Iâve seen (and written) NHL!Bitty, but has anyone written NHL!Bitty/Social media manager!Jack?
This is not a Jack who enjoys social media, mind you - just one who is good at it, and so does it as his job, but probably doesnât even have personal accounts except to post photos. He probably quit hockey entirely after the overdose and got a marketing degree. His least favorite part of his job is going through the personal accounts of the rookies the Falcs are looking at and making lists of things theyâll need to delete when they sign - if he doesnât make them just delete their account and start fresh.
And now theyâre courting this openly gay captain of a team who made it to the frozen four, who is the first rookie heâs had to deal with who actually comes with his own following both on Twitter and YT. Which means Jack only has so much control over any of it - he can tell Bittle to delete things but if he makes him delete too much itâll get noticed and maybe even set off some kind of Streisand effect, and he can tell Bittle there are things heâs not allowed to post about but he canât really control the content because again, Bittleâs followers will notice if his style changes.
Jack does not like having so little control over a rookieâs accounts.
The main thing he wants Bittle to wipe as soon as he signs (Jack signed in mid-April right? So letâs say itâs about then) is all references to underage drinking.
This leads to their first struggle, because one of Bittyâs very most popular videos is a bourbon apple pie, which he filmed while visibly hungover. He canât just pull that one! Itâs got over 200k views! Jack points out that heâs welcome to re-record it, even hungover, now that heâs over 21, but it wonât be the same, nor will it have those 200k views.
Jack is annoyed because who cares about those views?? This guy just signed a fairly generous NHL contract, his videos will gets tons of views now just from hockey fans and itâs not like he needs the tiny amount of extra income.
But he just doesnât understand - these 200k views are organic, Bitty earned them all himself - heâll always be more proud of that than a million views that come to him via a link in an ESPN article. Jack finally lets him just mark the video as private for now, and maybe in a couple of years if he hasnât gotten into any trouble he can unprivate it and nobody will care that he was hungover at age 20. (Nobody would care anyhow, Bitty grumbles, but marks it private).
Anyhow, they butt heads several more times before Bitty has even set foot in the practice facility. Bitty decides privately that Jack must be homophobic - he doesnât say this to anyone, because heâs not going to make that kind of accusation until he actually says something out loud, but heâs sure he must be right, especially once he finds out that Jackâs dad is a hockey superstar and he was basically raised in hockey culture.
So imagine his surprise when he goes to Providenceâs pride festival as one of the guests of honor and runs into Jack - well, he sees Jack plenty in the morning because Jack is there to take photos and video for the socials, but he disappears by 11am and Bitty assumes he must have been ready to bolt out of there as soon as he could. So Bitty is fully unprepared to run into him a couple hours later, changed from his work clothes into a t-shirt tie-dyed in bi pride colors with glittery pink, purple, and blue paint smeared across his cheeks.
