It's weird to weigh in on the Boxing Day Fight thing when I haven't read the book in its entirety, just snippets, but eh, you're getting some thoughts anyway.
Pretty sure we'll be getting some form of the scene considering Jacob has mentioned it specifically as one of the things he's looking forward to adapting, though with his penchant for swapping lines and changing dialogue juuuuust enough to totally alter the meanings he may surprise us. I'm very curious to see how it goes.
Personally, I don't think he'll pull any emotional punches--this is the most intense Shane and Ilya will have gotten in a disagreement, and even though it's still a light-ish romance it would be very surprising for him to defang that fight. And I wouldn't want him to. They have to have that fight and it needs to be a big deal if they're going to move forward in the relationship.
I'm also okay with Ilya backing Shane into a wall and having a moment of "oh shit, what am I doing??" as long as it doesn't stray into actual DV territory (which in the romance genre is a hard no for me, tbh, automatic dnf). Watching him reckon with the ways his family fucked him up and what he himself is capable of if he doesn't work through those emotions instead of burying them would be juicy af.
Already worried about becoming his mother, but whoops now he's dealing with the ghost of his father as well. Hell yeah. I don't understand anyone wanting to make this scene bland and boring by taking out the intensity.
But, aside from that aspect, one thing I never really see people mention wanting to change/examine differently is the way the narrative seems to let Ilya get away with some declarations that aren't true.
Like, okay, everyone seems to love the "I already chose you" line, but idk, it bugs me. Because it's not true, not really. Not without qualification.
With that line, Ilya is blatantly declaring that he already chose Shane over hockey, which isn't really the whole truth. Sure, he made a choice to swap to a (temporarily!) worse team, chose to move and start over again in a new place (in a country he wanted to be in, crucially!) and it turned out to be harder than he thought and now he's struggling. That sucks, and since he tried to hold it all in and deny anything was wrong then it's absolutely no surprise that it all comes bursting out in a rather messy way.
But. Ilya still has hockey. It's not exactly like he had it before, but he still has it. Whereas Shane is thinking of it as a complete "would you choose to give up your career entirely" as in no hockey at all anymore. If they come out, he thinks he won't be able to play anymore. That it's one thing or the other, no nuance, no middle ground. And he's understandably scared of it, and taken aback by that question being tossed out like an ultimatum.
And it appears that the canon (book wise, anyway) lets that statement go by unchallenged, that it lets the reader think that yes, Ilya chose Shane over hockey. That he's given up everything and Shane has given up nothing and he's right to be resentful. When really, he didn't quite do that--he chose their relationship and a new version of hockey over the hockey he had before, in exchange for not only that upgraded relationship, but a safer country for him and future citizenship he wanted for himself.
And idk, that just bugs me. Part of my pushback against all this is how strongly I feel that it's unreasonable for any romantic partner to expect the other to give up a career for them, to hand out ultimatums like that. Tbh, I think Ilya asking Shane who he'd pick between him and hockey was manipulative and a dick move. He pushed Shane into a corner with that question and then got mad when the question was thrown back at him.
Because of course Shane doesn't see it as a choice that's already been made! Ilya is still playing hockey, even though yes the team isn't as good and that's hard, but he hasn't given it up entirely, and Shane is struggling too but he's still looking to the future they both said they wanted, following a plan they both made. He doesn't realize the script has changed because Ilya has been lying to him and talking in vague circles (echoes of the Tuna Meltdown again) and they're asking the same question but using two very different meanings.
It's impossible for me to look at scenes like this and not think of how the author admitted so many of her choices in this book were based on making Shane be "selfish" (by...sticking to a plan they both made and agreed to) and not paying enough attention to Ilya's needs (even though he does pay attention, and does ask, and only gets told to shut up). How his food issues were only there to give Ilya something to make fun of.
Like, she's writing with a pretty obvious bias towards Ilya's POV being the right one, the more sympathetic one. Much of Shane's struggle is either ignored or happens off screen (the coming out to his team especially, a choice that doesn't make a whole lot of sense but isn't given any real examination to help the audience understand why it happens and how it really affects Shane or his choices afterwards). It's unbalanced in a way that the show will have to remedy if we're going to get a satisfying conflict and resolution arc.
So yeah, I'm looking forward to seeing how Jacob writes it out, how he blocks that scene and what the aftermath is going to be. Because from the bits I've read, the bones of a good argument and conflict resolution are there in the book but the follow through doesn't really satisfy me (idk, the plane thing feels cheap to me, but ymmv). I want to see what emotional gut punches these two performers can bring to the table! I want it to matter.
