Work Text:
1
It was Luca Haas' first day as a real MLH player. Not just as a prospect in training camp, but an actual player. Fair enough, the Centaurs weren't a particularly good team, but he still was on the same roster as Ilya Rozanov.
Maybe he should throw his hair in a messy bun and see if his mother sold him to the team, because he was living the plot of about any self-insert fan-fiction. Not that Luca had ever read Hockey RPF. He would never.
He did not yet have a car in Ottawa, so he had to take an uber to the rink. So far so good, now he only had to try not to embarrass himself all too much. He went into the rink and was glad to see Bryan Young, who he had gotten to know during training camp, also walking towards the entrance.
"Hey, how are you man?" Luca greeted him.
"Good, excited to be here, you?" Young answered, smiling.
"Yeah, same. I don't think I've fully realized that I'm actually here." Luca confessed. It really was like a dream.
"You'll get there. Let's go though, we're gonna be late for training." Young said, already on his way to the labyrinth of corridors that led to the locker room.
Luca decided to just follow him. He probably would've gotten lost on his own, but that was what teammates were for.
There were already quite a lot of guys in the locker room, but he wasn't late, he had made sure of that.
"Hey, Bergy, I found another Swiss guy for you!" Young called across the room, standing next to Luca.
Luca supposed he was talking to Oskar Holmberg, which would make sense because of the nickname. The only problem was that Oskar Holmberg wasn't Swiss, but Swedish. A fact you could probably guess just by hearing his name, and with the knowledge that there were a lot of Swedish guys in the MLH.
"Young, you dumbass, I'm not Swiss. I am Swedish. Still cool that you're here though, Haasy." Holmberg hollered in response, going back to putting on his gear. Young clapped Luca on the back and disappeared towards his own stall.
Luca searched the names above the stalls for his own, trying to figure out where to go.
"You're over there, Haas, right next to Roz." Zane Boodram told him.
Holy Shit. Why was his stall the one next to the Ilya Rozanov's?
"You ok there, Haas?" Bood asked. Fuck. Luca had to act normal—no fangirling allowed. He cleared his throat.
"Yeah, thanks." he smiled and walked over to his stall and started to put on his gear.
2
Oskar Holmberg didn't like giving interviews. The reporters always asked either really complicated questions—taking three detours whilst posing them—or just really dumb questions. He usually preferred the dumb questions because English was annoying and it kept tangling up with Swedish in his head so he had to spend a lot of energy to make sure only English came out of his mouth. The interviews had definitely gotten better over the years, his English too, but media was always exhausting.
It was still early in the season and they had lost (which really wasn't a surprise), but he had scored a goal. So, off to the media he was. Or rather the media to him, as they were in the locker room, basically cornering him against his stall. The questions weren't anything out of the ordinary, so at least he didn't have to think too hard about the answers he gave. Seriously, playing a full game and having to form coherent sentences that would be broadcast to everyone was not for the weak.
"Obviously not the outcome you wanted to see, but maybe could you tell us what led to the final score tonight?"
"I think we played a pretty good game overall, err, we made a few mistakes that they capitalised on and that led to goals. And ehm, obviously we got to stay out of the box, but over all we were in it for the whole game and yeah…"
"And the set up to your goal, what about that?"
"Ehhhh, yeah, I don't know. I just caught it off the boards and shot it to the net and got lucky when it went in."
"Your team had been on a bit of a losing streak recently—", which was putting it very nicely, it was a very long losing streak, "Does that affect team chemistry."
"Well, err, I think we'd all be happier to be winning, but it's a good group so we're all trying to improve for each other."
"Would you say your place in the team has changed with the addition of Luca Haas, as you now have a teammate from your homecountry?"
"Ehm, well, I'm still the only Swedish player on the team. Haasy is from Switzerland. We're both European I guess, but that doesn't have a really big impact on our relationship. He's a cool guy and a really good player. We're lucky to have him on our team."
3
Luca was uncomfortable. The team was out at Monk's after another loss. But then again, they lost most of the time, so it wasn't anything special. He was currently sitting in a booth squished in between the other rookies, hands wrapped around his glass. He should let go of the glass, he thought. His hands were warming up the beer, so he removed them and put them in his lap instead.
