#south eastern conference
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South Coast Region Quarterfinals
Alabama vs Mississippi
#license plates#tournament#alabama#mississippi#round 1#south coast region#southeastern conference#eastern league
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#Tiktok comments#tiktok#i love tiktok comments#Like that is so real and true#They haven’t won a single one 😌#(Namely bc SEC is south eastern conference)#The south#unfortunately I can’t support the Roll Tide comments bc my uni beefs with like everyone but still
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If You Want It Done
summary: after a disappointing playoff loss, brady reappears on your doorstep eight months after he ended things. and he has nothing on his mind but taking out his frustrations by having you desperate and keening for him once again. however, you aren't about to submit without a fight.
song inspo: NFWB by Hozier & Rats by Motionless in White
word count: 5.1k
warnings: feminine reader. smut! hair pulling, fingering, unprotected penetration, spanking, slight choking, oral (m receiving), and - as always - a healthy amount of dirty talk. plus somewhat toxic and insanely cocky brady.
a/n: no tricks here. just a sweet treat in the form of long- awaited Brady Skjei smut. technically it's a continuation of this blurb, but i just combined the original and the addition into one fic for you all. enjoy and happy halloween.
Sadness. Humiliation. Shame.
Those should be the emotions running through Brady as the plane lands back in Carolina after Game 4 of the Eastern Conference Finals. Because he wasn’t back ready to fight for another win. He was here to pack his bags and go home.
The best team in the Metro. Swept. By a wild card team who barely made the playoffs.
It was a disaster, an embarrassment. And Brady should feel the heavy weight of that failure, even if he might only be responsible for one-nineteenth of the blame. Or, at least, he should feel the waves of sadness crashing over him about the way it ended, or the mere fact that it did end.
But he didn’t. Perhaps he had earlier, when that final buzzer sounded and the fans in South Florida cheered. But now, having sat with those feelings for the better part of 24 hours, he was no longer sad.
He was angry.
And so, when the wheels touched down in Raleigh and he collected his car, he didn’t drive home.
Instead, he drove to yours.
~
A tired sigh leaves you as you pull up to your quaint cottage-style home. A long work week was cause for an even longer relaxing weekend and you were ready to start that weekend by getting inside and having a long nap. Or a strong drink. Or perhaps both.
However, after hopping out of your car and wandering up the small path that leads to your front door, your plans placed on a momentary hold when you see someone leaning against your siding, their baseball cap pulled low.
“I’m not interested in whatever you’re selling,” you call out, ready for this stranger to flash you an award-winning smile and tell you all about how their company could save you money on roofing repairs after last week’s storm.
But when their head lifts, you stop in your tracks as you recognize the face staring back at you.
Hell, you used to wake up to it every morning for eight months. Until he ended things.
“Brady.”
His name falls from your mouth in complete practiced apathy. You didn’t need him to know how much time you spent crying over him in the last month. You especially didn’t need him to know how your heart still skipped a beat when his eyes connected to yours.
“Did you see the game?” he asks.
“I heard.”
“And?”
“And what? Do you want to cry for you?”
There’s a humorless chuckle that comes from Brady as his head falls before he takes a step towards you.
“You always knew how to make me feel better,” he says, the sarcasm lacing his voice. And when you hear it, that dry scathing tone, you realize that you didn’t recognize the man in front of you.
Brady was always soft, gentle, welcoming. It made the dichotomy between you even more obvious; you all sharp edges and harsh words and burning fire. It was part of the reason the two of you broke up.
But this Brady… there was something different. Something dangerous. it intrigued you. But not enough for you to give in.
“I’m not going to coddle you, Brady. You should know that by now.”
“I don’t want your sympathy.”
“What do you want then?” you ask, finally taking a few steps forward, closing the gap between you and your front door. “You want my pity? You want me to say ‘poor you, poor Brady’?”
It’s your turn to let a scoff fall from your lips as you reach into your bag for your keys, Brady now behind you.
“If you wanted someone to feel sorry for you, you came to the wrong fucking house,” you explain, unlocking the door.
Before you can even reach the handle, you feel Brady step forward, his hands falling on your hips as his body crowds you into the smooth wood. You attempt to take a deep breath to calm your heart but it doesn’t help because when you breathe in, your senses are filled with the smell of his cologne. A smell so familiar. One you missed.
Brady moves closer, his body almost pinning you to the door and you can’t stop your knees from trembling as you feel the heat of him behind you.
“I came here because I missed you,” he whispers into your ear.
“And it took you getting your ass kicked to realize that?” you shoot back. Although, the waver in your voice betrays you, revealing how much your body was responding to him; his touch, his words, his warmth. Brady just lets his previous sentence continue, as if he didn’t even hear you.
“And because I know you missed me just as much.”
You couldn’t let him do this – let him come crawling back to you when he was broken or bored. You no longer belonged to him. It was a recipe for disaster.
“I think you’ve forgotten that I’m not one of those girls that would fall on their knees for you.”
“You seemed to enjoy being on your knees for me when we were together.”
“And we’re not together anymore. So, find someone else to fuck your frustrations out on.”
“Is that what you did?”
“None of your business.”
You feel his grip on your hips tighten and you barely have time to react as he effortlessly spins your body until your back is pressed against the wood of the door, your eyes now looking up at him.
“You’re lying.”
Brady almost spits out the words, as if even the barest suggestion that what you said was true was poison to him. Your eyes follow the movement in his temple, the clenching of his jaw, the storm in his eyes. This wasn’t the side of Brady that you knew.
But it was a side that you were always curious to discover. Throughout those eight months, you wanted to know if Brady had that same fire hiding within him – a passion and intensity that could match yours. And now, you could finally see it peeking through.
You wanted it to come out completely.
“And you can tell?” you ask, wielding your words with edge and precision. “Does that make you feel worse? If I told you about all the other men that ended up in my bed?”
“You wouldn’t dare.”
“I wouldn’t? Are you sure? You knew what you giving up when you left. Can’t blame me for moving on.”
“You wouldn’t,” Brady repeats, one hand falling away and you barely have time to comprehend where it had gone when you feel the steady weight of the door fall away from you.
Your body lurches back, the momentum pulling you until it is abruptly stopped by Brady’s strong arms, pulling you close and lifting you over the threshold. Your feet find the hardwood of your floors before Brady is spinning you again and you find yourself pressed against the door once more, this time inside your house instead of without.
“You wouldn’t,” he reiterates, “because no one could make you feel as good as I did.”
You hear the deadbolt click, the sound causing the heat pool in your stomach. Brady’s hand moves back to your hip, pulling you close again as he leans in until your lips are barely touching. It’s intoxicating, having him this close to you once again. You are about to surge forward, connect your lips to his, let your fire burn with his. Until Brady speaks again.
“No one could make you feel as good as I’m about to.”
That statement pulls all rationality from you and you don’t hesitate to close the gap between you, crashing your lips onto his. Brady returns the kiss with as much intensity, his hands gripping you tighter while yours move to trace over his arms, his broad shoulders before tangling into that salt-and-pepper hair. The kiss is frantic, all teeth and tongues and it takes a moment before Brady finally pulls away, connecting those brown eyes to your own
“You’re mine,” he whispers. “You always will be.”
The words cut right through you; as a threat or a promise, you weren’t really sure. But the instant that Brady crashes his lips back into yours, you find that you don’t care.
God, you missed this. You would be lying if you didn’t spend many restless nights reminiscing on how his hands felt on your body. How his lips felt on your skin.
But you wouldn’t tell him that. The words would never leave your mouth, not while Brady is standing in front of you. You wouldn’t give him that satisfaction. At least, not yet.
Instead, you get lost in Brady’s kisses, your hands coming to tangle deeper in his hair, pulling him closer to you as your hips roll up to meet his. You think you can hear a dark chuckle rumble from Brady and vibrate directly into your body, sending sparks of electricity flowing through you. His hands roam across your body, up from your hips to the soft material of your blouse before landing on your breasts, giving them a squeeze, causing your head to fall back.
“Missed these perfect tits,” he mumbles, his movements against your chest continuing in response to the soft moan falling from your mouth. Your moan turns into a sharp gasp as Brady grips the center of your shirt and tears it open. The sound of the buttons scattering across the hardwood floor floods your ears and it inexplicably turns you on even more.
If this was any other man, you would be pissed off at him for ruining your one of your favorite shirts. But this was Brady. A new Brady.
In those eight months you were with him, he was nothing but a gentleman, both outside and inside the bedroom. And he was more than satisfactory. But you knew there had to be something underneath all that charm. An untamed animal just waiting to be unchained.
And if this was the key to its cage, you weren’t about to stop everything to cry over a few buttons. But that didn’t mean you weren’t going to complain at all.
“You’re buying me a new shirt,” you mutter against Brady’s lips. Brady swiftly removes his mouth from yours as he looks down at your newly exposed bra.
“Gonna buy you something new to wear under it,” comes his response as his thumbs trace over the edge of the plain nude material and this time, you can stop your eyes from rolling in annoyance.
“Do you really think I wear lingerie to work?” you quip, staring up at him.
You can see his eyes harden and it is in that moment that you realize he was enjoying this. The chase, the tease, the dare, the push and pull between the two of you.
