#Jamie can either be 1/11 Or the whole reason the team is doing so badly. not both

[mitskijamie]

Controversial Jamiegirl opinion.... It's actually so irritating to me how from s2-mid-s3 Jamie was expected to both take no individual credit for carrying the team (which he was. argue with a wall) AND take complete responsibility for their losses/constantly correct his playing in order to compensate for 3/4 of his teammates...

"You need to stop trying to score all these goals and pass more and be more of a team player and stop being so aggressive on the pitch, but also the reason we're on a losing streak is because you're not being aggressive enough on the pitch and that's your fault and passing makes you average and you have to twice as good as average for us to win so make sure you're still up there scoring plenty of goals for us because otherwise we're going to lose, but for God's sake stop trying to score all of our goals, you self absorbed asshole, you're not special, you're just one of eleven, you don't belong at the front, we're a team, fall back, hey, why are you falling back? We need you to score all of our goals"

[itzlinhwritesnerdythings]

Stay (4)

Summary: Jaime Reyes aka Blue Beetle and Reader dated in the past they went through a bad break up but still have feelings for each other. A mission forces them to reconnect. (Set after Justice League vs Teen Titans)

Warning: Flashbacks and Jaime being a meany! Badly written poem sorry...

a/n: I have no idea where Titans Tower is in the animated universe I just know that Dick’s and Tim’s Titan’s Towers were somewhere near New York and Damian’s current Titan’s Tower is in San Francisco and technically this version of the Teen Titans is Dick’s team so I'm thinking its based near New York. If anyone actually knows please tell me I’m honestly curious.

(Y/N) = Your Name

(Y/N/N) = Your Nickname

(Y/F/P)= Your Favorite Pizza ( or food if you don’t like pizza)

| Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 |

Word Count: 1465

Jaime just stood there and just stared at you and Garfield, still in the elevator hugging, before clearing his throat, startling the both of you. Garfield let go of you immediately, 

“Hey, Jaime!” Garfield practically shouted

“What are you doing here?” he asked, in response, Jaime mumbled something, then shouted at his back to ‘shut up’.

“Huh?” you questioned, he refused to look at you

“Pizza.” was all he said before you and Garfield joined him. You noticed there were only a couple of slices left of (Y/F/P), and Jaime eating a slice. You sighed and grabbed a slice for yourself before they were all gone. During the whole meal Garfield was talking to both you and Jaime to fill in the heavy silence, neither you nor Jaime gave much of a response giving either grunts or nods of approval to whatever your talkative friend was saying. As if to make things more awkward, Jaime would either be staring at you when he thought you weren’t paying attention, or turn his head pretending that something else was more interesting like his cup or a fork while mumbling words that resembled ‘shut up’ to his back. One slice of (Y/F/P) and half of the vegan pizza, which you had to admit wasn’t as bad as you thought it would be, you got up, about to leave when Garfield asked,

“So, (Y/N) where did you go exactly, when you left.” This question made you tense up, you turned to face Garfield, noticing that Jaime also perked up.

“I went to San Francisco,” you said casually, shrugging

“Apparently that's where I was born.”

“What else did you learn?” Garfield asked urging you to continue with this puppy dog eyes, he literally turned into a dog. You dropped your head in defeat and sat back down and repeated his question.

“That's a good question Gar,” you responded chuckling sadly, Garfield shifted back to his normal form and put his arm on your shoulder, looking at you with worry.

“Sorry I didn’t mean to worry you, it just I didn’t really learn too much of my past other than my parents being researchers for a company called ‘Leo’s Corp’.” you took a deep breath knowing that they will find out anyways either from the mission or from Dick. 

“‘Leo’s Corp’ is, or rather was a cover for ‘The Den’, and…” before you could continue Jaime interrupted

“You’re parents work for the bad guys!” he shouted, you grimace but said nothing.

“You are telling us you’re parents are apart of the organization that is kidnapping people and torturing them to force out their powers,” Jaime said even louder stalk towards you before Garfield comes to your defense, coming in between you and Jaime which agitates him even more.