The others were talking very loudly about women, especially about their game picking them up. The problem was that Luca was gay, but nobody knew that, so he just had to sit through it and nod along. It was a good group, but Luca knew how fast a good group could turn into a bad one. Because being theoretically okay with gay people and actually sharing a locker room with one were two different pairs of shoes. He was no Scott Hunter, he hadn't even played a full season in the MLH yet, so he would definitely not come out right now. So talking about women—or at least looking interested in the conversation—it was, he supposed.
"Oh, I could totally wingman you," Bryan Young said confidently, "You see her over there? I'm sure she's into the whole tall, blonde, Swedish guy thing you have going on." he continued, not-so-subtly pointing at a group of women over at the bar. Luca didn't even know which girl Young exactly meant, but then again, he was not the one being wingman-ed.
"Haasy, you listening?" Young asked.
"Sure." Luca looked up, "But why do you want my opinion on a girl you want to set up with Bergy?"
"What do you mean Bergy? Bergy has no problem picking up women, I was talking about you." Young answered.
"I'm not Swedish, tough? I'm Swiss? Which is a completely different place?" Luca said, slightly exasperated. He wanted to go home.
"Oh, tom-aye-to, tom-ah-to. You're both European, what flavour does not matter to the chicks, I assure you." Young answered.
"It matters to us, Young. I am not some cow-herding guy sitting on a mountain." Bergy said, grinning.
"At least I don't fuck my cousins." Luca shot back. It was a cheap comeback, he didn't even know if Swedes were said to have sexual relations with their cousins, but it didn't really matter. Somebody probably accused them of it, and if he was the first, so be it.
"Hey, I am no Finn!" Holmberg said with what seemed like somewhat genuine offence.
"Yeah, anyways, after you're done starting another world war, let's get back to operation 'Get Haasy laid'…" Young shrugged.
Luca put his head in his hands and took a deep breath, before saying: "Young, honestly, neither Sweden nor Switzerland actively participated in any world war. Please learn some basic history and geography. I cannot do this anymore."
Maybe he should drink more so that he didn't have to remember this tomorrow.
4
They usually rotated on being in charge of the music in the locker room for practices.
Before games Wyatt Hayes was on DJ-duty as he was able to procure playlists that would get people in the right mood and was at acceptable to everyone. He even took suggestions so the playlist sometimes resembled a crockpot of all of the players cultures. It was a good compromise.
The current problem was that Remi LaPointe was ill. Not badly, he had the flu, but the practice was optional, so he opted to stay at home and get better for the next game. Well, it wasn't a problem, they just moved on in their rotation. You snooze, you lose; or whatever the saying was.
When Holmberg went to connect his phone to the speaker system, Dykstra groaned loudly.
"Please, can we let anyone else on the aux today? I really can't deal with shitty Swiss yodelling today."
Holmberg turned around. "When have I ever played Swiss yodelling? Why would I?"
"Because you're from Switzerland and like to torture us." Dykstra said with a lot of confidence for someone so wrong.
"D, man, I am not Swiss. I am from Sweden, which is a completely different country. There is no yodelling in Sweden, we don't even speak German. I think I have only ever played Swedish rap, but for you, I will put on ABBA."
"What the fuck does ABBA have to do with this?" Dykstra asked with a very confused face.
"ABBA is from Sweden, Dykstra, very famously so." Oskar really couldn't deal with this.
"I thought ABBA was Greek?" Young said next to him.
Oskar groaned.
"No, Young, the movie Mamma Mia takes place in Greece. The music for the movie was made by ABBA, which is a Swedish Band."
He really couldn't do this anymore. Why were so many uncultured people on his team?
5
Press was the worst, especially after a game. Luca just wanted to go home, not answer stupid questions asked by stupid people.
Yes, he was satisfied with his performance tonight. He had shot a goal and had an assist. (He actually wasn't happy about all the things he missed, but he did not tell the press that.)
Yes, they had some stuff to work on, and they were going to. (Which team didn't? Everyone had room to improve in some way or another.)
Yes, playing on a team with Ilya Rozanov was really special and a great opportunity to learn from the best. (At least one he could answer truthfully.)
