Storytelling for Week 13: Sing Me A Healing Song

Author's Note

Another week, another storytelling with hockey players!  This story takes Väinämöinen from the Kalevala unit and will feature Olli Määttä, #3 for the Pittsburgh Penguins, as Väinämöinen hanging out in the modern day.  I wrote a mini-primer on Olli which will probably be helpful in order to understand some of the things he does and the voice I give him.  Pictures of the cast will be at the end.

I was writing this during last night's game, when this happened... it's just insane how many bad things have happened to this kid.

Anyway, here's a picture of him when things were still good :'(

Olli Maatta

-z-

Väinämöinen’s not saying that he’s bored with being alive – he’s just saying that he’s running out of things to do.

Then he stumbles on a new game from across the ocean – a game called hockey.

-

He shortens his name to Väin and plays in Finland for years and years, learning the game and figuring out which position suited him best.

And when he finally settles on one, he changes his name to Olli and sings a song about youth – watching in the mirror as the lines of age smooth away.  Then he plays his way back up the leagues, and pretends to be surprised when he’s taken in the first round of the NHL draft by the Pittsburgh Penguins.

-

“I think I like it here,” Olli tells his manager, a young African American with just the barest touches of magic around her eyes in sparks of red; she probably didn’t even know she had it.

Her name is Katrina and her eyes flick up to him from her phone for just the barest moment, a quirk to her lips letting him know she didn’t quite believe him.  “I’m glad,” she says, returning to her phone, her thumb flicking and swiping the screen quickly.  “The Penguins have a good contract ready for you to sign – just let them know when you’re ready.”

Olli looks over to her, smile wide on his face, when he says, “I am ready.”

-

He loves his teammates and he's accepted almost immediately.

And when Jussi – a fellow Finn – joins the team, Olli can barely contain his excitement.  That excitement doubles when he finally gets to meet him and Jussi says, “Oh, you have magic!”

Olli laughs, sees the way Jussi’s own magic dances around his head and his hands – little teal ribbons sliding between his fingers.  Jussi’s magic is diluted to Olli’s eyes, but he know it’s still strong for the modern world.  It gives him just a little more endurance during a game, just a little extra speed when he needs it.

“So do you,” Olli says.

-

Sometimes, Olli and Jussi sing the old ballads to the locker room.  Olli doesn’t even flinch when Jussi starts the Väinämöinen ballads – a name he feels he hasn’t heard in decades.  (A part of him wonders if young Joukahainen was still around, he ever grew into his magic.)

And sometimes, when the team is tired and they’re deep into the season, when all those little bumps and bruises have accumulated and they’re all just sore and hurt down to their bones – Olli sings a healing song. 

He closes his eyes against slumped shoulders and tight faces, and sings – soft and slow, his voice deepening with his comfort in his native tongue.  He wraps his magic into each of the words, tying in the names of his teammates.

(No one talks once he starts singing, he’s been here long enough that they’ve all just taken to just listening, even if they’re not sure what he says or why they feel lighter after he’s stopped.)

And when he opens his eyes – the room always seems just a little bit brighter.

-z-

End.

"Katrina" by Zoë Kravitz

Jussi Jokinen; unfortunately, he doesn't play for the Pens
any more, he now plays for the Panthers.

Reading Diary B: Kalevala

I enjoyed hearing about Joukahainen attempting to get revenge on Väinämöinen.  A quick google search has lead me to the discovery of the Finnhorse - the only native horsebreed to Finland.  With the description of Väinämöinen's horse as "straw colored" - I came up with this guy:

Finnhorse stallion, Ukkosen Poika

Okay, switching gears. This is going to act as my primer-slash-author's note for this week's storytelling.  So, let me tell y'all about a sweet little Finnish boy named Olli Määttä.

Olli

Normally it takes a lot to stir any sort of maternal instinct in me, but sometimes I look at this 6'2" blond puppy and I just want to wrap him in a blanket and make him some hot chocolate.  Even as he's bowling people over... (Olli's #3, the guy with the puck)

At just 19 years old during 2013-14 season, Olli immediately broke into the NHL (something more typical of forwards; it's harder for young defensemen to break in early just because the game is so much faster than at the lower levels - so you need a much higher hockey IQ/more sophisticated hockey sense).  

During the 2014 Winter Olympic break, Olli got a bronze medal playing with the likes of Teemu Selänne, a.k.a. The Finnish Flash - who was participating in his last Olympics. Selänne's career had lasted from 1989-2014 (longer than Olli's even been alive) and he still holds a number of records.  The greatest part of the whole thing?  Selanne gushing about Olli <3

Olli and Teemu

The 2014-15 season - Olli is now 20 - was less kind.  In October, a preseason medical checkup found a cancerous tumor in his thyroid.  So remember that picture from Reading Diary A?

My son.

That scar at the base of his throat is from the surgery to remove the cancer.  He goes on to talk about how the hardest part of having cancer isn't having cancer - it was having to tell his parents, his siblings, and his teammates.

[Olli Cancer Presser]

Later in the year, he once again went under the knife.  This time for a shoulder injury that took Olli out for the rest of the season.  Oh, and then he got mumps during a League wide outbreak.

You Can't Make This Up.

But, Olli has persevered.  He's made it back and the 21-year-old is continuing to play at a high level.

Possibly, through magic...