“If you don’t like it,” you continue, your voice taking on a sultry tone as you continue to meet his dark brown eyes, “then take it off.”
The quick sparkle that appears in his brown eyes makes you think that he has taken the bait, that you might have gained some control over the situation at hand – a situation that you were wholly unprepared for but welcomed none the less. And when Brady leans back in to lock you lips together once again, his hands wandering around your ribcage towards your back, the confidence grows.
However, it takes a sharp plummet when you feel his hands drop from your frame. If Brady had given you a split second longer, you would have broken the kiss to question or quip him again. But you have barely any time to miss the sensation of his hands on your skin before you feel them grip the back of your thighs as Brady uses his athletic strength to effortlessly lift you off the floor.
You gasp, a gasp that Brady gladly swallows before he spins, tearing his lips away from yours to look around your house. There is a part of you that wants to tell him nothing has changed from the last time he was there – the furniture is the same, your bedroom is still two doors down on the left – but your lips have already busied themselves marking the smooth skin on his neck.
There was also a power in your decisions; forcing him to find his way through your space all while doing your best to distract him. And it seems to be working as you feel Brady’s pulse shudder underneath your mouth.
You feel him take a lurching turn right and a slight flash of confusion runs through you until you feel his body lowering. The soft material of your couch hits your knees and the skirt you had on flows out around you as you now straddle Brady.
“Forgot where the bedroom was?” you chirp into his neck, feeling his desperate hands return to your torso as he removes the tattered remains of your blouse from your waistband.
It seems that it takes a minute for your words to register but when they do, Brady’s hand lifts to tangle in your hair. Another gasp escapes from your chest as his fingers tighten before pulling your head away from his neck. He quickly reverses the roles, his own lips moving to your newly exposed throat, your breath transforming from gasps to soft sighs as his mouth works against your skin.
“Who says I’m not going to take you there after I’m done here?”
“Who says I would let you back into my bed anyway?” you retort to keep some semblance of control.
Your pathetic attempt is clearly read by Brady, who makes you falter once again as the hand not tangled in your hair effortlessly unclasps your bra. His lips depart from your neck as he helps slide the material down your arms, throwing it carelessly somewhere in the room. You both hate and love the smirk that appears on his face as he takes in your heaving chest, your pebbled nipples. His dark eyes dart back up to you briefly before he is tugging you into him for another animalistic kiss.
“Seems that you like it so far,” he whispers into your open mouth before he pulls away again, lifting your body upright and pulling you closer. “I’ll take my chances.”
You wish that you could say something back, something to knock his arrogant confidence down a peg but your mind goes blank as his lips move to your collarbone, leaving faint hickeys against the taut skin before moving down to your chest. His lips close around one of your nipples, tongue moving to tease the sensitive peak as his hands rest on your ribcage, his thumbs running across the delicate skin on the underside of your breasts. Your hands fly to the back of his head, keeping him close and you can feel his lips curl against your skin. The action both turns you on and pisses you off, a combination that you weren’t sure could even work until now.
You fly into action, hands moving down to grip the fabric stretched across his broad shoulders, tugging at the material and pulling it upward before he finally breaks away to help you remove the shirt entirely, tossing it away to join your clothes on the living room floor.
His lips return to your chest, moving to leave no skin unmarred with his love bites as your hands drop to his shoulders, fingers digging into the muscle in silent encouragement. Brady’s hands lower before coming to grip your ass and you gasp as he pulls you forward, the action causing your hips to roll. You both let out moans at the sensation of you grinding against him and it turns you on more to feel his erection against your core.
“And here I thought I was the masochist,” you joke, moving your hips of your own volition, pressing deeper into him. The grunt that your actions pull from his chest has you grinning. “Who’d know you get this hard from getting your ass kicked?”
You must’ve struck a nerve, prodded at the memory he came here to forget, because the only thing you hear in response is what could best be described as a growl before he lifts you off of his lap enough to slip out from underneath you. Your brain recognizes the weight of his body disappearing from the couch and you attempt to turn, just to keep your eyes locked on him but Brady doesn’t give you a chance.
His large hand finds the space between your shoulder blades and pushes you forward, your torso falling until your chest meets the back cushions. You can’t stop the gasp that falls, your arms lifting over the edge of the couch as your back arches, your hips pressing back towards Brady now looming behind you.
A dark chuckle echoes throughout the room in response to your actions as he pulls the material of your skirt over your hips, exposing more of your body to him. He doesn’t waste any time, doesn’t even bother removing your underwear, instead choosing to move it to the side before he slips two fingers into your already soaked core.
You let out a moan, your head falling forward as Brady’s hand moves, winding you up and my God, you would be lying if you said you didn’t miss the feeling. His thumb quickly finds your clit, pressing against the bundle of nerves and you can’t stop the way your body responds to his movements.
“That’s what I thought,” he laughs. “You have no right to that attitude when you’re this fucking desperate for me.”
He emphasizes his words with a curl of his fingers, the tips grazing your g-spot and the combined sensation of his hands skillfully moving against you almost has you falling over the edge. Brady doesn’t give you your satisfaction that easily though as he removes his fingers from your core. You whimper at the loss, listening intently to Brady’s movements behind you, impatient to feel him once more.
Brady doesn’t leave you wanting for long as you hear the rustle of his pants hitting the floor and before you can blink, you feel his hands practically tear your panties down your legs before he enters you in one swift, harsh motion.
The moans that you both let out are delicious and desperate. You whine as you move your hips back, pushing him impossibly deeper. Brady groans, his hands quickly finding purchase on your hips, gripping you tight before he begins to move.
“Oh god,” you moan out as Brady fucks into you with quick hard thrusts, showing no mercy, your ass rippling every time it meets his hips. You are grateful for the couch cushions in front of you, helping to support your upper body as your fingers dig into the fabric so deeply that an irrational part of you worries you might tear it.
“Not God, sweetheart. Just me,” Brady replies, his movements barely faltering. “Come on, say my name.”
You wish you could tell him to fuck off, make a quip about his cocky attitude but your mouth doesn’t seem able to form the words or any words for that matter. The only thing you want is for him to continue. A sharp smack against your ass jolts your body forward and your head whips around in surprise, eyes connecting to Brady.
“Say. My. Name,” he repeats, now more command than anything else, every word punctuated by another spank and you are helpless to comply.
“Brady,” you whine, your desperation painted on every letter, your eyes staying locked on him, drinking in his reaction. He groans, his teeth coming to bite his lower lip, his gaze dropping from your face to connect to where his cock disappears into your pussy.
“Fuck, that’s it, sweetheart.”
His quiet encouragement is all you need to continue moaning his name over and over. One of his hands falls from your hips to join yours in gripping the back of the couch, his body now completely covering yours, the new leverage only increasing the strength in which Brady thrusts into you. Your head falls to rest against the back cushion, the sounds of your staccato whimpers and breathy curses filling the living room along with the continuous depraved slapping of skin against skin.
You whine as you feel his hand disappear from your hip and slowly trace up your body, the softness of his touch a sharp contrast. The gentleness doesn’t last long and your whine turns into a gasp as Brady’s large hand wraps around your throat, pulling your head upwards.
“Keep saying my name,” he says, his hot breath fanning across the shell of your ear. “Let everyone know who’s making you feel this good.”
“You are, Brady.”
“Yeah? Can anyone else fuck you like I can?”
“No. Only you.”
“That’s right. Only me,” he growls in satisfaction, emphasizing his words with his rhythm.
“Fuck, Brady, please,” you plead, your voice strained from how much focus it took to pry the words from your mouth. “I’m close.”
“Well then, come on sweetheart. Touch yourself. Remind me how good it feels when you cum on my cock.”
The speed in which your hand falls is reckless, frantic to get that additional pressure that you were craving. As soon as your fingers press against your clit, your head falls back against Brady’s shoulder in relief. His praise is muffled against your skin as he peppers your shoulder with kisses, only interrupted by quiet curses as he feels your core flutter.
It is hot, so unbelievably hot – how he’s fucking you, how he’s holding you – that it doesn’t take long for you to finally fall over the precipice, your own hand faltering against you as your orgasm rocks through your body. A groan falls from Brady as he feels you clench around him; a groan that he muffles by sinking his teeth into the flesh of your shoulder, the additional sensation causing you to moan louder, hips rocking back against him as his motions halt.
The haze that pricked at the corner of your eyes slowly dissipates and you can feel Brady’s hand fall from your neck. The cool air cascades over your back as Brady lifts himself away from you causing goosebumps to appear. A small whimper escapes when you feel him remove himself from your core and steps away. The submissive part of your mind, still in control, panics in fear that he might leave. But the concern is short lived as Brady sits down next to you, pulling you back into his lap.
He wastes no time capturing you in another kiss, stealing any remaining breath from your lungs. Brady attempts to break the kiss but you don’t let him, hands lifting to cup his jaw and pulling him deeper into the kiss. He doesn’t resist and allows you to continue to kiss him, his own arms wrapping around your body.
Eventually your hands move, trailing down his throat, dancing over his chest and you smile against his lips as you feel his abs tighten in response to your fingers sinking lower until they finally reach the desired destination.
