Work Text:
Bood has added you to a group.
Bood has added 20+ people to the group.
Bood changed the group’s name to Hollzy Support Squad.
Bood: Alright boys, listen up
Bood: We play Montreal in 2 weeks
Dillon: Wow, I had no idea. Thank you for enlightening me about our schedule
Bood: Shut the fuck up, Dillon, I’m going somewhere with this
Bood: Anyways. We all know it can be weird playing your old team, but sometimes it’s rougher than others
Bood: Like, look at when Barrett had to play Toronto again
Barrett: Why am I catching strays here?
Bood: I think we all know it’s going to be tough on Hollzy to go back to Montreal, so I thought we could brainstorm something nice to do for him before then
Haas: If we want to do something nice for Hollander, why is Cap not in this group?
Bood: Have you ever been in a 50 meter radius when Hollzy turns on his puppy dog eyes? It’s lethal. Cap couldn’t keep a secret from him if he tried
Haas: Oh. I see
Haas: Everyone likes desserts, right? I could dig out my grandmother’s recipes
Hayes: I played with a guy in college who taught me how to make a killer pie
Chou: We could do some of those boring hockey documentaries he likes for the next couple movie nights
Dykstra: Not to sound like a typical d-man who only wants to fight people, but we might have to go on the offense with this instead of the defense
Haas: Is my English not as good as I think it is or did that not make sense to anybody else?
Dykstra: Like, instead of going on the defense (cheering Hollzy up before the Montreal game), we might need to take a more offensive approach (going after the source of the problem)
Bood: Explain
Dykstra: So you didn’t hear this from me
Hayes: Incredible start to any lore drop
Dykstra: But apparently Montreal was really shitty to Hollzy when everything came out about him and Cap
Bood: Hollzy doesn’t talk about them a lot but he never said anything about them being homophobic
Dykstra: I don’t think he told us how bad it really was
Dykstra: Apparently they were “fine” with him being gay but they really started icing him out when they found out he was being gay with Cap. There was some nasty shit said about Hollzy “choosing him of all people” and worse
Haas: I know Cap has a reputation as an asshole but that’s not right - he’s a good guy
Barrett: He’s an asshole, but he’s our asshole
Dykstra: And remember when Hollzy fell when we played them last year? Apparently they all thought he tripped on purpose to let us win
Bood: Are you fucking kidding me?
Dillon: As if none of them have ever gone turtle mode during a game before
Barrett: They thought Shane Hollander, the guy who won’t even let Roz win in one of the social media challenges we have to do, threw a playoff game for him?
Hayes: How do you know all this?
Dykstra: We had one of Cait’s old sorority sisters from college over for dinner the other day. She’s a Montreal WAG and was bitching about how much of a piece of shit her (soon to be ex) husband is and this all came out
Dykstra: I’m sure there’s worse stuff she doesn’t know about too
Bood: Okay, so offensive approach it is
Bood changed the group’s name to Hollzy and Roz Defense Squad.
Chou: Is that official permission from my alternate captain to bust some Voyageurs’ faces in?
Bood: Maybe take the word “official” out
Barrett: If we’re talking (hypothetically, of course) about fighting Montreal, shouldn’t we add Roz to the group?
Haas: I heard him and Hollzy talking a few days ago and Hollzy basically told him that under no circumstances was Cap allowed to fight a bunch of Voyageurs for his honor
Dillon: [walk him like a dog, sis.gif]
Bood: Good thing those instructions were to Roz and not to the rest of us
Hayes: Please don’t all end up in the sin bin at once so I’m the only one out on the ice
Hayes: I’m good at my job but not that good
Barrett: Then we just have to take a page out of Roz’s book and get them to swing first
Chou: I can hit a “your mother” or “your sister” chirp like anybody else, but that won’t be enough to provoke them
Bood: Same. I’m good at hockey, not aggressively creative insults
Hayes: I have an idea
_____
It sounded incredibly unromantic, but the best Valentine’s Day gift Wyatt had ever given was a giant whiteboard. In his defense, Lisa had explicitly asked for it during her first year of medical school. Over the years, she had burned through pack after pack of multicolored whiteboard markers, spending hours a day writing out incomprehensible gibberish - at least that’s what it seemed like to Wyatt.
These days, the board was mostly used for leaving notes to each other when Lisa was on night shift or mapping out their theories about the ending of whatever show they were watching.
Wyatt rolled the whiteboard out before the group of Centaurs assembled in his living room. “Welcome, gentlemen, to the first strategic planning meeting for Operation Fuck Montreal Up.” He wrote the title across the top of the board as he spoke.
“You weren’t kidding about having a big whiteboard to use,” Troy said.
“My wife has a big beautiful brain, she needed a big beautiful board to match.”
“Are we just brainstorming chirps?” Luca asked. “Because I thought we established in the groupchat that none of us have Cap’s creativity for that kind of thing.”
