“Sidney comes highly recommended,” Zhenya hears at the edge of his consciousness.

Zhenya rode the Pens charter plane with the rest of the media crew: Michelle and Sam and the ROOT team. He went to bed too late and woke up way too fucking early. “Good thing you’re behind the camera instead of in front of it,” Michelle said one morning. She had a donut from the continental breakfast. Zhenya had two. “You look like me, too, if you don’t have all that makeup,” Zhenya told her crankily.

The only place he doesn’t feel alone is the moment after a goal at home. The rest of the time, all Zhenya can seem to feel is the ways he’s disconnected from everything else, English a yammering cadence he fishes scraps of meaning from like an exhausted prospector. I’m smart in Russian, he wants to tell them. I’m funny, in Russian. I’m all kinds of things.

When he takes the checker job, Zhenya doesn’t do much thinking about where the Giant Eagle he works at is located. What really drives it home is looking up from the quinoa, brussels sprouts, salmon, and box of Captain Crunch cereal on his belt late one night straight into the eyes of Sidney Fucking Crosby. For malkinmecrazy. Inspired by all the random fan photos of Sid in grocery stores.

It had started at a promotional event for the Pens at a sporting goods store. A little boy with bright eyes had handed his new skates over to be autographed and said, very politely, “Will you please sign it? It’ll be super lucky if you do, and I can skate really fast and score a bunch of goals like you.”

Forbes family reunions are an Event, capitalised and all. Sidney’s dying, and it’s mostly because his great aunt Patricia won’t stop asking when he’s going to bring a nice girl to meet them, while everyone within earshot sniggers into their drinks. She’s somehow the only one who doesn’t know Sidney’s bisexual, and that it could very well be a not-so-nice boy he brings home one day. So he’s looking around frantically for an excuse to A) assert his sexuality to his slightly homophobic great aunt and B) escape, when he spots it in the form of a tall, dark and handsome stranger walking into the backyard with his second cousin Keith.

Zhenya nudges Gonch with his elbow. "Who is that?" he says in urgent Russian, jabbing his glove at the now retreating zamboni. "Who?" Gonch follows the line of Zhenya's gaze, blinks when it lands on the zamboni. "What, the driver? Him?" Zhenya nods vigorously, his eyes fixed on the zamboni. Gonch stares at him for a few seconds before answering with hesitation, "That's...Sidney."

The first time Geno sees Sidney Crosby he’s crying into Tanger’s shoulder as Sid learns how to walk again on the big screen.

It’s 10 pm, and Sid is ready to scream.

“Hello.” Zhenya looks up, and there’s a small boy on the other side of the counter. He smiles so wide that Zhenya can easily tell that he’s missing one of his two front teeth—kind of like Sasha but more adorable—and he’s got dimples in his round cheeks. In which Geno is a chocolatier and Sid really loves the truffles his son keeps buying for him.

Lots of people watch Geno. Like most people, really, at least let their eyes linger for a few seconds. For starters, he’s six foot three with a penchant for thick-soled combat boots and carefully sculpted hair arrangements that together can easily add 5 inches to his overall height. Then there’s the eyebrow ring, the purple streak through his dark hair, the smudged eyeliner, and typically, the tightest pants Geno can pour his fabulous if-he-does-say-so-himself ass into. All of those would be enough, any given day, to make people stop and stare. But today he’s also the guy most of North America watched in Prime Time last night, kicking ass and taking names as he as he swiped the Men’s Singles Gold from the clutches of that whiny fucking sore loser, Plushenko. So. Yeah, lots of people are watching him, but Sidney Crosby is not lots of people. He’s Sidney fucking Crosby.

Sid is almost 18 when he moves to Pittsburgh for a job--and the gay scene.

All Leon wanted were some easy recipes, and instead he got this guy, this – Matthew Tkachuk, alias tkachukycheese, YouTube channel owner by bi-weekly afternoon and dietician who works a lot with school classes by normal profession. Matthew holds up a potato peel broken in two pieces. “And just remember, if it doesn’t work out perfectly, that’s fine. It’s all about practice and trying and enjoying the process. Perfection isn’t a prerequisite for being liked. Just look at the Oilers."

Auston’s ex-girlfriend didn’t need to warn him off. He’s never met a girl who was so obviously, so completely, so spectacularly out of his league as Mitch Marner.

Auston would never have thought of going to the ballet on his own.

Tyler Seguin is a very good wedding planner. Which is why he’s not freaking out that Jamie Benn of the Dallas fucking Stars is sitting in his office.