You gently take his still hard length in your hand and stroke him a few times, which was easy to do with your prior release clinging to the silky-smooth skin. You grin as you feel the vibrations of Brady’s soft moan in response to your ministrations. The cloud of your orgasm had lifted and, in its absence, your own confidence returned.
“Want me to take care of that for you?” you question, only moving far enough away to ask, your lips brushing against his occasionally. Brady doesn’t respond; you knew he wouldn’t. He had worked too hard to give up the dominance he held over you so easily. But you weren’t deterred.
You kiss him deeply one more time before your lips follow the path your hands previously traced: down his throat, over his collarbones, across his chest. An occasional moan and curse fall from Brady as you continue your descent and you grin, knowing that his resolve was slowly cracking. Your body moves, shuffling from being perched on top of his lap to kneel on the plush carpet between his thighs. Brady’s eyes are needy when your own eyes dart up to meet his stare. Your hand strokes him again but you make no attempt to put your mouth on him, the dare hanging clearly in the air.
“Baby, please,” Brady finally speaks, his hips punching upwards.
“Who’s fucking desperate now?” you quip, unable to contain your excitement at regaining the upper hand. Your jaw drops open in surprise as Brady’s hand darts out, grabbing your neck once more, his eyes growing dark.
“You want to repeat that sweetheart?” he asks, that dominant energy rolling off him again. Except this time, it doesn’t make you back down. Instead, it just spurs you on, that heat and elation as it returns – the battle, the chase. Your dropped jaw just morphs into a wicked grin and you are ecstatic to see a similar smirk twist onto Brady’s lips; a quiet confirmation that he was still enjoying the newfound push and pull between you two.
“Come on Brady. Admit it. You are just as desperate for me as I am for you,” you explain, your voice dipping again into your lower sultry timbre. “Tell me, do any of those other girls have a mouth like mine?”
You flatten your tongue against his shaft and lick a bold stripe up his length before moving your lips to leave a lingering teasing kiss on the head. Brady groans, his head falling back as his hand moves from your neck to tangle in your hair, pulling you closer in an attempt for you to fully wrap your lips around him.
“No one can fuck me like you can?” you continue, hand wrapping around his cock. “Well, you’ll never find someone who can give better head than I can.”
You don’t give him any chance to respond as you surge forward, finally taking him into your wet mouth. Your tongue traces every vein that you could feel as your hand moves against the rest of him. Brady’s moans sounding from above fuel you and you continue to work your sinful magic against his skin.
It may have been months since you two were in this particular position but you feel like a part of you will remember everything about Brady, including all the spots that make him groan and twitch and throb. Your lips move to suck on the tip, teasing the area where the head meets the shaft with your tongue.
“Fuck,” Brady curses, his hips jumping causing his cock to thrust into your mouth. You gag a little before withdrawing – not completely but only enough to catch your breath. Your eyes dart to his and find that he is already staring at you, his salt-and-pepper hair falling over his forehead. The moan you release at the sight vibrates around Brady causing an identical moan to escape him. You inhale deeply before lowering your head, relaxing your throat until the entirety of his cock is nestled in your mouth.
“Goddamn, you’re so fucking good at that,” he groans, his fingers twisting in your hair. You move, shallowly bobbing your head as you feel him pulse against your tongue, a tell-tale sign he was getting close. The assumption was only confirmed by the next word Brady spoke. “Fuck, baby, gonna cum.”
You pull your mouth from him, replacing it quickly with your hand and continuing the pace you had set.
“I won’t waste a drop,” you say, keeping your eyes locked to his as you wrap your lips around him once again, your hands moving to the side his thighs and pressing your fingertips up into them. Brady understands your silent request, hand once again tightening in your hair as he moves his hips upward, taking control.
“Yeah? You going to swallow it all like a good girl?”
You nod your head, keeping your mouth open and accepting everything he gives, moaning against his skin as he increases his pace. It’s only a few more moments before Brady throws his head back against the couch cushions, a long groan emulating from his chest as his own orgasm hits. You feel his cum hit the back of your throat and you greedily pull him deeper, determined to keep your word.
You let Brady collect himself and take a few deep breaths before you slowly raise your head, sliding off of his cock. You wait until his eyes connect to yours before you swallow, releasing a satisfied exhale afterwards. You can’t help but make a show of it, licking your lips before opening your mouth to show him that you indeed didn’t let anything go to waste.
Brady grins, a smile which you quickly mirror before his hands are on your body, hauling you off the floor and back into his lap. Your lips connect and you sigh, savoring the euphoric glow that surrounded the two of you. The two of you continue to make out for a few minutes, relaxing before you pull away, looking down at Brady.
“D’you feel better?” you joke, the remembrance of why he came to your house in the first place – and what it all meant now – nagging in the back of your mind. You aren’t sure if you can see sadness lingering on the corners of Brady’s smile as his hand runs soothing circles across your spine.
“A little.”
“Need anything else?”
“Maybe a shower,” he replies, looking up at you with those brown eyes that always made you weak. A sparkle that spells nothing but trouble for you flashes in his irises as his smile turns into a wicked smirk. “And perhaps a round two, starting with my head buried between your thighs.”
“Demanding, aren’t you?” you breathlessly chuckle, your head shaking in playful disbelief as your tear your gaze from his.
“I just know what I want.”
“Which is?”
“You.”
His quiet declaration has your head turning back to him, connecting your eyes once again. The emotions displayed in his own stare are unfathomable and you know that this isn’t the place to attempt to decipher them. You don’t have time to unwind and unravel the mess that defined you and Brady’s connection: your prior relationship, the subsequent break-up, and everything that happened today.
So, instead, you gently climb from Brady’s lap, standing upright before stretching out your hand towards him. He accepts your offer and you help lift him off the sofa before dragging him down the hallway to the second door on the left, back into your bed.
Like he always belonged there.
Like he never left.
tagging the skjei-sy sluts (affectionate) who asked for a continuation + a few others I think would appreciate this: @smileysvech @pyotrkochetkov @cellythefloshie @comphy-and-cozy @laurenairay
#nicole writes#brady skjei fic#brady skjei imagine#brady skjei smut#carolina hurricanes fic#carolina hurricanes imagine#nhl fic#nhl imagine#hockey fic#hockey imagine
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Tkachuk tells NHL.com how change in approach lifted game for Panthers
Forward no longer playing it safe, becomes ultimate clutch player in Florida
FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. – There was a time in Matthew Tkachuk’s life when he played it safe. It’s hard to remember now, hard to get that image out of your head, the one where he is crushing opponents and taking over Stanley Cup Playoff games and literally walking off the ice after scoring a game-winning goal in the fourth overtime of Game 1 of the 2023 Eastern Conference Final.
It’s hard to remember there was a before.
But there was.
Once upon a time, like most mortals, Tkachuk didn’t want to make a mistake. He didn’t want to be blamed. He didn’t want to err, to let down his teammates, the fans, himself. It was a time when he wasn’t quite as confident, wasn’t quite as assured -- if that can be believed -- when he didn’t know that, for him, safe was the riskiest play of all.
“I think maybe earlier in my career, being a young player, not wanting to be the guy that made the mistake, [I] maybe played a little bit safe in the high-pressure situations,” Tkachuk said. “Just trying to play it smart and, honestly, safe’s a perfect word for it.
“And then a couple years ago, I was like, why not make the play when nobody else wants to try to attempt it because they’re too nervous [about] what bad’s gonna happen? And I’ve seemed to go the other way, in the extreme other way, and that’s seemed to work the last few years.”
Tkachuk pinpoints it exactly, to 2021-22, his final season with the Calgary Flames, before the trade, before he landed in South Florida and became a genre-crossing star, before he helped propel the Panthers to the Stanley Cup Final last season.
“I was like, ‘Why not?’” Tkachuk said. “Why wouldn’t you want to be the guy that can make that right play at the last minute of the game or whatever? … I’m like, I’m capable, I feel like I’m a good enough player where I can be confident in myself no matter what the situation is. And that’s just kind of kept going.”
The Panthers and Tkachuk will need it to keep going, as they head to the playoffs having hit a tough skid of late. The Panthers, who are set to face the Boston Bruins at TD Garden on Saturday (3:30 p.m. ET; ABC, ESPN+, SN, TVAS), are 3-6-1 in their past 10 games, including a 6-0 win against the Ottawa Senators on Thursday.
They are second in the Atlantic Division, four points behind the Bruins, having clinched a playoff spot on March 28, a far cry from last season when the Panthers clinched with a single game remaining on their schedule. They then fell behind 3-1 in the best-of-7 first-round series against the Bruins. That was when they -- and Tkachuk -- came roaring back to force a Game 7. To win that Game 7.
“I knew what he could bring on a stage like that, but I don’t think the whole rest of the world knew what he could do,” brother and Senators captain Brady Tkachuk said. “So for him to show what he was all about is pretty cool. And I think he’s got another level to his game.”
Paul Maurice thinks he knows why.
The Panthers coach has seen a handful of players in his career who are elite, who might even rise to the level of potential Hockey Hall of Fame players. And when he’s viewing them, he notes something, something that seems to be common to all of them.
“I watch them and they have a higher expectation of the result,” Maurice said. “And the analogy I used [was] when that guy goes in and buys a suit, he expects it to fit right and it’s going to look good. He has an expectation of the result.
