#sergei&stevie

[coffincoven]

@baddluckclub said: ❝i practice the art of ‘pull his shirt over his head and punch till you see blood.‘❞

he's pinching the bridge of his nose, eyebrows cinched together at the sight of stevie. nothing is ever simple with her, he's learning. if she wasn't so valuable he'd have nothing to do with her. sergei wishes stevie was just a little more useless to him.

"and that's how you make people brain dead." the man being one of his own. or used to be one of his own. he was caught selling sergei's secret to rivals. sergei isn't mourning his death, he deserved worse, but sergei needed to ask him what exactly he told the others. "and unable to answer questions. did you atleast, i don't know, find out why he betrayed us?"

[mseiders]

found three original 1999 salvino’s bammer bears (in northern nevada of all places)!!

[largerhalf]

full credit to @bearrrman for their massive brain and frankly much nicer execution of this concept

[jazzdailyblog]

The Timeless Legacy of Nat King Cole: A Jazz Icon

Introduction: Nat King Cole, born one hundred and five years ago today on March 17, 1919, in Montgomery, Alabama, was a trailblazing musician whose impact on jazz and popular music is still felt today. Renowned for his velvety voice, impeccable piano skills, and charismatic stage presence, Cole rose to fame in the 1940s and 1950s, becoming one of the most iconic and beloved figures in music…

[sergeifyodorov]

emotionally invested in my hrpf except it's three guys who all stopped playing 15+ years ago and who are all weird about each other in diff ways

[ratatatastic]

ill take hockey for 500

"a form of extra circular activity to be taken part ingame, predominantly meant to express displeasure at a play that either endangers one (or multiple) player(s) and/or violates the unspoken rules and nature of the sport"

*buzzer* what is scrum

somehow someway ekky didnt get called on holding (though crashing the net is the more egregious thing here) and i dont believe my eyes this is one of the few times ekky has gotten away with anything remotely considered a penalty

a good share of the time his penalties include existing and also *squints* existing a bit stupidly but existing all the same

florida panthers @ boston bruins game 3 | 5.10.24

special note to stevie noticing lindholm (after making sure frederic was handled by okie for jostling ekky around like a scruffed kitten) going for stenny (who was standing over lauko before carlo also restrains him) and drags him away

[thedissociatives]

[acheronist]

maybe i don’t know about steve yzerman’s eleven second pause… but i would like to 🥺👉👈

Eleven Seconds Between [Sergei Name Drop When Stevie Wasn’t Expecting It] And [Stevie Actually Formulating A Reply]

[teekays]

run down on 1991? <- drawn to old man yaoi like a month to a flame

jesus lord where do i start... i prommy i will finish the full primer because there's a LOT and i will try to keep this brief but SERIOUSLY it's so much. good god. but basically like. super insanely talented but very often misunderstood and misinterpreted (as uncommitted and kind of a diva which was like, not entirely inaccurate but not in the ways people thought, and it wasn't very charitable) russian gayboy FREAK sergei fedorov and his humble, nice canadian boy, freakishly good on AND off the ice CAPTAIN steve yzerman who are both incapable of saying normal things about each other (steve's scouting report on sergei in the late 80s was "he's better than me" and sergei chose the number 91 because it was the reverse of steve's 1991 because he "wanted to be like stevie" 😵‍💫) play together for over a decade, win 3 cups together, are C and A for years (complicated situation) and generally get Very Close... and then sergei leaves. he goes to the ducks and then the blue jackets (kj sergei 91 to 91 connection is real #tome) and then the caps which Was kinda good for him but it was never the same. they both retire, there's hall of fame inductions and jersey retirements for steve but not sergei (very VERY hotly debated issue-- a lot of people still consider him a traitor, 30 years on) but sergei has never ever stopped expressing regret for leaving detroit (his hall of fame induction speech never fails to rip my heart out of my chest and stomp on it with both feet like a toddler in a puddle... i'm a red wing at heart...), and both of them are still endlessly complementary towards each other... it's just all so much. like i said there is a LOT that im leaving out for the sake of this post not being 1000 feet long but i will present you with a moodboard:

[petoskeystones]

i do believe stevie y thinks of the ducks and the city of anaheim as the man (team) that his wife (alternate captain sergei) left him for and he’s marching around that disney team’s arena radiating bad vibes

[mseiders]

just thinking about sergei’s first nhl goal. imagine, fresh out of the shower one day, a man you’ve never seen is talking to you. he’s american, but speaks a little russian. you leave your family and friends and the only life you’ve ever known behind. you’re just a kid.

and suddenly you’re scoring your first goal in front of a crowd that thought it was crazy to draft you. the assist comes from your captain — the one who drew you across an ocean because you wanted to be like him — and here he is again to hold you. you mirror him perfectly. you want to live up to the number on your back.

your english isn’t the best yet, but you don’t need words for this.

