roseate7

[roseate7]

heads up that I’m gonna answer private messages but I’m sorry that I just can’t expend the time on doing asks <3 I’ve really gotta save my time on screens to only what’s absolutely needed, especially in a time like this. keep up the good fight folks!

[roseate7]

Pens fans and Sid fans are great at holding our faves accountable - you’re probably not

If you’re inflamed by that title then this post is for you. Flouncing away from it makes you look like a clown who can’t handle criticism and correction. I’ll go ahead and preface this by saying my disability limits my usage of screens to only the absolute essentials so I won’t be back here to see if you’ve done either so please save yourself time and any huffy replies you’re bristling with. I’m not interested in returning to tumblr, trust me.

I shouldn’t be surprised considering this fandom’s selectiveness when it comes to politics and hockey but it’s still not great to get an anon message that huge swathes of fandom are now treating the topic of racism not with regards to Akim Aliu or BLM, but as a popularity contest of performative white men. Oh and their eagerness to once again remind anyone they think cares that “humph they don’t wike Sidney Cwosby and their fave is superior! Take THAT Cwosby fans!”

Again, y’all should’ve saved yourselves the trouble but fortunately I and Pens fandom have a nice history of protesting and holding our team and Sid accountable for you to learn from. Especially Caps and Blues fans recently, also anyone gross enough to be Ovechkin fans, but especially if you consciously decide to have anything to do with supporting the Blackhawks and not smacking yourself in the eye every time you type or utter the team name. Like, holy shit are we really out here on the brink of saying you can be best friends with Patrick Kane and still be... jesus christ. (Start here and work backward - any other Pens fans, rb and add your own history of it) I’ll try to keep this brief but I couldn’t really care less if anyone finds it too long lol. If you’re all willing to post about this shit then you can sit and listen.

1) If any of the gestures made by these white men has turned your head or made you think they’re better than other white men in hockey then a) you’re obviously biased towards them in the first place and are jumping on any fucking crumb cast your way, and b) you’re wrong. They do not care about you. They do not care about BLM. They have known all along when they and others have done wrong and they have done nothing until pressured to do so. They do not care about anything beyond hockey. 

2) I have watched multiple rotations of PR efforts to Make Hockey Players Seem Like Great Guys over the decades. This is the latest. They pretend to atonement. They donate. They make statements. They wear tape on their sticks. They put on special jerseys for fifteen minutes. They pose with the minority they have offended (or attend Pride parades and get nothing but praise for it and the unearned mantle of having saved gays everywhere). And yet as I am here to attest, it has never done anything. It is intended to make you like them and do exactly what you’re doing now - buy into their cultivated hierarchy of goodness that has zero relevance to real world ideas of goodness or morality. 

3) The bar is too low to call any white male hockey player a good man. “But you stan Crosby!!” Yep. Read through my blog and I absolutely go nuts with the narrative of this guy’s career and his impact or lack of action in hockey. I balance a fascination with him as a hockey player with real life criticism of him as a person. You can too! 

4) Lastly, if you think “omg my guy is SOOOOO much better than Crosby because of x, y, and z” then you are a fool. You’re playing precisely into what the NHL and it’s teams have been pushing - especially on female fans! You’ve been fed a version of a white man, you’ve been given a tamping down in terms of your expectations, and now you’re in love. You’ll take anything he throws you and carry it like a banner over the heads of any inferior hockey men! You’re the loser in this exchange.

Ironically for the latest batch of “I hate Crosby”, Sidney Crosby has in fact done far more to improve the diversity of hockey than your white faves - the Little Penguins was his baby and spread league wide as the Learn to Play program and his focus has been to push management of his teams toward making tickets and events accessible to lower income families. Most of your dudes wait for initiatives from Head Office to be handed down via PR. Here’s the kicker! that absolutely every Pens and Sid fan I know is aware of! Neither Sid’s proactive work nor most players’ going along makes them better than each other in a real world sense! Because none of them are doing a fraction of what they could easily be doing to tackle real issues in an up front and direct way! And they all know it and hide from it! They’re all white boys who don’t like to rock the boat unless enough of their brothers do it with them!

None of them spoke up for Akim Aliu in any actual supportive way!! They waited for human trash bag Evander Kane to say something and slowly trickled in!! they all waited!! They waited their whole careers and they’re gonna keep you waiting!! 

