It’s been a long time since I’ve done just a straight-up horny-as-hell post here. I think the last one was about like, Jesse Eisenberg? Which is, uh, still pretty true except he’s married and admitted in an interview that he married a woman just like his mother because of his Oedipal Complex and you know what, I will never judge anyone for living and speaking their truth, but there are… perhaps… some things… we should not say… aloud. No, I will absolutely not be taking my own advice at this time.
I want to preface this with the fact that I don’t really know anything about any of these dudes. Not in like, a disclaimer way where the dumb bullshit I spout shouldn’t be taken as fact (though that’s also true), but in a way where like, I have mostly no idea if they’re married, prone to criminal behavior, or complete and utter pieces of shit. I assume all men, especially in sports, are bad.
That said, I’m going to talk about banging hockey players now. Sorry if that’s weird for you. Also, if you somehow ended up here and your name is on this list… I’m only kind of sorry, but I do hope you’re having a good season/off-season/retirement/life/etc. If you’re here because your friend and/or teammate is on this list… Please, please chirp him for me.
Also, if you’re a man who has ever had or read and agreed with the thought that women only watch hockey because the men are hot… 1. I’m not a woman; 2. You’re an idiot; 3. If we wanted to watch sports for hot men, we’d watch basketball where the men are actually hot and wear way less clothing; 4. an average soccer player has more teeth in their head than any entire NHL franchise; 5. Shut the fuck up, no one cares.
Using Hockey Is For Everyone for my joke title is probably in bad taste, but because the NHL has so clearly never meant it, I don’t feel terrible about it. Hockey should be for everyone; lots of white men have gone out of their way to make sure that it isn’t. We can and should keep demanding better.
I am limiting this selection of the ten hottest hockey players to the seven teams I ~care~ about – the Winnipeg Jets (Closest Franchise to My Current Home), the Minnesota Wild (Second Closest to My Current Home), the Carolina Hurricanes (Bunch of Jerks/Storm Surge Very Appealing), the Dallas Stars (Fuckable), the Las Vegas Golden Knights (Home Away from Home), the Anaheim Ducks (Home-ish and Childhood, obviously.), and the Los Angeles Kings (HOME). Perhaps in time I will plow the field of all 31 NHL teams and objectify the entire sport properly, but for now. We are here.
Adam Henrique is thick-necked, sharp-jawed, dark-haired babe that plays for the Ducks who by nature of my having grown up in the era in which they were born and living a whopping twenty minutes from the Pond, I must love. He has a great smile that turns smarmy in a way I am deeply embarrassingly into. He looks like a dickhead Young Republican and no woman who has ever had sex with him has really enjoyed it, but it is fun to point him out to their new boyfriends and expound on just how bad it was for laughs. Has absolutely sent unsolicited dick pics.
Shea Theodore is your scruffy grad school boyfriend who’s missing an eyetooth because he got in a wrestling match with a frat brother before he left the frat life behind him entirely because he couldn’t handle the constant casual misogyny. He’s got a coffee problem and he’s happy to grab you a drink, but he always has to text and ask what you want, not because he can’t remember but because he always wants you to have the opportunity to try something new, if you’re feeling it. Were it not for being forced into them as part of his job, you would never, ever see him in a suit. Will tell you how beautiful you are when you look like shit.
Adam Lowry is, despite and perhaps in spite of, being ginger, very, very handsome. He plays for the Jets and fights like a gentleman. He’s 6’5″. He looks like the guy Disney would have cast for Charlie Conway OR Adam Banks in a Mighty Ducks the Where Are They Now? Epilogue. He looks like he smells good. Charmingly doofy, has a good sense of humor. He’d cook you dinner and then not let you help clean up afterward. Owns an apron and a nice vacuum cleaner, but probably doesn’t use either. Praises you for trying when you’re bad at video games and remembers your parents’ and siblings’ names. Probably the best kisser you’ve ever been with. He’s been out on IR for a while and at the start of every Jets game I ask Crystal, “When will my husband return from the war and punch a guy for my amusement?”
