(I'm assuming your Yuna backstory is universal until told otherwise)
But the idea of her watching in the sochi outing au as her son gives the opportunity of a lifetime to the sort of player she was (and was punished for) and elevates it with joy and camaraderie? I don't know, i'm just having feelings about Yuna thinking about her Tank past while watching someone else's present
I think one of the things I love about the sochi outing au and in particular the Montreal dream team rebuild is that it’s such a legitimately healing experience. It’s a righting of past wrongs.
The Montreal dream team rebuild starts in the 2013-2014 season. Metros ownership legitimately moves very fast because no one wants to tell Obama. But Things are going to go wrong, and by the time that they hit the 2014-2015 season, the dialogue is going to be whether Shane poses too many logistical and safety difficulties to even play. The Metros severely suffer during their last season, and they don’t even make the playoffs. Shane and his “problems” take the brunt of the blame.
Shane goes into the 2014-2015 feeling like the hockey may be the cost of saving Ilya. And he’s fucking angry that he may have to pay it.
It is not that he regrets saving Ilya. He’d make that choice again and again. He’s angry at the expectation that who he is and who he loves should cost him everything. Heterosexual couples in the NHL get applause for their relationships. It never becomes a question of if they have to pick love or hockey for them. He’s one of the greatest players to ever do it, and he may still be too much for the sport to accommodate.
Shane’s especially angry because he feels like he’s already paid excruciating costs to be in this space to begin with.
Hazing and the toxic culture within the major junior hockey community keeps asserting itself in the narrative. Like. As hard as I go on my characters, I actually don’t like adding in trauma for the sake of trauma. Everything has to be in there for a reason or it just becomes egregious and trauma porn-y. It makes me feel uncomfortable if I’m inflicting Agonies on my characters just to make them hurt. There has to be a purpose behind it.
I think we’re gonna have to get into it with this one though. It’s just so fundamental to J.J. and Shane’s motivations and actions, especially in sochi. They’re both carrying some serious baggage from the major junior hockey system. It keeps looming at every narrative turn like Address Me.
By the time Shane hits the 2014-2015 season, he’s just so fucking burnt out on the prices he’s paid to be here. He’s paid everything and it’s still not enough. So he decides. Fuck it. For once, he’s not going to even try to fit the narrative everyone else wants. He’s probably going to lose it all anyway. But he can have one goddamn season where the only thing that matters is hockey, and none of the other bullshit.
The idea of a woman getting signed to the dream team rebuild kept nagging at me and I was like “no, that would never work” and then I was like. Wait. Why am I being a coward. There’s no rule against women playing in the nhl. One has even gotten to do it. Put her in.
You are correct that Yuna’s backstory as “The Truck” is universal. She was still The Truck in this AU. She was a generational talent who got forced out. And she’s going to be part of breaking that cycle for the next generation.
I think Shane’s the one who pushes the Metros management to sign the violent lesbian. He’s the one with the seat at the table, and he’s the one with the most fatalistic mindset going into that season. He feels the most strongly like his future in hockey is hanging by a thread, and that frees him from the idea of consequences a bit. They are going to take everything from him anyway, so he might as well do what he wants anyway. He leverages every bit of influence he has to get that woman signed. She deserves to be here, she’s good enough to be here, and for just one fucking season, that’s the only thing that’s going to matter.
I think the news that the metros are signing a woman to their roster sort of takes Yuna out at the knees. She’s terrified that history will repeat itself and so fucking determined to make sure it doesn’t.
I previously described the energy that Shane + the Metros dream team rebuild brings into this season as a sort of “electric fatalism” but that’s really the energy that’s absolutely dominating the team. They go into this season under extreme fire. The public backlash is so intense that they have no idea if they’re getting another season. It’s so bad that they all have to go offline and just stay off social media entirely. They’re playing like it’s the last chance that they’ll ever get to play hockey and it’s so fucking electric.
And in the background, Yuna’s making sure that this isn’t the last chance they’ll ever get to play hockey.
Yuna is momagering the fuck out of this woman. Shane and his new lesbian bestie linemate just put it all in her hands. They’re on a winning streak and devoting as much focus as possible to maintaining it.
Yuna meanwhile is shifting the tide of public opinion through sheer force of fucking will.
She’s got them on a talk show run between games. They appear on Fallon together. They do the puppy interview. They’re doing special collaborations for Michelle Obama’s Let’s Move! campaign. Rose Landry wears her jersey on the red carpet. Yuna makes them so fucking big that they’re impossible to erase.
Yuna’s been angry for so long about what happened to her. This doesn’t give hockey back to her. But it’s healing for her, getting to make sure what happened to her doesn’t happen again. She can finally let go of some of her anger.
And it’s healing to see just how much this woman is embraced, especially by her son. The entire team just ends up having such a close bond. It’s them against the fucking world and they’re winning. But Shane and this woman especially end up getting on like a house fire. Their chemistry on the ice is insane. They are an unstoppable force when they’re playing together.
When she’s first signed, everyone kind of assumed that she’d always be the odd man out. A lot of the detractors say that she’ll ruin the team dynamic and never be able to bond with the guys. But she just absolutely fucking clicks with them. And that’s because everyone puts in the fucking work to be there for each other every step of the way.
There’s something so healing to me about the idea that a team filled with players who have been pushed out time and time again finally get an opportunity to push out the bigots instead, and when they do, they are goddamn historic. Just once, they are not the ones who have to leave. I love this story so much.