Luca always felt like he was running out of things to say, there really wasn't much to say about the game. There were only so many ways to say 'We played like shit tonight, but we're working on it.' or 'That was actually a good game tonight, and we did most things right, but we're working on it.' without sounding like a broken record. If Luca had wanted to answer media all day he would have become a politician, not a hockey player.
Their loss today had not been devastating, so the questions were the usual ones and he answered them with his usual responses. He just wanted this all to be over.
"How does it feel, having a Swiss teammate? It must be nice to have someone from home here with you." one of the reporters asked.
You could probably see the gears grinding against each other in Luca's head. His face probably resembled a blue loading screen.
He had no Swiss teammate.
Had he forgotten one of his teammates?
Could he have been talking in Swiss German to someone this whole time?
No, none of the guys were from Switzerland, most of them were Canadian. But there was…
"Äähhhh, do you mean Chiron? I mean, I don't know if I'd count him as a teammate, but sure. Chiron is a great dog, great for team morale, you know?" Luca didn't really know what else to say. He had never been asked about Chiron before, so there was no stock answer he could really fall back on. Maybe he should also prepare an answer for possible questions about Chuck. He had once thought that maybe the questions would get more interesting over the season when they actually started winning, but apparently today's game had been so boring that they began asking him about their team dog.
Thankfully, someone on their pr-team decided in that moment that media time was over. Thank God.
-
ESPN ✅ @ESPN
Watch all post game Media of the Ottawa Centaurs vs. the Vancouver Canucks (3:2) here
Ellie @censcenscens
not luca haas buffering for a solid 30 seconds
Milan @plsloveme > @censcenscens
bro went through the entire roster to figure out where they had hidden another swiss guy
Luca Haas hmu @babygirl.lucahaas
@OttawaCentaurs please acquire another swiss player, luca haas is lonely
Pauli @sp3zi > @babygirl.lucahaas
it should be considered a crime to only have one
#1 Roz stan @rozontop > @babygirl.lucahaas
he was so desperate for one his mind went to the TEAM DOG
Ottawa Centaurs ✅ @OttawaCentaurs
Our favourite Swiss teammates
[photo of Luca Haas, with Chiron in his arms. He resembles a toddler being forced to take a picture]
[photo of Luca, crouching before Chiron and giving him scratches. Luca looks considerably happier in this picture, paying only attention to the puppy in front of him.]
+1
Bergy
if someone asks me about sweden one more time i'm going to lose it
yeah
we need to do something
i'm tired of being mistaken as swiss
it's basic geography
it's not that hard
we should do a presentation
powerpoint and all
when is the last time you even opened powerpoint?
shhhh
i'm willing to do it for this
not that i think it's a bad idea
but when would we even do it?
it's not like we have an allotted time slot for ✨general knowledge everyone should already have✨
gotta ask roz ig
he has power like that
maybe we could have the video room
and he'd probably have at least some empathy
being russian and all
you want to ask him?
noo, haasy, you have to
he's not gonna say yes to me
but he will to you
you're his favourite after all
fuck off
i'm not
no <3
you are
ugh
fine
Ilya Rozanov
heyyy cap
hello little luca
what is matter?
please don't call me that
i have a question
so, you know how people have been mixing up switzerland and sweden when talking to Bergy and me?
yes, is very dumb of them
this is your question?
no
Bergy and i want to give the team a presentation about basic european geography
so we wanted to ask you if we could maybe have the video room for that
🥺
sure sure
i will make sure everyone is there
will be funny
just tell me when presentation is ready
thank you
So a presentation is what they made and presented they did.
Bergy
cap said yes
you want to come over?
gotta get this done asap
i'll be there in 20
—
Ilya Rozanov
our presentation is done
idk when a good time is for everyone
tuesday after practice work for you?
it's a yes from me
bergy says yes too
great, i will tell team
Cens
Ilya Rozanov:
listen up fuckers
you all have to stay late after practice tuesday
Zane Boodram:
Why?
Ilya Rozanov:
because you the european children want to educate you
Nick Chouinard:
Who?
Bergy:
He means Luca and me
Even though I am no child
It's because you guy's keep confusing Switzerland and Sweden
And I'm not a child either
Wyatt Hayes
Debatable, but I'll be there.
