#WHL anon

[halliewriteshockey]

WHL employee back :)

Firstly, sorry to see that your team got knocked out of the playoffs, congrats on the overall season!

OMG my manager is a lovely human being, there's a reason why she's everyone's second mom <3. They were probably 15 feet away from my phone, but they're LOUD. (I also had the it on speaker bc I was using both hands to try to fix the door)

They've also seen me trying to do my organic chemistry homework in-store and say that I'm doing "smart people shit." Sometimes I'm shocked that they can read/hj

God, they’re all so endearingly stupid. I’M ENDEARED!!

[39oa]

PLS as a new stars enjoyer i really wanna know whos who in this 🥹🥹 i kill for family dynamics 🤲🤲

https://www.tumblr.com/39oa/744137614807924736/the-stars-are-like-this-is-39-yo-joe-pavelski

hi anon!!! of course i would be MORE than happy to explain and in fact am about to egregiously overexplain so apologies in advance for that >__< welcome 2 starsblr pls enjoy your stay!!! 💚💚💚

"pavs and sons" → this is our top line that consists of jason robertson (21 / "robo"), roope hintz (24 / some call him "roop", his finnish nickname is "hine"), and joe pavelski (16 / "pavs"). pavs spent over a decade in san jose and was the sharks' captain during essentially their twilight years, and he came to dallas intending to retire (which is likely to happen at the end of this year tbh) but instead revitalized a distinct second phase of his career after being placed on a line with 2124 in 2020-21, unexpectedly becoming stalwart producers for a struggling dallas stars offense (2 words: rick bowness) — robo was only in his first year with the stars and roope's career was not that much older, hence the nickname pavs and sons; although pavs is only an alternate captain because the stars already have a very established, homegrown captain, he is basically treated as our second captain thanks to his age and the vast influence he has over both our young players & the locker room as a whole :') one of his nicknames is also captain america from representing team usa on the intl stage LOL.

rest below the cut:

raising johnny -> our team's ACTUAL baby is 2003-born wyatt johnston (53 / "johnny" but sometimes we use "wyjo" lol), who was in the ohl before the 2022-23 season but managed to impress during training camp and basically forced his way onto the roster (without getting too much into it, 18-19 y/o rookies can play 9 games with the big club before burning a year off their elc, so being from the ohl at his age his only options were basically Be In The NHL Permanently or go back to ontario.) because "HE (WAS) ONLY 19!!!" and there was some uncertainty about whether he'd stay up, pavelski invited him to live at his place with his wife and teenaged-son, and now a second year into his career wyatt is STILL with them because he loves it there so much lol. the stars frequently joke about pavs being his dad/landlord, and we've gotten a ton of fun content like these quest for the stanley cup clips and other interview moments like this, this, and this.

fostering stank(s) -> logan stankoven (11 / "stank" though you will also see "stanks") is our other baby and a very recent addition to our nhl roster; he's from the same draft class as johnny, but spent last season in the whl and therefore was eligible to go to the ahl this year, where he's been cooking up a storm for half the szn. it was pretty inevitable that he'd come up at SOME point, but the perfect opportunity arrived after one of our forwards got injured and he was slotted in on short notice. like johnny, he has basically forced his way onto the team permanently by immediately performing to (and well-beyond) standard :') the fun part is that he stayed with johnny at pavs's house when he first came to dallas, though he's since moved out and found his own place... nevertheless, this was still very sweet because logan & wyatt have GENUINE history from knowing each other half their lives & winning gold for u18 team canada in 2021, and have since picked their immediate chemistry right back up on the stars's 3rd line together. (more on this later!!!)

resident glueguy tydel + otter's son -> u know how every team needs its emotional support 4th liner who is at constant threat of being dumped at trade deadline? ty dellandrea (10 / "delly" but we like "tydel" as well) is our 13oa pick who never really panned out as expected, but he's still crucial to the overall health of the locker room and beloved by many. as a small piece of the Cycle Of Mentorship that the stars subscribe to, pavs is known for basically being a deflection master and a menace in front of the net and has passed on this propensity to a lot of younger stars by doing targeted practice sessions with them, including tydel. anyway delly's lore in general is just INSANEEE because he's at the center of the stars' social fabric in a lot of ways. happily third-wheels along with the wags, gets along with the 279195 canadian slagline who mostly exist outside of any family narratives, is Publicly Liked By Roope which is kind of weird because outside of cellys roop practices jane austen levels of finnish repression, imprinted on johnny hard last year (JOINED HIM ON PAVELSKI FAMILY NIGHTS) (from this devastating webweave), has SOOO much ahl history with otter to the point that otter's baby brother sees ty as part of the family — this is also where otter saying that he and his girlfriend saw ty as their son when he stayed at their apartment during training camp comes from. which is genuinely like Absurd Things to say because jake oettinger (29 / "otter") (as a completely random aside, please look at this gifset of harls wearing otter's shirt) is ONLY 2 YEARS OLDER THAN DELLY. LIKE THE FUCK D'YOU MEAN YOUR SON???

