unfair advantage | 1.6K | Ilya leans forward in his chair, deliberately, to put his mouth right next to the microphone. “Oh wow,” Ilya says brightly. His Russian accent is thicker than usual. “Drapeau must be trying so hard to seduce me. But I am sorry, I am already taken. A one man man, I am.” | Great characterisation, perfect Ilya voice. And this fic contains the best Ilya-chirps-Scott-Hunter line ever.

we could get better mileage by @twinkwolf | 6.9K | "Have you ever gotten someone pregnant?" | This fic discusses abortion and there's a pretty graphic description, FYI. If you can stomach this, it's such a fantastic story. A great exploration of Shane and his feelings towards the idea of parenthood. And a lovely portrayal of Shane and Jackie's friendship, which is something I'm a sucker for. It also features some smoking hot sex scene and also a really believable, grown-up version of Ilya and Shane. Highly recommended.

A Friend of the Family by @twicesonnet| 11.9K | Two months after Jackie lets the backyard fire pit fall over and just stands there letting it burn, Hayden has a boys trip. Arrangements are made. Enter: Svetlana Vetrova, daughter of the famous Soviet goaltender, and Ilya Rosanov’s best friend.| This is the best Jackie character study I've seen so far. Jackie here is a real person, much more than the magical being who does emotional labour for Hayden in most stories. And I love how open-ended this is.

I know that I feel it, but I don't know the name | 12K | David Hollander gets in a car accident while Shane and Yuna are travelling. Ilya, newly traded to Ottawa, is the only one available. He handles it pretty well. Until he doesn't.| David is in an accident. Ilya in this one almost broke me. It gave me all the feels.

Image Management by @409-conflict and ritualist| 9K | During his rookie year, Shane goes to a Halloween party at a Montreal gay bar to confirm some suspicions about himself. Unfortunately, it’s 2010, so the official photographer uploads a few hundred photos to the bar’s Facebook page.| Great use of socmed. And I just love how 409_conflict writes Yuna. Also, this is possibly the only time I've ever felt something resembling a positive feeling towards Grigori Rozanov? The power of transformative works!

tender by @barkerandlovelace| 18.3K | Ilya had dismissed the feeling out of hand, except he has now just spent half an hour in the bicycle shop considering the difference between 190 gsm and 250 gsm merino wool and which would best keep Shane warm while wicking sweat during his morning commutes. This is yet another thing Ilya has never done before. The only person whose sweat he has ever contemplated the wicking of has been himself.| Amazing full AU. AMAZING. Ilya is still a hockey player. Shane has a government job. They meet after Ilya retires. The perfect mix of fluffy/funny/tender with stellar characterisation.Imo, it's on a par with the AUs by magneticwave and Vera Dragon, I can't think of any higher praise than this.

think twice (and come back for a third time) | 70k | Shane is heavier than he used to be; his weight bears down on Ilya in a new way. He’s put on pounds of muscle since Ilya last touched him like this. Ilya flattens his palms, skims them under Shane’s undershirt, feels the flat solidity of his abs, the bulk of his lats, the swell of his chest. It’s the same and it’s new, this body; it’s the boy he couldn’t stop thinking about when he was 18 and the man he loved enough to let go at 26 and the person who somehow always comes to find him when he’s lost. A stranger, and the love of his life.| Canon divergence. Ilya and Shane breakup and never get back together. Very angsty. Well-written, good characterisation. Lovely Yuna/Ilya.

big things happen every time we meet BY @trippedlaces| 14.5k | Halfway through Shane and Ilya’s first season playing together in Ottawa, an online sports betting company figures out how to make itself the main character when it comes to social media’s new favorite topic.| Extremely funny, good use of socmed. Great characterisation too, especially Shane, who comes off as suitably hockey-obsessed. :D

too busy making my own waves by @themardia| 4.4K | In Hayden’s defense, JJ’s new habit of dropping chirps that sound like they’ve come straight out of Shakespeare just seems like another round of JJ being his usual weird, over the top self. And hey, if he wants to call the opposing team a bunch of “malicious gnomes” or “mud-licking wretches”, he can have at it. (After Scott Hunter coming out last season, everyone's making some adjustments.)| A much kinder look at JJ than canon, and it totally works. Love him and Hayden trying to be better human beings because they love Shane.