“Excellent point,” Wyatt said, pointing his dry erase marker at Luca. He was starting to understand why teachers liked standing in front of white boards so much. This was a thrill. “Which is why we’re not coming up with the chirps.
“Some of you might know,” he continued, “that I watch a lot of ‘nerdy’ shows.”
Zane raised an eyebrow. “We might know that about you?”
Wyatt grinned at him. “But what you might not know is that I also watch a lot of reality tv. It’s not my favorite thing in the world, but after a long shift, Lisa likes to relax by, and I quote, ‘watching horrible women be horrible to each other.’ And for those of you who are unfamiliar, let me tell you, no one gets someone else to swing first like some of these aforementioned horrible women.”
“Yeah, dude, they’re fucking brutal,” Dykstra agreed. “Cait loves that shit.”
Wyatt flipped the board around. Oh, yeah, he’d gone all out and gotten a double sided whiteboard for Lisa. Only the best for his brilliant girl. Where the front had Operation Fuck Montreal Up written at the top, this side of the board read Operation Real Housewives. Montreal’s roster was written out with small pictures next to each name.
“Woah.”
“Woah indeed.”
“For those unaware, the most horrible of horrible reality tv women are the Real Housewives. Starting with The Real Housewives of Orange County, the show gained popularity and spun off seasons across the United States. Each location had its own stars and quirks but one thing was the same: these women are vicious.”
Wyatt had - unsurprisingly to anyone who knew him - played a lot of Dungeons and Dragons in high school. He was giving this background in the same voice he’d used as a DM to introduce a new setting and storyline. Seeing his teammates watching with rapt eyes, he was having a blast and he hadn’t even gotten to the plan yet. He made a mental note to ask the social media team if they could do a Centaurs powerpoint night video.
“Here’s the plan. We’ll divide and conquer watching different Real Housewives seasons. When you hear an insult so foul that it’ll leave the recipient with no choice but to hit you, send it in the chat and I’ll add it to the board. If you think it should target a specific player, it’ll go under their name.” Wyatt gestured to the space underneath each Voyageur’s name on the board. “If you think it could apply to anyone, it’ll go on the back.
“You don’t have to memorize every chirp on the board, but this will give us some lines to pull out to goad Montreal into the penalty box.”
“And then we let Hollzy light up the goal on the power play.” For all that they’d butted heads in Toronto, Troy saw Wyatt’s vision now.
Wyatt snapped and pointed at him. “Bingo.”
“Cassie is going to be so happy that I’m watching Real Housewives with her,” Zane said.
“Something about this show is catnip to smart and reasonable women. I think watching the housewives be absolutely feral is an outlet of some kind for the rage they restrain throughout the work day,” Wyatt theorized.
“This is great. Harris’s sisters are always quoting some lady named Lisa Rinna and I’ll finally understand what they’re talking about. And we get to fuck up Montreal and make it their fault.”
Zane put his hand in toward the group. “Fuck Montreal for hurting our captain and teammate on three?”
The rest of the players put their hands on his.
“One, two, three…”
“FUCK MONTREAL FOR HURTING OUR CAPTAIN AND TEAMMATE!”
So what if it didn’t roll perfectly off the tongue? After some research and further strategizing, the Centaurs’ chirps would.
_____
Selected text messages from Hollzy and Roz Defense Squad in the weeks leading up to the Montreal game.
Barrett: For the general targets board: I'm sorry if I said you were dumb, maybe I meant you're stupid, I don't know
Bood: Are any of the Voyageurs really into cars?
Dykstra: Comeau is, I think?
Bood: Wyatt, can you put “you look like you keep your fucking Range Rover under a fucking carport” under Comeau?
Hayes: You got it!
Dillon: “Do you know what I’ve heard about you? Not a fucking thing” could go hard as a chirp about what their first line has accomplished without Hollander
Hayes: I’m not advocating for crimes against goalies, but one of you telling Drapeau to “close his legs (and his goal) to married men” would be hilarious
Haas: Which player was Cait’s friend divorcing? It’s simple but “I understand the divorce” could hit hard for him
Dykstra: It was Wilson and that would definitely work on him
Chou: I know we’re not supposed to be targeting Pike or Boiziau because Hollzy is still friends with them, but I just heard “you’re a slut from the 90s” and want to use it on Pike so bad
_____
A good hockey player responded to the play happening in front of him. A great hockey player could see the play coming before it happened. Countless awards and accolades would suggest that Shane was a great hockey player. He could see that something was happening here.
Shane suspected there were some clues he’d missed before the game because he’d been so in his head about facing his old teammates. The love you, man and you’re still my brother, even in an Ottawa sweater texts from Hayden and J.J. had helped, but only so much.
Two periods in and he’d started to settle into his rhythm. Being up 5-1 would have helped him settle more if it weren’t for how they got there. Four of their five goals had come from power plays.
