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tysonbaerrie · 4 years

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hockey fic recs

An anon asked for my favorite hockey fic a while back, and I got so distracted re-reading my faves that it took longer than I planned. Also, I just hit 300 followers, so this seemed like a perfect time post some of my favorite fics in this crazy hockey fandom that I adore.

GEN

Dry Spell by @marmolita - Five times people failed to break Tyler's goal-scoring curse and one time they succeeded.

I absolutely love this fic, if only because every time I see Sebastian Aho now I think about how he’s a magical elf.

JAMIE BENN/TYLER SEGUIN

Jump Into That Water by @greymichaela - You are not your biology. Tyler’s mother had told him that so many times growing up. When he told her he wanted to play hockey but was afraid to go up against so many alphas.You are not your biology. When an alpha triggered his heat during a scrum and Tyler had to be carried off the ice, fever already burning up his bones.You are not your biology. Tyler wishes he could believe her.

I love the A/B/O dynamics at play here, and Tyler’s characterization is spot on. One of the first A/B/O fics I read and I still think about it on the regular.

Silence by @kwriteshockey - Jamie and Tyler hook up. They know it's a bad idea. They can't stop.

I think this is the first fic of Kira’s that I got a sneak peek of and I couldn’t stop thinking about it until she posted the full fic. There’s longing and emotions and pining and basically all of my favorite things in one fic.

Assist by hatrickane - Tyler has gone so long without touching an alpha that it's starting to have a negative effect on him. Good thing Jamie is always willing to help him out.

Literally the first A/B/O fic I ever read and still one of my favorites.

SIDNEY CROSBY/EVGENI MALKIN

a thrill that I have never known by Mellow_Yellow - Sidney always knew his family would pick who he ended up with. It was how things were done, and no matter what the outside world thought, he'd never questioned it before because it was just the reality: ice was frozen, getting checked against the boards knocked the wind out of you, one day Sid would be matched to someone his parents and the matchmaker and his aunts and uncles and his community thought was the best fit for him. And best of all, Sidney wouldn't have to worry about it. He would just focus on hockey. He'd deal with it one day. Eventually. 'One day' had seemed so much farther away when he was younger.

I wish there were a thousand fics in this AU for all of my favorite pairings. I love the themes, Sid’s characterization, his relationship with his religion, and the evolution of his relationship with Geno. Still my favorite Sidgeno fic and a favorite re-read.

First Day of My Life by ChibiRHM - The first girl Sid ever falls in love with is named Rachel Forbes. When he first meets her, she’s four weeks old, pink, and squishy-looking. Objectively, she’s kind of ugly, but she’s so tiny when he sees her in the incubator at NICU, and he’s never seen a baby that small.

I love kidfic and this is good kidfic. How Sid and Geno slowly fall in love and their love of Rachel is just....god, so good. This fic is like a warm blanket.

SIDNEY CROSBY/TRAVIS KONENCY

(How Do We Fall Apart?) Faster Than a Hairpin Trigger by crookedsilence - Since presenting at fifteen, Sid has had no interest in finding a mate or bonding. Unfortunately, mind over matter only takes you so far in life, and in the summer of 2016, he finds himself receiving some less-than-encouraging news about his biological needs.

I know, okay? I know but this is so good and it’s the fic that made me decide to claim a Sid/TK prompt for Pucking Rare and the fact that there’s only three fics for this pairing is criminal.

TRAVIS KONECNY/NOLAN PATRICK

got my eyes on you by Anonymous - Travis lets himself into Kevin’s house with his key and maybe screams a little bit at the sight of the tall, shirtless stranger with a tiny ponytail who’s washing dishes in his kitchen. Said stranger doesn’t even really react, just looks over his shoulder with a flat, unimpressed look. “What are you doing here?” he asks, in a low, rumbly voice.Weird attitude for a burglar to have. Or maybe some kind of crazed fan? He’s pretty big, but Travis thinks he could take him. Maybe. “What am I doing here?” he kind of yells. Sue him, he’s still in shock. “Who the fuck are you?”

My fave quarantine fic I’ve read. This is just so cute and fluffy and just so very TK and Patty.