Jonathan Toews is not better than Sidney Crosby. You are the ones who are upset by that fact - we’re the ones who’ve never questioned it. Johnny being best friends with a racist and abuser (and defending him openly!) and never answering for his racist logo on his chest or his notoriously brazen racist fans DOES NOT GO AWAY just because in this instance Sidney Crosby was later than him. It does not disappear just because his fans read a silly and utterly empty, self-serving mansplaining text post and decide that he is suddenly better than Sidney Crosby’s equally empty statement days later. Judge these men intelligently!! Stop making it a teen magazine bestest boy rating!! DO NOT TELL PEOPLE TO BRUSH OFF A MAN’S FRIENDSHIP AND DEFENCE OF A RACIST ABUSER RAPIST JUST BECAUSE HE WROTE A NOTE SAYING HE’S FOUND OUT ABOUT RACISM AND BOY IT’S NOT GOOD EH.

Please, just for a second, just think of how stupid it is to take an issue like systemic racism and actually sit down and actually turn it into whose boy is better than whose. For the love of god please if nothing else stop doing that!!

THE TIME FOR STATEMENTS TO ACT AS BROWNIE POINTS IS DONE. THE TIME FOR WHITE MEN COPPING TO RACISM IN THEIR LEAGUE AND THE WORLD AS SOMETHING WORTHY OF PRAISE IS DONE. THEY ARE TOO LATE. STOP ACCEPTING SO LITTLE JUST SO YOU CAN ENGAGE IN STAN WARS. 

THE PEOPLE DOING THE WORK TO IMPROVE SYSTEMIC RACISM IS ALL YOU SHOULD CONCERN YOURSELF WITH. NOT THEIR SEEMINGLY BENEVOLENT OPPRESSORS. STOP TALKING ABOUT THEM. STOP PRAISING THEM. IF THEY REALLY MEAN WHAT THEY ARE SAYING THEY WILL CONTINUE WITHOUT PRAISE AND WE WILL SEE IT IN REALITY OVER YEARS TO COME. THEY GET NOTHING FROM US NOW. NOTHING.

NO ONE CARES THAT YOU DO NOT LIKE SIDNEY CROSBY. WE CARE THAT YOU ARE INSISTING THAT WE REDUCE OUR SOCIAL AWARENESS DOWN TO SLURPING ON ANY WHITE MAN’S EGO IN THE MIDST OF INEQUALITY AND ABUSE THAT HE - WHOEVER HE IS - HAS SILENTLY AND ACTIVELY PERPETUATED, JUST BECAUSE HE DONATED MONEY OR WROTE STUPID FUCKING WORDS IN NOTES APP. 

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Is he already taller than uncle Sid? 👀

[roseate7]

Not to be cheesy but in 2018 the concept of ‘cheesy’ is gone, we’re throwing it out…….. love what u love and wax poetic about it twenty four sev and keep ur heart glowing,, no more worrying about your happiness being ‘over the top’ ! Pursue goofy shit! Love urself!

[roseate7]

nickyj_holla: The best part about the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam was the Sidney Crosby exhibit.

bonus:

[roseate7]

a lot of folks are still unconvinced as to the only common factor to which you can trace the immediate upheaval of recently Cup-winning teams, but as of 2019 the evidence all ties itself up in a tidy singular point (and boy does that last bit from the new Canes HQ sting like hell for Pens fans after what Rutherford’s done this season): 

every team is better off before and after Jim Rutherford is allowed sole management of it and he consistently uses the years he was aided by existing good fortune and good advice into Cup wins to cover up for his solo work producing the worst seasons - and he openly admits and sees northing wrong with that

sources:

https://bleacherreport.com/articles/2042739-jim-rutherford-leaves-behind-complicated-legacy-with-carolina-hurricanes

https://www.canescountry.com/2017/6/30/15900340/carolina-hurricanes-jim-rutherford-pittsburgh-penguins-nhl

https://www.hockeybuzz.com/blog/Ryan-Wilson/Jim-Rutherford-has-been-wasteful-and-directionless/177/99298

https://www.nhl.com/news/hurricanes-living-up-to-owners-vision-in-playoffs/c-307213946?tid=287339198

(sorry for the ugly layout of all this but it’s the easiest way to view it)

[roseate7]

I just realized this is the same thing as Geno breaking the tension repeatedly when Sid wasn’t making the shots in the Keybank challenges. Whenever he beats Sid he always makes it a joke that includes Sid in it. Even joking about how Sid wouldn’t sleep all night after missing a shot was him getting Sid to relax about it. Or the “Crosby sucks” stuff and the complaining all the way through press days. Even the fact that Geno is the only one allowed to change Sid’s rituals. Those are all the times when Sid looks like he could could go into a bit of an anxiety spiral, but Geno gets him to laugh it all off. (and we already know how much Sid loves being teased and chirped as it is)

It fits really well with the fact that so many people who speak Russian with Geno say how intelligent he is - and with people saying Geno has taken on a very specific and strategic position of leadership where Sid gives the polite answers but Geno can come in and get away with saying certain things Sid couldn’t. 