Look, at the time I started writing this, Jason Zucker was still on the Minnesota Wild, so I’m fucking keeping him, even if he abandoned us for the Pens. If he didn’t want to be objectified by a random horndog in North Dakota, he should’ve gotten traded sooner. Jason Zucker is from California, so is both a rarity and a gift to the hockey world. He has an unbelievable smile and great taste in suits and I mean, he’s pretty good at hockey, I guess. He will absolutely do some sort of pretty solid seductive move in public to get your interest, put his hand at the small of your back once you’ve given him the signal that it’s cool to do it, and then lean in and say something absurdly funny instead of smooth. It’s up to you to decide whether it was intentional and being confused about whether a hot person is dumb is actually very horny.
Jordan Greenway is 6’6″. That should be the end of the list, but it’s not. He’s got a Gordie Howe hat trick. He’s hot as hell. He says it takes a lot to make him angry enough to fight, so instead he just compulsively grins at dudes on the ice, even after he loses a fight. It is a spectacular smile. He was the first Black US Olympic hockey player (which, Hockey Is So Deeply Racist, jesus) but also the first player in the Olympic Games, an NCAA tournament, and the Stanley Cup playoffs in the same season. Did I mention he’s extremely hot? And 6’6″? He was an adorable kid. Picks up after himself even when he’s exhausted– You know how you like, walk away from the dirty plate and empty seltzer can and beer bottle on your coffee table, but then you like, stop and sigh deeply and turn back around to grab them? Like that. Definitely smells good, will have exceptionally good taste once he’s not 23 anymore. No one has good taste when they’re 23.
Look this is my list and I will get horned up about WHOMEVER I CHOOSE in whatever order I deem appropriate and accurate, thank you very much. Anze Kopitar is a big boy who has been playing with the Kings since I was in college. The fact that he looks perpetually exhausted is deeply arousing to me. He plays golf with Wayne Gretzky, which is probably very complimentary if you ignore Gretzky’s politics and most of the words that come out of his mouth. He probably tells great stories about his childhood that don’t involve hockey and leans in close to your ear in a crowd to make weird little wry jokes that you never see coming.
I need to note, now, that I did extensive research to write this. I put down the guys I knew I wanted to bone-down on first, then looked through all seven official NHL rosters with their accompanying headshots and added the most promising names to the list. Then I Google image searched the shit out of all 27 of them and narrowed down the list accordingly. The issue here, which I did not anticipate, is that the longer you stare at the kind of men who play hockey, the more of an upheaval you experience in the things you’re attracted to. My two braincells want to be extremely horny about hyper-masculine men right now and frankly I’m going to let them do their thing lest they revolt. Hockey has even deeply changed my very gay wife.
Mathieu Perreault is another Jet (Who knew Winnipeg could collect?) and a standout because he is one of the few hockey players who I wouldn’t describe as even approximating clean-cut. His hair alone is killer, but then there are the tattoos and the beard plus the big dark eyes and the great smile that turns smarmy in a hot way. It’s a very, very nice-looking package. Matthieu Perreault knows how you’re supposed to light someone else’s cigarette when you’re lighting your own. He’s the kind of guy you bring home and make use your mouthwash before you’ll have sex with him. Also, you maybe ask him to give his dick a cursory clean-up first. He makes sure it’s worth it.
Laurent Brossoit is another Jet ginger and the only goalie on this list. He’s got a killer jaw and beautiful eyes, often the facial hair of the bard-y dude in a puffy shirt in ‘period’ movies and a sweet-as-hell laugh. Laurent Brossoit color-codes his closet and donates the stuff he’s bored of to a place that isn’t the Salvation Army. He’s fastidiously clean, always smells good, and is middling-to-decent in bed. He has an online shopping problem, but in a like, charming way. He sends his mom a big expensive arrangement of flowers on her birthday and holidays. He has neither a ‘personal life’ or ‘legal troubles’ section on his Wiki, which is a sign of someone who knows better than to cause trouble and that is very sexy of him. I saw Laurent Brossoit shirtless earlier this month and I dropped my phone because I wasn’t prepared. He is not willing to try out your adventurous ideas in bed.
