it's like poetry, it rhymes

They're gonna determine whether they get another season based on viewership and attendance this year. Viewership and support is how we got a professional women's hockey league expansion, let's do it for baseball too.

“Shane, how does it feel to be back on Montreal ice?”

"Do the thing!" Shane punctuates his order with a flourish of his hand that nearly smacks Pike in the face.

"Okay, okay," Pike laughs. "Hello out there, we're on the air."

He's using his interviewer voice that Ilya doesn't get. Shane is cracking up, though. And then he joins in and Ilya realizes there is some (very bad. Atrocious) musicality to this. They're... singing?

He watches, alternating between observing the drunken serenade and Jackie who's just shaking her head with amusement. She doesn't seem unsettled or surprised so this must be a... thing. A drunken thing.

"The goalie jumps, and the players bump, and the fans all go insane," Shane sing-yells now.

"Someone roars, 'Shaney Scores!' At the good ol' Hockey Game," Pike picks up, laughing when Shane hits him.

"That's not how it goes!"

"It is in Montreal--fuck, Ottawa! Ottawa."

Shane scoffs but Pike is undeterred. "Sing it, Shaney!"

Ilya expects him to flip Pike off but instead he listens and the two begin warbling together again. An awful harmony Ilya can't look away from.

"Oh! The good ol' Hockey game, is the best game you can name, and the best game you can name, is the good ol' Hockey game."

When he thinks it must be over, Jackie of all people chips in with, "Second period!"

And their drunken husbands take off.

Ilya can't resist any longer. He turns to Jackie. "What the fuck is this?"

She eyes him. "You haven't heard them do The Hockey Song before?"

"That does not explain anything," Ilya says flatly. Shane is sing-yelling about bumblebees now. "Make sense, please."

Jackie laughs. She has a buzzed glow to her too. "I'm not sure why, but it started after the first cup win. Now it's just about anytime they've had a few drinks."

"And they... Made up this Hockey Song?"

They're back to the chorus with it's trite wordplay.

"Oh!" Jackie shakes her head. "Right, I guess you wouldn't know--this song's a classic. Kids learn it in primary school. I've got video of Jade and Ruby singing it for their grade one concert, I'll send it to you."

"This is what you teach your children? Canada is a strange place."

Jackie snort-laughs and spills some wine as she leans over, conspiratorially. "When they finish the chorus, say 'third period.'"

Ilya stares at her flatly. "I will not be part of this."

He's lying, like a liar. The second Shane's big brown eyes turn to him and he croons out "Ilyaaaaaaa," he crumbles.

"Third period?" He looks at Jackie with eyebrows raised while Shane and Pike holler.

"Last game of the playoffs, too!" Jackie cheers, sloshing her wine glass.

They're singing about the Stanley cup now and it's really unfair that such bad singing can be endearing somehow. Should he get Shane to sing more? No, that's silly. Or maybe not?

The chorus repeats several times and Jackie joins in, nudging Ilya. This he can resist if only because Shane's attention is not on him but swaying with Pike in a bad attempt at rhythm.

Ilya can tell the song is wrapping up by the elongated words. And then--

"It's in! He shoots, he scores!"

"Hollander scores for Canada!" Pike and Jackie cheer in unison.

Shane's face scrunches up. "Those are not the words!"

"It fucking is now, buddy." Pike elbows him and Shane elbows him back like a child until they're in a shoving fight.

"We sure know how to pick 'em," Jackie jokes, but her eyes are soft and her smile fond.

They watch their husbands, Pike jumping out of Shane's reach and running into the yard, then Shane chasing after and tackling until they're a heap of yelling, laughing, drunkenness.