Okay, so first up, the media storm. I have no idea how badly I need to emphasize that the worst possible sequence of events happened before The Move. First, Shane and Ilya are outed by a rude fan who releases a video made by a member of Shane's professional team, Hayden, which specifically cements Hollanov as A Scandal. The first look of a situation happening in the media is incredibly important, as many people may know from the McDonald's Hot Coffee Woman. Second, they are benched by the League - many people would argue this means there was something to find. Third, there was The Trip, yet another scandal involving Hollanov - but this time it involves match-fixing. By this point, sheer, repetitive messaging will tell new fans, larpers, and the wider world that these gay guys have something fishy going on if they are at the center of so many bad events. Fourth, the move to Ottawa, which IRL would lead to stirring up everything that happened before in the media cycle.

Alright - one by one we can go through this. Before I go into anything, I do need to say that there is no question that POC are treated worse by the media than white people. When I say that Shane would be affected so much more during the media storm, I am being dead serious. There is no debate. POC vs. White celebrities always have a disparity in narratives even when they have done the exact same thing. Serena Williams has often shown passion/frustration on the court and has been drawn as a masculine monkey caricature because of it. Just like the white player John McEnroe, who regularly screamed at umpires and smashed rackets, and was historically romanticized by sports media as a "fiery, entertaining bad boy" of the sport. I mean, come on.

Anyway, when I say the first look of a situation happening in the media is important, I'm talking about 79-year-old Stella Liebeck, who suffered severe third-degree burns over 16% of her body after accidentally spilling McDonald's drive-thru coffee in her lap. Before any media was called or her case was settled, Stella had asked for only $20,000 for her injuries, which she was only offered 800 dollars of - and McDonald's retaliated with a brutal smear campaign that used the media's misogyny as the dynamite to make her seem like she was in it for the money and attention (that whore!). (Click for my source. 😊)

The NHL is a business, just like our precious McDonald's, which means they are interested in keeping their majority fanbase/sponsers/members happy. Which, in a majority-white space, means that the racialized, highly visible Captain Shane Hollander is already a concession. This is the player that the League can point to and say, 'See? We love other races and they can even get to the top if they have the stats to back it up! Equal rights, equal time on the ice!' And they don't have to do anything else.

You might say to me, Beef, what about the other three POC players? Wouldn't the League also point to JJ, Zane, and Carter?

I say to this, absolutely, my dear reader! However, it would be for different reasons. Black players will often be seen as aggressive by refs, fans, and other players for less than a quarter of what their white teammates are doing on the ice. So any black player at that level will understand either how to capitalize on that image, or how to keep cool. Every single Black player in the League by TLG is in a supporting role. Every single one is loud, joyous, friendly, lights up the room - and is an alternate captain (aka not in a Big Leader spot, but still obvious). It is obvious for the League to capitalize on diversity, but they wouldn't let them get too high on the totem pole, because the backlash from fans would be insane. Anti-black sentiment can tank a business that tries to employ even the bare minimum of diversity!

If you've read any of my comments about the media storm in TLG, you would know that I like to say, " Optics matter." So when the League benches their star rival players after coming out as queer, being in a relationship, and it's already primed to be angled as a Grade A Scandal? Optics matter! If anyone tries to say it's homophobia, well, it's been long enough since Scott Hunter got his parade, and the League could blame any other reason for the benching - after all, didn't the League put its full support behind the First Gay Captain? 😊 Obviously there are other reasons behind the benching, guys 😊 The League would never 😊 Optics are on the League's side. Except for... the recording that Shane smartly keeps of the Crowell evil monologue and deal. What a smart cookie we have here, folks, as Shane has managed to put the entire thing at a standstill because Crowell was arrogant enough to put his entire hand on the table. The Shane Hollander Brand is still large and powerful enough to fight against the earlier scandal. Unfortunately, this leads us to...