I wanna much would Sid be a nervous wreck if Geno wasn’t there for this stuff to jump in and take control of the situation. I’m not saying other guys in the core can’t make Sid feel relaxed on camera too, but even guys like Tanger Horny and Phil see it as ‘Sid and Geno’ when it comes to doing press about leadership. And with how dismissive and disrespectful the media are with Geno himself, do they even grasp how much of Sid’s authentic personality they have access to simply because Geno has stayed with him and learned him inside out? They may never value Geno for who he is but you can be damn sure they’d miss him if all they ever got from Sid was his media face. The press seems to think Sid feels more comfortable with them because he’s polite. But they don’t see how much good it does Sid when Geno says the things that he can’t.

At the end of ITR,  Geno teases Sid  about his grey hair after saying “we old”, but because he can never make Sid the butt of a “mean” joke he goes on to say “I lost hair too” AND POINT IT OUT!

Then!  Sid looked like this when the age question was asked:

and then Geno swooped in with the "we old” jokes and made it ok and Sid ended up looking like:

It was so quick and good of Geno to make it a joke because Sid is obviously not into being called the old guys lol

[roseate7]

“you need 💪BIGNESS 💪HUGEMUSCLE and 💪BUBBABULK to win the StanLRY CUP “

2019 playoffs:

[roseate7]

Getting older can be tough but the chance to roast your pal for getting old is priceless!

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sid is too focused on the aesthetics to get the interview done [x]

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At the end of ITR,  Geno teases Sid  about his grey hair after saying “we old”, but because he can never make Sid the butt of a “mean” joke he goes on to say “I lost hair too” AND POINT IT OUT!

Then!  Sid looked like this when the age question was asked:

and then Geno swooped in with the "we old” jokes and made it ok and Sid ended up looking like:

It was so quick and good of Geno to make it a joke because Sid is obviously not into being called the old guys lol

[roseate7]

Geno to Cully: You going home or what?

Sid:

It wasn’t even that funny!!!

[roseate7]

oh thank god you turned anon back on! thank you for listening to that dumb podcast but do you think Geno will look at all of this and decide he’s done with Pittsburgh? I don’t trust GMJR not to think about it and if Geno just decides it’s too much will he just take a good offer?

(Yeah, that previous topic was just too triggering for me and there was an apologist going around who I think finally gave up. So it’s back on!)

I’ve honestly never paid attention to trade rumours and theories before getting on tumblr, so I can’t tell you if this summer is vastly different in reaction to Geno than all the other non-Cup years he’s been used as trade rumour bait by the media. I can’t say if his clashes with coaching and management this season are as bad as they have been in times past. On one hand I’m seeing people say this is run of the mill for seasons where the Pens fared relatively poorly, on the other I’m seeing people say that this is all building to him leaving. Is it common for guys like Caulfield and Rupp to be asked about this stuff? I don’t know. I do know that the media have nothing to talk about with regards to the Pens because nothing official has come out of that head office since clean out day and a couple of brief soundbites, none of which say they’re definitely thinking of trading anyone specifically. So there’s everything to suggest that the media have seen how many interactions and excitement Geno trade talks are and they’re going to pump out as many stories as possible to keep revenue up over the long summer.

Because yeah unless someone has a source I haven’t seen, the only thing GMJR has said is he won’t talk about trades yet and that he’s keeping his options open about the core (which could mean almost anyone and anything, not just trades). But I also haven’t personally seen an actual quote from him to say that Sid is the only protected player now. (again, link me if there is one!) I’ve only seen journalists who say they think that he considers Sid the only protected player. Yes, GMJR said the jab about Geno needing to come back a more mature player or whatever but he’s also repeatedly said that he considers Geno elite and that he sees many more years of high performance from him. He also shot down criticism of Geno during his slump. The sum total of anti-Geno from management that we legitimately have is that they criticise his relationship with Sully. Would that be enough to trade Geno to another team?

The balance Geno would be weighing, if he were contemplating leaving, is if his chances of being happier and getting another Cup are stronger elsewhere than if he were to stay in Pittsburgh. I’ve said before that Flower isn’t a good comparison because for goalies, there’s only one net to be occupied at a time - he was already unhappy in Pitt and had no hope of changing it.