The Dallas Stars are, by force of Jamie Benn and Tyler Seguin alone, the most fuckable team in the NHL. Stephen Johns, Roman Polak, and Jamie Oleksiak (He’s 6’7″!! His nickname is BIG RIG!! He doesn’t have a boring black & grey tattoos!!) don’t hurt and five good-looking guys on an NHL team is, truly, A Lot. (Only the Golden Knights do better, but none of them are as hot as either Tyler Seguin or Jamie Benn.) As noted above, I have chosen to support the Dallas Stars solely for their fuckability and if they don’t like it, well. Go back and change thousands of years of misogyny and then come talk to me. You’ll survive a little good-natured objectification. Cry into your money about it.
Tyler Seguin is very hot. He has a nauseatingly good body and he seems allergic to shirts. He was in the ESPN body issue and there are so many (SO MANY) great gifs of him sitting on a Zamboni naked and eating a rocket pop. He seems extremely charming in a way that makes me want to punch him. He has the best looking laugh in the NHL and is also Brutally Cute. All evidence points to him either being an absolute dumbass, too dumb to adequately formulate a homophobic joke or trying desperately to come out via metaphor since the Bruins shunted him to Dallas. I want to destroy him sexually and emotionally. I’d like to see him cry. Tyler Seguin seems like he’d pick up at a bar and then be bad in bed, but he’s actually very considerate and takes direction well and isn’t exactly hopeless without it. His hair is very soft and he smells good in a non-cologne way. Can’t cook, doesn’t really pick up after himself, but knows your coffee order AND how you like it at home. He will not remember your birthday, but his sheets are almost always clean. He likes to play the dirtbag, but he’d definitely take care of your dogs for you while you were on a trip if he could.
There is nothing particularly special about Jamie Benn looks-wise. With a good haircut, decent facial hair grooming, and off the ice, he looks like the smarmy, work-obsessed big city boyfriend in a Hallmark Christmas movie. Jamie Benn has big time Fat In High School energy and people are mean about his body because he looks like an athlete instead of a model, which is still nothing like a regular human man. His nickname is Chubbs. He has never spoken a single clear, coherent, un-mumbled sentence in his entire life. Tyler Seguin is, probably, better looking objectively depending on how swayed you are by willingness to be publicly naked. Nevertheless, Jamie Benn makes my fucking dumb-ass brain stop working entirely from Horny Disease. Jamie Benn looks like a big, low-rent Gabriel Macht and yet when I see him I go into that idiotic daze that nerds in 80s movies get when they see a boob. On-ice, without a helmet, I absolutely lose my shit. If I saw him in real life, I’d probably embarrass myself by going absolutely fucking feral. This fight makes me feel fucking faint. (Shoutout to my big boy Joe Thornton as well. Credit where credit is due.) Jamie Benn’s neck makes me feel, I imagine, the way those grotesque 90s morning DJ men felt when they were knee-deep in some deranged fantasy about a Playboy Playmate. If you give him a blowjob, you have to look over at this fucking thing. He has classically bad hockey hair in this picture and 1. I find it endearing and 2. I gasp-screamed and had to look away from my laptop when it came up in a Google image search. Jamie Benn has never successfully made a woman come. I have never, ever wanted to have sex with a man more.
MITCH MARNER – My enemy, a Maple Leaf, but also the reason for this dumb fucking post. His jaw makes me furious and nothing motivates me like anger. He looks like he would have bullied me in middle school for being fat.
LEON DRAISAITL – Sometimes looks like a smarmy bully in an 80s movie who would happily give you an STD, sometimes looks a little bit like a Disney prince and apparently that’s a mix that I find very fuckable.
ANTHONY DUCLAIR – So, so, soooo handsome. Way too handsome for hockey. An unbelievable smile and great facial hair.
MATHEW BARZAL – Looks like Nico Tortorella got bodied face first. Every time I see him I call him a little rat-faced bitch. No, I don’t know why that does it for me.