Storytelling for Week 12: Changeling Rookies

Author's Note

Yay for more weird magical stuff happening in sports!

This is a retelling of "Brewery of Eggshells" in the Celtic Fairy Tails unit.  And it's yet another storytelling with a hockey twist, this time featuring rookie changelings.  I'm going to bring back characters from Week 6's storytelling; most notably Sasha.  If you don't feel like clicking on the link, all you really need to know is that Sasha is the captain (but not real life captain) of the Wilkes-Barre Penguins (the AHL affiliate of the Pittsburgh Penguins).

Prior to the events in "The Boy in the Hockey Helmet."  So, if you're in a shippy mood, you can read this as pre-slash.  (If you don't know what this means, nevermind.)

This story has multiple POVs and multiple timelines which will both be divided by "-x-"; "-" will indicate a change in scenery/setting but still within the established POV/timeline.  Cast of characters at the bottom.

Fun Facts (because that sounds better than Terminology):

1. Sophomore Year: a player who is in their second year in a league; still a rookie
2. Sasha is the Russian diminutive for Alexander; Zhenya is the diminutive of Evgeni which is in turn the Russian equivalent of Eugene; Seryozha is the diminutive for Sergei.  Links will take you to the pronunciations (Sasha is pronounced just like it's written).
3. The Superleague is the prior incarnation of the KHL (Kontinental Hockey League, formed in 2006) which is made up of various European leagues, most notably filled with Russians, Finns, and Swedes who couldn't make it in the NHL; along those same lines, not as prestigious as the NHL.  A lot of KHL players are paid higher salaries than NHLers, though they may not be as highly skilled - a lot of times, it comes down to patriotism.  Or blackmail. Just ask Evgeni Malkin.
4. Prior to the events in "The Boy in the Hockey Helmet."  So, if you're in a shippy mood, you can read this as pre-slash.  (If you don't know what this means, ignore it and don't ask questions.)
5. This is Mike Johnston - he's the head coach of the Pittsburgh Penguins.  And this is Jim Rutherford, the GM.
6. When someone in hockey has "soft hands" it means they're great at controlling the puck - a useful thing in a game of inches and bounces.

"Sasha" - Alexander Mogilny

-z-

Once, back when Sasha was still young, still only having just broken into the Superleague, he had watched his captain, Seryozha, sputter and curse low under his breath, glaring at a rookie, Zhenya, next to Sasha’s stall.

It had taken only a few minutes into practice before Sasha had seen the changes in Zhenya that his captain had seen.

But Sasha didn’t ask questions, he just kept his head down – keeping one eye on Zhenya and the other on Seryozha.

-x-

Little Nicky is wonderful in practice until he isn’t.  Until he’s fumbling around, talking in a language no one on the team has ever heard – effectively ruling out Russian, Czech, German, Swedish, and Canadian French – muttering as he pulls his gear on.

“What do you think?” Archie asks, leaning deep into his stall, projecting as much nonchalance as he was able to.

“I don’t know,” Sasha answers truthfully, pretending – just as Archie was – that he wasn’t as bothered by the goings on as he actually was.  It’s hockey, he tries to tell himself at first, magical shit happens all the time.

-x-

It had started off with a simple voice change – Zhenya’s voice was always light, bordering on squeaky.  So when it suddenly deepened, sounding like a he’d spent the night screaming, Sasha had just assumed that puberty had finally settled in (Zhenya had been all of 17 when he’d been swallowed into the Superleague, a fast skater with soft hands and a hard shot wasn't about to be allowed to slip off to North America).

On the ice, Sasha watched as Seryozha circled Zhenya occasionally, his sharp eyes that saw every open (or about to open) passing lane during a game turned on Zhenya as if he were a particularly tough defenseman to figure out.

Sometimes Zhenya ignored him; sometimes Zhenya snarled out a curse that was quickly followed by a rough shove.  Sasha tried once to step between them, but Seryozha had carefully corralled him away.

-x-

Despite what Sasha often tells him, Nicky is not little.  He’s long and lanky, all stringy muscle that he probably won’t grow into.

So when he takes to looming over Sasha, Sasha finds it harder to pretend that nothing’s wrong.

-

“What is it, little Nicky?” Sasha asks.

Not-Nicky doesn’t answer, just stares at him with blank eyes that only occasionally flicker with something like rage.  Sasha tries to control the feeling of indignation welling in his chest – this creature had no business messing with his teammates, much less one of his favorite rookies.

“I know what you are,” he says.

“I doubt it,” Not-Nicky says, then slowly and deliberately, he moves away.

A breath Sasha hadn’t realized he’d been holding whooshes out of him, leaving him to slump against the wall of his stall.  He waits until the rest of the locker room is empty before he pulls out his cell phone – dialing a number he hasn’t called in a long time.

-x-

Whatever happened between them happened off-ice and away from the arena.  All Sasha knew was that Zhenya’s deep voice was high again, that his quick temper had been soothed.

Zhenya was also loathe to wander too far from Seryozha except during a game, the coaches figuring out they had to physically shove Zhenya into position during practice – Seryozha chuckling all the while.

-x-

Sasha hangs up with a promise to call Seryozha once it was over (and more often than once a month).  He leans forward, puts his head in his hands, and thinks about what he has to do.

