Patron saint of comfortable shoes

I feel the need, as mixed race queer, to explain why it shouldn't be Shane's job to make Montreal better.

There is a lot of discourse that a better ending to TLG is Shane staying on the Metros and somehow browbeating an entire organization into the 21st Century.

This is purported to be taking up space.

I want to be clear. I support queers taking up space. I support racialized people taking up space.

But I also support people doing what they want to make themselves HAPPY as long as no one else is harmed.

First of all, and we see this more in the show than in the book, Shane has always been forced to "take up space." His "Asianess" is something that people have exploited without his express permission his entire career and probably before that.

I would point once more to the great Paul Kariya, whose Japanese identity was used to make hockey interesting in Japan, despite his oft stated desire to not have his racial background constantly highlighted.

Kariya took up space he didn't want to. He wanted people to talk about his hockey. Not his ethnicity. Not his injuries. His skills.

He was incredibly skilled. But always, always, the stories led with "Japanese Canadian Paul Kariya," not "tapped as the next Gretzky Paul Kariya" or "Playmaker Extraordinaire Paul Kariya."

You can bet Shane has put up with the same treatment his entire life.

When Shane is outed, he gets to add another marginalized identity to his list. Which is something Shane has never wanted.

Shane doesn't want to be the poster boy for anything but good hockey. He doesn't want to be good "despite" being mixed, but he's never had the option. He doesn't want to be good "despite" being gay, but now that option has also been taken away from him.

If Shane stays in Montreal, he's just going to continue being the poster boy, because Montreal's team culture is garbage and it goes all the way to the top.

RR alludes to this in the books when she talks about how great the owners are in Ottawa. They hire and promote Harris, they support Troy, they fight the suspension imposed by the league when Ilya is outed, and when Shane signs with Ottawa, they book Ilya and Shane a fancy dinner just for the two of them as a signing gift.

Once again, RR assumes her readers have puck knowledge and will be able to extrapolate based on that. And I refuse to get mad at her for this assumption because WHY ELSE WOULD YOU READ HOCKEY ROMANCE? She couldn't predict the show would bring an influx of fans who love the queerness and have no idea about hockey.

If you know hockey, especially pro hockey, you know the team culture is not set by the team captains, or the coaches. It is set by the General Manager (GM), and the owners.

The owners hire the GM. The GM decides everything about operations: coaches. Admin. And team members.

I know that hockey players are rich. But they are cattle for the NHL. Yes, there are superstars (well paid but powerless). However, most hockey players make NHL base which is about 800k, and have absolutely no choice in what happens to them. They can be traded at any time, sent to the AHL with very little warning, and are basically fodder for the machine.

Let's play a little game:

Without looking at a list, please name all 23 players on any hockey team's roster.

A casual fan probably knows one or two. A more involved fan? Probably 6-8.

Very few will know all 23, and the names change every. Single. year.

The players can do very little to control the team culture. They have no say in trades. They have no say in coaches. They have no say in management.

Hockey players are the servers of the NHL; all the abuse, none of the power.

At least they're paid better.

The discourse posits that a better ending for Shane is to stay in Montreal and overhaul the whole damn place rather than be shuffled off to a lesser team.

Once again I must point out that OTTAWA IS NOT A BAD TEAM AT THE END OF TLG.

Ottawa beat the top ranked team in the fucking league in the playoffs. It doesn't matter if Shane tripped in OT or not; Ottawa going to game 7 against Montreal is a fucking miracle in itself, and a sign of how toxic the Montreal locker room has become.

MOVING ALONG.

A Montreal rebuild from the ground up, ousting the entire coaching staff, the bulk of the players, and the entire management, not to mention the owners, is not feasible at all. That is not how pro hockey works. RR is writing a story about the NHL. She has to play within the NHL's basic rules.

Ottawa has progressive owners, a queer friendly admin, an excellent fucking team, AND the cap space for Shane if they commit to contract flexes that are legal and not even frowned upon.

Montreal was a shit team when Shane was drafted, that's why they had the second overall draft pick.

Shane made them better and got them three cups

Ottawa is already a team that knocked the number one team in the league out of the playoffs.

Shane shouldn't have to drag Montreal kicking and screaming into the future. He deserves the space to be the greatest hockey player of all time. He deserves to enjoy hockey again.

He deserves to make and break records before he retires triumphant as the greatest hockey player of all time with a (modern) record breaking number of cups.

He deserves to play on the same team as his generational talent husband and rule the NHL until he chooses to stop.

He deserves to have his number retired across the entire League for all time.

Queer joy shouldn't HAVE to involve a fuckton of labour to make a space better. Queer joy can be Shane getting exactly what he's always wanted:

This is Shane's queer joy. This is Shane's deepest desire. He doesn't want to lead the charge to make the League better, he wants to play hockey and love Ilya.

Shane is not a human rights trailblazer. Shane is not Gay Hockey Jesus Scott Hunter, openly defying the NHL's preconceived notions of masculinity. He's not Ilya Rozanov, the Pied Piper of Queerlandia, gently guiding people to their true selves. He is a gay man who wants to do the right thing.

Shane has already had to be one poster boy, it's completely unfair to expect him to be another one.

Shane openly defies Crowell, and may be the only player smart enough to use the place he meets Crowell (a single party consent province) to get information that could take Crowell down.

Taking Crowell down might actually start the cycle to clean up the NHL. Why isn't this enough queer crusading? Why can't Shane just be happy?

If we are constantly going to talk about the amount of suffering Shane had had to do in hockey as a racialized player, why can't he just have a fucking break?

Let him go to a really good hockey team where he can sleep next to his husband every fucking night for the rest of their lives if he wants.

The NHL has kept Shane and Ilya apart since they were 17. Why is it specifically Shane's responsibility to make the League better? Why should Shane have to stay and fix Montreal, when he can go to Ottawa, bang his husband, make a ton of money and win a bunch of cups?

And I'll admit, being told I'm letting down the queers earlier has made me extra sensitive. But expecting Shane to do EVEN MORE emotional labour to make a place where he doesn't feel welcome better so he can take up space is unfair.

No one owes anyone emotional labour.

Besides. The NHL, like all pro sports leagues, runs on money. If the Centaurs win a bunch of cups, they will get higher revenues from ticket sales and merch. Maybe the highest in the league.

If the asshole money men who run the League see that an openly liberal, accepting, queer AF team is the highest revenue generator in the league, that will actually go a long fucking way to making the NHL a more open, accepting, queer AF place. So Shane going to Ottawa and securing his legacy via Cup wins will eventually make Montreal, and every other team, better.

Let Shane do what he's the best at (hockey) and enjoy his goddamn life, and you get the same outcome:

A CULTURE SHIFT IN THE NHL.

Once again, no idea how to end this, except maybe its a good idea to learn a little about the NHL, and we should let Shane be fucking happy.

And also, i will clearly do anything to avoid discussing enforcers and the 2011 off season, even revisit this conversation once again from yet another angle.

Here's Ilya kissing Shane's helmet because yay high note endings.