The Trip. This is devastating for Shane on many levels. We already know what Ilya does and what he focuses on (aka "it's insulting that they think Ilya couldn't win on his own"). But the framing of the situation is going to tear up that Shane Hollander Hockey Player brand like it's tissue. Shane is so visible, no matter how he feels about it. His brand makes him even more visible. They are going to crucify him for ruining Montreal's Cup chances. They are going to flame him for washing out, for throwing the match to take it up the ass. Some white supremacy group is going to throw out a think piece on how Asians are ruining a real man's sport. The entire landscape of hockey will feel this. Shane's mental health is absolutely nuked. I mean, Princess Diana was killed because of the kind of journalistic invasion that would occur after this happens to Shane Hollander, the 3-time Stanley Cup winner. The effect on Shane's mental health could not be any clearer. I don't know if any of my readers keep up with sports news, but if you have, you've probably heard of a few athletes who've dealt with media scrutiny and harassment. Rui Hachimura, Serena Williams, Naomi Osaka, Marcus Rashford, and Simone Biles are some examples of different athletes and the media storms that can arise from them falling out of line for one thing, let alone three things in a row. Shane is sooo fucking cooked.

And then, the Move to Ottawa. In my opinion, the fact that Shane did not receive an A in canon means to me that the Ottawa Centaurs either bought into the match-fixing allegations a bit, or, since they threw their weight behind Ilya, they are fucking racist. There's no other difference between the two. I don't care what your headcanons are about Shane not wanting to deal with leadership responsibilities; he's been doing that captain shit since he was a kid before and at WJC. I don't fucking believe an Asian-Canadian man who led his team to three cups and had just won a fucking Conn Smythe is going to negotiate the A out of his fucking contract. So, based on everything that we didn't get in TLG, realistically the only reason for Shane to get lowballed with a pay cut/no A/no bridge contract is because of racism. He is on the second line with Tanner Dillon (who canonically sucks and will definitely bring the overall points of the line down) and Luca Haas (who is being prioritized in negotiations based on that line about him being a cap space factor after coming off of ELC).

The Ottawa Centaurs do not value Shane Hollander, and the media will tell you that this is completely right when they bring up every one of the "scandals" once more.

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Now we know how absolutely cooked Shane is in the media after that nexus of sadness. What else?

Well, Shane has a legacy. A pretty important one where he has been the face of the diverse league, where anyone can become a hockey player if they work hard enough. That's the inspiring part of the Brand. I know I've said it enough, but as I said to nanichick5 in my first comment, "the optics are fucking horrible. Like every Asian player after this is going to be hazed to hell and back. Every POC player is going to look at what happened to Shane Hollander and know they are fucked." Again, Shane's brand seems pretty strong, and I can't even guess how his sponsors would react, other than worst case, so I'm not going to touch that.

However, after the man himself allows the devaluing to happen by actually signing and moving to Ottawa? Sure, he's happy in the narrative, but realistically he has to be in an extended dissociative episode. (WDYM Ilya is enough to make it all worth it? No, he isn't, because Shane wasn't enough to cure Ilya's depression. And media like this kind will give athletes depression, anxiety, ED's, burnout, etc. So cool it with that talking point.) Because when I tell you that the things one POC does will affect the whole community, I mean it. When there are tragedies like mass shootings and the suspect is being hunted, I know a fair amount of my POC communities will hope that the suspect is not any minority, because the hate upon the entire community of the suspect will be vicious and targeted.

I said in my second comment to nanichick5 that, "literally I think this fandom has a cutesy vision of the media (every socmed fic makes me cringe a bit cuz of this) where they don't realize that POC are /hatedddd/ by the media. [...] Whenever a white person is at the center of a tragedy, there are questions about their mental state and if they have been wronged in some way to commit such attrocities - if a POC is at the center, there are no questions, just immediate condemnation."

Whenever it's revealed that the shooter has mental health issues or substance abuse issues, I already know the shooter is white, because that is the only reason the media narrative would be so kind to a killer. So when the entire Asian community in 2020 is watching Shane Hollander get utterly torn up by the media with nothing being done to fix his reputation? Yeah, they are going to be fearful as hell.

Especially because of the backlash that will spring forth in hockey culture from someone as visible and highly skilled as Shane. I mean, we already know that because of Heated Rivalry's spotlight on queer issues, specifically in hockey, there is a lot more hazing and harassment in school-affiliated hockey teams. (My source)

The future generation of hockey that is trained from 2020 to maybe 2025-ish is almost guaranteed to be more white because of the retaliation that will occur from every level of hockey society towards POC children who go into junior hockey. If you look gay, sound gay, move gay, piss someone off enough that they spread a rumor that you're gay - now you have less ice time, less support, less advice; see yourself out of the sport, please and thank you 😊