-

It’s easier than he’d thought it’d be to get Not-Nicky willingly into his truck.  He sits quiet in the passenger seat, doesn’t even look at Sasha as Sasha drives.

It takes two hours to get to Pennsylvania’s Grand Canyon.

Pine Creek Gorge, a.k.a. The Pennsylvania Grand Canyon, in autumn

“Do you know why we’re here?” Sasha asks, walking Not-Nicky to the edge and praying that security wouldn’t find them until this was over.

“You can’t kill me,” Not-Nicky says.

“No,” Sasha whispers – but then his hand lashes out, grabs Nicky by the collar and swings him around so that Not-Nicky’s feet were slipping at the edge.  “But I can make it look close.”

His words are chased away by a shriek on a sudden gust of wind.

“Don’t you hurt that boy,” screams an old woman – her face was twisted, her fingers gnarled as she scrambled up the steep sides of the gorge.

“Give me back my boy,” Sasha yells, pushing Not-Nicky still further backwards – the changeling’s arms windmilling as he tries to keep his balance.

“He’s right behind you,” the old woman screams again as she reaches them – taking Not-Nicky into her arms and pressing him against her chest, cooing softly.

Sasha whirls around – sees his Nicky standing there, his eyes wide and his face pale.

“God,” Sasha whispers, but then he’s rushing forward and wrapping Nicky into a hug.  And Nicky hugs him back just as tightly.

-z-

End.

-z-

"Nicky" and "Not-Nicky" - Marc-Andre Fleury

"Seryozha" - Sergei Federov

"Zhenya" - Evgeni Malkin

Story source: Celtic Fairy Tales by Joseph Jacobs with illustrations by John D. Batten (1892).

Storytelling for Week 10: Of Bulls and Bears

Author's note

This story is a retelling of The Buffalo and the Grizzly Bear from the Great Plains unit.  A buffalo is standing around, minding his own business, when a grizzly attacks him claiming that the buffalo has been talking trash.  The buffalo denies this and the bear starts to walk away.  The buffalo wonders why the bear would think such a thing, the bear hears this thought, and comes back and attacks the buffalo again.  The buffalo then starts to back up and the grizzly says "Don't run away!"  And then the buffalo charged and gored the grizzly.

For this storytelling, I added a hockey twist.  This story essentially became an extended metaphor.  So there are descriptions of the players from the Buffalo Sabres and the Boston Bruins as their respective mascots.  I featured Jack Eichel, an American player who went 2nd overall in the 2015 draft, and his teammate Evander Kane.  

This also jumps around a bit in the timeline and are divided with "-x-" while sections divided by "-" take place within the same time period.

The Sabres haven't actually played the Bruins yet this season, so we'll see how it goes.  They're a pretty brutal team to play against.  If you have any questions about hockey terminology, just ask!

Evander Kane (#9) and Jack Eichel (#15)

-z-


Jack Eichel snorts and shakes his head.

Let the bears out on the ice roar all they like.

He’s ready for them.


-x-


Jack’s first trip out onto NHL ice had been on unsteady legs – the same as any young bison. And just as the same as any young bison.

Not living up to the hype, he’d heard the old dogs whisper. What a waste.

He stumbled, he slipped and slid as he battled along the boards.

At first.

But then he found his legs – pushing out the roar of the crowd and the bellow of their expectations. He remembered to just play the game; he remembered to deke and dance with the puck – and then the puck was in the back of the net and his herd was surrounding him. They pull him in for a crushing hug as they shout in congratulations.


-x-


The grizzly tries to stare him down.

Jack just smirks.


-x-


His legs are young, but he’s growing into them. Around him, his herd is assured and confident – protective.

They keep him tucked in close until it’s time for him to take to the ice again. And even then, they hardly allow anyone too close.

Highly touted rookies were too often on the receiving end of illegal hits meant to injure. Evander, a bull in the middle of his prime, takes to shadowing Jack’s every move – knocking away any of the opposition he saw getting too close.


-x-


Jack doesn’t see the bear coming up behind him – just feels his head snap first against the glass and then against the ice, the air knocked from his lungs.

There’s a flurry of motion and he turns his head just enough to see that Evander has a bear in a headlock. But the linesmen are quick to separate them and the bear skates away with a smile and a wink at Jack.

Jack snorts and shakes his head, lets Evander pull him back up to his feet.

“See you in two,” Evander says to Jack before he’s skating over to the penalty box.


-


The second hit comes when Jack’s got the puck on his stick. He’s sizing up the goalie, picking his spot, and just when he’s about to release – Jack’s vision suddenly swings wide and he’s staring up the bright rafter lights.

He doesn’t stare long.

Jack’s still sliding along the ice as he rolls over, gets his legs underneath him, and charges. He ignores the coach calling him back to the bench – ignores the way his muscles are screaming at him for taking this extra shift on the ice.

But there’s a young grizzly cub, a fellow rookie, who has the puck and it’s just too easy to strip it from him – and head back down to the other end of the ice.

He pumps his legs, puts his head down, and charges – he dances around the first defenseman and then a second, and then he’s facing down the hulk of their goalie. He fakes Rask out, gets him to drop to a knee – and then with a quick flick of his wrist, the puck is in the back of the net.


-


Jack is on the bench, the bears on the ice circling and snarling. He snorts and shakes his head.

Let them roar all they like.

He’s ready for them.


-z-


End.


