my final heated rivalry thought of the night is i do genuinely think it exists in this weird space of requiring you to both be a hockey fan and not know anything about hockey. schrodinger's hockey fan. you need to know about hockey because half the stakes aren't really explained to you at all. see: hockey culture/homophobia. see: the montreal-boston rivalry's unique significance. etc. but you also need to not know anything about hockey because if you do then you look at the long game and go: montreal would not do that. ottawa would also not do that. also why are the 1oa and 2oa going to world juniors twice. why is no one throwing hands at ilya for being that close to their injured captain on the ice.











