Rating:

Explicit

Archive Warning:

Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings

Category:

M/M

Fandoms:

Heated Rivalry (TV), Game Changers | Heated Rivalry - All Media Types, Game Changers Series - Rachel Reid

Relationship:

Shane Hollander/Ilya Rozanov

Characters:

Montreal Voyageurs | Montreal Metros Team Ensemble (Game Changers), Shane Hollander, Ilya Rozanov, Hayden Pike, Patrice Drapeau, Gilbert Comeau, Mitty (Heated Rivalry), Yuna Hollander, Cliff Marlow | Cliff Marleau, Rose Landry

Additional Tags:

Coming Out, Montreal Voyageurs | Montreal Metros Being Assholes (Game Changers), Montreal Voyageurs | Montreal Metros Bashing (Game Changers), Shane Hollander Needs a Hug, BAMF Shane Hollander, Internalized Homophobia, Homophobia, Homophobic Language, Anal Sex, Mixed Media, Reddit User Shane Hollander, Shane Hollander Comes Out, Shane Hollander Freaks Out, Not Beta Read, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, The Fucking Shane Hollander, Shane Hollander Speaking His (and the Author's) Mind, Hayden Pike Is an Ass In This (sorrynotsorry), Frottage, Coming Out: The Fallout, Ilya Rozanov is Trying His Best, Racist Language, Racism, Good Friend Cliff Marlow | Cliff Marleau, Texting, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, A Lesson On Why the Media Is Bad, Emotional Baggage, Misunderstandings, A Decade of Misunderstandings

Language:

English

Collections:

Heated Rivalry, Week 2: Shane Comes Out to Montreal, Subscriptions:Tracking, In this glass house we are free, Read & Loved Heated Rivalry Fics, Read & Loved Media Fics, Gammily’s Bookshelf, Fics LunaK does not want to lose track of, Ilya loves Shanes stupid freckles, Zulie's Best of Heated Rivalry, Best of HR FF - read and ❤️

Stats:

Published: 2026-05-09 Completed: 2026-06-14 Words: 34,913 Chapters: 3/3

Gay During That Goal, Too

Summary

Shane Hollander accidentally comes out to his hockey team after years of hiding his sexuality behind carefully crafted personas and unfinished coming out speeches. As the Metros slowly begin icing him out on and off the ice, Shane spirals between rage, grief, and self-discovery—while Ilya refuses to let him forget exactly who he is.

Notes

The usual disclaimers: not beta'd, English is my second language, yadda yadda. Love!

This is for the Centaurs Writing Room's weekly prompt: "Shane Hollander Comes Out To the Metros | Voyagers".

Chapter 1

u/AshesAndScoreboards • 4 years ago 

I came out as gay this year and it went nothing like I imagined

I came out as gay this year and the strangest part was how small most of the moments actually were.

I built it up in my head for YEARS. Thought every conversation would be life-changing and dramatic. Most of them were just my friends going “okay cool” and then continuing whatever we were doing.

The hardest part was my family.

Not because they’re super religious or openly homophobic—honestly that almost would’ve been simpler. My family just does not talk about feelings. Ever. We’ll debate lawn care or weather for two hours but emotions are treated like unexploded bombs.

When I finally told my mom, she cried immediately and I panicked, but then she said:

“I’m sad you carried this alone for so long.”

My dad got really quiet, nodded, and asked if I was okay. Which, for him, was basically a full emotional speech.

Things still aren’t perfect and some conversations are awkward, but the relief afterward is hard to explain. I didn’t realize how exhausting it was constantly monitoring myself until I stopped doing it.

Anyway. If anyone reading this is terrified of coming out: sometimes the people who love you just want you, not the version of you that feels safest.

*

Shane fell down a rabbit hole.

1988: IAN McKELLEN on Section 28 | Wogan | Classic Celebrity Interviews | BBC Archive
47.760 views • 3 years ago

EXCLUSIVE: Neil Patrick Harris Tells PEOPLE He Is Gay
“I am a very content gay man,” the How I Met Your Mother actor says.
By People Staff | Published on November 3, 2006 06:55PM EST

Barry Manilow comes out as gay at 73 and reveals his partner of 39 years
Patrick Sawer Senior Reporter. Alice Vincent Entertainment Writer
Published 06 April 2017 11:52am BST

Elliot Page on Coming Out as Trans and Finding Hope
by Armani Syed
Published: APR 24, 2024

Basically I’m Gay | Daniel Howell
13 mio. views • 6 years ago

Coming Out | Troye Sivan
9,2 mio. views • 12 years ago

Shane watched video after video, devoured article after article. He longed for it. The want to not hide himself anymore burned deep in the hollows of his chest, succumbed by the fear of the public reacting. Knowing. Ilya had pressed the words into his skin at the cottage. You’re brave. It certainly didn’t feel like it as he scrolled through pages of celebrities coming out, his fingers trembling as he yet again opened his document titled Coming Out Speech-draft1. 

Google • how to come out to friends and family

Reddit • r/asktransgender • 2 years ago
How did you come out to your friends and family?
I haven’t started transitioning yet due to being poor lol but I have been thinking on how to come out, most of the ideas are admittedly stupid. For …
21 answers • Top-answer: Total cop out, but I just made my husband do it for me :P I’m autistic and he’s NT …
How do I come out to my friends? [coming out … • 19 answers • Nov. 11 2021
How did you come out to your friends/family?: r/ … • 43 answers • Jul. 7 2023

The Guardian • May 14, 2016
10 tips on how to come out as LGBT to family and friends
Make sure you come out only when you really want to. Take control of the situation and remember that it may be more of a process than an event.

The Trevor Project
The Coming out Handbook
There is no one way to come out. The Trevor Project is here to help answer what coming out means to you and how you can find support.

Autostraddle • October 11, 2023
15 Creative Ways To Come Out As Gay
1. Come Out Via Power Point Presentation • 2. Star in an Ad Campaign For Subaru • 3. Let Your Mom Come Out For You • 4. Share Your Netflix Account …

The draft sat in a password-locked folder hidden between recipes he had saved at the start of his performance diet, and scans of all his contracts that had accumulated over the years. It was rare that Shane had time to work on it—if working on it meant staring at the blank screen, the cursor blinking at him in an unnerving rhythm. There were times he managed to write down one or two sentences that sounded empty as he voiced them out, but more often than not, he closed it after hours of his battery draining for nothing, not a single letter typed. 

Shane couldn’t pin-point the catalyst for what made him finally crack down on it—maybe it was the desperation to belong that drove him to the edge—but on a cold Sunday, his thoughts ebbed over to the document.  

Hey guys Okay, so, I need to tell you guys something that’s been with me for a long time.

I wanted to tell you before, but I was scared, and I still am. I hope we can still be friends work together afterwards. You’ve known me for years, right? (laugh or huff here) I’m Shane Hollander, we won three cups together, and I love you. 

I’m gay. 

I’ve always been attracted to men.

Please, don’t think differently of me when I say this, but I am gay. 

Each time he wrote it out, he hoped that something would loosen inside his chest, but it never did. The articles stated that saying it, typing it, thinking it would ease the way—doing it over and over again was supposed to help him accept it. It didn’t. 

Whenever he took his laptop into his trophy room, the draft turned more aggressive.

Fuck you all. I’m Shane Hollander, and statistically I’m better than all of you. Without me, you’d be scraping the fucking barrel for wins. I love to dominate on the ice, and I also love sucking dick. If you’ve got a problem with that, shut the fuck up, and talk to my fucking hand. 

Sitting on the couch he had let Ilya fuck him raw for the first time last week, the soft light of the sunset ghosting across his freckles, heartfelt admissions stumbled out.

I’ve known for a long time that I was different. I’ve tried to not be, tried to belong to you all, be like you all, but nothing ever worked. Maybe I haven’t given my best. 

Staring at the screen at night, the shadows of his office creeping up his back, the draft sounded like something a lawyer would be proud of.

After a multi-year period of internal reviews, stakeholder consultation, and strategic self-assessment, I am pleased to announce that I will be moving forward publicly as gay.

This decision reflects a broader commitment to authenticity, operational transparency, and long-term personal sustainability. While implementation timelines varied across departments (the only one being my year-long, secret partner), initial feedback has been largely positive, continued confidence in my leadership and overall vibe being key.

I would like to thank everyone who supported this transition initiative (read: Ilya Rozanov #81 my partner), particularly those who suspected this years in advance (read: predominantly @shanehollandersleftnipple on Twitter X) and chose to let me arrive at the conclusion independently. 

As part of this rollout, please note the following updates:

• References to hypothetical future wives have been formally discontinued.

• Casual comments about male celebrities “objectively being attractive” should no longer be interpreted as data anomalies.

• The phrase “that explains a lot, actually” has exceeded projected usage metrics.

I recognize this announcement may require an adjustment period for certain stakeholders. However, I remain optimistic that through open communication, cross-functional collaboration, and God-tier emotional resilience, we can navigate this exciting new chapter together.

Thank you for your continued support and understanding.

Best regards,
Shane Hollander [Name Redacted for Brand Consistency]

Listening to the playlists he had found through his extensive research on coming out, littered with different genres and styles, made the truth spill over just like the tears forming on his waterline. 

Tell Theriault, tell my parents. I’ve done the best I can. I’ve realized that this is my life, and I hope you can understand. I’m not angry, I’m just saying. Coming out is a second chance.

*

The locker room was loud in that uncomfortable, familiar way it always was after practice—music thumping from Hayden’s speaker, the hiss of showers running, half the team yelling over each other about weekend plans. Shane barely registered any of it. He sat at his stall, elbows on knees that were still covered in gear, staring at his phone where an unfinished idea sat in his Notes app, glowing accusingly on the screen.

Hey. There’s something I’ve been trying to tell you.

“Dude,” Drapeau said, tossing a towel at his head. “You’ve been glaring at that phone for like twenty minutes. Boston Girl giving you trouble?” A couple guys nearby snickered.

Shane caught the towel automatically. “No.”

“Bullshit,” Wilson called from across the room. “Man’s down catastrophic. You need to either lock that girl down finally, or let her go.”

Normally, Shane could deflect these comments in his sleep. Crack a joke, roll his eyes, change the subject. But his brain was still stuck on the conversation he kept trying and failing to have, on the fact that he was so tired of thinking every word through before he spoke.

Drapeau grinned. “Seriously, what’s the hold up? You need us to find you a better girl, or what?” 

Without looking up, without fully realizing which words formed behind his teeth, thoughts racing through the different drafts, tired from practice, tired because he hadn’t slept through a night in eight days, notifications of Lily, of all people, popping in on his upper screen, Shane sighed. “Wouldn’t know what to do with a girl. I’m gay.”

The room went silent so fast it was almost impressive. Shane froze. His own words seemed to echo louder every second that passed. Slowly, he lifted his head, tearing his eyes from Ilya’s latest message. Drapeau blinked. Wilson’s mouth had actually fallen open. Near the showers, J.J. muttered something under his breath that suspiciously sounded like “holy shit”. Shane felt heat crawl violently up his neck.

“Well,” he said hoarsely, staring at the floor now. “Guess that’s one way to do that.”

*

The days that followed were high on Shane’s list of being the worst of his life. Nobody said anything openly cruel after Shane accidentally came out. No slurs, no dramatic confrontations. The team had reacted with awkward surprise, a couple shoulder claps, a few variations of cool, man, and practice had resumed the next morning like normal. For about a week, Shane let himself think maybe he had imagined the tension.

But his life wasn’t a fairy tale, despite Ilya looking straight out of a Disney movie with his blond curls and piercing blue eyes, and Shane noticed little things starting to disappear.

On the ice, passes stopped coming his way—not constantly, just enough to spot a difference. A winger who used to feed him instinctively started taking impossible shots instead. During drills, guys rotated around him without looking at him. In scrimmages, he’d call for the puck and watch someone hesitate half a second too long before passing somewhere else. The first time it happened, Shane told himself he was paranoid. By the tenth, he knew better.

The locker room changed, too. Conversation would cut strangely quiet when he sat down nearby. Inside jokes continued without explanation. Guys who used to throw themselves across his hotel bed during road trips now hovered awkwardly in doorways instead.

One afternoon after practice, Shane came back from the shower toweling off his hair and found the room mostly empty.

“Where is everybody?” Shane asked.

Mitty looked up too quickly. “Uh. Nowhere.”

Someone’s phone buzzed on the bench beside him with a rideshare notification. Bar at seven. Don’t let Shane find out or he’ll feel bad.

Mitty snatched the phone so fast it nearly hit the floor. The silence afterward was unbearable. 

Shane laughed once—short, flat, and entirely unamused. “Subtle.”

“Nobody meant it like that,” Mitty muttered.

“What did they mean it like, then?” But Mitty didn’t answer, and Shane was left to his own devices, alone in a locker room that normally contained the people he called his brothers not even two weeks ago.

What started driving Shane insane was that nobody would actually say it. No one told him they were uncomfortable changing around him now. They just kept towels around their waists. No one said they didn’t want him around. They just forgot to invite him. No one called him distracting. They just stopped roughhousing with him like they used to. 

It was death by a thousand tiny aversions. 

Because none of it was explicit, Shane had nothing solid enough to fight. If he got angry, he sounded dramatic, oversensitive. Instead, he stopped talking. He came to practice, played hockey, and went home. 

One night after a brutal loss, Shane sat solitarily by himself at the far end of the locker room, unlacing his skates while the team crowded around Drapeau’s phone laughing at something. For a second, instinct made him glance up, waiting for someone to wave him over. Nobody did, not even Hayden, who kept averting his eyes whenever Shane tried to find his. 

Before he came out, this room had felt like home. Now, it felt like somewhere he was, at most, being impolitely tolerated.

*

Ian McKellen reads Kurt Vonnegut’s inspirational letter to some students
108.200 views • 7 years ago

Practice any art, music, singing, dancing, acting, drawing, painting, sculpting, poetry, fiction, essays, reportage, no matter how well or badly, not to get money and fame, but to experience becoming, to find out what’s inside you, to make your soul grow.

Shane didn’t fully remember putting the playlist on. One second, he’d been lying on the couch staring at the ceiling of his apartment, phone face-down on his chest, and the next second, Second Chance was filling the room through low-quality speakers that crackled every time the chorus hit. Objectively, it was corny, but something inside him twisted painfully enough that he had to press the heels of his palms into his eyes.

He understood the feeling of waking up one day and realizing your life had become a performance optimized for everyone except yourself. Theriault wanted consistency. Management wanted marketability. The team wanted normalcy. Fans wanted the version of Shane Hollander they had already invented years ago. Even his own parents seemingly wanted ease—a son they never had to explain to anyone. And somewhere along the way, Shane had become so good at being digestible that he had stopped noticing the cost of it.

The song kept playing. Ilya would make fun of him endlessly for having a minor (major?) identity crisis to early-2000s post-grunge. Then, annoyingly, Ilya would kiss his forehead about it afterward.

His brain drifted back to that speech he had watched during his hysterical coming out-research—Ian McKellen standing at some podium, older and calm and completely unashamed of taking joy seriously. Shane couldn’t remember the exact wording anymore, something about singing, about dancing, about living fully instead of observing yourself from a distance all the time. McKellen had spoken like art wasn’t decoration or performance, but evidence of being alive.

Shane had scoffed at it, at first, because he remembered the night before the draft, tears knocking at the corners of his eyes, realizing emotions like joy, and fear, and anger, were dangerous things. Embarrassing things. Things that made people lose control—loving Ilya for close to a decade had shown him that. And athletes were supposed to be disciplined, not moved. Years ago, Shane had quietly removed himself from anything capable of reaching him too deeply.

Music became background noise. Movies became things to analyze instead of feel. Books became accomplishments instead of experiences. He had stopped singing along to songs in cars. Stopped crying at films. Stopped admitting when something hurt him he couldn’t logically explain. It had felt safer that way.

And now, lying alone in his apartment with a song cracking his chest open like cheap drywall, Shane recognized what he had actually done. He had not only hidden from other people, but from himself, too. From the terrifying possibility that if he let himself feel things honestly—even stupid things, sentimental things, human things, gay things—then, eventually, he would have to admit the truth about himself. 

The chorus swelled again through the speakers. For the first time in years, Shane didn’t shut it off before it finished.

*

u/MonsteraLover95 • 1 year ago 

came out to my friends and somehow things are “fine” but also not fine at all

I came out to my friends a few months ago and technically everyone was supportive. But ever since then, it feels like I’m slightly outside the group.

People stopped texting me as much. Plans happen without me sometimes. Conversations go weirdly quiet when I walk up. One of my friends literally shifted away when our legs touched on the couch. Nobody’s actually said anything, which almost makes it worse because I sound paranoid if I bring it up.

I don’t think they hate me. I just think they see me differently now. I don’t even know what I’m asking for here. I think I just needed to say it somewhere.

⬆ 31 ⬇ • 🗨 67 • 🏅0 • ↻ • ⚐ Report

Sort for: Best • Search through comments …

BigBB69 • 1 year ago

You’re not imagining it. A lot of people think “not being openly hateful” = acceptance, but there’s still weird subconscious distancing that can happen.

⬆ 9 ⬇ • 🗨 3

Pangolin105 • 1 year ago

Honestly, this sounds less like deliberate cruelty and more like social conditioning. Homophobia is a social construct people absorb without realizing it. Doesn’t make it hurt less, though.

⬆ 2 ⬇ • 🗨 19

HuntersDream • 11 months ago

straight people are so fucking stupid, srsly. they never had to interrogate intimacy with male/same-sex friends probs. some adapt quickly, some panic and get distant like fucking babies. that’s on THEM!!

⬆ 12 ⬇ • 🗨 4

WiseWords • 10 months ago

The hardest homophobia to talk about is the kind subtle enough to be deniable. Still homophobia, and still shit friends. Hope you’re ditching them. They don’t deserve your authentic self.

⬆ 17 ⬇ • 🗨 1

*

The draft that was born out of frustration, anger, and disappointment hit hard. Shane stared at his laptop like it had personally offended him. The first version of it had still been nervous. The second had mixed in apologetic sentiments. By its seventh rendition, Shane was livid. 

This version opened with statistics.

Approximately 4.4% of the population aged 15 and older in Canada identify as LGBTQ+, which means statistically several of you have already shared locker rooms, classrooms, flights, team buses, and probably bathrooms with gay people without spontaneously combusting.

After a pause, his fingers came down onto the keyboard more furiously.

I have been gay during every major accomplishment of my life.

I was gay when Coach called me the hardest worker on the team.

I was gay when I sat beside some of you in hospital waiting rooms after injuries.

I was gay when I helped Miitka move apartments in the rain.

I was gay when I stood beside Olsson as best man at his wedding and held his shaking hands before he walked down the aisle.

I was gay every time one of you trusted me with something painful.

Every break-up advice. Every drunken phone call, because you needed someone level-headed to punch you all out again. Every secret about the women you wanted to fuck behind your wives’ backs, every time you admitted to wanting to strangle Theriault, every time you needed my fucking shoulder to cry on. I liked dick during all of it.

Shane snorted at the last sentence, humorless, and kept going.

Nothing about me changed. I did not become predatory overnight. It’s fucking revolting that you can overlook assault, but can’t handle this. 

I was gay when I won you fucking bastards three Stanley Cups in 2015, 2016, and 2020. I was gay when I received Rookie of the Year, the Conn Smythe Throphy, or when I was All-Star captain. I was gay when I won silver for Canada in 2014. I was gay when I was drafted. I was gay when I scored over 500 goals. I was gay every fucking second of being your captain. I was, am, and will be gay during all of the articles considering me the best fucking player in the NHL. You’re fucking neanderthals. I hope your homophobia chokes you to death.

He reread the document, and sobbed out dry heaves. The most dreadful truth was that none of it mattered. Not the angry snides, not the factual comments. There was no combination of perfect words that could force people to see him the same way again.

*

“Hollander comes back out on the ice, my friends—”

The arena was loud, but there was a strange tension underneath it. You could hear it in the cadence of the play-by-play crew, too.

“—he’s had to do a lot on his own tonight, and I mean that quite literally. You’re not seeing much structure from his line out there—”

Shane took the puck in his own zone. No outlet pass opened up, nor did any support skate into space. There was just pressure surrounding him.

“Here’s Hollander now, trying to exit the zone—he’s got one man closing fast, and—look at this! There’s nobody presenting as an option. He’s completely isolated on this breakout.”

Shane chipped it forward himself, skated after it, won it back along the boards.

“Yeah, that’s not a designed play, that’s just survival hockey at this point. He’s doing everything: retrieve, carry, advance—there’s no organization around him whatsoever.”

Shane crossed the blue line. Two defenders collapsed immediately, but there still wasn’t a teammate on his wing. Hayden sat on the bench, but Shane wasn’t sure if he would have been here if given the chance. 

“Hollander entering the defensive zone—he’s got two, maybe three defenders converging—and again, no passing lane. Nobody rotating high, nobody supporting the puck carrier. He’s alone in traffic.”

Somehow, he absorbed a poke check and kept possession anyway. How, he wasn’t sure. He noticed early in the game that the others were icing him out again, and decided to stop chasing their validation entirely. The words he had typed out rattled in his brain. I was, am, and will be gay during all of the articles considering me the best fucking player in the NHL. He could manage playing ruthless, perfect hockey for a game, to show them what they were missing. Shane Hollander didn’t need the Metros to thrive.

“Wow. Hollander absolutely refuses to lose the puck. But you’ve got to wonder how long you can ask one player to do this shift after shift.”

“Right? Look at the spacing—or rather, the lack of it. There’s no width on this play at all. The opposition knows exactly where this is going because there’s only one place it can go.”

A defender stepped up, and Shane hesitated. Waited for a chance to pass that never came. He took it himself, shot right into the left upper corner. The horn hit. Goal.

“Score! Hollander scores again—”

“—all by himself, Hollander propels this forward—”

Shane glided through the crease, tapped his stick once on the ice like punctuation, and kept skating.

“—and look at this,” the commentator continued. “No celebration, just business.”

Gay during that goal, too, Shane thought to himself. 

*

Shane didn’t take his shoes off properly when he got home. Instead of lining them up, they sat half-laced by the door. Ilya, who had managed to take a flight after his own practice, was in the kitchen, shirtless, hair still damp from a shower, scrolling on his phone while the replay of the game was looping on mute.

“I watched your game,” Ilya said.

Shane paused mid-step. Of course he did, and why wouldn’t he? “Yeah?”

Ilya’s eyes tracked to the TV, phone stuck on a gif of Shane skating past the Metros’ bench without looking at his team. On the big screen hung on an empty wall, Shane watched himself skate alone through two defenders, no pass support, no outlet, no second option forming anywhere on the ice. Then came the goal.

“Watched all of it,” Ilya added.

Shane dropped his bag unceremoniously next to his kitchen island. “It was fine.”

That got an unamused laugh out of Ilya. “Fine,” he repeated. “You were doing job of five men and they stand around on ice like spectators.”