-z-


Bibliography: Myths and Legends of the Great Plains by Katharine Berry Judson (1913).

Reading Diary A: Great Plains

I’ve heard the story about The Buffalo and the Grizzly (The Great Plains unit) before in a previous class, but it’s still one of my favorites. I’m already thinking about ways that I could possibly do this for my storytelling post. There are even two hockey teams I could use if I wanted to continue putting hockey twists to things: the Buffalo Sabres and the Boston Bruins.

One player I could feature for the Sabres would be Marcus Foligno, and for Boston it would be Matt Bartkowski. Bartkowski currently plays for the Vancouver Canucks, but he and Foligno fought each other last season when he was still on the Bruins.

I think they would work because this folktale kinda resembles what started the fight. Bartowski laid a hard and high hit on Gianta, making him go down to ice hard. In the story, the buffalo is just standing around, minding his own business, when the grizzly bear attacks him.

Unlike the story, Foligno immediately attacks back (technically, that would make him a second buffalo in the story – which isn’t canon – but just go with it), which the buffalo eventually does. Foligno goes on to win the fight (in my opinion, and according to the consensus of voters on the fight on hockeyfights.com) – much like how the buffalo wins the fight against the bear in the story.

Or, I can just treat the whole thing as a metaphor for Jack Eichel – one of the most highly touted American rookies from the 2015 NHL draft – being harassed by a Bruins player for the puck. The buffalo “winning the fight” would be Eichel scoring a game winning goal in overtime.

Jack Eichel (I saved this picture a long time ago from Twitter and now I
can't find the source but it's just too great to not use)

Storytelling for Week 9: Siri, my captain's been turned into a coyote - please send help!

Author's Notes
This one kinda got away from me.  Again.  This is another folktale with a hockey spin, but instead of coming up with new names, I just used the players' actual names because I used more characters this time around.

This storytelling is a revamp of "Coyote and the Mesquite Beans" from the California and the Old Southwest unit.  In the story, Coyote knows that it is bad luck to eat anything that survived the flood - this includes Mesquite beans and black bugs.  Well, he eats both and then dies.

Since this legend is one from the Pima people of Arizona, and Arizona has a hockey team called the Coyotes - I couldn't resist.  I tried.  I failed.  I'm so (kinda) sorry.  What I changed is that Shane Doan eats some mesquite beans and then turns into a coyote.  Three of his teammates then scramble to try to find out what's going on and how to fix Doan by using the NHL phone tree.  Pictures of those featured on the phone tree are at the bottom.

Shane Doan, captain of the Arizona Coyotes, and a coyote

Siri, my captain's been turned into a coyote - please send help!


“This isn’t normal, right?” Mikkel Boedker asks, his eyes immediately darting to Oliver Ekman-Larsson – who was staring wide-eyed at Shane.

“What makes you think I know?” Oliver snaps, finally looking away from Shane to glare at Mikkel. Then he turns to Steve Downie and asks, “Is this normal?”

Steve shifts in his stall, looking around the rest of the locker room and obviously wishing that he hadn’t decided to stay behind after practice. It was just Steve, the two Scandinavians, and their captain.

Who was currently a coyote. A very angry looking coyote.

“My, what big teeth you have,” Steve says, the words coming out before he could stop them.

Coyote Shane’s ears flattened against the back of his skull and he lowered his head closer to the floor – looking about ready to lunge at Steve.

“Personally, I’ve never seen this,” Steve says, ignoring Shane with faked nonchalance, “but I can make some calls.”

“Who can you even call about this?” Mikkel asks.

“The one person who has connections to every single player in the League,” Steve answers easily, putting his phone to his ear. He listens for a beat, before he smiles and says, “Hey, Sidney. You’re not going to believe this shit.”


-


“He’s what?” Sidney Crosby, captain of the Penguins, asks, eyebrows furrowing as he stops in his tracks, making Pens goalie Marc-Andre Fleury collide into his back. Fleury, also called Flower, began to protest – but Sidney quickly shushed him. “Say that again, Downs, because—just, what?”

Flower leans in closer, trying to listen to what was being said – it must be interesting if Steve Downie had reached out for the first time since his signing with Arizona. He hears Steve’s voice, lisp worsened slightly by his excitement: “Shane Doan just turned into a fuckin’ coyote and I’ve got two rookies panicking over here.”

Flower immediately pulls back and shares a look with Sidney. “He should call Carey Price,” Flower suggests.

Sidney raises an eyebrow even as Steve’s loud guffaw comes through the phone’s speaker. It was well known that Steve Downie and the goalies of the NHL were not on good terms. Not because he had done anything to them, but because he was prone to taking out their defensemen – opening the way up for his own forwards to score.

“Okay,” Flower amends, “then you can call Carey Price.”

“I’ll call you back, Steve,” Sidney says, then after goodbyes are shared, he hangs up and goes to his contacts list.


-


Carey Price, goalie extraordinaire for the Montreal Canadiens, absolutely does not laugh Sidney Crosby off the phone.

But that's only because PK Subban, defensemen extraordinaire for the Canadiens, takes the phone away from Carey. “Steve Downie turned who into a what?” he asks.

(In Pittsburgh, Sidney rolls his eyes.)

“No,” Sidney says, his voice suddenly booming as PK puts him on speaker phone, setting the phone between himself and Carey on Carey’s dining room table where they had been eating their post-practice meal. “Shane Doan has somehow been turned into a coyote. Downs is the one who called me.”

