saturn

Shane’s comphet and compartmentalization of his sexuality and true self outside of a few frantic encounters with Ilya a few times a year is devastating. His refusal to tell anyone in his life - his teammates, his parents, friends he doesn’t have - what he truly wants because he can’t even admit it to himself.

Everything is hockey, everything is brand deals. No, he can’t have a glass of wine because he can’t do anything that’ll potentially impact his performanceon the ice. He can’t date because everything is about his career and when it’s the off season, he locks himself away at his cottage where he spends most of his time alone. Hayden is the closest thing he has to a friend, but if Shane can’t even admit to himself how he feels, how is he supposed to confide in Hayden?

He can have sex with Ilya behind closed doors without words exchanged, but the second it begins to resemble something real, when Ilya starts trying to figure out what Shane really wants, Shane panics and forces himself into a relationship with a woman, because what he has with Ilya doesn’t make sense or fit into any version of himself that he can foresee.

One of the best decisions Jacob Tierney made in the show was showing Shane be intimate with Rose and frame it as devastating and stomach churning. Shane’s performance of heterosexuality is painful. It actively holds him back from being his true self. The book glosses over it and mentions Shane has shitty sex with Rose a couple of times, and doesn’t go into any meaningful detail about how Shane, a gay man in love with another man, forcing himself to have sex with a woman to perform heterosexuality would be extremely difficult and unpleasant for him.

The scene in the show is unpleasant and heartbreaking. We see and feel how much Shane doesn’t want to be doing this, but he feels like he has to.

Shane’s break up with Rose is 10 tens more emotional and impactful in the show than it is in the book, because Shane’s clumsiness with women is not portrayed as a punchline. We see him processing in real time that he can’t just keep faking it. Shane thinks he is good at hiding and compartmentalizing, but it only took Rose two sexual encounters to figure him out. He’s forced to reckon with the fact that he can’t just keep ignoring who he really is and what he really wants.

The scene where we finally get a glimpse into just how painful everything is for Shane is another scene that’s not in the book - Shane’s conversation with Yuna outside.

“I tried. I tried really hard. I just can’t help it.”

Now that he’s finally starting to let go of the performance and separation he’s tried to maintain all of these years - Shane Hollander Hockey Player versus Shane Hollander The Person - he can admit that there’s nothing he can do to change who he is or how he feels, but that will never erase the pain of all those years of trying, of trying to be who his mother wanted him to be and who the MLH wanted him to be. He denied himself the ability to be fully human and fully himself for so long and he’ll never get that time back.

Wasn’t feeling up to posting myself at first, but I did see the reactions to the screenshots, especially so many upsetting posts from people who see themselves in Shane Hollander for so many different reasons, and were hurt by the attitudes shown towards neurodivergence, EDs, the very real fears around coming out, the consistent lack of awareness about what being POC means through all of this. I’m one of those people, too, because her comments hit me a little too hard as a neurodivergent person.

And then the jokey dismissal of that was … yeah. So here’s another overly long deep dive I’ve spent too long overthinking.

I began my S2 hopes and fears post the other day by saying I go back and forth on the intentionality in the GCU books, especially on Shane’s TLG characterisation. Well, I’m a little clearer on that specific issue now, given that the author seems to have explicitly spelled out her intentions, and unfortunately has justified some less charitable interpretations of her writing decisions.

I’ve watched a lot of Heated Rivalry reactions, & one thing I never see people clock is the importance of this interview clip in French.

This is a scene meant to mirror Ilya’s interview earlier. Shane is having fun with it. He’s smiling and enjoying answering questions about him being good at the game. He knows he beat Rozanov, and he maybe can’t ‘say’ it without breaking his media-trained answers, but it’s all over his giddy smug little face.

And then the reporter asks this:

“And what do you think about being compared to Tiger Woods and Serena Williams?”

Look at how fast his face drops.

Reactors tend to hear the first part of the question & take it as her confirming that Shane is a really good player, but they completely miss her follow up.

