This is gonna sound a little obsessive...

First of all, we need to establish some simple realities about the GCU.

1. Shane and Ilya are the main characters. The GCU begins (2008) and ends (Unrivaled) based on their story.

2. Shane and Ilya have a joint path, but different tales. Ilya's is found family. Shane's is the hero's journey. The hero starts out strong, loses everything, and returns home changed for the better. I mention it now because people need to understand that adversity isn't about punishment, it's about growth.

3. There was always supposed to be a seventh book; RR thought she would write about Luca but couldn't and cancelled it. Since Luca is a Centaur, I assume Shane and Ilya's story would figure prominently as well. But now we get Unrivaled instead and I for one am so happy.

4. The GCU is set in a slightly better version of the NHL, but it's still, specifically, the NHL, and has all the rules that govern the NHL universe, like salary caps.

5. We know the villain is the NHL, and if we don't know that already GET YOUR SHIT TOGETHER. But it's also going to be a shitty podcast, and conservative fan movement.

6. BUT MOST IMPORTANTLY it will be covering how Shane feels about the changes, about not being captain, about leaving the legacy he built in Montreal, and his friends. So like, can we all fucking chill on that? She knows. We will get that story.

But I fear many fans will never be happy. Because Unrivaled will only be covering that first year, and this is still a romance.

My guess is, the podcasters and the cons will be endlessly discussing Tripgate, but through the magic of analytics and the sheer power of the GOATed Centaurs, they will all have to grudgingly admit that Shane is the greatest player to have ever played the game. This happens because they win the cup in 4 4-game sweeps, and every team will say "Jesus we had no chance" and Montreal admin will come crying and beg Shane to retire his jersey or something.

I'm being hyperbolic.

I do think Shane will have his legacy restored somehow because as I have stated, that's the only thing in question after Tripgate.

This is a romance novel, and therefore legacy restoration in a single season isn't unrealistic. We're promised that HEA, and frankly I demand it because I have read and watched enough depressing queer stories.

But a lot of people want this story to be more real. More like what they want to happen in real life, or what would actually happen in real life. They want Shane's redemption in a way that categorically retores him to his previous state and fixes all the ways they feel he's been wronged.

I'm gonna hold your hand while I say this:

That will never happen.

Once again I will ask you. Do you want romance or do you want reality? Because you can't have both, on a deeply fundamental level.

I have said many times, you need to know hockey to truly understand these books. Rachel Reid is a Canadian. She lives hand in hand with hockey every day, and has all her life.

I cannot fully explain how completely intertwined hockey is with Canadian culture.

Once of our most beloved children's books is The Hockey Sweater by Roch Carrier.

In 4th grade, our novel study was Mice At Centre Ice. The Mice play the Rats for the Cheddar Cup. The mice are very clearly the Montreal Canadiens, and the Rats are very clearly the Boston Bruins, and no one needed that explained because WE LIVED IN CANADA.

Degrassi has a whole bunch of storylines about a MJHL team.

Bon Cop Bad Cop is about hockey. A lot of our movies involve hockey, a little.

I hadn't watched NHL hockey in 22 years when I watched Heated Rivalry, and the second the sports commentators started talking about Shane i said to my friend Tavin, "Is he supposed to be Sidney Crosby?" Because even as a person adamantly not watching NHL hockey, I KNOW WHO SIDNEY CROSBY IS. BECAUSE I'M CANADIAN.

Hockey is such a part of Canadian culture, a lot of Canadians know more about hockey than they ever realized, and probably didn't think twice about the storylines in Heated Rivalry or the GCU because they... just made sense.

I PERSONALLY didn't think about them until I read all the ruminating online.

That's why I knew that Trip!gate was bullshit.

That's why I knew Ilya was 100% recognized in Ottawa but the fans kept their mouths shut.

That's why I knew Fabian saved Ryan's life, and wasn't some manipulative bastard.