“I don’t know what’s going on,” Carey says, taking a swig of water. “But you should call Lu – he got turned into an orca once because he violated one of the First Nation’s laws. I’m not sure which one, though.”

“How does that even happen?” Sidney asks, dumbfounded.

“He did some shit he wasn’t supposed to, obviously,” Carey answers.

“Okay, but what—” Sidney voice is abruptly cut off when Carey disconnects the call.


-


“I don’t what Price is talking about,” Roberto Luongo snarls in a way that Sidney knows means that he’s lying. “Talk to Eddie.”

And then Luongo disconnects the call.


-


“Clearly this is magic,” Eddie Lack says after he’s listened to Sidney’s entire story. “Just like Carey has said.”

“We know that,” Sidney says. “What we don’t know is how to fix it.”

“It will probably fix itself,” Eddie says. “Lu swam around in the ocean for a few hours before he turned back into himself. Luckily, he stayed close to shore, so he didn’t have to swim very far.”

“So they should just keep an eye on him?”

“Yes,” Eddie says, sounding exasperated.


-


“I don’t know if I’d trust anything Eddie Lack says, he’s always had a few screws loose,” Steve says. He and the two rookies had managed to secret their transformed captain out of the arena and into Steve’s truck (Shane had claimed the front seat and bared his fangs at Oliver and Mikkel until they had climbed into the backseats).

“Well, he’s the best lead you have right now,” Sidney says.


-


Later that night, after they’ve all settled in at Oliver and Mikkel’s house, it’s Oliver who puts everything together.

“Hey, Shane,” Oliver starts, waiting until he has Shane’s attention. “Have you eaten any mesquite beans recently?” After getting looks from his teammates, he elaborates: “According to the Pima people, eating mesquite beans is bad luck. Actually, eating anything that survived the great flood is bad luck and can kill you. There’s a legend that Coyote did it once and he died.”

Coyote Shane’s ears swivel from being forward, to being flat – his features tinged with panic.

Oliver is quick to backtrack. “I’m not saying you’ll die,” he says.

“Okay, but how do we fix him?” Steve asks.

Before Oliver could answer, there was a yelp and a ripping sound – and then Shane is standing there – fully human.

“That answers that question,” Shane says.

Mikkel and Oliver whoop, while Steve picks up his phone and shoots Sidney a text: He’s back :)


-z-


End.

Mikkel Boedker and Oliver Ekman-Larsson

Steve Downie

Marc-Andre "Flower" Fluery and Sidney Crosby

Carey Price and PK Subban

Eddie Lack and Roberto Luongo

Bibliography: Myths and Legends of California and the Old Southwest by Katharine Berry Judson (1912).

Storytelling for Week 7: when we are the last (these are the days)

Author's Note
Hey, so I did my storytelling based on two animals from the Nigeria Unit: Dog and Leopard.  It was mostly inspired by "Why Dead People Are Buried" where the Creator sends Dog to tell people that, because it saddens Him whenever humans die, that if they sprinkle wood ashes on their dead loved ones, they will live again.  Dog gets distracted and fails to deliver the message.

I love to play with different storytelling styles, so this story is told in a non-linear narrative.  There are two timelines that are being told at the same time here, and each "-x-" marks the switch between the timelines; a "-" is a scene break within the same time period.

I also changed the setting: modern times and Dog and Leopard are now playing hockey.  I based them off of Seth Jones, an American defenseman for the Nashville Predators, and Evander Kane, a Canadian winger for the Winnipeg Jets.

Dog (Seth Jones) [x]

Leopard (Evander Kane)  [x]

-z-

Dog and Leopard were the last remnants of the Creator’s First Spirits, His first Messengers; they had had been created long before the humans in the luscious forests of Nigeria.  The other First Spirits had died – casualties of wars fought amongst themselves, and of the first waves of European armies.

The Creator had created other spirits to replace His lost ones, but His sadness in their had been imbued in them and they were weaker than their predecessors.  Dog and Leopard, frustrated by this weakness, would leave Nigeria for long periods of time – venturing to surrounding countries before leaving Africa.

-x-

“Hey,” Leopard starts, skating up to Dog, “remember that time you forgot to tell everyone that the Creator would bring their loved ones back?”

"Make one mistake," Dog grumbles to himself, rolling his eyes before he turns and snarls at Leopard.  Leopard only ever brought up what happened hundreds of years ago when he knew that his team was going to lose.

(Which is exactly what happens – the Predators win the game easily and the Jets are chased off the ice of the booing of their home crowd.)

-x-

Europe held nothing but bitter memories for them.  So they traveled east – to Russia, and then to China and then down to Thailand and Vietnam.  Then they headed still further east, eventually finding themselves in California, which was caught in the chaos of the gold rush.

-x-

After the game, Dog is walking out of the locker room when he sees Leopard standing there, waiting for him.

“What do you want?” Dog asks with an exasperated sigh.

“Come on, old friend,” Leopard says, pushing away from the wall he had been leaning against and jerking his head towards the entrance, “let me show you around town.  It’s been ages since we’ve had a chance to catch up.”

“Everything okay out here?” asks Shea Weber, the captain of Dog’s team, as he narrows his eyes at Leopard. 