“With Matthew, it seems to me, it’s tied, there’s four minutes [left], he’s excited about that situation because he has a really high expectation that something good’s going to happen because over the course of his life, that’s exactly what’s happened. It wasn’t a lottery. It’s just he’s gone out and made it happen, so he wants to and believes it can.
“I never sensed any arrogance on him. I truly have not. It’s not like, hey, give me the puck, I’m the shooter. He just thinks when he hits the ice, it could happen, and his life has told him that it could happen. So why wouldn’t you enjoy the hell out of that?”
Oh, and he is.
Not only has South Florida been a revelation for Tkachuk, so too has the team, which has entered into the top echelon of the NHL. He has figured out himself and his game, not only that he can -- and will -- come up big in the biggest of moments, but that he can also adjust to fit what the team requires, mold his game to the situation.
Asked if he is a chameleon, he readily agrees.
Especially in the playoffs.
“I look at those types of playoff games differently,” Tkachuk said. “Like some people if they’re not producing, they’re not doing too much to help their team, whereas one of the good things that I’m able to do is recognize what my team needs out of me on that particular night or that particular shift.
“There are some nights when offense comes second and all I’m trying to do is run around, be physical, try to forecheck and try to gain my team momentum like that. Even if teams are keying in on me or really focusing on me, there’s ways to make an impact.”
No one can argue with that. The Bruins still bear the scars -- some literal, some figurative -- of what Tkachuk did to them in the playoffs last spring.
In the final four games of the first-round series, Tkachuk had eight points (four goals, four assists) to help them win the best-of-7 series.
Boston forward Trent Frederic, who traces his understanding of Tkachuk back to basement games as kids in St. Louis, said that he thinks that, likely, had Tkachuk not been on the Panthers, the Bruins would have advanced.
But he was. They didn’t. And now it’s not hard to believe that many teams are uninterested in seeing the Panthers on the opposing bench in the playoffs, in seeing Tkachuk on the opposing bench.
Before a cracked sternum forced him to miss the fifth and final game of the last season’s Cup Final, Tkachuk had 24 points (11 goals, 13 assists), including four game-winning goals, in 20 playoff games.
“So the playoffs, I think the one quote, he’s a [expletive] gamer, that’s how I feel about him in the playoffs last year. And I know it’s profane, but it’s also very specific words, it’s exactly the way I feel about him,” Maurice said. “Sometimes the words just fit. Sometimes they’re casual and you swear too much. Sometimes I do. But that is how I -- a [expletive] gamer. He comes up with the biggest plays time and time again. And his energy level to be able to play at that level, that was specific to the hockey.
“This year, I’ve gotten to watch what an incredible leader he is.”
He sees it on the bench, in the exhortation of his teammates, in his calming of them, in his barking at them. He sees it when he brought a friend and his two kids into the dressing room after a game in Detroit, when Tkachuk paused in his postgame showering routine to sign a jersey, to take a picture, to get Carter Verhaeghe out of the shower to sign the other jersey.
“I don’t even blame players who don’t sign,” Maurice said. “But he doesn’t have to do that, and he does that consistently. … It’s not fake. It’s not showy. I think he understands the responsibility that he has and he takes care of it.”
There are so many responsibilities heaped on Tkachuk now.
He is a leader on the ice and off it. He is the second-leading scorer, with 83 points (24 goals, 59 assists), the top chirper and certainly the most talked about player on the Panthers. And he is ready, once again, to receive that pressure. He is ready for the playoffs. He is ready for the eyes and the lights and all that comes with it.
“I enjoy it,” Tkachuk said. “I think that the high intense games and the rivalry games and the, just like the intense part of the games that some guys might not feel too confident or comfortable, I seem to thrive in them and I love those moments.”
There will be no shortage of those moments in the waning days of the season, in the start of the playoffs, as the Panthers attempt to replicate their Cinderella run to the Final last season -- without the Cinderella part.
Because much like the Panthers, who have been at or near the top of the NHL all season, there will be no surprises when it comes to Tkachuk. He is known, now. Known for stealing games, for coming up big in the biggest moments, for never, ever playing it safe.
And when the pressure comes, as it will, he will be right there.
“Knowing him, that’s going to make him go to another level,” Brady Tkachuk said. “And I think for him, he’s going to love, not the spotlight, but the opportunity that comes from that and what he’s going to be able to do with that. He gets better when the pressure is higher.”
#the quote from paul!!!!!!! the story about pulling carter out of the showers to sign a kid's jersey!!!! it's all too much#bye!#matthew tkachuk#2324
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It seems like every year I end up writing an iteration of the same idea. But here I am! Writing it again! If you haven’t seen the tweet that sparked this conversation, I’ve screenshotted the tweet and artwork below. It’ll help inform this discussion. Full piece under the cut.
It would help to check out my essay from 2021 about the emasculation of Abdul Ali from Squid Game, since both pieces share similar references.
Maryam Khalid writes “Orientalist notions of the masculinity of the ‘Eastern’ male as uncivilized also inherently ascribe primitiveness, ineptness and a certain amount of weakness to the barbarized ‘other.’” Those doomed to the mythical Orient are automatically placed lower in masculinity than their white and colonial counterparts.
The reason for this emasculation is to defang them, to ensure they can never attain the same power conferred by white masculinity and to maintain racial purity: “This feminizing divests the male body of its virility and thus compromises its power not only to penetrate and reproduce its own nation (our women), but to contaminate the other's nation (their women) as well” (Puar, 99).
To be South Asian is to be pathologically queer, irrespective of the one’s true sexual orientation. “The Orient becomes a living tableau of queerness” by virtue of being from the Orient (Said, 103). There is already a robust amount of artwork depicting Pavitr with tons of gold jewelry and piercings, which to the West are typically feminine accessories. This essentially reduces Pavitr to a stereotype of South Asian culture.
Fanworks use the bejeweled, indulgent, exotic, and sultry attitude as a short-hand for their perception of South Asia. They are “caricatures stripped from movies like Disney’s Aladdin, the Arcana or people’s sexual fantasies about our men,” as allahrakhi writes in her essay on fandom's reception of Claude von Riegan from Fire Emblem: Three Houses, a character similarly mischaracterized by virtue of his brown identity.
Puar describes that the (implied white) nation defines “upright, domesticatable queernesses that mimic and recenter liberal subjecthood, and out-of-control, untetherable queernesses” (47). Nonwhite queerness is “untetherable,” leaving white queerness as “domesticatable.” This inability to engage brown queerness forces brown queer people to assimilate into white queerness.
In fandom’s and society’s mind, there is no such thing as a queer South Asian without them discarding their brown identity and adopting white queer practices, behaviors, and aesthetics. Queer South Asians are “either liberated (and the United States and Europe are often the scene of this liberation) or can only have an irrational, pathological sexuality of queerness” (Puar, 13).
Which brings us to the recent depictions of Pavitr in fanworks, stripping him of his masculinities to render him as a vapid, neutered, and yes, whitewashed queer boy, completely unrecognizable from the source material.
Interestingly, this reduced masculinity co-exists, paradoxically, with the idea that men from the Orient are simultaneously aggressive, belligerent, and violent. Elgin Brunner writes: “Such a framing—the association of the enemy with barbarism, as opposed to the self, which is civilized—includes two, often simultaneous, moves, that is: the ‘hypermasculinization’ of the enemy on the one hand, and his ‘effeminization’ on the other… The very same opponent is, by virtue of being categorized as a cowardly barbarian, rendered effeminate.”
The flip side of the effeminate brown man is the hypermasculine brown man, which can be seen through Miguel, one of Across the Spider-Verse’s antagonists. Both instances of brown masculinity confiscate personhood from characters who would have otherwise offered rich, nuanced, interesting perspectives to the story and to the audience.
It would be myopic of me to not mention the implicit genderings of other nonwhite ethnicities in this discussion. Brown men hold a unique positionality to other nonwhite men in a racial triangulation I’d like to examine further in another essay for the future. Brown men can either be gendered the way that East Asians are (feminine, asexual, neutered, timid, obedient) or the way that Black people are (hypersexual, predatory, dangerous, aggressive). Both misgenderings are in opposition to the “ideal” male gender, which is of course, the white man. This fallacy is why we see Hobie depicted as cruel, mean, and irritated in the exact same artwork from earlier.
Many people in this artist’s quoted replies have accused the artist of being white. I have seen some criticisms of the backlash, that people shouldn’t assume the artist’s ethnicity. I think both opinions miss the point: anyone can be orientalist. Membership within a nonwhite ethnic identity does not absolve the individual of perpetuating orientalist or racist depictions of characters of color.
As Edward Saïd said, “Everyone who writes about the Orient must locate himself vis-a-vis the Orient” (Orientalism, 20). That is to say, if you write and depict the Orient and people from the Orient, you have to consider your positionality in relation to the Orient. Naturally, this would mean that white people should always be cognizant of their depictions of Orientals. But East Asians can also orientalize, whether it is other ethnic groups like South Asians; or self-orientalization. Similar can be said for South Asians who self-orientalize.
