#nonnerpants

[trilliath]

Hey Trill, if you don't mind, how can you tell that Phil is lifting like 600 lbs in that underarmour ad?

Well, like I said it’s hard to see from that clip and the dramatic lighting exactly what’s going on, and sometimes weights aren’t standard anyway so without seeing the markings nobody can be certain, but based on my own experience with weightlifting, it looks like he’s got this setup:

Bar : 45 or 50 lbs is most common. Count that weight once but double all the others because the plates are always even on either side.

The pair of double-wide plate closest to the center of the bar : 100lbs each or possibly 75s most likely. They look like 100s to me but I could be wrong.

The three pairs of single-wide plates : 45lbs each most likely, very standard

The medium sized plate after that : probably a 30lb pair and probably a 25lb pair. Could be like a 30-20 or a 25-10 possibly, hard to tell in this. But my gut reaction was 30 and 25 from their size.

So altogether my estimate is that’s about 45 + (2*100) + (3*2*45) + (2*30) + (2*25) = 625 lbs rough estimate. At the very LEAST I’m sure it’s a minimum of 550 lbs.

p.s. That chain definitely adds a few extra because Phil is just that salty, he wants you to know he lifted even more than you can even estimate.

[trilliath]

Mayday mayday, Sid flashing his feetsies on Tangers insta (and being a nerd in the process), I can’t 😭

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I cannot either. That’s. Nerd Sid. All Soft and Barefoot.

Thank you tanger, thank you so much.

[trilliath]

re: pronouncing Zykov, in my language there's a clear difference in the vowel sounds of i and y, and I've read a few sidgeno genderbent AUs where Sid is Syd, and it just throws me off because to me those are quite different, but in English they're supposed to be pronounced the same? Weird tbh ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Honestly it’s more that English is a slutty, slutty language that has no fidelity to its vowel sounds and how they really relate to the letters we use. It’s a lovely patchwork quilt of language cobbled together from everything it could around the world, but it has its weaknesses hehe. Russian, for instance (at least as far as I’ve seen in the two years I’ve been studying it), has vastly more fidelity between the sounds and letters, and a lot more consistency overall in pronunciation.

i and y do mostly sortof represent different sounds in english, but not always, and they can each come in like five different forms depending on where they show up, it’s ridiculous. It’s true a lot of the time they do get pronounced the same when they’re deliberately being made to be interchangeable. Like with Sid and Syd - which is more because culturally that is sometimes a feminized version of the name Sidney to spell it Sydney even though it’s the same sound.

I don’t like it personally in the case of fic because that’s… just not Sid’s name? Letters matter to people? Like, my first name is a jumble of nonsensical english vowels (four of the six letters are vowels if you count y lmao) that nobody can pronounce from how it’s spelled but I’m still attached to it. (that’s also why it makes sense to me that someone named Евгений is going to translate their name to Evgeni even if a more phonetic translation would be more like Yevgyeny or maybe Ievgieni. That E shape itself is familiar and important even if it is definitely not the same sound at all. Also why Geno makes way more sense than Gino imo, despite Gino being possibly a more common spelling.)

For the vowel “ы” in particular, in my opinion, it’s really just not quite something you can directly link to a single english letter and have that be informative enough. Like, it’s almost always translated into a “y” but like… I don’t like it. An english speaker looking at “Zykov” is not going to have any way of knowing how to say it even using english-normal pronunciations of a “y”. Like… Zeekov? Zaikov? either is a fair guess from the y, and yet neither of them are close to “ы” anyway. (To me) It’s more like the “ey” sound made by the word “whey” than any single english vowel… but it never quite works fully anyway because, especially in northamerican english, our vowel sounds are all made so far down in our throats it’s practically scandalous, while russian vowels are much further towards the front of the mouth.

In the end I just think it’s all so weird and cool and interesting… but it also bugs me a LOT that people whose entire professional careers involve working with people from a fairly small variety of nationalities and native languages, can’t be bothered to learn a little tiny bit about those languages and how to get people’s names right. The fact that Zdeno Chara learns at least a little bit of all his new teammates’ native languages is absolutely wonderful but honestly to me it should be the NORM for long-standing captains and coaches and managers etc.. It’s really not that hard, and getting names right is so important psychologically and for relationships. It’s so unprofessional to me to see how many of these media people etc. do things like ramble with too-fast colloquial english and being huffy about having to be corrected in mispronouncing a player’s name after they’ve been doing it wrong and a rookie was too nervous to correct them at first.

[trilliath]

thoughts on NHL not allowing players in the Olympics?

Well, to make sure we’re being accurate, the NHL didn’t directly not allow players, they just didn’t agree to take time out of the NHL season and risk valuable assets and spend money to send them on the whole. For a time there it looked like certain players would be allowed to be released by their teams if their owners permitted (e.g. Ovechkin has a ton of support from Caps owner Leonsis). The Olympics committee is the one that actually banned the NHL players from attending entirely. All of it was a mess and neither party is blameless in how it all shook out.

My personal feelings on this are…. well, look, on behalf of the players I care about of course I have sympathy for all their hopes and dreams and wanting a chance to go to the olympics, sure. And who doesn’t love Crosby’s golden goal story, or Oshie’s crazy shootout performance, or having people being members of the triple-gold club, or seeing their fav teammates split up to play for opposing home countries?

But.

These are already highly-paid pro athletes who are, more or less, on the world stage all year long.

When I consider how manyOlympic athletes have to scrimp and scrounge and beg for even one tiny sponsorship, how they have to work part time at home depot (which home depot uses as a marketing tool in a way that kinda… horrifies me) in order to accommodate their hard training schedules but still have food on the table… and how many of them have a sport that has extremely limited media coverage or event availability or financial support… well.

Frankly.

I don’t actually think men’s hockey (or basketball, or other pro team sports etc.) should be part of the olympics at all. I appreciate it being part of the olympics for the women’s teams because they are only barely pro-established the rest of the time and they deserve that shot at the world stage for all their hard work at their athletic pursuits. NHL players already have all of that in spades.

That’s not to say I can’t appreciate the chances for an exciting upset and underdog storyline, or the chance for a guy who hasn’t been lucky enough to be on a stanley cup winning team to get another kind of trophy - but there’s already IIHF worlds and although the glory and honor of an olympic medal is unique and special…….. sorry, NHLers, you can’t have it all, and you already have so much. Let that crazy bobsleder or curler or super ski jumper have center stage and an olympic medal. You want it so bad, go do an olympic sport.

[trilliath]

Hi Trill! A while back I remember you commenting on the staring contest between Freddy and Auston as the moment when Freddy realised he wanted to dom Auston or something like that - I've literally been thinking about it ever since, so I wondered if you maybe had some more thoughts on that you wanted to share?

Hehehhehehehehehehehheh uhhhh well. I might be working on writing up a fic that @myotparmada and I plotted out about all that and how someone on the team probably owed Freddie an apology after that Flyers game that had him yelling at people on the bench and allowing his dissatisfaction to show to the media… and how Auston might take it upon himself to… apologize… even though it wasn’t his fault but. You know. Lead by example, the whole team is responsible for each other, etc. etc.

But really, that whole interview, (watch the whole thing) Auston looks so eager to please - so much more expressive than almost everything else I’ve seen with him. He lights up, he giggles, he keeps looking to Freddie to see how he’s responding. Whenever he gets any praise from Freddie he just looks, so warmed by it. To me, he seems like… he’d be on his knees in an instant if only Freddie were to ask.

Freddie has goalie eyes and is the master of the visual-dominant stare so it’s not like he’s ever NOT going to look dominant when he’s paying attention to someone, but still, he seems surprisingly into every little change in Auston’s face throughout that whole thing. But in general he just seems... so dominant.

And the fact that he doesn’t hesitate to cut in sharp at Auston’s possibly-sly-chirping-of-Freddie comment about Connor Brown’s hair and Auston just giggles like he’s just so happy to have Freddie putting him in his place…. well.