Shea doesn’t know what they are, doesn’t know their long history of fighting to outdo each other; he doesn’t know how, despite their differences, they could never really venture too far from each other. 

“Fine,” Dog says, looking from Leopard to Shea, “I’ll meet you guys back at the hotel.”

Shea’s lips purse, but he doesn’t say anything else, just nods and hesitantly walks away.

-x-

But California during the 1840s and 50s wasn’t the safest place for two young (or least, young looking) black men.  And Dog and Leopard soon learned that it was safest in northern California, to avoid the southern areas where people from the Deep South states had moved to mine for gold.

So they moved north – and then kept going until they found themselves in Canada.

-x-

“How are you liking Winnipeg?” Dog asks, taking a sip of beer.

“Cold,” Leopard answers with a huff of laughter, “but nothing I can't handle.  When the team isn’t losing and the fans like us, I enjoy it here.”

Dog smiles and nods.  “I feel the same about Nashville.  And it's warmer, which is always a plus.”

A moment of quiet passes between them – it’s a hesitant quiet.  As if there was a question that they both felt needed to be asked; but neither of them can quite bring themselves to ask it.

-x-

In Canada, they lope through the expansive forests and flat, seemingly unending prairie, allowing the decades to slowly pass them by, avoiding the humans when they can.  That all changes when they stumble across a game of pond hockey and fall in love with the sport. 


-

Once the sounds of war have faded from the United States, Dog finds himself compelled to travel south once again.  Leopard stays behind in Canada, no matter how much Dog tries to persuade him.

-

“I’m thinking of trying out for a team,” Dog tells Leopard in a letter.  There are better ways of communication these days, but the feeling of sitting down and putting his thoughts to paper – with the sweet smell of ink in the air – is something that Dog never tires of.

“Tell me which one it is,” Leopards sends back, “and I’ll make sure to be on another.”

-x-

“Do you miss home?” Dog asks Leopard, just before he’s about to climb out of Leopard’s car to go into the hotel.

“All the time,” Leopard answers without hesitation.  He tells Dog that he still dreams of the old days, when all the First Spirits squabbled over things that seem so petty now, when humans were only just discovering fire and just learning how to build huts.

“Me, too,” Dog says, looking down at his hands.  “This summer, after this season, I think it’ll be time to go back.”

“Yeah,” Leopard says, shoving at Dog’s shoulder, “I think it’ll do us some good.”

-z-

End.


-z-


P.S. - as far as I know, the Jets have never booed their own team.  However, it happened to the Oilers last season.  It was very sad.

P.P.S. - During the Civil War, northern California was pro-Union, while southern California contained a lot of transplants from Confederate states and were loudly advocating secession from the Union. [source]

Bibliography: Folk Stories From Southern Nigeria by Elphinstone Dayrell (1910).

Storytelling for Week 6: The Boy in the Hockey Helmet

Author's note:  For this storytelling, I decided to do a remix of The Maiden in the Wooden Helmet from the Japanese Fairy Tales by Andrew Lang.  My story will also take place in a universe where people don't bat an eye at weird magical stuff happening on sports teams.  Because sports.

The story is about a young woman who, at the behest of her dying mother, wears a wooden helmet low on her face - hiding away her beautiful hair and face.  She continues to wear the helmet, even as she works or washes her face.  She is taken in by the lord of the land she works after he notices how industrious she is and gives her the task of tending to his wife.

Not long after, the eldest son comes home from a business trip and, seeing the young woman's face after the helmet had tipped to the side, resolves to marry her.  His parents don't approve right away, but eventually consent.  While getting ready for the wedding, the young woman tries to remove the helmet but it doesn't come off - not until she and the son have been fully committed to each other and drank a glass of wine together - does the helmet break apart and fall in front of them - bursting into a bunch of precious jewels.

For my story - I changed the story to an AHL (American Hockey League) goalie who can't take his mask off until he makes it to the NHL (National Hockey League) and wins a Stanley Cup; names used are the names from the rabbits I work with over at Heartland Rabbit Rescue.  The teams are the Pittsburgh Penguins, because they're my favorite, and their AHL affiliate, the Wilkes-Barre Penguins (called colloquially: the Baby Pens).  (Expect a lot of hockey twists coming to my storytelling since preseason is here and the regular season is just around the corner.)

Names note: Sasha is the Russian diminutive for Alexander (like how Bill is the diminutive of William).

If you have any questions about phrases or hockey terms I used here, just ask!  I know that there aren't many hockey fans here in Oklahoma, but this intro is already A LOT longer than I meant it to be, so on with the story!


***


"What do you mean you can't take it off?" Sasha asks; he's trying to stay calm - because he's a good captain like that - but there wasn't much calming about the situation and Sasha's Russian accent was thickened with his worry.

"I mean it's stuck," Nicky replies, panic edging into his voice as he tries once again to lift his goalie helmet off of his head.  And, once again, only the face mask lifts up - but the whole helmet can't be moved from his head.

"Don't worry," Archie says, walking by as he threw his jersey into the bin in the center of the room for washing, "this happened to a friend of mine in juniors - you'll be fine.  It should wear off in a day or two."


*


It did not wear off in a day or two.

"Nicky" (Marc-Andre Fluery, #29 Pittsburgh Penguins) [x]

*

"Nick, do you think this will affect your chances for a call-up?" asks one of the beat reporters.