Khalid writes “Gendered identities do not exist independently of other factors, and must be viewed as intertwined with, for example, race or ethnicity if we are to understand the hierarchical organization of identities.” There is no examination of gender without an accompanying racial context. And Pavitr’s emasculation in fandom certainly requires a critical eye for both race and gender, lest we repeat the same dehumanizing characterizations of him in further fanworks.
Works Consulted:
Brunner, E. M. (2008). Consoling display of strength or emotional overstrain? the gendered framing of the early “War on terrorism” in transatlantic comparison. Global Society, 22(2), 217–251. https://doi.org/10.1080/13600820801887223
Khalid, M. (2011). Gender, orientalism and representations of the ‘other’ in the War on Terror. Global Change, Peace & Security, 23(1), 15–29. https://doi.org/10.1080/14781158.2011.540092
Puar J. K. (2007). Terrorist Assemblages: homonationalism in queer times. Duke University Press.
Said, E. W. (1994). Orientalism. 25th anniversary edition. With a new preface by the author. New York, Vintage Books.
#pravitr prabhakar#across the spiderverse#spiderverse#meta analysis#critical race theory#gender studies#queer studies#khalid text
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On Sunday, Speaker of the House Mike Johnson went on television and mixed up Iran and Israel. “We passed the support for Iran many months ago,” he told Meet the Press, erroneously referring to an aid package for the Jewish state. Last night, the Fox News prime-time host Jesse Watters introduced South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem as hailing from South Carolina. I once joined a cable-news panel where one of the participants kept confusing then–Attorney General Jeff Sessions with Representative Pete Sessions of Texas. I don’t hold these errors against anyone, as they are some of the most common miscues made by people who talk for a living—and I’m sure my time will come.
Yesterday, President Joe Biden added another example to this list. In response to a question about Gaza, he referred to the Egyptian leader Abdel Fattah al-Sisi as the president of Mexico. The substance of Biden’s answer was perfectly cogent. The off-the-cuff response included geographic and policy details not just about Egypt, but about multiple Middle Eastern players that most Americans probably couldn’t even name. The president clearly knew whom and what he was talking about; he just slipped up the same way Johnson and so many others have. But the flub could not have come at a worse time. Because the press conference had been called to respond to Special Counsel Robert Hur’s report on Biden���s handling of classified documents, which dubbed the president an “elderly man with a poor memory,” the Mexico gaffe was immediately cast by critics as confirmation of Biden’s cognitive collapse.
But the truth is, mistakes like these are nothing new for Biden, who has been mixing up names and places for his entire political career. Back in 2008, he infamously introduced his running mate as “the next president of the United States, Barack America.” At the time, Biden’s well-known propensity for bizarre tangents, ahistorical riffs, and malapropisms compelled Slate to publish an entire column explaining “why Joe Biden’s gaffes don’t hurt him much.” The article included such gems as the time that then-Senator Biden told the journalist Katie Couric that “when the markets crashed in 1929, ‘Franklin Roosevelt got on the television and didn’t just talk about the princes of greed. He said, “Look, here’s what happened.”’” The only problem with this story, Slate laconically noted, was that “FDR wasn’t president then, nor did television exist.”
In other words, even a cursory history of Biden’s bungling shows that he is the same person he has always been, just older and slower—a gaffe-prone, middling public speaker with above-average emotional intelligence and an instinct for legislative horse-trading. This is why Biden’s signature moments as a politician have been not set-piece speeches, but off-the-cuff encounters, such as when he knelt to engage elderly Holocaust survivors in Israel so they would not have to stand, and when he befriended a security guard in an elevator at The New York Times on his way to a meeting with the paper’s editorial board, which declined to endorse him. And it’s why Biden’s key accomplishments—such as the landmark climate-change provisions of the Inflation Reduction Act, the country’s first gun-control bill in decades, and the expected expansion of the child tax credit—have come through Congress. The president’s strength is not orating, but legislating; not inspiring a crowd, but connecting with individuals.
That said, although Biden’s Mexico mistake might not be a demonstration of dementia, it is a warning sign of a different sort that his campaign would be wise to heed. Recently, the White House declined to have Biden participate in the traditional pre–Super Bowl interview this coming Sunday. The administration framed this decision as part of a broader strategy favoring nontraditional media, but it was reasonably seen as an attempt to shield the candidate from scrutiny. The president’s staff is understandably reluctant to put Biden front and center, knowing that his slower speed and inevitable gaffes—both real and fabricated—will feed the mental-acuity narrative. But in actuality, the bar for Biden has been set so laughably low that he can’t help but vault over it simply by showing up. By contrast, limiting his appearances ensures that the public mostly encounters the president through decontextualized social-media clips of his slipups.
As Slate observed in 2008, the frequency of Biden’s rhetorical miscues helped neutralize them in the eyes of the public. In 2024, Biden will have an assist from another source: Donald Trump. Among other recent lapses, the former president has called Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán “the leader of Turkey,” confused Nancy Pelosi and Nikki Haley, and repeatedly expressed the strange belief that he won the 2020 election. With an opponent prone to vastly worse feats of viscous verbosity, Biden can’t help but look better by comparison, especially if he starts playing offense instead of defense.
But none of this will happen by itself. If the president and his campaign want the headlines to be something other than “Yes, Biden Knows Who the President of Egypt Is,” they’ll have to start making news, not reacting to it.
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Passing the Torch . . .
[ DO NOT REPOST, ALL ART & CONCEPTS WERE MADE BY ME ]
“Wonderful news tonight as the organization known only as the Animal Salvation Association, a group of individuals set to bring peace to the world through their environmental and political efforts, finally passes on the torch to a new generation of Ocean Explorers.”
“It has been several years since the accident occurred taking the life of Professor and Captain, Samara Jade Kelp, the leader of the infamous Octonauts crew. A team known as the ‘Saviors of the Ocean’. Today we see history as Captain Samara’s legacy is finally laid to rest and a new captain takes the helm of this mighty crew.”
“Her husband, Professor Marin Kelp and head of the A.S.A. says this . . .”
“Mara would’ve wanted this I’m sure, she always had a heart of gold that one! I congratulate Captain Barnacles on his new role, I think she would’ve liked his spirit! He’s a strong one he is and the men and women he’s called to his crew will no doubt be just the same. That being said, we at the A.S.A. made sure to bring in someone we trust! After all most of planet is covered in water, might as well have someone taking care of it!”
“In other news, new waves of gang violence have been picking up along the east coast. As with many others gathering around the lower parts of Africa and South America, just around the center of the Amazonian River. Officials say that they’ve never seen activity quite like this before. Many key witnesses around each of the affected areas have claimed the existence and affects of poachers. But if there’s anything to go off of there seems to always be some valiant soul ready and willing to stop them.”
“Speaking of, Friday night a press conference is set to be held with world leaders over this issue, and the very organization we just covered is invited to join in. That’s right, the A.S.A. has finally caught their attention and at the end of the week there are rumors of an alliance being made between the UN and the A.S.A. So be sure to tune in Friday, Eastern Time to see it live. Now back to the weather . . . ”
Illustration Time: 10hrs 12min
[ This is a Octonauts AU, in no way is this canon to the OG storyline. ]
(GUYS I GOT A JOB!!! ALSO I JUST GOT HERE AND THE BOOP-MAGEDDON IS ALREADY OVER???? NOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!! WHY CRUEL WORLD!!!!)
Ya’ll BTW are you guys kidding me??? 60+ followers???? That’s INSANE ty all sm!!! You have no idea how happy that makes me!!!
#octonauts#octonauts fanart#captain barnacles#octonauts oc#octonauts the ASA#octonauts story#octonauts above and beyond#octonauts redesign#digital fanart#fanart#octonauts redesigns#octonauts lore
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Thomas Fountain Blue
Thomas Fountain Blue, the first African American to head a public library in the United States, was also a civic, educational, and religious leader. Blue was born in Farmville, Virginia, on March 6, 1866, to Noah Blue, a carpenter, and Henry Ann Crawley Blue. They were parents of two other children, Alice Blue and Charles Blue.
Blue enrolled in Hampton Institute in Hampton, Virginia, in 1885 and graduated in 1888. In 1894, he enrolled in Richmond Theological Seminary (now Virginia Union University) in Richmond, Virginia, finishing in 1898 with a Bachelor of Divinity degree. One week later, when the United States declared war on Spain after the sinking of the USS Maine off the coast of Cuba, touching off the Spanish-American War, Blue joined the Sixth Virginia Volunteers battalion comprising African American soldiers and was stationed first in Camp Poland in Tennessee and later at Camp Haskell in Georgia.
In 1905, Blue was selected to lead the Western Branch Library of the Louisville Free Public Library on South 10th and Chestnut Street, the first Carnegie Library in the nation to serve African American patrons with an exclusively African American staff. The facility cost $31,024.31 to build and when completed had over 4,000 books and 53 periodicals.
In 1914, Blue opened Louisville’s second Carnegie Library for African Americans, the Eastern Branch Library. During World War I, Blue was drafted, left the branch, and was appointed the Education Secretary at Camp Zachary Taylor in Louisville, one of sixteen national Army training camps created across the nation. Blue worked with Black troops who mostly had supporting and laboring roles in the United States.
After the war ended in 1918, Blue returned to Louisville, and a year later, in 1919, he was named head of the “Colored Department” for the city’s public library system and supervised eight African American assistants. The Colored Department was the first in the United States to have a staff which served multiple Black library branches.
