my big, LESBIAN secret.

in one of the videos, a dog who's just been brought in, a very excitable borzoi/husky mix who LOVES to yell and has the biggest, stupidest ol satellite dishes for ears, is in the yard, sees shane, and gets so excited to meet his new friend that he tackles shane clean onto the ground. shane, while initially startled, cracks up laughing because this goofy-ass dog is just so earnest and enthusiastic.

"you ever consider playing hockey?" he asks, doing his best to extricate his sweater from the dog's mouth. "you check harder than rozanov, don't you?"

this gives the shelter volunteers the bright idea to name this ridiculous creature ilya ruffanov, which is also great for metrics. get this clip trending on twitter, montreal!

and then one of the videos drops where shane is sitting in the grass with ilya ruffanov flopped against him, tongue lolling out while shane rubs his chest, and shane smiles at the camera and says "yeah, this is definitely my favorite ilya," and of course this clip gets memed on so hard. approximately 53298218 people are tagging ilya rozanov with this clip in his mentions.

shane's phone is blowing up with texts from lily, who is trying so hard to be offended, but also LOOK AT THOSE EAAAARS. THOSE BIG DOOFUS EYES. what a SPLENDID creature. how can he not love this ridiculous-looking dog that is named after him? how can he not melt watching the love of his life UHHH that is, um, his fuckbuddy. his fuckbuddy. playing with a big, silly dog. he is normal about this. fuck. hollander send him more dog photos. hollander. hollander send him dog photos FASTER

anyways. shane isn't planning to get a dog, but he's also a high-strung, active, kinda lonely and anxious person, and when he's so constantly concerned about keeping himself controlled and media-ready and Normal™, there is something so healing about being around a creature that is so genuinely happy to see him no matter what.

so. shane gets a dog.

as a borzoi/husky mix, ilya ruffanov is SO happy to go on runs with shane every morning, galumphing along with his ridiculous ears flapping majestically. (a paparazzi photo of shane hollander's real, genuine laugh as he looks at his silly beast mid-run hits the internet. ilya rozanov stares at it for an embarrassingly long time. don't worry about it.)

obviously ilya rozanov needs to meet this dog. he's blowing up shane's phone. he's commenting in post-game press. he's on twitter. Hollander Let Me Pet Your Dog. Hollander I Want To Pet This Dog. Hollander Let Me In. Hollander He Is Named After Me I Need To Pet This Dog. Let Me In. the internet loves this, and it's also still generating press for the animal shelter. shane considers this and finally is like you know what? yeah, fine, it won't be weird if we're seen hanging out, this is a really good excuse honestly. sure, you can meet my dog. this could be fun, even. okay. sure.

so the next time boston comes to montreal, shane actually opens his rarely-used instagram to post a photo of his dog in a hollander jersey with a caption of, "he's excited that human ilya will be in town today!"

structural homophobia in a massively racist and bigoted environment? that's handwaved off because obviously the only reason scott would want to stay in the closet is if he's ashamed of kip and ashamed of being gay, i.e. it's a personal issue and not a structural or societal one. oh, sure, we pay lip service to the societal issues (and even mention kip struggling with the attention after they come out together), but overall? nahhh. nothing. this is rehashed even more poorly in the long game, when shane gets outed and dragged through the mud (unrealistically so, imo) by not only his team but all of montreal's administration and even the general public and media - but this is treated as a happy ending because he got married and plays with ilya now. structural, institutionalized homophobia blowing up his life and forcing him to take a massive career demotion? not an actual conflict; it gets resolved in about three paragraphs flat, and then ilya goes on to make fun of him for no longer being a captain or even an alternate at the end.

racism gets, like, a one line mention when scott looks at his coach and thinks about him having to deal with racism back in the day when he was a player. shane is a protagonist of color in a deeply bigoted environment but rachel reid has no interest in even paying lip service to this, because the only reason she even made him half-japanese is to describe him as a tiny hairless bottom.

misogyny and rape culture in hockey are the entire set dressing of troy barrett's book, and yet there isn't a single woman harmed by it who is relevant to the plot. the only relevant woman in the book is troy's mother. why, then, use rape culture as a plot point at all? if the intent was just to write a lighthearted smutty story about a guy with a shitty ex finding love again, why even bother invoking the specter of violence against women, just to prop him up as a Good guy or whatever?

reid is constantly invoking major social issues but doesn't want to take them seriously. and i see people respond to this criticism with like "oh it's just lighthearted romance, its not the genre for delving into that, it's escapism" - and i just have to wonder, like... escapisim for who? only the people with enough privilege to not to have to contend with racism or sexual trauma or institutionalized homophobia in the workplace?

is a book that invokes sexual violence against women in order to prop up a man's emotional journey, without having a single one of the women in question be relevant to the plot at all, "escapism"? or is it maybe just a book that uses rape culture as set dressing when it frankly didn't need to? is a book that deals with a closeted character by insisting that he has to be comfortable being very publicly out or else he's a shitty partner, because his worries about his career or even his physical safety are invalid, actually escapism for queer people, or is it just a book that wants to frame institutionalized bigotry as an interpersonal issue that can be solved by simply being loud and proud enough? why invoke the very real issue of homophobic legislation in russia as a major conflict for a major character if it's immediately going to get handwaved off as "actually he could just get a different job if he loses his work visa so he doesn't actually need to care about this at all anymore and he has no further thoughts on his immigration status whatsoever" as soon as you don't want to deal with it as a difficult plot beat anymore?