[largerhalf]

ok ok are we seeing it? are we seeing The Vision??

[crosbyism]

Next Generation’s Best | Two

An essay on generational talents, gender, and the NHL in six parts.

<Previous | Masterpost | Next>

Part Two: Detroit and Pittsburgh

1983

There’s another guy. Born and bred Canadian; I swear there ain’t a red thing about him this time. Five years after the Great One storms the Big Leagues, this little shit cracks the roster and works his way up to becoming captain. A real hard-working kid.

Here’s the catch: his records say six foot but he just about cracks 5’10”. He’s enough of a pretty little thing that they don’t call him Steve, they call him Stevie. He’s so good they can’t justify sending him down for a conditioning stint, but he’s small— the Red Wings wanted a bigger guy, this one was the consolation prize.

A year later, a big, hulking guy with soft hands gets picked first overall by the Pittsburgh Penguins. 6 foot 4— now that’s a real hockey player. Big and strong and tall, and yeah— he’s mostly skill, but you definitely want a real man that can take a good hit, you know? Anyone would love to have picked Mario Lemieux.

The Oilers are still winning their Cups, and Gretzky’s still in the middle of winning every Hart for almost a decade straight, but the big guy in Pittsburgh and the little guy in Detroit are about to do their damndest to fight him for it.

1989

A couple of funny things happened in the late eighties and early nineties.

First, the little fat-lipped pretty-boy captain in Detroit insists two years into wearing the C that team management should be drafting some Soviet players over. So much for a non-Commie-loving Canadian. Hey, the iron curtain is looking shaky, sure, but the big men from the front office are gonna have to give him a stern talking to to make clear who’s really in charge before they admit to little Stevie Y that he’s right.

They start with Sergei Fedorov, the twenty-year-old wonder, and Vladimir Konstantinov, then known as one of the best defencemen in the world. They’ll end up acquiring three more Russians by 1993.

The critics, at the time, wonder if a team with so many Russians isn’t too soft to win a Cup. Together, the Russian Five will make them eat their words and bring Detroit back-to-back Cups in ‘97 and ‘98— an increasingly difficult feat to achieve since the decline of the dynasties of the eighties— and another in 2002 with the by-then remaining two of the Russian Five, still led by little Stevie Y.

It’ll take almost twenty years for another team to achieve back-to-backs again.

—

Detroit wasn’t the only team snapping up players from behind the by-then shaky Iron Curtain. Jaromir Jagr got spared the ordeal of having to defect by a literal hair, but it was enough of a point of contention during the preparations for the 1990 draft that he could successfully ward off any unwanted suitors by lying that he wasn’t going to come to North America. In truth, there was only one team he wanted to play for, and it was the team whose captain he’d been carrying a picture of in his wallet since he saw him at the World Cup in Prague in 1985.

It’s probably not an exaggeration to say that Jagr rigging the draft in his favour handed the Pittsburgh Penguins their Cups in ‘91 and ‘92. Jagr and Lemieux were phenomenal together, and an already good Pittsburgh team was catapulted into the stratosphere by their play. Over the next ten years, the Art Ross was won by Wayne Gretzky once. Every other win went to either of the guys in the Penguins jerseys.

So Detroit and Pittsburgh are shaping up and buzzing, but there’s rumblings of something big coming.

