Do Melnyk tease Rivera about his obsession (or whatever it is) for Shane Hollander? The hockey players teased him about it.
Here’s my theory (about my OCs lol): Melnyk 100% is just as obsessed with Shane and Ilya as Rivera, but Rivera is a lot more obvious about it. So Melnyk takes every opportunity to call them their dads, but then gets confused because they both have major crushes on them.
But I do think the teasing is out of control! If they’re living together/shacking up for 6 weeks, he clips out articles of Shane’s interviews and posts them on their fridge.
He gets Shane to sign things for Rivera that say “to my biggest fan” (even before Shane knew about them together, so he didn’t really know who he was signing them for, he just knew Melnyk was approaching him in the locker room and wouldn’t leave him alone until he did it).
Once they know Ilya and Shane are together, Melnyk will ask Ilya for a picture of them kissing because Rivera is having a bad day, and Ilya delivers every time. Shane doesn’t want pictures to get out so he’s a lot more strict about it, but Ilya knows the worst Melnyk will do is print it out and frame it in their apartment (which he does).
So yes haha it is relentless!