“And what do you think about being compared to Tiger Woods and Serena Williams?”

“Do you think you share any of the same challenges?”

This is yet another instance of the world around them shoving Shane being the ‘Token (W)Asian’ in his face.

Jacob does a great job of making tokenism an important but subtle part of Shane’s character. It’s an aspect of his brand that would be directly ‘harmed’ by his coming out, regardless of the other issues of Russia and his own anxiety.

It might kind of slip under the radar for people on a first watch, but this happens to Shane fairly often.

The Montreal guy on draft night being ‘excited that Shane is Asian’ is the most heinous & obvious example. But you also have:

Yuna telling Shane at the CCM commercial that people look up to him.

Rolex signing him on as the youngest player they ever have because he’s exactly the kind of young man they want, is subtle but it’s there.

Rose almost immediately bringing up him being Asian when discussing his childhood. Shane even mentions the fact that the other kids kind of forgot to make fun of him in favor of the other Asian kid, simply because he has a White last name.

I’m sure there’s more that I’m missing.

Regardless, it’s not every time he interacts with people, but it’s enough to make clear to him that people will see his race & those stereotypes first. Before they see any of his skills or personality.

& Shane is NEVER the one to bring it up. It just keeps getting thrust in his face.

There’s a reason these 2 in particular (Shane & Ilya) were chosen for this very public rivalry & it’s not just because they’re good. This is marketing.

Shane’s media persona is calculated Golden Canadian Good Boy who is continuously pitted against Bad Boy Clearly Russian Rozanov in an effort to make his image more palatable, and more White. Ilya’s obvious accent & struggles with English highlight Shane’s poise & confidence.

The majority white population is going to hone in on the ‘Russian Mobster Bad’ stereotype & sidestep most of Shane being half-Japanese. The general population’s mild Xenophobia is being used in Shane’s favor by making Ilya look like a violent outsider in comparison.

And if Shane comes out as Gay, he runs face-first into a number of roadblocks:

Now he’s got another Tokenism thing to deal with. A part of himself he’d have to perform for the cameras.

He’s no longer going to be seen as the Golden Boy - he loses respect & people are going to notice & comment even more on his heritage.

Hockey is an extremely homophobic sport, he’s now at risk of losing all support on the ice & locker rooms.

There are also a number of stereotypes surrounding Gay Asian men in particular, and he’s now going to weather all of that with little to no support.

Throwing Ilya into the mix here throws so many problems I can’t talk about it all, but in short: Russia, Ilya’s slutty image, game interference allegations, etc.

Last week, Jason Robertson, the Dallas Stars’ half-Filipino left winger, who leads American players in the NHL in points this season, got left off the USA’s roster for the Milan Olympics. 

And this, finally, has helped me understand Shane’s fear. Let me explain. (also look at both these cuties).

By all accounts and statistical measures, Jason Robertson is an attacking powerhouse. He’s tied for 9th in total points (goals + assists) this season, but is the top American, and he’s 4th overall in goals scored. He’s a damn good hockey player and seems like he could be a helpful guy to have on your team if the goal is to win six straight hockey games by as large a margin as possible. 

US Olympic GM Bill Guerin spoke about wanting to build a roster that's a “true team” and not just an “All-Star” team. He’s talked about prioritizing physicality, which tbh is an unhinged choice, considering referees in international hockey permit way less physical contact than the NHL.

This Guerin character seems like an ass, and, oh, his implicit racial biases are showing. 

Indeed, the Hockey Graphs blog did an in-depth analysis of racial bias in hockey scouting, called “Racial Bias in Drafting and Development: The NHL’s Black Quarterback Problem”. Though, as the title suggests, this report is largely focused on bias against Black hockey players, the analysis compares scouting report language used to describe white, Black, and Asian players. 