That's why I knew Ottawa was a lateral move for Shane, an upgrade for Wyatt, and a punishment for Troy. Even though they're all going TO THE EXACT SAME TEAM.

That's why i knew coming out would be politically dangerous for Ilya til he got his Permanent Residency Card, but he'd be fine after.

And I knew coming out would always, ALWAYS, damage Shane's career.

In case I haven't made it abundantly clear, the NHL and the culture around it are terrible. It's a disgusting stew of toxic masculinity, racism, and homophobia.

Shane isn't white, and he's the greatest hockey player of all time. And the good ol' hockey boys fucking hate that.

The pundits

The journalists

The commentators

The coaches

The owners

The fans

When Shane is outed, they finally have proof! Shane didn't win those three cups, his pansy boyfriend fixed games for him!

Never mind that Ilya and Shane only played each other four times a year in an 82 game season. Those four games were DECISIVE (they weren't). And when the playoffs happened? Obviously they decided who would win each round! Never mind that they would only have ever played one round against each other per season. Never mind Montreal dominating in every other series, or posting the most points over all, or ranked highest in the league.

It wasn't Hollander being good. It was Hollander cheating.

So. Romance or Reality?

Cuz in Romance? The Hockey Apostles, led by Gay Hockey Jesus Scott Hunter, use the power of friendship and rainbows (and social media I guess) to bring about meaningful change in the NHL.

In Reality? The NHL institutes Pride Nights, then bans Pride Tape, then reinstitutes Pride Tape, but changes Pride Nights to Hockey Is For Everyone, so they don't have to openly welcome LGBTQIA players, and risk losing their audience in conservative Eastern European countries.

In Romance? Dallas Kent is arrested, goes to trial and goes to jail.

In Reality? The Hockey Canada 5 are shuffled back into the pro leagues.

Romance? Crowell makes a public apology, steps down, and is replaced by someone new and energetic who knows The Queers are the future

Reality? Bettman never steps down, and when he dies he will be replaced with his clone.

Romance? Shane's legacy is restored, he tells Montreal to kick rocks, retires when he's 40 with ten cups under his belt and has 17 movies made about him.

In reality? Shane's legacy will never be fully restored. Ever.

Let's get depressing.

Match-fixing, for people who don't watch sports, is the process by which people directly involved in a game (athletes, refs, coaches) do something to create a predetermined winner, usually for gambling purposes.

Hilariously, there aren't any known accusations of match fixing in the NHL because everyone knows THE STANLEY CUP FINALS ARE RIGGED.

Through officials making calls that favour the chosen winner, and GMs benching key players to give the chosen team an advantage, the playoffs have been predetermined by Gary Bettman since 1994.

He decides which team needs a popularity boost, and that team wins the Cup. It can be for a variety of reasons, but usually to make hockey more popular in a chosen city, and by extension, boost revenues.

And everyone knows that not doing what Bettman asks is the end of your career.

One day we will talk about Game 6 2004. But not today.

Hockey is a team sport. One single player playing badly cannot decide an entire game.

So lets look at boxing instead.

This is going somewhere, i swear

Boxing is a sport where match fixing accusations run rampant. Probably the first ever match fixing accusation happened in boxing in, I kid you fucking not, 388 BCE, when Eupolus of Thessaly was accused of bribing his four opponents. They were all fined, so I guess they were all found guilty.

Let's go for something a little more contemporary, and also a little more complicated.

I bet you've seen this picture:

That is Muhammad Ali standing over Sonny Liston, having just won a match in 1965 with a so called phantom punch.

Ali is literally yelling "get up!"

Both fights between Ali and Liston were accused of being rigged, but this was never proven.

Nor was it disproven.

The allegations followed Ali and Liston for the remainder of their careers, and are still being talked about now, by weirdos like me, to talk about the damage an unprovable allegation can do to a career.

You watched the video right? The video of the hockey players tripping?

I wanted you to take a couple things from that video.