TYSON BARRIE/GABRIEL LANDESKOG

I Would Never Leave You In The Dark (gave you the center of my heart) by Bluejay141519 - Tyson flinches. His breathing is shaky but he’s been nothing short of a wreck for the last few days. He can do this. He owes Gabe this.“ He said yes to dating you for real, remember? He said yes once. Give him a reason to say it again .” (Or- Tyson fucks up).

My favorite Landesbarrie fic. Tyson’s an idiot, Gabe is soft, and the whole thing is just everything I look for in a fic. I’ve probably re-read it half a dozen times.

the light through the windowpane by underwaternow - It still probably wouldn’t have amounted to anything besides Tyson’s own personal suffering if it wasn’t for the game against the Blues a week later. Brayden drops his gloves before the puck even hits the ice, and after an extremely shitty loss Gabe corners Tyson once the media has left the room, as he’s shoving his helmet back into his bag. or, the one where Gabe and Tyson fall in love, break up, Gabe gets married, Tyson falls apart a little, they don't speak to each other for awhile, and then they finally make up. colloquially referred to as “sad fic” but there's very much a happy ending or, the one that's “about” “Gabe and Tyson” but is really Tyson's story

This fic broke my heart and then slowly put it back together again. Through most of the fic, I wasn’t even sure I wanted them to be together, but by the end I was crying into my pillow at 2AM.

MICHAEL LATTA/TOM WILSON

Salt Year by pukeandcry - Mike will never play hockey again, and he’ll never have the life he had in D.C. with Tom again, and those things were – they were all he wanted. He had exactly what he wanted in life, at least for a short time, right up until an otherwise clean hit against the boards just happened to land in a freakish, nightmare way and shatter his left leg in more places than he can even remember now. His whole life had been stolen away in a matter of seconds. And that’s exactly the kind of thing he can’t think about if he wants to get through the day.

This was recced to me by a friend, and I had never read this pairing before but it absolutely wrecked me. Complicated, messy, but beautiful and it hurts in the best way.

PATRICK KANE/JONATHAN TOEWS

Trust Fall by trademarkgiggle - Patrick's always thought of himself as a difficult sub. What he doesn't know is that in the hands of the right dom, he'll melt. (Jonny is the right dom.)

So, okay. I really don’t care for Patrick Kane and some of the kinks in this fic are not my thing, but I was recced this by @kkane88 and I though okay let’s give it a shot because I trust her taste without question. I ended up staying up all night at one point because I couldn’t stop reading this and was basically liveblogging my reactions to her as I went along and I feel like that’s how we truly bonded lol.

Blur by @kwriteshockey - Patrick's in love with Jonny, but he can't have him. He decides to go home with Kesler. (He doesn't).

SPEAKING OF KIRA (again!), let’s talk about how she made me feel feelings with this gem of a fic. We love possessive jealous Jonny more than anything.

#hockey rpf #fic recs #bennguin #1988 #sidgeno #landesbarrie #latta x wilson #tk and patty #sid x tk

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texanstarslove · 4 years

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let me direct your attentiont to rare shirtless sid!! being adorable with kids!! MY OVARIEEEES rinkrats tumblr com/post/621278671578284032/at-this-point-pretty-much-every-kid-in he’s so sweet with kids sighhhh

MY HEART! This was so cute! 🥺🥺💚💚

Also, homeboy is pale AF. I mean I am too so I’m not judging 😝

#txsl anons #sidney crosby

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sevenfists · 6 years

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drawerfic #2: hockey hugs

I wrote this for @werebeary more than a year ago; we were very emotional about all of Sid and Geno’s bench hugs during the 2017 Cup run. I think I might have cannibalized parts of this for “All the Way Through” if anything seems oddly familiar. 3.5k, there’s some hanky-panky in here but nothing explicit.

1. February 19

Sid wasn’t an emotional guy, but all the business with his thousandth point was getting him pretty worked up: the crowd screaming, his parents crying—his dad crying. All of the stuff his teammates said about him to reporters. It was just a lot to deal with. And then, when he thought it was mostly finished, there was a pre-game ceremony in the locker room, the team core waiting to present him with a golden stick.

Fuck. He was definitely going to get choked up, and someone was definitely going to catch it on film.