But for Geno, it would only be if he felt GMJR and Sully are squeezing him out of his own position on his own team. In that instance, considering the only actual direct source we have from Mario says that he will *not* allow Geno to be traded, that trumps anything that management or coaching is scheming to do. Management and coaching has changed many times with the Pens. So the facts we have suggest that if such a coup were raised against Geno to push him out, that ownership would oppose it. Mario and his word are the alpha and omega to this team and he personally fought to get Geno onto this team at all.

People understandably focus on Sid and Mario’s relationship a lot, but when you turn your attention to Geno and Mario it’s hardly less intimate. He viewed acquiring Geno with the same burden of hope in 2004 as he had been allowing himself to do hope for Sid. Geno was the original powerhouse forward to accompany Tanger and Flower in rebuilding the team, and these plans were happening at minimum a year before Sid’s draft. Mario has seen a lot of himself in Geno and he sees a way to heal the old wound of losing Jagr in him. That doesn’t count for peanuts when it comes to a coach not liking Geno or a GM who likes to dangle trades in front of players as bait.

Ultimately the media have nothing official to say that trading Geno is being talked about at Pens HQ. Even good articles like this one are mostly interested in keeping the clickbait going by saying “where there’s smoke!” - why kill off your only and biggest story? They all say that they “might” or “should” or “why not?” or “they could see it happening” and they grab anyone vaguely connected to the Pens to repeat the mantra of “they could” or “it’s possible” to make it seem more legitimate. The only thing GMJR said when asked about breaking up the core is that he won’t discuss it right now. All I’m seeing from wiser journalists is yawning over this as being a repeat of long summers past. And trust me, if a news outlet gets a legitimate quote directly from the Pens that say they’ve got Geno on the table? Then there will be no subtlety - they’ll print that before the words are halfway out. But we don’t have that yet. The media are carefully wording things so that they don’t perjure themselves and can backtrack on all of it by saying “we didn’t say we knew for sure! it was just fair speculation!” “don’t blame me, blame my friend of a friend who just said he thought he heard something!”

As far as if Geno feels like he no longer feels that there is a welcome place for him in Pittsburgh, only he knows that. He isn’t happy with himself this past season and he isn’t happy with Sully’s coaching style that favours coddling weaker players making poor decisions and then shutting down communication with stronger players who contradict him. (Sully truly is slipping into the old traps of former Pens coaches who think that the Pens core “need” a coach’s interference. Hint: they don’t.) Does that combined with the media and fan pressure and negativity add up to wondering if he might fare better somewhere else in his latter years? Only he knows.

(lmao sorry for the random British autocorrect throughout this - I’m on a coworker’s computer while mine is being fixed and I didn’t notice until I was rereading this before posting)

[roseate7]

Someone with public twitter can let Dan Kingerski know: Jay Caulfield did speak, and he didn’t say that Mario or anyone in the Pens head office is thinking of trading Geno. Neither side has told Caulfield anything and he never intimates that they have.

I stayed up and listened to the full interview and no: Caulfield does not say anyone from the Pens are talking about trading Geno. This is not a scoop. He doesn’t mention talking to Mario or GMJR at all.

All he’s saying is that Cup-winning teams sometimes benefit from shaking up their core. He only said that - in his opinion - if Geno finds a team interested in him that he’s interested in return, he ‘could possibly see’ talks happening on both sides. Seriously it’s the first 7m of the interview and it’s so incredibly broad and vague and based solely on if Geno is thinking of leaving.

But no, he never says anyone in the Pens org has said to him in any way, even indirectly, that it’s even being talked about. This is entirely just his personal opinion on rumours from an outside observer and he never leads them on to think otherwise.

The original tweet about this interview and everything tweeted about it afterward is choosing to conflate Caulfield happening to know Mario with Caulfield broadly saying that “if” the Pens were considering shaking up the core then it wouldn’t be the first time in NHL history that it happened.

And hilariously, it ends up that neither of the hosts think Geno is going. Or Tanger. So these tweets using this as some kind of confirmation from ownership are based on nothing.

So the only source we have from Mario is adamantly stating that he is NOT going to let Geno be traded.

What the fuck is this? No.

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camera operator really knew to hit folks with this shot didn’t they

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I do not know where this instagram got the idea that Caulfield said this. He’s just saying the same thing about a Cup-winning core needing to be shaken up, but much more in the sense of them not being hungry enough. Which is what Geno himself said about why he thinks the Isles beat them. But yeah, there was zero mention of Caulfield saying the Pens are thinking of trading Geno so wtf

What the fuck is this? No.