Untouchable Face by @zenaidamacrouras1 | 76k | Shane was twelve when hockey scouts started showing up to his games. He was barely fifteen when a check went horribly wrong, fucked his knee to hell and gave him a grade III concussion. During rehab he found swimming, and he was seventeen when he went to the Olympics as an alternate for freestyle swim events. He’s 24 and working for his mom’s sports PR company when he meets Ilya Fucking Rozanov. May contain: Shane Hollander navigating what it means to be mostly normal when your whole childhood was about preparing you for greatness. Shane Hollander attempting to flirt. Possibly less than 100% accurate descriptions of what a sports PR agent does.| I'm extremely picky about AUs where Shane is not a hockey player but this one totally worked for me. Extremely cute.

the intricate brocade of this happiness by @always-waxing-crescent| 10K | But Ilya shakes his head, absolutely mute. There’s no universe, no universe where he can talk about this. He moved to America to forget. | A brutal look at Ilya's childhood and the new phase of his life after the Cottage. Yuna isn't immediately enamoured with him and I love this characterisation. Interesting exploration of his relationship with Alexei too.

Think you’ll like it!

Clean Sweep by @theburialofstrawberries | 29K | Shane’s brain cycled rapidly through a half-dozen celebrities, porn actors, Grindr profiles, every attractive bartender who’d ever served him a beer, trying to find a comparison for this level of outrageously concentrated beauty in one person, but he was drawing a blank. The man—Ilya Rozanov, Facilities Attendant, his badge read—gestured around the supply closet. “I help you find something?”| I'm pretty sure everyone and their mother has already read this, because it spread like wildfire through my circle...if you have been living under a rock, somehow, this is  a canon-divergent AU set during the 2017-18 MLH season. Shane is Shane and Ilya is a janitor. This is totally going to be a classic in the fandom! So, SO good. Amazing characterisation and I love how the author remixed the main beats of canon and all the slight and big changes in this AU really work.

Don't stop believing (hold on to that feeling) | 33K | A series of vignettes following Shane's relationship with music through the medium of karaoke, set along the timeline of his relationship with Ilya.| I urge you to give this fic a chance, because going on the summary alone I honestly was very sceptical. And I shouldn't have been! I would have never imagined a story about Shane Hollander and bloody karaoke could be this good.

white collar crimes | 21K | So Shane Hollander is, how do you say in English, a dirty little thief. A clothing thief, to be precise. Ilya can't say he saw that coming, but he also can't pretend he's all that mad about it. His shirt looks good on his Shane. On Shane. On Hollander. Right. His shirt looks good on Hollander.|  Set during the situationship. Great characterisation and banter and feelings. Second chapter is my fave but it's all very good.

No Friction, Just Chemistry by @dragonmuse| 20K | After leaving behind his last job, Ilya threw himself into a new profession: making and selling all things one can pickle. His week revolved around the Sunday farmer's market. Everything seemed simple and predictable until a new vendor arrived late in the season.| I normally don't do full AUs but Vee is a genius and I'd trust them to hell and back. This was the perfect rom-com version of Hollanov. Cute, fun and in-character. It also comes as a podfic, read by the author, and that's always a big plus for me. 

so you must like me for me by @alasse9 | 36.2K | It turns out, having the worst thing you can think of happen to you when you're seventeen years old can end up being pretty liberating. And land you an unexpected best friend.| Shane is outed before the draft, goes seventh and ends up in Ottawa. Best friends to lovers, a trope I really like that somehow works really well for Hollanov. Sweet and earnest.

(Oh I believe in) Yesterday | 9.4K | Time loops are just a fact of life to Wyatt, insane as that sounds. He’ll happily settle in for a repeat day every couple of weeks. Chances are he’ll wake up tomorrow morning and go to regularly scheduled practice. A teammate probably pissed off their wife, which is an easily fixed problem. Or, the Wyatt-Hayes-centric-time-loop-Boxing-Day-fight-fix-it-fic| A super a fun and original take on the time loop trope! Love Wyatt as our POV character, he's so well-written and his relationship with Lisa is just lovely.