Then there’s the video-game competition video they did - not the one where Auston plays with the other boys but where he’s one on one with Freddie. Where Auston spends the entire time glancing over at Freddie looking torn between wanting him to be impressed by his sick skills and looking nervous that he’s made him mad by being too dominant by showing him up so much. His body language SCREAMS it. Like, literally in a technical nonverbal psychology sense (which, I would know, I wrote a chapter in the APA handbook on nonverbal psych lolol), it’s all there. Not that it’s hard to do around a giant like Freddie but Auston in these friendly bits is always making his body-position lower/more subservient to Freddie’s, and I don’t have footage from before, or uncut angles enough to know the timing for sure but I would bet you a lot that in both videos, Freddie’s the one who sets the body postures first and Auston matches him in unconscious mimicry because he’s so tuned in. But also I wouldn’t be surprised if Freddie follows in some of Auston’s smaller more fidgeting gestures that show he’s just as tuned-in to the conversation.And Freddie just keeps stringing him on with pretending to ignore him and giving him just those little hints of attention (all while clearly being completely aware of him). Honestly it’s like watching someone use the join-up method in horse training.

And of course, the staring contest, (which, who even remotely thinks goalies aren’t going to MURDER that competition? they literally train for that shit lmao) where Freddie watches Auston fall apart right in front of him and - ok I don’t find Auston Matthews particularly attractive (especially since he’s so young) but… ahem… crying is a Good Look on him. And Freddie’s slow smile and laughter that’s a little incredulous and amused and yet so pleased with how hard Auston is fighting even though he’s definitely going to lose… to me it genuinely looks like Freddie is having some kind of surprised but pleased realization at just how much he’s enjoying watching Auston struggle to perform this endurance challenge… and how he maybe hadn’t really ever thought of putting Auston on his knees for him and watching him squirm but… well… he’s thinking about it now. That’s where my brain went anyway.

I mean… if you want to forcibly build intimacy (and massive physiological and psychological arousal (not necessarily in the sexual sense but it can also be that) having a direct eye-contact staring contest is one of the most sure-fire ways to LIGHT UP your nervous system. Like whoa. Since Auston is clearly already dialed in to this situation, his crying is almost certainly not just due to dry eyes but due to his system going into overload and needing an outlet. And you might not realize it but the psych science on that suggests that because your brain is kinda…….. easily misled…. excitement may make it kinda go - well, IDK why exactly but I’m SUPER LIT UP RIGHT NOW - huh must be this person I’m talking to i must……. like them or something. They must be super appealing and I’m all excited from it.

So basically… thanks Leafs PR people for manipulating Auston and Freddie into strengthening their subconscious awareness of each other’s appeal… and then showing it to us. I didn’t need another ship but I’ll take it XD

[trilliath]

Hey Trill, I'd love to hear your thoughts on why Sprong didn't make it in the NHL and also on Guentzel playing center. If you would be so kind as to share them :)

Sure! First and foremost, it’s a lineup thing. They’ve got guys coming back from injury changing the whole ideal lineup for the coaches, and the impression that I get is there’s just not an opening right now for Sprong. He’s very young still - and he has spent a lot less time playing in even the AHL, let alone the NHL, than people that are in the spots he could possibly play right now.

In my opinion, though, Sprong didn’t “make it” because he’s not as good as he thinks he is. He’s got some talent, sure, but he sure didn’t go out and wow us with his performance in the games he had recently. He did ok - bordering on good numbers-wise with not too many costly mistakes, but in my perception it was just… ok. His attitude is where I have a problem - he is barely out of juniors and he seems to think he’s more than ready for the NHL - which, hey, you gotta have confidence in your abilities but there’s a definite limit. You might remember that at the beginning of last season Dumo’s (self-admitted) greatest weakness was overconfidence in the wrong things - they sat him out some games as a healthy scratch to help him get some perspective on his game. I wasn’t the biggest fan of his play last year (though seeing a game in person so I could see what he did behind the play helped me understand the coaches confidence in his potential) but he’s made leaps and bounds since then and its all clicked but I definitely felt having Hainsey around being an exemplar of a mature humble hardworking attitude instead of Cole’s bravado is what really helped him get to the right level.

