無標題

And this is treading into headcanon / personal canon stuff here but my read of what’s going on goes back to the idea of how these two are constantly negotiating around humiliation. Ilya moving to Ottawa for Shane is humiliating in the logic of traditional, heterosexual masculinity, and his record in Ottawa is humiliating. He’s publicly failing.

And Shane is seeing this, and I do think—I know people will get mad—but I do think he’s a bit emotionally slow sometimes. I think what Shane would want is for Ilya to complain about Ottawa, to rant to Shane about his losses and for them to talk about hockey. He wants to have that connection with Ilya because that’s his dream of the two of them, the two best hockey players of a generation standing on top. And instead it looks like Ilya’s just given up and doesn’t give a shit. And that really bugs Shane.

But from Ilya’s perspective the idea of talking about Ottawa with Shane is nightmarish! It’s so, so embarrassing. It’s humiliating that his team is this bad. While Shane is winning more cups, more awards, Ilya’s sinking. And it’s not his fault, obviously, he’s just one player, but he’s the captain and it’s his house and he’s the one who people see as failing. And we know, canonically, that Ilya takes these sorts of failures on himself, as he’s been raised to do (like in Sochi).

And then to what, sit down with the guy who you’re supposed to be neck and neck with, who you always set your pace by, whose competition with you was the basis of your bond and acknowledge you’re failing? Ask for help? Unthinkable.

There's one line in HR where Shane's thinking about why he chooses to live alone instead of with a teammate as a rookie, but I think there's got to be more than that.

When you have someone like that who is so far above you, talent wise, and so famous, of course resentment can fester. Especially when you are also highly competitive professional athletes. It's that Tall Poppy syndrome.

I bet there were so many resentful complaints about it, and people taking shots at Shane which he either didn't notice or just ignored. (Ilya probably also got these, but he's more apt to be like, yes I am better than you, obviously)

In the show the TV announcers say things like, "Shane Hollander and the Montreal Metros", and some of those guys were definitely like, what are we Hollander, your backup dancers? And I bet sometimes Shane apologized for it, like it's his fault that other people are saying that stuff.

I definitely believe that his coach would have been part of this too. Based on how he's portrayed in TLG, to me that guy really resents Shane's star power and how it 'pulls focus' from the team as a whole. And his own job as the coach. He coaches this team to back to back cups and all anyone talks about is that weird (asian) kid? How dare that kid take the attention that should be his.

I think this would be a really interesting aspect of Shane's relationship with Montreal to explore. Especially in contrast to the Centaurs, who are all horrified the first time Shane comes and apologizes to them after an announcer calls them "Hollanov and the Centaurs".

Shane never "assimilated." He already IS Canadian. He grew up in Ottawa. There is absolutely nothing about him that makes him culturally distinct from his Canadian peers---other than his race. He speaks both languages of Canada natively, he's lived there his entire life, he plays its national sport. His lifestyle is distinctly Canadian. Saying he's "assimilated" gives me some very serious ick. What about him is meaningfully non-Canadian that's being assimilated, exactly?

i forgot that ilya goes to the club ALONE. none of his fellow NHL teammates go with him. He knows scott hates him (or at least hates how he gets under his skin on the ice) but he goes to support him anyways.

And even when Kip decides that Scott is asking too much, he needs to go home, he needs to see his dad, he needs to fucking regroup after whatever the hell that was, we can safely assume that they keep seeing each other because Kip is there watching the cup final fucking THREE YEARS LATER. What are they at this point? What have they done to each other? What has Kip given up and what has Scott sacrificed on the pyre to try to keep this man happy until he can come out?

You just have to get with them! Get on their level! Imagine if Hollanov had felt and admitted feelings from the beginning. Imagine how they could have destroyed each other! We don’t know the state of scott and kips relationship when they kiss on the ice, but imagine going from total secrecy to absolute ecstasy, followed by intense visibility for someone like kip who’s just a guy.

And the way Scott smiles when he sees Kip, and then his smile drops, like he's being washed over by this feeling of he stayed fuck he really stayed and he's here and he jumps Kip and they're so happy... I can't help rooting for them.

How lonely has Scott been that the simple act of having someone waiting for him at home can create such a strong reaction? It's supposed to be a cute joyful scene, and it is, but the layers beneath it make me tear up every time.

So it's chaos, but fuck I want Scott to always have Kip to come home to, and I want Kip to always have Scott lighting up like fireworks when he comes home to him. I want Scott to allow himself to love big and for Kip to be shown day after day he's worthy of all of it.

Hayden is the 'good guy' hockey player.

I don't mean that in a Hayden is The Best Guy ever kind of way-I like Hayden and even I can see he has some huge character flaws to work on. I mean it in the sense that Hayden in the real world everyman of hockey that Shane and Ilya and Scot Hunter aren't.

Hayden Pike has a good heart and he loves his wife and his kids while simultaneously good naturedly joking about Jackie being 'the ol' ball and chain' to his friends and not doing a lot of the heavy lifting of parenting. He'd punch anyone who dared talk about Jackie the way he talked about girls before Jackie. He goes out with boys and leaves her to do bedtime. He buys her flowers and takes her on dates. He never forgets an anniversary, but still forgets her college major. He's charming. He cares deeply for his friends. He can only do so in the broiest most macho hypermasculine way possible. He supports gay people but the worst thing you could accuse him of is being gay. He thinks rape is only when a girl gets attacked in some dark alley and not when one of his teammates gets a girl shitfaced and brings her back to his room. He's gonna put his daughters in figure skating and his sons in hockey. He'll shovel talk every boyfriend Ruby or Jade every have. He's gonna tell his sons to 'man up'. Sometimes he does the dishes to 'help out' around the house. Everyone likes him. He's a good husband. He loves his kids. He's a nice guy.

I grew up around hockey players and Hayden Pike is real. He's real in a way the main characters in the books aren't. Hayden Pike is what hockey culture twists decent guys into. He's not evil by any means. He loves deeply. His team and his friends and his family all mean the world to him and they're all one and the same. He's entirely a product of his toxic environment which he will never admit was toxic. His verbally abusive coach was just 'old school', his friends hazing and bullying of the new guy, or the black guy, or the gay guy was just 'teasing' or 'shop talk', don't you know boys will be boys? When one of his teammates gets arrested for a fight or a rape he never saw it coming, despite years worth of warning signs.

Hayden Pike is important to the story because he's real. He's what happens to the average guy who grows up a hockey player. He's what hockey really is, to offer contrast to Shane and Ilya and Scott who represent what hockey could be.