#jimmy is just going through a humiliation ritual

[ghouliquid]

i'm embarrassed. i don't have an explanation. just take it.

[csykora]

Ooh, ooh. Please tell me all about TJ and how he turned the Caps into a buttsmack-loving, hansy, "babe"-ing team.

Ah, you are asking the NHL’s eternal question:

“Wait, why did the big men just highstick each other in the nuts?”

Ball torture is a big part of a game that’s supposedly played with a puck. 

We can thank the tireless work of the league’s spanking expert, Timothy Lief Oshie (Keeway Gaaboo in Anishinaabemowin, or “TJ”, after a character in 1979’s The Champ, a sports movie that the New York Times once described as “unholy” and “these movies don't mean to deal with the world as it really is, but as it should be, a place where there's no pile-up of emotional garbage too big that it can't be washed clean by a good cry. My problem with 'The Champ' is that I didn't cry. The garbage accumulated."

Clips of the character TJ crying have been found to be “one of the most depressing movies” you can show somebody, and are used in psychological studies. His mom thought Oshie looked like child actor Ricky Schroder, though.)

He is best known as Osh-Babe, like a Pokemon, for the sound he makes.

TJ was born in Everett, Washington, but moved to his father’s hometown of Warroad, Minnesota when he was fifteen to train with his father (Coach Osh) and cousin (Olympian and Red Wings star Henry Boucha).

I have a duty to show hockey tumblr pictures of Coach Henry and Coach Henry’s mustache every year.

He is also cousins with Gary Sargent of the Minnesota North Stars and great-nephew of local legend Max Oshie, because Warroad is a town of 1,700 people who are all cousins and also all Olympians.

For new hockey fans: Warroad is called “Hockeytown USA” because the US men’s team has never won gold without a player from Warroad on the roster. The reason for this is that the town has three rinks (two indoor, one outdoor) and ice time is free. Apparently the only barrier is that sometimes people forget who has the town key to the rink and they have to jimmy the door. 

Little TJ went from having to drive across the Washington/Canada border and paying $20 dollars per hour to skating every day of the year. The first thing Coach Henry did when TJ arrived was make him scrimmage against his local star player. They got so frustrated at not being able to beat each other that they sat down on the ice and burst into tears. The other player is now US Olympic, Boston Pride, and PWHPA star Gigi Marvin.  

Anyway, TJ played college hockey, then for the Blues and for Team USA in the 2014 Sochi Olympics, where he became famous for being a statistical freak and loving his teammates very, very much.

Here he is haring off the ice and all the way down the hall to crush Vladimir Tarasenko after his first career hat trick. After crushing Tarasenko’s Team Russia in 2014, TJ stopped to comfort him.

I don’t have video of TJ’s involvement with Vladimir’s butt, but there were at least a few proto-smacks.

Anyway, that summer TJ was traded away to the Washington Capitals, and the spankings started.

Several people deserve credit for the Washington Capital’s complete lack of personal space before TJ arrived. The first, of course, are Alexander Ovechkin and Alexander Semin, who shared everything from their name through their bubblegum, clothes, and chairs.

The next is Nate Schmidt, who at the time was d-partnered with John Carlson. John Carlson once hugged Nate Schmidt so hard it felt “like getting hit by a linebacker” and “I really felt I was going to eat popcorn with the people in the third row….It was awesome.” Nate Schmidt decided to express his love by composing a Carly Dance, which he would perform for Carlson before every game.

Then backup goaltender Philipp Grubauer told Schmidt he worried Nate was making the Caps’ other senior defenseman, Matt Niskanen, feel less cherished. Together they created a Matty Duet, which they performed at Niskanen while, I assume, the rest of the team had to hold him down.

There was also Tom Wilson, who also hits people very hard. After his first season Alexander Ovechkin was so impressed with Wilson that he nicknamed him “Destroyer”. Tom Wilson I guess blushed and said “No, you!” because started calling Ovechkin “Destroyer” right back. It’s since been shortened to “D”, so if you’re listening to pregame or bench chatter and hear someone yelling that it means either of them.

Since his arrival, TJ has adopted and escalated Schmidt’s pregame dances into elaborate dance-handshakes.

First, and this isn’t directly relevant but it kind of is, TJ is a really big fan of electrotherapy and brought it with him from St. Louis. So before games he and John Carlson like to go into a dark training room and stick electrodes on each other. TJ especially likes putting them on his face. 

(via the Washington Post)

(He uses an Accelerated Recovery Performance machine, or ARP, which is just a TENS unit you can get at CVS. I quite like TENS for pain and it can be very relaxing, so I think it does help him in that sense, but the company selling it as ARP for training purposes is some vintage 19th century snake oil. At one point TJ also stuck electrodes on long-suffering family dog Jay Beagle, who was gracious to his face but concluded, “I just don’t know if it actually works. I don’t like doing things that don’t help, you know what I mean?”)

Emerging from his electric dungeon, TJ has a unique dance-handshake with every member of the team. Each one is based on a joke or something he’s noticed about them, and they are expected to perform it with him in order before every game.

After that, they break out into secondary traditions as TJ supervises: Wilson and Ovechkin bodyslam and scream “D!” onto each other’s faces, during the playoffs John and Ovi square up and hit each other in the jock a ritual number of times, and so on.

...in retrospect maybe I should have pinned John Carlson for more of this, or at least that the Washington Capitals like it when John Carlson humiliates them physically. John Carlson now thinks he can demand his D-partners dance for him, much to Kempny’s confusion.

Anyway then they go out to the ice, where Kempny gamely tows TJ into position for Tom Wilson to whale on his ass and/or balls with his stick. The force and placement of blows vary depending how they’re feeling tonight. TJ returns the favor until they fall to the ice in fake or sometimes maybe not so fake agony. 

When TJ recovers enough he’ll sneak over and steal a spank of the plushest and most precious hockey butt of all: goalie butt.

According to Lars Eller, “it’s little things we have fun with. We don’t do it for anybody else, but for us as a group…just a good way for us to start practice off with a laugh and smile.”

[killprettymagazine]

Tis The Season

“Today is one of those days the sun comes out to really humiliate you.” 

On days like this it’s impossible to stay inside. Just try it. Something will force you out. To confront the ball of fire that sits in the sky like a cigarette burn with hell behind it. So I go outside to go inside. I go into the tunnels under the city where it’s dark. Pitch black in fact. It’s my way to escape while also giving in. I would say that the sun feels good on my skin but that would be a lie. Not on a day like today. Today it burns. It burns in mid December because Los Angeles. 

We don’t enjoy seasons in LA. We get summer and winter but you could wake up mid July and it could be raining outside. You could be wearing a heavy coat for the 4th. Christmas could be a barbecue day. Fire up the grill and cook some ribs. This isn’t global warming. It’s always been like this. LA is anything but predictable. 

I stop by 7-Eleven as per my ritual to get an energy drink and something to stave off hunger half way through my piece. You never eat the “fresh” food at a 7-Eleven. EVER. It’s the equivalent of eating trash out of a rat's mouth. I know it’s cheap, I know it’s easy but respect yourself, you know? If you can’t respect yourself at least respect your asshole. You get some chicken wings or a slice of “pizza” and you’re going to have the runs, deep in a tunnel without a shred of toilet paper for miles. Literally. It’s not a good look. Even if you’re by yourself. Rushing your graffiti, clenching your ass... this was supposed to be relaxing. Fun, even. You’ve ruined it. Ruined it with the promise of what? A satisfying slice of pizza? From 7-Eleven? Trust me, it’s a lie.

On the way in a homeless guy with a big red beard holds his hand out and says, “when they fuck you, they do it without a jimmy.” I stop. 

For that I can give the man a dollar. I check my wallet but it’s empty. “I’ll get you on the way out, buddy.”

Red Man mumbles and goes back to a binder filled with papers. He’s got important business to take care of. I envy him. I have nothing but spray paint and a disdain for my father.

I buy an extra bag of Doritos and on my way out I attempt to put the chips in the red man’s hand. This is when I realize his hand is not empty. I realize this because his hand actually has a knife. Knife isn’t really the right word for it. I guess you’d call it a shiv. It has tape wrapped around the handle part and the blade is more pointy than I'm comfortable with. I realize this because he uses it to rip open the bag of chips. As the orange triangles rain down I let out a “YEEEP!”

“Take it. TAKE IT!” Screams Red Man.

Red Man wants me to take the knife. Why? Why does he need me to have his knife? The whites of his eyes are yellow and bloodshot. His teeth are stained with a thousand cigarettes. I knock the binder out of his other hand, papers fly everywhere.

“The children!”

I run.

To be continued...

You can follow Nacho on Instagram or read more of his work in Mindfuck or in like every issue of Kill Pretty.