<Previous | Masterpost | Next>

[sergeifyodorov]

if i could be anyone it would be a middle aged mom in detroit circa august 1990. showing up at jim lites' house to gawk at that pretty young thing in the pool. unaware of the Goings-on

[ratatatastic]

"Just the way this guy goes on the ice and he prepares... it is unlike anything that I've ever seen. How he is on his edges—he is so detailed oriented. And Stevie—Stevie Lorentz—got a lot of play because he was shooting on him, he was like his shooter. I would go on, you know, once out of six or seven times, we would do some passing drills and he's always working on the things—if he gives up a goal he then the next day he wants to work on 20 different shots that are similar to the situation on the goal he gave up. This guy is just—he doesn't shut it off. So I think giving him that extra day really helped him reset and realise that he's the main reason why we got to this point." "I thought you were gonna say that you started to shoot and then rung one off his neck, and you weren't allowed back anymore." "No! He wants me to hammer him off his head as hard as I can! He loves it! He just—he screams at guys all practise too! They'll rip one high and he'll go 'Oooouuuuu!' It's unbelievable! He's—" "Just tauntin' 'em?" "Yes!" "You gotta be crazy to be a goalie!"

Spittin' Chiclets | 7.2.24 (x)

more annecdotes about the resident 36 year old rink rat that taunts the team into doinking him in the head with pucks and everyone involved is absolutely baffled but slightly endeared by it, more news at 11

"Funny enough I—like, if street hockey, ministicks, I always wanted to be a goalie too! Like, for some reason I always wanted to go in net. You know, probably because of [my Dad] and then, um, you know, once you get dinged a couple times and the shots get too hard you realise—then it's not so much fun after all so... Yeah, it was great he'd always—" "You probably wanted to be goalie 'cuz you're fucking crazy, man! Those guys are bananas! I actually went as a goalie in morning skate one time when I was suspended in the coast, and it was the scariest thing ever, bro. It's nothing like blocking a shot because you're literally just standing there, and these guys are shooting right at you. It's unbelievable!" "Yeah! You gotta get in the way of the stuff to save it! That's crazy! I know, and like obviously gear is like great and they don't really feel—but there is, like, that psychological thing going on where, like, you know, you wanna move out of the way 'cuz it's gonna hurt! I get—I mean, it must not hurt that much, like, 'cuz Bob's crazy, man! Bob loves taking—Well, I wouldn't say loves taking it off the head, but he doesn't hate it, like he—" "Feels good?" "You know, every once in a while—they hit him in the head and you go up and say sorry he's like, 'No, no! It's all good! I love it, I love it!!' and like, kind-of shoos you away so."

The Buzz Pod | 8.7.24 (x)

so speaking of banking pucks off bobbys head and how much he loves it flashback to that day in october of 23 where bobby was doing that for practise and managed to rope in matthew to the shenanigans to the utter confusion of everyone involved (x)(x)(x)(x)

[thedissociatives]

Heeeyyyy, I'm so so intrigued by your hockey posting. I'd love to know more about Fedorov, like what's the lore, what makes him special? Have a nice day/ night <333

good morning/afternoon/evening anon! since you asked so nicely i'll try my best but i do tend to forget everything i know when i have to actually explain it. there is a lot of lore tho so i'm not gonna go over all of it (mainly the bits that interest me the most + some other stuff). i guess what really makes him special (at least to me) is the fact that we don't get players like this anymore. and i'm not talking playing style here (the impact of euro hockey players of the 90s on the nhl today is still so obviously there). a lot of his early career was directly impacted by cold war politics, and since those circumstances haven't existed for a while now, we don't get this insane type of backstories and lore anymore. i should also make it clear that i'm a massive nerd who sat in classrooms for years learning abt soviet stuff which i think definitely has an impact on who My Guys are

seriously there is a lot under the cut so be warned because i did get carried away with myself A Lot (i literally wrote over 1k words on this. sorry in advance)

ok so. sergei started playing "pro" hockey in the soviet union in the mid 80s (i don't think this is the place to explain whether these players were pro or amateur so will leave it like that), first in minsk (only for a year) before being picked up by cska moscow- the central army team. these guys made up most of the national team, which can probably be explained by the fact that their head coach also coached the national team (god that's a bit of a mouthful, but incredibly relevant). he wasn't the only rookie on the team that season; another kid (i think they were both like 16 at the time ?) called alex mogilny had also just arrived in moscow. they would become good friends. sergei would play three seasons for cska before being called up for the national team- he was going to the 1989 world championship. alex would be there, too, having already played on the team before. naturally, the ussr won gold (as they did almost every year). but that doesn't mean everything was good with the players. not long too after the tournament, some of the older players would finally get permission to play in the nhl, but for the younger guys it was looking like they had no way of getting out any time soon. in the days between the end of the championship and the soviet team's flight home, mogilny apparently approached fedorov and asked him to go to america with him- sergei said no, worried about what would happen to his family. alex would go anyway, disappearing for a few days before popping up in buffalo ready to join the sabres. (this might seem irrelevant right now but it's actually really not- i'm getting there now)