i'm normal. okay

jbenn / "daddy" line dads -> so the stars' real captain is jamie benn (14 / multiple nicknames but "chubbs" is a signature), whoooo is a quite the contentious figure amongst stars fans but as a 2007 draftee is very much a homegrown player and still quite important to the organization. i'm ngl, stars rpf is a VERY small space nowadays in hockey fandom, but ~back in the day~ he and tyler seguin were one of The Big Ships before slowly fading as both fandom figures & stars of the team thanks to age and injury and [waves hand vaguely]. anyway while the top line on the stars has remained *mostly* set since robo was called up, the 2nd & 3rd lines still experience a decent amount of reshuffling, so wyatt is kind of jamie's fixed line son atp but they also played with tydel before we 1:1 swapped some russians and evgenii dadonov (63 / the "DADDY" in question) came in and replaced delly. so now we've had multiple "benn and sons" lines (jamie + wyatt/delly, now jamie + wyatt/logan ❗️), plus essentially a "wyatt and dads" line (wyatt + jamie/daddy) lmfao.

wedge raising harls -> robo's emotional support backup goalie is scott wedgewood (41 / "wedge" or "wedgie"), who as far as backup goalies go is like shockingly well-integrated into the stars' locker room. the piece of lore that inspired this WHOLE post is that taylor dropped an article on how wedge claimed to basically be RAISING HARLS WITH HIS (recently-married!) WIFE...??? which is just. thomas harley (55 / "harls") is one of our resident baby d-men and was in and out of the ahl for a while but has been Officially with the stars since last years' playoffs... he's a very like, self-assured but kind of introverted, Beyond-His-Years type who literally has the voice of a 50 y/o, so it's both DEVASTATING and hilarious 2 me that wedge is like "oh, this 22 y/o kid likes to show up to my house every day and me and my wife are teaching him how to cook and he keeps facetiming me to ask random questions about his bills." LIKE OH... OKAY THEN ;___;

& last but not least: the ultimate Mini Family on this team that i didn't mention in my orig post is actually the finnish mafia — see robo constantly joking about them being brothers and loving each other lol. finnmaf currently includes four players (roope, miro, esa, jani... rip kivo 😔), and they kind of help split the stars' locker room into several groups including the finns, the ontario guys, robo's goaliefucker / Nerd_Collector ensemble, and... well honestly the cliques overlap a lot (which is why our locker room is so healthy!!!) but you get the idea.

there is soooo much other lore i could get into that isn't really related to dad/son/brother narratives but i feel like this is enough of an infodump so i'll stop here for now. in general the way the stars are constructed makes it really clear why they all see one another as family and why there is such a strong & positive & sustainable sense of personal leadership that permeates the locker room... benn handles Official captain duties while pavs uses his experience not to usurp him but simply to further support him in understated areas of mentorship/leadership, and our top line consists of 3 Very unassuming & responsible player archetypes which crucially trickles down to all the other lines. so while many teams have their Old Guys (who are often on a noticeable decline) and Kid Lines, the stars are cool because we've been successful at integrating young players with very established veterans and having them feed off of each other without sacrificing their development or "anchoring" any young talent unnecessarily; benn is really not the player he used to be but he's still been great with wyatt over the past 2 years. and pavs IS a total anomaly, so it's kind of insane & surreal that a guy in his late 30s can perform at such a high level while also taking it upon himself to prepare so many of our young guys to be the present & future of our team *__*

tl;dr: also i just remembered that the amazing @starscelly has a preexisting primer from last year so feel free to check that out too :') (the primary differences are basically that we replaced domi for duchene and recently picked up chris tanev haha)

[msmargaretmurry]

Okay but in the AU where bb!Matthew and bb!Leon know each other, maybe they've been in and out of each other's lives throughout their childhood/adolescence - imagine bb!teenage!Matthew having a crush on fluffy Leon

ok as i just said to other anon i LOVE matthew with a crush!! he would be so cute about it. and while i do support the childhood somethings au concept i am COMPELLED to point out that we can have this in the "canon" world with only the slightest suspension of disbelief. i would bet money that irl matthew knew who leon was at least vaguely by 2013 (leon played in world juniors that year, matthew is was DEFINITELY a watches-world-juniors hockey teen) and specifically by 2014 (100+ point whl season, drafted third overall). i remember leading up to the 2014 draft when people really started paying attention to him and we were all like "oh my god he's hot???" (this was 10 years ago, i was young enough then to think an 18 year old was hot, even though now i'm like omg he was such a baby 😂) and then the oilers came SO close to drafting matthew so you know he was up on what was going on up there.