“Jaime calms down, and let them finish explaining,” Garfield says before Jaime stops and looks at you with such anger you flinch, and walks over to the sofa that was placed in the middle of the room, and sits facing away from you and Garfield.

“Thanks, Gar,” you said as he smiled sadly at you and nodded.

“I understand what it’s like not knowing what your parents actually do,” he began to say but paused and shook his head.

“But I still want to know what happened to you (Y/N/N).” he continued sitting down you smiled at him and looked over at Jaime. You knew that he would be listening even at the far distance, the scarab could easily enhance his hearing. You looked back at Garfield and began to continue your story but in a more quiet voice.

“Yes I found out my parents worked for ‘The Den’,” you repeated

“And I’ve been searching for clues to where they would be, I traveled all over the world.” looking down at your hands you sighed and continued

“I ended up in Miami when Dick and I teamed up to investigate the connections with ‘H.I.V.E’ and ‘The Den’,” you finish.

“Did you ever find them? Your parents I mean.” Garfield asks sweetly, but you gave him a tearful smile and shook your head. Immediately he grabbed you and pulled you into a hug, you buried your face into his shoulders crying for the second time that day, not hearing Jaime get up and walk out into the elevator leaving the room.

“I’m sorry (Y/N),” Gar said holding you tighter.

“If you would have told us before we would have understood.” he continued

“I know Gar, I’m sorry I just didn’t want to bother you guys, I didn’t….” you began attempting to apologize through your sniffs.

“(Y/N)” Garfield interrupted,

“It would have never been a bother, you are our family, I’m madder that you didn’t think to call us if you needed help,” he said softly.

“I’m sorry” you repeated.

“Its ok, I forgive you,” he told you as your tears streamed down your face you peeled away leaving some space between the two of you and smiled causing him to also smile back at you.

~

You left the kitchen feeling better than earlier and entered your room. Walking into your bathroom to freshen up, as you walk out you notice a letter on your bed. Opening it you saw a poem written in pen. It read,

You were the breath of fresh air I longed for

The wind that always blew me away

Your energetic spirit could send blue skies my way

You were my sun, my moon, my world

Until you went away

The last thing you left me was a broken heart 

You shattered that day.

It wasn’t signed but you knew who it was from, he wrote you poems when the two of you were together, he would leave you one every day, except the day you left. You noticed the paper was crumbled and flattened. You put it with all the other poems Jaime wrote for you, in the secret drawer in your desk. You delicately put the poem in before walking back to your bed to lay down. You knew that Jaime would not be happy with you coming back to the tower when things ended too badly between the two of you. Even if your powers were to turn back time the only thing you would change would be that you contacted Ray and Gar more than your postcards you would send on their birthday. It was 11:00 pm when Dick told you to suit up, he notified you about H.I.V.E activity in an abandoned warehouse. By 11:05 you were ready to go, dawning on the uniform you had recently been wearing. It consisted of black military boots, black spandex leggings, gray tee shirt, black fingerless gloves and a black leather jacket. You headed down toward the garage to see that Raven, Damian, Garfield, and Jamie were already there, with their uniforms on.

“Is that what you’re wearing that's hardly a uniform” Damian comments as he sees you walk into the garage towards your motorcycle you arrived with. You rolled your eyes,

“Not everyone can have their costume made out of kevlar and plus this is what helps me blend in I’m not exactly known around the world,” you respond

“It’s a good look,” Raven complemented, you thanked her with a smile. A couple minutes later Dick and Kori finally arrived and debriefed you guys in what to do.

“Alright guys here's the plan,” Dick began,

“Raven and Robin you two will sneak into the Computer room and gather any or all data or useful information you can.” the two nodded in agreement.

“Beast Boy, you’ll need to transform into a mouse and crawl into any small openings you can find, then wait for my signal,” he gave a thumbs up in understanding.

“Beetle and Vitalus you will be our main distractions so make it big and make it loud.” you looked over at Jaime, who was avoiding your gaze and looked away looking at Dick with pleading eyes.

