Part of hockey culture is a very intense pressure to play injured. It is baked into the culture. You are supposed to Rub Some Dirt Into It And Keep Going. Especially in the playoffs. Players have gone into the playoffs and played through, I shit you not, broken legs and punctured lungs. It’s absolutely fucking insane.

Shane was very lucky in his injury this season. No bones were broken. No organs were punctured. He got away with a minor concussion and very severe bruising.

His team’s leadership didn’t give a shit about him. Players have played through much, much worse injuries than what Shane had. So they were going to make him play through.

I think it was really difficult for Shane to admit that he couldn’t.

Shane hates any implication that he cannot make it in this space. He knows they are trying to force him out. He knows they think he doesn’t belong here anymore. But he is hanging on with both hands. He is fighting for his right to be in this space with everything in him. He hates ever having to admit that he can’t take it.

Because Shane knows he’s good enough. He knows he deserves to be here. He earned his place in this sport and on this team and in those goddamn rafters a thousand times over. He will not let them push him out.

Deciding to challenge the fitness determination was difficult for him because he had to go against the ingrained culture norm of playing through your injuries. If this were the playoffs and his team wasn’t trying to fucking kill him? Fuck, he’d be back on the ice in a heartbeat with these bruises. They’re painful as fuck but he’s been raised in an environment where you will yourself through that kind of thing.

But Shane knows he cannot afford to be playing injured right now. He cannot have limited mobility. The stakes are too high. As soon as they tell him he’s cleared to play, J.J. and Hayden are fucking on him ready to fight about demanding a second opinion.

And Shane’s like. No. He knows already. He’ll do it.

How demanding a second opinion works changes with context under the CBA’s terms. If you are deciding medical treatment, your team doctor renders his initial opinion. If you disagree, you can demand a second opinion from an alternative physician. If your team doctor disagrees with the second doctor, you can demand a third opinion. But your team doctor is not obligated in any way to accept the opinions of doctors 1 & 2. All he has to do is consider those opinions in good faith when he renders his final determination.

You do not have to accept your team doctor’s medical treatment plan. They cannot hold you down and operate on you. But at the same time, the team doctor does not have to give you another treatment plan if you refuse to take his, and you cannot get any alternative treatment without him signing off. They have the ultimate authority to decide what’s going to happen to your body. The most you can do is refuse treatment.

Second opinions are different if you are challenging a determination that you’re fit to play.

If you disagree with the team doctor’s determination regarding your fitness to play, you can demand a second opinion from an alternative physician. If the team’s doctor and your doctor disagrees, they get a third doctor involved. The third doctor gets to be the final decision-maker on your fitness to play.

Shane actually has a hope of winning this one. His team does not hold absolute control over the fitness determination. It would be up to the third, independent doctor to make the final decision. The team cannot steamroll him here.

That’s why they tell the press he’s good to go first.

Most sports require you to give detailed reports on players’ injuries to the press. Hockey doesn’t. Hockey only requires that you report to the press when a player has an injury that makes them lose time, i.e. miss a game, and estimates as to how much time will be missed. The rules do change during playoffs, and teams have to report injuries on active players with general information about the location and severity. But outside of playoffs, the only obligation is to report if a player needs to be benched for injury.

It is weird to begin with that they made an announcement that Shane wasn’t going to be on injury. They did it to pressure him out of demanding a second opinion.

Again, the situation in Montreal is untenable. No one is buying their bullshit about this being strategy. And frankly everyone is shocked that the Metros coach is being so blatant about targeting Shane fucking Hollander himself. No one understands why no one’s put a stop to this yet or why it’s still happening. No one knows why Shane himself seemingly isn’t taking any action to stop it. And the longer it goes on, the more people speculate about what could be happening.

Shane is legitimately put in the position where he has to try to cover up his own abuse. And Theriault knows he’s doing that. He knows Shane does not want the truth coming out. He uses that fact against him here.

And it works. Shane shuts the fuck down. Fuck it, he’s playing.

He’s in a very bad mental state in that moment. He is wondering the same thing that Ilya wondered when he saw the game—did Dallas Kent target him because he’s a dirty player who saw an opportunity?

Or did one of his teammates out him? And did they know what Kent was going to do after he found out?

If Kent knows, who is he going to tell next?

Shane’s exhausted. He’s in pain. He has stressors that I Shan’t Say. And he feels the walls closing in on him.

It’s Scott fucking Hunter all over again, though this time he thinks he can be pretty certain that Dallas Kent’s not going to be kissing a smoothie boy in front of the Stanley cup any time soon. Dallas Kent is a guy who will fucking spread that news around. His sexuality is about to be the NHL’s newest open secret.

And then maybe it’s not even a secret. Maybe it’s just open.

Shane knows he is losing control of the situation. He knows it’s becoming increasingly likely that someone’s going to leak to the press the truth of what’s happening right now.

He cannot wake up to that headline.

It gets to the point where that’s the only reply he’ll give J.J. and Hayden. He stops arguing with them entirely and just repeats that. He cannot wake up to that headline. He cannot wake up to that headline. He cannot wake up to that headline.

They can’t invoke the second opinion for Shane. But they can try to force management’s hand. Shane doesn’t need to have any say in it if management decides to change their original determination and bench him. They give up fighting with Shane and go to fucking war with the evil pieces of shit who control all of their lives. Because they can’t get Shane to budge.

He just.