yeehaw

Not because he thinks Shane is weak, but because in his extensive experience it has always been really easy for him to win these little play fights and he hadn’t thought that much about how Shane being another hockey player would change that.

Usually Ilya lets the tussle play out for a little before he decides it’s Time and takes over. USUALLY this is only supposed to take a couple seconds.

Instead, when he goes to flip Shane over and “win” Shane just… doesn’t budge. Ilya quickly realises as he’s putting more and more power behind his attempts that he might actually lose this one. For the first time ever he actually has to try and get a bit scrappy to overpower the person he’s play fighting.

The most glaring issue is that it is just not obvious when he’s supposed to stop. He *can* train longer. He *can* do another work out or get up earlier or watch more game tape or read more hockey books or put more effort into his routine and diet. So each and every time he makes the decision to go to bed earlier or scroll on his phone he just feels this internal, niggling feeling of failure. Every moment he wastes is just another instance of this laziness he can’t kick.

It eats at him inside without ever really being addressed until one day he directly mentions it and Shane finally picks up what he’s putting down.

“You’re a hockey player, you can’t be lazy,” Shane responds as a complete matter of fact.

“I don’t watch game tapes at night or wake up for 6am optional practice or read hockey books.” Ilya lists these things off so sincerely because he truely believes that every moment he’s not strong enough to dedicate back to hockey is a moment of laziness.

“What the fuck are you talking about, you come to practice early and leave late?”

Shane just thinks this is probably the stupidest thing Ilya has *ever said*. He extends the time that they’re at the rink not only so Shane can get in some extra skating time, but so that Ilya can dedicate extra time to working with the team management and helping the players. He’s always the first to offer to put in extra hours with new players or work through a problem with a teammates game.

From Shane’s perspective this is so obviously such a ridiculous statement he can’t really console Ilya because his immediate reaction every single time is just “what the fuck? What do you mean? Huh? Stop being an idiot what the fuck”

Ilya was half expecting Shane to know how to cook until he watched him fry chicken in high heat with no oil, which meant he burnt both sides black while making multiple cuts into it to check if it was done. Ilya self proclaims that he is very good at breakfast (just eggs and bacon on the same pan — and he can’t get the eggs not snotty unless the underside is a little bit crispy).

In season they have their diets entirely catered to them from the team’s chefs and nutritionists. Ilya compulsively orders UberEats. Off-season they make some not so great meals and then remember they make literally ~$15 million a year each and can just order food.