Check, Please! (webcomic)

**This page needs visual enhancement.**
You can help All The Tropes by finding a high-quality image or video to illustrate the topic of this page.

Check, Please! is a webcomic by Ngozi Udazu. It is available both online and in two printed volumes.

Eric Bittle, Bitty for short, is the newest member of his university's hockey team. Samwell has high standards, and a tough captain. He loves baking, and showing off his figure skating moves. Bitty seems like the person least likely to score a goal, or block a shot. In fact, he is terrified of being checked. That is, for a player to flip him over their shoulder, so he'd land on his ass on the ice.

There's another issue: Bitty is gay. And he has a crush on the team captain Jack. Jack is a mess, hiding emotional baggage and a former history of drug usage behind his perfectionist regimens. There's no way that Jack would be interested in the home-baker turned college student... or would he?

Tropes used in Check, Please! (webcomic) include:

Academic Athlete:
- While Shitty is a good hockey player, he's also planning to be a lawyer. Bitty notes that Shitty always keeps up on his studies. This eventually leads to Harvard accepting Shitty as a student.
- Bitty himself loves college classes outside his major. He usually asks the teacher for permission to audit by baking them a pie. It usually works.
Artistic License: Bitty applies to the college hockey program using his figure-skating background, complete with a video. Realistically, the college would have continued his education as a figure skating athlete on scholarship. But then, we wouldn't have a webcomic.
Anything But That: Bitty has this reaction when his housemates forcibly cut him off from baking in his senior year and put up BANNED posters in all the campus kitchens. Why? Because he hasn't worked on his thesis, only submitting a pie as "progress" of his work.
Both Sides Have a Point: The argument between Jack and Kent that Bitty overhears, at least until Kent crosses the line by calling the Samwell team "shitty" and below Jack's standards. Hearing that Jack doesn't have any solid plans post-graduation, Kent tells Jack that he is not a failure and doesn't have to limit himself based on his past; he can make a few calls and use his connections to put Jack on a dream team. Jack responds that he doesn't know what team he wants to join after he finishes at Samwell, and is worried he'll fall back into the same destructive patterns that led to his drug addiction and overdose. He wants to take some time to figure out what he wants, to make an informed decision rather than jump on a team that looks good on paper. Plus, as the son of a famous hockey player, he's worried about nepotism accusations.
Broken Ace:
- Jack Zimmerman was once on top of his game in his hockey career. Due to the pressure, however, he succumbed to drug addiction that eventually led to an overdose. When getting clean, one of the things that he had to do was break up with Kent Parsons, his serious boyfriend at the time. Attending Samwell allows Jack to slowly work on the "broken" part.
- Kent Parsons is this in a different way. He's enjoyed the success that Jack never achieved, and became an NHL star. Over pie in senior year, Kent quietly admits to Bitty that the relationship that he had with Jack was more serious, and he truly loved Jack. The issue was that his go-getter attitude was enabling Jack's addictions, and that he thinks the Samwell team was holding his ex back from achieving his potential.
Cruel to Be Kind: Bitty's team forcibly cuts him off from baking until he finishes his senior thesis. Jack has a better idea: ask Bitty about it, and have him write it out via text message.
Deliberate Values Dissonance: Why Bitty is not out of the closet, and why he's scared of jocks initially. He's from the Deep South, where being gay is not looked upon kindly. In contract, when Jack came out of the closet, his father was completely supportive. At Jack's graduation, his father encourages him to pursue Bitty.
Earn Your Happy Ending: Jack makes his comeback on the ice, but tells Bitty that Samwell made him a better person. He proposes to Bitty, who says yes. Bitty becomes a full-time social media cook, with a book deal in the works.
Everyone Can See It: It's quite obvious to his teammates that Bitty has feelings for Jack after they start dating.
Face Your Fears:
- Bitty is scared of jocks. When he was in seventh grade, the high school football team stuffed him in a locker and left him overnight. While the Samwell team players don't make a good first impression on him, he feels that he can tough it out to retain his scholarship.
- Justified; a hockey player scared of getting checked is not a good sign, especially if they black out during practice. Jack realizes that if they don't do something about Bitty's phobia, it's going to affect their play. So he starts holding extra check sessions with him in the morning.
Good Parents:
- While Jack suffered from drug addiction and perfectionism, his father never thought less of him for the public breakdown. Jack's father is one hundred percent supportive of his life decisions. He figures out that Jack has feeling for Bittle and encourages him to chase down the kid after Jack's graduation.
- Turns out that while Bitty's parents are shocked when he comes out of the closet by kissing Jack on live TV, they aren't angry at him or homophobic. Instead, they are saddened that he felt that he couldn't trust them with his sexual identity. His mother invites Jack to spend the holidays with them, and Mr. Bittle takes Jack around town for some Twerp Sweating. They end up bonding over the experience.
Harsh Life Revelation Aesop: The third volume states that two people can seem perfect for each other on paper and still not work out. Jack and Kent were teammates and did used to be a couple, but they broke up shortly after Jack recovered from an overdose that stymied his hockey career, checked himself into rehab, and decided to start over at university. Both parties, long after the fact, admitted they made mistakes: Kent tells Bitty over pie that was seriously in love with Jack and did want the best for him, but could not understand that Jack was burnt out from drug addiction and thought he needed more willpower. Jack tells Bitty that the reason he broke up with Kent was that to stay clean, he had to cut out bits of his life that were driving him to drugs, such as Kent being an overachiever who was Born Lucky.
