My agent has been losing his goddamn mind for weeks over this photoshoot. The Olympic Committee is in an uproar, sponsors are ‘concerned’, headlines are multiplying, and everyone’s acting like I held the medals hostage and posed for the camera like some patriotic stripper.
The best part?
My agent never wanted it to happen in the first place.
Randolph had called the moment the offer came in from the VELVT magazine. His voice was clipped right away, as if he’d bitten into something rotten.
"Absolutely not." That was his first response. Not, ‘We need better terms.’ Not, ‘Let’s see the numbers.’
Because Randolph understands branding. He understands contracts, and he’s been my agent long enough now to understand how the Olympic Committee thinks.
He understands, just as I do, that medals aren’t jewelry. They’re property of the Olympics, and more than that, they stand as a symbol. Using them in anything remotely sexual is basically lighting a match under a gas leak to any commercial sponsorship I currently have, and potentially any in the future if they see me as a "risk".
He refused to negotiate. To even entertain the conversation. So I went around him.
I cut him out of the email chain entirely and dealt with the magazine directly, telling myself it was faster and cleaner that way. But the truth? The truth is that I didn’t want anyone talking me out of it, because I wasn’t thinking like a pro athlete or a brand. I was thinking like a son with a father to punish.
I knew he’d see it. If the universe were generous, it would embarrass him enough to make him feel even a fraction of what he’d tried to do to my sister by trying to make her feel like a trading card rather than a real person, trying to marry her off to a Russian politician for his own gain.
That’s what the centerfold was.
Not a stunt or a cash grab. It was a knife in the dark, pointed at my father and his precious family legacy. Something to put a stain on it, and to remind him that I have nothing to lose. Not that he hasn’t already stained the family name enough by running illegal operations that have both the Russians and theU.S. watching him to make a wrong move, putting him away for life.
What hurts me the most is that for all my intelligence, three Olympics’ worth of rules drilled into my bones, I made one arrogant mistake.
They sent me an email. I believed them when the magazine said that the medals had been cleared. A neat little promise dressed up in legal language.
Olympic Committee approval confirmed. Licensed usage authorized.
I should’ve known better. I don’t trust anyone.
Not since my father showed me that I was just an asset for him to use, not after my mother passed away and I realized she was the only one who had my best interest at heart, not since my family cut me out and disowned me for going my own way.
Revenge does strange things to a man’s judgment. It sharpens some instincts … and dulls the ones that matter.
Randolph wouldn’t have taken the email at face value… not with my brand on the line. Now he’s throwing PR teams at me like holy water, hoping one of them can cleanse my sins and get me out of this mess, and I’ve brushed every one of them off.
Two different PR agents have shown up. Two, as if I’m a fire they keep trying to put out with beige blazers and overly confident smiles.
I’ve dodged both of them. I refused meetings when they showed up at the stadium and at games. I let their calls go to voicemail. I ignored them buzzing into my apartment building to get a strategy meeting with me.
Eventually, they gave up and went home, and Randolph is acting as if I’ve personally nuked his entire retirement plan.
He keeps warning me that this "could cost millions." That I’m risking deals, lighting his carefully curated "Luka Popovich" branding on fire. It’s taken him years to perfect, since I’m notupbeat and easygoing like Scottie, or charismatic and charming like JP, or funny and outgoing like Aleksi. I have a resting asshole face, and I get it… because I do it on purpose. I’m not looking to make friends beyond what I have with the guys on the team, who are more like family, anyway.
To him, I’m tarnishing any future legacy he could capitalize on.
I don’t care about the money. I never have. Hockey is about paving my own path and making my own rules.
If I cared about money, I would have agreed to run the "family business" and kept my inheritance. My inheritance is more money than the NHL and every sponsorship deal combined could offer in a lifetime.
But if this is the cost—sanctions from the team, fines from the Olympic Committee, and lost sponsorship revenue—for revenge, for a warning shot to remind my father that if he ever comes for my sister again, I’ll do something worse to embarrass him, then I’ll happily pay it.
Because the Olympic Committee doesn’t care that I wanted to piss off my father. They care about the optics of a former Olympian posing nude with only their licensed property covering up his family heirlooms.
And if they decide to make an example out of me, they can, and I won’t say I didn’t deserve it. I knew the line I was crossing, even if the magazine lied about the approval.
The locker room surges around me again as the players pack up to head out for the day.
