op was just having fun/exploring a hc, no incision intended to them, but i saw a post proposing that ilya might privately have longed to be a skater and was instead pressured to play hockey to be more masculine. and i'm compelled to correct the general base presumption, which the show demonstrates without correction a la carter vaughn's dumbass comments in ep 2, that men's skaters in russia are denigrated for the sport's queer undertones. bc....no, figure skating in russia isn't highkey or lowkey gay. russians can correct me here, maybe it's eccentric, or a specific type of masculinity, or has certain barriers of entry to acceptability. but their skaters are beloved cultural icons and the best of them are legendary athletes who are taken gravely serious. afaik it's a normal thing to do non-professionally, as well. if ilya wanted to pursue skating he wouldn't have been impeded by homophobia. there'd be as much support as for hockey. if anything his fame at the highest level would be 10x what hockey offers
i'd like to expound & sink my teeth into carter's comment at the olympics as that's more relevant than someone's misguided but benign headcanon, hwv i don't have time rn. it's a deeply silly thing to say about skaters, though, especially in a russian context. and also exactly the sort of thing i'd expect from a bro-y ignorant usamerican jock, which is why it's interesting