“Asian players were much more likely to be cited than Black players for their hockey IQ, while Black players were significantly more likely to be cited for their athleticism (particularly size and strength).  If we drill down by comparing players of Asian and Black descent to White peers of similar rankings at the same position on [Central Scouting lists, we find a similar bucketing of skills sets.”

Even though Jason Robertson is 6’3”, even though his defensive statistics are somewhere between average and excellent, Guerin clearly perceives him as not being “physical” enough. 

So, in short, racism is why Jason Robertson is not going to the Olympics with Team USA.

And this racism is exactly why Shane and his mom work so hard to associate Shane with old-school luxury, and its incumbent whiteness, in his endorsements. 

It’s why Shane pushes himself to be perfect. Because he has to be the best, at everything in hockey, or the doors won’t even open for him. 

It’s also probably why Shane is drafted second. Why Shane wins rookie of the year, but Ilya wins MVP.

If this blatant racism is still happening in hockey in 2026, I can only imagine how much worse it was in the 2000s and 2010s timeline of the show. Shane’s professional life, his professional success, in a racist hockey landscape relies upon his difference, his Asian identity, fading out of focus for the white men in power. 

Jason Robertson’s Olympic snub illustrates that being “too Asian” might’ve been enough to harm Shane’s career. Shane must then have viewed being both Asian and gay as an absolute death knell to his involvement in hockey. 

Often they will have directly benefited from what they are now speaking out against. Yet their voices and authority are prioritised over the victims most of the time. And I do think that listening to them does have important and valuable insights. And I think they absolutely do have a responsibility to speak about these things. However, I also think they are overly platformed; partially because often it is easier for people to face and it allows people to comfort themselves that even normal good people can be allies to hate "accidentally" and to excuse themselves from things.(Ok I am now maybe getting off the topic of heated rivalry a little because the commissioner did tell troy to shut the fuck up- but he did that because people were paying more attention to Troy than Dallas' victims so...).

This cycle of platforming does sometimes give these people an overinflated sense of their own education and lets just say wisdom. And Troy is in hockey locker rooms not a fucking gender studies class. So becoming disillusioned about his best friends character and working to educate himself means he probably does know better than alot of other people in those rooms now.

But here's the part where I could see him pissing Shane off: (I am not saying Troy does this. All I am saying is I could see Troy doing this and think it would be a good charecter study fic I am probs too lazy to write) No amount of instagram infographics can stand in for lived experience.

And yeah Rachel doesn't talk about race so we don't have canon Shane feelings about racism but we all know damn well that is not accurate. Shane might not be very in touch with Japanese culture(which honestly had that been an intentional character choice it would have been a strong one but thats a diff conversation) but he is actually very fucking aware of how bigotry works. Also considering how much racism against asian men is tied up with emasculation he is also gonna have a pretty good idea about how misogyny, racism and homophobia intersect and prop up patriarchal structures. shanehollanderhockeyplayer may not know all the technical terms for everything but he damn well knows what it is and he damn well knows how Troy participated in it. And I think if Troy hit him with the instagram terminology of some of this shit and tried to give Shane a vocab lesson about his own oppression, which Shane is not gonna wanna talk about anyway(another strong character choice had it been on purpose) especially with this motherfucker, Shane would try to kill him with his mind. And try to check him over the boards at practice and make it look like an accident. And he would be right to do so.

meanwhile, when shane is the one going through it—he's anxious about being outed and doesnt want to come out due to the league's homophobia, he's personally threatened by the commissioner, he struggles with disordered eating, if not an outright eating disorder (outright saying he diets for a sense of control, feeling guilty about tasting lemonade on his boyfriend's lips, his low point is eating one singular snicker's bar)—ilya fails to reciprocate empathy. shane tells ilya about the commissioner threatening him and ilya basically goes great now my bitch bf will never want to come out 🙄 (compare this with how he reacts when his reformed bigot white bestie troy was threatened by the commissioner: ilya is automatically protective of him.) shane starts an unhealthily restrictive diet due to his fears of aging (read: being pushed) out of the sport, and ilya looks down on him for it and mocks his diet to his face. shane, who is a hypervisible athlete of color in an extremely white sport, looks uncomfortable in a room full of white people talking about the league's issues, and ilya deduces that this is because shane doesnt know "the dark side of hockey" the way he does. this is a ridiculous assumption that should reveal a worrying lack of empathy for his partner of color, especially since throughout the series there is a pattern of other hockey players targeting shane with homophobic language, which ilya has been present for. except rachel herself states shane has no trauma from the sport and shane's own pov asserts that hockey has never made him sad.