Shane sighed. “It’s not—”

“It really is,” Ilya cut in, sitting forward. “I am not stupid. I know what is happening.”

The thing was—well. Shane had wanted to tell Ilya about the locker room, about his team. Had wanted to cry in Ilya’s arms about his career possibly tanking because he had accidentally revealed the truth. Had wanted to spill it all, but didn’t. Shane knew, in the depths of his heart, that Ilya couldn’t change it, and would only get angry about it. 

Ilya pointed at the screen. “Team is not playing with you.”

Shane rubbed the back of his neck. “It’s just a rough stretch.”

Ilya stood up. “Is not isolation by accident. Your team is making decision to—”

“I told them I’m gay. They kept pestering me about my Boston Girl, and it just—slipped out.”

Ilya stared at him from across the room, very still in the way Shane had learned meant something inside him was about to snap. On the TV, Shane was still skating alone, finishing the play. Still scoring despite everything around him not existing the way it should have.

“They were asking about women?” Ilya asked.

“Yeah.” Shane’s throat constricted around his breath. “I answered wrong.”

“Is no wrong fucking answer to that,” Ilya hissed, and picked up his phone again.

Shane saw it and straightened. “Ilya—don’t.”

Ilya didn’t answer, just kept typing.

IlyaRozanov ✅ @ilyarozanov81

funny how some people only understand “team sport” when they are ones being carried

Shane’s phone buzzed almost immediately in his pocket. He didn’t pick it up, and instead leaned back against the island, tired in ways that had nothing to do with hockey.

“What if they’re not wrong? What if I’m—”

Ilya bridged the room in three wide steps, his hands coming up to cradle Shane’s face. His thumbs pressed into Shane’s jaw, the pads of his fingers leaving red marks in their wake. “You are fucking Shane Hollander. That is only thing they need to know about you.” He let his forehead knock against Shane’s softly. “I know you for long time, and sucking dick never kept you from winning games.”

The TV’s light cast harsh shadows over the granite island as Ilya’s jaw clenched the longer he looked at Shane, eyes blazing with fury from the game replay illuminating them—Shane’s teammates circling like useless vultures instead of covering him.

“They are fucking idiots,” Ilya snarled, his hands trailing down to crack against Shane’s ass, the sharp sting making Shane hiss and arch forward. “You’re best player. Fastest skate, weak backhand, but perfect goal statistics. They don’t deserve you on ice.” 

Their ragged breaths clashed in the little space between their faces. The weight of Ilya’s forehead against his own grounded Shane, his hands slipping into the pockets of Ilya’s sweat pants. 

“I don’t know how to be that version of me,” he mumbled. 

“Shane, look at me.”

But Shane kept his eyes closed, scared for what might escape if he opened them. A frustrated sound left Ilya’s throat—half growl, half wounded disbelief—and then Shane was moving. Ilya hooked his hands under Shane’s thighs and hoisted him up onto the kitchen island like he weighed nothing. The granite dug cold against the backs of Shane’s legs through his sweats. Instinctively, his arms came up around Ilya’s shoulders to steady himself.

“Now you cannot run away,” Ilya muttered, crowding between his knees. His hands settled on Shane’s hips, fingers flexing hard enough to ground rather than hurt. Up close, Shane could see how the outrage seethed beneath the surface—and underneath, even worse, fear for Shane. “You listen to me now.”

Shane finally forced his eyes open, but he looked away. The replay on the television looped again. Ilya caught his jaw and turned him back. “You are same man,” Ilya pressed on. “Same player. Same idiot who folds towels before putting them in hamper. Same person who memorizes goalie habits for fun. Same Shane.” 

Despite everything, Shane snorted. Encouraged, Ilya’s forehead brushed against his again. “I knew you were gay before you told me.”

Shane’s look was sharp enough to cut ice. “You did not.”

“Shane.” Ilya’s eyes bore into his own. “You sucked my dick first time we met in hotel room. Please.”

A started laugh escaped Shane before he could stop it, but as it faded, it left something fragile behind. “I don’t know how to be like this without feeling like I ruined—everything. For everyone,” Shane admitted, the confession scraped raw from deep inside him.

Ilya’s thumbs slowly brushed over Shane’s hips, the anger melting into heat. “If they cannot handle one gay hockey player,” he said, his lips closing in on Shane’s, “they maybe they deserve to lose him.” Ilya leaned in closer, breath warm against Shane’s mouth. “They are trying to make you small,” he said. “I will not let them.”

His hands tightened in the fabric of Ilya’s pants before he kissed him, messy at first, desperate. Ilya made a low sound like he had been waiting for it, hands immediately sliding up Shane’s back to pull him tighter against his chest. Every sharp edge of the evening—every ignored pass, every awkward silence, every look in the locker room—collapsed into the way Ilya kissed him. None other than him had the authority to define Shane Hollander. 

Shane broke away just long enough to breathe. “I don’t know how to stop thinking about it,” he confessed. 

“Let me show how.” Ilya kissed the words against his throat. “In 2008, you won silver in World Junior Championship. Gold in 2009.” 

He licked against the thin skin stretching over Shane’s jugular, dipping into the hollows of his collarbones. “Rookie of the Year in 2011.” 

Ilya nipped at Shane’s nipples, first the left—”silver at 2014 Olympics”—then the right—”Stanley Cup in 2015.” 

He cupped Shane through his sweats as he made his way down, sucking a mark right into the skin over Shane’s navel. “Another in 2016.” 

His upper teeth grazed along the knot Shane had tied with the strings of his sweats earlier. “And another one in 2020.” 

Finally, Ilya came up again, his mouth pressing against Shane’s, tongue sliding past his lips. Ilya’s hands held Shane’s head still as he spat right down Shane’s throat. 

“Fuck, Ilya—” Shane breathed after he swallowed Ilya’s spit, his dick straining against the fabric of his sweats. “I need you—please—”

Shane arched his back over the island, blindly grasping at the spice rack where he knew they stored lube. Ilya’s fingers trailed along his abs, opened the strings of his pants, tugged them down, leaving Shane’s bottom half naked. The cold granite against his heated skin contrasted heavily. Ilya hoisted Shane’s legs up around his waist, spreading him wide.

Ilya’s pants hit the floor in a frenzy, his thick cock jutting out, veins pulsing with pent-up anger. He spat into his palm, slicking his fingers roughly before pressing the blunt tip of his index finger against Shane’s hole. “Gonna fuck you like they should have protected you,” Ilya growled, slamming one finger in with a vicious thrust. 

Shane’s head thudded back on the granite, a guttural moan ripping from his throat as Ilya’s finger stretched him, not wide, not enough. “Fuck—” Shane gasped, his heels digging into Ilya’s back to pull him closer. His dick pressed against Shane’s ass with a punishing force. 

“Lube, baby,” Ilya moaned, his middle finger ghosting along Shane’s rim. 

Finally, Shane’s finger closed around the plastic bottle. He capped it open, squeezed it onto Ilya’s waiting hand, and let the sensation of Ilya finger-fucking him wash over him. 

“You’re untouchable. Best fucking player—my Shane,” Ilya spat as he finally lined up his cock, pounding into Shane’s ass, each drive grinding against his prostate like a weapon. His voice was ragged, sweat beading on his brow. He gripped Shane’s thighs hard, shoving them back toward his chest to angle deeper, dick spearing in with wet, obscene slaps. His hand wrapped around Shane’s throbbing cock, jerking it roughly in time with his hips, thumb smearing pre-cum over the slit.

Shane bucked up, ass clenching around the invading thickness, pleasure spiking through the burn. “Tell me,” he demanded, nails scraping down Ilya’s arms, drawing red lines. Ilya’s rage boiled over, thrusts turning feral—he yanked Shane’s hips down to meet every brutal plunge, the island creaking under the assault. 

“You’re a god on ice,” Ilya snarled, leaning down to bite Shane’s shoulder, teeth sinking in just enough to mark. The words fueled Ilya’s rage. He straightened, hooking Shane’s ankles over his shoulders and railing into him with savage power, cock pistoning deep, stretching Shane’s rim raw. Shane’s dick leaked steadily in Ilya’s fist, balls drawn tight as the rough strokes hammered the spot inside him that made him see stars. 

“I’m the best—for you?” Shane panted, eyes locked on Ilya’s furious glare, the praise twisting hot in his gut.

“Fuck—yes, best,” Ilya roared, anger channeling into every slamming shove. “Best in league—mine to fuck, mine to wreck.” He released Shane’s cock to slap his thigh, the crack echoing, then dove back to pump it furiously. Shane shattered first, cum erupting in thick ropes across his chest, ass spasming around Ilya’s length.

Ilya followed with a Russian curse, buried balls-deep and unloading, hot spurts flooding Shane’s ass as he ground through the pulses. He collapsed forward, breaths heaving, cock still twitching inside the slick heat.

“Will fucking kidnap you to Boston, to Ottawa, don’t care—you’re too good for fucking Metros,” he muttered, nipping Shane’s jaw possessively.

Shane’s fingers threaded through Ilya’s damp hair. “If you protect me on the ice like you fuck me, they won’t ever dare touch me again.”

*

Later, in bed, Shane felt high. Angry, fucked-out, empty at the thought of having to return to the locker room tomorrow.

The words flowed, and he didn’t look at his phone again after he sent the tweet.

Shane Hollander ✅ @shanehollanderhockeyplayer 

apparently I forgot I was playing an individual sport tonight

*

The locker room smelled like sweat, damp gear, and the bitter sting of another shit practice. Shane sat at his stall in sweats, lacing his shoes with sharp, violent jerks while conversation rolled around him in uneven waves, as though he was a traffic cone everyone had silently agreed not to acknowledge. Every laugh stopped a second too fast when he looked over. Every conversation bent away from him like he carried something contagious.

Across the room, Comeau and Miitka were talking near the whiteboard. The second Shane stood up, silence dropped over them. His muscles tensed. 

“What?” Shane asked. 

Miitka shrugged awkwardly. “Nothing, man.”

Shane threw his skates into his bag hard enough for them to almost rattle out again. “Fucking bullshit.”

Comeau snorted under his breath, one arm coming up to lean against the whiteboard. “Jesus Christ. No need to be so fucking intense, captain.” 

Hayden’s eyes flicked between them all, his hands playing with a towel—the same moves. Roll. Twist. Pull. Shake it out. His voice was quiet as he spoke. “I don’t think we need to walk around eggshells around Shane. He’s our friend.” 

Something hot flared in Shane’s chest. He’s our friend. Well, you’re all doing a piss-poor job of being friendly. Still, he held it together. But then Comeau—stupid fucking Comeau—leaned forward with one arm still around the whiteboard.

“Relax. Nobody gives a shit you’re a faggot,” he muttered.

The room froze. The whole team stood eerily still, and even the music from the speakers suddenly seemed to fade into nothing. Shane turned slowly. Comeau didn’t look uncomfortable—he looked thrilled.

The band that had been rubbed thin throughout the last weeks finally snapped, its rift detonating all of Shane’s inhibitions. “You want to say that again?” Shane hissed. His fists itched to connect with Comeau’s jaw.

Miitka straightened. “I don’t think he meant—”

“No, no, don’t let him backpedal now.” Shane took a step forward. “Go ahead, Gilbert. Finish your fucking thought. Let’s just pretend you all didn’t coincidentally forget how passing works the second I said I like men?” 

“Shane,” Hayden tried carefully.

Something ugly and volcanic tore loose in Shane’s head. “No, shut the fuck up. You know what’s, like, actually fucking insane?” Shane demanded, pointing around the room. “I built half this goddamn franchise.” A few heads snapped towards him. “Who dragged this team into relevance again? Who sells the most jerseys? Whose name is on almost all posters in packed arenas? Who played through injuries that should have put me in a hospital while the rest of you were busy posting inspirational quotes after fucking losses?”

“Hollander, calm the fuck—”

“No!” Shane roared. He shoved his bag off the bench so hard that all its contents skidded across the floor. “I spent years carrying this team on my fucking back,” he shouted. “Overtime goals. Playoff runs. Media appearances. Charity events. I smiled through every miserable PR-event this organization shoved me into because they needed a fucking poster boy, and you’re all too fucking ugly or stupid to do it like me.” His chest heaved. “And now, suddenly, everybody gets weird because I like to take it up the ass?” 

Comeau at least at the decency to look pale now. Shane pointed at him like a weapon. “Gilbert,” he snapped. “How many goals did you have last season?” A stunned noise escaped somebody nearby. “Nine, right? Well, you know how many I had? Forty-three. Forty-fucking-three. And you’re acting like I’m the problem in this locker room?”

Hayden came up to Shane, palms directed to land on his shoulders, but Shane took a step back before Hayden had the chance to touch him. “Shane, please, let’s—”

“Yeah, let’s! I have dragged this mediocre-ass team through more third periods than I can count, and now I’m getting iced out by men whose greatest contribution to hockey is existing near me during highlights?” A couple players physically recoiled. “Half of you would be in fucking Saskatchewan right now, if I hadn’t spent years making this team relevant enough for people to care about!”

He spread his arms dramatically. Drapeau made a choking sound trying not to laugh, and Shane rounded on him immediately. “Laugh fucking harder, Patrice. Maybe it’ll help you defend the fucking goal next time,” Shane snapped. Shane jabbed a finger against his chest hard enough to hurt. “I did not become worse at hockey because I told the truth,” he said, calmer now. “You became worse teammates.” 

Barely audible, Comeau shuffled closer and murmured, “I didn’t mean it like that.”

Shane stared at him in disbelief. “Do you think I care about your fucking feelings?” He laughed, and felt genuinely unhinged now. “I could walk onto literally any team in this league tomorrow, and they would build systems around me by morning. You people should be thanking God on your fucking knees I’m still showing up to this shit-show.”

Nobody argued. Their eyes were saucer-wide, their shoulders tense. Hayden looked shell-shocked. 

Shane grabbed his bag violently off the floor. “You want to punish me for being gay?” Shane asked, backing toward the door. “Congrats. Enjoy missing playoffs when your offense collapses, because you decided being homophobic losers mattered more than winning.”

He yanked the door open hard enough it slammed against the wall. “One more thing,” Shane barked. “Not one of you is attractive enough for this level of fucking panic. Most of you have personalities like drywall, and dicks so small I need a magnifying glass to find it.”

Then, Shane Hollander walked out, leaving the entire locker room sitting in the wreckage behind him. 

Chapter 2: When You're Young

Chapter Summary

Shane Hollander accidentally becomes the face of hockey’s culture war after leaked footage exposes both his sexuality and the Metros’ increasingly obvious isolation of him. As the internet implodes, sponsorships disappear, and his carefully manufactured “golden boy” image starts rotting in public, Shane discovers that Ilya Rozanov might be the only person who has ever loved him without asking him to perform first.

Chapter Notes

Hello, and welcome back to "Shane Hollander never had enough room in canon to feel rage, so please let me fix that". This piece was born from the immensely positive feedback you've all given me for the first chapter (thank you all so much), as well as me having so much more to say.

This was inspired by 3 Doors Down's "When You're Young" (YouTube | Spotify). I do recommend listening to it beforehand for all the feels!

Shout-out to the Centaurs Writing Room! This week's prompt: Song Fic!

Shane was almost three the first time his mother put skates on his tiny feet. His knees wobbled as he slid along the ice, and his mouth was carved into a permanent grin. 

“You’ll be a star one day, baby!” Yuna exclaimed while David pointed the camcorder right at Shane. 

Shane was twelve when he realized that he was different from the other boys in his team. Their eyes looked different, and so did their skin, and no one ever asked them if they ate dog at home. 

“I know, baby, it’s hard. But just imagine how great it will be one day when you’re on the ice, and young boys can look up to you!”

Shane was seventeen as he got his first real sponsor. He had never thought about becoming a brand, had never considered what it would mean for his life, and backtracking felt impossible as his mother stared down at him, her eyes wide and expectant.

“This opportunity is amazing, Shane! You’re perfect for them—no scandals, no drinking, not a playboy. They will love working with you!” 

He was closing in on the age of thirty as he realized that, no matter how hard he worked, how perfect he was, or how well his brand sold, he was trapped inside a place that wouldn’t take him as his authentic self. They made him out to be what they needed Shane to perform as. It was already over and done when he was young, and now as an adult, he had to live with the consequences of other people’s actions.

*

The footage leaked three days later. Nobody knew exactly who had sold it first—arena security, an intern, some journalist with too much money and too little morality—but by Thursday morning, every major sports outlet in North America and Canada had the same grainy hallway recording embedded into their front pages.

At first, the camera had no audio, just visuals. Shane storming out of the locker room, face flushed bright red, veins visible in his neck, his gym bag hanging from one shoulder like he was seconds away from using it as a weapon. Behind him, through the half-open locker room door, several Metros players stood frozen in stunned silence.

Then a second clip surfaced, audio included. And suddenly the entire world heard snippets of Shane Hollander snarling.

“I spent years carrying this team on my fucking back!” 

“—everybody gets weird because I like to take it up the ass?”

“—because you decided being homophobic losers mattered more than winning.”

The internet exploded. SportsCenter replayed the footage so many times that Shane started unconsciously memorizing the cadence of his own fury. Analysts debated whether the Metros had failed their captain. Retired players went on podcasts to insist locker rooms were simply complicated environments. Comment sections across all social media became war zones. The fanbase split almost immediately.

Some die-hard Metros fans acted like Shane had personally vandalized the Stanley Cup.

Ricky Dicky @metrotilldie87 

shane hollander turning the metros locker room into a personal identity crisis is not exactly what i signed up for as a fan. hockey used to be about THE GAME!!

Marshall @oldtimehockeyguy 

keep your private life private, man. nobody needed the fucking dramatic speech and media circus after lol. rainbow flags are why hockey culture is dying

Christ’s Brother @puckpatriot44 

you can support gay people and still think hollander handled this like an absolute narcissist. embarrassing look for the captain and all gays honestly 

Others looked at the footage and saw something entirely different: a franchise player being isolated by his own team after coming out to them.

Kat Freaks Out @hockeystatgirl 

rewatched the last metros games and the difference in puck distribution to hollander is INSANE. with the footage out it’s so clear that they’ve been icing him out on purpose. #stupidhockeymen

Dilly Dally Daniel @nhlbreakdownsforgays 

watching teammates hesitate before passing to one of the best/the current pest player in the league because they’re uncomfortable? genuinely PATHETIC hockey 

Gina @metrofansince24 

they loved Shane Hollander when he was profitable, marketable, scoring overtime winners, and bleeding for the logo. turns out acceptance has conditions 

Clips of Shane dragging entire defensive lines by himself during the last games started going viral alongside screenshots of ignored passes and abandoned plays. Somebody made a compilation titled Shane Hollander VS the entire Metros organization set to dramatic orchestral music. It hit four million views in a day. 

The moment popular outlets picked up the story, everything spiralled out of control. 

The Athletic • Lifestyle & Culture
Hockey’s Hypermasculinity Problems Has Finally Gone Mainstream
by Chris Johnston | published 6 hours ago

Professional hockey has long built its identity around emotional restraint, conformity, and a narrow vision of masculinity. While leagues and franchises have increasingly embraced public messaging around inclusion, the culture inside locker rooms has often remained far more rigid.

That tension erupted into public view this week after leaked security footage showed Metros captain Shane Hollander—a three-time Stanley Cup champion and widely considered one of the best players in the NHL—confronting teammates over their treatment of him following his accidental coming out. In the now-viral clip, Hollander accused the team of distancing themselves from him both socially and on the ice after learning he was gay.

“I did not become worse at hockey because I told the truth,” Hollander said. “You became worse teammates.”

The footage has sparked sharp debate across the hockey world. Some fans criticized Hollander for making private locker room conflict public, while others viewed the clip as a rare and painfully recognizable example of the subtle isolation many LGBTQ+ athletes describe experiencing after coming out.

For a sport that has long avoided confronting its relationship with masculinity and sexuality directly, the reaction to Hollander has made one thing difficult to deny: hockey’s culture war is no longer hypothetical.

[Read more]

NHL Superstar Shane Hollander’s Locker Room Speech Resonates With Queer Athletes Everywhere | Simon Johnson • Lifestyle & Culture | 🗨 134

You Were Fine With Him Being Gay Until You Knew | Elliote Friedman • Opinions | 🗨 367

Writers dissected every line of Shane’s outburst like it was a political speech. His quotes ended up everywhere—Tumblr edits. Tweets. TikToks. Protest signs outside the Bell Centre. Meanwhile, the Metros organization released the worst statement humanity had ever produced:

The Metros pride themselves on fostering a culture of professionalism, respect, and unity. We remain committed to supporting all players during this time. 

Somehow, it made everyone even angrier. Shane had spent years being the face of the franchise, and now the entire world had watched what happened the second he stopped pretending to be someone else.

The worst part was how quietly the fallout started. If somebody had punched Shane in the face, or screamed at him, or called him a slur in front of the entire room again, he thought maybe he could have survived it easier. The culture of hockey understood visible injuries. There were protocols for broken bones, blood on the ice, concussions severe enough to knock memory loose. There was no protocol for seemingly becoming radioactively gay.

The Metros organization released its statement twelve hours after the footage leaked. Not one person from management had called Shane beforehand to ask how he felt about it. Instead, Farah got three separate phone calls inquiring whether Shane planned to continue escalating the situation publicly. Escalating. As if he had leaked the footage himself instead of having his worst moments scrutinized by the entirety of sports journalists before breakfast.

Shane debated for twenty minutes with himself if it was worth going to practice. He went, but it felt funereal. Conversation stopped when he entered the locker room. Guys who usually sprawled across benches laughing kept themselves strangely compact now, shoulders turned inward. Hayden gave him an awkward nod but didn’t come over. Drapeau pretended to be deeply interested in retaping his stick. 

Ten minutes later with the expression of a man approaching an active minefield, Coach Theriault walked in. “Media’s going to be intense for a while,” he said gruffly. The gaze he shot Shane could have frozen hell over. “Don’t engage online. Don’t feed stories. Keep focus on hockey.”

Shane almost laughed. Focus on hockey—as though hockey hadn’t already swallowed his entire fucking life. As though he wasn’t the one desperate to return to a semblance of normalcy on the ice. He had no problem focusing on hockey.

Film review was worse than practice. The coaches played clips from the previous game, carefully discussing positioning and defensive breakdowns while pretending nobody could see the obvious. Twice, Shane entered the offensive zone completely alone while his linemates hovered uselessly behind the play. Another clip showed him calling for the puck with his stick open while a defenseman looked directly at him and passed elsewhere. Nobody acknowledged it. Nobody acknowledged him. The room developed the silence of people hoping discomfort would resolve itself if ignored long enough. Shane had no problem recognizing something he had suffered under his whole life. 

