#but it's like....i'm pretty sure i know why hockey is the most popular sport on tumblr and ao3

[cementcornfield]

out of curiosity do you follow any hockey teams/players? hope you’ve been having a lovely day also <3

i'm gonna be honest, the only hockey player that exists to me is tyler seguin because of the Body Issue shoot, That Tweet, and he's very, very attractive.

but other than that, no, i'm not really into it!

[zukkacore]

I would fucking love to learn about hockeygate

I'm not the most involved in booktok but i was privy to this drama i don't know how but i did stumble upon it. To be fair. There's literally like articles and videos and stuff that probably explain it better than me, like this is actually getting mainstream coverage it's kinda wild.

Anyway it starts with the fact that there's this Why Choose (reverse harem) hockey romance book that blew up on tiktok called Pucking Around.

So it becomes a thing on tiktok for people who like this book to basically to do faceclaims for the characters with actual real hockey players—i'm not sure if this was independently inspired or if the author was like "yeah these fictional hockey players are totally inspired by [insert real hockey player here"]. One of said fancasts is this guy named Alex Wennberg who plays on the Seattle Krakens.

This booktoker named Kierra Lewis blows up really quickly and gets a pretty decent following mainly from, like, making comedic tiktoks that are basically thirsting over these real hockey players on the Seattle Krakens & how much they look like her book boyfriends which includes Alex. & im sure its like meant to be all in good fun & hornyposting online has its sphere as long as its not invading the lives of the real people involved (kinda like how everyone had the hots for Pedro Pascal which i get but contriving every interview so that he's bombarded with everyone's thirst tweets and comments feels like its devolving into harrassment guys) so i get that. A lot of the jokes are sexual & there's a pretty common one she makes about wanting Alex Wennberg to "crack her back" etc, its play on "break my back" i think? Or maybe its a kraken pun?? idk.

& a lot of the hornyposting about the hockey players involves like making fancams of the players groinstretching on the ice & in these poses that fans sexualize them in, etc etc. I wanna point out that like it's not just Kierra doing this, its a whole sphere of hockey romance booktok, but she is a pretty prominent figure in this story.

Anyway all this hornyposting about the seattle krakens gets the attention of the kraken's actual social media account, so they start playing into it too. Posting thirst traps of the players and stuff. So The Krakens were benefiting from the attention from Booktok, but at the same time, it feels pretty ridiculous to claim that a popular team in a well-loved longstanding sport was, like, "discovered" or made relevant by booktokers.

Kierra Lewis actually gets invited to a Krakens game, like she gets flown out, she gets like a Kraken's jersey that says "booktok" on the back etc etc. & she's posting tiktoks from the game. & i'm gonna editorialize more than i previously have to give more of my personal opinion here, but this is the part that I think is particularly just, inappropriate and in bad taste. b/c she's like filming the players on the ice while they do their stretches and making sexual comments, like shouting "crack my back" to them while they're on the ice, like it's very much the same thing she's doing on tiktok but online is one thing, that's at least worthy of a conversation of like what privacy really is online, but it's another thing to be making comments like that to their face while at a person's place of work.

After all this, the wife of Alex Wennberg, Felicia Weeren, makes a post on social media basically asking people to ease up on all the suggestive comments about her husband online, not just for her sake but b/c it makes her husband uncomfortable, too. She's basically asking for people to be more mindful of how they post, and im paraphrasing in her sentiment that people would view this behavior targeted towards her husband and the other hockey players and inappropriate if women were the recipients of the sexual comments.. It's been impacting their lives because their online presence now is basically just swarmed with people making suggestive comments, people in their lives irl are commenting on it & making jokes about it, etc etc.

(& i personally don't love when people make the "if the genders were reversed" arguments b/c that tends to lead to false equivalency & also b/c people broadly don't take harassment of women seriously, but tbh she has a point. While people don't take harassment of women seriously, i think broadly left-leaning people at least understand the shape of like, what a catcall is and why its bad. & part of the reason this went uncommented on for so long is part of the patriarchal stereotype that men always want sex which is used to dismiss male victims)

She was pretty measured about the whole thing all things considered, especially b/c she said she's all for female empowerment and sexual expression & she doesn't know if there is a simple answer to this stuff, but there has been boundary crossing with how extreme and vocal its getting & especially b/c its affecting her husband at his work.

In her post, some of the examples she included as inappropriate comments included posts made by Kierra. She didn't single out Kierra directly, but she did use her posting as representative of a larger trend in the hockey romance booktok fandom.

The post from Felicia was taken really poorly by booktok and people started harassing her and her family including their kid, and saying she was being dramatic, saying she wants to be the center of attention, fabricating rumors about her and Alex wennberg that they were having "marriage trouble" etc etc. This includes Kierra lewis getting pretty upset and taking the post as though she's being singled out personally. Mostly doubling down, deflecting, saying it's all just a joke.

