Ax

Ilya, smirking: Kinky.

Shane: I think you're sweet and beautiful.

Ilya: What-

Shane: You deserve to be cared for.

Ilya: Stop, now-

Shane: Your feelings are valid and deserve to be heard.

hockey players are typically shipped off in their teens where they billet in another hockey family's house, where they are raised best case by someone else's parents but more realistically by a bunch of feral rink rats. hockey players bond deeply and passionately with their teams. and it's nice in the way where you see pics of them pushing their beds together to have a cuddle and having compounding layers of intimacy and it's horrific in the way we find out later in court cases that the hazing included physical and sexual assault.

because that's the duality of hockey. it's love of the game love of the sport love of the boys, and sacrifice the body. prove that you are one of us. prove that you think and act and speak the same way. show you care about the boys, show you'll be there for the boys, show that you're part of an in group with little space for individuality.

hockey players don't generally look like underwear models, because six packs aren't a sign of strength but of emaciation, and hockey players are usually hairy and scarred and padded because they need bodies that can take hits. and they are hit and they are hit and they are hit.

which is why the dedication to team matters so much. pretty hard to put your body in front of a puck that might break your finger or toe or foot unless you're doing it for the boys. pretty hard to keep playing injured - so injured you can't physically drag yourself out of bed the next morning - unless you're doing it for the boys. the boys love it when you block shots, they're shouting from the bench, they're patting all over your aching body with their big gloved hands. they're cupping your helmet, they're pressing your foreheads together, they're telling you you're a fucking beauty.

heated rivalry showed them working out in the gym, but not much of the plane rides, which i've heard actual hockey players say is their favourite part of the sport. where do you sit - with the old guys at the front where you're going to have a conversation, with the loud guys at the back where they have month long poker games. almost all of them have families and are away from the people they love, but they feed off the team. hockey players aren't individuals because they're not allowed to be because they've been trained since childhood to be part of a team, with all the good and the devastation that comes from that. they're part of a team at the expense of their sense of self and their physical well being and their psychological safety.

and i get why it wasn't a part of the show/book, because that's too fucking many people to include, narratively it's a disaster unless you're dedicating half your screen time to randos who exist only to provide butt taps.