This was the biggest piece of evidence Shane had so far. Montreal weren’t fighters. Sure the occasional fight still broke out. His own fight with Scott Hunter - which they joked about now but was no laughing matter at the time - came to mind. Overall, though, the Voyageurs were known more for their aggressive offense than the aggression of their players. And yet, all of their penalties had come from dropping gloves.
Opposites - as they say - attract, because while Shane was content to stew on this mystery, Ilya broke the silence as soon as the team reached the locker room.
“Who wants to tell me what the fuck is going on.”
“What’s going on is that we’re up by four against Montreal and hopefully going to be up by five soon,” said Luca.
This prompted a chorus of whoops, cheers, and “I know that’s right”s.
Ilya’s smile appeared for a fleeting moment, but he pursed his lips, embodying a disappointed school librarian when the class was being too loud. “Yes, that’s all well and good, but not what I meant.”
The team’s eyes flickered around the locker room.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Roz,” Troy said, sounding like a man who knew exactly what Ilya was talking about.
“You don’t know a lot of things, Barrett. You didn’t know you were in love with Harris until I pointed it out to you.”
“Seriously, why do I keep catching strays,” Troy muttered under his breath.
“If you don’t know what I’m talking about,” Ilya continued, “then no one knows why Weibe just told me ‘I don’t know what you’re doing, and for plausible deniability, I don’t want to know, but it’s working, so keep it up’?”
More eyes darting around the locker room.
“We, uh, thought you might want some plausible deniability on this one too,” Zane admitted.
Ilya looked - in order of importance - hot, unimpressed, and curious. Shane always thought Ilya looked hot, so that was somewhat of a moot point, but it was worth mentioning.
“I can't tell if any of you are acting strange because you're up to something or because this team is full of weirdos.”
“Aha!” Wyatt exclaimed. “So you guys do listen to my video game recommendations.”
“Yes, yes, I am the traumatized vampire, the traumatized vampire is me.” Ilya crossed his arms. “So what are you up to?”
“We were trying to think of something nice to do for you and Hollzy because a lot of the Montreal guys were shitty to both of you and, long story short, we settled on goading them into fights so you two could get a bunch of power play goals.” Zane lifted his chin, as if daring Ilya to have a problem with it.
“Not that we didn’t think you guys were good enough to score against their full team,” Barrett clarified, “but why not make it easier for you to run the scoreboard up?”
Shane wanted to scream that he didn’t need special treatment because he was facing his old team. Lots of guys faced old teammates every day and it was no big deal. Shane wanted to cry that his new team not just accepted him and Ilya, but he would go so far as to say they loved them enough to want to defend them from Montreal. Shane wanted to laugh that the Centaurs’ idea of defending them was drawing penalties so they could do what they did best and score. Shane wanted to thank Ilya yet again for convincing him to take the pay cut and get traded to Ottawa.
He looked over to Ilya who had given up any pretense of being a strict captain and was now openly grinning. “Is this why I heard Haasy tell Stedlund that he ‘looks like a trampoline with eyes’? I’m so proud of you, how did you come up with a chirp like that?”
Luca blushed at the praise. “It was Wyatt’s idea.”
“You coached my rookie on chirps to defend my honor from Montreal?” Ilya wiped a fake tear from his eye.
“Something like that,” Wyatt said.
Now that the truth was coming out, Shane realized more clues he had missed that something was happening. In hindsight, the Centaurs had spent a lot of time in the locker room looking at their phones before the game. Not that he had a lot of room to judge. Shane had spent years on his phone before games texting - sexting if he was being honest with himself - Ilya.
“Is this why you all were on your phones so much before the game? Were you all coming up with chirps?”
“I thought I told you all to be subtle about studying before the game,” Zane sighed.
“You all were what? Studying game tape but for chirping?” Ilya asked. “What were you watching to prepare? My best miced up videos?”
“Not exactly,” Wyatt said unlocking his phone and handing it to Shane. He had pulled up a picture of a whiteboard with so much writing on it that Shane had to zoom in to read any of it.
Ilya looked at the phone over Shane’s shoulder. “What am I looking at here?”
“Have you ever heard of the Real Housewives?”
_____
A few hundred feet away in the visitor’s locker room, Coach Theriault was chewing out the Voyageurs for getting in reckless fights and landing in the penalty box so many times.
Hayden’s head jolted up like a bloodhound that had caught a scent. “Do you hear that?”
“Hear what?” J.J. whispered.
“Rozanov is laughing. Something good is happening to him and it’s bad news for us, I can feel it.”
“Man, we’ve talked about this. I know we didn’t like him for Shane at first, but you’ve got to let it go.”
Hayden knew J.J. was right, but he had a bad feeling that this game - which, make no mistake, was already going badly - was about to get worse.