Headcanon that baby Shane has a slight accent when speaking English, and it's for a super unexpected reason.
A few weeks post-partum, Yuna decided that their son should be bilingual. Yuna speaks to Shane in Japanese, and David speaks to him in French. Baby Shane catches on extremely quickly.
It isnât until baby Shane is enrolled in daycare that the staff notices he has a hard time following directions and making friends.
Yuna and David find it hard to believe. At home, baby Shane is speaking two languages and actively translating between French and Japanese. Itâs not until a few weeks later that Yuna comes to the realization.
âDavid,â she calls from the kitchen after hearing David read Shane a book in French. âDid we ever formally teach this kid English?â
And David is sitting there stunned, because no, no, they did not. Sure, David and Yuna spoke to each other in English, and to their friends and family in English when they visited the house, but they never spoke to Shane in English.
They enroll Shane in an English as a Second Language class (which really should be called English as a third language, in this case). Shane eventually catches up and becomes somewhat fluent in English, but he has this slight hybrid Euro-Asian accent when he speaks it.
Imagine Ilya finding this out as Shane is learning Russian and then Ilya has to at least learn enough Japanese and French so that when Shane scrunches up his nose because he can't think of the Russian or English word Ilya can offer suggestions.
Or, if we want to be angsty about it, at an away game in Boston, before the Ottawa trade, Shane gets a very bad concussion and he starts speaking a mix of Japanese and French with a handful of Russian words because he was doing his lessons on the way to Boston.
So as far as the Metros are concerned Shane is speaking in tongues and they understand the French but what the hell are the other languages and because they never bothered to ask, they assume he's speaking Chinese so they're asking for a Chinese translater or just someone that speaks the language, who gets super pissed because that's not fucking Chinese and eventually Shane is somewhat aware enough to focus on one language instead of three, but it's Russian his brain chose, though there are a few French and Japanese words but mostly Russian, and while the Metros have a Russian teammate he hasn't activly spoken the language in years so he can't really make sense of what Shane is saying because the Japanese and French keep throwing him off and confusing him.
And then Hayden has a moment where he remembers that Rozanov is Russian, and because Shane sometimes slips languages during sex the random words in French and Japanese don't throw him off, he just says something like, 'I do not know this word but rest of sentence is this so maybe insert word' and he's usually right because J.J. is there to translate the French and Ilya is faster at suggesting words than he is at saying the right word because he's wondering just when and why Shane decided to learn Russian and where did the Japanese come from and why didn't he tell them he spoke three languages? So the Metros are really useless at being helpful.
And once they're outed people bring the clips out and are side-eyeing both Hollanov and the Metros like, how the hell did this happen and you guys not catch a clue?
But the Centaurs decide to employ a language major for a bit because you know what, the team could stand to learn a second or third language if they want, also just incase one of their players just wants to speak their first language, and while most of the players only learn the curse words Ilya and Shane decide they are going to learn as many languages they can so during play they start chirping in a players' native language and at the beginning they suck at it but they take the corrections and by the time the other players realize their mistake it's too late, Hollanov can chirp you in your native tongue and it makes whatever it is ten times worse because you only speak two, maybe three languages and none of them are Shane or Ilya's first language so, they will always be better than you, not just in Hockey.
Bonus, they do a fan question thing, where they let fans ask questions and they get a tiny little kid who is struggling to speak English to ask their question, maybe looking down at a paper that has the English written Phonetically so they can say it right, and people are laughing, reporters are trying to hide it but it's obvious and while Ilya is glareing, Shane gently asks the kid to come on stage and then asks what their first language is, and maybe it's not one they know but Luca knows, or maybe the little kid says Japanese and Shane grins and says 'Me too, you can ask in that language, it's okay' and they have a whole long conversation that Ilya can maybe understand half of because Japanese is hard for him to learn but he's not really paying attention because he never really gets to see Shane speak Japanese, not like this anyway, soft and gentle, clearly softened because he's speaking to a kid and not his mother.
And maybe they forget about the reporters and focus on the kids, most of whom have a first language that's not English, so the kids are on stage with the Centaurs, none of them speaking English and none of the reporters know what's being said because none of them speak a language other than English.
When Harris posts the video he also gives a list of people that volunteered to translate the conversations and since most of them are in school for Languages he pleads that their teachers give them a little extra credit.