He hugged Kuni and Tanger, who he had known for so long that they were basically family, and Flower, who was family, and who Sid was going to lose. He was so distracted by that thought that he forgot about Geno.

“Hey! Give me a hug,” Geno said, joking but also not.

Well: okay.

In hockey, a hug meant nothing.

No, that wasn’t true: it meant you were teammates, and you liked and trusted each other. You shared big joys and big sorrows. You were friends, or at least you got along well enough and maybe went to each other’s houses from time to time for a cookout or to watch football. You hugged on the ice, shamelessly; you hugged in the locker room, but those hugs were more reserved, a quick arm around the shoulders and a pat on the back, or a clasp of the hands and a bump of the shoulders. There were rules about all of this, even though nobody ever talked about them. During games, all bets were off, but the rest of the time, you still had to act like men.

Geno knew the rules, but he liked to bend them. Everyone let him get away with it, because who knew what kind of weird shit they got up to in Russia? And Geno had a special talent for making everything seem like a joke.

But it was still weird when he asked Sid for a hug.

Not weird: awkward. The hug itself was awkward, and that was weird. Sid had been hugging Geno for a decade. They’d had plenty of practice. There was no reason for it be awkward, but—it was.

Geno hugged him again in the locker room after the game. They had lost, which usually put a damper on things, but Geno approached Sid anyway, shirtless and sweaty, and wrapped him in a bear hug.

“G, you smell terrible,” Sid said, his words muffled against Geno’s shoulder.

“You’re best,” Geno said. His lips brushed Sid’s ear. He squeezed hard, and Sid laughed breathlessly and tried to break out of his grasp, but Geno held him firm. “Best,” Geno said again, and then he released Sid and stepped away with a swat to his ass.

Later that night, Sid curled up in bed with his tablet and watched the video again, the one with current and former players congratulating him. Horny was wearing a Penguins workout shirt, Kuni had actual sweat dripping down his neck post-practice, and Geno was inexplicably in a suit and tie, his hair combed. Sid watched that part a few times, listening to Geno’s familiar accent, his wholly familiar teasing.

Maybe there had been signs before then, and Sid just hadn’t noticed. But looking back, that was when he first started to wonder.

2. March 25

In Buffalo, the Penguins clinched their playoff spot, and Sid lost a few teeth. It wasn’t a big deal; they were fake anyway. An hour after the game, he was good as new.

Geno was out after blocking a shot with his shoulder and hadn’t traveled with the team, but when Sid checked his phone back at the hotel, Geno had texted him: Sid not pretty((((

Sid rolled his eyes. Pretty wasn’t in his job description. My teeth are fine. Thanks for the concern

Geno sent him a penguin emoji. best goal, and playoffs!! celebrate when u home

For sure, Sid replied, the way he agreed with most of Geno’s schemes, never really expecting them to get off the ground.

But when they were back in town a few days later, on a rare day off between playing the Islanders and playing the Flyers, Geno texted him mid-morning: come for dinner, I cook!!

Sid regarded his phone dubiously. He and Geno weren’t on casual dinner invitation terms, and he also didn’t really want to eat Geno’s cooking, which could most kindly be described as edible. Is this a prank?

Geno texted a string of eye-roll emojis, and then, no prank, want celebrate!!! I make freezer pelmeni

The infamous freezer pelmeni were made by Geno’s mom, and lovingly hoarded. Nealsy was the only non-Russian who had ever been permitted to eat them, and Sid still heard about it every time they played the Preds. Geno was pulling out all the stops.

Okay, dinner sounds good, Sid replied, mostly because he wanted to be able to take the wind out of Nealsy’s sails.

He drove to Geno’s that evening. Geno was waiting for him on the front step. He was dressed up, a little, in nice jeans and a collared shirt, one that Sid vaguely remembered complimenting when Geno had first worn it. Sid looked down at his own T-shirt and well-worn jeans and felt distinctly under-dressed, which wasn’t a feeling he had ever thought he would associate with Geno.

“Uh, I brought wine,” he said, and offered Geno the bottle.

“Sid! Don’t have to bring,” Geno said, as if Trina Crosby would ever raise a son who showed up empty-handed. But Geno smiled, and accepted the bottle, and guided Sid into the house with one hand resting lightly on his back.