All Love Must Leave but Search For It I Will | 23K | A shoulder injury takes Ilya out for the season ten games into his second year with the Ottawa Centaurs. With one good arm and an empty house, Ilya battles with memories of his parents and his mental health.| Good depiction of depression (I have a thing for stories that explore Ilya's mental health). Great characterisation.

babies born in the month of may by @bitterbloodyorange | 5K | Yuna Hollander and the Art of Raising a Winner Without Giving Him (or Yourself) Too Much of a Complex About It; Ilya Rozanov's Incomprehensive Guide to Charming Your Stoned Boyfriend| Really lovely Yuna character exploration.

multitasking by @emotional-synth-music| 7.3K | *I am in hell, Ilya thinks. He's awkwardly hard in his cup and layers of gear. He can't focus. How the fuck is Hollander functioning like this? Is he actually so gifted at hockey that he can play at this level and still have space to let the sex demon in his brain run rampant? Is this what he's like all the time? *|Crack treated seriously. Ilya can suddenly hear Shane's thoughts. Hot and so lovely.

when you leave here by @iddayidnight | 8K | “It just feels like such a nothing story," Shane says. "But my mom’s so fucking... worked up about it.”  Ilya watches him. “I think,” he says carefully, “that your mom is also the parent of a teenage boy who played on that hockey team. And not just the manager of a person who is being asked for comment on a bad story. Yes?”  (Shane was fifteen years old when he moved to Sarnia.)| Extremely painful to read but extremely good fic about hockey culture. Inspired by We Breed Lions (which I discovered and read thanks to this fandom, obvs). Amazing characterisation.

Pencil in the Rest | 87K | Scent patches were mandatory for anyone participating in World Junior's, but a lot of the Russian guys Shane saw in the hotel or around the rink had them loosely attached to their necks or not quite centered over their scent gland. Shane had been on his way to his parents' car when the wind shifted, and he smelled that Rozanov, leaning against the wall and not-at-all-surreptitiously fishing a carton of cigarettes out of his pocket, must have been one of them.| Omegaverse with fully realised world-building and great characterisation. Excellent use of the soulmate trope. Unputdownable.And I say it as someone who's usually meh on both these tropes.

winning streak by @citrusses | 9.1K  | Everyone hates All-Stars. If anyone asks, Shane does, too.| Perfect, perfect Shane characterisation. Ilya is amazing too, but we are in Shane's head here. What All Stars means for our unhinged duo during the situationship era.

Shane As It Ever Was by @@exactphoify | 7.1K | Ilya wakes with no memory after an eventful night. Or maybe it wasn’t eventful. He doesn’t remember, that’s the problem.|Time travel fic. Short and sweet. And hot. Lovely.

oh well, I guess we're gonna find out! by @angel-deux-writes | 95K | Shane leaves that Vegas penthouse suite feeling wretched, and like an idiot, and like he never wants to see Ilya Rozanov again. Except, well. Then there are zombies.|Again, this took fandom over by storm for a reason, but if you haven't read it yet, my bookmark reads "OMG. Zombie apocalypse AU. Fucking perfect."

here we are and what the hell are we going to do with it | 24K | “Shane.” Ilya takes Shane’s head in his hands, squeezes his cheeks so that Shane looks puffy, absurd. Beloved. “I am saying that to me, even though you are retired, you will always be No. 1 hockey player. Fuck Wayne Gretzky.” That’s what does it, as Ilya knew it would. Shane rears back, spluttering, outraged, trying not to laugh. “Oh, I have committed blasphemy now. They will take back my citizenship, big crime, very sad.” Shane smoothes his hands along Ilya’s calves, rests his fingertips on Ilya’s ankles. “Fuck Wayne Gretzky,” he says. He looks like he can’t believe what he’s saying. Ilya wonders, distantly, if he can get it on tape to play back to himself when things feel particularly bleak. “We can live in exile together. I don’t care. You’re my, my best, my second best hockey player forever too.”| Probably the best 'Shane has to retire and comes to term with it all' fic out there. Excellent characterisation all around, I love that this was plenty angsty without being over the top.

Dance Yrself Clean | 3.3K  | Two summers, nine years apart, and the changes they bring| Really good Ilya character study.

clouds in my coffee | 7.4K | A scandal breaks. Rose drives to Ottawa, to be not-alone.| A fic in which Rose gets some of the care and comfort she deserves.

When I Walk Into The Room, I Do Not Light It Up. Fuck. | 12.2K  | Transitions are hard for Shane. Joining his husband's team turns out not to be an exception to that rule.| Shane struggles to adapt to Ottawa. Amazing Shane POV. Lots of hockey, which makes it all much more grounded and interesting.