One, as I already told you, is that people trip in hockey constantly, over nothing, for no reason at all.

The second is more important though.

Can you prove that any of the players who tripped without outside interference didn't do it on purpose?

What is your proof? How can you tell?

You can't. It's impossible.

That's the point.

In Romance? The definitive footage is found, it is absolutely proven Shane was tripped by a chuck of ice or a loose skate blade, or a fucking pixie, or even better, a team mate who was particularly shitty to Shane, and Shane is exonerated completely.

The podcasters, the pundits, the fans, everyone has to admit that they were wrong, Shane would never, they all apologize and resign from whatever they're involved in, Shane graciously forgives Montreal, Montreal retires his number, and Shane plays til he's 40, wins the Cup every year, and retires the All Time Greatest.

The Hockey Hall of Fame wait period is waived, he's inducted the summer he wins his last cup, (also winning MVP, both regular season and playoffs, joint w/Ilya), Ilya is inducted at the same time (wait period also waived due to Being Awesome).

The induction speech is given by that season's Rookie of the Year, who says he was inspired to keep playing hockey because Shane and Ilya coming out so bravely changed his life when he was 12.

In reality? Shane never fully puts the allegations to rest. He can't. Intentional tripping is impossible to prove or disprove. Shane is asked about the trip at every presser in Unrivaled, and it comes up from time to time for the rest of his career and is a whole fucking chapter in his unauthorized biography.

RR tried repeatedly to give us the romance ending.

Shane goes to Ottawa for Ilya! That's a romance HEA.

Okay but his career is attacked.

But! Ottawa is Good Now!

Not good enough.

Well Montreal and Boston weren't good but Shane and Ilya fixed them, and they can do it again, together!

Both of them should have never had to give up their draft teams.

Well okay, but Ilya wants to have a Canadian passport, so...

Yeah but he misses Russia.

Well, actually...

HE MISSES RUSSIA.

Okay well, hey! Now he and Shane can live together, and he has told Shane his greatest fear, that his depression will never go away, and Shane says "I love you regardless" and David tells Ilya that Ilya is a second son to him, and Ilya is so happy, and Shane knows their wedding song, and they have a dog and maybe get a cat!

Shane doesn't sacrifice enough! Ilya doesn't sacrifice enough! This is racist! This is xenophobic! This is...

An impossible situation.

You can have your romance HEA, or you can have your hard hitting realistic take on the NHL.

But you cannot have both.

If you want your real life take down, may I recommend We Breed Lions by Rick Westhead.

If you want a fictional, brutal takedown of hockey culture, may I recommend Beartown by Fredrik Backman (thank you for showing me this, @whenthebeebuzzed). TW: SA

If you want a tragic story of abuse in hockey culture, please Google Sheldon Kennedy NHL and also The Hockey Canada 5. TW: Sexual Assault, CSAM

But if you want queer joy and hockey in the same place, you should read the Game Changers Series. A series so honest about the NHL but so loving of hockey that I fell back in love with hockey as well, and want that for all of you.

RR imagines an NHL better than the real one, but in the end, it is still the NHL. You need to live with the fact that your ideas of redemption are simply not feasible within the confines of that world.

Shane will not be going back to Montreal. That is a step backwards for him.

Montreal will probably not forgive him, but the rest of the league probably will.

Shane will probably never have the C, but he'll get the A, and he, Ilya and Bood will create a locker room culture so accepting that soon it's adopted across the league, because in RR's NHL? Things CAN get better.

But it's still the NHL. The C will never be anything but symbolic. The lines will never mean anything important.

Maybe the Centaurs are like the Pens, and the core group stays together forever til they all retire the same year.

Maybe Ilya retires first so they can adopt, or maybe they adopt and hire a nanny that travels with them on the road and they raise their child on the rink.

Or maybe they're happy after three cups and retire early so they can start a family. But whatever the Fairytale NHL becomes, the metrics non hockey fans seem to be applying to a "good" ending will never matter.