Now, Sprong has not made the greatest impression on me in general. There are times I noticed him for all the wrong reasons - a deeply lazy backcheck here and there, giving up on a play before the whistle, missing a defensive backup he should have had, not hustling on the line-change, stuff like that. You can’t do that on the Pens - and sure, playing at this level is something to adapt to; you saw it really blatantly in all the new guys this season like Sheahan and Hunwick and Reaver, that it took a few games to realize it’s HARD HUSTLE AT ALL TIMES NO STOPPING TO SETTLE THE PUCK around these parts. But those guys took like… 3-5 games to get there and they made visible progress each game. I think Sprong started picking up his game a little by the end of his… what was it, six games? but it definitely wasn’t quick enough. His job as a young guy getting his shot to fill a hole in the lineup is to be humble and fight with every ounce of his young energy and be as adaptive as possibleto the lineup-hole that needs filling (or at least be very simple and sticking to your core game consistently so Sid can figure out what you’re going to do and use you). Just go back and look at how hard Sheary worked his ass off being adaptible and being where Sid wanted him when he first got his shot.

To me, the reason Simon is still here and Sprong is not (besides obvious lineup wing-side balance etc.) is that Simon was dialed in and did everything he could to be what Sidney Crosby needed him to be. I couldn’t say because I don’t pay any attention to the AHL games, but what I’ve seen of Sprong gives me the impression that he hasn’t learned the lesson from Sid and the other core Pens that he needs to learn yet: Being the best guy on the team, being “good enough” is not the point - being better every dang day is the point. As for Dea sticking around a few games - he’s just more experienced and they are already struggling with instability right now at center. I think they’re anticipating Carter coming back before too long now too, so it’s not the time to be trying to train up a guy at center who seems a little too far in his own head.

That leads in to why, in part, I think we’re not gonna see Guentz at center either, except in relief. For whatever reason, the coaching staff doesn’t seem to want him to play center - they’ve explicitly said they prefer him at wing. Personally, I find that a little surprising because I think he has an excellent hockey IQ. Centers are at such a premium that I wonder if they aren’t shooting themselves in the foot long term by not continuing to develop him at center but, I don’t know. If it’s anything, it’s that they’re like - yeah kid you can play center and you’ll be good, but not great, but at wing YOU TIED A PLAYOFF ROOKIE SCORING RECORD ON THE WING AND WE NEED PRODUCTION. Just play the wing since you have good chemistry with multiple star guys and can score and there you might be GREAT. And a winger with that much hockey IQ can also make up for some weaknesses at center sometimes, so… I don’t hate it. I can tell Jake is a bit disappointed by it too, but I can’t imagine the coaching staff would do that if they didn’t really think this was the path to get him to his best game.

[trilliath]

It's definitely a done deal. Reaves and a 4th round pick to Vegas. Cole to Ottawa and Brassard to pitt.

Heh, nothing is a “done deal” in trade season till it’s officially announced, come on, hasn’t that been obvious today hahaha?

But yeah, as of right THIS minute and not the minute when I saw your prior ask, we have official confirmation XD

[trilliath]

I could use fic commenting advice, if you don't mind. I always hold my tongue over errors in fic (bc IT'S FREE, I have no right to say shit) but occasionally I run into things like using 'exercise' instead of 'exorcise'; a super simple mistake to make, and programs like Word would miss it. I like it when readers point out small errors like that in my own work bc I like improving it. But, even if I phrase it in that context, do I even go there in a comment? I feel no, but I could be wrong?

Yeah it’s a tough one, because even though it’s literally not even a critique - just a proofreader’s catch, not any value judgment - it can hit an author the wrong way if they’re not having a great day so I tend to be cautious about correcting people. As an author most of the time I’m like - “oh thanks for helping me catch that”, but lbr I’m a pretty sensitive person and if that’s the only comment they’ve left it tends to rub me the wrong way. A friend of mine once had a well-meaning reader just… reading all their stuff one day and the reader kept pointing out typos (without really commenting in gratitude about anything else) and it drove them so nuts I had to go politely ask the reader to stop because they didn’t realize they were stressing my introverted friend out with every new Ao3 notification.

