

Nick Fohr, U.S. NTDP associate coach (2013-15): He wouldn’t shoot it. He literally wanted to show off those hands all the time.

Granato: I would tease him a bit. I’d say, “Hey Matthew, do you like to score?” And he’d say, “Yeah.” And I’d say, “No, you like to stickhandle.” He was so good at it, but I needed him to see that he wasn’t going to be that up-and-down-the-rink player.

Fohr: He wanted to have that agitator piece to him because it was kind of ingrained into him at that point, but he wasn’t big enough or strong enough to do any of that stuff at 16 years old.

Chantal Tkachuk: It was the second year in the program. That was the point where we thought he could make it.

Fohr: He played most of his second year with Auston Matthews and Jack Roslovic, which was an unreal line. Auston was the marked man, and Matthew — after being around his dad — was like, well, “Auston is my center, nobody is touching him.” And he started to become that guy. Any little scrum, he was right in the middle of it to make sure that his teammates were taken care of.

Granato: By the midpoint of the second year, he was playing just like he plays in the NHL right now. He was great in the same areas of the ice, great in the same ways.

In the 2016 Memorial Cup Final, the London Knights were in overtime against the Rouyn-Noranda Huskies. Tkachuk, in his first (and only) season in the OHL, took the puck up the left side, toe-dragged around a defender and scored the game-winning goal.

Aaron Berisha, London Knights teammate: At first, it looked like he was on a harmless rush.

Simpson: Matthew could always elevate at the right times.

Robert Thomas, Knights teammate (2015-16), and family friend: We always joked that Christian Dvorak actually tipped it, but obviously Matthew got all the credit for it. Just a big-time player making a big-time play.

Simpson: It’s not just by coincidence that he’s big in the right moments. He puts in the work.

Fohr: He’s in those moments because it’s just who he is. You saw it on the overtime goal against Boston. He knows somebody’s got to go in there and get the puck, somebody’s got to go screen the goalie.

Simpson: He wasn’t the one who shot it in the net, but if he didn’t have the sense and savvy to pop out and screen the goalie, it doesn’t go in.

Fohr: It’s no surprise that you see him do it in overtime in Game 7 because he does it every shift, every game.

Janes: The way Matthew was (growing up) and the way he is today, he will do what it takes for his team to win a hockey game. Period.

Because of his ability to stir up drama on the ice and (at times) cross the line, Tkachuk is one of the most polarizing players in the league.

Fohr: He’s that guy that everybody hates unless he’s on your team.

Benne: I don’t think Matthew came into the league fearing anybody. He just played with that edge, like, “I’m here, I’ve arrived, and look out!”

Granato: He could stoke a situation and get it stoked and get everybody’s emotions running on overdrive. And then, even in a highly emotional state that he stirred up, he will execute where many, many skilled players cannot.

Fohr: If he’s agitated somebody somehow, now a little bit of their focus is on Matthew and it takes just a little bit of focus off what they’re good at and impacts so much of the game.

Granato: It’s like a diversionary tactic, and a highly effective skill that he brings. He’s always ready to score the goal after he disrupts the situation, where other guys just want to take his head off. He never loses sight of, OK, while you’re trying to do that, I’m going to be scoring a goal.

Benne: He’s just going to play hard. He’s going to hit you, and he expects to get hit himself. If you watch that game against Toronto, he hammered two guys, and then he got hammered. Not whining, that’s the way the game goes. That’s the way he plays. He’s pretty fearless out there, but I think he plays right on the line. That’s where he wants to be.

Thomas: It was in full force in London. He’d always find himself mixing it up. He’s feisty and he’s got all the skill in the world. Some people just have it, and he definitely has it.

Berisha: It’s funny when people play against him and say, “Man, I hate playing against him, he seems terrible.” He’s actually one of the best guys ever.

Taryn Tkachuk: Matthew has this switch. Off the ice, he’s a completely different person: super nice, super fun. Once he steps on the ice, the switch just goes off and he puts on these different goggles and just has this compete level that you don’t even know how to explain.

The most common ways to describe Tkachuk: He’s a throwback. He’s a unicorn. He’s just like Keith … and maybe better.

Eddie Olczyk, TNT analyst, former teammate of Keith (1991-96): You see (Matthew) and it’s like turning back the clock 25, 30 years to when we played with each other in Winnipeg.

O’Brien: Walt played in an extremely physical era, and the way Matthew plays is refreshing because it’s a throwback to how it was all the time.

Janes: One thing Keith taught these boys at a young age was, if you want to score, you’ve got to be around the net. They got that right from Keith. They just took it a step further as far as their skillset goes.

Fohr: It’s just a place he’s not afraid to go to. Some players are. They don’t want to go there because it’s a hard area to play in because the D are big and strong. There’s an art to getting there and doing it the right way and Matthew has mastered it.

O’Brien: When Walt was playing, you’d see a big guy out there and you wouldn’t think a guy like that has deft hands. But Walt had sick hands, especially tipping pucks. And that’s one of Matthew’s strengths, too.

Olczyk: Matthew will make a play and you go, “Well, there’s Walt.” It’s eerie, but it’s not surprising that the boys are a chip off the old block.

Chantal Tkachuk: To this day, they tease me because skating has always been Matthew’s deficiency, so they make fun of the fact that I taught him how to skate. Keith will take credit for everything else.

Granato: Matthew plays the same kind of style as his dad. He just does it with more talent.

Fohr: To be a thorn in the side of the opponents and then have that elite ability on top of it, that’s pretty special.

Simpson: It’s very hard to find hockey sense that is that elite but also comes with the poise to make the play when it matters most.

Taryn Tkachuk: He’s literally doing every single aspect of what different players bring in a hockey game. It just makes him so unique.

Benne: Matthew doesn’t care what the media writes about him. Matthew doesn’t care if the fans boo him. Boston is going to hate him now, and Toronto is going to hate him after this series. But that’s what drives him. He wants to perform. He wants to put on a show. But more important than anything, he just wants to win.

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