ANYWAY my point is! even if you're not writing an au you could have baby teen matthew with a crush on fluffy teen leon!! he TOO can have tuned into a prince albert raiders game or world juniors like, who is this surprisingly good german kid, and gone "oh no he's hot." obviously a different vibe than a childhood somethings au BUT i just wanted to put that out there. for reasons. in case anyone finds it inspiring

[frasermints]

Girl are you okay? Nolpats being awful is okay it's not your fault

okay i know why i want to respond to this and i shouldn't feed into it but i need a break from what i was doing and this is the most civil anon i've gotten about that post all day

not a girl but thank you for checking in 🫶🏽 when will y'all be done with this (never the answer is never)

i responded with teeth bared for reasons that i am unpacking. we're saying the same thing. it's not my fault that he's a bad person. it's not your fault that he's a bad person. that's on him.

but like. i'm annoyed that people are acting like their hockeys are perfect angels until something like this happens. people act all shocked pikachu face when athletes or actors or someone in the spotlight says or does something we consider atrocious and it's like... why. why are you shocked about this. why is it such a betrayal to you personally when a complex human person does something you personally find offensive or disagreeable or not within your scope of the human condition?

so, the fanficification of these people is very annoying to me. the intrusive curiosity we have is also very annoying to me especially when we still do not know for sure this person is nolan patrick lol. we do need to allow for this curiosity to be accepted but holy shit when people are so quick to go on these "deep dives" and making masterposts about the situation and people start taking "he praised travis konecny in two tweets" to mean "tknp is real" and "the handle included a reference to his last name therefore it's him for sure" it's like... it gives me a mf headache. like dude. my url is frasermints. another leafs blog is literally cd24's full name. are we nhl player connor dewar and whl player fraser minten in disguise?? no. no we are not.

and i'm not saying he should be off the hook if this is the case. what i am saying is that speculative frenzies like this are how kit connor was forced to out himself. we got lucky with people being right about the names on the wjc roster. congratulations, solid investigative and deductive reasoning skills everyone. hockeyblr/twt 1 - everyone else 0. but we see other instances where people are wrong all the time, most notable situation coming to mind the rebecca scofield ashley guillard suits and the adele divorce/custody suits.

i don't think invading two random accounts that post vile shit, nolan patrick's socks or otherwise, is something that we should be pursuing. we can accept that these hockeys are multifaceted human beings with awful takes and awful opinions and awful actions on their ledger and we can also not take actions that stain our own. there is a place for both of these within fandom. i am trying to find a place like that. you should too. we all should.

[catboygretzky]

ok sure zellweger is cute but is he any good?

IS HE ANY GOOD! oh you are definitely going to regret asking that question anon.

sit down i have to educate you and this WILL be lengthy and WILL include way too much information because i can't like something normally. many sources will be sited. so buckle up, buttercup.

(disclaimer, i realise this is all junior hockey stats and "that's not the nhl!" i don't care, we can have this conversation again in a couple years.) ANYWAY

olen zellweger! olen freaking zellweger!

start with the basics: 5'9", 180 pound left shooting defenseman currently playing for the kamloops blazers in the WHL. he was chosen 34th overall by the anaheim ducks in 2021 and he compares his game to samuel girard.

another one of those "hm if he was bigger he would have been drafted higher" defensemen.

"okay but why do you keep calling him the saviour of the anaheim ducks?"

1) it's a joke

2) is it really?

3) click below and find out!

hello to everyone that clicked, this is going to be lengthy!

real quick, his card from last year, for those who like stats:

he's no longer playing for everett and this is last year's, as stated, but i am ALWAYS ready to talk about zelly's playing.

first:

not necessary but this answer is nothing if it's not self indulgent.

also, when reading these, remember he missed a month for world juniors.

fun WHL stats to note for the stats folks:

zelly has the second highest shots on goal total this year, out of any player regardless of position. oh, you may ask, who is he second to? well, happy to answer! he's second only to connor bedard.

he has the most shots on goal on the power play out of all players in the whl, though, regardless of position.

he has the highest points per game % of any dman in the WHL (last time i checked...it's about 1.5?) and among all players with 15+ games he's still top ten.

in 13 games with the blazers he has 23 points.