Dinner was ready, even though Sid was exactly on time and had sort of expected that Geno wouldn’t have even started. There were flowers on the table, a nice seasonal arrangement. Geno opened the wine and took off his apron.

“Bon appetit,” Geno said, and Sid grinned at how good his pronunciation was: too much exposure to French Canadians.

They ate. The dumplings were good, and Geno told a series of very funny stories, about a friend who fell overboard during a fishing trip, and three baby raccoons breaking in to a neighbor’s house. Sid realized after a while that Geno was exerting himself to be charming. Well, Geno was charming all the time, casually, incidentally, to everyone around him; but he didn’t usually expend any particular effort on Sid.

“Nice out,” Geno said, when the meal was done. “We go sit outside?”

“Sure,” Sid said. He was having a nice time. He wasn’t ready for the evening to be over.

Geno emptied the rest of the wine bottle into Sid’s glass, ignoring Sid’s protests, and took him outside to the swinging bench set up in the yard behind the house. It was nice out, mild still even with the sun sinking behind the trees. Geno stretched one long arm along the back of the bench, stretched his long legs out across the grass. The bench creaked gently as Geno used his feet to rock them back and forth.

Sid felt warm from the wine, and from the way Geno was studying his face, close and fond. Geno wasn’t telling any stories now, and Sid found that he couldn’t think of a single thing to say.

“Thanks for having me over,” he said finally, unable to bear the silence any longer.

“Thanks for come,” Geno said. His fingers skimmed along the slope of Sid’s shoulder and then away.

When Sid went home, Geno hugged him: not a locker room hug, but an on-ice hug, a celly hug, both of his arms around Sid’s shoulders. Sid closed his eyes and pressed his face against Geno’s neck for one sweet moment, breathing in Geno’s musky cologne.

3. April 9

The evidence piled up. Sid considered keeping a list, but that would mean he was taking it seriously; so instead he kept a mental list. The cologne was on there, because why was Geno wearing cologne to have dinner at home with Sid? And the hug was on there, and the swing. The way Geno started lingering in the locker room to talk with Sid before practice, not about hockey business, but about—nothing, really. He just seemed to want to make Sid laugh. And the way he started texting a lot, like every day, sometimes more than once. There was even another dinner invitation, a week after the first, and another careful, enveloping hug, and that was the point at which Sid had to admit to himself that something was pretty obviously going on.

It wasn’t like he was surprised that Geno liked men—that Geno maybe preferred men. It was an open secret in the organization. He even had a boyfriend for a while, a Russian grad student at Pitt who came to a few team events—always introduced as ‘my good friend,’ but everyone knew. Geno was discreet, but he didn’t hide it. Sid had seen him pick up more times than he could count. He was good at it, confident without being pushy. Geno liked dark-haired men, smaller than he was, out of his league looks-wise. He rarely struck out.

Somehow it had never occurred to Sid before that he was exactly Geno’s type.

He talked to Flower about it, finally, because he didn’t necessarily trust his own perceptions. They went for lunch after practice, and Sid picked at his food until Flower set down his fork with a sigh and said, “What’s on your mind, Sid?”

This conversation had been a lot less awkward when Sid mentally rehearsed it in the shower. “I wanted to, uh. Talk to you about Geno.”

“Yes?” Flower said.

Sid really wanted this to be one of the times that Flower read his mind and spared him the agony of having to spell things out, but the universe wasn’t going to be that kind to him. “Have you noticed, lately—it seems like he’s been kind of, uh. Maybe I’m just imagining things, but I think maybe he’s, um.”

Flower’s eyebrows went up. “Yes?”

“God damn it, Flower, you know what I’m trying to say,” Sid said.

“I really have no idea,” Flower said.

For Christ’s sake. “I feel like maybe he’s been flirting with me,” Sid ground out.

“Oh, that,” Flower said. “Yes, I agree, he’s absolutely flirting with you.”

Sid wanted to kill Flower and then himself. “So what do you think I should do about it?”

“How should I know?” Flower said, and then his face softened, and he said, “You know you don’t need anyone’s permission, right?”

“Sure, I know that,” Sid said.

“Okay,” Flower said. He gave Sid a long hard look. “You have my permission, though, if you need it.”

