I think with Shane and Ilya's marriage it's this dual consciousness thing where everyone knows they're married, obviously, it was a huge deal. But it's like a quantum marriage, unless you're looking directly at it it's just not perceived. Rookies and trades are completely taken aback the first time they see Shane and Ilya snuggle together at the bar after a game, or kiss, or head off to their shared room. It's like oh right. Right. They're married. Obviously they would---right. Sure. We all saw the kiss. I guess. I kinda tried to forget about that.

In general I think no one upon no one wants to imagine two of hockey's greats being sincerely attracted to another man. That's like---fucking embarrassing. These are the guys you idolized most in the entire world, and now...? The cognitive dissonance is too much, so most just ignore it. Shane and Ilya are constantly having to remind people that they are in fact each other's husbands. They're going to All-Stars and some assistant keeps calling Shane up to ask if he wants event tickets for his partner or family and finally he's like "my husband already has an event ticket he's playing in the goddamn game."

Now I do think the Cens team, org, and home media are pretty good about it, they know Ilya and Shane personally and they've had a long time to wrap their heads around the idea that they're together. So they talk about it normally and causally. I think the Cens home announcers in particular love to drop marriage tea they manage to get from Shane and Ilya in the hallways and such. Stuff like "You know Ryan, I asked Shane this last week....he told me he can't carpool with Rozanov anymore because their music tastes are too different [cue for cheesy announcer laughter]"