ok ramblers, let's get rambling.

Oh the confusion of being lovingly kissed on the shoulder by your situationship from hell

"The wilderness that is our daughter"

These men, who brought me here today, do not fear me. They brought me here today because they fear you and because they know that my voice, the voice that refuses to be enslaved, once lived in you. And may yet still. They brought me here today to show you death and use it to frighten you into ignoring that voice. But know this. We are many. They are a few. To face death is a choice. And they can't hang us all. Get on with it, mother fucker.

I don't deserve you. Yes, you do.

The obvious problem is of course that when you bring real world events into your fictionalized NHL, you are now open to continued comparisons that you may never have intended, in particular for a very old club with deep roots in a marginalized culture to which you, the author, do not belong. It IS that deep, but you are from Nova Scotia, and you do not have a natural access to it. Worse, you have almost certainly been exposed to the nationwide bias against that culture, which—don’t even get me started.

So Rachel was mad at the management of the team she liked, and she took it out on the pages of a silly little gay romance series she was writing, never knowing exactly what a cultural touchstone that story would become. Understandable! Except the story now IS a cultural touchstone, and the real life team getting roasted in the silly little gay romance series has moved on, and its real life fanbase is bracing to watch the cultural touchstone move in parallel to the real club, which is a comparison she directly invited when she put Bergevin and Therrien functionally 1 to 1 into the text.

And the real life club is full of members of the historically marginalized culture of its original, legendary players. The real life club’s captain’s name is Suzuki. The real life club’s coach is one of the most intelligent—emotional and hockey IQ—men in the league.

The popularity of HR has already required multiple members of the real life Montreal Canadiens to give statements on the acceptance (or lack thereof) of gay men in the real life NHL. Can we expect these questions to recur and intensify if and when HR(TV) adapts the long game? Is that appropriate or fair, given the current accomplishments of the real life Habs? Was it ever appropriate for Rachel to make the assumptions she did—which became 1 to 1 as soon as she introduced proxies to Bergevin and Therrien!!!!—about the response of the city of Montreal itself to the revelation that its beloved Captain likes dick? Must my city answer for what some writer from the maritimes decided for us?

That wouldn’t be irreconcilable with his characterisation if it was clearly framed both as a flaw in that we see Shane upset by it and Ilya later apologise or at least acknowledge harm done internally (even if he is at the time cruelly satisfied by it) and as an anomalous response provoked by his own emotional state, i.e., lashing out in a moment of weakness/bitterness so to say. But instead what we get is Shane laughing or brushing it off with a canned ‘Fuck you’ he clearly doesn’t mean, anyone else in the room responding with uncomplicated amusement, and no further discussion on the matter at any other point.*

What that tells me is that RR does not see how these contradict each other and in fact believes the latter (2) consistent with the former (1). For myself, who sees the way the former is reinforced throughout this book and naturally extends from their first, I have to label the latter ooc and fault the author for the oversight. Anything else means leaving the realm of interpretation (which requires there first be text to interpret) for unfounded speculation and headcanon, which while a wonderful form of collective fanon engagement that I just as happily partake in as everyone else in fandom, is not a sign of a well-executed story.

Like. There are gripes of varying levels about the Ottawa Plan, but this is by far the most efficient change he could make to improve it. The team can still be bottom of the league right now (which maintains a lot of the plot beats from The Long Game), but if they are actively working on becoming contenders before they got the unpredictable opportunity to sign Ilya Rozanov...? Literally could be enough to move the needle on understanding how either of these hyper competitive hockey talents managed a whole year without deciding this was a terrible idea.

Ilya moving to a shitty team and becoming miserable because he's committed career suicide at his peak is so predictable it's not even funny. Same with Shane becoming upset that Ilya isn't really competitive anymore, and with both those facts putting a strain on their relationship. Planning a move a season in advance and somehow not realizing this during the multiple games where both their teams presumably destroyed Ottawa while half asleep is just unrealistic. It would stop them dead.

But.

If Ottawa is trying to win, trying to trade and draft and sign and take advantage of the benefits deliberately built in to help losing teams rebuild, then maybe they could be optimistic enough to try it anyway. Shane alludes to them needing a center during the 3am planning meeting. It's not compelling evidence as is, but it could be spun into something worth noting pretty easily. They need a center because they've rebuilt the blue line solidly but they still can't generate scoring. Ilya isn't committing career suicide. He's moving to become the offensive core of what could be a serious contender if they could make the pieces click. It's still pretty crazy - he's gambling on an untested franchise and definitely setting his Cup race back several years, minimum - but he at least seems to have a plan.

...And just to address a justification I've seen floating around in advance: signing Ilya alone is not actually conveying this. People point out that Ilya captained Boston up from mediocre to Cup winning and suggest maybe Shane is just optimistic he could do it again. Except - Ilya is a player. He's not actually making the kinds of decisions that determine if a rebuild is successful. Little baby 19-22 year old Ilya did not buckle down and plan Boston's glorious comeback. This is management stuff - the coaching staff developing lines and players, the GM and assistants negotiating trades, the scouting staff making sure they get draft picks that can fill roles, etc. Ilya's job is to be good at playing hockey.

Ilya wanting the team to be contenders wouldn't do shit unless the front office was actively and skillfully making them contenders. A feeling TLG does not get across by all accounts.

i think i found my new favorite artist on twitter