“And Starfire and I will try to find more intel about the location they are keeping their test subjects.” he finishes. You quickly interject before Dick could say ‘does anyone have any questions’.

“Nightwing I don’t really think that Blue Beetle and I would make a good team maybe I can go by myself and Blue can go with Beast Boy?”

“No, the best course of action would be for you and Blue to do it together, the plan will work better this way.” you sigh in defeat and nodded, then got on your bike, and said

“Fine,” putting on your helmet you looked at the group  and continued,

“I’ll meet you guys there.” before anyone could stop you, you sped off.

a/n: Honestly I’m not happy with this part but it needed to be done, Jaime is a jerk for a reason and we will find out why next on Dra... I mean Stay.... and Readers powers will be used next too :P 

[thrashermaxey]

Finding (and fixing) every team’s most painful draft regrets

If​ you’ve been on​ Twitter​ for​ a decade​ or​ so​ like I​ have, you’ve seen​ roughly five or​ maybe​ even six good​​ tweets. The all-time best hockey tweet, we can all agree, is this one. But not far behind is this beauty from the 2015 entry draft, which still resurfaces from time to time:

Oh shit, Boston could get Barzal, Connor, and Kylington here

— Rhys Jessop (@Thats_Offside) June 27, 2015

The Bruins held three straight picks in the first round that year, and they could indeed have used those picks to nab Mathew Barzal and Kyle Connor. (And, uh, Oliver Kylington, but let’s skip that part.) Instead, they picked Jakub Zboril, Jake Debrusk and Zachary Senyshyn. Let’s be charitable and say they went 1-for-3.

If you’re a Boston fan, you may be haunted by visions of Barzal and Connor slotted into today’s Bruins lineup, and thoughts of what might have been. But that’s hardly unusual. In fact, every team has had a draft like the 2015 Bruins, where you wish you could go back and will your team to make different picks.

So today, let’s do that. We’re all scouting geniuses with the benefit of 20/20 hindsight, so let’s pretend we’re time traveling hockey fans from the year 2018 who can go back and visit the draft table of each NHL team for one year and convince the GM to change three picks. Which year would you go back to for your favorite team? Or put differently, how painful was your team’s worst missed opportunity?

Two important ground rules here, and I’m even going to break out the bolded text to make sure everyone sees them before they go yell at me in the comments. (They will not.)

– We can only convince teams to take guys who are going to be chosen relatively close to that team’s actual pick. Otherwise, there’s not much fun here – every team wishes they’d taken Dominik Hasek in 1983 or Pavel Datsyuk in 1998, but reading that 30 times wouldn’t be all that interesting. So let’s pretend that no GM is going to listen to a time traveler telling him to reach too far, which we’ll define as more than five picks in the top 10, or more than 10 picks anywhere else.

– In a further attempt to avoid going overboard on the Datsyuk-type picks, only one team can change their pick to any given player. In other worse, no player can be redrafted more than once. And to ratchet up the pain, we’ll give first dibs to whichever team was closest to where that guy was ultimately picked.

With those caveats in mind, let’s find the most painful draft possible for all 30 teams that have been around long enough to know they screwed up. (Sorry, Vegas, you’ll have to sit this one out. Check back in a few years.) For teams that have relocated, we’ll count the previous version too, since some of those players would have made the move to the new market.

This is going to get long, so we recommend CTRL+F’ing your favorite team, crying for a little bit, and then circling back to point and laugh at everyone else. Let’s do this.

Anaheim Ducks: 2007

They could have had: #22 Max Pacioretty, #43 P.K. Subban and #129 Jamie Benn

Instead they picked: #19 Logan MacMillan, #42 Eric Tangradi and #121 Mattias Modig

The Ducks are a nice place to start – thank you, alphabetical order! – because they do a good job of demonstrating the concept we’re going for here. Three all-stars, including an Art Ross and a Norris winner, there for the taking. Instead, the Ducks grabbed two forwards who combined for a total of five NHL goals and a goaltender who never made the NHL. Was the entire Ducks’ front office drunk in 2007? [Remembers how that year’s playoffs went.] Yeah, they were probably drunk.