His mother calling him later that day about sponsorships pulling back didn’t lift his spirits. One sportswear brand quietly paused a campaign centered around Shane. Pending internal review, was the excuse, and the request for clarification regarding future media direction. The mails in his inbox were all in the same vein—carefully crafted, legally pre-approved sentences by publicists. 

We just want to avoid further polarization. Like Shane’s mere existence was a political event instead of human nature. 

Knowledge about him, apparently, changed everything.

That night, Shane sat alone in his apartment scrolling through highlights from old Metro playoff runs. Every clip felt haunted now. Him, screaming after an overtime win while teammates piled onto him. Drapeau hugging him, Hayden grabbing his helmet and kissing the side of his head through sweat and adrenaline and victory. Back when they thought he was safe.

His phone buzzed.

Lily: requesting trade for you to civilized society

A second text arrived immediately after.

Lily: also if i see one more anonymous source claiming you make locker room uncomfortable i will become domestic terrorist

For the first time all day, Shane laughed hard enough that it hurt.

*

The franchise’s priorities became clear three days after the game footage leaked during a closed-door meeting Shane had no actual interest in participating. He sat at the far end of the conference table in the Metros’ executive office while ownership, legal advisors, PR staff, and management discussed the situation with the grave seriousness of people negotiating a hostage crisis. Not once in the first twenty minutes did anyone question Shane how he was doing.

“How did the footage leave the building?” Tremblay, co-owner of the franchise, asked. 

“Who had access to that hallway feed?” One of the PR staffers hectically noted down every question and put asterisks next to them, like anyone needed a pointer to what was important.

“The security breach itself is the largest liability concern,” a guy in pinstripes and an ill-fitting tie stated. 

Shane sat perfectly still in his chair, staring at the polished tabletop hard enough to see the faint reflection of his own jaw grinding through his teeth. A liability concern. This was what he was reduced to. It didn’t matter that his teammates were isolating him, or that he now had to navigate public scrutiny alongside internal investigations and the loss of what he believed to be his brothers. What counted were branding concerns and optics and containment. 

“The locker room dynamic is an internal matter. The leak is what escalated this into a public crisis,” one executive said while folding his hands to support his chin. 

The words felt like ice-cold water being dumped onto him. The realization settled painfully in Shane’s chest. No one at this table considered him a person—to them, he was an asset. A franchise centerpiece. A trophy they had proudly displayed for years because he won games and sold jerseys and looked good holding the Cup under arena lights. The second their trophy had become inconveniently human, damage control had become their first instinct. In their eyes, Shane didn’t need any protection, nor any help.

Shane leaned back in his chair. “You know what’s funny?” As nobody answered, he continued. “You’re all more upset somebody published videos of me being humiliated than you are about the humiliation itself.”

A PR woman opened her mouth. “Shane, I don’t think that’s entirely fair—”

“No,” Shane interrupted. “Nothing of this fucking circus is fair. Have a nice fucking day.” No one stopped him when he walked out.

From there on, the public discussion got only uglier. While the broadcasters stopped sounding neutral after a while, Redditors across the globe tore each other to shreds on a daily basis whenever Shane came up. At first, commentators danced around the situation, speaking in that polished, media-trained language sports networks loved so much—distractions, chemistry concerns, off-ice noise, and whatever else they came up with—but hockey people watched hockey for a living. Hockey people lived, breathed, and loved this game, and the footage of decades didn’t lie. Shane Hollander, the phenom from Ottawa, had crawled underneath their skin years ago, and watching the catastrophe of the Metros on the ice, apparently, evoked strong emotions.

“Hollander picks it up behind his own net—”

The camera followed Shane accelerating through center ice while both wingers drifted too high to receive a pass.

“—and once again, he’s got absolutely nowhere to go with it.”

“You know, Mark, at some point we have to stop pretending this is normal structure, right? Watch the replay here. Both support options disappear just like that.” The commentator snapped with his fingers for emphasis.

“He’s been carrying this team since his rookie year,” the other man started. “Right now, he’s playing like a man stranded on an island. Desperate to survive, no help at all. It’s—”

Shane entered the offensive zone anyway, splitting two defenders through sheer spite. 

“What’s remarkable is he’s still producing offensively despite everything.”

“Not remarkable,” the older commentator corrected. “Expected. That’s Shane Hollander, after all.”

“Fair enough, Mark.”

Shane ripped a shot top shelf. The arena erupted as the horn sounded off for the goal.

“There it is! Hollander scores!”

“And look at him. No celebration again. We’ve sadly gotten used to that picture by now.”

Shane didn’t even glance toward the bench. 

“He’s angry,” one commentator said.

“He should be.” There was a sharp inhale, a pause, before the younger man spoke again. “I’ll say this plainly. If this team is isolating him because he came out, that’s beyond cruel. And it’s also organizational malpractice. You do not alienate a franchise player over prejudice. Especially not one who’s done what Shane Hollander has done for the Metros.”

The replay showed Shane skating past the bench while his teammates didn’t even offer half-hearted stick taps for his goal. 

“He’s so alone out there.”

The internet became increasingly divided between people calling Shane unstable and people realizing, with growing horror, that the Metros actually were freezing him out.

Bitches Know Best @bluelinebreakdown
you can literally watch teammates ignore obvious passing lanes to hollander now. that’s paranoia caught in 4k

Jenjen @shanehollandersleftnipple
shane hollander may be having a public breakdown but honestly? me too, babe

Donald Turnip @metros4eva
he’s acting like a narcissistic asshole lately

Shane Marry Me @rinkrat93
counterpoint: if your coworkers suddenly treated you like a biohazard for being gay you would also become unbearable lol

Ilya Rozanov Fans Unite @puckpoliticsfuckme
the funniest part is the metros accidentally turned their carefully media-trained superstar into the fucking joker (ledger style). bet yuna hollander ain’t happy about that 

None of them were wrong, because Shane absolutely did go insane. Slowly and methodically, something inside him finally stopped caring about consequences, Shane made sure that nobody in the locker room could ever forget what was happening anymore. He started with constant, weaponized comments. 

Someone mentioned an old playoff series during tape review. “That overtime goal against the Raiders saved our fucking season.”

Shane didn’t even look up as he kept inspecting his nails. “Crazy thing is,” he said conversationally, “I was sucking dick right after that game.” The room went dead silent. Coach Theriault pinched the bridge of his nose. Drapeau started coughing violently into his sleeve. 

Another time, Miitka mentioned Shane’s rookie season while reporters hovered nearby.

“—still the best rookie campaign I’ve ever seen.”

“Thanks,” Shane replied as he passed by. “I was gay way back then, too.” One reporter audibly snorted. The team stopped bringing up Shane’s accomplishments around him after that, which only encouraged him. He had an inkling that behaving like this was all Ilya’s influence.

One morning after practice, Hayden made a fatal mistake. “You’re still the best captain I’ve ever played under,” he whispered to Shane. 

Shane looked him dead in the eyes while pulling off his compression shirt. “And yet I managed all that while fantasizing about huge, enormous, nine inches of—”

Hayden physically covered his face with both his hands. “Jesus fucking Christ, Shane.”

“Can you stop making everything about being gay?” Comeau snapped from across the room.

Something inside Shane lit up at it. “Oh, now we’re tired of hearing about it? Interesting. Because I spent ten fucking years hearing about everybody’s fucking wives, and girlfriends. Your little divorce crises. I could probably recognize your girls by the shape of their breasts alone, considering how many pictures you all showed me. But suddenly I’m oversharing?”

Nobody answered. 

He had completely stopped protecting people from discomfort, which seemed to unsettle all of them most. Old Shane would have swallowed it. Smoothed the edges down until everyone could keep pretending things were normal. The new version of Shane wanted them uncomfortable. He wanted them to squirm under the weight of understanding what he suffered through for years. He wanted every awkward silence shoved back down their throats. Even postgame interviews became dangerous territory. Shane no longer gave sanitized answers, much to the chagrin of his mother.

“How are you handling criticism from fans regarding the shift in your public persona?”

His voice was even as he spoke into the microphone. “I’ve survived playoff hockey in Philadelphia, so I’ll probably survive heterosexual disappointment, too.”

Another reporter struck forward. “Do you feel supported by the organization?” 

Shane stared directly into the camera for three full seconds (it became a meme not even ten minutes after the interview being on TV). “A fascinating question.” He pretended to think about it. “Nah.”

PR nearly had aneurysms daily. What was happening, in all realness and underneath all the sarcasm and fury and increasingly unhinged behavior, was that Shane had finally understood something fundamental. Hockey’s golden boy had never actually been allowed to exist as a full person, only as an idea. A disciplined, marketable, straight, safe concept drawn up by someone stuck in office chairs. If the sport refused to accept him as the gay version of that same player, then maybe the world deserved the loud, furious version instead. The version that walked into silent locker rooms and deliberately made them worse.

u/metroburner472 • 5 hours ago
okay so my friend’s cousin works around the metros and apparently shane hollander has completely lost his mind

obviously take this with a grain of salt because this is VERY “friend of a friend” territory but apparently the locker room situation is somehow even worse than people think???

like. according to him, shane has stopped pretending to be normal about any of this. every single conversation somehow circles back to him being gay now. not even in a sad way either. more like weaponized psychological warfare. 

situations that apparently happened:

• one player was talking about his divorce and shane apparently said “this is why i date men”
• during practice, coach pointed something out about his backhand. hollander: “actually, my partner says my biggest flaw is overcommitting offensively, not homosexuality.”
• a rookie asked a teammate for dating advice: “my boyfriend—sorry. forgot that word scares this room.”

ALSO apparently the team HATES that he keeps pointing out they stopped passing to him after he came out because now everyone notices it in games too 💀 the funniest/worst part is that apparently he’s still playing out of his mind, which is making everything more awkward because nobody can even pretend his performance dropped

anyway if this is true then that locker room has to feel like a hostage situation rn

⬆ 24.1k ⬇ • 🗨 8.4k • 🏅32 • ↻ • ⚐ Report

Sort for: Best • Search through comments …

rinkrat93 • 8 hours ago

“yeah i was gay during that too by the way” during that interview with miitka? fucking LEGEND. 

⬆ 31k ⬇ • 🗨 1.3k

bigcityqueer • 6 hours ago

the chemistry only mysteriously died AFTER everyone started treating him differently but sure let’s blame the gay guy

⬆ 22k ⬇ • 🗨 891

hockeywife92 • 8 hours ago

lowkey sounds like he finally snapped after years of having to be hockey’s perfect little boy

⬆ 13k ⬇ • 🗨 781

metrosburner24 • 8 hours ago

my buddy works arena security and said hollander apparently walked into the room after a win and went “good job everyone, we managed to win despite my homosexuality”

⬆ 8k ⬇ • 🗨 624

straightshooter1991 • 7 hours ago

nah this attention-seeking behavior is ridiculous. woulda expected more from someone like hollander

⬆ 860 ⬇ • 🗨 2.3k

*

Ilya started leaving things around Shane’s apartment like traps. Small, impossible-to-ignore intrusions into the delicately optimized life Shane had built for himself.

A record player appeared one morning beside the television. Then books—not the biographies Shane liked to read. Lord of the Rings. Jurassic Park. Anna Karenina. Twilight. Frankenstein. Meetings with the Minotaur. 

(“Uh, Ilya, what is this?” Shane asked. The cover showed a man grabbing onto a minotaur’s tie. Very confusing all around.

“Is Minotaur porn. Very good. Gives me ideas, really,” Ilya answered non-comically. 

“I—oh-kay?” 

Shane read the whole book in one sitting. The soft skin on the insides of his thighs was chafed, probably from how much he had to rub his legs together.)

After the battered novels with highlighted passages in Russian and English came the poetry collections shoved crookedly onto Shane’s kitchen counter. Suddenly, vinyl sleeves leaned against the wall beside framed hockey photographs like they belonged there.

“You’re turning my apartment into a humanities degree,” Shane complained one night.

Ilya barely looked up from where he lay sprawled across the couch, his screen lit up by Twitter’s main page. “You live like corporate hotel room.”

Shane wanted to argue, but his home really did look like a showroom assembled by someone trying to sell the concept of a successful athlete to investors. Awards in the trophy room. Clean lines in the living room. Neutral colors all around. No evidence of emotional life anywhere. Ilya filled the silence with purpose.

Music played constantly now. Old rock songs during breakfast. Something by Bach or Mozart while they cooked. Jazz drifted low through the apartment at two in the morning while Ilya half-slept against Shane’s shoulder. Russian techno boomed against the walls in those rare moments Ilya managed to get Shane to let loose.

At first, Shane resisted all of it. Years ago, he had trained himself not to engage too deeply with things that made him feel vulnerable. Honesty was dangerous, and feelings had the unnerving side-effect of inherently being too candid, too truthful. Every wall Shane had built around himself seemed connected to whatever he read, whatever he watched, whatever he listened to.

One night, Shane sat cross-legged in the floor beside the couch, absently flipping through one of Ilya’s books without processing a single word when When You’re Young started thrumming softly through the speakers. Shane stared blankly at the page as the lyrics filtered through his ears.

“They only love the version of people they understand,” he whispered to himself. Ilya glanced over. “I’ve—” Shane laughed once under his breath, dry. Humorless. “I’ve never wanted to be the Asian hockey player. Now I’m the Asian and gay hockey player. They managed to ignore my Asian background in favor of my hockey IQ. What the fuck do I need to bring to the table for them to overlook my gayness?” Shane rubbed tiredly at his eyes.

He had given his mother the perfect hockey player to manage. Never too aggressive on the ice, polite in interviews, easy to work with when it came to brands. He had given the Metros the perfect hockey player to play with. Fast, smart, and entirely willing to grind himself to the bone if it meant being liked. Shane was young as he started giving other people what they made him out to be, fearful and dazzled by the promises of success, only to comprehend now he had trapped himself inside a place that wouldn’t take his authentic version anymore.

Ilya muted the music. “For long time, you thought if you were useful enough, people would stop seeing things they do not—understand. Agree with.” 

Wasn’t that some fucked-up truth? Score enough goals, and people stop talking about race. Win enough Cups, and nobody questions whether he belonged. Become perfect enough, disciplined enough, valuable enough, and maybe nobody would look too closely at the part of him that complicated the fantasy of the hockey robot. Discovering that there was no amount of excellence capable of protecting him from the current public onslaught was a punch to the gut. 

“They don’t see me anymore,” Shane admitted quietly. “Not really.”

Ilya slid off the couch and sunk down beside Shane on the floor. “Let them be blind,” he answered simply. He reached out, taking the book from Shane’s hands before tapping lightly against his chest. “You spent your whole life becoming thing other people wanted.” His fingers spread against Shane’s sternum. “Maybe now you become person you want.”

The terrifying thing was that he didn’t know who that person was. For years, every piece of himself had been arranged around survival. Around performance. Around being palatable for the league, for the media, for teammates, for fans. His emotions had become curated. 

“You think too much,” Ilya murmured.

Shane huffed weakly. “Occupational hazard of being the recent gay drama in the NHL.” 

“No.” Ilya brushed his thumb beneath Shane’s eye, across his freckles. “Is just you.”

Shane could still feel the song in his chest somewhere, all that yearning threaded through it like exposed wire. Ilya looked at him for a long moment. 

“Come here,” he said finally, standing up.

Shane frowned. “I’m literally right here.”

Ilya stood, holding out his hand. “Come dance with me.”

Shane stared at him. “Ilya.”

“You spend your whole life acting like machine,” Ilya said. “For five minutes, just be my Shane.” 

It should have felt ridiculous. But as Ilya pulled him close in the middle of the living room, one hand warm against the small of his back, Shane felt the knot inside him loosen so strongly it almost hurt. He was still Shane, though, so the train of thought never really came to a halt.

“Maybe that’s all I’ll ever be to people now.” 

They swayed back and forth to the sound of silence. Ilya’s hands slipped from Shane’s back to his jaw, cupping his face as he stared right into Shane’s eyes. “You think people look at you and see problem to manage.” Frustration colored his voice.

“Well—”

“Nothing. You—” Ilya hissed at him, peppering sharp kisses across Shane’s nose, his eyebrows. “I look at you and I want.” 

Shane’s breath caught. For once, he wanted to be fully seen. What had kept him paralyzed for hours cracked, leaking out in a sob that he couldn’t hold back. He lunged forward, his arms locking around Ilya’s neck, tugging him close with a desperate, starving intensity. Their lips crashed together in a kiss that tasted of salt and longing. Ilya groaned deep in his throat, a primal sound that vibrated through Shane’s entire frame. Their tongues clashed, sliding against each other in a frantic exchange of saliva, sucking and swirling as if they were trying to consume one another. Ilya’s hands migrated from Shane’s face to his backside, squeezing the firm muscle of his glutes and hoisting him upward.

As Shane wrapped his thighs around Ilya’s narrow waist, he felt the hard ridge of Ilya’s cock pressing through their clothes, a thick, insistent heat that promised an end to his mental agony. Shane felt delirious, letting his lips trail down Ilya’s temple to the edge of his jaw, down to where his neck met his shoulders. Somewhere in the last few weeks, they’ve become less careful about marking each other.

Ilya carried him across the room, his footsteps heavy on the hardwood, and dropped him onto the plush fabric of the couch. They tumbled together, a tangle of limbs and wild breathing. Shane’s hands tore at Ilya’s shirt, rucking it up to reveal a wide chest of pale, mole-dotted skin. 

“I want you,” Shane gasped, his voice breaking. “Please, Ilya—make me forget.” 

“They are nothing without you,” Ilya whispered as he stripped Shane’s clothes off with a rough efficiency, tossing the fabric aside until Shane lay naked and shivering under the dim light. Ilya followed suit, shedding his pants, his underwear, his socks, until he stood over Shane, a towering silhouette of athletic perfection. His cock was fully erect, a thick, vein-ridged pillar of heat that leaked a bead of clear pre-cum at the tip. 

Ilya pushed Shane’s legs wide, sliding himself between them. He didn’t go for the heat of Shane’s ass or the wetness of his mouth. Instead, he pressed his length directly against Shane’s own cock. “Fuck—does not matter if you are gay, or green little alien, or—you are future Hall-of-Famer—”

His words were cut off, the first contact of their dicks an electric shock. Skin on skin, hot and slick. Ilya groaned, sliding his shaft up and down against Shane’s, the friction creating a wet sound that echoed in the quiet room. Ilya rocked their hips together in a fast rhythm, his teeth finding Shane’s shoulder and biting down hard.

“You’re so fucking—” Shane moaned into Ilya’s bicep, licking sweat off along the muscle. Hot. Perfect. Mine. 

Ilya’s movements became more aggressive, gripping Shane’s hips, pulling him upward. The pressure made Shane delirious with want. The sensitive heads of their cocks slid over one another, coating themselves in a mixture of sweat and pre-cum. Ilya’s balls slapped against Shane’s perineum with every thrust, a meaty sound that drove Shane deeper into a haze of pleasure. He could smell the musk of Ilya’s arousal. A sharp, masculine scent that filled his lungs and drowned out the memory of hateful comments and headlines. 

“Please—” Shane whispered, voice fraying apart around the edges. “I can’t—” He swallowed thickly, eyes glassy with exhaustion and anger, something humiliating underneath, and a lust that turned him unbearably frail. “Make me feel like I’m—” Worth it. “Fuck me like you love me.” The words tumbled out rough and desperate. “Not like I’m some fucking brand—like I’m yours.”

“Fuck, Shane—”

The kiss that followed was full teeth. Primal, animalistic. Claiming. Shane reached down, his fingers tangling with Ilya’s, their hands gripping each other as they ground their hips together. The sensation was overwhelming. He could feel the pulse of Ilya’s cock, the way the veins throbbed against his own skin.

Ilya shifted, pinning Shane’s wrists above his head with one hand. He hovered over him, his chest heaving, his eyes dark with a hunger that bordered on predatory. Ilya looked down at Shane, and must have seen the desperation and love etched into his features. As he leaned down, his mouth inches from Shane, he didn’t kiss him, and instead gathered a thick pool of saliva in his mouth.

“Open,” Ilya commanded, the Russian lilt turning the word into a decree.

Shane obeyed instantly, his mouth parting in a silent plea. The thick, warm glob of saliva landed directly on Shane’s tongue. It was a gesture of ownership that made Shane’s toes curl and his cock twitch violently. He swallowed the spit, the taste of Ilya sliding down his throat, a symbolic acceptance of his protection and possession.

“You are mine,” Ilya murmured. “Not the team’s. Not the world’s. Mine.” The words triggered something in Shane, a release of all the tension he had been carrying. He arched his back, pushing his cock upward with a frantic energy. Ilya’s breathing became a series of harsh, ragged gasps. He buried his face in the crook of Shane’s neck, biting the sensitive skin there, marking him. The pain and pleasure intertwined, spiraling upward. Shane could feel the build-up, the inevitable crash of the wave.

“Ilya—fuck, I’m—”

“Do it,” Ilya groaned, his voice muffled against Shane’s skin. “Come for me, sweetheart. Give it all to me.”

Shane let out a strangled cry, his body stiffening as his orgasm ripped through him. He felt the hot, thick jets of his come erupting, spraying across their joined shafts and splashing against Ilya’s stomach. The sensation was an explosion of white light, erasing everything—the hate, the fear, the loneliness.

With a powerful, final grind of his hips, Ilya let out a guttural moan. His cock pulsed against Shane’s, sending thick ropes of come flooding over them both. The mess was sticky, coating their bellies and thighs in a translucent glaze of shared pleasure. They collapsed into each other, their chest moving in unison. The only sound in the room was the cadence of their breathing and the distant, unimportant hum of the city outside. Ilya didn’t move away. He stayed heavy on top of Shane, his weight a comforting anchor, and kissed Shane’s forehead, his eyelids, the tip of his nose. Each touch a silent promise.

Shane closed his eyes, feeling the cooling slickness of their come between them. For the first time in days, the noise in his head stopped. His team still hated him, the franchise might still cast him out, and the road ahead was a minefield of uncertainty. But as he felt Ilya’s heart beating against his own, Shane realized that he wasn’t alone in the ruins.

“I love you,” he whispered, the words feeling new every time he said them. 

Ilya shifted, propping himself up on one elbow to look at Shane. A small smile touched his lips, one reserved for this, for them. “I love you. And I have you,” he said, squeezing Shane around his shoulders. “Is all that matters.”

*

The silence from the Metros became louder with every passing day. Other teams around the league started posting tactfully worded statements first. Then players did. Then entire fanbases. The official account of the Raiders posted a Pride graphic.

Boston Raiders ✅ @bostonraiders
Hockey is for everyone. Always.

A player from Vancouver openly referenced Shane during a post-game interview. “Anybody scoring like Hollander while dealing with all this media circus deserves respect. Takes guts.” He threw both his thumbs up towards the camera. 

Then came the veterans, the retired players, former enforcers, athletes from other sports. A tweet by one of the Toronto Blue Jay’s pitchers made it to Shane’s time line.