In 1922, Blue was a presenter at the American Library Association Conference in Detroit, Michigan, where he gave a paper titled, “Training Class at the Western Colored Branch,” and led the subsequent discussion with the Negro Roundtable composed of other African American Library staffers from across the nation.
On June 18, 1925, Blue married Cornelia Phillips Johnson from Columbia, Tennessee, and they parented two children, Thomas Fountain Blue, Jr., and Charles Blue (named after his younger brother). Two years later, in 1927, Blue founded the Negro Library Conference and conducted its first meeting at Hampton Institute.
Later becoming a minister, Reverend Thomas Fountain Blue—who held membership in the American Library Association, the Special Committee of Colored Ministers of Louisville on Matters Interracial, and was a charter member of the Louisville Chapter of the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History—died on November 10, 1935, in Louisville, Kentucky. He was 69.
At the 2003 joint conference of the American Library Association with the Canadian Library Association Annual Conference at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre in Toronto, Ontario, Blue was posthumously honored when the organization passed a resolution recognizing his leadership in promoting professionalism among the staff of African American libraries across the United States. In 2022, a headstone honoring Blue and his wife, Cornelia Phillips Johnson, was placed at Eastern Cemetery in Louisville by the Frazier History Museum.
https://www.blackpast.org/african-american-history/people-african-american-history/thomas-fountain-blue-1866-1935/
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Matthew Tkachuk of Panthers, receives NHL brother's support
Speaks daily with Senators forward Brady about Stanley Cup Final
Brady Tkachuk is home in St. Louis, but he can't watch the Stanley Cup Final with mom Chantal and dad Keith.
"My mom gives a gasp whenever something happens," he said, laughing. "I go to a different room."
That's where Brady, captain of the Ottawa Senators, pays close attention to brother Matthew Tkachuk, the Florida Panthers forward who is arguably the face of this series against the Vegas Golden Knights.
The brothers talk daily either through texts, phone calls or FaceTimes. Sometimes it's about things other than hockey, but most of the time it is about the games.
"It's been less catching up and more what do you think," Brady said. "It's fun that I'm able to support him in that aspect."
"To have his support and to just bounce things off of him, talk about Vegas a little bit, see what he sees in them, I've been doing that all playoffs with teams we've been playing, getting his little pre-scout," Matthew Tkachuk said. "It's just great to have his support. I feel very lucky."
Brady has visited Matthew twice during the playoffs and they went golfing in South Florida before Game 6 of the first round against the Boston Bruins and again before Game 3 of the Eastern Conference Final against the Carolina Hurricanes.
"He was heavily involved in how we were playing, how we were hitting 'em," Brady said, "I think it was a nice little distraction for him."
Brady said he will not go to another game unless or until it could be a Cup-clincher for the Panthers.
"Another bit of motivation to get to that," Matthew said.
nhl.com
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matthew Q&A for GQ <3
Here’s a recap of everything that’s happened to Matthew Tkachuk over the last five weeks. First, he and the Florida Panthers took down the Boston Bruins in one of the biggest upsets the NHL has ever seen: Florida came back from a 3-1 deficit in their first-round series to oust the team with the best regular-season record in league history. Both Games 5 and 7—elimination games for the Panthers—went to overtime, and Tkachuk was heavily involved. He netted the game winner in the fifth game and assisted on the Game 7 knockout punch that sent Florida to the next round.
The Panthers completed a gentleman's sweep of the Toronto Maple Leafs in the second round, and shortly after that, Tkachuk was named a finalist for the Hart Trophy, given to the NHL’s Most Valuable Player. The Eastern Conference Finals pitted Florida against the Carolina Hurricanes, a juggernaut that would have had the league’s best record if not for the Bruins going supernova. The Panthers only needed four games for them. The final fixture of that series provided the biggest moment of Tkachuk’s career. With just 4.3 seconds left in regulation, Tkachuk buried the goal (his fourth game-winner of the playoffs) that clinched Florida’s first trip to the Stanley Cup Final since 1996.
The Panthers have one more challenge standing between them and Lord Stanley. The Vegas Golden Knights, owners of the best record in the Western Conference, are no slouch. Bringing down a fourth 100-point team would be a fairytale ending to the Panthers’ postseason march—and very much in line with the fairytale that the 25-year-old Tkachuk has been living. (He uses the word “unreal” frequently.) As his Panthers have climbed the postseason ladder, Jimmy Butler has worn Tkachuk’s jersey, strengthening the bond between two South Florida underdogs gunning for improbable championships. Tkachuk has also appeared on Inside the NBA, and by sweeping Carolina, he’s had some leisure time to soak up the sun before starting the Stanley Cup Final. In his first year in Florida after six with the Calgary Flames, Tkachuk has adjusted accordingly to the tropical lifestyle. As he told GQ in a recent interview, there are far worse places to be.
You’ve had a lot of time to chill. What the hell have you been up to?
I’ve been hanging out and going to the beach a lot. I’ve taken a few quick trips. One of the perks of living in Florida is you have the ocean right there. It’s super good for your body and mind to go in there—it’s pretty peaceful in there. I’ve gone out a couple times for dinner. But mostly I’m just staying quiet at the house. I don’t know, I’m really trying to put everything into the Stanley Cup Final. I’m at the rink every single day, some days to skate and some days to recover. Obviously, I’m using everything in the basket to try and win it all here.
Oh, I went to the Heat game the other night! I got to see Game 6 and sat with Charles [Barkley] and Shaq for a little bit.
How fun was it to guest on Inside the NBA and witness that legendary Charles and Shaq energy up close?
It was awesome! It all happened last minute—literally that morning I was asked if I wanted to come to the game and talk with Charles and Shaq. Hell yeah! Let’s do it. But what was really cool was talking to those guys off camera. That’s when we were really talking. Hockey, sports, golf, just talking about everything, getting to pick their brains, and learn about stuff I don’t really know about was super entertaining.
Are you more of a Charles or a Shaq?
That is tough. It was crazy that I got to meet them. I think that [dynamic] would be a great comparison for how me and my brother [Ottawa Senators captain Brady Tkachuk] are. We bicker a lot. But we’re really tight and actually best friends. Always there to chirp each other and have fun. They were both unreal players too. I watched more of Shaq, because he was closer to my generation, but I just watched Charles in the Dream Team documentary. I don’t know who I would be.
You’re in South Florida now, but I just learned that you went to high school in St. Louis with Jayson Tatum. So who were you rooting for in that Heat-Celtics series?
I honestly just loved going to watch Jayson and Jimmy Butler. I didn’t care about the final score. I know all the people in St. Louis would be pissed at me if I was rooting against Jayson and all the people here probably wouldn’t be happy if I was rooting against the Heat. I thought it’d just be easier to root for a couple players. Now that the Heat are in the Finals and I have zero allegiance to the Denver Nuggets at all—if the Heat can pull off the upset it’d be unreal for all of South Florida.
The idea of playing hockey in Florida always has this kind of funny connotation. It’s a relatively new franchise, you’re playing in warm weather in the south, it’s a very opposite idea of what most people have in their head when they think of the NHL. But you’re making it all sound pretty great.
It’s the top destination in the NHL. When you look at it—this is my opinion, and I would say most people’s opinion—the top two destinations in the league right now are the Florida teams. Third would probably be Vegas. It’s funny how that’s who we’re playing in the Final. People probably don’t look at Florida as the biggest hockey market, but Tampa’s won all these Cups recently and been to a bunch of Finals, the Panthers had some good runs before I got here, and when you go out West, Vegas has been right there at the top. Dallas has been right there too. These warmer climate markets aren’t the same as Toronto or Montreal, but the success that everyone’s had down here is no secret.
When I chose to come here, the number one reason was to be on a competitive team, compete for championships year over year, right behind that was the way of life. But you’re not just coming here to live the Florida life, you’re coming here to win. It’s just a perk that you get to live in Florida on top of all that. My life has changed so much since coming [to Florida]. The lifestyle has been unbelievable. The way I’m able to live down here is insane. It doesn’t get better, anywhere. Playing in the U.S., having these opportunities with people like Jimmy Butler and Charles Barkley, having way more nationally-televised games, competing for the Stanley Cup, that’s made not only myself but everyone on the team more of a name than we were before.
Have you become a boat guy since moving to Florida?
I have not. I’ve gotten as far as a few jet skis. I’m not a boat guy. I like to go on boats, but I don’t want to drive a boat. No chance I could park it.
How many texts did you get after scoring the game-winning goal to go to the Final? Was your phone just unusable?
I don’t know, probably close to 400 or 500. This run has been unreal.
After scoring that goal, when did reality set in?
I don’t think it felt real until the next day. With that goal, I knew there wasn’t much time left. When Ryno [Sam Reinhart] shot it off the post, I figured we had about ten seconds, maybe a little bit less. The next few chances, whether it was one or multiple, had to be on the net quick. I sort of just walked out from behind the net. I knew I had a little bit of time to make a move, but not much. Once I saw it go in I was the happiest person ever. First thing I did was look up to see if I got it in on time, and saw there was four seconds left or whatever. I don’t know what I was thinking after that! I did the slide [celebration] and it felt like the roof was going to come off because it was so loud. Then I got a little nervous because [the Hurricanes] challenged it [for goaltender interference], and you never know with challenges. But, it was obviously a good goal, and that was the moment where I was like, “Holy shit. That just happened.”