that same summer, sergei would be drafted in the fourth round by detroit. this choice may or may not have been influenced by steve yzerman telling them sergei was better than him. after a bit of back and forth, they got him to defect after cska played a series of games in north america. it literally sounds like the type of shit they write in spy films it was fucking mental. this made him only the second soviet to defect in order to play in the nhl i'm pretty sure (defo the second in like 18 months- funnily enough it was his bestie who was the first one. what a coincidence), but they weren't the first two from the other side of the iron curtain to do that. might be wrong but i think that honour goes to the stastny brothers. anyway. when sergei got to detroit he wore 91 because he wanted to "be like stevie" or some insane shit like that. which i literally think about all the time. like seriously what was that about sergei.

okok can't not talk about the russian five so doing that now. since idk how much you know about hockey i'll do a better job on this bit. after sergei arrived in detroit, management must've figured they could get more russians. over the next couple of years they got vladimir konstantinov (who was drafted the same year as sergei) and slava kozlov to make the jump to the states. since i'm mainly talking about sergei i won't go into how they got those two but it's just as unbelievable as you'd expect. after the 1994-95 lockout, the wings traded for another russian- slava fetisov. if you ever want to learn about soviet hockey you'll hear a lot about this guy, and for good reason too. he won two olympic gold medals and seven world championships with the soviet union, and captained most of those teams. obviously adding a guy with that much experience winning was a smart choice imo, even if he hadn't won anything in the nhl yet. by now the wings had four russian players- why not add a fifth ? in 1994 the wings were embarrassed in the playoffs, losing to san jose. it just happened that sj happened to have two of the older soviets who had fought for the right to play in north america. one of them was igor larionov- probably the smartest guy to ever play hockey. it was his tactics (and refusal to change his style of play) that led to his team's success in the first round. and i guess detroit didn't ever want to deal with that again because they ended up trading for the guy in the first part of the 1995-96 season. the russian five first played together in calgary, where they played that style of soviet hockey that nhlers could never really wrap their heads around at the time. they walked all over the flames in their own building, and would continue to do the same to the rest of the league. the five would be a key part of the 1997 stanley cup-winning team, which was the first wings team to lift the cup in over forty years.

sergei stayed to win a few more cups, and then left the city. he signed w the ducks in anaheim, bleached his hair and moved out to california (i think we can all resonate with wanting to change our appearance and move thousands of miles away from where we've spent over a decade building out lives amiright). from what i can tell, this move was Not Liked by detroit's owners (honestly i can't see any other reason his number hasn't been retired there). he'd bounce around a couple more nhl teams before going back to russia to play on the same team as his brother, eventually retiring in 2012.

jumping to 2015, that year's hockey hall of fame inductees included sergei (and nick lidstrom, one of his detroit teammates and one of the best defencemen to every play the game). it was basically a 90s wings reunion. in sergei's induction speech, he did like everyone else and thanked a bunch of people who helped him out throughout his career. and, you know, it was all the expected stuff (hockey guys can be so predictable sometimes), but "to my captain, steve yzerman" still fucking gets me. it had been twelve years since he'd worn a wings jersey. my captain. i think you get my point but i'm gonna have to stop there because i can't carry on and be remotely normal about it.

oh and in 2021, after spending a few years bouncing around random jobs for the team, cska announced that fedorov would be taking over as head coach. he went back to the team where all this started. now i don't know how exactly he is with his team but i sure hope he learned enough from his days there as a player under tikhonov on exactly how not to treat your players. cska won back to back gagarin cups (the trophy awarded to the khl team who wins the playoffs) in sergei'd first two seasons behind the bench, and they're probably looking to make it a threepeat with the playoffs starting today (?)