three things that have made me happy recently

[athenejen]

I have been wanting to make ALL THE POSTS, to go along with needing to do ALL THE THINGS (including ALL THE UNPACKING and ALL THE WRITING), and therefore miring myself in indecision and failing to post/do/accomplish anything. So instead of ALL THE POSTS, for now, have three things

Comments

[athenejen]

McDonagh is SO great. He's just so... solid. And he and Stepan are a delight. <3

*cough* It's possible I have been steadily compiling a list of Minnesotans in the NHL (and farm systems) and regularly contemplate shipping any number of them, just for the hell of it. (I grew up in the Twin Cities, so I have a certain amount of affection for all of them.) Also, I keep being startled by how very attractive Bickel is. So I support your OT4 theory!

[athenejen]

Sounds like excellent choices all around, then. :D

[cccccontroversy]

We really should all be pronouncing Semin as "Syomin". It's old-fashioned to transliterate ë as e. If we did it that way for Varlamov, his first name would be Semen. :|

[athenejen]

Ah, good to know the origin of that. Oh, awkwardly transliterated names.

[athenejen]

They did! So endearing. :D

[lightcap]

Hey, I just met you and this is crazy, but do tell me more about Steps and McDonagh (just took me three tries to spell that, ughhhh)

[athenejen]

Hello, and welcome! :)

So I've just started investigating all the details of Stepan & McDonagh myself, but the basics are pretty much that they're both from Minnesota (McDonagh was born in St Paul and went to high school at Cretin-Derham Hall, while Stepan's from Hastings (which is just SW of the Twin Cities; could maybe be considered on the outskirts of the Metro Area) and went to Shattuck St-Mary's, which is about an hour south of the Cities) and likely played against each other in high school, and then overlapped for two years at the University of Wisconsin, Madison (Stepan's freshman and sophomore years, McDonagh's sophomore and junior years -- McDonagh is a year and five days older than Stepan). They turned pro at the same time, though McDonagh spent about half of that first season in the AHL, while Stepan immediately stuck with the big club. They were both on Team USA for 2011 Worlds (along w/ Chris Kreider). As far as I can tell, they seem to be close friends from their college years and pretty happy to be doing this