Bold take, it seems, but Shane does not have an eating disorder. His diet is there to symbolize how seriously he takes hockey, how much it means to him, and what he is willing to sacrifice for it. Ilya acknowledges, particularly in TLG, that hockey means less to him than it does to Shane. For Ilya, hockey is something he is good at that allowed him to escape the brutality of his family and Russia. He likes it, but he recognizes that Shane loves it.
Because hockey is a key component of Shane’s personal identity and his first love, he is willing to sacrifice anything for it. His, and his family’s lives have been centred around this goal. Where they travel, what Shane wears, how he appears in public, what he eats. They are all designed to give him a career at the highest level for a long, long time. (As a side note, in Canada when Crosby was in his draft years and his first years in the NHL, there were a lot of articles about how regimented his life, his eating, and his regime were. This is part of why he is still able to play, one of the 10 oldest players in the NHL this year)
This is all really brought to light after Tuna-Gate. He stops following the plan because it’s asking him to sacrifice the one thing he may just love as much as hockey. So, even though he loves hockey, he cheats on it for asking him to sacrifice Ilya. He doesn’t follow the meal plan, he resents the sponsorship demands when his mom talks about Rolex, he rankles at only having two weeks off from the strict regimen of his life in the summer.
When he joins Ilya at All-Stars, I think it’s a cool moment because he has the drink with him at the bar and the audience can see that he is working to find the balance of prioritizing BOTH Ilya and Hockey in his life.
TLG SPOILERS:
I think that also why Ilya picks at Shane so much about his food and eating in TLG. One of the major stressors in their relationship is Ilya’s belief that Shane loves hockey, would choose hockey, over Ilya. Every time Shane won’t share what Ilya is eating, isn’t fun to make breakfast for, doesn’t seek out ‘comfort food’ like Ilya does, feels like a reminder to Ilya that hockey is a priority over him. That’s the whole unreliable narrator there, but the symbolism is consistent in both novels.
Anyway, those are my thoughts and the reason why assigning Shane an eating disorder feels like it’s an on the line reading of the text instead of seeing it as a literary tool.
