And this is treading into headcanon / personal canon stuff here but my read of what’s going on goes back to the idea of how these two are constantly negotiating around humiliation. Ilya moving to Ottawa for Shane is humiliating in the logic of traditional, heterosexual masculinity, and his record in Ottawa is humiliating. He’s publicly failing.

And Shane is seeing this, and I do think—I know people will get mad—but I do think he’s a bit emotionally slow sometimes. I think what Shane would want is for Ilya to complain about Ottawa, to rant to Shane about his losses and for them to talk about hockey. He wants to have that connection with Ilya because that’s his dream of the two of them, the two best hockey players of a generation standing on top. And instead it looks like Ilya’s just given up and doesn’t give a shit. And that really bugs Shane.

But from Ilya’s perspective the idea of talking about Ottawa with Shane is nightmarish! It’s so, so embarrassing. It’s humiliating that his team is this bad. While Shane is winning more cups, more awards, Ilya’s sinking. And it’s not his fault, obviously, he’s just one player, but he’s the captain and it’s his house and he’s the one who people see as failing. And we know, canonically, that Ilya takes these sorts of failures on himself, as he’s been raised to do (like in Sochi).

And then to what, sit down with the guy who you’re supposed to be neck and neck with, who you always set your pace by, whose competition with you was the basis of your bond and acknowledge you’re failing? Ask for help? Unthinkable.

Getting shane to do drugs in the bathroom with him

How to use the current situation to commit metaphorical suicide

His mom

How much he fucking hates losing at hockey like genuinely hates it and it makes him feel sick every time he sees everyone treat him like the laughing stock he knows he is because even though he was the second best in the league and the best captain (key word was) he can’t lead the centaurs to victory it kills him a little more and theres a part of him that wishes his dad was still alive so he could get a phone call after every loss to validate how terrible he is

Getting ilya to quit smoking

Which drills the metros third line needs to do to at least not embarrass him

His diet

They know oh my god they can tell everyone can tell it was a fools errand to even pretend that they couldn’t tell they can all tell and everyone is laughing behind his back because they thing he doesn’t know that they all know because he cant let them know he knows but oh my god they all know