Arizona Coyotes: 2015

They could have had: #4 Mitch Marner, #35 Sebastian Aho and #37 Brandon Carlo

Instead they picked: #3 Dylan Strome, #30 Nick Merkley and #32 Christian Fischer

It’s a little ironic that it only takes us two teams to get to the 2015 draft that inspired this post. And for extra fun, we’re even stealing one of Boston’s picks in the process.

It’s admittedly a little risky to go back just three years, since 2015 is recent enough that we can’t say for sure how the draft will turn out. Maybe Strome reaches his potential in Chicago, Merkley still makes it and Fischer goes from solid young depth to difference maker. But for right now, the Coyotes with Aho, Carlo and Marner – or Ivan Provorov or Zach Werenski for that matter – would look pretty scary.

Boston Bruins: 1981

They could have had: #15 Al MacInnis, #40 Chris Chelios and #107 Gerard Gallant

Instead they picked: #14 Normand Leveille, #35 Luc Dufour and #98 Joe Mantione

It’s tempting to stay true to the source material and just go with 2015 for the Bruins, maybe swapping in somebody like Thomas Chabot or Brock Boeser for Kylington. But while Barzal and friends are very good young players, they’ve got a long way to go to be first-ballot Hall of Famers like Chelios and MacInnis.

Gallant is the third wheel here, and you could go with somebody like Tom Kurvers or Greg Stefan instead if you wanted, but the key point is that the Bruins could have built their 1980s blueline around Chelios, MacInnis and Ray Bourque. (And if you want to argue that already having Bourque means they wouldn’t have bothered drafting defensemen, remember that they spent the first overall pick in 1982 on Gord Kluzak.)

Buffalo Sabres: 1977

They could have had: #15 Mike Bossy, #33 John Tonelli and #73 Jim Korn

Instead they picked: #14 Ric Seiling, #32 Ron Areshenkoff and #68 Bill Stewart

It’s the context that makes this one sting. Back in 1977, the Sabres and Islanders were both recent expansion teams that had already built contenders. The Sabres had put up three straight 100-point seasons, while the Islanders had just had their second. Both teams felt like they were on the verge of a breakthrough, as if they were just a player or two away from something special. Then the Sabres let Bossy and Tonelli slip through their fingers in favor of two guys who played the same positions, and the final pieces of an eventual Islanders dynasty fell into place.

Korn’s basically an afterthought here; the real question is whether flipping these picks means the Sabres and Islanders flip 1980s destinies too.

Calgary Flames: 1990

They could have had: #19 Keith Tkachuk, #34 Doug Weight and #85 Sergei Zubov

Instead they picked: #11 Trevor Kidd, #32 Vesa Viitakoski and #83 Paul Kruse

For reasons I can’t quite figure out, the Flames are one of the hardest team to find a really regrettable draft for. It’s not that they don’t make bad picks – everyone does – but they seem to spread them out, or at least let a team or two get in between them and their worst misses.

So we’ll cheat just a little by going with 1990 here. The three players they miss are all top-tier stars, and despite having a dozen picks the only real NHLers they found were Kruse and Kidd. But as Flames fans know, this draft lives in infamy because the Flames traded up with New Jersey from #20 to #11 to get Kidd, only to see the Devils use that #20 pick on the draft’s second highest-rated goaltender … Martin Brodeur. Whoops. Even on the draft floor, sometimes the best moves are the ones you don’t make.

Carolina Hurricanes/Hartford Whalers: 1989

They could have had: #53 Nicklas Lidstrom, #74 Sergei Fedorov and #221 Vladimir Konstantinov

Instead they picked: #52 Blair Atcheynum, #73 Jim McKenzie and #220 John Battice

This one almost feels unfair, as the Red Wings have quite possibly the greatest draft in the history of the NHL with the Whalers picking right in front of them the whole way along. Hartford even misses out on a 1,000-game man in #116 Dallas Drake in favor of #115 Jerome Bechard. But at least #136 Scott Daniels ended up being a marginally better pick than #137 Scott Zygulski. Eat that, Detroit!

