For those who don’t understand the reference, “do that hockey” is a line from one of Chance the Rapper’s best sketches on Saturday Night Live in which he plays “Laszlo Holmes”, an NYC sports reporter who usually does the Knicks games but has to fill in when the regular hockey reporter isn’t available. Laszlo knows nothing about hockey, he’s cold AF, but he shows up for work to “do that hockey”. Chance’s timing is impeccable and his micro expressions are hilarious. 

 

For those who watch hockey, the sketch became an instant classic and for a while there, I actually heard a few hockey announcers saying “do that hockey” while they were calling the games. 

 

But you didn’t come here for comedy, you came here for Taylor Swift because she and Travis Kelce made a surprise appearance at game four of the Stanley Cup Finals last night in Florida. Here they are arriving at the arena, Travis wearing red, presumably repping his own KC colours and also the Panthers while Taylor kept it neutral, literally. 

 

This, for me, is her best outfit in months – a cropped jacket over shorts and booties. 

Here they are in the suite as the announcer makes a “Florida!!!” reference, one of a million I’m sure last night and over the course of today. 

 

And here they are reacting to a goal. Some people are interpreting that Travis is explaining what happened to her. I don’t know if I buy this – Taylor Swift is sharp, I’m pretty sure she can put together what it means when a puck goes in the net, LOL. 

But enough about sports, let’s talk about all this time they’ve spent in Florida while Travis has been off-season training. He was pretty candid after the KC Super Bowl loss that it was tough on him, that he didn’t feel he was at his best last season, that he wasn’t able to leave it all on the field, which is why he decided to return for another season. 

 

By all accounts, Travis has been “training like crazy” and that was in late March/early April so he’s been at it for two more months since then. After the Super Bowl, I wrote in this post that losing is often the best motivator. And on the other side of that, nobody likes winning more than Taylor Swift. She’s a trophy hunter, she seeks tangible symbols of success and victory – sales figures, chart positions, hardware in the display case. Some might argue that art can’t be measured and quantified, but in her business, the streaming numbers and albums sold, the #1 hits, and the trophies are what count as markers of success. 

 

In sport, though, it’s much easier. There’s a score board, a winner declared after every match and tournament, a medal or a trophy waiting to be claimed. Her romantic partner of the last couple of years exists in this space, it’s his literal job to win. And it’s probably been a turn-on to watch him win. Maybe even more of a turn-on to watch him mount a comeback just like she’s come back so many times (in her mind). So of course she’s there with him in her down time, she might even be one of his unofficial coaches, shouting Snoop/DJ Khaled’s lyrics in his face – because they probably apply better to her than anyone else: “Just win, baby, win”.