All of you better be there
We put a lot of effort into this
Ilya Rozanov
it is in media room
Bag skates for everyone who doesn't attend
-
Luca and Bergy had hurried after practice to be the first in the video room. Luca had brought his laptop to connect to the big screen. He really felt like he was back in school.
Making a powerpoint had never been his strong suit, but downloading a random theme from a website and filling it in was absolutely in his power.
They had decided to go the overtly patronizing route, because anything else was boring, and at the end of the day, most hockey players weren't known to be academic prodigies. They had also decided to make a kahoot to test their teammates later, and it was just fun to see everyone get competitive over nothing.
Everything was set up and ready to go and some of the team had started to trickle in when Harris appeared in the doorframe.
"Hey there, would you mind if I film this for our social media? It would make for really good content, I promise you won't even notice me." he said with a smile on his face.
Luca didn't quite know how Harris knew what they were doing but he suspected that it might have something to do with Harris' budding friendship with one Troy Barrett. Luca made a non-committal noise and looked at Bergy for the final decision.
"Sure, why not." Bergy decided. It wasn't really surprising, he had always been more of a social butterfly than Luca.
"That's great, thanks guys. I'll just be in that corner over there." Harris walked over and started to set up a tripod. He really was prepared, so it was probably Troy that told him what was going to happen.
More of the team came into the room and finally, there was Roz, ushering in Wyatt Hayes and Bryan Young. Thankfully, everyone took a seat and settled down fairly easy, only leaving a low rumble of whispering in the room.
Luca took a deep breath, public speaking made him nervous, but who wasn't a bit anxious at all times, he supposed.
"Please, guys, settle down. Bergy and I want to talk to you about Switzerland and Sweden, because they've been confused too much by—well—way too many people. And yes, it is that serious. I am Luca Haas—" he started and promptly got interrupted.
"We know your name, kid." Dykstra called out.
"Yes, I would hope so. My name should be your first clue why I am not Swedish. Luca Haas is a very Swiss name, there's nothing Swedish about it." he had to stop himself to not go on to a full on rant.
"Oskar Holmberg is a pretty Swedish name though, or at least distinctly not Swiss. It's quite obvious, I fear. Guessing heritage based on peoples name is not a foolproof method, but it works in our cases." Oskar added. He pressed a button on the little presenters remote they had found lying around and immediately decided to use, changing to their next slide.
It was a map of Europe that they got from Wikipedia and they had put two arrows on it to show Sweden and Switzerland. It was no artistic masterpiece, but it got the job done. He should probably donate to Wikipedia now that he had money.
"This is Sweden, our international abbreviations are either SWE or SE, depending on the event. Sweden is in Scandinavia, in the north of Europe between Norway and Finland. The official language is Swedish, which is my first language. This, is the Swedish flag." Oskar said, pointing to Sweden and then to the Swedish flag they put next to the map.
Now it was Luca's turn to play elementary school teacher.
"This is Switzerland, it is in central Europe neighbouring France, Italy, Liechtenstein, Austria and Germany. Our official languages are German, French, Italian and Rumantsch. My first language is German, more specifically Swiss-German, but I learned French in school. Our international abbreviations are either SUI or CH, also depending on the event, but SUI is usually used in sporting events."
"As you can see, Switzerland and Sweden do not share a border and we do not speak the same language. There should not be any reason to confuse the two." Oskar concluded. It really was that easy.
"Now let's move on to some common stereotypes; if you want to accuse us of any, please at least use the right ones. Chocolate, cheese and watches are all Swiss things. I am told that Sweden has good chocolate as well, but I don't believe that—" Luca started on the next slide.
"Hey, Marabou is the best." Oskar interrupted him.
"Hard no. Anyways. Switzerland takes cheese very seriously, we eat a lot of it. Sweden doesn't take cheese seriously, they put it in tubes, which is an abomination in of itself -"
"Oh, shut it, your country is not exactly known for it's variety in food, it's mostly just potatoes and cheese. Sweden has great food, we eat loads of fish, meatballs with mashed potatoes and lingonberry jam and also cinnamon rolls. Basically, if you can find the food in IKEA it's Swedish because—surprise, surprise—the store that is branded in blue and yellow is in fact Swedish."
