271 - Blog Posts
Matching your freak is beautiful and all but what you really need is a boy who's infatuated with your freak. Down bad for your freak. Deeply intrigued by your freak. Eager to see more of your freak. Supportive of your freak. Gets bricked up witnessing your freak, even.
a gif version of this video; I think this is a close-up of this moment from the sharks broadcast
please don't repost these gifs!
and another thing....will stuck in his mid era, having a for real very hard time figuring out how to get it together in the nhl until he stood with just mack on the ice in boston and everything immediately changed for him. immediately changed for him!!!!! thing with will, to me at least, is that he does best when he's part of something bigger. doesn't need to be the guy, prefers it when he's one of the guys. needs people on his side! wants people to share the spotlight with! that's when he thrives -- when he's a vital part of the group, instead of the guy on his own. and the last place he felt like that was in boston, with his bc gang, and he hadn't found it on the sharks yet, and it held him back -- not the lack of confidence everything kept attributing it to, but the boston of it all, the memories there, the guy he was there, who he played with and how that had him playing, the fact that he wasn't part of something bigger yet, being shuffled from line to line, guys being traded, no cohesive team... everything will struggled with until mack said but i can be your bigger picture. until he let mack be the mf'ing context, in boston (!!!), and he said okay, i get it, you're my something bigger now, i am buying into you and me and i'm daring to let all that old stuff go because i trust you, and i'm doing it here, of all places, on sacred ground, i'm letting you in, and it only fucking worked! it immediately worked! and it was on purpose! will finding a new context to slot himself into, mack being the one to present him with that bigger picture, saying we can be the bigger picture together -- it was deliberate! they made sure they had time there together, on boston ice, before anyone else would join them. they made sure boston turned into their thing that day because on some level, they must've realized, that was what will needed to finally lock in... to let go of his old comfort zone, and step into the new one... and it had to be done there because it could only be done there... it could only be done there! mack canonically hyping will up that morning as they did their little skating thing, just the two of them, reminding will of the goals he scored there, reminding will of who he was and who he is -- but most importantly, who he could be, if he let himself -- and will listening, letting himself listen instead of keeping all those old memories away from mack, instead of clinging to his comfort zone that he couldn't go back to anyway but that was hard to let go of nonetheless, he let mack in, in boston, and immediately -- immediately -- turned into that guy (mack's guy, when you think about it) and never went back. killed it from then on. became the player mack had been telling everyone he was and remained that player. to the point he assisted mack on all three of his hatty goals months later. how's that for being part of something bigger than himself!!!!! the context was mack and the promise was mack and when he finally gave into it everything changed!!!!! for will!!!! in boston!!!!
toff was on an nhl podcast with jason demers and talked a bit about mack & will, transcript below!
demers: did you ever have a moment where you had to be like, āhey kidā, cause you know macklin comes in and- i got to see it doing radio stuff and kinda see it behind the scenes, but heās like wanted to control the team and wants to control the team now, like heās one of those guys, you can see it. was there ever a moment where you were like, āhey kid, walk before you can runā and just like āweāll get you through this, learn from us a little bitā cause heās just so good on the ice but learning all the little nuances of the nhl takes time, as you know
toff: yeah definitely, and i think at the same time, heās not used to losing and um, iām not used to losing as much as we did this season so it was definitely frustrating. i think at the end of the day, thatās what it sort of came down to, not being a bad leader or a good leader but the frustration of losing hockey games
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demers: we gotta talk about the demon twins, celebrini and smith. you kinda mentored them for much of the year and probably much to your dismay at times, especially when things are going tough and you see these kids walking in together, just like, glued at the hip. whatās their routine like and whatās it like to sit back and watch these two kids, that probably remind you of yourself, come into the league?
toff: i mean, their game day routine is great and honestly better than mineās ever been and mine is now, to be honest. they do their warm up and play a little bit of soccer and then they, like- mackās sweating before he puts his gear on and iām looking at him like, āi kicked the ball around for like 5 minutes and iām going out there and using the warmup on the ice as my warmupā which, when we played, thats kinda how it was. so yeah, no, theyāre doing all that stuff and, on the ice for warmup, theyāre getting all their work in and even pregame skate, and i donāt think its cause theyāre young but theyāre always the first guys on and the last guys off. and i think thatās just the way they are and the way they kind of compete with each other, which, in my opinion, is awesome, cause when i came in, it was me and pearson. itās like the in-house rival that you wanna do better than but youāre also best friends with them, so itās a great, healthy competition and i think itās great for them
demers: they didn't like each other, well, mack didn't like will, right? when they played against each other in college
toff: i feel like mack doesn't really get along with anybody he plays against, you know? like he's just so competitive, itās just like, buddy, relax a little bit, you know? and he's at the worlds right now, iāve texted him a couple of times, and he's like, ādude, sid came, iām gonna be on the fourth lineā, iām like, ājust watch sid and just like, let it happenā
demers: [laughs] yeah, itās like, come on kid
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toff: [talking about anyone moving in next season] mack and smitty, i donāt know if iād be able to keep up with them, their energy every single day. we got a little back house that we could house someone, so weāll see if someone asks me, but iām assuming ā i mean, i donāt know what those two idiots are gonna be doing next year. hopefully theyāre back with jumbo and patty cause i donāt think theyāre ready to be living on their own [laughs]
headshots from the iihf menās worlds 2025 team rosters!
will and macklin agree that they like shampoo (from this video)
An inside look at the Sharks Foundation's Sampling with the Sharks