Robbie Ray ✅ @robbierayofficial
weird how some people care more about a guy being gay than whether he’s carrying their entire team every game

Meanwhile, the Metros released exactly one other statement.

Montreal Metros ✅ @themontrealmetros
The Montreal Metros remain committed to maintaining professionalism and focus throughout the organization during this time.

That was it. No mention of Shane. No condemnation of the rampant homophobia. No support. Just corporate fog thick enough to suffocate inside. Shane stared at the statement from the kitchen counter. Through his phone, he heard Ilya pace through his own apartment barefoot like a caged animal. On television, another panel replayed footage of Shane skating through three defenders alone.

“Look at this sequence,” one analyst said. “There are multiple moments where support simply doesn’t arrive. At some points this stops looking accidental.” 

Shane’s phone buzzed with another alert. 

NHL News ✅ @nhlnewslive
⚠️ EXCLUSIVE: Sources inside the Metros franchise claim leadership wants focus directed toward identifying who leaked the hallway footage rather than escalating internal tensions further.

The pacing stopped. Shane recognized this type of silence immediately.

“Oh,” Shane muttered.

“What?” Ilya snapped.

“You’re doing the thing.”

“What thing? You cannot even see me.”

“I can hear you. It’s that—that public psychological breakdown thing.”

“Is not true. I am perfectly calm.”

“You once threatened a referee on Instagram Live.”

“He deserved it.”

Shane’s phone buzzed.

Ilya Rozanov ✅ @ilyarozanov81
really interesting strategy from metros organization. great work everyone very impressive definitely healthy environment 👍 

“Shane, what is word? Strong brain, can deal with trauma?” Ilya asked. The sounds of his fingertips typing were loud through Shane’s tinny speakers.

“Resilience? Emotional something?” 

“Thanks, sweetheart.”

Within seconds, another tweet appeared as Shane refreshed.

Ilya Rozanov ✅ @ilyarozanov81
you know what actually. some of you act like someone came out as serial killer instead of gay. deeply concerning emotional resilience from professional athletes

Shane watched the replies and even more alerts coming in with mounting horror.

“Ilya,” he groaned, but instead of a verbal answer, another ding of his phone told him that Ilya Rozanov had just tweeted.

Ilya Rozanov ✅ @ilyarozanov81
hockey culture so fragile one attractive man liking other men causes full psychological collapse. BORING

“Attractive? Was that necessary?” Shane yelped.

Ilya didn’t even have the shame to sound embarrassed. “You are objectively attractive. Is not controversial to say. Some hockey players are very homophobic, yes? But I know at least ten people who want to explore man-on-man action with you.”

The tweet that followed then made Shane genuinely fear a call from league officials.

Ilya Rozanov ✅ @ilyarozanov81
if certain organizations no longer appreciate generational talent there are approximately 31 other teams capable of basic human respect

That one detonated instantly. Reporters started quote-tweeting, fans started speculating about trades, and official team handles liking the tweet didn’t help either case. Hockey Twitter lost its collective mind. 

“I cannot believe you just soft-launched tampering because you’re angry.”

“Not tampering,” Ilya said coldly. “Is real threat. And Metros will realize that.”

Shane’s phone started vibrating non-stop across the counter. “Ilya. You are one tweet away from getting fired.”

Ilya made a noise Shane would categorize between anger and fear. “I—it kills me,” Ilya said softly. From the sounds of it, he had his phone tucked close to his mouth, his breaths loud and irregular. “You still want them to choose you.”

*

The cruelest part was that Shane never screamed again, never let himself rage like he did the first and only time. He simply stopped giving the Metros pieces of himself he no longer deserved, which hurt far more. Because despite everything—the silence, the isolation, the corporate statements that spoke about him like a contaminated assett—Ilya was right. Some pathetic part of Shane still waited for them to pull him back in. Still looked up whenever management called his name. Still noticed when teammates avoided sitting beside him. Still felt something ugly and hopeful twist in his chest every time the organization had another opportunity to publicly stand by him.

The Metros had been Shane’s entire life for a decade. He had built himself into something consumable there. Loveable, even. Every version of himself that mattered had been shaped inside that organization—captain, superstar, leader, savior, golden boy. Even now, after all this, he just wanted someone in that locker room to stand up and say we were wrong. 

Nobody ever did, and eventually, the waiting inside him curdled into something cold. If the Metros refused to choose him as a person, then Shane would stop choosing them back. The punishment started quietly enough that most didn’t recognize it for what it was.

Shane still showed up first to practice, put up points, played brutal minutes whenever needed while dragging the team behind him like dead weight tied to his skates. But something fundamental had disappeared from him—Captain Shane Hollander™ did not exist anymore.

A rookie defenseman turned the puck over during a tight game against Toronto and looked ready to throw up afterward, sitting stiffly in front of his locker while reporters swarmed the room outside. A few months ago, Shane would have crossed the room, sat beside him, told him every defenseman in the league made mistakes. He would have taken media pressure off his shoulders before it could settle there. Now, Shane barely looked up from untying his skates.

The kid cracked first. “Did you see the replay? I completely fucked the gap—”

“Yeah,” Shane stated. The rookie waited for reassurance that never came. After a moment, Shane shrugged. “Ask one of the alternate captains about it.”

The rookie swallowed. “Right.” 

Shane went back to unlacing his skate. Was he fair to this rookie? No. But it happened more and more after that, the little absences. Tiny, withheld kindnesses the team hadn’t even realized he had been providing for years. No more mediating arguments after bad losses, and no more checking in on injured players. He stopped remembering birthdays, and stopped carrying the emotional weight of twenty-three men who suddenly acted shocked the room felt cold without him warming it. 

The Metros discovered, slowly and horribly, that Shane Hollander’s golden boy persona was labor, and that Shane had stopped working overtime. The human compartments of the “hockey robot”, as they called him, had been taken out.

The organization was next. Marketing requesting he participate in one of the team’s videos after a particularly ugly week of press. Shane declined. Another request came for a sponsorship dinner. Declined. 

A social media manager approached him before practice. “Fans really miss seeing your personality online.”

Shane stared at him for a long moment. “Yeah. Me, too.”

The worst blow came from the depth of Shane’s heart.

The Irina Foundation had always belonged to Shane and Ilya. Shane had rarely appeared at public events before—too scared someone would notice. Too scared they’d be clocked. Too scared to be seen with Ilya, even though that was the entire idea behind it. The Metros had preferred it that way.

Suddenly, Shane was everywhere. Photos surfaced of him sitting cross-legged on gym floors helping kids get the frog stretch right. Videos of him laughing while eight-year-olds climbed him like jungle gym equipment during camp. One clip went viral of Shane crouching beside a shy boy struggling to hold the stick correctly while Ilya demonstrated exaggeratedly dramatic goal movements beside them until the child burst into giggles.

From the Metro’s perspective, it only got worse from there. Because Shane started lingering after games talking to opposing players. Entire conversations at center ice. After a game against New York, cameras caught Scott Hunter skating over after the final horn. Shane laughed at something Scott said, flushed and alive in a way he never looked inside the Metros locker room anymore. The clip hit six million views overnight.

“He doesn’t look miserable around other teams,” one commentator on ESP observerved carefully.

“No,” another replied. “Just around his own.”

That sentence haunted PR and management for weeks.

*

His mother called him after midnight a week later. Shane stared at her name lighting up his phone, unsure whether he wanted to answer, before picking up on the fourth ring anyway.

“Hey, Mom.” 

“Why,” Yuna said without preamble, “did you tell reporters that heterosexual disappointment was survivable? In two different interviews now.” 

Shane closed his eyes. His mother was a PR manager first, and a mother second, especially in times like these. “I thought it was funny,” he admitted. Maybe if I own my gayness, it will hurt less when they rip me apart even further for it, is what he didn’t say.

“It wasn’t funny.” Her voice was sharp, angry. His teammates had often referred to her as Momager Extreme, and Shane was inclined to agree with them. “You’re becoming antagonistic. Defensive. People are noticing.”

“People noticed I was gay first.” She tried getting a word in, but he didn’t let her. “Seriously, Mom. They noticed, and it’s fascinating, right? Ten years of good behavior evaporated overnight because I like men.” 

“You are making this worse for yourself,” she snapped. “You were sympathetic at first. People were rallying behind you. Now every interview becomes another spectacle.”

A silence stretched between them. The disappointment in her voice hit harder than anger would have. He could hear the faint rustle of papers on her end. She was probably still awake working, still cleaning up after him somehow. Sponsorship calls, PR emails, damage control. There was a first for everything, even in Shane’s decade-long career. Guilt curled hot in his stomach.

“They’re dropping you from the campaign,” Yuna whispered finally. “The sportswear company.”

His eyes went from his bare knees to the ceiling. “Yeah. I figured.”

“The situation has become too divisive, is what they’re saying.”

Divisive. That careful corporate language again, like him being outed to the world was a political issue instead of something happening against his will. 

Yuna exhaled slowly before continuing. “I know this is painful. But this version of you lately—sarcastic, angry, reckless—isn’t who you are.”

The guilt inside him turned molten, shifted back into fury. “You don’t know who I am.”

“Shane—”

“No. You know who I perform as.” He stood abruptly, pacing the narrow space between the couch and the coffee table. “Everyone keeps acting like I suddenly changed, like this came out of nowhere. But—”

“You have changed, though!”

“I stopped pretending, Mom! I would have—” The clock had already struck past midnight. Maybe it was tiredness, maybe it was the fact that Shane just had enough. Perhaps it was a combination of suppressing himself for years, and that his mother treated him like a client rather than as her son. “All my life, you taught me how to be media-perfect. You taught me how to speak more Canadian so they wouldn’t ask me questions about being half-Japanese. You taught me how to smile more authentically, in your words, because my normal smile isn’t bright enough. You taught me how to sit straighter so I’d look more manly. You taught me how to survive every room by becoming whatever version of myself people would accept easiest—so tell me. Have I changed, or have you forgotten what your son is actually like?” 

“Shane—” The crack in her voice was telling. His mother let herself cry rarely in front of Shane, and maybe he wasn’t the only one affected by the Hollander performance. “It’s called professionalism.” She laughed bitterly. “You have no idea what the world is like to people who are different, Shane. All I did was protect you.”

“Protect? More like controlled me into a persona that was easy to manage. You made me terrified of being difficult—” My Dad, your husband, had to accidentally watch me kiss my partner for me to come out to you. I tried so fucking hard to be normal, and I did it to please you. 

“You think I don’t recognize what’s happening?” Yuna asked softly. Her voice still hitched, tears catching her vowels, tainting the words. “You finally have someone in your life who tells you to stop caring what people think, and suddenly everything burns down.” 

Shane went rigid instantly. Something unbearably furious moved through his chest, climbed up his throat and ripped his jaw apart with assertions dangerous enough to kill. “You don’t get to blame him for this—you. You just hate that he’s the first fucking person who ever wanted me to be a person before a fucking symbol.” 

That one hurt her. Deservedly. Yuna Hollander loved Ilya Rozanov like a son, no one could deny that. And yet, Shane realized as he heard his mother inhale shakily on the other side of this call, he struck gold. His mother loved him unconditionally, Shane understood, but Ilya loved him in ways his Yuna never could. Ilya saw Shane as just Shane. Yuna saw Shane as something to mold and shape into a character. 

“I have spent your entire life trying to help you survive this league. I did what I thought would keep you safe,” she cried. 

“And I spent my entire life trying to survive being your project.”

The seconds the words escaped him, the line went dead. The tragedy was, Shane knew she meant every word. She had never intended for this to happen. He stared at the darkened screen of his phone, chest heaving too hard for someone standing perfectly still. The shame arrived the way water seeped through cracks—slow, unyielding, and constant. 

“Fuck,” he whispered, dragging a hand over his face. 

At some point during the call, the bedroom light had turned on. Shane hadn’t noticed. Hadn’t noticed the soft footsteps either. Ilya stood in the hallway wearing gray sweatpants and one of Shane’s old Team Canada hoodies, hair sleep-mussed and expression unreadable. He must have overheard enough to piece the conversation together. For once, he didn’t speak immediately.

“I know,” Shane muttered. “I’m an asshole.”

Ilya frowned. “You are upset.”

“I basically just told my mother she ruined my life.” In the silence of the apartment, the veracity of that statement rang loud and wounding. The anger had burned through Shane fast, and what remained underneath felt raw, humiliating and young in a way he hated. No matter how furious he got at his mother, some part of him still reverted back into wanting her approval the second she sounded hurt. “She sacrificed everything for me. Do you know how many hours she worked when I was a kid? How many times she drove me to practice after sleeping, like, three hours?” 

Ilya stayed silent, just crossed the living room slowly, stopping a foot away from Shane.

“She taught me how to survive this toxic hellscape of a league,” Shane continued, rough and devastated. “And the fucked-up thing is? She was right about most of it. This sport is like this. People do notice when you’re different, and they’re seldom nice about it.” Shane swallowed the mortification settling into his bones. “I know she loves me.”

“I know,” Ilya replied. Somehow, that almost made Shane cry more than if Ilya had agreed with him outright. There was no competition here, no villain, no easy answer. Just a mother who had spent her life trying to armor her son for a world she knew would cut him apart if given the chance. And a son who no longer knew where the armor ended and he began. 

“She wanted people to love you,” Ilya said carefully. “Maybe she thought if she made you perfect enough, world would be nicer to you.”

“That’s not how it works.”

“No,” Ilya agreed quietly. “But mothers are stupid with love sometimes.” Ilya almost never talked about mothers, not unless something inside him had already been cracked open first. “My mother used to cut crust off bread for me until I was twelve. She thought it made life easier.” A tiny smile flickered briefly across his mouth before disappearing. “Parents see monsters before children do. They panic.” 

The grief in his voice was so old and worn-down that Shane felt his own anger stumble over itself. “Your mother would be so proud of you,” Shane murmured.

Ilya snorted. “No. She would think I am disaster.”

Despite everything, Shane laughed weakly. He filed this away for sometime later, recognized the things Ilya wasn’t saying at this moment. The pedestal Irina stood on was made from rose-colored memories and pain, and Shane was not equipped to deal with either of it right now. 

“You know what I hear when your mother talks?” Ilya asked, stepping closer until their knees nearly touched.

“What?”

“Fear.” The way Ilya looked right into Shane’s eyes worked like a thrall. “Years spent to teach you how to survive hockey, yes? And now hockey pushes you away.” 

Yuna Hollander had spent Shane’s entire life believing excellence could protect him, and now the entire illusion had collapsed publicly. 

“She thinks I’m ruining my—my reputation,” Shane said. “She hates that you encourage this side of me,” he added more quietly.

“Yuna would,” Ilya agreed. “But is simple. Your mother loves you. You love your mother. And the two of you are hurting each other because not you and not her knows what to do now.” 

“Everything is simple with you,” Shane groaned.

“Is because I am perfect.” Ilya leaned forward slightly, forehead brushing Shane’s temple. “I think maybe first time in your life, your mother heard you.”

*

Shane sat alone long after the locker room emptied, elbows on his knees, tape still hanging loose from one wrist. Ten years, give or take. Ten fucking years inside this room. He had played through fractures here. Through what probably were concussions. Through panic attacks so severe he thought he might throw up inside his helmet during national anthems. He had bled for this logo often enough that the equipment staff joked his DNA belonged to the organization, too. And still, all it took was the truth. Well, some of it, at least.

His contract expired in eleven months. For the first time in his career, Shane let himself think it all the way through. Maybe I do leave. The idea should have terrified him, and instead, it felt strangely like oxygen. Since his draft, he had imagined his own jersey being hung from the ceiling in the Bell Centre. There was never any question about where he’d retire. But, somewhere out there, teams existed that might only care whether he could score. Somewhere out there, a future existed where he could hold another man’s hand without feeling like he was pouring gasoline all over his career and lighting the match. 

His phone buzzed against the bench beside him.

TMZ ✅ @tmz
EXCLUSIVE: Ilya Rozanov coming to Shane Hollander’s defense—rivalry gone wrong? Read more at: tmz.me/sHfd17N

Shane laughed quietly under his breath and leaned back against the locker behind him, staring at the ceiling. The funny thing was, the public still thought this story was only about him being gay. Nobody knew yet who he went home to. They didn’t know every psychotic tweet from Ilya Rozanov came from somewhere deeply personal. Didn’t know hockey’s golden boy had spent years in love with hockey’s favorite Russian nightmare. Absurdly, the thought no longer filled Shane entirely with dread. Perhaps due to exhaustion, or because Ilya had ruined him permanently for shame. Maybe just because he could be gay elsewhere than just the Metros.

He almost saw the headlines forming before his eyes.

The Globe and Mail ✅ @theglobeandmail 

🚨 ALERT: Russia’s nightmare prodigy Ilya Rozanov seduced Canada’s golden boy Shane Hollander. More infos to come!

Hockey was going to lose its fucking mind if they ever found out. Shane almost wanted to stay just to watch the explosion.

*

Shane officially coming out was a quiet affair with only his million Twitter followers and the entire internet being around for it.

Shane Hollander ✅ @shanehollanderhockeyplayer
I’ve been thinking a lot about “professionalism” lately.

To the people supporting me: thank you.

To the people acting like my existence is ruining hockey: grow up.

And to the organizations more worried about PR disasters than actual human beings: remember that your players see and notice what you do. 

And before anyone asks: yes, I was gay during all Cup runs. Crazy stuff.

Chapter End Notes

A few things about this chapter:

- Please, for the love of God, don't make me explain any type of time line. There's a few things I can tell you: Ilya is already with Ottawa (that's why they can see each other more), and the FanMail leak didn't happen (yet?). Hayden does not know of Ilya (sorry, I don't trust Hayden in this universe), but Yuna and David do and they love him. I mixed up a lot of canon/fanon and took parts that worked for me. I hope that's alright with you.
- I love Yuna Hollander, but I love her because she is a complicated character. Nothing she ever did was done maliciously, and yet her actions still hurt Shane (in my version, and pretty visibly in canon, too). She's a fierce mother who wants the best for her only child, and yet she missed the mark at times. There's a lot of cultural background I haven't unpacked in this that would contextualize their scene more, I think, but I hope you all still are with me. Shane loves his Mom, and his Mom loves Shane, but love can still hurt.
- I realize that Shane went from "rage in the contained locker room" to "let's be unhinged in front of the world". Let me explain my choice: I think Shane Hollander as a character has swallowed so many emotions for so fucking long, and the fairy tale he has spun around the Metros falling apart unravels him, which is why I believe that no media training could hold him back anymore. The one time he needed his team, they pull back because they are uncomfortable—wouldn't that enrage you, too? He designed his life, and to some extent Ilya's, around the Metros, and them not giving a shit is in this fic the starting point to the more unhinged version of Shane.
- I hope y'all listened to When You're Young—that song is a banger, and also made me cry a few times during the process of writing. Shane was so young when he was first forced into the role of Shane Hollander, Hockey Player, and I think he has had little time to shed himself of that costume.

Come find me on Threads!

Chapter 3: Masters of Miscommunication

Chapter Summary

Shane thought the hard part would be telling the truth. Instead, the hard part is watching everyone else decide what that truth means.

Chapter Notes

Wow, this was a doozie to write. Almost another 19k (52 pages in my Google Doc) for a story I thought would stay one chapter.
Please take a look at the updated tags.

Yuna Hollander arrived on a Tuesday afternoon carrying takeout and an expression that suggested she had spent the entire drive rehearsing what not to say. Neither of them mentioned the phone call. Shane let her in, and all they talked about was traffic, the weather, his father accidentally sending a thumbs-up emoji to the family group chat three separate times because he still couldn’t figure out whether one press or three was the correct amount. It was absurdly normal, almost enough to make Shane uncomfortable.

His mother wandered into the living room while he unpacked the containers. A minute later, he heard her sigh.

“Your plant is dead,” she said, pointing at the wilting spider plant.

“I think it was dead when I bought it.” That was a lie, but Ilya hadn’t been in Shane’s apartment for a while and out of the two of them, Shane definitely wasn’t the one with the green thumb.

Yuna stared at him. “No.”

“Mom.”

She pinched the bridge of her nose, a laugh escaping both of them before either of them could stop it. For the first time since she had arrived, his mother smiled. Tired, barely tugging at the corners of her lips, but it was much realer than what Shane had seen in a long time.

They ate at the kitchen island because neither of them felt capable of sitting across from each other at a proper table. The silence, bar their cutlery clinking every now and then, wasn’t as hostile anymore, just careful. Outside, it started raining softly.

Eventually, Yuna folded her porcelain chopsticks into a napkin. “They’re saying you might request a trade.”

Shane looked down at his food. He had seen the chatter going around on different social media platforms. “People say lots of things if the day is long enough.”

“Are they wrong?”

The question wedged itself between them like a splinter. 

A month ago, Shane would have deflected, but exhaustion took over him. What use was it lying to his mom, to his manager? Sooner or later, he’d need to include her in his plans anyway. “No, they are not wrong.”

Yuna nodded slowly. To Shane’s surprise, she didn’t immediately launch into a speech about contracts or public relations or franchise loyalty. You’d leave Boston? The words rang shrill in Shane’s mind, the memory of that fateful day still a sore wound, another chance of coming out taken from him.

“You don’t want to stay?” Her voice was quiet, almost inaudible. Scared. And it hurt, because some part of him did want to stay, or at least a part of him used to. That pathetic part inside of him that hadn’t caught up with everything, that juvenile and childish part that believed the others would come around somehow. 

The Bell Centre had been his home for a decade. Every important version he had ever identified with existed somewhere in those walls—Captain, champion, leader, Golden Boy—but those walls were tinged by homophobia, and scrutiny, and conditional acceptance of him. 

The monsters his mother protected him from, Shane realized, were real. She had never imagined those things, and had spent years preparing him for exactly this kind of cruelty. Somewhere along the way, though, the preparation had become its own cage.

“I wish things were different,” Shane admitted.

His mother looked at him carefully. “So do I.”

It caught him off-guard. As he glanced up, who sat before him wasn’t his manager. She was a tired mother, older than he remembered, gray hair framing her face. 

“I hated teaching you those things,” she whispered.

Shane frowned. “What things?”

“How to make people comfortable.” The words came out pressed, like she had been carrying them for years and had trouble wrapping her tongue around them. “How to—how to smile correctly. How to fit into rooms.” She studied her hands as she spoke. “I hated every second.”

His entire childhood rearranged itself. “You seemed pretty enthusiastic about it.”

A laugh escaped her, broken and raw. “I was terrified.” The admission hung there, and Shane didn’t know what to do about it. Ilya had hypothesized it, stupidly smart bastard. “When I was your age, I thought if I worked hard enough, people would overlook everything else. Being Japanese. Being different.”

“I—”

“You’re not the only one in this room who is an alien in Canada.”

Something shifted inside Shane. His mother wasn’t born a manager, but she had become one, just like he had become hockey’s Golden Boy. Different survival strategies, same fear. There probably was a reason his paternal grandparents cut all contact with them at one point, and another reason that Yuna never called own mother.