Hypocritical Heartwarming: Jack is hard on the Samwell team when he is captain. He believes they all have to meet up his standards. Then Kent Parson makes the mistake of calling them "shitty" while attempting to convince Jack to let him use connections to get Jack on a great team. Jack kicks him out of his dorm room and orders him to stay away from the team.
Innocently Insensitive:
- Kent as Jack's former teammate and ex has good intentions when trying to get Jack to agree to let him help him get on a good NHL team. As he puts it, he cares about Jack and wants him to succeed, rather than let Jack see himself as a broken person because he is not broken and is wonderful. Kent admits a few years later, however, that it wasn't what Jack needed at the time, let alone wanted. Jack said he wanted time to make an informed decision, rather than rush headlong into the same pressure that drove him to drugs and the overdose which benched him. Indeed, it was Kent's rise to success and go-getter attitude that caused the pressure. Bitty managed to help Jack better simply by giving him space when he needed it, and a listening ear to talk.
- Jack also has a bit of this regarding his relationship with Kent. For him, it was purely physical and didn't mean that much in the long run. Kent admits to Bitty that he was seriously in love with Jack, and wanted to get back together with him. Jack says to Bitty that he and Kent have a lot of air to clear, apologies to make to each other but it's unlikely to happen.
Love Epiphany: Jack realizes that he's in love with Bitty when the latter nominates him as team captain at the end of his freshman year.
Open Secret: Bitty angsts about first being gay and in the closet, and later dating Jack. Turns out his teammates knew both times. Bitty is not good at keeping secrets.
Reality Ensues:
- During the playoffs in Bitty's freshman year, Jack outlines a risky maneuver to Bitty. As Bitty hesitates, Jack gives him a Rousing Speech about how Bitty can do this, and asks the younger student to trust him. They return to the ice, Bitty tries the risky maneuver bolstered by the speech...and gets a really bad hip check and concussion that knocks him out on the ice. Samwell loses, and Jack is wrought with guilt that he nearly killed Bitty. There is a reason that the maneuver was risky, and Jack questions if he's a good captain while willing to endanger a teammate's wellbeing.
- Likewise, Bitty has been making steady progress facing his phobia of checks. That risky play puts him back at square one; even a teammate lunging at him in practice ends with him curled on the ice in a Troubled Fetal Position. The coach has to step in because if Bitty doesn't get over his block, he's likely to lose his scholarship, but knows that the kid needs some help..
- In theory Kent and Jack should have been the power couple; even Ao3 has real-person fiction about them being together when Jack was still doing professional hockey and the relationship was under wraps. On paper, they're perfect for each other. The problem is that, even though it wasn't Kent's fault, he inadvertently enabled Jack's drug addiction and eventual overdose. When Jack got clean, breaking up with Kent was the first healthy decision he made for himself because Kent's rise to fame was driving him to drugs. With that said, Jack also admits that he made mistakes; he saw the relationship as purely physical, while Kent was seriously in love with him.
- Bitty has been a decent college student, using his cooking to get into classes outside his major and practicing on the ice. He still has to turn in a thesis senior year, and his teammates cut him off from baking until it's done.
Serious Business
- Bitty loves Beyonce. Do not insult Beyonce in his presence.
- Bitty's mom takes it seriously if her son uses his Aunt Judith-- her sister's-- recipes. She considers herself the better cook between the two. When Bitty confesses that he's been feeding Jack's team with Aunt Judith's jam, his mother becomes furious and dials her sister on the phone.
Tap on the Head: Subverted. When Bitty receives a bad hip check at the playoffs during freshman year, he gets a concussion that knocks him out on the ice. He has to receive several months of bedrest, and his phobia of checks surges in full swing.
Supreme Chef: Bitty is the best baker on the hockey team. In fact, he's the only baker on the hockey team which surprises them. But he's really good, and soon he's making entire dinners for his teammates, and sandwiches for Jack's team.
Through His Stomach: Bitty knows how to win over practically anyone by making them a pie. This is why when Jack introduces him to his teammates, they're delighted and start putting in requests for his homemade jelly and almond butter sandwiches.
Throw the Dog a Bone: Bitty is convinced that Jack is straight and would never go out with him. Year 2 ends with Jack running to find Bitty after graduation, and kissing him.
Toe-Tapping Melody: Bitty's love for Beyoncé is portrayed as this to the point of Running Gag. His roommates often hear him singing and dancing along to Beyoncé in the shower, and insulting Beyoncé is a good way to get on Bitty's bad side.
Tough Love: Jack insists on doing extra checking practices with Bitty. That's because a hockey player can't freeze up on the ice during a game. If Bitty can learn to not black out, it would help the team immensely. Despite Bitty hating these early-morning sessions, he admits that Jack is very right.
Wham! Shot:
- Bitty makes a dangerous play on Jack's orders during the playoffs. As he receives a hip check, he sails through the air monologuing how much he hates this. Cue paramedics fussing over him, and Jack softly calling his name.
- In-universe, Bitty kissing Jack on live TV becomes this for Bitty's parents. They need a moment to pick up the phone and talk to "Dicky". Both reassure him that they're not upset he's gay, but sad that he felt he couldn't trust them, apologizing for making him uncomfortable.