KRIS LETANG – Looks like Milo Ventimiglia in a mug shot. He’s a Pen, so he’s a dweeb, but I’ve been attracted to worse things.
BRADEN HOLTBY – Absolutely looks like he’d murder you in a parking lot until he smiles. Very big, very good boy just trying his best.
EVANDER KANE – Killer smile, great hair, great facial hair, beautiful eyes.
JUUSE SAROS – Lost his helmet in a game Crystal and I had turned on for five minutes the other night and we both yelled, “Oh NOOOOOOO†in harmonic unison. It’s an Erik Von Detten in Brink! situation, so you either get it or you’re wrong.
JUJHAR KHAIRA – Quite easily the handsomest man in hockey, hands-down. Phenomenal facial hair, amazing bone structure, 6’4″ and seems very willing to throw a punch when it needs to be thrown.
SIDNEY CROSBY – Look, I do NOT want to talk about it; no, I will NOT be taking questions at this time, and if you can look at Sidney Crosby’s mouth and feel even a tiny inkling of self-restraint or one single pure thought, you are surely a better man than me.
In March, even before isolation started, I changed the configuration of how I use Spotify on my desktop computer at work and home so that I could see the little Friend Activity tab while I was doing other things and started sort of paying attention to what people were listening to, partly because I’m p voyeuristic by nature, partly because I thought it might be funny (I feel about 97% confident that I know a complete stranger’s sex playlist now!) and I ended up getting super into it and playing Spotify Chase while dicking around on the internet and half-assing something I’m supposed to be doing.
ANYWAY, I have discovered a lot of jams this way! 
My last album for the month — because I truly didn’t manage to do… anything in all of April except listen to music and write 50k words that will never actually go anywhere — was not served to me by either the Algorithm or Spotify Chase, but instead is an old fave’s new one I was greatly anticipating. Pokey LaFarge’s Rock Bottom Rhapsody is so, so, so good and satisfying. It feels almost like a movie score except it also feels like it’s telling a story. we were supposed to be seeing Pokey in June in Minneapolis, but it’s been rescheduled for 2021 already, which seems so far away as to be impossible, while also seeming so soon as to be hopelessly optimistic about the state of things. Life and art in quarantine, eh?
I had a great time plowing through Roni Simunovic’s Little Warlord which was just fast and fun and easy to read and sweet and satisfying. I said in 
The highest compliment I can give I Am Not Okay With This is that we haven’t finished it yet, despite there being only a single season, because we like it so much and didn’t want to rush through and then just be out of it. Sophia Lillis, Wyatt Olef, and Sofia Bryant are all really great and I love the place-making and especially the set-dressing, the way everything feels a little out of date and the only difference between it being in a good way or a bad way is how the characters compose themselves around it. I love the music a lot and the dialogue is fantastic and the second highest compliment I can give it is that Crystal and I have both paused it to scream about how much it sounds like something I would write, which is narcissistic probably, but also true. 
We also started watching Letterkenny, which we have also been savoring as slowly as possible and which we also pause to scream about constantly, but for entirely different reasons, the first of which is that we live in in like, American Letterkenny Lite (though the people of Letterkenny are consistently better people than I’ve ever experienced here) and the second of which is that every fucking thing about it is weird and hysterical in a perfect way. If you had told me in February that I would sometimes pause a sitcom about Canadian hicks to yell about the way they’ve staged a particular shot for Maximum Art, I would have scoffed. It’s also really funny to watch something that’s really stylized and goofy and feel weirdly represented and safe as a queer person. Everyone is so good at embodying these really weird, extreme characters and they all seem like they’re just committing every second they’re on screen. Every thing that comes out of Jared Keeso’s mouth is the funniest thing I’ve heard in my life. It’s also masterful at knowing exactly how hard to push a repetitive joke so that it always sails through the funny-too much-funny again-hysterical track every freaking time. I finally upgraded to ad-free Hulu to be able to watch this without interruption: I six-extra-dollars-a-month love it.