Chicago Blackhawks: 2004

They could have had: #5 Blake Wheeler, #63 David Krejci and #258 Pekka Rinne

Instead they picked: #3 Cam Barker, #54 Jakub Sindel and #256 Matthew Ford

Chicago fans probably aren’t surprised to see the Cam Barker pick show up here in some form. Missing on Krejci and Rinne hurts too, as does passing up guys like Ryan Callahan and Andrej Sekera. The good news is that the Hawks did find some important depth pieces for their future dynasty in Dave Bolland and Bryan Bickell. But as for the franchise-defining draft finds, those would have to wait a couple of years.

Colorado Avalanche/Quebec Nordiques: 1988

They could have had: #8 Jeremy Roenick, #10 Teemu Selanne and either #67 Mark Recchi or #70 Rob Blake

Instead they picked: #3 Curtis Leschyshyn, #5 Daniel Dore and #66 Darren Kimble

The Nordiques whiffed so badly that I have to put Alexander Mogilny in the honorable mentions. He went with the 89th pick, two spots after the Nordiques took Stephane Venne.

The league felt so sorry for Quebec after this draft that they let them have the first overall pick in each of the next three years.

>> Read the full post at The Athletic

from All About Sports http://www.downgoesbrown.com/2018/11/finding-and-fixing-every-teams-most.html

[getseriouser]

20 THOUGHTS: False explanations, false accusations, false hope

THE footy is finally here, a chance to readdress the balance of news and stories from off-field to those on the actual turf itself.

We’ve had a week of lies, of finger-pointing and so much analysis of what’s to come that in just one weekend of footy it will all likely be worth nothing.

Let’s get stuck into it.

 1.    The West Coast drugs story lingered on this week with huge wraparound coverage by the Herald Sun. Sadly, whilst it was seen as big “news”, there was no new information. We already knew that Chad Fletcher essentially died in Vegas, we knew that there was a drug culture been swept under the carpet and yep, we know that Ben Cousins and Daniel Kerr particularly, for different reasons, made some poor decisions along the way.

 2.    The idea that their premiership is tainted is one thing, but do we punish the club by questioning the validity of their flag or that we now put an asterisk on it? Not so sure. We know of a select few who definitely took drugs, but how many of the team did, and how often, for what purpose other than socially and to what extent did it or did it not affect their on-field performance? There are too many question marks to with substance say that the Swans should feel aggrieved that they lost that Grand Final and could be, in some way, righteously the premier instead.

 3.    What a fiasco at the Gabba this week. But the AFL was so harsh and unfair, plus all the football media that towed in behind. The real facts are these – the Adele concert caused significant damage to an AFL venue that has doesn’t use drop in cricket pitches. The way the natural cricket square reacted to the concert was far different to what normal outfield grass would and as a result the curator had to take immediate action to get the ground back in shape. To say they did so with an eye only to the Ashes is totally wrong.

 4.    Jordan De Goey has had a bad week. The story that he finally fessed up after surgery in a moment of self-reflection and guilt has hair on it too. The club was suspicious all along and the fact seasoned staff like Geoff Walsh didn’t push harder earlier does surprise, but word came through very early on about an incident on Saturday night so it’s far more likely De Goey was pushed to fess once accounts of what really happened filtered through.

 5.    Ex-Hawthorn skipper Luke Hodge isn’t playing Saturday night for having too much of a bender hosting his brother’s 21st and not doing the right thing the following day by ‘club standards’. Yet he was done for drink-driving two seasons ago and played the following week. In what world does that reflect well on Hawthorn’s integrity?

 6.    The Hawks also came out and said this week that they could have retained Sam Mitchell and Jordan Lewis, the reigning best and fairest winner and runner-up mind you, and sill fit in recruits Jaeger O’Meara and Tom Mitchell under the cap. No chance. The truth is they planned to maybe lose one of Mitchell or Lewis, stuffed it up badly and were forced to lose both. The other plan was to attract one of O’Meara and Mitchell, but in stuffing up with their two veterans they effectively traded a whole year’s worth of draft picks to get both players in a somewhat panic reaction to their own doing.

