Pitbull

Shane is like no! It’s embarrassing! And this is public! And you wouldn’t make me actually do that to Rose would you? You know the answer, I’m gay!

Only Rose thinks the whole thing is hilarious and gives Shane the go ahead so there’s no real reason to resist Ilya’s begging anymore, still he holds out to the day before the interview.

“Fine! Fine! You can ask about Rose, but I get to ask about anything I want too!” And Ilya’s like yes yes of course my love. His boring Shane would hardly ask anything damning.

Fast forward to the day of the interview Shane is fondly exasperated with Ilya’s Rose questions, and Ilya is being a cocky bastard so happy with how it played out.

Until they switch sides and Shane breaks out his first question:

“Is it or is it not true that despite famously calling Scott Hunter ‘a nearly extinct fossil’ you think he’s hot?” The blood drains from Ilya’s face pretty quickly after that.

“Do you think Hayden Pike is a good hockey player?”

“Do you consider Hayden Pike a close friend?”

“Who do you love more: me or Anya?”

“Besides me who is your favorite teammate?”

"Can you imagine being the reason that Ilya Russian-Greatest-Love-Machine Rozanov spends the rest of his life having boring missionary style sex? Shane Hollander, if you really love him, let him go"

And everyone can see Ilya trying to understand the tweet for a second before he freezes, his breathing becoming unsteady while he interrupts Shane (stammering through a media trained response) to say:

"you... You think that Shane... You think he..."- before completely collapsing into absolute laughter. The kind of laughter that kind of hurts, that has you wheezing and trying to find your breath, that gets tears in your eyes and turns your face red from lack of oxygen. His voice and laughter get high-pitched, and he has to steady himself on his husband cause he almost falls from his chair.

The man is completely undone while Shane smacks his leg to "shut up, shut up!", all the while trying and failling to finish the sentence, cause he can't believe anyone on this planet could think of Shane as anything less as a sexually-deviant-kinky motherfucker who would rather die than do something less than soft BDSM.

Every time he starts to calm down, he looks at the camera and starts laughing again. They have to stop recording for 15 minutes, and in the following part of the interview everyone can see the red eyes from the tears of laughter, and the cuts in the video from where he couldn't control himself and started laughing again.

When Ilya moves to the Centaurs he doesn’t get to keep his number. Some old fuck on the team already has it and refuses to trade, no matter how much Ilya bribes him.

so, in true Ilya Rozanov fashion, he picks the number 24. People think he did it to be an asshole, which is true, but he also did it to have Shane with him all the time. Shane was both infuriated and touched by it.

but then of course, years later, SHANE transfers to Ottawa. And lo and behold, the old fuck who had number 81 retired, so when Shane has to choose a number?

81 is available.

so the first day of training, Shane walks into practice in a jersey that says Hollander, 81, with an absolutely shit-eating grin on his face.

Throughout the book, Ilya is seen to have made a tremendous sacrifice for moving to Ottawa. He’s still a huge star, he’s captain, he’s playing in the NHL and he’s paid what he’s worth. Not winning for 2 seasons is considered a huge loss to him, one that he has a lot of difficulty dealing with, and everyone understands why he’s struggling to cope with that. He sees the loss as basically choosing Shane over hockey. Shane breaks down and berates himself over it.

Shane suffers much more after tripgate and the horror is that people are HAPPY. And he himself is expected to get over the sense of loss quickly. There’s very little empathy shown towards him or outrage on his behalf. There’s no reflection on the grave injustice he’s suffered. He’s no longer paid what he’s worth, something he cares about, and all he gets is a joke about having a rich husband. Nobody is talking about how it’s not right for a player of his caliber to be paid so little. He’s lost the captaincy, and all he gets is a joke about moving to the back of the line. It’s fine if there’s a merit based discussion on the captaincy of the Centaurs in any capacity, but there isn’t. Ilya became captain of the Centaurs right away, displacing the guy who held the position before him because he was the bigger star then did a pretty mediocre job for over two years. Shane Hollander, a man who captained his team to THREE cups, isn’t even worth a discussion. His reputation is destroyed, and nobody rises to defend him. Ilya seemed more annoyed that people are implying he needs Shane throwing games for him to win rather than being outraged at the attack on Shane’s integrity. The Centaurs, supposedly the bastion of wokeness, act like they’re doing Shane a huge favor for taking him in when he’s “damaged goods” and they’re HAPPY. YOU the reader feel like it’s unjust for Shane to suffer this profound loss, but the characters in The Long Game, including “the good guys” certainly show no indication that they feel this way.

Throughout the series, this type of professional loss ONLY happens to Shane (making this seem like a Voyageurs and Crowell problem rather than more pervasive oppression). It’s brushed over when minor characters get pushed out of the league. Everyone major character who came out is just fine. For those who came out after retirement, there’s no indication of negative impacts on their legacy. In fact, part of what motivated Ilya to want to come out is seeing the other out players and how great things were for them afterwards. Organizations that are supposedly queer friendly don’t seem to face any significant pressure or sabotage from the supposedly homophobic powers that be. The Irina Foundation, a new organization that promotes diversity and employs queer coaches, faces no challenges whatsoever. Where is this oppressively homophobic league people are picturing in their minds in the actual series? YOU the reader understand the professional hockey hockey world to be homophobic and oppressive enough for queer athletes to be closeted, but Rachel Reid failed to build her world that way.

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Waking up in the Cottage , 2026 Hope you enjoy 🫵🫶

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