#mlh

"Pride Night", Shane Hollander, Ilya Rozanov, Scott Hunter [Hudson Williams, Connor Storrie, Francois Arnaud] from Heated Rivalry, the original cover from the [REDACTED] zine

Mar 2026

This is a several layer work. First, I found three blank jersey templates and redesigned the Metros/Raiders/Admirals jerseys into a pride format. I then found a reference pic of three men standing next to each other wearing jerseys. I used inkscape to photoshop the jerseys onto the reference pic, and then photoshopped Hudson, Connor, and Francois's faces into place.

I then ran it through my process of playing with vectorising/lighting/overlaying watercolour textures and stock images, isolating the lines, drawing in more lines (don't look too closely at their numbers or their feet because I almost messed them up a few times). I blurred the letters because it's meant to look like a painting, I removed the lines from the Raiders icon because it was too busy, and then overlaid everything.

Believe it or not, the reflection on the ice was the hardest part of this. And if you still fucking think this is AI, just go ahead and block me already because I'm over trying to prove myself to everyone.

It seemed weird, but then I thought about it some more. And realized why Ilya is so quick to forgive a man he dislikes for a piece of monumental carelessness:

1. ⁠They were already planning to come out after playoffs ended for both teams and get married in July. The video leak in March just moves the existing timeline up by a few months.

2. ⁠Ilya spends most of The Long Game wishing he could proclaim his relationship with Shane from the rooftops. He’s sick of hiding. The WAY it comes out is a fucking disaster, but actually being out as the man Shane loves is something he wants. Psychologically, he’s already made peace with the fact that he’ll never see his mother’s grave again and could run into passport problems in future.

3. ⁠He knows his teammates and management will be supportive, because Troy Barrett just came out to them last month. Totally different situation from Shane, where his teammates and management already know he’s gay and refuse to ever talk about it (except for Hayden and JJ).

"You asked, we barely listened to legal. Full team brawls? Yup. Stick-swinging tantrums? Of course. Goalies dropping gloves? Let's just say they've got hands."

The graphic designer for Heated Rivalry shared some BTS of the graphics and production design, including the full cover of the MHL15 video game. I think someone had a lot of fun with the copy on the back cover.

this entire thread is so good. we need crave to lock in and make social media accounts for the hockey teams (metros, raiders, centaurs) in the show. (x)

WYATT HAYES IS A GOALIE!!!! LEAVE HIM IN THE CREASE WHERE GE BELONGS!!!!

He is not making assists, or scoring goals, or sitting on the bench during the 1st period (unless he's on IR or something).