How I handle typos as a reader;

Usually if the typo is just one that’s obviously just a tiny typo that half the time I might not even notice, I ignore it. Life’s too short to worry about those as both reader and author. If it’s one where it seems to change the meaning of the sentence or make something confusing, then I consider leaving a note about it.

If I do think I want to leave a copyediting note, I never, ever, ever leave a comment with a proofreading correction without also taking the time to thank the author for the fic and tell them something I liked about it first. I make sure that I add the proofreading correction in a post script like it’s just a side note that has nothing to do with how I enjoyed the story.

I also make sure to take into account who the author is before deciding to make any proofreading notes.

If I know the author - as in we’re mutuals somewhere, I’ll frequently note a typo for them. I usually just comment however I normally do and add a p.s. “caught a typo [quote the full line with the typo so it’s easy to search for and correct]”

If I don’t know them, especially if I don’t know their other writing if they have any, or no knowledge of their experience level or english proficiency, I typically just let it slide (unless they’ve explicitly asked for typo-checking in a/n obviously). I think it’s important to remember that a lot of fans are writing in their non-native language and even the most well-meaning someone correcting them can be disheartening after they worked so hard to do as well as they already did everywhere else. I know that when I try and form sentences in the other languages I’m studying, I can feel MASSIVELY shut down by even the nicest correction if I haven’t requested it.

The grey area is where it’s someone who seems like they’re an experienced writer and not someone who’s new or tentative in their author-notes but is not someone I’m already friends with. Mostly if I’m not sure I’m doing more good than harm, I don’t risk it.

The other type of issue that gets to me is when it seems as though the author may not realize they’re consistently using a word wrong - which can be very embarrassing to have pointed out to you (more than a typo), but I often feel like it’s a bit like having your zipper undone. It’s more embarrassing if someone could’ve told you sooner and didn’t and now a whole room full of people saw you with your fly down. Although I’m a huge fan of fanfic and this cutting-edge fiction we write, I do sometimes worry about the bad grammar patterns that people learn by not spending more time reading professionally-copy-edited works enough to know when there are errors in the fic they’re reading (e.g. people thinking “would of” is correct instead of knowing it’s “would’ve” and then going on to use that in their school/professional life and looking bad).

But if that’s the case, I’ll often leave a normal comment on the story, then try and find out if the author has a tumblr, or whatever, where they could be contacted in a way separate from the story itself so it hopefully feels like less of an indictment of their artwork and instead just a friendly discussion about writing. If I don’t have another way to reach them I might still comment on the fic if it really seems like a consistent mistake. I try to take care not to assume I know better than them even if it seems obvious. After all, who am I to assume anything? You seem thoughtful also, so please don’t think I’m implying you would be high-handed either by using the perfectly reasonable example you gave, but it illustrates my thought nicely; an author using exercise when it seems like they meant exorcise - they might have also meant to use excise so if I went off assuming I knew better and “corrected” them to tell them to use exorcise I might not actually be right either!

I try my best to keep a humble attitude when offering any support to another author. Or any person on any subject, tbh. A lot of the time that just means holding my thoughts since nobody asked for my opinion on it. So yeah, that’s the really long way of saying I agree with you. Generally, I just let it go!

[trilliath]

Visiting the WH was acting better than any other team? Saying they "don't care" is acting better than any other team? Dismissing female, disabled, and fans of color? I'm unbelievably disappointed in the entire team. But especially in Sidney. He had the opportunity to make a huge statement that would have made a difference and he didn't He became the captain of the ONLY major sports team to visit a Trump WH. What a strange world YOU live in that you think that behavior is A-OK.

1) While we obviously can’t know what would happen in an AU where another team won, are you really, really going to try and convince me that a team based in - oh, IDK, let’s go with NASHVILLE as the other most likely candidate - that they wouldn’t have gone to the whitehouse (and probably made a bigger deal out of it)? Or any team based in the U.S. who would’ve been invited? Some people, mostly canadians, made some noises about how they wouldn’t’ve but talk is real, real cheap if you’re not the one actually facing the decision.