“Thanks, Flower,” Sid said. He knew he didn’t need permission, but—it was a big step, and if Flower thought he was crazy, maybe he wouldn’t do it.

But Flower didn’t think he was crazy.

They closed out the season with a final road trip, Newark to Toronto to New York. In New York, Sid went down the hall and knocked on Geno’s door, his palms a little sweaty even though he didn’t think there was anything to worry about, not really.

Sid was maybe not entirely straight, and Geno maybe knew it. Sid hadn’t acted on it since some ill-advised experimentation in his early twenties, but Geno had been around for that, and—well, he probably knew. And he knew Sid knew about him, and so—it wasn’t innocent, all of that stuff on Sid’s list. Geno meant something by it.

Geno opened the door. He grinned widely when he saw Sid standing there, but then his smile faded.

“Sid,” he said.

Sid drew in a breath. “Let me take you out to lunch. I—on a date. If you want.”

Geno’s face shifted through confusion and into cautious joy. “When?”

“Now,” Sid said. “If you’re ready.”

“Yes,” Geno said, and Sid waited while he found his wallet and his sunglasses, and then they went down to the lobby to catch a cab.

Sid could never remember much about that meal. It blurred into a golden haze. He remembered laughing a lot, and Geno’s feet bumping against his beneath the very small table. He didn’t have any idea what he ate. He remembered Geno leaning back in his chair and smiling and holding his water glass in front of his mouth like his smile was a secret that he wasn’t ready to share. Sid hadn’t felt like this in a long time. Maybe not ever, not exactly like this.

It was a nice day, and the hotel was only a half-hour walk away. They strolled back slowly, their shoulders bumping, their hands brushing until Sid stuffed his in the pockets of his jacket to remove the temptation. Geno cast him a sly glance and nudged him so hard that he had to grab Sid’s elbow to keep him from tipping off the curb.

“Trying to kill me already, eh,” Sid said.

“Sorry, sorry,” Geno said, patting Sid’s shoulder. “I’m too big, don’t know my own strength.”

“Yeah, that’s definitely it,” Sid said.

Geno bumped him again, more gently. “Surprise you ask me.”

“Oh, uh. Should I not have?” Sid asked.

“No, no,” Geno said. “Very happy you do. Only, I don’t expect. First, it’s fun, you know? Have crush, think about, flirt a little bit. I don’t think you notice. Then—” He glanced at Sid. “Then maybe it’s not so fun. Maybe I start want for real, ask you come over, but still you don’t notice.”

“I noticed,” Sid said, and got to watch Geno duck his head and smile down at his shoes.

Back at the hotel, Sid walked Geno to his door, and then things got kind of awkward, both of them shuffling their feet uncertainly and making eye contact that probably qualified as bashful. It was ridiculous. Sid was too old for this.

Geno sighed, rolled his eyes, and said, “Come in for one minute. Okay?”

“Okay,” Sid said, and when the door closed behind them, Geno pressed Sid against the wall and folded him into a hug.

It was warm and close, and Sid wrapped his arms around Geno’s waist and held on, certain now that it was okay. He turned his head to rest his cheek on Geno’s shoulder.

He felt Geno press a few gentle kisses along his hairline. “Maybe we go slow, okay? I know you kiss boys, but—maybe only kissing?”

“Yeah,” Sid said. “I never—you know.”

“Okay,” Geno said. He made a soft, amused noise, and Sid didn’t have to look at his face to know he was grinning. “Only kiss boys, maybe it’s big change for you to kiss man.”

“Don’t flatter yourself,” Sid said. He pulled back and gave Geno his best unimpressed look.

Geno was grinning. He stroked a thumb along Sid’s cheekbone and said, “After Blue Jackets, then I kiss you.”

Sid narrowed his eyes. He wondered if they could manage a sweep.

4. May 10

The trouble with playoffs was that there was never enough time: not for sleeping, not for practicing or recovering, and certainly not for starting a secret relationship with your alternate. They had a few days after the series against Columbus—not a sweep, but five games was close enough. Geno came over for dinner the day after they closed out that series and kissed Sid for the first time, leaning against the kitchen counter with his hands cupping Sid’s face, their mouths moving together so slow and hot.

Sid drew back at last and licked his lips. “What do I get after the Capitals?”