When I got back home I hung out with some family and friends and talked about how crazy of a night that was. I woke up the next day, which thankfully was an off day, and just thought, “Wow, Stanley Cup Final, here we come.” I’ve seen enough highlights of the goal just from being in places where it’s on TV—and trust me, I love seeing it—but I don’t want that goal to define the season.
When the puck drops on Game 1, it’ll be your first game since May 24. Is the concept of rust mostly a myth, or is that something that you guys are actually talking about and acknowledging?
You know what? We had a week off before the third round and maybe there was a little bit of rust in the first period. That’s something that we’re going to learn from. In the playoffs, with days off—even if there’s ten of them—it’s great for players that have some bumps and bruises.
You’ve gotta be pretty beat up at this point of the year. Does everything hurt when you wake up?
When you win it doesn’t hurt that much.
From your perspective, why is a lower seed making it all the way to the Final much more common in hockey than it is in other sports?
Well, it’s happening right now in basketball, too! But it’s really just, once you get in, everything resets back to zero. We got into the playoffs by one point. When it came down to that—then we realized, holy shit we’re playing the Boston Bruins, the best regular season team in NHL history. [But] none of that really mattered anymore! It was 0-0. Let’s go. It gave us confidence. We do a great job of keeping our focus solely on each game. That’s what’s made us have a lot of success.
It’s gotta be that plus whatever they’ve put in the water down there that’s given you and the Heat superpowers.
[chuckles] We’re feeding off each other.
I know that hockey players are famously superstitious, but I’m wondering if you’ve allowed yourself to think about what you would do with the Stanley Cup if you get your day with it.
It’s natural to think about that stuff. But every time I go down that road I pinch myself and try not to. The one thing you do think about constantly is that feeling you’d have from lifting the Stanley Cup for the first time. That’s gotta be the most amazing thing in your whole life. One team is going to do it—hopefully it’s us.
What’s up with Brooks Koepka? He seems to be the Panthers’ fan ambassador right now, and he’s intense! It’s clear that it’s not an act at all—he really cares!
I actually just met him right after Game 4. He wanted to come down and meet me. I got a picture with him and got to chit chat for a little bit. He’s really excited. It’s great to see support from other athletes. Success in a tight community makes everyone pull for each other. Him and the rest of the fan base has been unreal. This building is so loud. We were talking about in the offseason—which is hopefully a few weeks from now after winning the Stanley Cup—maybe we can link up and golf somewhere.
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whats a fun fact about you besides once being a baby
hmmmmmmmmm a fun fact about me...... i cant think of just one so heres a couple
-im distantly related to sarah palin
-i do theater for fun
-i showed my presentation on the martyrdom of saint sebastian and the eroticism of penetration to the executive director of the south eastern museums conference and it got me a membership
-my famous "three degrees of separation" person is lin manuel miranda
-i own 17 different short sleeve button up shirts
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South Coast Region Quarterfinals
Washington, DC vs Virginia
#license plates#tournament#washington dc#virginia#round 1#south coast region#southeastern conference#eastern league
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[ 📹 A Ukrainian soldier surrenders to Russian forces in the city of Avdiivka, northwest of Donetsk City, where Ukrainian defenses collapsed in recent days. The Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation declared the city "liberated" today.]
🇷🇺⚔️🇺🇦 🚨
RUSSIAN FORCES SIEZE THE CITY OF AVDIIVKA IN DPR AFTER UKRAINIAN WITHDRAWAL
Russian Forces have seized the city of Avdiivka, in the South Donetsk direction, in the eastern Donbas region of Ukraine, after Ukrainian troops fled their positions in a messy withdrawal from the city.
The city of Avdiivka is located just northwest of the Russian held city of Donetsk, Capital of the Donetsk People's Republic, one of four new regions that voted to join the Russian Federation in September 2022 in a widely criticized referendum that, nonetheless, was recognized by the Russian legislature and ensconced into Russian law.
After months of fierce battles which saw a long period of slow, grinding and halting gains by Russian forces, followed by sudden rapid advances after a recent collapse in Ukrainian manpower following two years of steep losses and a failed summer offensive. And with the United States failing to provide artillery shells and ammunition at the same rate it has for the last two years, the defensive lines of the Armed Forces of Ukraine finally collapsed in Avdiivka.
A day prior to the final order of withdrawal coming down from Ukraine's newly minted Commander of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, General Alexsandr Syrsky, Ukrainian troops began fleeing their positions "uncontrollably" as Russian forces made lightning gains and Russian artillery pummeled the retreating units, which were said to be withdrawing in small groups of 10-20 soldiers in a haphazard fashion.
Speaking about the situation in a statement, Ministry of Defense spokesperson, Igor Konashenkov, said, “The order of the commander-in-chief of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, Syrsky, to abandon the city was issued only a day after the uncontrolled flight of Ukrainian troops from Avdiivka began."
Soon after General Syrsky gave the order for a full withdrawal, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky told reporters the withdrawal had become necessary because of a lack of sufficient assistance from the West, causing the AFU to suffer from, what he called an "artificial" critical shortage of ammunition.
Speaking at the Munich Security Conference yesterday, Zelensky said in his speech that "Keeping Ukraine in the artificial deficits of weapons, particularly in a deficit of artillery and long-range capabilities, allows (Russian President Vladimir) Putin to adapt to the current intensity of the war," and claimed the sudden collapse of defenses in Avdiivka was actually a withdrawal who's aim it was to "save our soldiers lives."
Meanwhile, according to Konashenkov, "measures are being taken to finally clear the city of militants and block the Ukrainian units that have left the city and settled at the Avdeevka coking plant."
Konashenkov also added that the liberation of Avdiivka made it possible to move the frontline away from the city of Donetsk, where Ukrainian forces regularly fire HIMARS, artillery shells, and cluster munitions into the commercial and residential center of the city, targeting civilians with a punishing regularity that can now, possibly and thankfully, come to an end.
Avdiivka, as a northern suburb of Donetsk City, has been involved in the fighting since it began in 2014, and has been held by Ukrainian forces for the entirety of that time, with the AFU using the city as a staging ground the for strikes on Donetsk and other parts of the southern Donbas region.
On Saturday, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu reported to the Supreme Commander-in-Chief of the Russian Armed Forces, President Vladimir Putin, "the complete seizure" of the city of Avdiivka in the DPR.
According to Shoigu, Avdiivka represented "a powerful defensive stronghold of the Ukrainian Armed Forces" which has now been taken control over by the Tsentr Group of Forces under the command of General Andrey Mordvichev.
The Russian Defense Minister said Russian forces had taken control over "an area of 31.75 square kilometers" which has been "liberated from Ukrainian nationalists."
In his statement, Shoigu said the losses for the AFU over the previous 24-hours in the Avdiivka direction amounted to more than 1'500 soldiers, and that under continuous Russian fire damage, AFU soldiers mostly managed to leave Avdiivka rapidly, however they did so leaving Western weapons and hardware behind.
Shoigu reiterated that cleanup operations continue near the Avdiivsky coke plant, with Russian forces now attempting to block them in, while units with the Tsentr Group of Forces continue offensive operations to "further liberate the Donetsk People's Republic from Ukrainian nationalists."
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@WorkerSolidarityNews
#avdiivka#donetsk#dpr#ukraine war#russia ukraine war#russia ukraine conflict#special military operation#russia#ukraine#russia news#ukraine news#vladimir putin#zelensky#putin#russian military#russian armed forces#armed forces of ukraine#afu#war#eastern europe#europe#europe news#news#politics#geopolitics#world news#global news#international news#breaking news#current events
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NFWMB
a/n: we are back babes! this one was actually the toughest prompt to write so I hope you all love it!
word count: 1.3k
warnings: a little bit of spice! and a kind of toxic relationship (i did end up listening to @smileysvech “toxic slaylist” while writing so... there’s that. gender neutral reader!
Ain’t it exciting you the rumble where you lay? Ain’t you my baby?
Sadness. Humiliation. Shame.
Those should be the emotions running through Brady as the plane lands back in Carolina after Game 4 of the Eastern Conference Finals. Because he wasn’t back here to fight for another win. He was here to pack his bags and go home.
The best team in the Metro. Swept. By a wild card team who barely made the playoffs.
It was a disaster. It was an embarrassment. And Brady should feel the heavy weight of that failure, even if he might only be responsible for one-nineteenth of the blame. Or, at the least, he should feel the waves of sadness crashing over him about the way it ended, or even the mere fact that it did end.
But he didn’t. Perhaps he did earlier, when that final buzzer sounded and the fans in South Florida cheered. But now, having sat with those feelings for the better part of 24 hours, he was no longer sad.
He was angry.
And so, when the wheels touched down in Raleigh and he collected his car with his equipment sitting in the trunk, he didn’t drive home.
Instead, he drove to yours.
~
A tired sigh leaves you as you pull up to your house. A long work week was cause for an even longer relaxing weekend and you were ready to start that weekend by getting inside and having a long nap. Or a strong drink. Or perhaps both.