"I'm not--" Nicky starts.

"With the Pens getting closer and closer to a playoff run," interrupts another reporter, "how worried are you about this?"

"Well, I--" Nicky starts again.

"How do you feel about--"

But Nick doesn't hear the rest; the reporters are pressing in too close and Nick's suddenly bent over, trying to take deep gulping breaths.

Then, as if from on high, Nicky hears Sasha yell, "Get out of the way!"  Sasha's hands are on either side of Nick's helmet as he kneels down and, lowering his voice, says to Nicky, "Easy, little goalie, easy.  Deep breaths, Nick.  Just concentrate on my voice."

After a moment, after the world seems to steady itself under Nicky's feet, he says to Sasha, "I'm not little."  It’s an old argument, something Sasha has been saying to Nicky since he’d first walked into the Wilkes-Barre barn.

"You're little for a goalie," Sasha says, smirking.

"Yeah," Nicky says, pulling away from Sasha and leaning into his stall, "little for a goalie."  He closes his eyes and pretends that everything is okay.  (When he opens his eyes again, Sasha is still kneeling in front of him, concern and sadness in his gaze.  Nicky forces himself to smile.)

*

Sparky, the Penguins leading goaltender, goes down in the middle of the third period against the Flyers and coach comes up to him the next day, says, "Pack your bags, Nicky, you're needed in Pittsburgh."

*

Nicky dresses for the rest of the season, but he's still the back up to Hershel - who was Sparky's backup - and only plays one game.

His helmet still isn't coming off.

*

"I wouldn't worry about it much," says Walter, the captain of the Penguins and a legend on the cusp of retirement; his voice is kind and his Canadian maritime accent thick around the word "about" so that it sounded like "a-boot."  "Really," he continues, "it happens to Sparky every once in a while."

"Do you know why?" Nicky asks.

"No," Walter says, “he says that there's no real rhyme or reason."

"So I could be stuck like this?!" Nicky asks, jumping to his feet as panic hits him.

Walter holds his hands up, says, "Don't jump to any conclusions.  I'm just saying that everything will be okay.  Eventually."

"Look, I don't mean to interrupt," says Buckley, his tone anything but apologetic as he turns towards Nicky, "but I have to ask.  Have you been able to wash your hair, like, at all, dude?"

"My goalie mask is magically stuck to my head and you're worried about my hair?" Nicky asks, deadpan.

Buckley shrugs.

"Go away, Buck," Walter says, chuckling as he shoves Buckley away.

"The people have a right to know!" Buckley exclaims, feigning indignation even as he let his (much smaller) captain shove him towards his own stall on the far side of the locker room.

And just like that, the tension between Nicky's shoulders seems to loosen; and, for the first time in a month, he laughs.  It's a laugh that not faked or forced from him; it’s raspy and halting - as if he had forgotten how.

(It's also the first time in a month that his helmet doesn't seem quite so tight around his head.)

(It still doesn't come off.)

*

They're two games into the Stanley Cup finals when Hershel goes down with a concussion after being run over by one of the opposition's forwards.  Levi, the Penguins's resident goon, had immediately dropped his gloves.

The ensuing fight had been long and bloody and the penalty minutes, coach later screamed at them, hadn't been worth it.

Except that they had been.  There's a significant change in the momentum of the game and suddenly it's as if the Penguins were unstoppable - they win each foot race, each battle along the boards; every power play is capitalized on and no penalty kill sways the game towards the opposition's favor.

After the brawl, Nicky wins his team one victory, and then two, and then three.

*

One more, little goalie, Sasha texts him the evening of the sixth game of the Finals series.

If Nicky could win this one for his team - they would win the Cup.

Still not little, Nicky texts back.

*

The first two periods of that final game are a blur of sweat and heavy bodies slamming into him, of too fast pucks that he's only just able to keep out of his net.

By the third period, the game is still scoreless - until Walter jumps out of the penalty box and is off on the breakaway and the opposing goalie can't stop him - he drops and it's a beautiful goal as Walter slams home a goal, going top shelf.

The goal horn sounds just as the clock drops to zero.  Nicky’s teammates rush him, jumping on him and screaming his name and, sometime during that - Nicky’s helmet falls to the ground.

***


End.

"Nicky" lifting the Stanley Cup

Bibliography: The Violet Fairy Book by Andrew Lang and illustrated by H. J. Ford (1901).

Week 3 in Style

Topic

My Storybook will be an anthology centering around Aesop animal characters on shows like Jerry Springer and Dr. Phil, and on twitter. 

Stories I will be using for Jerry Springer Show will be two or three of these (I haven't narrowed it down yet): The Dog, The Cock, and the Fox, The Farmer and the Stork, The Travelers and the Purse, The Wolf and the Lion, and The Wolf and the Lean Dog.  Maybe one episode could be “What to Do When a Friend Is In Need” and use the characters from The Dog, The Cock, and the Fox, The Travelers and the Purse, and The Wolf and the Lean Dog.

(Note: while the characters will continue to go by their animal names, I still think of them looking human - so perhaps it's a universe where some people have second forms and, if they do, they go by the name of that form.  That second form won't give them any special powers beyond transformation or influencing their human forms just a little.)