“Think you get something? You greedy,” Geno said. “Kissing not enough for you?”

“Uh, no,” Sid said.

Geno grinned. “Let me think about.”

What Sid got was a concussion, and Geno pale and worried at his house first thing the next morning, with a bag of Sid’s favorite breakfast pastries; and then he got to lie on the couch with his head in Geno’s lap, and Geno endlessly kissing his forehead and face and murmuring, “Sid, poor head,” and then going off darkly into Russian.

The Capitals took seven hard-fought games. During the final game, Horny scored a clutch backhander for a 2-0 lead early in the third. When the puck went into the net, Geno turned immediately to Sid and opened his arms.

It was an on-ice hug: a hockey hug. But it was also just a hug with Geno, the type of fond embrace Sid could have now whenever he wanted and craved constantly, like now that he had that option he wanted to be wrapped in Geno’s arms at all times. He thought about Geno nonstop, at the grocery store when he saw Geno’s preferred brand of bread on the shelf, at home when he looked again at the fifteen heart emojis Geno had texted him the night before. And it was so easy now to lean against Geno’s chest for just a moment and be close to him, even through all their gear.

Geno leaned over to him afterward, when everyone had settled down on the bench once more, and said, quietly, “I think we win this game.”

They did.

What he got was Geno in his hotel room that night, after they won, and Geno’s hand on his dick, and his on Geno’s, half out of their clothes on the bed and kissing and laughing, giddy with winning and with having each other. Geno went blotchily pink all over before he came, his chest and shoulders all mottled with it, and Sid sat up toward the end, amazed, so he could watch Geno’s eyes squeeze shut and his mouth fall open.

“Stay the night,” he said, when they were cleaning up, and Geno did.

5. May 29

The series against the Senators was a long, boring grind, but somehow they won that one, too, and then it was on to the Predators.

They won the first game. Bones capped it off with an empty netter at the end of the third, and when Sid turned toward Geno on the bench, he knew for sure that Geno would be turning toward him.

Geno yelled something incoherent and pulled Sid against him, sitting on the boards to straddle Sid’s hips and squeeze him close. Sid couldn’t believe how lucky he was, to get to play good hockey with this man beside him, always ready for the next pass, always waiting for Sid to call to him or to lead him out onto the ice.

He went to Geno’s house the next afternoon: not for lunch, not for dinner, but just to hang out. Geno made a pitcher of water with lime slices and spread a blanket on the grass in the back yard, under the shade of a tree. They sprawled together and watched game tape on Sid’s tablet until Geno, predictably, fell asleep. And then Sid just watched him sleep for a while, feeling a little creepy but not enough to deter him from it. Geno’s face was so animated when he was awake, constantly shifting from one expression to the next, but in sleep he was peaceful. He looked younger. He looked tired, but they were all tired, this deep into the playoffs.

He looked like someone Sid wanted to keep beside him for a long time.

1. June 8

Game 5 was a 6-0 blowout. Sid got three points; Geno got a Gordie Howe hat trick.

“You’re a fucking menace,” Sid told him in the locker room afterward.

“Me?” Geno asked, all innocence. “What I do? Get two points, score goal—”

“Fight Josi,” Sid said.

“Only roughing!” Geno said. “Everyone fight, Haggy, Dales—”

“Don’t bring me into this,” Daley said.

“Fight Josi,” Geno muttered to himself, and stomped off to the shower.

Sid grinned. Geno was way too easy to rile up.

He riled him up even more in the parking deck. It was late and dark, they were two of the last people at the arena, and Geno only put up a token protest when Sid shoved him up against the driver’s side door of his stupid sports car and kissed him. Geno spread his legs and slouched down and Sid could feel him getting hard inside his suit pants, and they were being really dumb and Sid didn’t want to stop.

“You turn me on so much,” he said, kissing frantically at Geno’s neck, sucking kisses above the collar of his shirt. “You were so good tonight, you—”

“You first star,” Geno said, his voice rough, and he used his grip on Sid’s ass to pull him in a little tighter.

“Okay,” Sid said at last, tearing himself away. “Okay. Fuck. Okay. Let’s get out of here. Let’s go back to my place.”