However, after hopping out of your car and wandering up the small path that leads to your front porch, your plans placed on a momentary hold when you see someone leaning against the wall adjacent to your door, their baseball cap pulled low.
“I’m not interested in whatever you’re selling,” you call out, ready for this stranger to flash you an award-winning smile and tell you all about how their company could save you money on roofing if you needed repairs after last week’s storm.
But when their head lifts and their attention is drawn, you stop in your tracks as you recognize the face staring back at you.
Hell, you used to wake up to it every morning for eight months. Until he ended things.
“Brady.”
His name falls from your mouth in complete practiced apathy. You didn’t need him to know that you spent time crying over him in the last month. You especially didn’t need him to know how your heart still skipped a beat when his eyes connected to yours.
“Did you see the game?” he asks.
“I heard.”
“And?”
“And what? Do you want to cry for you?”
There’s a humorless chuckle that comes from Brady as his head falls before he takes a step towards you.
“You always knew how to make me feel better,” he says, the sarcasm lacing his voice. And when you hear it, that dry scathing tone, you realize that you didn’t recognize the man in front of you.
Brady was always soft, gentle, welcoming. It made the dichotomy between you even more obvious; you all sharp edges and harsh words and burning fire. It was part of the reason the two of you broke up.
But this Brady… there was something different. Something dangerous. it intrigued you. But not enough to give.
“I’m not going to coddle you, Brady. You should know that by now.”
“I don’t want your sympathy.”
“What do you want then?” you ask, finally taking a few steps forward, closing the gap between you and your front door. “You want my pity? You want me to say ‘poor you, poor Brady’?”
It’s your turn to let a scoff fall from your lips as you reach into your bag for your keys, Brady now behind you.
“If you wanted someone to feel sorry for you, you came to the wrong fucking house,” you explain, unlocking the door.
Before you can even reach the handle, you feel Brady step forward, his hands falling on your hips as his body crowds you into the smooth wood. You attempt to take a deep breath to calm your heart but it doesn’t help because when you breathe in, your senses are filled with the smell of his cologne. A smell so familiar. One you missed.
Brady moves closer, his body almost pinning you to the door and you can’t stop your knees from trembling as you feel the heat of him behind you, his breath fanning across the shell of your ear.
“I came here because I missed you,” he whispers.
“And it took you getting your ass kicked to realize that?” you shoot back. Although, the waver in your voice betrays you, revealing how much your body was responding to him; his touch, his voice, his warmth. Brady just lets his previous sentence continue, as if he didn’t even hear you.
“And because I know you missed me just as much.”
You couldn’t let him do this – let him come crawling back to you when he was broken or bored. You no longer belonged to him. It was a recipe for disaster.
“I think you’ve forgotten that I’m not one of those blondes that would fall on their knees for you.”
“You seemed to enjoy being on your knees for me when we were together.”
“And we’re not together anymore. So, find someone else to fuck your frustrations out on.”
“Is that what you did?”
“None of your business.”
You feel his grip on your hips tighten and you barely have time to react as he effortlessly spins your body until your back is pressed against the wood of the door, your eyes now looking up at him.
“You’re lying.”
Brady almost spits out the words, as if even the barest suggestion that what you said was true was poison to him. Your eyes follow the movement in his temple, the clenching of his jaw, the storm in his eyes. This wasn’t the side of Brady that you knew.
But it was a side that you were always curious to discover. Throughout those eight months, you wanted to know if Brady had that same fire hiding within him – a passion and intensity that could match yours. And now, you could finally see it peeking through.
You wanted it to come out completely.
“And you can tell?” you ask, wielding your words with edge and precision. “Does that make you feel worse? If I told you about all the other men that ended up in my bed?”
“You wouldn’t dare.”
“I wouldn’t? Are you sure? You knew what you giving up when you left. Can’t blame me for moving on.”
“You wouldn’t,” Brady repeats, one hand falling away and you barely have time to comprehend where it had gone when you feel the steady weight of the door fall away from you.
Your body lurches back, the momentum pulling you until it is abruptly stopped by Brady’s strong arms, pulling you close and lifting you over the threshold. Your feet find the hardwood of your floors before Brady is spinning you again and you find yourself pressed against the door once more, this time inside your house instead of without.
“You wouldn’t,” he reiterates, “because no one could make you feel as good as I did.”
You hear the deadbolt click, the sound causing the heat pool in your stomach. Brady’s hand moves back to your hip, pulling you close again as he leans in until your lips are barely touching. It’s intoxicating, having him this close to you once again. You are about to surge forward, connect your lips to his, let your fire burn with his. Until Brady speaks again.
“No one could make you feel as good as I’m about to.”
That statement pulls all rationality from you and you don’t hesitate to close the gap between you, crashing your lips onto his. Brady returns the kiss with as much intensity, his hands gripping you tighter while yours move to trace over his arms, his broad shoulders before tangling into that salt-and-pepper hair. The kiss is frantic, all teeth and tongues and it takes a moment before Brady finally pulls away, connecting those brown eyes to your own
“You’re mine,” he whispers. “You always will be.”
#nicole writes#hozier blurb weekend#brady skjei blurb#brady skjei fluff#carolina hurricanes blurb#nhl blurb#hockey blurb
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Bolivia severs ties with Israel, others recall envoys over Gaza
Bolivia said on Tuesday it had broken diplomatic ties with Israel because of its attacks on the Gaza Strip, while neighbors Colombia and Chile recalled their ambassadors to the Middle Eastern country for consultations.
The three South American nations lambasted Israel's attacks on Gaza and condemned the deaths of Palestinian citizens.
Bolivia "decided to break diplomatic relations with the Israeli state in repudiation and condemnation of the aggressive and disproportionate Israeli military offensive taking place in the Gaza Strip," Deputy Foreign Minister Freddy Mamani said at a press conference.
The three countries called for a ceasefire, with Bolivia and Chile pushing for the passage of humanitarian aid into the zone and accusing Israel of violating international law.
Colombian President Gustavo Petro called the attacks a "massacre of the Palestinian people" in a post on the social media network X, formerly known as Twitter.
Israel's foreign ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
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A man has been charged with murder and hate crimes after allegedly stabbing a six-year-old boy to death because he was Muslim.
Joseph Czuba, 71, is accused of killing Wadea Al-Fayoume and seriously wounding his mother in Plainfield, Illinois.
The landlord allegedly targeted the pair, who were his tenants, because of their religion and the ongoing conflict between Hamas and Israel.
President Joe Biden said he was "sickened" by Saturday's attack.
"This horrific act of hate has no place in America, and stands against our fundamental values: freedom from fear for how we pray, what we believe, and who we are," he said.
Hanaan Shahin, 32, was attacked by her landlord, who had a military-style knife, and ran to the bathroom to call the police, authorities said.
She suffered more than a dozen stab wounds but is expected to survive.
Her son, Wadea, was stabbed more than two dozen times in the attack and later died in hospital. A funeral service and burial will be held on Monday afternoon in the town of Bridgeview, which is sometimes referred to as "Little Palestine" because of its large Palestinian-American population.
On Monday, a makeshift memorial - which included a stuffed spider-man figure and other children's toys - stood at the scene of the crime.
Several crosses, apparently put up by Mr Czuba sometime before the incident, were also visible, along with a sign telling passers-by to "pray the rosary at 4:20".
He celebrated his sixth birthday just a few weeks ago. "He loved his family, his friends. He loved soccer, he loved basketball," the executive director of the Chicago office of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), Ahmed Rehab, said.
When officers arrived at the scene, about 40 miles (64km) south-west of Chicago, they found Mr Czuba sat on the ground outside the property with a cut to his face.
The victims, who were Palestinian-Americans, were found in a bedroom.
Mr Czuba was taken to hospital for treatment before being questioned by detectives. He was later charged with first-degree murder, attempted first-degree murder, hate crimes and aggravated battery.
While he did not make a statement, detectives said they were able to determine a potential motive.
"Both victims in this brutal attack were targeted by the suspect due to them being Muslim and the ongoing Middle Eastern conflict involving Hamas and the Israelis," the Will County Sheriff's office said.
The US Justice Department has also opened a federal hate crime investigation into the attack. In statements on Monday, both Vice President Kamala Harris and Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas condemned the attack and rising incidents of hate.
"There is no humane world that can and should tolerate the murder of an innocent child because of his identity," Mr Mayorkas said. "The tragic events in the Middle East...have brought ideologies of hate to the fore across the world - notably antisemitism and Islamophobia. This must end."
At a news conference on Sunday, CAIR said Wadea was born in the US while his mother - originally from Beitunia in the West Bank - came to the country 12 years ago.
"[Wadea] paid the price for the atmosphere of hate and otherisation and dehumanisation that frankly I think we are seeing here in the United States," Mr Rehab said.
The boy's father, Oday al-Fayoume, was at the news conference and was in a state of shock, Mr Rehab said.
Neighbours such as Eva Case expressed disbelief at the violent attack. "I don't care what the situation was," she told the BBC's US partner CBS. "Don't take it out on somebody that innocent of life."
Others who lived nearby said the pair had moved into the home four years ago.
"It's sickening. I can't even imagine how anybody could do that to a little child," one neighbour said.
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