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They don't know it at the time, but a meet up between the 4 Baby Sharks, as they are colloquially known online, in the Toffoli's living room, begins something that would end up rocking the hockey world.
The Baby Sharks were visiting Misa, and had taken over the Toffoli's living room to play video games, taking a well deserved break between the long road trip they had just finished, and the homestand that was about to begin. Knowing that Toff had recently had is media wall completely redone, with up to date consoles and games all set up and ready, the young Sharks players decided to take advantage and take over the room.
"So, where are Toff and Cat?" Will Smith asked, realising he hadn't seen either of them at all since Misa had let them into the house a couple of hours ago.
"Toff, I've got no clue," Misa starts, "but Cat is in her office filming. They're interviewing some hockey author, I think, she mentioned something about books when I saw her this morning."
"A hockey author?" Macklin Celebrini questions before continuing, "like a biography? Has she got Dave King on or something? Holy shit, I love his book, my dad used to read me King of Russia to go to sleep."
"What? Why on earth would someone read a kid King of Russia...?" Misa looks tired already, "ya know what, I'm gonna ignore that. That sounds exactly like something that would happen in your childhood."
"What's that supposed to mean?"
Misa ignores him, continuing to speak as if Mack hadn't said a word, "No, its one of those hockey romance authors."
"Hockey romance?" Sam Dickinson looks up from where he had been messing with his phone, perched on the back of the couch, "like those trashy ones with the bad hockey and cheesy puns?"
"Why'd you know so much about 'em, ay Dickie," Mack pokes at Sam, "you got something you wanna tell us?"
"No! No! Just, my mom has read a few for her book club."
Misa cuts in before the conversation can spiral, "Sure...But anyway, no, apparently the hockey's pretty decent in these ones. I think Cat said the writer is married to a former NHLer and she used to play as well, so that's gotta give you points or something, I don't know."
"You know a lot for a guy who's meant to be disinterested." Smitty chirps up from where he has been sat listening to this conversation go down.
"Someone might think you want to read some yourself."
"Nah! No way! I just listened to Cat talk about it, it was polite to listen!"
"I don't believe you."
"Seriously, it was just politeness."
The back and forth went on for a while, the two getting deeper and deeper into it while the other two found it more and more hilarious, soon having to stifle giggles in their arms to stop drawing attention to themselves.
It was only when both had run out of steam that Mack spoke up.
"Ya know, I think it'd be pretty funny. We could get a laugh about all the stupid things they get wrong."
The other three look at him in shock, no one expecting that to come out of his mouth.
It was frankly, an insane suggestion.
Four hockey guys, in the NHL, sitting down and reading a fluffy romance book set in their place of work?
Unlikely.
"Unless y'all're too much of a bunch of pussies to do it?"
The challenge was set, the glove thrown down.
"Bring it on!" "Pussy my ass." "Oh don't count us out just yet."
And so the trap is sprung. Not that they know they are in a trap.
"Ok, what book should we read? There's loads of options and I don't think I can be bothered searching through all of them to find a good one."
"Well, what about that one people were talking about, the one that was coming out as a TV show? What's it called? Heated something?"
"Heated Rivalry? Yeah, sure, we can do that one. I think my sister left a copy of it at my flat when she came to visit, so guess I don't need to go out and buy one."
"Cheapskate."
"Ok, ok, lets not get too into it. Yeah, Heated Rivalry sounds good. So here's the plan, we find a copy each, we read it and then we get together and talk about it. We'll make a list of inaccuracies and laugh at the stupid things it got wrong. Sound like a plan?"
"Yep." "Good with me." "Perfect."
"Alright, that's sorted them, lets meet again to talk about it in a couple months."
"Have you...uh...started it?"
"...Yeah. Last night..."
"And you scored a hat trick?"
"Yeah."
"Fuckkkkk..."
"...You started it?"
"Yep. A couple weeks back."
"And you got multiple game stars in a row..."
"Yep."
"Shitttttt..."
No matter the awkwardness or embarrassment the surprisingly smutty book gave the young Sharks, hockey superstitions are hockey superstitions. The books would continue to be read.
Two months later, the four of them sit around in Mack and Will's living room, staring down at their books, each one battered to hell and back from roadtrips and heavy handedness.
Every single one of them finished it.
"So...there's a sequel?"