“David always hated it. Thought I was too hard on you.” Yuna rolled her eyes, but to Shane, it sounded exactly like something his dad would say. “He used to tell me you—you were already enough. And every time he said it, I thought he was being naïve. White, Canadian boy afterall, mh?” 

And as Shane didn’t mention the wetness around his mother’s eyes, she had the decency of overlooking the tears forming in his own eyes. 

“I thought if I stopped preparing you, the world would hurt you,” she continued. “If you always delivered, they wouldn’t have any reason to—”

Something painful tightened behind Shane’s ribs. The world had hurt him, spectacularly and publicly, exactly the way both of them had always feared. But another realization followed close behind, one that felt even worse. Shane thought his mother loving him was conditional on success. She may have never uttered those words, but she had also never said the opposite. Success had always been the language between, its vocabulary made up of goals, and awards, and sponsorships, and contracts, and performance. Every conversation between them eventually returned there. Other things, important things, had become impossible to discuss.

Shane rubbed at the back of his neck. “Sometimes I don’t know how to tell you things.” His admission felt impossibly difficult, pathetic. “When I was younger, I always felt like I had to bring you good news. That never changed, if I’m honest.”

Yuna’s eyes closed, struck by Shane’s candor. “If I had known you thought that—” Her voice cracked. “I would have failed you much sooner.”

“What?”

A watery laugh escaped her. “I would have let you disappoint me.”

Yuna leaned into Shane, wrapped her thin arm around her son. Shane froze. It had been a while since his mother had hugged him, no cameras around, or celebrations, or achievements, or a forced coming out attached to it. Slowly, he hugged her back. 

*

THE ATHLETIC NORTH
HOCKEY • FEATURES • SPORTS & SOCIETY

Published: June 19, 2024 • 8:12 AM EST

By Maya Chen
Senior NHL Features Writer

The Cost of Belonging: How Hockey’s White Culture Shapes Biracial Athletes

When hockey talks about diversity, it usually talks about numbers. How many Black players are in the league. How many Indigenous prospects are in development systems. How many initiatives exist for Asian youth. How many rainbow logos appear during Pride month. 

Much less frequently does hockey discuss assimilation. Not whether non-white players enter the sport, but what happens after they do.

The modern hockey player is expected to fit a remarkably specific mold. He is humble but confident. Competitive but not emotional. Marketable but not controversial. Different enough to inspire, similar enough to avoid making anyone uncomfortable.

The burden of meeting those expectations rarely falls equally. Former players interviewed for this article described spending years learning how to become acceptable versions of themselves.

One retired NHL player of Chinese descent recalled deliberately bringing sandwiches instead of traditional lunches to tournaments because teammates routinely mocked unfamiliar food.

A former junior player described avoiding speaking Punjabi around teammates after coaches joked about not knowing whether he was “talking strategy or talking shit”.

Another player remembered being praised for being “articulate” so frequently that he eventually realized people had expected less from him in the first place.

None of these stories involve overt discrimination. None include slurs or headline-grabbing scandals, which is precisely the point. The pressure to assimilate is often subtle enough that it can be mistaken for professionalism. Eventually, many become experts at managing other people’s comfort. The reward is belonging, which cost is hard to measure.

The recent public controversy surrounding NHL superstar Shane Hollander had reopened conversations many hockey fans were not expecting to have. Most discussion has focused on sexuality, and far less attention has been paid to race. 

Hollander, the son of a Japanese mother and white Canadian father, spent more than a decade as one of the league’s most celebrated stars. Throughout that period, media coverage overwhelmingly centered on his work ethic, discipline, leadership, and hockey intelligence. Many fans admit they rarely thought about Hollander’s racial identity at all. That observation is often presented as evidence of progress, yet it may be evidence of something else.

For years, Hollander represented the ideal version of diversity for professional hockey. Visible enough to be celebrated, unthreatening enough to be ignored, exceptional enough to justify his presence. His public image aligned almost perfectly with hockey’s preferred mythology: hardworking, polite, self-sacrificing, relentlessly team-first. The closer an athlete comes to that ideal, the easier it becomes for audiences to forget they are navigating social pressures their white peers may never experience.

Perhaps the most uncomfortable question raised by Hollander’s situation is whether hockey’s culture truly embraces difference, or merely celebrates those willing to minimize it. This distinction matters, as one reflects inclusion, and the other reflects assimilation. And assimilation, however successful, comes with a hidden cost.

Many athletes spend years becoming the version of themselves that others find easiest to love. The tragedy is that success often arrives before they discover whether they would have been loved anyway. That question lingers long after careers end, and for some athletes, it begins long before them. 

Yuna Hollander
Wednesday 09:13 AM

Did you read it?

Three times.

Thoughts?

I didn’t realize how many examples sounded familiar.

Yeah.

I know. I remember what I taught you.

I was once called “one of the good ones”, too.

When you were born, I looked at you and thought maybe I could spare you that feeling.

I was trying to make things easier.

You know what’s fucked-up?

Language.

I got everything. Sponsors, Cups, captaincy.

And I still ended up exactly where you were trying to stop me from ending up.

I don’t think there can be a version of different people where being perfect protects us.

I should have listened to your father more.

He once said, “I hope he remembers he’s a person before he remembers he’s a hockey player.”

I think we both forgot about it for a while.

I’m still angry with you.

I know.

I’ll be angry for a while.

That’s okay, baby.

I know you were trying to protect me.

I know I wasn’t good at letting you be yourself.

I will learn, okay?

I love you, mom.

I love you, Shane.

*

The article sat open on Shane’s laptop once more, even if he already knew it word by word. Something about it wouldn’t leave Shane alone, pestered him. The language in it hit a bit too close, vocabulary Shane understood all too well after living with and through it for thirty years.

Across the room, Ilya lay stretched across the couch with one arm behind his head, scrolling through his phone. “You are staring at article for an hour now.” His voice was drowned out by the rain picking up outside.

And wasn’t that fucking unfair? Unfair that Ilya Rozanov could spend his time doom-scrolling dog reels while Shane suffered through this nightmare? Unfair that Shane Hollander had to live through public scrutiny while Ilya could just lounge about? It wasn’t as if Ilya hadn’t experienced hardship, Shane had been there for him, but this? This was something that felt larger. 

“I don’t think you’d get it,” Shane said. Pink tinged his cheeks—if from shame or anger, he wasn’t really sure.

Ilya lowered his phone. “Article, you mean?”

The irritation came faster than Shane expected. “The fucking point of the article. I spent my entire fucking life learning how to survive being not-straight and not-white. That’s pretty clear, isn’t it?”

What followed was a dangerous silence, the kind that always preceded an explosion. Ilya pushed himself off the couch and started pacing, his phone sliding into the dent his body had left in the couch. “Shane.”

“I don’t think you understand what that’s like, being—”

For a second, Ilya simply stared at him. And then he laughed. That laugh that Shane hated, because there was no joy in it. It was icy and dry. “You think I, Ilya Rozanov from Russia, do not understand being foreign, Shane?”

“I didn’t say that, I’m just saying it’s different,” Shane defended. The league was riddled by Russian players.

“Oh.” Ilya clapped his hands sarcastically and nodded. “Explain.”

Shane dragged both hands through his hair. It was starting to get long, some strands curling in on the edges. He knew he was already losing control of the conversation, but he kept talking anyway. The anger lodged into his heart weighed heavy on him. “I thought being closeted was the first time I learned how to hide pieces of myself, you know, but it fucking wasn’t. I wasn’t even allowed to take sushi to practice because some peanut butter and jam spread on toast fit better into the rink’s culture, according to my mother.” He shook his head. “I spent years terrified that somebody would figure out I liked men, and now I’m realizing that wasn’t even—”

Ilya had stopped his pacing, stood still in the middle of the living room. A look Shane couldn’t place flickered across his face, his eyebrows pulled together.

“When I was a kid, people asked if we ate fucking dogs, Ilya. It’s fucked to say, but I’m not Chinese.” The memory tasted ugly in his mouth.

“Shane—”

“I was taught that, as long as I was useful enough, hockey would overlook everything. And now—”

“You think I do not know these things? You think I do not understand being an alien?” Ilya’s voice was sharp, brittled and angry. Something about it reminded Shane of Rozanov. “Shane, half of North America hates me for being Russian. I must be terrible person, yes, because Russia is horrible.” He jabbed a finger against his own chest. “Ilya Rozanov is terrible, too. I punch someone? Is because I am angry Russian, not because I defend team. I don’t speak good English? Is because I am stupid Russian, not teenager who comes to America without support. I don’t wear Pride tape? Is because I am homophobe, not man who is scared of being killed or put into gulag if I support rainbow.” 

Shane felt his stomach tighten. “Ilya—”

“I spent all my life knowing the West would never fully accept me because of where I was born or who I am.” Ilya looked directly at him. “Sound familiar?”

It did too much, which somehow made Shane only angrier. “Well, you spent years cultivating that image. You leaned into it, you know, that whole—Russian thing.” The second he said it, he regretted it. 

Ilya took a step closer, and this time his finger was pointed toward Shane. “Being Russian would always mean I was tainted by ideology I don’t believe in, so I did what people expect me to.” A humorless sound escaped him. “Funny. Sounds familiar again.”

Shane looked away. “You know what the difference is?” Shane asked. “At least I made people like me.” He wanted those words back, wanted to stuff them into his mouth, shove them down his throat and swallow them so they’d never see light again. 

“Did they?” Ilya shot back. “Because from what I see, Shane, they stopped liking you second they learned something real.” Ilya spread his hands, his gaze unwavering. “They accepted Captain Hollander, a straight man. And now you act surprised that they struggle with the gay, Asian man you are.”

The truth wrapped around him like venom, injected itself right into his brain, and poisoned whatever came out of his mouth. “Well, we all can’t be man-whores who fuck themselves through all of North America and Canada, can we, and have the media spin it into some fucking playboy-fantasy? We can’t all refuse to be media-trained, because that’s your job, isn’t it? Yes, I am fucking surprised that they can’t accept me as gay, because for a fucking decade I’ve been giving the world nothing but good fucking press! Maybe if I was less of a symbol and more like you, this conversation would look fucking different!”

Ilya physically recoiled at the words. He shrunk back, put himself against the counter and breathed heavily through his nose. “So, what? I am villain? Psycho Russian Rozanov? Disaster you can keep in your closet?”

“That’s not what I—”

“Is not what you mean? Fucking sounds like it!” Ilya’s voice broke. “Is why you chose me, no? Dangerous Russian who keeps your life exciting? Ilya Rozanov, who sleeps around and is violent, is already ruined, yes? So ruined that he can carry all the ugly things for you?”

The sentiment tore into Shane, unrelenting like a wave crashing against cliffs. Once, wrapped together on a hotel room bed with nothing but the moon illuminating their sweat-soaked bodies, Ilya had whispered to him. Had confessed to fucking strangers because it meant he wouldn’t be alone, had admitted that feeling lonely was worse than what any tabloid article could come up with. Ilya never was ruined, never an ugly thing. He was the light that steered Shane forward.

“Stop, Ilya—”

“Do you like that I can be bad for both of us, yes? The angry Russian who fights everybody but you?” 

“Ilya, stop!” Shane’s yell echoed through the apartment. His chest hurt, and bile rose in his throat. “Jesus fucking Christ. No, that’s not—”

“Then tell me what you fucking mean!” 

And Shane wasn’t even fucking sure anymore what he meant, because all he saw in this apartment were two men standing in the middle of the same wound. Shane thought people loved him because he was useful, and Ilya thought people loved him because he was available. Shane believed acceptance could be earned, and Ilya believed it never existed for himself in the first place or would be withdrawn in the future. Somehow, both of them had spent years looking at each other and thinking: at least you don’t have my problem.

The monster his mother protected him from, Shane realized, didn’t haunt only him. They were the same ones that had followed Ilya across an ocean. Standing here now, both exhausted and bleeding from old scars, they were still failing to recognize them in each other.

“I love you, Ilya. I—”

“I need to go.”

As the door slammed into its hinges on Ilya’s way out, Shane collapsed onto the sofa. For a while he sat motionless, staring at nothing in particular. The television remained dark and the dishwasher hummed faintly from the kitchen. Somewhere outside, a siren wailed and faded into the distance.

Shane found himself listening for sounds that never came. A key being knocked into the lock. Shoes scraping across the hardwood floors. Russian swearing directed at him, and then a Russian apology, and maybe even a Russian love confession. 

Ilya had left. 

As Shane pushed himself upright and wandered toward the kitchen, he saw a mug sitting on the counter. Not his. Shane owned perfectly normal coffee mugs, neutral colors, very adult ones. But Ilya had acquired a ridiculous oversized thing with a cartoon bear wearing hockey equipment months ago. It had simply appeared one day and never left.

There was evidence of Ilya everywhere. A second pair of running shoes beside the door. A jacket hanging over the back of a chair. One of Ilya’s books abandoned face-down on the coffee table despite years of Shane complaining about bent pages. An extra phone charger snaking across the counter. Ordinary things, the kind of things nobody noticed until they disappeared.

An unpleasant thought surfaced. If Ilya vanished tomorrow, most people would still describe Shane as living alone. And would they be wrong? Not technically. Nobody knew enough to be wrong. For years, Shane had believed he was good at being alone, had built an entire life around it—partners were too much work, he had told everyone, because he was already married to hockey, and traveling around wasn’t that bad, because he got to live his dream. And then Ilya had entered his life and now Shane measured rooms whether Ilya was in them, and home became a person rather than a concept. 

But the more important someone became, the more they had the capacity to leave. And now Ilya had left, and the apartment that had once been Shane’s alone was now theirs, and the collection of rooms had turned into a life, one built through stolen weekends and canceled flights and hidden names and years spent pretending they were less important to each other than they actually were. 

A life that officially did not exist. A life that could disappear tomorrow and leave almost no evidence behind beyond a charger and Shane’s broken, bleeding heart.

*

The fight sat in the apartment long after Ilya had left, his overnight-bag with him. It lingered in the overturned dining chair, in the half-finished tea growing cold on the kitchen counter, in the silence between rooms that normally felt too small for two professional hockey players and suddenly felt cavernous. 

Shane spent most of the next day pretending he wasn’t waiting for his phone to light up. It didn’t, which was annoying. Infuriating, actually. Usually, Ilya was terrible at giving people space. He called often, his texts came in like avalanches, he showed up uninvited. If Shane was angry, Ilya generally viewed that as a problem to be solved, preferably through physical affection, emotional blackmail, or both. The absence felt worse.

By evening, Shane found himself standing in front of the refrigerator without any memory of opening it. He closed the door again. Opened it. Closed it. The apartment was quiet except for the wind howling through Montreal.

Every single time he remembered the look on Ilya’s face as he had yelled at him, the certainty that had reverberated through him during the argument weakened a little more. He didn’t believe he was entirely wrong—the article still stared at him, and the monsters lurked behind corners. He didn’t fight them, though, and that was maybe the root of the problem.

His phone finally buzzed with a picture, a blurry photograph of a grocery store shelf.

Lily
Friday 07:48 PM

which pasta sauce is least likely to kill me

serious question

there are too many sauces

You’ve lived alone for ten years.

and i am still helpless without you

Take the one with the green lid.

*

They met a day later. Officially, Shane was helping Ilya move furniture for an Irina Foundation event. Unofficially, both of them knew better.

The community center gym smelled faintly of dust and floor polish, rows of folding tables neatly stacked against one wall, children’s hockey sticks piled in a corner. Volunteers moved around setting up banners. Shane found Ilya carrying three boxes at once as, apparently, basic workplace safety offended him personally.

“Hi,” Shane said.

“Hi.” Ilya paused, then pointed toward another stack of tables. “Carry things.” Very mature.

Shane carried things.

For almost an hour, that was all they did. Move the boxes, and arrange the chairs, and avoid the actual conversation that had been brewing between them for one too many sleepless nights. Eventually, they ended up alone near the storage room, the sounds of volunteers echoing distantly down the hallway.

“Are we still fighting?” Ilya sighed. 

This was a fucking bad place for this, out in the open, where anyone could hear or see them. Ilya Rozanov and Shane Hollander may have become friends or acquaintances in the eyes of the media, but this? This did not fit the mold. For once, Shane didn’t care.

“Probably,” he answered after considering it for a second.

“Good.”

“Good?”

“Means neither of us died,” Ilya replied.

The silence that settled between them was less hostile. Awkward still, though. 

“I wasn’t, like, fully wrong, you know,” Shane started, his arms wrapped tightly around himself.

“No.” Ilya leaned against the wall, his shoulders sagging in a way that screamed tired. “I wasn’t, either.”

“Yeah. It’s a very annoying situation.”

Neither of them seemed particularly eager to be the first person to apologize, which was unfortunate, because they were both stubborn enough to die waiting. 

Shane swallowed. “When all this happened—the gay stuff. The team, you know, everything, it’s like someone just pulled the rug. I—” His laugh sounded hollow, and the tears prickling at the corners of his eyes felt hot. “Not my mom, not my persona, nothing fucking protected me. But you did.”

Ilya’s head fell between his shoulders. “I know.” There wasn’t a challenge in Ilya’s voice, no anger, just deep fatigue. “Being the best hockey player in league did not stop Americans from seeing the Russian in me first, so… I know.” His smile carried no humor.

The hallway remained quiet until Shane exhaled. “I shouldn’t have said the thing about you leaning into the Russian thing. I was angry.”

“I noticed.”

“Fuck you.”

“See?” Ilya shrugged. “Still angry.” He studied Shane, letting his gaze wander. “I should not have said things either.”

It sounded painful enough to admit that Shane knew it mattered. “What things?”

“About why you wanted me.” Ilya looked strangely young, then. Younger than his reputation, younger than the headlines. Just a boy standing in a hallway trying and failing to explain himself, Shane’s perfect mirror. “When people leave, is because I push them, yes? Is because I make myself be difficult.”

“Ilya—”

“I don’t want you to leave me, too, Shane. Please.”

Shane stared. A knife was twisting into his heart, and every fear, every insecurity, every painful memory slipped out. Ilya was bleeding for Shane as much as Shane was bleeding for him, and both of them were stupid enough to be blind to it. 

Of course that was what Ilya had heard. Confirmation that another person decided he was too much, too messy, too complicated. 

“You’re a fucking idiot, Rozanov.” Shane stepped forward, that sick feeling tickling inside him subduing as he stared into Ilya’s eyes. It was too close, he knew, and if cameras caught them it would be just another fucking disaster, but it still wasn’t close enough, not by a long shot. “I’ve spent the last month more or less destroying my own public persona because I was tired of what others thought of me.”

Ilya snorted. “Very dramatic, Hollander.”

“My point is that I’m fucking difficult, too. You’ll never be too much for me. I fucking love you,” Shane whispered. And he wished he could scream it, wished to yell it at the tops of his lungs, because it was what Ilya deserved. What Shane maybe deserved as well. “You make my life significantly worse, but—not because you’re Russian. And not because of your image. It’s because you play Call of Duty like a twelve-year-old with Marleau—”

Ilya’s mouth twitched. “This does not sound like good love confession, Shane.”

“Oh, fuck off. You’re unbelievable.”

And suddenly the fight didn’t feel over, but it felt done. In a hallway full of folding chairs and donated hockey equipment, Shane found himself thinking that maybe a resolution wasn’t actually the point. Maybe the point was that neither of them had left. They had come back to each other without winning or without getting the last word. And wasn’t it the same as always, as they had always done it? They’d come back to hotel rooms, to their apartments, to the cottage, to each other. Stubborn enough to stay even when understanding each other felt impossible.

*

The thing about Shane Hollander was that he had never once threatened to leave. He had thought about it, but nothing ever became public, not even as contract negotiations started all across the NHL. For ten years, management had never needed to wonder whether their captain would stay. Shane was the Metros. The franchise built entire marketing campaigns around that assumption.

Which was why the rumor hit like a grenade.

It started with a hockey podcast, not even a major one, just two former players discussing league gossip between playoff and breakdowns.

“Look, I’m not saying he’s gone,” one host said. “But I’ve heard from two separate people that the Hollander camp isn’t interested in discussing an extension right now.” 

His co-host laughed. “After everything that’s happened, can you blame him?”

That episode had three million hits in forty-eight hours.

In actuality, the truth was less dramatic. Shane hadn’t walked into management’s office planning to declare war. It was more so that he couldn’t breathe anymore, as if he was treading water without ever getting his head above the surface. 

The meeting room overlooked the Bell Centre ice, empty seats stretching into darkness beyond the glass. On the other end of the table, the General Manager and two assistant executives sat, the same men who had spent weeks discussing him like a public relations problem.

“What is on your mind?” Tremblay finally asked.

For a second, Shane almost defaulted. Everything is fine. Focusing on hockey. Happy to be here. The same bullshit he had been serving since he was drafted. All is well, not that you’re concerned, considering all you care about is wondering who leaked footage instead of realizing how fucked-up the locker room is. He took a deep breath and looked at the ice. 

“I don’t think I can stay,” Shane muttered.

Tremblay’s expression shifted briefly, dangerous and heavy, then settled into tiredness. “What exactly does that mean?”

Shane stared at the empty rink. Fuck. He’d imagined this conversation a thousand times over, some versions involving anger, some versions involving telling them exactly what they had done to him, but Shane was exhausted. Ilya was still angry, and the Metros’ group chat was still silent, and his mother called him less. “I don’t think I’m interested in discussing an extension of my contract.”

One assistant fidgeted in their seat while Tremblay leaned back. “Because of the recent events, I’m assuming?” It wasn’t really a question, but not a full statement either. 

“That’s a nice way to put it,” Shane replied humorlessly. Nobody smiled. Shane had imagined retiring here for years, having his number raised into the rafter, being one of those players whose identity became inseparable from a franchise. Now, he couldn’t even picture next season happening. “I gave this organization everything. I don’t really know what else you want from me.”

The executives exchanged glances. It was unnerving that no one apologized, but expected. Nobody admitted that they failed Shane, nobody admitted that they didn’t even try to help him out. 

Tremblay folded his hands. “If you’re unwilling to discuss an extension, we need to start evaluating our options.” 

And that was it. Back to business once more. Always business.

Shane stood. “So do I.”

He was almost glad that, for once, headlines about him didn’t have to do with rainbows, with being gay, with him screaming at his teammates.

NHL Rumors @NHLrumorcentral

⚠️ Hearing Shane Hollander is unlikely to sign a contract extension with Montreal. No official confirmation. This is a developing story.

Predictably, the internet lost its mind.

Carmy @puckdaddy69

If that rumor around Hollander is true, then the largest player-franchise breakup in modern hockey history may be underway. WTF 

HockeyStatsGuy @expectedgoals

let me remind y’all: hollander leads the metros in goals, assists, points, expected goals, wins above replacement, and emotional labor lol

METROFOREVER @bleedmontrealblue

HE IS NOT FUCKING ALLOWED TO LEAVE HELLO???? 

