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He went into 2017 All Stars fully expecting to hear Shane's engagement announcement, he thought this would be the first day of the rest of their lives, in which Shane really was just his rival. For all intents and purposes, Ilya thought he was going to his own loverboy funeral.

Also head canon that Ilya is determined to live as loudly as possible because he remembers his bright, beautiful mother slipping away into silence, and he is determined to make himself loud enough that if he should ever go quiet, someone will notice and worry.

But a wrong Cliff Marleau? Doesn't exist. All Cliff Marleaus are correct. He's a vampire? Yes. He's smart? Okay. He's dumb? That too. He's single, married, divorced, in a throuple? At the same time. Cliff Marleau is a fixed point in the HR fandom. He exists in all timelines, in all AUs, in every version of Hollanov he is there, the watcher on the wall, dragging Ilya out of jail and getting them both arrested at the same time.

Shane's canonically kind of a selfish guy! Not in a terrible way, he just doesn't really care about stuff outside of his direct sphere. He only gets into philanthropy when there's a direct benefit to him (laundering his relationship). He loves his friends but he's not super caring of them or all that invested in their lives (forgetting Hayden's baby's name is peak). Some of that is he's too wrapped up in his own shit and his secrets but I think a lot of it is just his personality. Shane's not selfish to the degree of it being a personality flaw (see: Shane giving up a day with Ilya to babysit Hayden's kids. I wouldn't have) but he's more selfish than selfless.

We don't hear about him sending signed pucks to sick kids or doing charity with the Voyageurs or that sort of thing. Maybe he's doing it in the background idk. Most likely he's got some assistant in charge of it. But that's not something he spends a lot of mental energy on.

He's not rude or cruel to people, but internally he's a bit judgemental. He sells himself pretty ruthlessly. He’s wealthier than anyone on this website can even comprehend. He’s a landlord.

To get to three cups in a decade Shane’s also got to be very locked in as captain. Like Theriault is this fandom villain (fair) but it just doesn’t make sense to have Shane constantly clashing with him and the Voyageurs and still winning over and over. We see Shane let homophobic comments slide in the locker room and I have to assume that’s his general approach to dealing with things in Montreal. Winning comes first.

Hudson imbued Shane with a lot of gentleness, and the series centring the romance means we see a lot less of Shane when he isn't Ilyamaxxing but book!Shane is incredibly cutthroat. He's impatient, he might not ~showboat~ as much as Ilya does (and he judges him for it constantly) but he's just as much of an attention whore. He isn't just admired because he's Shane Motherfucking Hollander; he's genuinely a bro, he's inaccessible because of his routine and his diet (which gives him major 'you can't sit with us' vibes that he does precious little to counteract, both because he's too wrapped up in his Everything to notice, and he wouldn't care enough if he did).

He's the ice queen, not Ilya. As far as the league, and even his team, is concerned, all routes to Shane Hollander are through excellence, proximity, or work. Ilya and Scott Hunter get the time of day because they're good. Hayden is his friend and Assistant Captain. JJ is a teammate and is sort of the glue of the Voyagers. Rookies get Captain Hollander because he's responsible for them. That's all.

I really like you pointing out how distant and inaccessible Shane is. He lives alone immediately, which is very unusual in hockey, being housed by older players during your rookie contract is almost seen as a guardianship or part of your training. The older players teach the younger guys how to sleep properly and cook good meals and such. Shane doesn't need any of that, he's already locked in. And he's very aware of the distance his talent and routines and diets creates between him and his teammates:

"all routes to Shane Hollander are through excellence, proximity, or work"

Yeah, exactly. Shane is so transactional---he thinks about his diet and routines as input / output. He doesn't eat red meat so that he skates better. He doesn't drink so that his muscle control is tighter. He's obviously an endorsement whore---and in the book it's HIM doing this, not his mom. He wants to be THE Shane Hollander, hockey phenom, and he sees this as a thing he can buy with his effort, his restriction, his repression, and his body. He didn't trip his way into being the greatest of all time, he planned it, piece by piece, and worked his ass off:

And yeah as to the friendships with Hayden and JJ, man. I don't know. I really feel like Ilya is the only person on the planet who gets Shane's platonic intimacy until very late into TLG, when Shane has a sweet moment with JJ. But like even his TLG convos with Hayden are very stilted. Shane makes a super rare vulnerability bid by admitting how he's thought about how tough it would be for him and Ilya to have kids and it flies right over Hayden's head.