Shea Weber (#6) and Seth Jones (#3) as Big Dog and Lean Dog respectively. [x]

Stories I will be using for Dr. Phil are The Boy and the Filberts and The Mice and the Weasels.  The boy’s mother from The Boy and the Filberts is trying to get help for her son, who won’t take his hand out of the filbert jar; meanwhile, the mice from The Mice and the Weasels come on to talk about their PTSD and try to rally the rest of animal kind to their defense.

The social media outlet I was thinking about using was twitter and the stories I will use are The Lion and the Ass and The Wolf and his Shadow.  In both of these cases I’ll be working along the theme of animal A calling out animal B, or A bragging and B calling them out, and, say, if either of them were famous, what kind of reaction there would be from various news outlets or gossip columns.  Will the boxer, Wolf, who keeps boasting about how big and tough he is, finally be successful in getting a fight with renowned heavy weight champ Lion?  Will Ass, who keeps sending vaguely threatening tweets to Lion, finally get a response?  There’s a lot that can happen on Twitter…

Bibliography

1. The Aesop for Children, with illustrations by Milo Winter (1919).

Styles

Interview.  I believe this style will fit wonderfully with either of the talk shows, especially Dr. Phil because there is much more of an interview – a lot of give and take – going on during his show.  Certainly more than there is with Jerry Springer.

Story told in a bar and Outsider POV.  For this style, I was going to tell it from the third person point of view of an audience member during the taping of Jerry Springer.  The story I want to use is The Wolf and the Lean Dog, so this audience member, Jackdaw, is talking about how he was SO SURPRISED when the Lean Dog brought out his friend, Big Dog, and how Big Dog wasted no time in tackling Wolf and beating him up. 

Now since Jackdaw isn’t in this story himself, and is looking in on the plight of the three main characters, he has the outsider’s point of view which lends a new perspective to the overall feel of the story.  Does Jackdaw pity Wolf for not getting his meal?  Does he think Lean Dog is cunning for how he tricks Wolf?  Does he marvel at Big Dog’s strength and loyalty?

Video Note: Edward Kenway, the guy in the white hood, is a character from Assassin's Creed: Black Flag, and if you're curious as to why I chose him as Jackdaw, read this reading diary and this storytelling post.  (I put up this video because I couldn't choose which screencap to use.)

Social Media.  I’ve written fictionalized twitter interactions before and it was a lot of fun – especially trying to stick to the 140 character limit.  So I think it will be a great challenge to see if I can nail down the characterizations of Aesop’s animals within such a limited space.  Which animal would be most likely to post Instagram photos to their account?  Do they use Twitlonger to go on rants about social injustices?  How is their grammar?  How often do they change their avatar and name or do they ever change either?

Reading Dairy B: Aesop's Fables (Winter)

So the fable, The Mischievous Dog, from Aesop's Winter Fables, kinda reminds me of hockey goons. A goon is a type of player who may not necessarily be great at hockey – but is most definitely great at fighting. He is there as a deterrent to opposing players to keep them from messing with star players, usually stars who are very young.

The 2005-06 NHL season, is the Pittsburgh Penguins’ Sidney Crosby’s rookie season. Crosby was known as “The Next One” – a reference to Wayne Gretzky.

Wayne Gretzky, the only player to have his number retired league-wide, and Sidney Crosby, arguably the best player in the game today.

[Sidebar: Gretzky a.k.a. “The Great One” whose 20 year hockey career had been spent setting impossible records. Gretzky is the only player to ever accumulate 200 points in one season. And he did it twice. The only other player who ever came close was Mario Lemieux (Crosby’s future mentor) who, during the 1988-1989 season, finished the season with 199 points (this is the same season in which he became the only player to score five goals in all five ways possible during a single game).]

The ‘05-‘06 and ‘06-‘07 season were difficult for Crosby. He had developed the unfortunate reputation as a whiner – something common to many of the very young players who break into the NHL early. He has since outgrown this, but the cause is simple: Crosby and his fellow superstar rookie, Evgeni Malkin (who had just made a daring escape from the RSL), were often the victims of brutal hits that were mostly ignored by the linesmen (referees).

So, during the summer of 2007, the Penguins acquired Georges Laraque – who, standing at 6’3”, weighing 240 lbs, and with more than 100 fights under his belt, he was given one task: protect the young stars. And he did an excellent job. According to HockeyFights, Laraque was in 13 fights during the ’07-’08 season – winning all but three (one loss and two draws according to voters on the site). Laraque would only stay for one season, not uncommon for goons – often signing only 1-3 year contracts with as many as four, five, or even six different teams.

Georges Laraque isn't an easy guy to knock over. [source]

The thing about goons is this: in order to stay on a team, they have to win fights. This can lead to insecurities and increasingly erratic behavior as seen with Marty McSorley’s slash on Donald Brashear and Steve Downie’s dangerous hit on Sidney Crosby.  The effects of an entire career spent as a goon is shown in the documentary The Last Gladiators.  Many nights spent fighting result can result in concussions and sub-concussions, leading to CTE (or Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy), depression, alcohol and drug abuse, and suicide (2011 alone saw the deaths of three enforcers).

The dog in The Mischievous Dog, is “ill-natured” and had to be restrained by a clog. Goons who go overboard are restrained not by clogs, but through their reputations proceeding them which in turn leads to unfair treatment by game officials.  For example, when Steve Downie was elbowed in the face by Ryan Suter, there was no call on the ice.