HockeysFaveLesbian @hockeylesbian97

they isolated him since he came out (unwillingly might i add) and now everyone is shocked he doesn’t want to spend the rest of his career with fucking homophobes? have you all ever heard of empathy or is that a foreign concept to you

The Globe and Mail ran an entire article about it.

The Globe and Mail ✅ @theglobeandmail 

🚨 ALERT: ARE THE METROS LOSING THEIR GOLDEN BOY?

Sports radio spent weeks dissecting body language from interviews, with every press conference becoming an interrogation. Every answer Shane gave suddenly served as fucking evidence to whatever the internet and hungry journalists cooked up for views.

“Do you see yourself remaining a Metro long-term?” Shane wasn’t even sure which outlet asked, but it sure wasn’t clever. Too easy to swerve around.

“I see myself playing hockey,” he answered.

“Do you still want to retire in Montreal?” 

“I want to win hockey games.”

“Would you welcome a fresh start elsewhere?”

Yes. “Next question.”

Naturally, his answers convinced everyone he was absolutely leaving. It was funny how quickly management changed their tune following the online onslaught. For years, Shane’s no-movement clause had been untouchable, one of the strongest protections in the league, the kind players earned after a decade of loyalty, the kind designed specifically to ensure a player stayed where he wanted. Now, though, the organization suddenly had a problem, because if Shane refused an extension, they risked losing him for nothing. Every day he remained, the story got uglier.

Shane Hollander had become radioactive—not for being gay (that, too), but for being followed by every single fucking camera North America and Canada had to offer. He wasn’t hurting the team. Ironically, he was playing some of the best hockey of his career, and that put even more eyes and attention onto him. Every fucking game became another referendum, every quote another headline. Eventually, the calculus changed.

The unofficial chatter got worse. Management knew the answer to the question they wouldn’t dare ask him outright: Shane had stopped wanting to be there. Insiders began reporting that Montreal might actually approach Shane about destinations, which made the fanbase fracture fully. Some called him a traitor, others a victim. One thing they had all in common was the heartbroken tone, no matter their words.

Realization hit him on a rainy morning. Ilya had not messaged him in two days, which was okay, since Shane hadn’t texted him either, the wound still fresh, and yet his heart was cut open. He just wanted to be fucking chosen. But the Metros would rather lose their franchise player than admit that their actions had hurt him, because admitting fault created liability, and liability created lawyers, and lawyers created panic, and panic created a management that would rather tuck in its metaphorical tail than choose Shane Hollander. 

Lily
Tuesday 06:17 AM

What colors would I look good in?

I won’t wear blue anymore.

*

The Shane Hollander Trade Request Changes Everything—And Maybe Nothing

By Daniel Mercer | Sports & Culture

Four weeks ago, the story was about homophobia. Today, it’s about a trade request. Whether that shift is accidental or convenient depends entirely on who you ask.

According to multiple league sources, Montreal Metros captain Shane Hollander has formally requested a trade, ending weeks of speculation about his future with the organization and accelerating what has become one of the most turbulent franchise-player breakups in hockey. 

Neither Hollander nor the Metros have publicly confirmed the request just yet. NHL teams rarely comment on active trade discussions. But the rumor has circulated widely enough among executives, agents, and media figures that few around the league appear to doubt its existence. If true, it represents a stunning development.

For nearly a decade, Hollander was viewed as the face of the franchise—a three-time Stanley Cup champion, perennial MVP candidate, and perhaps the most recognizable player Montreal has produced in a generation. He was also, until recently, considered one of hockey’s safest stars.

Then came the leak and the fallout, then the public debate over how the Metros handled their captain’s accidental outing and the increasingly visible tension inside and outside the locker room.

Now, apparently, comes the divorce.

For years, Hollander embodied everything the organization wanted to project: discipline, professionalism, leadership, consistency. Which is why some observers have begun framing the current situation as a tragedy for the Metros themselves. Talk radio hosts have lamented the potential loss of an icon. Local columnists have questioned whether Montreal is being unfairly punished for broader problems within hockey culture. Social media has filled with pleas for reconciliation.

The narrative is changing and the farther the story moves away from the original controversy, the easier it becomes to focus on what the Metros stand to lose. The danger, however, is that this framing risks forgetting how we arrived here in the first place.

Hollander did not request a trade deal after a losing season, a contract dispute, or because another organization offered more money.

The sequence of events matters: first came his outing, then came weeks of visible isolation, then came the leaked footage, then came the organization’s widely criticized response, then came the trade request. The chronology is difficult to ignore.

Support for Hollander has continued to grow rather than diminish despite his uncharacteristic outlashes in the media. Current NHL players have started publicly defending him. Athletes from other sports have defended him. Members of the Professional Women’s Hockey League have become some of his most vocal supporters.

Meanwhile, hockey analysts have spent weeks dissecting Hollander’s on-ice performance during the controversy. The results have been difficult to dispute. Despite the scrutiny and the media storm, even despite the apparent deterioration of relationships within the organization, Hollander continues producing at an elite level. In some categories, he is producing at the best rate of his career.

Perhaps most notably, statistical analysis of recent seasons has sparked renewed discussion online after fans observed a curious trend: Hollander consistently played his best hockey against the Ottawa Centaurs, specifically against Ottawa center Ilya Rozanov. The longtime rivals have spent years being portrayed as opposite poles of the modern NHL. Fans are re-examining every interaction between them with clear intensity that borders on obsessions, which speaks to a broader truth.

The conversation surrounding Shane Hollander has expanded far beyond hockey. What began as a discussion about a gay athlete navigating a traditionally conservative sports culture has evolved into something larger and considerably messier: questions about race, masculinity, professionalism, public image, about what organizations owe players and what players owe organizations, about who gets protected and who gets sacrificed. The trade request does not end those discussions. If anything, it may intensify them.

While Montreal now faces questions about its future, Hollander’s future has become equally complicated. Where does a player go after becoming the center of hockey’s largest cultural controversy in years? What does his market look like? How many teams would be willing to acquire him? How many can afford him?

And perhaps more importantly: What story are we actually telling here? For some, this is the simple story of a franchise losing its captain. For others, it is the story of a player refusing to remain where he no longer feels wanted. The first version is cleaner, whereas the second version is probably closer to the truth.

*

Shane went to the Bell Centre alone because he couldn’t bear the thought of anyone seeing him mourn it. It was past midnight when he parked in the employee lot. The arena sat enormous and quiet against the Montreal skyline, its lights dimmed, the great concrete shape of it less looking like a cathedral and more like a sleeping animal. For ten years, this building had been the place he worshipped at, the place that structured his life more faithfully than any calendar ever had. Winters were measured in games played, and summers were measured by how long until he returned.

His badge still worked. The click of the door unlocking made him swallow.

The arena smelled the way it always did after games: cold air, old ice, disinfectant, and the faint rubber scent of hockey equipment baked into the walls over decades. The concourse was empty, no fans in jerseys, no vendors shouting, no music, just the soft hum of emergency lights and Shane’s footsteps echoing through the emptiness.

He walked slowly, hands shoved deep into his coat pockets, past the giant photographs of former captains, past banners celebrating championships he had helped win, past the mural of himself from the last Cup run that management had insisted on installing despite how much it embarrassed him. Golden Boy Shane Hollander grinned down from the wall, mouth open in triumph, stick raised overhead. The version of Shane he was now, a version yet to be named, looked away first.

When Shane stepped into the seating bowl, he stopped halfway down the stairs. Even empty, the Bell Centre was overwhelming. The rink glowed white beneath the emergency lights, boards spotless, logos painted perfectly at center ice. Thousands of empty seats rose around it in steep red walls. Shane had stood here during playoff overtimes so loud he thought the roof might collapse. He had stood here bleeding through his jersey. He had stood here at eighteen years old during warmups, staring into the crowd and thinking: this is my life now. 

For a long moment, all Shane could do was look. After a while, he sat down on one of the plastic chairs. Not in the expensive lower bowl, not in the family section. Somewhere ordinary, halfway up the seats where fans usually spilled beer and screamed themselves hoarse over missed calls. He leaned forward, elbows on his knees, and tried to imagine never playing here again. The thought refused to become real.

How do you imagine losing a place that built you?

This was where he had become Shane Hollander, #24, not just Shane. The city had adopted him so completely that sometimes he forgot he was from Ottawa originally. Montreal had taught him how to handle pressure, how to apply his media training, how to carry a franchise on his back. It had also taught him how to disappear inside himself politely enough that nobody noticed.

A funny trade.

His first game here was still a vivid memory, his hands shaking while he tied his skates, the roar during introductions making his stomach drop, the veterans slapping his helmet and telling him to breathe, scoring his first goal in this building and hearing the crowd chant his name for the first time. Shane remembered thinking, with the absolute certainty only young people possessed: I’m never leaving this place. 

The grief hit him in the face, sudden and ugly. Not just for the team, but for the version of the Montreal Metros that existed before everything curdled, before the locker rooms became a silent judgement zone when he entered, and before management looked at him like a liability report, and before every glance from teammates had to be interpreted as hostile diplomacy. 

They had retired worse players, had forgiven worse men. Apparently loving men was where the line was drawn.

Shane missed the city that loved him uncomplicatedly. It was even more wicked how much he still loved it back. 

“Jesus fucking Christ,” he laughed under his breath, bitter and exhausted. His voice disappeared into the empty arena. He stood and walked down to the glass. From there, the ice looked close enough to touch. Shane rested a hand lightly against the barrier and imagined stepping onto it one more time in a Metro jersey. The picture formed in his head easily, like his body belonged here instinctively. But then another image followed it.

A different locker room with a different crowd and a different future. Ottawa, where he’d have Ilya, where he’d have his parents close, where he’d be able to draft himself into someone else. A future where he was no longer trying to win back a team that had already decided he was expendable.

“Dreams die,” Ilya had once said to him, a quarter bottle of vodka gone. It always made Ilya stupidly poetic. “At twenty, I thought I would die before thirty and live on as terrifying Russian cautionary tale.” 

Dreams die. But like a phoenix from the ashes, nothing prohibited dreams from changing, becoming something new.

Shane took in the rink for one last time, the banners, the seats, the place that had held his entire adulthood together for a decade. He turned toward the exit. As he walked back through the empty corridors of the Bell Centre, finally leaving Montreal behind, somewhere outside this arena was someone Shane couldn’t imagine not going toward. It had always been Ilya. 

*

Shane Hollander followed in the steps of O’Reilly, Eichel, Giroux, even Stone and Tkachuk. The Metros weren’t ready for eleven more months of drama, almost a year of nightmare-headlines bringing their PR people to their knees. Shane was not willing to extend, and Montreal was not willing to let him walk for nothing. Asset recovery, Shane told himself, that is what it was.

Shane did not expect a grand farewell. He had given up on that months ago, but ten years of his life disappearing behind an insider tweet felt absurdly small. 

He was sitting in his apartment when his phone started vibrating. Some pathetic part inside him wanted it to be the Metros group chat, even Hayden, maybe fucking Comeau of all people. But his screen lit up with Ilya’s messages, which was, in his book, always better.

Lily
Thursday 11:38 AM

holy shit

WAIT

you are

actually

coming here

fuck

jane

I love you

I love you.

I’ll call later?

in glasses and nothing else

thanks

Shane stared at the avalanche of texts following Ilya’s, unknown numbers asking for a statement, before opening Twitter.

Elliotte Friedman @elliottefriedmanofficial

Hearing Montreal and Ottawa are finalizing a major deal involving Shane Hollander.
TRADE:
To Ottawa: Shane Hollander
To Montreal: 2028 1st Round Pick, 2029 1st Round Pick, prospect Mathieu Fournier

Additional details pending.

His entire career fit inside two lines of text. Ten fucking years, three Cups, countless injuries, every version of himself reduced to a transaction. Ten fucking years, and Shane Hollander wasn’t worth a call before the official announcement. Ten fucking years, and with the snap of a finger, despite it being his own decision, the ties were severed beyond repair. Ten fucking years, and Montreal discarded him like others threw away a ticket to the cinema—a nice memory, but not worth keeping. The hockey world exploded.

NHLNews ✅ @NHLNews

THE END OF AN ERA: Shane Hollander traded by Montreal to the Ottawa Centaurs.

The reactions split exactly the way everything involving Shane split nowadays. Half the internet treated it like a funeral, the other half treated it like an escape. Both halves were somewhat right.

HockeyStatsGuy @expectedgoals

he literally had to get traded to leave a workplace that treated him like shit bc he’s gay. seriously y’all need to get a fucking grip, yeah, bc he’s an actual human being not a little puppet 

METROFOREVER @bleedmontrealblue

i dont fucking care what happened this hurts so fucking bad.

HockeysFaveLesbian @HockeyLesbian97

GOOD FOR SHANE HOLLANDER

PuckPolitics @puckpoliticshellyah

Important context: Ottawa acquired Hollander at approx. $2.5 million below projected market value. League executives expected significantly higher demands.
That will raise questions.

As it turned out, puckpoliticshellyah was a modern fucking prophet. Within an hour, nobody was talking about the trade anymore, but rather about the contract.

“Wait, wait, wait,” one analyst said, staring directly into the camera like this was a sketch on The Office. “Let’s look at these numbers again. The panel behind him displayed the details. AAV, term, the bonuses, everything that was open to the public. “That’s… lower. Um. Than anyone thought, right?”

“Much,” another analyst agreed. “We’re talking about one of the best, if not the current best, player in hockey.”

“Why would he take less?” Nobody had an answer, at least not one they could say out loud. 

The theories went rampant online. Shane was tired of media pressure and chose Ottawa despite a worse deal so he’d get calm. Shane wanted a fresh start. Shane was making a statement. Shane was broken and unstable, and Yuna Hollander was agreeing with whatever offer on the table to get her son out of the trenches. Shane was trying his best to rehabilitate his image. Shane was sacrificing money for control of the narrative. Shane hated Montreal and loved Ottawa.

The real answer sat unread in his phone.

Lily
Thursday 12:54 PM

i would have paid difference myself

i know is not how contracts work

still. coward

also other are going crazy right now

i think luca is dying

bood is already planning BBQ

team is screaming hollander

i think coach has tears 

*

The apartment felt bigger with half its life packed away. Shane had never thought much about the shelves until they were empty, and now they stood against the walls like exposed ribs, pale rectangles marking where photographs and books and meaningless clutter put there by his mother had once lived. Every room echoed faintly.

Tomorrow would be his first day in Ottawa as Shane Hollander, player for the Centaurs. 

He decided to not sell his Montreal apartment, so most of his things would remain exactly where they were. He’d still come back between road trips and games. Montreal would continue existing around him, at least for a while.

And yet the place already felt like somewhere he only used to live.

Shane sat on the couch surrounded by cardboard boxes. He had intended to finish packing, but over the last hour, he’d become distracted instead, digging through old possessions like an archaeologist excavating his own life. He’d never been the sentimental type, but as a battered equipment bag sat open beside him, hockey sticks raging from broken to retired condition sticking out of it, he felt that familiar clench of grief hitting him. His fingers brushed over faded tape before stopping on his own handwriting. Yuna. Some of the letters looked childish and crooked, some looked like they were written in a haste. A little I sat under his mother’s name on the more recent sticks. 

One even had Ilya’s signature scribbled on it, directly over Shane’s own writing, as if they were co-authoring vandalism. He still could hear Ilya laughing, seconds after he had finished crying as he saw his own initials on Shane’s equipment. 

Every object seemed determined to remind him how long all of this had been happening. Montreal. Ilya. Everything. 

He reached for another box and felt the edge of photographs, hundreds of them. Years compressed into glossy paper. Team dinners, road trips, Cup celebrations, charity events. Faces that Shane once believed to be permanent were now a distant reminder of what he’d lost. The passage of time sat heavily inside the stack.

His hand stopped on his own rookie photo. Fuck, he looked so young. Impossibly young. The suit hung awkwardly from shoulders that hadn’t fully broadened yet. His face still carried traces of adolescence. There was something open about his expression, untouched. Hopeful. Freshly drafted at eighteen, freshly terrified of his life beginning, the version of him that had walked into the Bell Centre believing everything would make sense eventually. Work hard, win games, stay forever, retire. Simple.

Shane Hollander’s future at eighteen had looked embarrassingly straightforward, but nobody had told him that futures rarely asked permission before changing shape, and nobody had mentioned that the Russian kid he’d disliked loved would become the defining relationship of his life, and nobody had mentioned that his sexuality would spend years sitting in the corner of every room waiting patiently for him to acknowledge it. Nobody had said anything about the careful version of himself built piece by piece lingering for a decade.

The photograph remained in his hands. Shane Hollander at eighteen didn’t know any of it, didn’t know about closets and secrets and spending years constructing a life around survival.

He grieved this version of him, this young boy who was deserving of an uncomplicated future, who believed that excellence would solve everything. 

His phone buzzed.

Lily
Saturday 04:20 PM

how many boxes

Too many.

throw away

become minimalist

You own over 400 books.

knowledge is not clutter

You own minotaur porn.

knowledge comes in many forms

But Shane’s eyes already drifted back toward the rookie photograph. That kid had arrived in Montreal thinking the organization would become his entire life. God, how wrong and right he had been at the same time. His entire career had been built on discipline, strategy, calculation. Every major decision had been filtered through agents and coaches and management and expectations.

Now, for the first time, he had made a choice that belonged exclusively to him. No wonder it felt terrifying.

Montreal glittered beyond the windows. The city that had made him. The city that had hurt him. The city that had demanded more, and more, and more, until Shane had nothing else to offer. 

The younger Shane Hollander would have been devastated by this, by the loneliness, the hiding, the disappointments. 

The older Shane Hollander understood that after all these years, after all the compromises and mistakes and fear, he was allowed to want. Want something only to himself. If that was a Russian idiot sitting two hours away, then, well. Maybe the version of sixty-year-old Shane Hollander could explain that one.

*

The first press conference happened three days later, the room packed so tightly with reporters it felt like a playoff scrum. Shane sat beneath Ottawa’s logo and tried not to think about how strange it looked behind him. The Centaur was ugly as hell. 

A reporter raised her hand. “Shane, why Ottawa?”

He considered the corporate answer, but discarded it. He left more than just his blue jersey in the Bell Centre. “I wanted somewhere I could play hockey.”

“Do you feel Montreal failed you?”

“I think a lot of people failed each other, if I may be frank.”

“Do you regret requesting the trade?”

The first truly certain thing passing his lips in months stumbled out. “No.”

The next question came from the back, a young, nervous reporter rocking back and forth on his heels. “Are you surprised by the amount of support you’ve received?”

For the first time all afternoon, Shane smiled. “Yeah.” Shane looked down at the table and thought about the messages. The athletes, the fans, people he had never met. Women in hockey speaking up for him. Queer and biracial kids shouting out his name online. Players quietly texting him from burner accounts because they didn’t feel safe doing it publicly. “I am, so much.”

*

Shane discovered that living with Ilya was mostly an exercise in surrender. Death by a thousand compromises. There was a record player now occupying valuable real estate beside the television in Shane’s house, and an increasingly alarming number of books colonizing every flat surface, and none of the blankets ever remained where Shane left them.

“How are you reading upside down again?”

Ilya looked up from his book, literally upside down. His legs hung over one arm of the couch while his head rested near Shane’s thigh. “I am reading?”

“That’s literally not what I asked.

“I am comfortable.” Demonstratively, Ilya sighed in content.

“You look like you got hit by a truck.”

“I am comfortable truck victim, then.”

Shane sighed. There was no winning these conversations. 

He had a book open in his lap as well, but the paragraph he had been trying to read for the last ten minutes blurred together. The trade discussions remained a constant headache, partly because social media still debated whether he was secretly orchestrating the downfall of professional hockey, and mostly because Ilya’s feet were dangerously close to Shane’s favorite scentless candle. It was a weird thing to notice, and an even stranger thing to care about, and yet Shane found himself looking at Ilya’s feet every few minutes. Just making sure nothing got knocked over.

“Have you always had trouble sitting normally on furniture, or is that something only reserved for my apartment?”

Ilya looked at him, the book he had been reading hitting his chest. The cover featured a man wrestling a bear. “Your apartment?

“Well. Yeah, it’s under my name.”

“Is only because you did not want to move in with me.”

“Ilya. Be so serious right now. How would we explain that?”

It was the same argument again, but it lacked any heat. It was almost domestic, in this backward Shane-and-Ilya-way many things were for them. Fucking before loving. Kissing before hand-holding. Thinking of marriage before living together. The last one may have been only Shane, though. 

“I don’t care,” Ilya drawled and went back to his book. “Will sit even more unnatural on couch in our home.”

“Promise?”

“Promise.”

*

As it was the case with many terrible and bad things, it started with a fan account on Twitter, one of those terrifying hockey accounts that somehow had omnipotent insight into where every player ate breakfast and which brand of toilet paper they preferred. Thousands of strangers collectively became deranged enough to build a smoking gun, and Shane and Ilya found themselves with targets painted on their backs.

Shane first noticed something was wrong because his mentions looked different. They had been for a while, but this was weirder. His entire timeline had become populated by screenshots, zoomed-in photographs with circles and arrows all over them like some kind of art project. People posted side-by-side comparisons like they were investigating a war crime. At first, he assumed it was another hockey thing, or another take on how did we not notice him being gay earlier. Someone argued about the Metros, someone debated whether the trade was really necessary.

And then he saw the hoodie.

VoyagingQueen @metrosfilmroom 

okay either i’m losing my mind or shane hollander and ilya rozanov have been wearing each other’s clothes for months

🧵 a thread (1/14)

The first image showed Shane entering practice in February, the second Ilya leaving an airport weeks later. They wore the same black hoodie with the same faded logo and the same tear near the pocket. The replies were mostly jokes.

Shane frowned, turning his screen toward Ilya. “What the fuck?”

Across the couch, Ilya barely looked up from his book. “Many people own hoodie.”

“They found the stitching repair.”

That got Ilya’s attention. “That is concerning.”

It should have died there, but instead it spread, since hockey fans had decided sleep was optional and respect was not anything to be reserved for hockey players. The next thread appeared six hours later. Then another. And another.

Each time Shane opened the app, somebody had discovered something new. A photograph from two years ago, an old charity gala, an Instagram story, the reflection in a restaurant window. Sometimes the same bookshelf appeared behind both of them months apart, or the same dog, or the same lamp, or the same coffee mug.

Shane Marry Me @rinkrat93 

either they’re dating or they accidentally became the same person. tbh both options are valid lol

Shane laughed at that one. His laugh disappeared by morning, because the internet had stopped joking.

HollanovArchive @hollzyrozyfan105 

THREAD 🧵every time Shane Hollander and Ilya Rozanov have mysteriously been in the same city during off-seasons (1/43)

The thread contained forty-three separate entries. Forty-three. Shane read seven before closing the app, realizing how many pieces of evidence people found even before the Irina Foundation. He wasn’t sure whether to be horrified or impressed by the dedication.