"that's just the WHL" well, he also just won back to back gold at world juniors, so there's that! while getting named a top dman and player and being one of the top scoring dmen in world juniors history.

but say you aren't a stats folk. say you want analysis of his skating and shooting and various other aspects of his actual play. i can give you that! oh, also, some video, just for the heck of it.

he is literally always in motion. if he's on the ice, he's skating and making plays. i've never watched a kamloops game and been unable to tell if olen was on the ice, because if he is, you'll know.

his zone entries are as good as any forwards - he's often called a 'one man zone entry machine', which is well earned. his ability to transition through the zones with ease is insane. (i'm nothing if not a provider of video links few will click on)(this goal is good though, so i would rec clicking this)

his compete level is insane as well and he just - never stops. he's always involved, in every zone. he's extremely talented defensively and he's so solid and strong.

his passing is fantastic (with video proof, of course)(one in team canada colours, sure, why not) and his stick handling is disgusting. like his hands? filthy. (as always, video proof ) he has a great shot (here) (here) (here) and, like i mentioned, he has a lot of those.

and his skating oh my god. do you want poetry, anon? his crossovers and edgework...well here's a video or two if you want to truly appreciate his skating. maybe another for fun.

some fun videos to really hammer home my point.

so, anon, yes he is cute, but most definitely he is good at hockey.

also his body looks like this

so that's fun. not the point and if u want my feelings about him as a person you'll have to ask that separately.

[sergeifyodorov]

hello u18 anon here again it appears that I have given misinformation!! chloe primerano is actually the first female skater drafted by the whl not the first female in general to have been in the league in some way - there have been several tendies :) anyways just as an update she became the first defender in the history of the tournament to get a hatty today so she’s been having a pretty sick tourney

HELL YEA (also no worries lol -- there's been a few goalies in the chl, right? iirc a young woman got a shutout in the Q last year/a couple years ago)

[bropunzeling]

hey brother punzeling, i just wanted to ask if there are things you wished you had discovered earlier on in your hockey/hockey fic writing journey? resources or moments or games or anything major really…

hello anon!!!!! first let me say "brother punzeling" has me SO CHARMED i feel like a little monk working on my little illuminated manuscripts (porn).

anyways - god i wish that in 2012 i knew about hockey reference dot com. love to just see who was playing a game on a given day!!!!! fundamental for my fic writing process now lmao. also espn+ which did not exist. just me and my horrible illegal streams to watch the pittsburgh penguins before my evening seminars on the politics of empire. those were the days. i also wish i'd had better access to olympics content in 2010 and 2014!!! watching international tournaments is one of my great joys and those were years i didnt get to watch much live/"live". and probably just the chance to go to more live games at more levels! until the last few years id only been to two games in the central european league and a couple whl ones, and no nhl or ahl games at all (but i did have basically glass side seats in vienna, so, you win some you lose some).

[eastoncowan]

Easton anon again!! Thanks for the info, that makes a lot of sense. Was there a reason he was sent down to the CHL in the first place? Sorry I'm new to hockey and still trying to figure all this stuff out!!!

don't apologize anon, i'm more than happy to answer any questions you may have!!

so it's hard to say exactly why he was sent down, because i can't read the minds of the leafs management, but i can certainly make an educated guess!

so easton played in the preseason this year, and in his first game, he scored a goal and almost scored on a penalty shot, ending the night with two points. he did great, and sheldon keefe was very clear that he liked cowan's game and saw significant potential in him.

that said, cowan was freshly 18 at the time, and he's not a big player-- now obviously that's not the be all end all to determining if a young guy will or won't make the lineup, but it definitely can be a factor. cowan was (and is!) very skilled, but it was in his best interest to go back to juniors and keep working on developing his play.

another factor that comes into play is his entry level contract (ELC). so when a player signs an ELC, he can play up to nine games in the NHL before the games start counting towards the first year of his contract. take fraser minten for example, who ended up playing in four NHL games before management sent him back to the WHL to continue in juniors. both him and cowan will have their chance to play in the show again, but they're still young, can still highly benefit from continuing to grow and learn in their respective CHL leagues.

as a huge plus, we get to watch cowan have the longest point streak in the OHL in the past decade! 31 games in a row! that's crazy and we're so lucky to have him signed to us.

[dogwittaablog]

I peeped his uncles coaching history literally right after he retired he went off to buffalo sabres to assist coach from 2006-2013 - then to dallas till he got dropped in 2017, but continued to coach in the whl till now @ other anon he never coached OHL

If anon states she said her dad coached OHL it’s then already debunked they’ve never coached together what so ever, let alone even know each other.