And perhaps it does suck to be treated as representative of an entire group of people, and being the most prominent face of something, she would inevitably get the brunt of backlash. But also she was the one invited to the game and was making all those comments like shouting at the players and stuff, so I do think she has to take a larger ownership over her behavior than random people posting online.

During this time she also finds out the Kraken's social media unfollowed her, so she's also expressing resentment that the Krakens were playing into the thirst trap stuff but suddenly have turned against her.

And yes, it was all just probably meant to be in good fun, but from the wider internet outside of booktok, it just seemed pretty inconsiderate and crappy to double down after people expressed that they were uncomfortable with what is basically sexual harassment. Yes, the Kraken social media was feeding into the hype, but the social media account is not representative of the players and their attitudes, and it was clear that the players stopped being comfortable with what was going on. Tbh there was quite a bit of victim blamey rhetoric. Consent can be revoked at any time. (& i have seen some arguments that b/c its sexual harassment (& in the workplace!) and not just like, an encounter in the bedroom, it wouldn't even have been possible for Alex Wennberg to consent in the first place b/c you can't consent to harrassment. It was just harrassment the whole time.)

Anyway, the harassment toward Felicia got so bad that Alex Wennberg had to come out and also make a statement in support of his wife

But the reason that post is making fun of booktokers thinking they made hockey relevant was b/c that was a pretty funny and common argument from Kierra and other booktokers who were not backing down on their position that they did nothing wrong. They kept being like "well we made the Kraken's relevant", "we brought all this attention to hockey", "the Krakens would be nothing without booktok." it was all very bizarre.

[sparklecryptid]

idk why garbage disposals are so popular either, they're pretty unnecessary for me. I think I've only lived in one or two places that had them and they mostly functioned as jumpscare devices when i would hit the switch by accident.

Tailgate parties can be fun though! They're basically just out door parties.

I don't know for SURE why they started, but if I had to guess... Most american events aren't considered places to DRINK. It's prohibited. Like you might be able to get away with a beer while cheering the home team in the stands, but that's it and then only if you hide what it is (there are a whole RANGE of things you can buy to sneak alcohol into places btw. Like hats and backpacks! And false boobs. I kid you not.)

So tailgating possibly arose as kind of a way to have an after party in the parking lot after the concert or game. You don't wanna convene elsewhere, because you may or may not actually KNOW any of these people.

There are other uses tho! Tailgating is popular for things like outdoor potlucks where there might not be much seating (idk if you know what those are, so for anyone reading this and going 'huh?' Potlucks are where a bunch of people meet up and everyone brings a dish or two to be shared by everyone. They're usually held outdoors or in a church or community center)

In particularity rural areas it's fairly common for people to meet up in someones field outside of town for an impromptu tailgate party, or it was when i was a little kid anyway. A kind of 'hey i'm bored how bout you? cool lets phone tree everyone and meet up in my grandpa's back acre! I'll get beer, tell Jeff to bring his stereo!' thing. Not sure if people still do that as much.

See! I know what a potlock is! I have been to a great many! They are fun!

But also I now have a Very Big Question.

Does America not allow alcohol in its sport stadiums? Is that a thing? Do you guys not have people selling beer and shit. Is that not. Not a thing. I can go to a hockey game and grab a beer. I can go to a baseball game and grab a beer. There are SPECIFIC NON ALCOHOL HAVING SECTIONS in the main arena in my city. Going to a hockey game means that there is gonna be beer. That's just.

That's just how it is!

Hell! My city has *parks* where you can crack open a cold one with the boys. Every time I think Americans and Canadians are more similar than not you guys come out here with stuff like 'yeah most of our events arent considered places to drink'

LIKE WHAT. NO ONE CARES AS LONG AS YOU DONT GET WASTED IN WHICH CASE A BIG SECURITY GUY IS HAULING YOUR ASS OUT.

There are beer tents at our big city fair. You know. With Rides and Kids. Just like. ??????.

Also garbage disposals just seem like a Rich Person thing to me

[csykora]

hi! i'm sorry to bother you, i was wondering if you could rec a few books on the russian 5 / soviet hockey in general? language does not matter, english or russian is fine (pref. english so i can throw them at friends but either work). your posts are the best thing on this site.

Thank you, that’s a great question! I go back to first-person accounts for stories about the players themselves and use a lot of non-book materials for facts like tournaments and statistics, so most of the these will be autobiographies, but there are a couple more general books too.

Please let me know which if any of them you read and what you and your friends think!

I'd recommend anybody start with Igor Larionov’s 1990 book, “Larionov” (originally written in English, but I believe also available in Russian).

It’s a fast read (150 pages). You can dive in, spend an hour with your new best friend Igor in the bathroom at a party listening to him spilling his feelings and relationship drama, and get up to speed on what/who you need to know.

Igor at that age is funny, insecure, over the top, and telling (sometimes on purpose, sometimes not) about his pain. There are bits that might make you want to hold up a finger and ask if he’s sure a conversation went down like that or if maybe his friends remember some things differently--those are some of the bits that made me look for more books.

