I love the sochi outing au for so many reasons (like omg it has Obama rpf and hollonov are having their everlark plot) but my favourite thing about it is that Shane's ending is so much better than canon. He gets to keep his dream of staying at montreal!! He's going to retire there!! That's his city!! This version of Shane is probably more traumatised then Canon and yet the ending is so much better that it really goes to show just how bad the tlg ending is. For so many reasons but also bc it ruins the hr ending for me. The reason shane brings up ottawa is bc they can afford to pay ilya what he's worth, he can be captain there, and he can be the first line centre. The fact that apparently none of this matters to ilya when he suggests Shane moves to ottawa just makes him look like a massive dick and also makes me think that ilya should just have gone to montreal at the end of hr. "Oh but the rivalry means - " if people found out Shane got Ilya to come to montreal they would be high fiving him on every street in the city. Ahhhhhhhh thank you for writing aus that are saving me from this dog shit ending that I pretend is not real
YOURE SO RIGHT THOUGH
In the books, when theyāre talking about Ilya switching to a Canadian team, Ilya proposes leaving Boston for a Canadian team himself. It is brought up explicitly because America is bad for Russians at the moment, and he wants non-Russian citizenship. And during the conversation, Ilya has this moment where he can tell Shane wants him to come to Montreal, but Ilya doesnāt want to because Montreal could never afford both of them. Ilya says āNot Montreal,ā and Shane immediately understands. He proposes Ottawa as an alternative because it needs a star center and has the cap space for Ilya.
And, critically, I cannot find a single mention of the fact that Ottawa is a bad team in Heated Rivalry itself.
Like. Please correct me if Iām wrong. I canāt remember any mention of the fact that Ottawa is terrible. I pulled up the pdf of the book and searched couldnāt find a single mention of the word āCentaursā in it. I searched every mention of the word āOttawaā and couldnāt find a single mention discussing how Ottawa was a bad team. The closest we get is Shane saying that they need a star center, but still needing a star for one position is a very different thing than it being the shittiest team in the whole league. And youād think that Ilya would maybe bring up the fact that that team is absolute ass and would destroy his career if he went there if that was a legitimate concern. The Long Game rewrites its own canon to victimize Ilya and make Shane the villain in the Ottawa move. Its claims are fundamentally and irrevocably inconsistent with the explicit text of Heated Rivalry.
The entire dialogue around Shane being selfish in the Ottawa move drives me absolutely raving insane because it is fundamentally based in revisionist history. Shane is at no point in the conversation a driving factor in Ilyaās decision to leave Boston. Ilya decides he wants to be on a Canadian team before he even talks to Shane. The fact that he wants to come to Canada specifically is because of Russia, not Shane. And picking Ottawa is for the sake of Ilyaās career.
Signing with Montreal is outright considered and rejected by Ilya so he doesnāt have to take a pay cut. The explicit reason why he doesnāt want to sign with Montreal is the fact that Montreal cannot afford both of them. And that decision is later recast entirely into Ilya picking Shane over hockey. If Ilya wanted to pick Shane, he would have just taken the pay cut in heated rivalry and they would have been playing on the same team since fucking 2018āand it would have been on a team that Ilya himself describes as āthe most legendary team in the entire league.ā He would have had a great team and been tearing it up winning Stanley Cups but he didnāt want to take the pay cut or hit to his captaincy and his position and Shane fucking understood that and found him an alternative that wouldnāt require him to sacrifice his own position.
They explicitly pick Ottawa so that Ilyaās career doesnāt have to suffer and then the Long Game revises the entire narrative to turn it into how Ilya sacrificed his career for Shane. It is absolutely nonsensical when read in light of their conversation around the move itself. They outright reject playing on the same team so Ilya doesnāt have to sacrifice his own career.
And then!! All of the reasons why Ilya shouldnāt have to sign with Montreal suddenly do not matter at all when itās Shane who has to suffer them. Shane has to take a pay cut? Laugh it off. Hubby will provide. He loses his entire career as narrative punishment for āmakingā Ilya sacrifice his career, but signing with Ottawa was explicitly so that Ilya wouldnāt have to sacrifice his career. Ilya actually does what Shane is accused of and villainized for in The Long Game, and Shane never did it to begin with. I feel like Iām being gaslit by an entire fucking fandom. Can anyone hear me hello
Shane gets to keep his team in the Sochi outing au. He gets to retire there. I put him through so much shit in the sochi outing au, but he gets to keep his team. I am building him a dream team in my mind and it will be so fucking narratively fulfilling so help me god
ilya in HR: i want to leave the US but i dont want to go to montreal and be on the best team in the league with you because they cant afford me
shane: ok so how about ottawa [which there is no mention of being a bad team in this book], they need a star center and can afford you
ilya: sounds good
ilya in TLG, on a rebuilding team that he chose for his career instead of being closer to his boyfriend: i sacrificed hockey for you hollander
shane: omg im so selfish and such a bad boyfriend :(((( i dont deserve ilya :(((((((
shane a few months later: *makes even more career sacrifices than the ones ilya rejected in HR, taking a pay cut to go to ottawa which he initially has reservations about but ilya laughs it off so apparently that makes it fine, losing the C, doesnt even have the A, isnt on the first line, all of this while the rest of the league already thinks he threw a playoff series for ilya so this entire humiliation ritual is just confirming their suspicions, still gets mocked for being a prima donna by his husband and new teammates*