do you guys get where im going with this? the elephant in the room is race. rachel narratively blames shane, hyperscrutinizes his flaws and justifies or provides excuses for ilya's, because she has implicit racist biases and subconsciously sees empathy as a one-way obligation in their relationship. ilya lacks empathy for shane because she lacks empathy for shane and thinks ilya is right. she monopolizes empathy for ilya because he is white and because she doesnt see characters of color as fully people and capable of having their own interiority or struggles to explore. if you've read tough guy or role model, you can see this same exact thing play out in ryan price and fabian salah's relationship or with troy barrett and his ex adrian dela cruz.

and remember how i said that there's a pattern of other hockey players being homophobic to shane? this is never brought up in shane's pov, not even hinted at. we only see these instances through the pov of white characters and are only given explorations of how they feel, not shane. shane is completely absent except as a prop to make her sadboy white characters feel tormented and angry, and rachel never connects his "self-absorbed" anxieties about wanting to stay closeted to the disproportionate homophobia he already faces, because rachel is uninterested in giving shane grace.

so when rachel says ilya's biggest flaw is his fear of being hurt (note how the language centers his hurt, not how his actions cause hurt), while shane's is his supposed selfishness (is shane not also afraid of being hurt? isnt that where his food issues and unwillingness to come out come from)? when she said shane is too focused on his "ridiculous" diet and not on "actually important things" like his depressed boyfriend? when she said in a reddit AMA that she only gave shane food issues to give ilya something to poke fun at? when that one interviewer asked her about the criticisms of how she wrote her asian character and she pivoted to talking about ilya's childhood trauma? her fetishistic descriptions of shane and fabian, to the point you can tell she wanted to call them exotic and her editor probably told her to tone it down? the way she contrasts adrian's appearance and supposed shortcomings with harris? her insistence that her books are challenging hockey culture while completely dismissing how hostile and dehumanizing it can be to people of color? and last but not least, THE DICK SIZE RANKING?

yeah, no. turns out it was just an asian fetish all along, and apparently she used to have a discord server where she ranked the main characters' dick sizes (?????) and she put both shane and fabian (who is lebanese and therefore asian, even if he is also white) in the bottom three. again, this is not inherently bad representation, but the way she writes these characters is fetishistic. rachel reid is just another racist, orientalist white woman. like it was immediately obvious to me and i genuinely regret giving her the benefit when i should have just DNF'd to save my time and energy lmfao

and also idk what you mean by fans "infantilizing" shane, could you elaborate? i think a lot of fans, particularly fans of color, are protective of him and critical of rachel's racism, which informs how she prioritizes the struggles and interiority of white characters and has almost zero exploration of white supremacist, conservative hockey culture.

side note: white man troy barrett's half-baked redemption arc is actually such a fascinating case study of how those two things (prioritizing white character arcs + neglecting race) can intersect. he was best friends with notorious bigot dallas kent, he himself was a notorious bigot, and racism isnt brought up at all in relation to him, not even in shane's pov? did troy and dallas just randomly decide to be progressive or at least neutral about one thing and that one thing was race, in the NATIONAL HOCKEY LEAGUE? imo his character arc and the automatic empathy the narrative has for him is informed by his whiteness. and this isnt even getting into how female characters, particularly dallas kent's victims, are narratively sidelined in favor of role model's pity party for troy, which as a survivor myself i thought was extremely tasteless and himpathetic