#1 kent stan

Like, from the outside Skip is the perfect, palatable marketable queer romance. They’re both attractive, white Americans. They had the angst of the closet due to hockey culture and Scott’s tragic backstory, and then the big dramatic kiss that was very much a cinematic moment. Now it’s the wedding and then happily ever after, roll credits. What a feel good romance movie.

But Scott and Kip were sort of broken up/having difficulties before the Big Damn Kiss happened, and their relationship itself was a whirlwind romance that had already started to show the cracks. Kip hated being a secret and was uncomfortable with Scott throwing around huge sums of money, while Scott was genuinely and rightfully terrified of the reaction to him coming out but also terrified of losing Kip. Scott had years worth of fear to work through, and Kip was very much just an average guy, working a minimum wage job and planning to go to grad school, and now he’s dating a multimillionaire who buys him ludicrously expensive gifts (despite how short a time they’ve been together) but is terrified of spending time together in public. It’s intense and overwhelming, but it’s not stable.

And then they rekindled their romance in a very dramatic, very public way, when emotions are running high, and became the face of queer hockey in the process. The world is watching and they demand a happy ending to the story. That’s a lot of pressure for a renewed relationship that had an unstable foundation.

Like, I could see a world where Scott realises, a few weeks or months in, coming down from the high of finally unloading the crushing secret of his sexuality and getting back together with Kip, that his continuing career now hinges on rainbow capitalism. As long as he can sell the happily ever after, the Admirals can keep selling his pride jerseys, the League sticks to silent or private disapproval, and Scott stays employed. But if Skip crash and burn, if they can’t sell the happily ever after and Scott’s back to his pre-Kip inconsistent performance because he’s suffering through a very public break up, will hockey keep him? Is he, Scott Hunter alone, worth enough to the Admirals and the League to keep him when he’s messy and human and not the perfect romance movie package? And if he and Kip break up, after so publicly being the face of queer hockey, what does that mean for every other queer hockey player that came out in their wake? Will the narrative turn on them all? But it’s fine because he loves Kip and he’s so so happy (is he though? Or is he terrified and stressed and struggling and the one person he should be able to talk to about it is instead his performance partner who wanted to leave him while he was trapped in the closet by fear)

Meanwhile, Kip went from being an average guy to semi-famous. He’s the new boyfriend of the Admirals Captain who finally brought New York a Stanley Cup. The Big Damn Kiss would be plastered all over sports news. He’s been thrust into queer activism in sports, and he’s attending fancy galas in a suit worth more than anything he’s ever owned, and has conservative old men coming up to him to say insultingly ignorant things they think are complimentary. For a little while at least, I think he’d have to deal with paparazzi and random hockey fans stopping him to talk (or hurl abuse at him). People are reading into his facial expressions, word choices, body language, picking at him and his relationship, and so he has to perform a perfect relationship rather than live it. It’s a lot, and he wasn’t really prepared for it. But he’s so so happy (is he though? Or is he caught in the whirlwind romance again and now his whole life feels out of his control?)

Meanwhile, the Rozanov-Hollander rivalry is legendary. Everyone has been convinced these two genuinely hate each other for a decade. Then Rozanov went to a shitty team (what? Why? Did Roz get one of his legions of hookups pregnant and had to move to her? Did he piss off his coach/teammate by fucking their girl? Is it drugs???), they announced a charity and a friendship, but still aren’t really seen together much outside of it, and a lot of people think it’s PR because obviously they hate each other. Everyone knows that.

And then they are outed against their will, and the internet wants to rip them apart. Their relationship and their careers are immediately under fire, people looking for more scandals to exploit. The people don’t want a happy romance movie ending, they want drama! Shane in particular is branded a traitor who would throw games for sex, because racism and homophobia fuse into an unholy ball of hatred that’s lobbed directly at his face.

They are not marketable in the same way Skip are. They didn’t have the movie perfect coming out. Shane is Asian in a white-dominated, conservative sport (meaning he needs to be the perfect token Asian guy that doesn’t make waves or the league will get rid of him, and oh look, here’s a scandalous relationship with another MLH captain they can use as an excuse) and awkward in a lot of public social situations outside of media trained interviews, plus the golden boy reputation means there are definitely people who wanna see him fall off the pedestal they put him on; Ilya is an ESL immigrant with a fuckboy reputation from a country where homophobia is enshrined in law. They have both publicly dated other people, and Ilya’s playboy reputation is treated as evidence that he can’t be in a real relationship. Biphobia makes him a target for both straight and gay haters.

But Hollanov have been together in some fashion for over a decade. They have gone through situationship hell, jealousy, a messy painful breakup, ghosting, a sexuality crisis, a long-term long-distance relationship, injuries and mental health issues, and a near-death experience. They have tried to stay away from each other, and been drawn back to each other every time. They have hurt each other and still come back together with love and forgiveness. They have seen each other at their worst, and when it came down to the wire, they would both throw everything away to keep the other one.

They are solid in a way that Skip can’t compare with because they have had the time to grow their relationship before the media storm. They did their messy, unstable period in private and figured (some) of their shit out by the time they were outed. But none of that is visible from the outside, so the world just sees Russian fuckboy asshole+media trained into blandness hockey robot, and think there’s nothing there beyond the sex, and they happened to get caught doing it. They’re waiting for the inevitable collapse of the relationship and more sordid drama to consume… and then it’s the fairy tale of Skip that shatters, while Hollanov are happily married and playing on the same team.

#myskip aren’t bad people, and neither of them is at fault for the divorce. They just didn’t have a chance to iron out their issues before they were put in the relationship crucible on live-stream. In the fluffy world of feel-good romance stories, their love is enough to hold them together. But in the real world, sometimes it isn’t, and that’s okay.