Flying high in the skies above the central US, a gaggle of young up and coming players on the San Jose Sharks sit gathered together around one of the tables on the jet, each of them gripping a book tight in their hands as they read, the covers obscured by the way they are sat or wrapped in brown paper. Ever so often one will gasp or cry out, but will smother their reaction before someone outside of their circle will react, or bring it up, whichever comes first.
Being on a plane with their hockey team while reading about a plane crash involving a hockey team wasn't exactly well thought out, but the powerful emotional undertone mostly made up for it, and the four of them ended up sat there sniffling, quiet tears running down their faces, the crying all hockey players perfect from a young age.
Both books end up finding their homes amongst each respective members' gear. In kit bags for roadtrips and in locker cubbies for when at home, the books end up becoming part of the furniture for the 4 players involved in the book club. A totem of good luck packed up together with all of their gear. And it seems to be working as the Sharks are on fire, working to claim a spot in the post-season for the first time in years.
It isn't until they end up exiting the playoffs in the second round that their good luck charms are discovered. Players are in the locker room for the locker clear out and exit interviews. Most of the interviews were done for the day, and so the Sharks were spending time together before they all went their separate ways in the off-season. The current game they were playing included going through the stuff players had collected in their lockers over the duration of the season.
"Ha! Do you remember reading these?" Its Dickie who holds his copy up, with very little shame, clearly forgetting he was ever meant to be ashamed of them.
"Hell yeah, dude!" Misa chirps in, digging around for his own copy and producing it.
Will and Mack both also silently produce their own, until all 4 of them are holding their copies.
"Heated Rivalry? I didn't know you were into...romance..." It's Reavo who speaks, clearly being careful in how he speaks.
"Yeah, we didn't think we would be either, but we ended up doing it after hearing Cat interview a hockey author, we thought we'd make a game out of it. Name every hockey rule it gets wrong or something."
"And? Did it have many errors?" That is Toff, who has clearly tuned in after hearing mention of his wife. Any mention of Cat will soon have Toff close by.
"Nah, it was actually pretty good. Pretty accurate. You could tell the author knows her hockey."
"Wait which book is it? I'll have to give your recommendations to Cat."
Misa answers, "It's Heated Rivalry. We also read its sequel as well."
"Ah. That's the one based on Sid, right?"
It's Wennberg who asks, innocently, assuming that the four of them already knew. But in doing so, without even knowing it, he deals them the killing blow. All four of them look down at their battered books, and have to reconcile the fact that everything they just read, every explicit position or situation, was inspired by a man every one of them idolised as a kid and was someone they played multiple times a year, or in Mack's case, played with on multiple occassions.
Silence fell over the four of them, as the rest of the Sharks watched on, seeing who would break first, and how they would do it. Whether they would spiral or move on like nothing happened.
Neither of those things happened.
Instead, they got curious.
"Wait, if Crosby is meant to be Shane...who's Ilya meant to be?" Will asks.
"Malkin." "Ovechkin." "Marchand"
"Marchand?!"
Each baby Shark gives a different answer, and clearly disagree with one another, with the four of them descending into chaos. The vets all watch on as their young core argue over which competitor of theirs was used as the basis of a character in someone's hockey porno, someone who apparently had sex with Sidney Crosby's fictional progeny.
What is their life?
The future is teal, but also hair-loss inducing.
It isn't until World's that Mack brings Heated Rivalry up to another person, and in doing so, gets one step closer to breaking the minds of the entirety of hockey. After the loss in the Bronze medal game, Mack wanted to get wasted, and seeing as the kid was legal here and desperately in need of one, Sid was happy to let him loose on the bar, overseeing him and sipping his own drink. Sid and Mack end up sat together, Sid nursing the same drink he had an hour ago, where Mack had moved on to a new brightly coloured monstrosity of a cocktail, filled with enough alcohol to knock out a horse, the sugar in it clearly just making Mack even more hyper than the alcohol was doing.
It was here, as he was listing sideways into Sid's side, that Mack asked the question that had been on his mind since he first opened Heated Rivalry.
"It's gotta be weird to find out someone wrote a gay sex book and wrote one of the characters based on you," he hiccuped, fully smothering himself into Sid's shoulder, much to Sid's humour.
"Kid, I've known about Heated Rivalry for years, I heard about it when the book first came out. I'm used to it by now."