I doubt her dad was up coaching in the NHL either… very unlikely, nothing with her life story lines up with that possibility either… you can also look at all the coaching staff/trainers who were on the team during all these periods of time all online. Let’s face it if you even snooped you’d find out real quick he’s definitely not coached one season of any of these teams 🤷🏻‍♀️

It’s pretty simple to say shes made stuff up and grabbed small details of their lives you can easily get online n stated she knows them.

(His coaching history)

[baronessblixen]

WHL: There will be an international release. Just no dates yet. My guess is december as some kind of holiday release?!

I so hope you're right, anon 😭 Germany is so slow, they probably release it in like summer or so.

I want to see it *now*.

[three-headed-monster]

I need your opinion on this years draft narratives ( Connor bedard the Canadian golden boy, Adam fantilli the Canadian that left and is now trying to go for 1, etc)

I just feel like we’ve been hearing about this year for the past, like, 3 drafts

hmmm

i agreee with you anon that we've heard about this draft class for a long time, but if this makes sense...there's not a lot of draft narrative there???

mainly because it feels like over the past few years, we haven't had enough international competitions with this age group to really sniff out who are the besties

like everyone is honestly overhyping the connor/adam narrative. seriously. adam has so much history with the don mills boys, you could literally fill a textbook but no one is talking about it!!!!!

adam and connor are not and have never been rivals. pre-team canada, they never played together and they have never ever been in direct competition with each other. the most they've done is praise each other's games and make silly spinorama passes to each other at u18s. because adam is older than connor, he has far more history and narrative with the other boys (which i can get into if asked again)

the ntdp has no narratives this year either, it's dry as fuck. in the whl, i love the yager and benson connection and also the cristall and bedard connection, but it's really just regular friend stuff

i'm sure we'll get more closer to the draft, but so far it has just been DULL on the side of narrative

[reavenedges-lies]

!!! THANK YOU FOR THE UPDATE !!! So this weekend they have a triple header in the league whose website automatically recognises my timezone AND has a free audio broadcast that's not region locked AND he's really kind of likely to get some ice time??? In games that only start at midnight? And aren't on the losingest team in the league? This is a definite improvement on trying to pay any game-time attention to Luke Prokop in the WHL in Seattle. anon <3 from the UK <3

!!! Yes I saw something about it today on twitter and immediately went to confirm then came here to update you (and any other Kirk fans who may follow me)

I'm not happy that he has been sent down, but i am excited for him to get consistent ice & play time. Being a healthy scratch in TUC wasn't doing him any favours and honestly to me it didn't make much sense as to why he was scratched in the first place. The last game he played in he wasn't terrible by any stretch of the imagination, so him being scratched for so long after that was wild.

[professionalpuckbunny]

Does the WHL t-birds anon by any chance know anything about Hunter Skinner?

^^

[msmargaretmurry]

Oh my GOD I am obsessed with these various ideas of spotty teen Matthew having a crush on fluffy, jumpscare-bleach-blond teen Leon, and my mind naturally turns to HAW and an AU where teen Matthew DID have a crush on terrible dye job Leon. And he got over it! (Mostly.) Leon's thing for Matthew from his rookie year is embarrassing enough, and now Matthew is one-upping him.

anon i'm genuinely so charmed by the concept of anyone thinking of an au of haw. the haw multiverse!!! rest assured that although in the haw canon young matthew did not have a crush on young leon he did always think he was hot. when it seemed likely that the oilers would draft him one of the thoughts he had about it WAS "i wonder if the hot german kid is nice." he will probably discover (be shown by leon's sister) photos of the terrible bleached hair when they go to germany together and he will find it extremely funny.

(the bleached hair i believe is from his u16 team before he came to north america to play in the whl, so there's no reason for him to have been on matthew's radar at that point, but i truly do believe in the abilities of the fanfic writers of the world to construct scenarios to make the crushing happen anyway. it's fiction baby we do what we want)

[ladylooch]

okay same anon as the canadian juniors thing and i have more to say hehe.

yes! in canada high school hockey isn’t super big. it’s whl, ohl, qmjhl i would say. adults even place bets on the teens. this same boy in question also kept count of his kisses.. also growing up he was known as the weird kid. he would always cry and have breakdowns in class including throwing a chair and he just wasn’t really liked. then the ohl happens and apparently he gets a bunch of girls and stuff. super super strange how they change the minute they get drafted. and as someone who went to high school in toronto EVERYONE makes fun of the hockey boys and their little accents and slang. they’re a strange bunch.

The slang is so bad.... I remember the says when "sauce" and "you're a beaut" was the extent of it... and now it is like baffling. So embarrassing that these GROWN MEN speak like that.

[lennysfridge]

this is whl anon and I am offended

IM SORRY