Too many Tylers to keep track of

Jamie Benn, too upset to put on a shirt. Again.

Sorry for the late response! I have been on a much-needed vacation and have been mostly offline. Here's the thing. I definitely could tell you off-putting things about some of the guys on the team. But why would I do that when I can spread pro-Stars propaganda? So I'm going to tell you some fun stuff instead.

1. Mavrik Bourque and Justin Hyrckowian are both from Quebec. Oskar Bäck's last name is pronounced like "Beck". When the three of them play together, they are known as the QueBäck (or Quebec) line.

2. Sometimes some of the younger guys play rock, paper, scissors and the loser has to unlace the winner's skates? So we have videos of Thomas Harley unlacing Wyatt Johnston's skates and Wyatt Johnston unlacing Mavrik Bourque's skates that were posted to the team's official social media accounts. This can be viewed aa adorable or filthy depending on where your mind goes.

3. Mavrik Bourque likes to chirp his teammates in the official social media videos, but if they do it back to him he becomes OUTRAGED and resembles an angry wet kitten.

4. Lian Bichsel is known best for hitting people. He's just 21 and he's 6'7" 237 pounds (and has been that size for a few years). But he also moved away from home on his own at sixteen to further his hockey career, something he was fine with because he likes to cook and clean and be alone sometimes. At 17, he said his favorite thing to cook was risotto. Pre-draft, an NHL team asked him what kind of animal he woukd describe himself as. He said a gorilla. “On the ice, a gorilla is strong. He likes to fight. He’s heavy. But also, a gorilla can be calm, he can be chill, he can be alone. That’s the perfect match.”

5. Tyler Seguin came to us as kind of an enfant terrible out of Boston. He rather infamously did a photo shoot for the ESPN body issue - if you've ever seen a gif of him riding around nude on a Zamboni with a popsicle in his mouth, it's from that. His transformation into doting girl dad has been as unexpected as it is delightful.

6. Jamie Benn doesn't have the best reputation, but his journey as a hockey player has been undeniably impressive. He was drafted by the Stars in the fifth round in 2007, 129th overall. Not exactly the kind of player you'd expect to become the cornerstone of the franchise. He developed into a top point scorer for a time, even winning the Art Ross in the 2014-2015 season. While he hits hard, he is very soft spoken off the ice and comes across almost painfully shy. Despite his quiet demeanor, he was appointed captain in 2013, and pretty much every Star past and present says he's the best captain they've ever had.

holding celebrities to your own personal moral bar and feeling personally betrayed by them not living up to those expectations, is parasocial and not a healthy way to ingest media of any kind. You should maybe take a break from following celebrity culture altogether. you will not find an "unproblematic fave" in a hockey player. they don't exist in your real life either. you are also not 100% unproblematic, and i can say that generally without having any idea who you are.

we all have our lines for what we will and will not accept from a celebrity before we become unable to support them, and there's nothing wrong with saying "my line has been crossed. i'm done with this person." taking care of yourself should always be your first priority. you can drop teams, players, mutuals, whatever you need to do to feel comfortable, and no one can or should make you feel bad about that.

and here's the one the people from the first point aren't going to like. it's also fully acceptable to say "my life experiences have set my line way further down the road, so nothing that has happened is a deal-breaker for me." and carry on with your fandom identity relatively unchanged.

no one but you gets to tell you how to feel, and anyone trying is just trying to make themselves feel better. so just do what you have to do, and remove yourself from situations you don't feel comfortable in.

“what’s your off ice situation like guys?”