The real disaster arrived two days later. At 2:17 AM a brand-new account with zero followers, no profile picture, and no posting history uploaded a video. Just a video of grainy footage, shaky and clearly filmed from a distance. Somebody hid behind parked cars from the looks of it, somebody standing outside Shane’s Ottawa apartment building. Watching and video-taping. 

The video lasted twenty-eight seconds. Twenty-eight seconds that destroyed whatever remaining privacy Shane thought he had. He watched himself step out of a car, watched Ilya follow, after what had been a cute lets-watch-the-sunset-moment-turned-semi-public-fuck. Neither of them looked toward the camera because neither of them knew there was one. Nothing in the footage was dramatic, not necessarily. No kissing with tongue, no over-the-top love declarations (that had happened before), technically not even a real scandal. Two rivals-turned-friends hanging out. 

The microphone didn’t pick up what Shane said, but whatever it was made Ilya laugh, made him lean forward into Shane’s space, made Ilya kiss the crown of Shane’s head. Ilya shoved his shoulder, Shane grabbed his wrist, and for a moment, the video showed them standing close together, comfortable and unthinking, the kind of distance people only occupied when they were used to each other. Ilya reached up, then, and flicked Shane’s nose before letting his thumb trail over his freckles. A tiny gesture, by now pure instinct. Domestic. 

The video ended there, but the caption was the final nail in the coffin of Shane Hollander’s (and, by association, Ilya Rozanov’s) straight hockey career. 

IKnowWhatYouDid @hollanovfan4ever

looks like shane found a boyfriend after all

Shane stared at the screen. Each time the video started over, his stomach dropped lower, twisted tight. He must have made some noise as Ilya stirred awake slowly.

“What?” Fuck, his voice was deliciously rough and everything Shane didn’t need in this moment.

Shane turned the phone around, unable to speak, unable to do anything other than spiral into a deep panic. His breathing became labored and uneven, and Ilya’s eyebrows climbing high up his forehead didn’t help, either. The video played again, and again, and again. The silence that nestled into every crevice not taken up by Shane’s horror felt strange. They hadn’t been caught, not—not really. It could be passed off as night-drunk friendship behavior, that Shane was sure of, but with the other accounts and the chatter they incited, with Shane being uplifted and hailed as hockey’s gay ambassador?

“Someone was outside,” Shane said. “They were—fuck. They were here.” 

Ilya’s face was scrunched up, rage coloring his every feature. 

By the time both of them were able to form a coherent thought, the video had already surpassed three million views. By the time they sat on the couch to drink coffee, it was closer to eight. By lunch, every important sports outlet as well as every singular tabloid had picked it up. The headlines danced around what the internet was already proclaiming to be absolute truth, because nobody wanted to be the first to say it outright. It only guaranteed that, at one point, someone would.

SportsCenter ✅ @sportscenterofficial

Questions continue to emerge regarding the relationship between NHL stars Shane Hollander and Ilya Rozanov after social media footage went viral.

OpenSourceSports ✅ @opensourcemagazine

Between hockey’s secret and athlete privacy: When fans go too far. Read more at: opensource.com/news/sports/81241221

That article lasted about forty-five minutes before almost everyone ignored the privacy part completely.

4evastupido @superherostorytime

I don’t got a horse in this game, but man. That is ultimate stalkermaxxing. Thought hockey was, like, chill. They’re cute together, gotta say.

The trends started shortly afterward. Some of them Shane had seen over the years, but some were new. 

#hollanovisreal

#certifiedloverboyilyarozanov

#roommatesorlovers

Rose’s messages weren’t all that surprising.

Rose Landry
Sunday 09:23 AM

good morning, Shane

you accidentally broke hockey twitter

don’t open social media

I see now why we weren’t compatible

congratulations because HOT DAMN

also

I’m here for you

actually, do open hockey twitter

some stuff is, frankly, hilarious

She wasn’t fully wrong with that statement, but Shane found little power in himself to laugh.

Jenjen @shanehollandersleftnipple

the funniest part is that nobody found real proof of dating, just those two idiots being disgustingly domestic. they deserve it

GayGockeyAgenda @gaythehockeyaway

ilya kissing shane on the head and then shoving them is so jock of him. more intimate than if they’d been caught making out frfr

The posts accumulated by the hundreds, by the thousands, then tens of thousands, then close to hundreds of thousands. A collective investigation assembled by people who apparently had infinite free time and no regard for boundaries. The stitching on the hoodie was one thing, but them circling shadows in old Instagram pictures and taking it as gospel was another.

The thing that broke Shane in the end wasn’t even the speculation, or the emails he received from management, or the seventy-eight missed calls of his mother, or the headlines. The inevitable media storm gathering on the horizon was nothing compared to one reply buried underneath the original video with forty-seven thousand likes.

thisisme @user948373

honestly they don’t even look like hockey players here, they look so normal

Shane stared at it until his eyes went blurry, the battery draining and draining until the screen went dark. Normal. Not rival captains, not generational talents, not franchise cornerstones, not hockey’s Golden Boy being caught with hockey’s favorite Russian disaster. Just normal men laughing at something stupid being seen by the world for twenty-eight seconds exactly the way they saw each other. 

It was still suspicion and speculation wrapped in footage acquired by some animal, and yet everyone knew. The last secret in Shane Hollander’s life had finally become public property, all because somebody stood outside his home long enough to catch twenty-eight seconds of happiness.

*

The first night after the video surfaced, Shane didn’t sleep. It wasn’t by choice, but he simply never quite managed to get there. Nothing had changed, and yet the apartment felt wrong. It was the same couch, the same kitchen, the same floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the city, but sometime around midnight, it stopped feeling like home.

Shane stood in the living room staring out at the street below, the curtains he rarely drew shut hiding him. A handful of cars sat in yellow streetlights, which wasn’t unusual. There was nothing out of the ordinary, no crowd or reporters crawling around. He checked anyway.

Five minutes later, he checked the street again.

And again.

And again.

The problem wasn’t that he saw someone. The problem was that he couldn’t prove nobody was there, because somebody had been there and Shane hadn’t seen, a stranger had stood outside and had pointed a camera toward a private moment and decided it belonged to everyone instead of just them. His phone kept buzzing away, thousands of random internet warriors discussing footage that should never have existed.

He pulled the curtains even tighter, which felt almost violent, cutting off the city like that. Normally, the curtains remained open, something Ilya had established a long time ago, some bullshit about alarm clocks being unnatural and civilization peaking when people woke up with the sun. 

The apartment felt smaller and safer. He had never needed curtains before to feel safe.

At two in the morning, Shane found himself looking down from the balcony, his eyes grazing over parked cars, searching for shadows that moved. It made him sick, because Shane Hollander was used to lenses being shoved into his face. He had learned to smile for cameras and journalists long before he knew how to spell privacy. Sadly, privacy and safety were only one letter off, and Shane’s scrabble board that was his life held neither of the pieces to write any of it. 

“Shane?” 

He nearly jumped out of his skin, embarrassed and pathetic. There was no good explanation for standing fully clothed on his balcony at two in the morning, was there?

“I thought someone was outside.” The confession sounded wrong, and the words left a bitter aftertaste. “I keep thinking somebody’s there.”

Without saying anything, Ilya crossed the room in nothing but a blanket draped around his shoulders, and pulled the fabric apart that shut the world out. The city appeared again, and there was nothing. Nothing Shane hadn’t seen before.

“Look,” Ilya whispered. “Is no one there.”

But the last time Shane hadn’t checked, someone filmed them, and a moment that belonged to only them ended up online, and out there was a stranger who knew what their embrace looked like in the darkness, and who had exposed their intimacy for views and a scandal.

“I hate that they saw us,” Shane admitted, his forehead knocking into Ilya’s as they gravitated toward each other like they’ve always done. 

“They saw one moment.” Ilya’s voice was quiet. “They do not get the rest.”

The urge to check remained. Outside, somebody had stolen a moment. Inside, they were still standing together. Somehow, that distinction mattered enough to let Shane finally close the curtains for the night without peeking through them again.

*

Monday arrived, and hockey remembered it was hockey.

NHL News Network ✅ @NHLnewsnetwork

LEAGUE SOURCES: Questions have emerged regarding the timeline of Hollander and Rozanov’s alleged relationship. Several executives have privately raised concerns regarding possible tampering connected to Hollander’s recent trade request.

Yeah. Living through a forced coming out wasn’t enough, and someone else filming and publishing his longest kept secret apparently wasn’t, either. No. The media was full of sharks and Shane’s had become a wounded body left in the water to be ripped apart.

Google • hollander + rozanov relationship news

SPORTSNET | RELATIONSHIP TIMELINE UNDER SCRUTINY: League officials are reviewing communications between the two players as questions persist regarding the timing of Hollander’s trade request.

THE ATHLETIC | LEAGUE EXAMINING COMMUNICATION BETWEEN PLAYERS: Investigators have reportedly requested personal records and written statements from both players.

TSN | DID PERSONAL RELATIONSHIP INFLUENCE TRADE DEMAND?: The NHL has not indicated whether evidence of wrongdoing has been discovered.

CBC SPORTS | QUESTIONS REMAIN FOR OTTAWA FRONT OFFICE: Critics point to Hollander’s reduced contract demands and alleged relationship with Centaurs captain Ilya Rozanov.

The television mounted across from his couch showed another panel discussion, three former players, one insider, and one retired general manager casually placed around a table with microphones stuck into their faces. They were discussing Shane’s life like a courtroom exhibit.

“—look, I’m not saying rules were broken, but the optics are undeniably concerning.”

“Especially considering Rozanov moved to Ottawa before, you know—”

“Right! And now Hollander in Ottawa? Smells a bit like—”

“—the league has to investigate!”

Shane muted it, his phone face-down buzzing away beside him. Dim streaks of light stretched over the hardwood floor, little dust speckles gently settling atop his furniture, rain hammering against the windows. Ilya should have been his. The relationship reveal should have been theirs. It should have belonged to them. The first public appearance of him and Ilya as anything other than rivals or co-organizers for the Irina Foundation should have meant something different than becoming evidence.

The Athletic ✅ @theathletic

Currently no accusations are being made about Shane Hollander and Ilya Rozanov. At this stage there is no evidence of wrongdoing. Investigation seeks to establish timeline and facts regarding Hollander’s trade to the Ottawa Centaurs.

His fucking life sounded like a damn homicide case. Timeline, facts, circumstances, as if loving Ilya Rozanov was a crime. The investigation itself didn’t even bother Shane as much as it probably should have, it was just another thing hockey could do, another machine and bureaucracy to decide who a player was or what the league needed them to be. His real wound sat deep and raw, because people only got one first coming out, and now everything Shane had to come out about had turned into paperwork.

The NHL releasing its statement didn’t make him feel better.

National Hockey League

The League has initiated a standard review regarding communications and circumstances surrounding the recent acquisition of Shane Hollander by the Ottawa Centaurs. As of now, no conclusions have been reached and no allegations have been made. The review remains ongoing.

The comments on the NHL website filled second by second.

[Commentator] TommyHockey93: totally a normal investigation. people need to stop making everything about sexuality

[Commentator] KevinCorsales: if this was a straight couple i’d want investigation too

[Commentator] Rinkrat: crazy how nobody cared about ethics in tampering and trading until hockey had a homosexual couple

[Commentator] David: Let me get this clear. Players are allowed to be family. Players are allowed to be friends across the league, they are allowed to be at each others’ weddings, they are allowed to be godfathers to other players’ children (both on and off their teams), but Hollander and Rozanov are the ones being investigated? What is so different now? That it is a romantic relationship instead of a platonic one? That those two are hockey’s biggest assets? Miss me with “this isn’t about homosexuality”, because it sure fucking feels like it is.

The email that made this whole situation even more absurd and invasive arrived at 8:13 in the morning. Shane had an inkling of how bad it was before he even opened it—nobody sent twenty-three pages of attachments for good reasons. He sat at his kitchen counter, coffee cooling beside him, while the league’s legal department politely informed him what they would require of him and Ilya.

• Personal communications relevant to Ottawa acquisition discussions
• Communications with players, agents, management personnel, and family members
• Written statements regarding the timeline of the relationship
• Disclosure of conversations pertaining to future playing destinations
• Disclosure of conversations regarding contracts, roster construction, trade requests, and free agency
• Disclosure of conversations regarding contracts, roster constructions, training regimes, otherwise necessary information during Ilya Rozanov’s contract with the Boston Raiders and Shane Hollander’s contract with the Montreal Metros

Shane read the list twice, sent it to his mother, and then called Ilya.

“What is disclosure of conversations?” Ilya asked in lieu of a greeting.

“I think they want us to summarize our private conversations, you know, about literally everything hockey.”

Ilya was silent for a long time. “They want us to remember conversations? Every single one?”

“I don’t know. Yeah,” Shane answered.

“—is important that I want to fuck you on center ice, too?”

By the afternoon, they were sitting across from each other in Shane’s apartment. There was something strained between them still, and an investigation into their relationship didn’t necessarily heal all the wounds they’d inflicted on each other. A lawyer occupied the armchair, three hefty binders on the coffee table. Nobody seemed happy to be there.

“Let’s start simple,” the lawyer began. “When did your relationship begin?”

Neither of them answered, because the honest answer was complicated. The first time they said I love you? The first time they realized it wasn’t casual? The first time they slept together somewhere other than a hotel room? The first time they texted each other more than sexts? The first time they did a commercial together? The first time Shane hated seeing this Russian player on his laptop screen before they ever shook hands underneath a non-smoking sign? When?

Considering that the media still threw around the word alleged like confetti, this was their one chance to pull back. Deny, deny, deny. 

“This is already impossible,” Ilya said finally. 

Shane had denied himself enough. “We’ve officially been involved with each other since 2017.”

“During off-seasons, how much time did you spend together?”

“How is this relevant?”

“We’re attempting to establish the nature and duration of your relationship, Mr. Hollander. Therefore, all contact matters.”

The words sounded clinical, and they felt disgusting, like standing naked in public. Because off-season meant the cottage, or their apartments, or a country where no one cared for hockey and they could just be. This was his, and Shane wasn’t defending a trade request anymore, but private mornings in which he woke up to Ilya stealing the blankets, and Ilya making coffee, and Ilya sleeping diagonally across an entire bed like a psychopath. It belonged to them. 

“A lot. Next question.”

The lawyer pinched the bridge of her nose. The next request was worse. “We’ll need your text messages.”

Ilya blinked at Shane, and Shane blinked at Ilya. “All of them?”

“The relevant ones,” she continued.

“Relevant means what?” Shane asked.

“Anything discussing hockey matters.”

Ilya grabbed his phone, scrolled, and started laughing. He turned the screen around.

Jane
Mon, Jan 31 08:11 PM

thinking about your ass

We play each other tomorrow, asshole.

yes

still thinking about your ass

The lawyer closed her eyes. “Oh, my God.”

“There is not much hockey,” Ilya said helpfully.

Things got worse once they actually started searching. Months, years of their weird quips. Thousands upon thousands of messages.

Lily
Thu, Oct 28 2018 06:41 PM

good game

You, too.

you looked hot fighting me

Go away.

Lily
Thu, Mar 14 2020 06:41 PM

Ouch, rough loss.

yes

send pic with glasses

makes me feel better

You did score at least two goals.

Proud of you.

still send picture

Jane sent a picture.

Please remember to delete it later.

The lawyer eventually stopped reading aloud. 

Not even the texts in which they actually talked hockey seemed to matter.

Jane
Mon, Apr 8 2021 03:19 PM

you looked slow tonight

Three points and a primary assist.

slow

weak backhand

boo jane

You literally got walked by a thirty-sex-year-old defenseman last game.

gotta respect the elders

Jane took a screenshot.

Scott Hunter will be pleased to hear that.

jane

stop

jane

no

jane

baby

back to hockey yes

like

why do you keep trying to backhand pass through slot against me?

Because you’ll miss it eventually.

i have intercepted six times

And eventually you’ll miss it.

you sound like man with gambling addiction

And you sound like someone who’s getting scored on next week.

is promise?

Lily
Fr, Mar 27 2022 10:25 PM

I hate you.

is because I won yes?

You spent the entire third period following me around.

is called defense

Defense involves playing hockey.

i played hockey

You rammed me into the boards for no reason.

you seemed lonely

I’m reporting you.

to who 

The fucking Geneva Convention.

The unfortunate thing from the league’s perspective must have been that these messages actually were hockey discussions. Just not useful ones.

Lily
Sat, Dec 28 2017 07:24 PM

if we ever played on same team again, i would score fifty goals

You'd score because I carry you.

is not true

Fucking provably true.

It seems all your concussion made you forget All-Stars.

i would simply stand near net and be handsome

That’s already your entire offensive strategy.

you love it

God help me, I do.

Shane saw the lawyer scribble something down. Aggressive flirting through game analysis. She circled it thrice before putting her face into her hands.

The league requested emails next.

“We never email each other,” Shane said truthfully.

“Never?”

“We are not dinosaurs,” Ilya supplied. 

The lawyer wrote that down.

Then came the written statements, which were somehow the worst.

Please estimate the percentage of relationship conversations involving hockey.

Shane stared at the page. “Hockey in what sense? The history of hockey? The current league statistics? Player performance? Predictions based on commentary?”

The lawyer looked horrified and overwhelmed. “Hockey in the sense of—uhm. As stated in the email, roster constructions, trade deals, that kind of thing.”

“My team or Ilya’s team? Other teams? I need specifics,” Shane retorted.

“In general, Mr. Hollander.”

“I don’t know. Maybe, like, five percent? Everything regarding hockey? Maybe ten.”

The lawyer noted it down. Estimated hockey-related conversation content: 5%-10% (specifics need to be further discussed). 

On the very bottom of the twelve-page document that was supposed to cover every possibility for requesting a trade, a bit of space had been left. 

Please explain the circumstances surrounding your request to be traded from the Montreal Metros organization.

I requested a trade because

The events following my accidental outing created

The relationship between myself and the organization deteriorated due to

I requested a trade because I believed a change of environment would be beneficial to my professional development and long-term career goals.

Shane groaned. Every version sounded like just another press release, like it had been written by someone trying not to upset anyone. The same language he had always used. The investigation wanted a motive, the reporters wanted a scandal, the fans wanted a villain. He let the pen flow over the page slowly.

I requested a trade because my workplace became hostile after I disclosed information about my personal life. Ottawa has the reputation for being a kind locker room. 

The NHL was about to spend months investigating everything except that sentence, and they wouldn’t spend a second on considering the reason why one of the best players in the league had become desperate to leave in the first place. Nobody asked the Metros for a statement explaining why he had to. 

Fuck diplomacy.

I requested a trade because I spent months being treated like a problem due to the fact that I am a gay athlete. My teammates stopped passing to me, people decided discomfort was easier than loyalty, and management was more interested in containing controversy than addressing it while also not getting shit done (there’s still no clear answer to who leaked the footage of me coming out). 

Shane stared at his own handwriting and scratched it all out. There was only a little space left as he started writing again.

Why am I being asked to justify leaving? Why is nobody being asked to justify what happened after I came out? Why is the burden of explanation always assigned to the person who leaves?

Let them fucking investigate something useful for a change.

Shane found the entire thing to be ridiculous until interview day. It stopped being funny as they weren’t allowed to be in the same room. Separate investigators, separate recordings.

Shane sat beneath fluorescent lights, a bottle of water waited beside a digital recorder. The investigator smiled politely, the kind of smile people used before asking invasive questions. Shane had seen it once before and still cursed out Rose Landry for being so damn perceptive.

“When did your relationship become romantic?”

Shane rubbed his forehead. “Uh—do you want the hockey answer or the real answer for that one?”

The investigator paused. “The real answer, please.”

“I don’t know. When I shook his hand before we were even in the NHL? When he made me food at his house? There’s a lot of possible answers.”

That answer appeared to frustrate everyone involved. Shane was sure that the only thing they’d find out is how bad Shane and Ilya were at communicating. The questions kept coming.

“Did Mr. Rozanov encourage you to seek a trade?”

Shane thought about it. “He did message me once that he was requesting a trade for me to a civilized society. He did also tweet that if the Metros were unappreciative of generational talent, there’d be approximately thirty-one other teams capable of basic human respect. Other than that, no.”

“Did he discuss Ottawa as a preferred destination?”

“No. He did not know I was being traded to Ottawa until the official announcement.”

“Did you discuss playing together?”

“Everybody discusses playing together,” Shane defended himself. That one was just normal hockey talk. “Hockey players spend half their lives saying, imagine if we played together, bro.”

Then came the question that made Shane lose all patience. “Did your romantic involvement influence your desire to join Ottawa? Would you have requested the trade to Ottawa if Mr. Rozanov played elsewhere?”

The rage that had been building up inside Shane bubbled over. “Would you ask a straight player that?”

“That’s not—”

“No, be so serious for one second.” Shane leaned forward, fingers spread on the table as he pressed his palms into the cold surface. “If I married a woman in Ottawa, would we be sitting here?” 

“Mr. Hollander, we are sitting here because you and Mr. Rozanov are both players of—”

“I think you may have misunderstood me. Do you have these investigations for brothers? For cousins? Do you make them sit down in a room and ask them increasingly personal questions? Do you make them hand in all their text conversations? Do you strip them naked the same way, or is this something reserved for queer players only?”

“Mr. Hollander, please answer the question.”

“I think the more relevant question would be if my workplace treating me like shit influenced my desire to leave, but I have the feeling that’s not one of your bullet points, is it?”

The investigator blinked and shook their head. They scribbled notes for two more hours before Shane and Ilya were let go.

When they finally reunited afterward, neither looked particularly alive. Shane collapsed onto the couch and Ilya dropped face-first beside him. 

“How was yours?” Shane asked. They had driven in different cars as suggested by Yuna. Better impression. 

“They asked if I discussed roster construction with you,” Ilya groaned. “I said yes, but was only complaint because we have weak powerplay.”

Shane laughed, and then went back to serious. “They asked me when I first realized I loved you.”

Ilya lifted his head, a question written into his face. 

“I told them that it wasn’t a hockey question.” Shane smiled. “And then I explained the feeling of laughing with you at center ice for the CCM shoot. That may have been very early, but—”

Shane got a crooked smile in return. “Is okay. I am handsome like devil and made you happy, is natural to fall in love with me.”

“Fuck off, Rozanov.” Shane took Ilya’s hand into his own, let his thumb drift over Ilya’s knuckles. “You know what’s fucking insane about all of this? They’re going to spend weeks reading through our texts. Eighty percent of them are you asking for fucking nudes.”

Ilya considered this, then nodded. “Is very strong defense strategy.”