These guys are friends because Hayden's his winger and because Hayden doesn't have much of a hockey ego and doesn't get insecure around Shane. That's what's happening there.

People adding in nicknames for Hollander is always funny to me because it feels very deliberate that they don't exist in the book. I think the fans call him all sorts of things, but I don't think a single person in that locker room is calling Shane Hollander by a nickname.

Shane has several additional factors, such as his neurodivergence and, especially in the show which subtly emphasizes it, how "model minority" pressure contributes to his toxic perfectionism. For a lot of reasons, Shane is separated from his peers. He only sees Ilya as an equal because the first time they met, Ilya beat him. He only sees Scott as an equal because he's been watching Scott Hunter be the face of the league for several years. At one point, he looked up to Scott, so even when it is clear he is a better player, he still holds that respect for Scott. But everyone else is basically a tool in Shane's tool box. It's why his team turns on him so easily. He doesn't actually like them and they know it, and so they don't actually like him. Shane isn't a victim of that toxic locker room, he is PART of it. It only becomes a problem when it directly, negatively affects his game.

I’m imagining her/maybe Shane playfully ribbing him about how he has no real financial manger or decent investments and what do you MEAN you just let a paycheck like that sit in your account while buying luxury cars every five minutes no wonder your net worth is shockingly low for your value, etc etc. and he’s not even offended he’s surprised and pleased that his new family is so invested in him and also enjoys watching where Shane gets some of his crazy. Like Ilya Mommy Issues Rozanov is “yes please ma’am optimize my finances and worry about my wellbeing harder” while he shovels whatever David made for dinner in his mouth.

But then at some point while she’s (lovingly) harping on his financial irresponsibility he just kind of quietly mentions that actually so much of his paycheck was going back home to his family when he was younger that he needed to blow shit on cars or whatever pretty quick if he didn’t want it to disappear. And she realizes that yeah he’s a little dummy who spent a concerning amount of money on VIP sections last year and thinks bank account interest is investing but he was also a child supporting his entire family in a foreign country with no one bothering to look out for his best interest or explain planning for a future.

David gets treated to impassioned rants every night about how “David I’m not convinced anyone even read that boy his contract in Russian”.

She starts managing him as well, obviously, and she’s kind of disturbed by how easily he just signs whatever she puts in front of him and doesn’t bother asking questions before agreeing to hand over all his management to her. He just seems thrilled she got him a Lamborghini partnership and an invite to fashion week.

The only time he puts up a fuss is when he realizes she’s not planning to take any significant cut of his money because “you’re family sweetheart” and he looks like he got smacked in the head with a shovel and has to go outside on the porch with Shane for a suspiciously long period of time.

But...Ilya is the children of people who grew up in the USSR. He's the grandchild of people who grew up in the USSR. He's the great-grandchild of people who survived revolution (I don't even mean secret aristocrats, I mean that anyone who survives revolution, from either side, learns some harsh effing lessons). And he's queer in Russia at the exact moment the laws are changing fast against queer people. Ilya has "be ready for anything" drilled into him.

Every paycheck, he's putting a little aside and buying diamonds or gold bullion. One time, someone tweeted they saw Ilya Rozanov buying gold bars at Costco and everyone thought that seemed like a very Ilya Rozanov thing to do for the flash, but really...

He's got stashes all over the backyard, and in safety deposit boxes around the world. He knows the train and bus schedules for every city he spends time in--he doesn't bother with airports because they're the first to close, but you might get on a bus before anyone remembers to shut down the terminal. It drives Shane crazy that he keeps the keys to his cars in the glove box, but he if needs to run, Ilya can run without even stopping to grab the keys.