cryptid hours

You direct a sports documentary about two of the greatest hockey players in the world. And how they were bitter rivals but eventually became friends and even started a charity together. It’s good, juicy, it gets excellent ratings, and is possibly award winning. The future is bright.

ESPN’s publicists keep talking about how you had unprecedented levels of access to these superstars, and meticulously combed through over a decade of footage of them. The only thing viewers grumble about is that they still don’t know why Ilya Rozanov left Boston for Ottawa. It’s the one mystery of their rivalry that you couldn’t unravel. But overall, the reactions are very positive. A professional triumph for you.

And then only a month later, the whole world (including you) is astonished to find out that these heated rivals have been in a serious and secret romantic relationship for years!!! And you missed the whole thing! One (1) month ago.

The documentary would quickly go from jewel in the crown to albatross around the neck of everybody involved in it. Because you did all this research, you had all this access, and yet you didn’t have a clue. They’re together? They’re getting fucking married? Ilya Rozanov moved to Ottawa because he was more in love with Shane Hollander than he was with being on a cup winning team?

Oh my God, ESPN would be contemplating destroying every copy of the documentary they commissioned, and which had great ratings. Everybody involved in making it has to log into LinkedIn and delete it from their professional history.

when he was crashing out about trading to ottawa, he said, "You know, it's just gonna be really hard to leave melissa," and hayden was sitting right there like. "melissa?? it's gonna be hard to leave MELISSA??"

1. a canadian team bringing home the cup for the first time in like 20 years would have made sooo much noise, shane hollander basically put canada on the map.

2. obviously he is tumblr's boy of the year. along with superwholock.

3. in the wake of his insane b2b run there's something like linsanity happening within asian diaspora communities. shanesanity if you will. asians in hockey numbers rise up by 120% after the second stanley cup. despite this, just like in NBA, there's barely 4 asians that make it to the NHL after him.

4a. i hate to say this but. drake referenced him in his songs. something about. i learned it from shane holly y'all can never check me. back to back for those that didn't get it. and yes of course the cover is shane's stanley cup photo. you know the one.

4b. and yes when eventually in 2025 drake has his big cancellation at the superbowl, some beat reporter asks what shane thinks of drake v kendrick, and shane ofc thought he'd side with the canadian. he had to make a clarification on twitter. 

4c. ilya tweeted like "shane don't have internet sorry about him 🙁"

5. shane's face is all over montreal like shohei ohtani is all over tokyo.

6. shane gets tapped for a tim horton's commercial once and basically ate their donuts like the mcdonald's CEO and was again cancelled on twitter.

Shane comes out of the closet sometime after Scott does, and in some random, lighthearted interview, they ask him what he's looking for in a man. And Shane's just, off-hand like, "Well, he'd have to have at least one Stanley Cup. Obviously." And when he gets a good reaction from that, he keeps going, like "Needs to be amazing at hockey. Definitely needs to be at least an All-Star, if not a captain. Hot too. If he can't bench-press me, I'm not interested."

The Ilya we see in Heated rivalry would not be throwing the first punch, he's not an enforcer. Ilya is a star center and a Pest. He wouldn't be doing his job correctly if he was punching players every other game, it would end up with not enough ice time to let him be the playmaker he's paid to be.

But being a pest can be playmaking! Find a player to bait, emotionally push them just enough that they try to fight you, and then get the fuck out of there before the ref gives you both penalties. This gets your team the power play. There is probably someone on Ilya's line dedicated to helping him get out of the fights he starts, and finishing them for him!

I also think this is also something that Shane would respect. Ilya is good at it and it's a good strategy for his team. I don't think Shane would see it as some dirty tactic, because Shane probably thinks everyone with a brain can see it for what it is! He probably thinks everyone should be able to see that being an asshole is a tactic for Ilya, that it's something to ignore and not fall for, that it's a strategy and not personal beef.