"Yes, at least one good thing that came out of Sweden. Let's move on. Switzerland has a lot of cows, I mean, we have to get the dairy from somewhere. Sweden doesn't have a lot of cows, but they do have moose."
"We also have bears and just a lot of wild animals in general. Sweden has space for that." Oskar said with a grin. Luca knew that the wildlife was one of Bergy's favourite things about his homeland.
"Switzerland really doesn't. It has about the same population as Sweden but about 10 times less area, so it's comparatively crowded. We have the alps where you can go alpine skiing, which is a discipline we do pretty well in, all things considered."
"We have mountains too, but cross country skiing is definitely more popular in Sweden. Politically, Sweden once was neutral but is now part of the European Union. Sweden has not participated in a world war, please keep that in mind."
"Switzerland hasn't either and we are still neutral to this day. Famously so, I might add." there was a lot more to say on both political systems and forms of government, but they decided on the most important things.
"Other typical Swedish things are ABBA, vikings and blond people. Yes, Haasy is blond. No that does not make him Swedish. Not every blond and European person is from Sweden. Look at Roz for example. None of you would accuse him of being Swedish, right?"
A rumble of agreement went through the team.
"Now we will play a kahoot to see if all of you payed attention. I believe we have prizes to give out?" Luca said. He had put the task of organizing them on to Oskar, so he really hoped that they actually had prizes.
"Yes, we do. First place gets this bag of gifflar and a 20 dollar gift card from IKEA. Second and third get a bag of daim each. I hope all of you have your phones with you."
The thought of a bunch of hockey players trying to win a 20 dollar gift card and some sweets, something they could all easily afford, was kind of hilarious but also exactly the kind of competition the team could get in to.
Luca pulled up the kahoot sign-in page, putting the volume to a maximum. Playing kahoot without the music felt sacrilegious.
"What the fuck even is kahoot?" Chouinard asked.
"It's a website to hold quizzes in real time, just go to the side and put in the code. You'll get the hang of it, old man." Luca answered. They had not anticipated this generational gap.
They slowly watched as more and more people entered the game. The nicknames ranged anywhere from peoples actual name (Troy Barrett) to their on ice nicknames (Bood) to the more common kahoot shenanigans (there were four people named different versions of Rozanov).
Luca decided that maybe he should explain the concept of kahoot, just to make it fair to everyone.
"So, basically once we start playing there will be a five second preview of the question on the screen and then there will be buttons with the answers written on them. On your screen there will only be the buttons and you have to press the right one to get points. Answering faster will get you more points. We put up some names and things and you have to say if they are more Swiss or Swedish, nothing too hard."
When everyone had finally managed to get in to the kahoot, Oskar clicked the start button.
The names and things they had put up were quite basic, so it was more of a competition to see who was better at kahoot. Actually having played kahoot before, the younger guys were higher up on the leader board and Remi LaPointe won the kahoot, followed by Young and surprisingly, Hazy.
-
Ottawa Centaurs ✅ @OttawaCentaurs
Education is important, so today we're talking geography with our favourite Europeans. Check it out here.
Ellie @censcenscens > @OttawaCentaurs
this is the kind of content we want to see, keep it up censmin
Ilya Rozanov ✅ @IlyaRozanov81 > @OttawaCentaurs
you say favourite Europeans and i am not even there, this feels very anti eastern european
#1 Roz stan @rozontop > @IlyaRozanov81
go kylie go
Ottawa Centaurs ✅ @OttawaCentaurs
We'd like to clarify that we love all of our players equally, no matter what country they're from.
Milan @plsloveme
how many times have they fucked up that luca haas, uncomfortable in any media piece ever, agreed to hold a presentation
Gracie @amazinggrace > @plsloveme
they just seem so done with everything
Puck (Centaurs version) @hockeynerd22
they've just shown more personality in one video than some hockey players in their whole career
Michael @MHap1976
They should focus on hockey and score goals not waste their time on dumb presentations
Luca Haas hmu @babygirl.lucahaas > @MHap1976
let them have whimsy, Michael
Puck (Centaurs version) @hockeynerd22 > @MHap1976
they've been on an upswing recently, suggesting they should do more presentations