“What I get?” Geno asked. His eyes were half-lidded. His mouth was wet and swollen. His ugly mustache was wet with spit.

“I bet I can think of something,” Sid said.

#drawerfic amnesty #ficlet

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stupidsexyseguin · 7 years

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Phil Kessel Infodump -anon submission

(fun fact: I started researching this a long time before I read the Phil article because the same water weight retention stuff happens to some dudes who have had testicular surgery, post-menopausal women taking hormonal hot flash treatments, and women (especially teenagers) on modified-schedule hormonal birth control. It doesn’t always happen, and Phil just seems to have had *really* bad luck with it.)

I’m the anon who read the article about why Phil’s softness is deceptive and sent info to Bee. From what I remember, according to Pens training staff Phil and Sid are actually around the same body fat %, and Phil is in better shape in terms of cardio and stamina than about 90% of the NHL. He just retains more water weight and holds water weight closer to the skin than most people because of hormone regulators.

There’s a mostly shirtless photo of him that shows it pretty well - he doesn’t have visible abs and what looks like chub sits lower/less evenly than it would if it was body fat, whereas if you look at NHL players who are a bit lazy about conditioning and/or diet plan but still work out at an NHL level (example, rookie Jamie Benn or off-season Ovi) they have a hint of ab definition on top of a slight belly because when losing belly fat the subcutaneous (on top of the abs) fat is easier to burn off than the visceral (under the abs) fat.

His calves also look a lot more like Sid’s (100% muscle, noticeable curve inward from the calf muscle to the achilles tendon) than Rookie JaBenn’s (solid-looking but with a bit of chub instead of the really obvious sharp angle) and if you look at his hands in the hot dog photo you can see that the widest part of each finger is at the second knuckle, whereas if he were actually overweight it would be right in between the first and second knuckle unless he had *really* bad joints (example of what that looks like: Keith Richards, who isn’t visibly overweight but you can see what I’m talking about w/ the joints).

His slightly premature receding hairline and extremely soft-looking playoff beard are also likely caused by the same meds. If anyone is worried about why pens staff are putting out so much of Phil’s medical info, I didn’t get most of this from them. They pretty much just talked about his amazing stamina and the fact that he and Sid are actually pretty similar in terms of conditioning (almost the same official weight, similar body fat % and only an inch official height difference and probably less IRL) and how strong he is, credited the soft look to cancer treatment, and I pulled up my pages and pages of previous research on the topic because I remembered reading that the surgery used to remove testicular cancers can sometimes have side effects that are treated similarly to how hot flashes are treated.

So, they aren’t spreading detailed medical information, I just happened to have a stockpile of relevant info from researching my birth control side effects. Most of the random details about his appearance that I used as examples of the difference between retained body fat and retained water weight are just things I’ve learned to pay attention to from hours of figure drawing classes, and/or things I’ve spent too much time glaring at in the mirror.

I didn’t actually spend hours staring at photos of Phil Kessel and comparing them to various vintages of shirtless Jamie Benn. (Rookie JaBenn has become my go-to example for not-quite-pro-level conditioning, sorry! He’s pretty much peak now but he’s the rare guy who didn’t get a good trainer until after going pro so he’s easy to use as an example, especially since I can compare rookie-JaBenn to Sochi-JaBenn, and have the combination of picking up cool info, having image references of the exact same body type at different fitness levels and have an excuse to watch the way his abs and shoulders move when he plays shirtless table tennis)

So yeah. Summary: anon has spent too much time researching side effects of artificial hormone regulation, and doesn’t know how to be concise. Phil Kessel is soft and cuddly; and is fitter, stronger and has better stamina than most of the NHL. It can therefore be concluded that Phil Kessel gives better hugs than pretty much anyone else on the planet.

spidey’s notes: I LOVE IT WHEN WE SHARE INFORMATION (spidey’s fun fact: my special talent is researching and retaining information that’s useless 95% of the time) THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR GIVING US ALL OF THIS INFORMATION ANON- I hope it’s okay i reformatted it a bit to make it easier to read

also, everyone admits that Jamie Benn has had the most successful glo-ups of any NHLer. rookie JaBenn was a soft chubby and it’s all okay.

#Phil Kessel #water retention #anon submission #infodump #long post #submission

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