towards the end of their wedding reception, sun setting, looking rumpled and tired, Ilya kissing Shane's palm while Shane is very seriously talking to Scott Hunter

the two of them with a fan, taken at the dog park, Ilya holding Anya and Shane with one arm around his husband's shoulder and the other trying to prevent Anya from licking the fan's face

Shane Hollander sitting on the Centaurs bench with blood on his face, mouth wide open, Ilya Rozanov gripping his chin and glaring at the gap where Shane's bottom canine used to be

Ilya Rozanov with his fist in the air after a goal, a smear of red in the corner of his mouth

sitting next to each other at team tape review, heads bent together, Ilya's hand on Shane's thigh, Shane's hands sketching out a play in the air

Ilya Rozanov leaning against his car in the airport arrivals line, a coffee in one hand and a forest-green smoothie in the other

Shane Hollander giving his husband the middle finger after losing the shot accuracy competition at ASG by half a second

piggyback racing across the yard with a Pike twin each clinging to their necks

Ilya Rozanov, outraged, with a face full of snow, as his husband doubles over with laughter

wearing identical blank expressions the seventeenth time a journalist asks about their "off-ice chemistry"

Shane Hollander throwing his head back and cackling in a booth at a random dive bar in a random city, Ilya Rozanov grinning into his drink

Of course it's much harder for Ilya to catch up to Shane because they're both athletes so instead of a ten second headstart, Ilya only gives him two seconds. Shane still gets really far before Ilya catches up to him.

Ilya after 4 Jackie Sangrias:

Race absolutely matters. Racism absolutely exists. But different racial groups are stereotyped in different ways, and those stereotypes can produce completely different social expectations.

For example, I’ve seen people criticize Rachel and Jacob for joking about Hudson being unintelligent because he’s a person of color. If Hudson were Black, I would understand that criticism more, because there is a long history of anti-Black stereotypes portraying Black people as unintelligent. But Hudson is Asian. Asian men are stereotyped in almost the opposite way. They’re often assumed to be intelligent, studious, and academically successful. The stereotype is still racist, but it’s a different stereotype. It doesn’t suddenly become an anti-Asian stereotype just because we’ve replaced “Asian” with the broader category of “POC.”

The same thing happens constantly in fanfiction with Shane.

A lot of writers portray Shane as being afraid to fight because he knows he’ll be judged more harshly than white players. I understand where that idea is coming from, but as a black person I’ve never found it particularly convincing.

If Shane were black, that analysis would make more sense to me. Black men are often stereotyped as aggressive, which means behavior that is considered acceptable from white athletes is often interpreted differently when black ones do it.

But asian men occupy a very different place in the racial imagination. They’re frequently stereotyped as passive, non-threatening, weak, nerdy, emasculated, etc. If racial stereotypes were influencing Shane’s approach to hockey, I could just as easily imagine the opposite dynamic: feeling pressure to prove he’s aggressive enough to belong. Maybe he’s fighting TOO much.

But that doesn’t make sense for Shane. He’s the league’s golden boy. He’s polite, media-friendly, and heavily inspired by Sidney Crosby. He’s a superstar. Fighting is often delegated to players lower on the depth chart whose role is specifically to provide physicality. Star players generally aren’t expected to be enforcers. Teams usually want their elite talent scoring goals, not sitting in the penalty box after dropping the gloves.

So Shane not fighting much doesn’t strike me as evidence of racial pressure. It strikes me as evidence that he’s Shane Hollander.

Crosby is a useful comparison here. For years, people mocked him for not being physical enough (and for talking to the refs too much). They questioned his toughness and masculinity. They called him “Crybaby Crosby” or “Cindy Crosby.” Fans edited photos of him in dresses or makeup. The criticism wasn’t really about hockey. The joke was that he wasn’t a “real man.”

And that’s a white player.

Imagine how much worse those conversations could become if the player in question were Asian.

That’s the kind of racial dynamic I could actually see affecting Shane, not him worrying about people thinking he’s too aggressive, but people questioning whether he’s aggressive ENOUGH.

There’s a good chance that if Shane fought exactly like many white players, he probably still wouldn’t be viewed as tough enough. Meanwhile, if a Black player fought exactly like those same white players, he might be interpreted as more aggressive.

People often criticize Rachel for not doing much racial analysis in the books. But sometimes fandom fills that gap with racial analysis that feels disconnected from both hockey culture and the specific stereotypes that affect different racial groups.

Not every POC experience is interchangeable.

A stereotype that affects Black athletes is not automatically a stereotype that affects Asian athletes. A stereotype that affects Latino athletes is not automatically a stereotype that affects Indigenous athletes.

If we’re going to talk about race- and we should- we have to talk about the actual racial dynamics at play, not just substitute “person of color” for a more specific analysis.

Which leads to a bit of an uproar because omg Shane Hollander has a girlfriend?? who plays hockey???? that's so on brand for him like. okay who was playing last night and got a goal in the first period, we need to find the woman who has Shane Hollander crooning into his phone like a lovestruck teenager. and the consensus lands on an unsuspecting and entirely unrelated CWHL forward who has never even been in the same city as Shane but the Internet is running with the story and there's journalists harassing her and Shane has to get his agent to call her agent so he can apologise for this mess and she's like, dude, I know it's not your fault, but Shane feels so fucking bad about it, you know?

And unfortunately it doesn't really let up as quickly as they thought because it's right before Christmas and isn't this a great story, fucking Hallmark movie shit, so a very unimpressed Leila (her name is Leila) has to look a reporter in the eye after her team just played a really good fucking game of hockey and everybody wants to talk to her about some fucking guy, you know? so she looks him in the eye and says, no, I am not dating Shane Hollander, I have never dated Shane Hollander, I will never date Shane Hollander, I am literally a lesbian. I have a whole-ass girlfriend. She plays for the Blades.