2) In what way have the Pens “dismissed female, disabled, and fans of color”? If they have, I’ve missed it. Just that whitehouse visit? So one event is enough for you to dismiss all the good work they do the rest of the year and consider it a sum-total attack on minorities, ok. And yes the NHL as a league is full of bullshit that is dismissive of minority fans but let’s not pretend that the Pens are somehow worse on that front - and I can think of several points where they do better than other teams on some things.

3) If you think Sidney Crosby is the one who made any decision about the visit, you’re pretty naive to how organizations like this work. Hell, it’s ridiculous to think that the penguins organization made that choice independently of pressures in the NHL administration overall - considering that some team owners have close ties to the vomitous mass currently living in the white house. Would I personally have done differently in Sid’s shoes? Sure. Do I think calling it an honor was a pretty naive and shitty thing to say? Oh yeah. Do I think that likely every other NHL captain would do the same in his shoes when the decision for the team to go wasn’t his anyway? You betcha.

4) To make no mistake: I find the current political administration absolutely sickening in the utmost. You have no idea how not okay I am with it. I was deeply disappointed that the Pens went, and in their PR choices on the weekend of the tweet-storm with the other sports teams, and I let them know it. I’m also not blind to the factors surrounding the situation and try to never make the mistake of black-and-white thinking around complex issues.

[trilliath]

Thanks for the qualifying points post. I'd been fiddling around with a calculator unable to agree/understand how the Pens only needed to win 3 games to qualify. I was bracing myself to submit a string of anon posts (I dont have a tumblr account) but then you made your post. Thank you. It's going to be a nerve wracking time, unless the Panthers lose a few games in short order. Fingers crossed for the Pens.

Sure thing - It’s going to be a heck of an end of the season! And this is one of the tighter races it seems like in recent years - at least for all the teams I follow it is. With so many teams so close and in flux, it will be as good as guessing till the last couple days I’m sure.

[trilliath]

trill, be honest, you've *written* that fic

shhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh just because one of my most popular fics of all time is A/B/O shhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

[trilliath]

I keep seeing ppl in fics drinking and driving A LOT and I never understand if that’s an american thing or what. Where I live someone who is driving wouldn’t have even one glass of wine, let alone share a bottle??? Robot-Sid always baffles me too like maybe they think ”he’s so good he must be a robot” but uhhh idk.

I think a lot of that has to do with the fact that with the drinking age being 21 here (oh and also our weird-ass puritan roots and prohibition-era holdovers making it a weird forbidden-fruit culture), a lot of fic writers don’t really know so much about how drinking works. I mean, you see some people writing things like someone angst-drinking an entire fifth of whiskey (which, people, that’s like doing 26 or so “drinks” worth of alcohol) in a short period of time - which would pretty much be lethal. Or they might not realize splitting a bottle of wine is in many cases (depending on the wine and how high its alcohol content is) 2.5-3 “drinks” worth of alcohol, which (depending on your body mass) is probably enough to be buzzed (which is enough you probably shouldn’t drive without some time to sober up but might not quite be at the legal limit) but not really considered “drunk” around these parts.

But it’s true, many people do tend to have a little alcohol even if they’re driving but being responsible in the states, to some degree or another. It depends on what part of the states you’re from for how normalized it is (down in the south some places they have like, drive-throughs where you can order mixed drinks? or so I’ve heard. I avoid that part of the country pretty much entirely, for so, so many reasons), but I think a lot of it has to do with everything being really spread out in some places and the common lack of public transportation. Most younger people who can’t afford cabs or whatever have to drive themselves to get anywhere and when you mash that up against party/drinking culture there’s not a lot of space left for people to be smart about it unless they can group up with a Designated Driver, but a lot of times people just want to have a couple beers with friends if they’re not really partying, so they’ll just drive.

I’ll typically have one beer / glass of wine for any two hour period at most if I’m driving but I know that’s more cautious than a lot of people I’ve hung out with and is something I got into the habit of specifically because for a long time I only drove a motorcycle, which, obviously you need to be even more sober to safely operate something that requires balance than not lol.

On the other hand there are plenty of people I know who would never drink a drop before getting behind the wheel of a car too. I think there’s a lot of variation in what people choose to do.