 7.    Can’t substantiate it but St Kilda are apparently looking for a big fish to complement their rebuild who all and sundry would say has gone really well so far. Nat Fyfe was seen as their Plan A but that looks like Fremantle may keep him, if he is to move Carlton has the biggest dollars. But the Saints have definitely got the cheque book out for that top four, even premiership contending push.

 8.    Dustin Martin has plenty of suitors and if he decides to look for a fresh opportunity he will have many attractive offers. The best ones appear to be Adelaide, one of the Sydney clubs and possibly now St Kilda too.

 9.    The Gold Coast have had a bad go of late, especially as they will always be compared to the GWS in their progress, and with the Giants recent ascent up the ladder it compounds how bad we think the Suns are going. However, with a clean bill of health and new facilities all is not lost.

It’s worth noting that it’s only eighteen months ago that the Suns were in the top four at the halfway mark looking like Christmas, having just smashed the Bulldogs at home, before injuries set in derailing their next year and half really. If they can stay healthy they have a list not too dissimilar to the Giants and whilst they aren’t at their level just yet, they are a lot better than where they finished last year.

 10.  Collingwood and Nathan Buckley will be chasing the pack again to start the year. No De Goey for seven weeks, no Wells for at least a fortnight but probably a month, Jamie Elliott isn’t cherry ripe just yet and arguably their best trainer in the summer Levi Greenwood is out for a while too. Last thing Buckley needs injuries with the tough draw to start and he’s got just that.

 11.  The Bulldogs had the September from Heaven, but weren’t world beaters in the home and away season. Injuries to key players did not help, granted, but heading into August their finals spot wasn’t even assured yet. They held on to win against Collingwood by less than a kick and snatched victory from Sydney in the dying seconds from a Jason Johannisen set shot. Either of those close wins go against them and it’s a very different story.

 12.  Adelaide are big tips to go well this year and were stiff not to probably finish top four or make the Prelim weekend last year. But how good is their defence? Daniel Talia is a jet and Brodie Smith is a premier half-back, but the rest are reliant on their team cohesion to do well, anything less and they are very vulnerable.

 13.  Every chance Essendon has a top-eight worthy season, with their draw and the calibre of stars that are returning. The big hurdle will be how quickly they start – chances are they start slowly in getting back into the rhythm of things and end up falling short by the end of August.

 14.  Carlton’s rebuild isn’t as bad as Matthew Lloyd suggests. Jacob Weitering is an elite backman to build around, Caleb Marchbank and Lachie Plowman are very good, young defenders and Sam Docherty could be an All-Australian this year. They have two great key-forward prospects in Charlie Curnow and Harry McKay and have got Patrick Cripps and draftee Sam Petrovski-Seton as serious talents in the middle as well. There’s actually a lot to like, they too have a great coach, they just need more time.

 Few short sharp ones to finish

 15.  Brisbane have two guns in Eric Hipwood and Harris Andrews, both who will occupy part of their spine for 10 years; Lions fans can see the light.

 16.  Geelong was given one of the most favourable draws in 2016 despite a 2015 top-six finish, a luxury they haven’t got this year, so a market correction would be no surprise.

 17.  Daniel Rioli will quickly become as important to Richmond as Alex Rance, seriously that family’s genes are insane.

 18.  Ross Lyon coaching a fit and refreshed Fremantle, who had an extra four weeks’ offseason, this ‘renovation’ should not take as long as your typical rebuild, especially if Cam McCarthy has a good return year.

 19.  Anyone thinking of putting money on a West Coast midfielder for the Brownlow, be warned. You may see three or four have All-Australian years but they’ll all take votes off each other.

 20.  What’s happened to James Brayshaw? Dumped from the Channel Nine cricket commentary team, couldn’t come to terms on a new contract with the network in remaining host of The Footy Show and dumped from calling footy on Friday nights for Triple M, leaving him with just the Saturday afternoon game. Something is most definitely amiss.

(originally published Thursday 23 March)