Titled.

Ok ok so another thought I’ve had about TLG that annoys me. When Shane makes his Fifty Step Plan To Be Together, he says that they can set up the Irina Foundation so that it’s easier for them to move past the ‘rivalry’, and so that it won’t be such a big deal for them to be seen out and about together, but then throughout TLG, we don’t actually see them doing this at all other than when they do the hockey camp at the start and then going out to eat with Ryan and Fabian and then to Fabian’s concert. Like, surely in the time between the ending of HR and the start of TLG, they should have started to go out together under the cover of it being “business meetings” using the charity as an excuse and then working towards just going out together as “friends” and yet it seems like (from what we actually see on page) they haven’t really done this at all, they still only interact in view of other people when it’s a hockey game, all stars or the camp. I don’t understand why that seems to be the one part of the plan that Shane (Rachel) has decided to just skip? I think if they’d actually done that and been seen together at times that weren’t necessitated by their jobs, Ilya dropping the bomb about wanting to go to the Centaurs BBQ wouldn’t have been quite as explosive because they’d have already set the foundation of them getting together randomly outside of hockey games and award shows and genuinely being friends? People still seem to act as if Shane and Ilya’s friendship is this new thing that hasn’t really got anything to back it up but the charity, and I just don’t get why. Like, wasn’t that the whole point of that part of the plan? It just seems so stupid to me that they’ve been together for a few years at the start of TLG and still haven’t started in on that part of the plan. I don’t know.

So. one thing I don’t like about TLG is the implication that Shane bought his own engagement/wedding ring when he shows up to their match with a chain and a ring. I wish Ilya had got him one, because I think he’d have liked to have gone to a jewellers and picked one out that he thought would be perfect for Shane and would’ve made a whole production of putting it on his finger and everything. Just a little thing but I dunno, it just seems like something Ilya would’ve been really excited about doing for Shane.

Just saw a tweet saying that they want the Ottawa Centaurs to be protective of Ilya and wary of Shane when he joins the team in the next book and I just?? Don’t get why??? Like, Shane has already had one team acting like he’s a pariah, and he’s now coming into what is only his second professional team after being with the other for like, twelve years or whatever, he’s losing his captaincy, he’s losing his spot on the first line, he’s being paid far less than he’s worth, and now they want him to deal with his new team treating him like he’s done something wrong before he’s even started?? If the Centaurs could manage to get over Troy’s career and reputation in the NHL leading up to joining the Centaurs within a couple of weeks, they better not have a problem with Shane. Let’s not forget, as well, that several of the Centaurs have already met Shane at all stars and the hockey camps, so why would they need to be wary of a guy they already know and seemingly like (if the few interactions we’ve seen between them in TLG are anything to go by)? If Unrivalled has the Centaurs being anything but wholly all-in for Shane, I’m gonna be putting the book down swiftly. He’ll be getting enough of that crap from fans, reporters, and players from opposing teams (and let’s face, from the NHL organisation as a whole), he doesn’t need that shit in his own locker room too. And while I’m ranting, Ilya doesn’t need “protecting” from his husband, who he is finally getting to live with and play with, by his colleagues, and would probably be pretty pissed if he found out they were being anything but extremely welcoming. Crazy talk.

Most baffling thing to me about the GC series and HR/TLG in particular, is that RR took inspiration from Sid Crosby for Shane, and yet still says in TLG that Shane is oblivious to the less favourable sides of hockey, as if Sid didn’t spend much of his youth and early years in the NHL being relentlessly targeted by other players AND parents of players during his youth hockey, because of his talent. You’re telling me that Shane Hollander, second coming of hockey Jesus, wasn’t being crushed into the boards by players during his time in youth hockey or having parents making snide remarks because he’s out performing their snot-nosed kids at every turn? Sid had parents saying they wanted to physically hurt him because he was showing up the other kids. Like, absolute insane stuff, and you’re telling me that Shane had none of that? At all? In the late 90s and early 2000s???? Not a chance in hell. And sure, Shane may be a little socially awkward, may not be the best at social interaction, but he’s not a fucking idiot, and would one hundred percent know the difference between over the top chirping and outright hostility, so it’s not like he wouldn’t have noticed being targeted. And that’s before we even get into the fact that he’s a mixed race kid, with a Japanese mother that no doubt went to many if not most of his games as he was growing up. He’d have been targeted for that because children (and most adults) are completely unoriginal when it comes to insults and would’ve definitely had something to say about it. Sure, I can definitely see Shane taking the high road, listening to Yuna and ignoring the majority of it, but that doesn’t mean that he wouldn’t be at the receiving end of it and exceedingly aware of it, that he wouldn’t have first hand, intrinsic knowledge of the darker sides of both hockey as a whole and of the NHL in particular. There’s a reason he didn’t want to be out, there’s a reason he didn’t want to announce his relationship with Ilya, and it very likely started when he was barely able to stay up on two skates. That throwaway line in TLG makes Shane out to be both ignorant and stupid, and I dunno. To have Ilya be the one to say it about Shane too? Just makes me feel sad for Shane. And angry. Mostly angry. If RR had explored Shane’s career more realistically, if not as a non-white player in a white-dominated sport (because that seems to be a conversation that she doesn’t want to touch with a ten foot barge pole) then at the very least as a player that faced issues purely from a jealousy standpoint from other players, I think a lot more people probably would’ve understood Shane’s reluctance to coming out or, in Shane’s eyes, being anything but perfectly above reproach.