[trilliath]

I completely blame you for my introduction to Sid/Geno fics. I didn’t even know fanfiction for hockey existed 3 weeks ago. I’ve probably read about 500k+ worth of fics so far.

You’re super welcome! It’s a delightful chasm to fall into that I haven’t climbed out of for like, over two years now ;D

[trilliath]

The only thing i like about this years olympics is that people seem to be focusing more on the badass womens teams instead of the mens team, which is because theyre not as marketable as nhlrs.

I’m so glad to see the women’s teams getting so much more attention (though even still, the men’s teams seemed to have gotten more prime-time in the prelims than the women. sigh).

Seriously though if they would even TRY to market the women’s teams like… these women are all so badass and interesting and good looking like… they’re so marketable to everyone who isn’t the ugly sexist old-hockey gross peoples who aren’t watching the olympics for anything but hockey anyway and like, they already have their hockey so shhhhh old grosses, not everything is about youuuuuuuuuu.

Anyway holy crap the gold medal match will be fun to watch in a couple days here!

[trilliath]

omg trill so Im going to a sharks game later this month what are somethings i need to know about the SAP center?Like is it confusing to get around is food expensive?

Ok so - SAP is just 3 miles south of the airport, so if you’re flying in, it’s easy to get to. If you’re driving, you’ll definitely want to be early though because there’s not a TON of parking from what I saw and traffic was terrible because it’s right in the middle of San Jose and there’s not a lot of parking around there. You might consider public transit options though because the train depot is just a block away and there’s busses and stuff that will drop you off right out front.

There’s lots of restaurants within a mile or so of the arena, and a block or so west of the arena is a whole foods market that is attached to a brewery/tasting restaurant that I had a beer at before the game. Everything in San Jose is expensive, so keep that in mind. For a 24oz beer it was like $15 and a hot dog was like $7 so not the cheapest arena food I’ve seen but given that California tends to have high food prices in general it wasn’t outrageous. But you can easily grab a sandwich or something at whole foods before or after the game like I did. You can also bring a small amount of snacks into the arena for hockey games.

The arena itself is pretty simple to get around - there’s pretty much only two major entrances that I saw, so the lines stretched for a long while to go through the security points and get into the building, but it moved quickly once they opened the doors (1:15 prior to puck drop) and I had TONS of time to get a good spot to watch warmups. There are tons of exits around the building so when the game is over it’s really fast getting out - moreso than other games I’ve been to. Like most games, they have a no-reentry policy though so you can’t come back in once you leave. When you do leave it can be pretty confusing when you pop out as to where exactly you’ve ended up, but it’ll just take a minute to realize whether you’re on the parking lot side or the park side or wherever. There are broad sidewalks on the outside that are flat and pretty well-maintained, so if you have any mobility concerns, I think it’s one of the easier ones to access I’ve been to - though I didn’t see where any elevators were so I can’t comment on that part. There’s only one concourse level so it isn’t confusing, you just find the number of your section and either go up or down depending on where you’re sitting.

The arena was nice and had a good atmosphere - I didn’t stop in the team shops or anything and there were a lot of food options that I didn’t stop to look at. The bathrooms were big enough to handle a lot of people so there wasn’t a long wait even at intermission. The seats are a little bit on the older side, mine was a little borked, but it was fine. The arena was pretty clean and the staff were friendly. Let me know if you have any other questions - I hope you have a great time!

[trilliath]

I think they enjoy the honor of playing for their country...Not only just for hockey but basketball and especially football (soccer). The Olympics mean quite a lot to players; it's not just about the medal. I can say as a football fan, players take their international teams very very seriously and winning the gold for their country is important to them. They aren't winning for themselves, but for their country.

I never said they weren’t, or that they don’t appreciate the honor of playing for their country over an individual triumph. And I’m sure it means a lot - I already said I’m sympathetic to the way they must feel.

But I still don’t feel that highly-paid pro athletes playing team sports need to be included in the olympics in a world where resources of money and media attention for the olympics are finite and they have so many full and rich opportunities they already partake in.