He writes more on the psychological weight of his experiences, but does discuss some of the physical abuses (more of that is in Fetisov’s book, which I’ll get to below.) It’s one of the most intimate portraits of Viktor Tikhonov—Larionov admits to taking notes on his coach just like his coach did on him. In that sense, it is radically different than the books and articles I’ve read by North Americans.

(Note that he talks about disordered eating, from the perspective of someone who at that time believed this was positive. The passages where he describes his own and his teammates’ diets can be difficult to read. Consider reading Alyonka Larionova’s essay in the Athletic after; it’s not an easy read either, but I found it reminded me there’s the possibility of change and healng even for older people from generational trauma.)

Then try either:

Home Game, Ken Dryden, 1989 (English), the chapter “No Final Victories”

A lot of Canadian men have read Ken Dryden books and thought, ’if I’m looking down anyway, why not navel-gaze about the meaning of life and measure my dick?’ This is, I think, not his fault. He’s writing from a very Canadian perspective, but he’s quite good at writing about that perspective and its gaps.

In this chapter he talks about what Canadian players or the public thought they knew about the Soviets between the 70s and ’89. It lays out a thorough, engaging play-by-play of how Larionov, Fetisov, and others worked toward leaving, and is a nice balance for the raw Igor experience.

This is one of the most popular all-time hockey books, so it’s worth looking for it in your library if you want to just read that chapter.

or

The Russian Five, Keith Gave, 2018, about 300 pages

I like the heart behind this book. There’s good information in it. Keith Gave wrote short, quick, newspaper and radio sports-news for 15 years—he has a deep knowledge of the Red Wings not just on the ice but as an organization, a very interesting personal adventure story, and a sort of eagerness to understand and empathize with the Russian players.

It’s his first time doing historical research or writing a book, so I do think he has trouble telling the things you need to know in the order you need to know them in order to care about them, if you don’t already have a good sense of the timeline.

Hard to find but keep an eye out for:

The Red Machine, Lawrence Martin, 1990

A much longer discussion of Soviet hockey focused on the national team from the early twentieth century to 1989. Has more context, vignettes, and details on the backstory of the ’70s/early 80s team and life at the Soviet training compound than many other books in English.

It’s widely cited by other books but it’s out of print and a bit rare—I think I might have just bought the only copy that was up for sale this year, so I’ll post about it in more detail when I can!

Russian options:

Овертайм, Slava Fetisov, 1998, reprinted in 2016 (Russian), about 400 pages

This is where the really rough details are. Fetisov writes about his childhood, life in CSKA, and leaving. He mostly talks about his own life, rather than saying much about other players, but includes lots of little details about daily life and how it was intertwined with his friends. He has time to get a lot more detailed about the physical strain of training than Larionov’s book, including injuries, players who died in training, the deaths of his brother and injury of Konstantiov in car accidents, and the corporal punishments and other violence, including the time he alleges Tikhonov arranged to have him tortured by police.

I think his writing is very evocative and enjoyable to read, so that helps, at least.

(It’s a bit hard to find, but if you have access to a Russian library or second-hand store, keep an eye out. It was re-released as part of a series in 2016, which is after he talked with Alexei Kasatonov and became official BFFs again, so I don’t know if the text was updated at that point.)

Tretiak: the Legend, Vladislav Tretiak, 1987 (originally written in Russian, but widely available in English!)

This one’s very interesting to think about the psychology/culture of Soviet players. Tretiak writes heartbreakingly about his own personal experiences, especially his relationships with older players and his relief at retirement. But there are also a lot of ‘missing’ details that probably reflect how he wrote it before Larionov publicly discredited the system—he only writes quite vague positive things about Coach Tikhonov, which are completely different from how he speaks now.

Хоккей в моем сердце, Boris Mikhailov, reprinted 2016 (Russian)

I will never come up with a book title as good as Boris Mikhailov’s ‘Hockey In My Heart’.

Mikhailov is very witty and sharp. While he doesn’t tend to talk about the details of his conflicts with Tikhonov, he has great little stories about lots of the people in Soviet hockey. He also played and coached in St. Petersburg and smaller regions as well as Moscow, so he has some interesting information on the contrasts.

Viktor Tikhonov: Life in the name of hockey by Tatiana Tikhonova

Sasha Mogilny once commented that the only people who could stand Tikhonov were his wife and his dog, “and I don’t know how they do.” Would you like to read his wife’s book of pictures of him with the dog? Would you like to read about how she thinks Tatiana Mikhailova is a bitch, which immediately makes Mikhailova seem cool as hell? Try this book.

Xрустальные люди/ Crystal People, Stanislav Gridasov

A detailed portrait of the hockey community in Saratov (where the young Boris Mikhailov played before CSKA). Completely different than the rich Moscow system, it seems like a great counterpoint, showing the regional tensions in the Soviet Union. I was just recently tipped off to this, but you can find excerpts of in English in Bruce Berglund’s new 2020 book The Fastest Game in the World: Hockey and the Globalization of Sports, which itself looks pretty good.