The cruelest part came three weeks later with the preliminary report being published. The league had found nothing substantial or actionable, nothing they could ever punish. But it didn’t even matter by then, as the story had already changed. The headlines people remembered weren’t about Shane Hollander finally being openly gay, or about the video, or the years of hiding, or the courage it took to take all this in stride. The headlines people remembered were about an investigation taking place. Words like tampering and league reviews and conflict of interest were thrown around. The first openly queer relationship, despite neither Shane nor Ilya officially confirming it, had been transformed into an administrative dispute.

Sitting in a conference room answering questions from league lawyers after the only thing they found was that Ilya and Shane were perversely horny for each other and masters of miscommunication, Shane found himself thinking the same thing he had thought after the locker-room leak. 

Funny. Every time the truth was told about himself, somebody else got to decide what the story was actually about.

People thought Shane was abandoning Montreal, choosing his boyfriend over his team, that he was selfish and distracted by Ilya, whereas Ilya got accused of manipulating Shane, seducing him to tell Metros’ secrets, engineering the trade, and being a foreign influence to Canada’s Golden Boy. While the league pretended to be investigating competitive integrity, all they discovered was that Shane Hollander and Ilya Rozanov were simply two men who had the misfortune of falling in love with each other.

The irony wasn’t lost on Shane.

For years, he had imagined the truth as something liberating. A door, or a key, maybe even the finish line. If people knew, then he wouldn’t have to hide anymore. He wouldn’t have to split himself into compartments. There would be no more hiding, no more careful pronouns to be used with the world, no more rehearsing innocuous answers before interviews. 

But the truth had become public property and everyone wanted access to it. Reporters wanted timelines, the league wanted evidence, strangers on the internet wanted explanations, fans wanted statements, investigators wanted records of conversations Shane was barely able to scrape together. Visibility, as it turned out, was not the same thing as freedom. Visibility simply meant more people were able to scrutinize. 

His whole life, he had confused being seen with being understood. They were, sadly, not the same thing. People have seen Shane since he put his feet on the ice. Very few have actually known him. 

*

Shane spent an entire afternoon sitting on his couch scrolling through years of messages he had never properly read. The investigators didn’t ask him to, as they already had everything copied, but he couldn’t stop himself. It had all started with Lily and Jane, and they deserved to be acknowledged.

Outside, Ottawa sat buried beneath a storm. Inside, Shane sat cross-legged with his phone in his hand, excavating his own life. He had always deleted very little, despite all the agreements Ilya and he had made over the years. Maybe a message with an accidental name drop, maybe a text that could lead back to Hollander and Rozanov, but other than that? The messages stretched backwards through years, through his entire adult life. 

There were entire conversations built from insults and hockey arguments and increasingly ridiculous photographs. Pictures of airports. Memes so old they barely made sense anymore. The sort of communication that looked meaningless until someone removed it from its original context and laid it out end-to-end. Shane saw the patterns emerging, saw how it changed from Regina to Vegas to Boston to Montreal to Tampa to Ottawa and back, saw how hairline cracks fractured the lie about being casual they had held on so dearly, something one would only ever notice in hindsight.

Lily
Thu, Mar 14 2013 06:12 PM

landed

Okay.

is all?

What else do you want?

you

Congratulations on surviving commercial aviation.

incredible dirty talk

They hadn’t even fucked at that point. It was just sitting there, years old, and Ilya so hell-bent on getting Shane to fold, unaware that feelings were slipping through the crack because neither of them knew that they were allowed to have those for each other.

Lily
Sun, Nov 25 2015 01:13 AM

your last game sucked

Why are you still awake?

because

why are you

Because.

wow

Next game against you will be more entertaining.

i know

will be even better after

if i win i want to fuck you on the stairs

And if I win?

then you want me to fuck you on the stairs

easy

There’s windows everywhere.

good

let them see

Okay.

The investigators wanted to know when they became involved, but Shane wasn’t so sure anymore. What even meant being involved? The sex had happened quickly, easy enough to chart on a calendar. One date, one hotel room, one terrible decision that had somehow become the center of his life. But the relationship started happening before either of them were aware of it.

Lily
Thu, Mar 30 2017 07:24 PM

cannot sleep

Jet lag?

head is loud

Call me.

Call time: 02:24 hours

someday you will understand russian

will be bad day for me

Why?

need to learn other language to keep secrets from you

Maybe just no secrets?

maybe

maybe yes

Shane remembered the phone call, how Ilya had slipped into Russian the more aggravated he grew. Remembered how nothing important was being discussed, how neither of them rushed to fill the silences. It was always Lily who had conversations with Shane when neither of them wanted to be alone.

Lily. That practical, fake solution, the safety measure, the joke that had somehow become permanent. Boston Lily. For years, whenever Hayden was just a tad too interested, or when public visibility became too dangerous, or whenever Shane needed a friend, Lily existed. 

“Mr. Hollander, is there a reason why Mr. Rozanov is saved as Lily?”

Shane had stared, had sucked in a breath. “Look at the current situation. Why would two high-caliber athletes with our history not want everyone to know that we had each other’s phone number?”

It had gone into the notes, devoid of any emotion. 

It was Lily in Shane’s contacts, and Lily who sent messages, and Lily who received nudes, and Lily who got birthday texts, and Lily who sent increasingly unhinged texts when Shane flew during bad weather, and Lily who reminded him to eat, and Lily who called after losses, and Lily who celebrated wins, and Lily who knew every version there was to know about Shane Hollander. Lily was the box where dangerous feelings could live, where the carefully manufactured personality his mother had spent decades helping him construct rested and the actual person underneath emerged. 

Lily was proof that they had spent years building a life together before either of them possessed the language for it. A whole relationship hidden inside a fake name, a whole timeline that felt like snowfall, or like rust, or like water carving canyons. Jane and Lily had the gift of being slow and steady, whereas Hollander and Rozanov never had the same luck.

The most important relationship in Shane’s life was hidden in plain sight, protected so thoroughly that even Shane himself hadn’t fully understood what he was looking at. Teenage boys who supposedly hated each other found each other in secret messages over and over again, two planets getting dragged toward each other, a boy from Russia who kept showing up, and a boy from Canada whose love rooted into his phone. They had chosen each other the second they became Lily and Jane.

Ilya Rozanov belonged to everyone, whereas Lily belonged to only Shane. The irony made Shane want to laugh—half the internet had spent hours upon hours and tweets upon tweets demanding honesty and transparency, yet the most truthful thing in his life had existed under a fake name. 

*

Shane was sitting on the floor when the text arrived. There were chairs available, but he had stopped making sensible decisions somewhere around the forty-two day mark of Hockey Twitter conducting a forensic investigation into his love life. Ilya had disappeared hours ago after muttering something about needing fresh air before he committed a felony. Shane hadn’t asked for clarification.

His phone buzzed with an unknown number. Shane assumed it was another reporter.

Unsaved Contact
Monday 04:02 PM

hey hollander

this is cliff marleau

heard hockey internet is being weird

don’t answer if you’re busy or having a breakdown

or if you’re doing crime

Hi.

great, you’re alive

before i go further, i gotta ask man

u r jane, right

And what use was it to lie anymore? 

Yeah.

thank fuck

always knew jane would be a bad ass

now that that’s outta the way

you okay?

The question sat there for a second. Not how is Ilya? Not are the rumors true? Not what are you going to do? 

No, not really.

figured

for what’s worth

the stalking thing is so fucked up

and you two are fucking perfect for each other 

so

yeah

Thanks.

can i tell you something without sounding weird

Go for it.

you know ilya loves you right

like, now that i’ve put together the jane-shane thing

it’s so fucking obvious and like

no wonder he has been so down for jane all this fucking time

sometimes i don’t think he knows how obvious it is

has been tbh

What do you mean?

everybody thinks rozy is so emotionally constipated

which is true

but like, they don’t speak rozy 

It is a hard language to learn.

fucking true brother

when i broke my wrist he showed up at my apartment every day for a week

never said anything supportive

just brought groceries and called me an idiot

when my granny got sick he drove six hours to sit with me in a hospital waiting room

spent most of it complaining about hospital chairs

that’s how he does love

I know. 

He’s complicated like that.

true that

and whenever montreal jane messaged

he got this huge fucking smile on his face and wouldn’t let anyone bother him over it

so like

idk even know where i am going with this but like

the raiders support you okay

and i know he’s a centaur now but like

he’ll always be our fucking captain and we’ll always stand with him

guess you’re also a centaur now

big beaver bitches

means we’re also standing with you, hollzy

Wouldn’t it be better you text him that?

yeah but i know him and i gather he’s with you 

meaning he’ll ask you if anybody talked to you today

and he’ll care a lot

and i think it does both of you good to know you’re not alone in this

take care of yourself yeah?

he’s always been really bad at functioning when montreal jane was hurting

don’t tell him i said that

he’s not my captain and yet i know he’d find a way to make me do bag skates

Thank you, Cliff.

I know what’s coming, but he’s worth it.

I love him.

Thank you for letting me know I’m not the only one who’d fight for him.

roger that 

also if anybody films you outside your apartment again

we will use our skates as weapons

raiders know how to cut a bitch

I have the feeling I need to delete that message for legal reasons.

But I second that idea.

fuck yeah

bad ass montreal jane

always fucking knew it

message you later, hollzy

love ya

Take care, Cliff.

Thank you.

*

The gym smelled faintly of stale, cold air and whatever industrial cleaner community centers used. A dozen children occupied the ice surface beyond the glass. Some skated confidently, and others resembled newborn deer attempting a coordinated escape from gravity.

“Head up, buddy.” The little boy looked down. Shane sighed. The kid looked no day older than eight, his too-big helmet crooked atop unruly black locks, one skate lace half-undone. “Okay, new strategy. I’m going to hold up fingers, and you tell me how many.”

The kid blinked, then squinted. Shane held up three. “Three,” the boy said.

Shane switched to four. “Four?”

“Excellent. You’re a genius,” Shane replied, and the child beamed at him. 

Before Shane could explain to him how important concentration and actually looking up was during skating, somebody behind them screamed in what sounded like excitement. Shane turned and saw a quite usual sight: Ilya lying dramatically on the ice, flat on his back, children in various stages of laughter and nervousness around him. One of them was poking Ilya’s shoulder, another was attempting to steal his glove.

“Coach Rozanov died,” a little girl announced gravely.

“Oh, no!” Hunter belted from somewhere. “So tragic! What a terrible loss for hockey!”

Thankfully, children weren’t attuned to sarcasm quite yet, so the little girl just nodded. “Should we call an ambulance?”

Shane skated closer. “No, no need.”

She pointed at Ilya. “Sure?”

Shane pointed back, shrugged his shoulders. “He does this every week.”

The supposedly dead man abruptly sat upright. “I heard that.”

The children scattered, and Ilya chased them. The gym erupted into chaos.

The Irina Foundation had never been particularly sophisticated, Shane supposed as he watched Ilya pretending to be caught by a polar bear, and that is probably why it worked. No one here treated the children like future NHL draft picks, and no one cared who scored the most goals. Most of the kids couldn’t afford the expensive equipment, so winning didn’t matter as much as being there did. The foundation existed because Irina Rozanova had put the belief into her son that children deserved to feel welcome somewhere. 

Shane spent most of his time correcting skating posture and tying laces, while Ilya spent most of his time behaving like an escaped zoo animal. Somehow, the combination worked.

“Mr. Hollander—uh. Shane?” 

Shane looked up, a girl beside him, maybe nine, maybe ten. She twisted the sleeve of her hoodie around her fingers.

“Yeah?” Shane asked, crouching down.

She hesitated, then held out a piece of paper. Shane recognized himself in the drawing at once, mostly because the artist had given him approximately fourteen Stanley Cups. The girl kept shifting nervously as Shane studied the stick figure with orange-colored freckles. “You can keep it,” she murmured.

“Wow. I—thank you,” Shane answered. A feeling tightened in his chest, something he had trouble naming. Pride, maybe. 

The girl nodded. “Mom says when somebody helps you, you should say thank you.”

Shane looked at the drawing again. Stick figure Shane in what he assumed to be a hockey rink. The attempt at perspective was questionable but admirable. “Your mom sounds very smart.”

The girl’s smile widened before she hurried away. Shane folded the paper carefully and slipped it into his pocket.

Later, after the session ended, parents filtered through the building and left behind an eerie silence. Shane and Ilya stayed late—as usual. 

“You know,” Shane said, kneeling on the floor sorting equipment donations while Ilya sprawled beside him, “most people with our level of fame spend summers on yachts.”

“I hate yachts. Word is stupid, doesn’t make any sense. Is why rink is  good word, yes? Is pronounced like it is spelled.” 

Shane snorted and continued sorting. 

*

Hayden Pike
Wednesday 02:48 PM

hey buddy

don’t know if you want to hear from me

but i wanted to say i’m sorry

i should have said something sooner

you didn’t deserve any of this

Shane stared at the messages and started laughing. It wasn’t funny, not at all, but he had wanted those exact words so badly to appear in his messages. There had been nights in Montreal where Hayden saying one fucking sentence to support Shane might have changed everything. Now it felt like receiving flowers after a funeral.

Sooner would have been useful.

yeah

i know

Somehow, that made Shane even angrier. Hayden didn’t even come up with excuses, he wasn’t defensive. He just agreed, like Hayden Pike understood perfectly.

Do you?

Because I spent months wondering if we were still friends.

And then I spent the other time wondering if I deserved losing you as a friend.

i know

sorry

You got to be uncomfortable. I got to lose everything.

If you know, then why the fuck didn’t you do anything to help me?

i thought 

i don’t know

i didn’t think it would get this far. i thought somebody smarter than me would fix it

Ah. So going to dinner with them and letting them ice me out was because you were just too overwhelmed with the simple task of being my friend?

And don’t tell me you didn’t, Hayden. There’s photos on fucking Instagram.

i didn’t want the team to get worse. i thought if i was with them i could

i don’t know

like stop them from saying shit when you weren’t there

Did you?

i tried

Well, thanks for fucking trying, I guess.

well

The bubbles indicated that Hayden was typing, stopping, typing again.

i guess it’s hard for the league to wrap their heads around this you know

it’s not fair

but maybe time will make things better again

Better? Better? Better fucking what? Praying and hoping for things to get better didn’t undo decades of silence the NHL inflicted upon players needing help. Hockey loved treating prejudice like weather, like it just happened and they were incapable of finding a solution, and Hayden stood there with his umbrella trusting Shane to wade out of the flood.

Whatever.

am i still allowed to come to camp this summer

Is your team okay with being seen with the gays? Wouldn’t want you to catch it.

shane

please

Fucking whatever. 

Yes.

The kids didn’t do anything wrong.

Don’t mistake that for forgiveness.

i won’t

Good. 

And if you’re going to show up, actually fucking show up this time.

The message sent and didn’t receive an answer. Shane wasn’t sure what Hayden expected from him, but the wound still festered; he wasn’t sure if Hayden hated him—probably not, not after all this time, but when Shane had needed his friend most, Hayden had chosen no real side at all. To Shane, that ended up being the same thing. Hayden had waited until it cost him nothing. Being at camp would not cost him his new C, and being seen with Shane and Ilya after the media storm would probably get spun into some bullshit-story about alleyship.

Shane stared at the screen for a long moment before typing again.

I think what hurts the most is that I don’t actually remember when I stopped expecting you to come to my defense.

He looked at the sentence after sending it. Shane could forgive the dinners and the outings and the silence, but what he would never be able to forget was that there had been a moment in all those months that Shane had stopped looking for Hayden altogether. 

*

The camp ended hours ago, the rink going quiet in that way community rinks always did after children left. The echoes lingered longer than the people. A forgotten water bottle sat beneath the bleachers, someone had left a tiny hockey glove on a bench, things like that. The smell of sharpened steel and melting ice still hung in the air. Outside, dusk settled slowly over Ottawa.

Shane sat on the back steps of the rink with his phone in one hand and a paper cup of coffee in the other. The coffee had gone cold, but he sipped on it away.

Behind him, the door creaked open. Ilya emerged carrying two folding chairs. “You know these exist for reason, yes?”

Shane didn’t look up from his phone. “Put them away. I’m already sitting here.”

Ilya stopped. “Is terrible argument.” He stared at Shane for a second before abandoning the chairs beside the wall and dropping down onto the concrete. 

These days, the silence between them felt different. Four months of arguing, explaining himself, defending his relationship, and hoping that it would all soon stop had made him tired. He looked at the fading sky, his screen stuck on another article anatomizing the nature of his trade followed by an opinion piece of two hockey players going home together. Journalists tried to elucidate his own life to him too much for his tastes.

Ilya’s eyes briefly swept over his phone, and then followed Shane’s own gaze. There was no curiosity, no outrage, no surprise. Just another article with another narrative and another stranger deciding what was happening. 

Shane rubbed a hand over his face. “You know what’s, like, weird?”

Ilya looked at him sideways. “Many things. Aliens. Katy Perry still being relevant. Pike having professional athlete career.”

“Fuck, be serious. Also, you literally had your arms over Hayden’s shoulders not even an hour ago. Come off your high horse.”

“Was for photos. I am, as people say, very charitable.”

“Shut up.” Shane laughed. “I always thought if people knew the truth, everything would make sense. They’d see why I’ve fallen for you, and they’d understand that being gay is not something I chose, and they’d understand why I left the Metros.”

Ilya looked at him incredulously. “Yeah? How did that work out for you?”

“Fucking poorly.”

The corner of Ilya’s mouth twitched, his face still turned toward the empty parking lot. The evening air carried the lingering chill of melted ice, and somewhere beyond the rink, traffic hummed softly. A few mosquitoes drifted lazily around the floodlights. 

Shane stared at the article on his screen again.

Why Shane Hollander’s Move to Ottawa Still Doesn’t Add Up: Relationship Timeline Between Shane Hollander and Ilya Rozanov Under Increased Scrutiny Amid League Investigation
By Sarah McKenna
Senior NHL Reporter
Published June 13, 2024 • 8:37 AM EDT | 8 min read

As though Shane was a math problem dying to be solved, as though every decision he had ever made needed to be audited. “They always want one answer,” he said eventually. “The trade happened because of you. The tampering investigation happened because of us. The Metros situation happened because I’m gay. Everything has to fit into one clean narrative.”

Ilya snorted. “Is because people are stupid.”

“No, they’re fucking boring and inept,” Shane retored. He took another sip of coffee and regretted it as it slid down his throat. “None of this is just—one thing. You’d probably need a thousand stories alone to explain the complexities of our story to anyone, and yet everyone tries their hardest to press it into a single headline.” 

“I keep telling you, is what people on the internet write about—”

“Ilya, I am so serious right now. Not your fanfiction again.” Shane laughed, but it turned humorless quickly. “I spent fucking years pretending to be immune to being different. I was fucking proud of it, too, you know. I’d brush off the questions about being Japanese, and played it cool when someone called me fucking Tokyo or Ching-Chong. I was successful, and that was everything I needed to be, right? Turns out I was just profitable.”

Ilya didn’t respond. Shane had come to appreciate it. Months ago, Ilya would have interrupted, argued, challenged, turned everything into a knife fight. Now, he sat there and listened.

Shane continued. “I kept making deals with people who never knew they were negotiating. Not white enough? Score more goals. Not straight enough? Win another Cup. People weren’t allowed to reject me if I did my job, right?”

“You know what is funny?” Ilya asked.

“That’s a dangerous opening if I ever heard one.”

“I spent my whole life doing exact opposite,” Ilya admitted. His voice carried no self-pity. “I decided very young that people would not accept me, so I never tried. When I came over from Russia, people already had opinion about Putin’s hockey son, anyway.” Ilya shrugged. “I did what people expected of me.” Resignation colored Ilya’s words as he counted on his fingers while speaking. “I get in fights, I swear, I sleep with everybody. Perfect Psycho Russian for Americans to love and hate. Is easier to control joke if I am the one to make it, yes?”

It struck Shane, that the wounds inside them came from the same weapon. They may have taken differing shapes, but they had been cut by the same thing: expectations that could never be met. 

“It’s so fucked up that I always thought you were so—free,” Shane whispered. “You never seemed scared to me. You kissed me in that hotel room like it was nothing, and you put on the Raiders mask like it was nothing, and you bared your teeth at journalists like nothing could ever get to you. You always looked like somebody who just did whatever he wanted.”

Ilya barked a laugh. “Genuinely insane thing to say. I was fucking terrified. You think sleeping around made me brave?” He shook his head. “It made me unavailable. I could leave before people left me, was much easier.”

The truth hit Shane harder than expected, an uncomfortable clarity cloaking his thoughts. He recognized that strategy, keeping people an arm’s length away. Whereas Ilya had sex, Shane had weaponized perfection. Different roads with the same destination.

“I still kind of hate it,” Shane said quietly. “You sleeping around so much.”

Honesty felt easier now. It had to. Lying was taxing and tiring.

“I know.” Ilya’s expression was soft. “You have same face every time someone mentions it.” Which was, unfortunately, the truth. “Is also because you are jealous.”

“I am not jealous.”

“You are.”

Shane rolled his eyes. “I think, for a long time, I was angry because I thought you were choosing those people over me. I was too young, maybe too blind, to realize you were trying to survive.”

Ilya hummed and let the silence stretch before he picked up his words again. “I thought same thing about you. Not—not the people. But choosing. I thought you chose hockey over me.” 

It hurt, because it was true. Well. It had once been true. Shane stared out at the darkening horizon, saw the investigation dance before his eyes, the trade, the outing, saw how it all tangled together. 

“You know,” Shane murmured, “sometimes I think we spent a fucking decade misunderstanding each other in increasingly creative ways. What a fucking dynasty we could have had if we managed to get our shit together quicker.”

“Could have learned communication earlier.”

“Don’t be ridiculous, Rozanov.”

The sound of their laughs echoed through the empty parking lot. 

“I fucking love you, Ilya.”

“I love you, sweetheart. And dynasty will come now, yes? Ottawa will be like our kingdom. Maybe Luca can be Simba, and I can hold him over rink—”

“You are a lunatic,” Shane chuckled, pressing his palm against the side of Ilya’s face and shoving him away. Ilya caught Shane’s wrist before he could pull away completely. 

Tomorrow there would be more articles, Shane was sure of it. Some reporter would write another piece about his contract. Someone else would decide his relationship explained every decision he had ever made. The investigation would continue until it came to a final conclusion, and the league would continue pretending it had not already reached its conclusion.

The world would not suddenly become kinder because Shane finally understood himself. 

Shane leaned his shoulder against Ilya’s. At least he wasn’t alone. Ahead of them stretched a new team, a new city, possibly a marriage neither of them had quite figured out how to discuss yet, and a league that was determined to make their lives difficult at every opportunity. For once, Shane chose not to look away from any of it.

Chapter End Notes

Thank you so much for reading. I tried something a little different with my writing style in this and I hope it fits the vibes. It's a lot choppier than I normally choose for stories, but I think it reflects this turbulent times for Shane's life well.
Also: I deliberately did not put any Centaurs-Shane interaction into this chapter. There was already so much happening and I guess I do love leaving the door open to explore more of this universe.