#26 — Vanek! with a Jurco

[dekedangle_rpf_mod]

This is the twenty-sixth post of Deke Dangle RPF Anon, a community for all your ice hockey anon meme needs.

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Comments

Re: Ask Meme

[(Anonymous)]

I've found myself thinking about locker room dynamics lately. We hear a lot about the divided or otherwise dysfunctional locker rooms -- the Wild, the Canadiens, etc. But are there teams whose locker rooms seem particularly functional? What teams would you say, based on what we know from the beats, etc., tend to have a greater degree of harmony than average?

Re: Ask Meme

[(Anonymous)]

I'm a Kings fan, so I might be biased, but they seem to have a great locker room, and they hang out together all the time and call themselves a family. It may be changing a little bit, what with the trades of real character guys like Mitchell and Williams, but a year or two ago they were all sickeningly cute.

Generally teams who've won cups together are automatically closer I feel, because they've shared such a huge moment in their careers/lives.

Re: Ask Meme

[(Anonymous)]

The Bolts seem particularly close, the Drouin drama notwithstanding.

Re: Ask Meme

[(Anonymous)]

The players who played for Cooper in the AHL are particularly close on that team. There was a picture of Cooper posing with them at Palat's wedding this summer, and I think he's said before that he thinks of T. Johnson "like an adopted son". That's...pretty close.

Re: Ask Meme

[(Anonymous)]

That adopted son quote is begging for daddy kink fic.

Re: Ask Meme

[(Anonymous)]

Coop's Troops are close among themselves, and the Hedman/Stamkos pre-Coop core is also, but I'm not sure how much the two groups mix or get along with each other. I remember during the Drouin drama a couple of players saying something about they were surprised things had gotten to this point and it was too bad Drouin didn't talk to them and let them know he was *that* upset, and they hoped he was doing okay and I remember thinking that like he hadn't fallen off of the face of the Earth and instead of giving media interviews about how they wished they had talked to him in the past, they could maybe pick up the phone in the present and call him themselves.

Re: Ask Meme

[(Anonymous)]

DA
I know Stamkos was distracted by his own drama at the time, but I especially felt like he kind of missed the boat on that one. We don't know the whole story obviously, but as the captain (and past high draft pick with a lot of expectations) I kind of felt like he needed to step it up. Instead he kind of expressed his disappointment in the press while saying he's going to be a "stud" one day. Not super helpful!

Re: Ask Meme

[(Anonymous)]

It seems like the Stars do as well.

Re: Ask Meme

[(Anonymous)]

Team sing-a-longs to Shania Twain notwithstanding, is there really exceptional harmony? They get along with no big drama.

Re: Ask Meme

[(Anonymous)]

I feel like for a minute there was a big push in the media to sell the Jamie Benn and Tyler Seguin are bffs that will save the team narrative which might confuse people but I'm not sure they get along like a family or anything. They seem to be friendly and genuinely respect and like each other and hang out sometimes but I'm not sure they'll all be best men in the other's wedding or anything. I'm not saying they aren't especially awesome.. I'm just not sure that there's evidence that they are.

Re: Ask Meme

[(Anonymous)]

I feel like you're just going to get people telling you the teams they follow, because unless there's obvious problems, everybody kind of seems to function well.

Re: Ask Meme

[(Anonymous)]

As a counterpoint, I'm not a CBJ fan, but that locker room has seemed close (in, of course, the bits of social media they choose to release)

Re: Ask Meme

[(Anonymous)]

Slightly OT, but I remember a player I follow posting a picture of himself and a group of his friends... without a single other current or former teammate. I was honestly baffled for a second, and then felt stupid for internalizing fic's habit of never expanding players' social lives past the team and maybe a few wives. European players in particular are probably extra motivated to find the Little Wherever in their cities when team that doesn't have any other players of their nationality.

Re: Ask Meme

[(Anonymous)]

na

The limited circle for people in fic is imo mostly because non-hockey friends (or SOs, or family members) are mostly not famous, or at least not famous in North America. It's one of the strange quirks of sports rpf, or at least hockey rpf, because in actor rpf there's at least a slightly more diverse cast to populate your fic with.

Re: Ask Meme

[(Anonymous)]

Lol, I had this experience too honestly at least once. It's funny because part of me is STILL like "but how do they just make friends with people who don't play hockey!" The same way anybody makes friends with people who don't share their profession, self.

Re: Ask Meme

[(Anonymous)]

The Rangers seem fairly close. I know Chris Kreider has talked about it in multiple interviews, and in videos on the website they mention visiting each other (Hayes went to visit Marc Staal in Thunder Bay as well as McDonagh and Stepan; several Rangers visited Zuccarello in Norway last year). There's been fan mentions of Lundqvist/Girardi/Staal going pumpkin picking with their families, and I've seen posts of people who see them out together in NYC bars fairly.

A lot of them were college teammates, though, which probably helps?

Re: Ask Meme

[(Anonymous)]

Up through the 2014-15 season, the Kings team had a reputation for having a very close tight-knit locker room in the beats, but also nationally/internationally. I remember a lot of national US-ian and Canadian reporters even using it as a narrative about their 2014 Stanley Cup run where some of them were calling them the closest team in the league. There has been significant turnover in the locker room in the past year and a half, though, so I don't know if it still goes.

Re: Ask Meme

[(Anonymous)]

I know someone said elsewhere that everyone would say the team's they are a fan of, so this comment may be in that vein, but I can say that the Caps' room last year was way tighter and more functional than it had been in prior seasons.

It had been factional in the past, and while there are still tight groups that are in sub-sets (the Russians, the Swedes, the Hershey crew, the roomies and other assorted young knuckleheads, the new dads--oh, wait, that's practically everyone), there is more cross-pollination between groups than had been present before (Kuzya and Orpik being tight, for example).

Also, for a team whose personnel didn't change that much, there are some big personalities missing this season--Chimera, Latta, Laich (for the whole year). Their absence in the room is going to be way more noticeable than their absence on the ice. I will be most interested to see who Lars Eller becomes buds with.

Re: Ask Meme

[(Anonymous)]

Teams that are successful have good locker rooms.

Teams that are not getting results have bad locker rooms.

At least that's what parts of hockey media keep telling me!

Re: Ask Meme

[(Anonymous)]

I remember Brian Gionta saying that the Sabres' locker room was still pretty tight during The Bad Years, but A) splintered locker room narratives aren't fun, why would you go out of your way to tell the media about it and B) he came from Montreal, so even if he did mean it, it could just as well mean Florida summers are better than actual Hell.

Re: Ask Meme

[(Anonymous)]

Interesting comments on Pens locker room history from beat reporter Josh Yohe recently. When talking about Geno and Sid's relationship, mentioned how Geno shut down the attempted captaincy coup during Sid's concussion, Josh said "I do think this team is closer. Sid wasn’t really allowed to be the leader back then. This team really is his. And I think it shows."

(He wouldn't say who had been involved in the captaincy stuff but said some people were guessing accurately. The most speculated about culprits are Brooks Orpik, Jordan Staal and Craig Adams.)

(frozen comment) Re: Ask Meme

[(Anonymous)]

I didn't say this was brand new information? it was interesting to me in context of thinking about locker room dynamics.

Re: Ask Meme

[(Anonymous)]

According to Yohe, not just shut it down, he just said, "This is stupid, Sid's the fuckin captain," and then up and left.

Re: Ask Meme

[(Anonymous)]

My impression of the Pens' lockerroom is that it's one of the more friendly but businesslike/professional rooms in the league. Old-school guys probably think it's a little dissatisfying.