which then also offers the extremely funny situation of him being used as (playful) threat on ottawa's team. get your shit together or we're doing Hollander Bag Skates (going until hollander gets tired, which probably means everyone else is. dead.), which always prompts a little despairing chorus of, "nooooooooooo!"

i just find it very sweet for there to be an inside joke that appreciates how fucking impressive shane is as an athlete that's also an affectionate thing that he can be teased about instead of it being something that just puts him up on a shelf where he's both admired but also maybe a little resented for it, too. it being a playful thing on the team means it's both a matter of respect/admiration but also a sense of "still one of us."

and i'm just like?? he is THE shane hollander. he is where he is because he is THAT fucking good. even ilya says that shane is the better hockey player.

and he doesn't get to be openly proud of that.

we see the difference in interviews between him and ilya in the show. ilya gets to be confident and smug about his skills (which is earned! he's ilya fucking rozanov!! shane's only true competitor to always challenge him on the ice!), but shane has to SO carefully toe the line of being confident but not cocky because he is a minority in this sport and doesn't get the grace a white man would. shane KNOWS he's good. he KNOWS he's the fucking best at this. but the closest he gets to come in an interview is saying, "i'll listen if he catches up to me," which has an underlying current of "i'm better than him" but isn't him openly getting to say how good he is.

shane doesn't need to be humbled. he is not out here bragging about himself constantly (not that ilya truly is, either, but shane doesn't get to be openly proud of how good he is in the same way around other people). so i don't love that there's sometimes a sense of, "this is good for him" when he has to give up something he fucking EARNED with hard work and talent that he already doesn't get to be openly proud of already.

especially when like. it's noted that ilya has been the captain of every team he's ever been on. he was initially (playfully, but every joke has a little truth in it) annoyed at svetlana saying that he should wing shane instead of being center. (and also?? the teamwork went fucking CRAZY when they were in this arrangement. when ilya allowed himself to set down the expectation he's been raised under that he HAS to be in charge of the team and has to be the star or he's a disappointment, he had fun and it went GREAT.)

and again!! i am speaking on behalf of #myshane and #myilya and also with the caveat of hockey doesn't exist without expectations and politics and ilya has seniority on the team which is a factor in this beyond pure skill, but *i* feel like the arrangment that actually supports both of them growing is ilya winging shane and shane keeping center. we know shane and ilya are each other's main competition and the only people who can truly match each other, and we know from what ilya's said that even he thinks shane is the better player, so in my head, shane IS the best center of the two of them, but ilya has better flexibility in being able to move to other positions. and i feel like it honestly could be really good for *ilya* to be able to set down the expectation he's been raised under that he has to have The Big Role or he's failed.

conversely, i think shane's best potential growth happens off of the ice and involves interpersonal relationships and learning how to connect to people. i think shane is by nature very self-focused because he is so painfully aware of himself and how he's appearing all of the time (partially because he fucking HAS to be), and this does tend to contribute to him keeping himself apart in a lot of ways on an emotional level. and it's not that he doesn't care about other people or that he's not interested in getting to know people (hayden invited him to come home to dinner and we see him ending up doing things like going to the aquarium with him and his kids on the weekend and rose invited him to sit down with her and they chatted for hours and then started dating! he can ABSOLUTELY do it when he has a direct "come sit down and let's get to know each other"), but i think it doesn't come naturally to him already, and he's usually so tied up in his head about his own shit that it takes conscious effort for him to look around. i feel like the better point of growth for him, then, is learning how to build strong relationships with people on the team as friends instead of as just teammates even if the other person doesn't initiate.

Levi's said yes, actually. Assless chaps and a biker vest. Happy Pride.

Exhibit A:

Exhibit B: