Rating:

Teen And Up Audiences

Archive Warning:

No Archive Warnings Apply

Category:

M/M

Fandoms:

Heated Rivalry (TV), Game Changers Series - Rachel Reid

Relationship:

Shane Hollander/Ilya Rozanov

Characters:

Shane Hollander, Ilya Rozanov, Hayden Pike, Jackie Pike, Yuna Hollander, David Hollander, Original Characters, JJ Boiziau, Cliff Marlow | Cliff Marleau, Montreal Voyageurs | Montreal Metros Team Ensemble (Game Changers), Boston Bears | Boston Raiders Team Ensemble (Game Changers), Ottawa Centaurs Team Ensemble (Game Changers), Scott Hunter (Game Changers), Kip Grady

Additional Tags:

Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, POV Multiple, POV Outsider, Social Media, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, Montreal Voyageurs | Montreal Metros Being Assholes (Game Changers), Montreal Voyageurs | Montreal Metros WAGs Group Chat (Game Changers), WAG Ilya Rozanov, Hayden Pike Has a Crush on Shane Hollander, Hayden Pike Finds Out About Shane Hollander/Ilya Rozanov, Overuse of original characters (Voyageurs and WAGs), Secret Marriage, Lengthy descriptions of Canadian Immigration because I'm a Canadian Immigrant, Twitter, Mix of prose and social media, The Pike-Hollander cuck theory, soft launching for comedy reasons, Secret Relationship, Minor Original Character(s), Immigration & Emigration, No beta I just die instead, Embedded Images, Crack Treated Seriously, COVID-19 Lockdown, Relationship Reveal, Established Relationship

Language:

English

Series:

Part 1 of Operation O Canada

Stats:

Published: 2026-03-11 Completed: 2026-05-01 Words: 118,812 Chapters: 8/8

Operation O Canada, or The Hollander-Rozanov Method of Soft Launching a Marriage

Summary

“Can’t hang out tonight, Hayd. I have plans.”

“Bullshit,” Hayden responds. “You never have plans.”

Objectively, this used to be true. Nowadays Shane has many, many plans, between his nightly plans to look at Ilya’s penis through Skype and his various long-term plans laid out helpfully in his notebook, Canva (For Ilya’s sake. He is a visual learner), and more recently, Excel. Shane loves that excel sheet. He’s colour coded it.

 

In 2017, Shane Hollander spirals and proposes to his boyfriend of 4 days (or 7 years, or 9 years, or not his boyfriend at all, depending on how you look at it), which leads to a lot of plans, weird theories in the Montreal Voyageur locker room, some Twitter drama, and Ilya Rozanov entering his WAG era.

Notes

The concept for this fic was born when my wife and I watched HR and had such a passionate reaction to the "I could marry Svetlana" scene that we had to pause to debrief. It took us 3 hours to finish the episode. This is because we are in the midst of our own Canadian citizenship journeys and have extensive experience with 1. eloping in Ontario for added security (also, because fuck it we love each other so why not), 2. Applying for (and getting, yippee!) Canadian permanent residency, and 3. Being really intense about planning and timelines

Anyways. When WE decided to get married and apply for PR together, we had a whole notebook we filled with notes and research and excel got involved and all that jazz...and I wanted to infect Shane Hollander with the same brainworms I have.

Note that I have experience with express entry (we are both immigrants so spousal sponsorship wasn't an option lol) so I’m a little less familiar with spousal sponsorship

Anyways I started this and then I kept going and now it’s gotten really far away from me and probably has some tonal whiplash because sometimes I wrote chunks while cornplating and sometimes I wrote chunks when I was so tired that everything felt hilarious to me

 
KEEP CREATOR'S SKIN ON IF YOU ARE ABLE TO!!! It should still be legible if turned off but I haven't made it completely accessible yet
THE WHATSAPP GROUP CHATS AND THE IOS CHATS SCROLL!!!! SCROLL THROUGH THEM!!!! Also I'm sorry if they're a little broken and wonky, I haven't worked with HTML since 2005

Also yes I do POV jumping Yes I know this is a crime No I do not care

UPDATE (APRIL 28): IF THE IMAGES DO NOT LOAD, CHECK THE ALT TEXT! I have added alt text to most images except for profile images (they aren't necessary). Anything else within the tweets should have some description in the alt text. Standalone images that are plot-relevant should now have in-fic image descriptions as well.

Chapter 1: 2017

Intro: July 2017

"Hayden is going to be so upset," Shane says idly, fidgeting with a button on the cuff of his suit jacket. “I was the best man at his wedding, and he doesn’t even know I’m getting married.”

Ilya rolls his eyes so hard that they threaten to pop out of his head. “I don’t want to think about Hayden Pike on my wedding day.” 

Shane frowns, remembering how excited Hayden was to have Shane stand next to him during his own insane u-haul wedding (a mere 6 months after meeting Jackie at a nightclub, much to the horror and delight of everyone in his life), and feeling guilty that he wasn’t returning the favour during his own insane u-haul wedding (a mere [almost] 10 years after meeting Ilya outside of a hockey rink, which objectively-speaking isn’t u-hauling in the slightest, except it feels like it is given that they agreed to get married a month ago and the only people who know are themselves, Shane’s parents, Svetlana, and a handful of employees of Ottawa City Hall). Hayden was ecstatic during his entire wedding, something that he felt the need to tell Shane approximately once every 15 minutes (by throwing his entire body at Shane’s in a bear hug, pressing his lips up to Shane’s ear, and telling him in detail how happy he was that Shane was there with him and Jackie). Looking back, Shane’s pretty sure he was the last person to leave the venue besides the happy couple themselves. He had tried to leave early, but Hayden didn’t let him. Shane tried to leave several times, actually, but Hayden’s grip on his wrist was vice-like and he kept putting on his most pathetic, big-eyed facial expression he could. Shane isn’t a monster; he couldn’t leave his best friend pouting like that at his own wedding reception. Hayden even tried to drunkenly invite Shane back to their hotel room to hang out more, but thankfully Jackie swooped in to save Shane (and also her own wedding night).

Shane Hollander feels the need to think about Hayden Pike on his wedding day because Hayden Pike definitely felt the need to think about Shane Hollander on his wedding day.

Now that Shane thinks about it, Hayden’s wedding was…weird…not that his isn’t also weird. This is an extremely different type of weird. 

“You have…” Ilya begins, snapping Shane out of his memories. “What is the phrase? Your feet are cold?”

“What? No!” Shane responds. “Well, that is the phrase, yes, cold feet.”

“Which…you do not have?”

“Which I do not have.” Shane smiles at Ilya, taking his hand. “Let’s do this.”

June 2017, one month earlier

Shane couldn't sleep. 

Ilya, bless him, was out like a light, snoring like a truck engine. It should be annoying, but instead Shane is disgustingly endeared by it. Ilya sleeps like he is a heat-seeking missile, cramming his massive body into every point of contact it can with Shane's own body. When Shane first sat up in the bed 2 hours before, finally coming to terms with the fact that he would not be sleeping tonight, Ilya was comfortably next to him but not actually touching him. Now, Ilya has practically thrown himself over Shane's lap, head shoved into Shane's stomach and snoring into him. There is a growing wet spot on Shane's t-shirt he is trying to ignore. He thinks it might be drool, or condensation from the sheer force of the snores Ilya is breathing into the fabric. 

Conveniently, this position means that Shane can use Ilya as a lap desk as he taps away at his iPad. God, this iPad sucks. He probably should have brought his laptop with him.

He’s using Canva on his iPad, which he finds has more visually-interesting options than Google Slides, not to even mention the disappointment that is Keynote. It's not that the visuals of this particular presentation mattered, since Shane went with a subdued dark red and white-toned pre-made theme. Canadian colours, sort of, if the flag was slightly darker and had some more grey tones in it. Despite knowing the theme was unimportant (after all, the point of this presentation is just to give Ilya a visual rundown of everything Shane wanted to propose, figuratively and literally), Shane had agonized over themes for a solid 20 minutes, tapping back and forth between a black and yellow one (Ilya would be fond it of, perhaps, since it's the Bears colours), a red and blue one (visually, it looked terrible, but Shane had envisioned Ilya's face when he realized he was looking at a Voyageurs-themed presentation and thought it would be hilarious, but there's nothing about this presentation that should be hilarious), and a theme that was a mix of relaxing green and brown tones, not dissimilar to the land surrounding the cottage, but slightly too cutesy for Shane’s taste, even if the little cartoon bear graphic that popped out of some of the slide options tugged at his heartstrings a little. 

This is a serious presentation, perhaps the most serious presentation Shane will ever give in his life. The red and white one was cleanly professional and also made sense in the context. The context in question is: oh, my fucking god, Shane is about to propose with a Canva presentation about IRCC processing timelines. He really, really hopes Ilya isn't expecting anything more romantic. 

Shane really tried to go to sleep after their conversation about the future, but a little nagging voice in the back of his head could not let go of Ilya saying “I could marry Svetlana.” It replayed over and over again, mocking him. His brain housed a DJ working on the set of his nightmares, remixing the idea of Ilya marrying someone else for citizenship into the ugliest dubstep remix he could imagine, pounding relentlessly into his brain. He knew that there were alternatives to marriage, that Ilya could move to a Canadian team (in a full year, a voice in his head reminds him) and get permanent residency through express entry as a worker with Canadian experience, that they could develop their relationship on their own terms and not jump the gun like Shane is about to suggest. They could theoretically have a more normal timeline. A normal length of time to date. A normal proposal. A normal engagement. A normal wedding.

But then again, nothing about them had been on a normal timeline thus far, and Shane is becoming increasingly aware that maybe, his own idea of developing the relationship on his own terms was to u-haul as soon as humanly possible. Two voices scream in his head, one telling him that this plan feels right, and one telling him that this is completely insane and he’ll scare Ilya. Granted, he’s probably been this insane all along, and for some reason Ilya seems perfectly content with it. He’s only managed to scare Ilya away…multiple times (then again, Ilya has also managed to scare him away multiple times, so the insanity really is mutual).

Shane, fully aware that he would not be able to go back to sleep anytime soon, took out a fresh notebook from his nightstand (a perfectly normal thing to have, thank you very much. You never know when you will wake up in the dead of night and just NEED to write down an amazing play idea that came in a dream, and sometimes drawing it on paper is better than typing whatever descriptions come to mind in the phone notes app) and began to commit thoughts to paper in an attempt to clear his mind and steer himself away from making any irrational decisions. Then, out came the iPad, and 30 tabs of the Immigration, Refugees, and Citizenship Canada website. Then came the Canva tab, the meltdown over a theme, and the frantic translating of his chicken-scratch notes on the Canadian spousal sponsorship process to a coherent presentation. 

He has been at this for 4 hours straight, and sunlight is beginning to stream through the closed blinds. 

Shane clicks “new slide,” adding slide #24 to the presentation. He’s gone beyond making a plan for a wedding and immigration paperwork and timelines and physical presence. He’s moved onto plans for making their “friendship” more publicly known, so that it won’t be weird for anyone to see them spending time together. He types out “CHARITY CONCEPT” in the title portion of the slide and begins to transfer bullet points from his notebook.

Midway through slide 33, Ilya stirs in his sleep and cracks open a bleary eye. 

“Why are you awake,” Ilya asks, except he groans it out more like a statement.

“Don’t move,” Shane says, putting a hand flat on Ilya’s back to ensure he doesn’t stop being Shane’s human desk. “I’m making a presentation for you. It’s not done yet.” 

“It is too early for this.” 

Ilya rolls around, forcing Shane to pick up his iPad before it falls off of Ilya completely. Ilya then plucks it out of Shane’s hands, places it on the nightstand, and bellyflops his entire body weight onto Shane. 

“Sleep,’ he orders, and somehow, Shane’s brain finally complies. 

When he wakes up again three hours later, Shane somehow manages to wiggle himself out from under Ilya’s (massive, completely deadweight) body. He makes coffee, pouring himself a mug and adding nothing else (like a normal person), making sure his expensive drip coffee machine is set to keep the rest of the pot warm so Ilya can pour himself a nice cup whenever he gets up. Shane pauses for a moment in the kitchen, contemplative, before leaving out a Montreal Voyageurs 2015 Stanley Cup Champions mug and placing the bowl of sugar and some creamer out for Ilya in advance. 

Then, it’s back to the iPad. 

It doesn’t take Ilya long at all to emerge from the bedroom. “You abandoned me,” Ilya whines as he pads into the living room. “You abandoned me for powerpoint. This is cheating.” Ilya has brought out the big guns this time. Shane knows for a fact that Ilya went to sleep wearing boxers. He knows for a fact, actually, that Ilya was still wearing boxers when Shane managed to wiggle himself free just 20 minutes before. Somehow on the journey from bedroom to living room, Ilya was mugged at gunpoint and lost his underwear. The attacker, mercifully, let him keep Shane’s entire duvet, which Ilya now wears as a cape. 

Shane notices that Ilya is somehow holding the duvet in a way that ensures his dick is fully out on display. It’s like he is holding up a huge arrow pointing directly to his balls. Worst of all, Ilya is pouting. Shane may be strict, but he really, really has a bad track record with cute pouting men. Exhibit A: Hayden Pike at his own wedding reception begging Shane to stay a bit longer. Exhibit B: Ilya Rozanov standing in his cottage living room, bleary-eyed and flaccid dick fully out, whining about a PowerPoint presentation. 

“Canva,” Shane corrects. Ilya cocks his hip to the side, drawing Shane’s attention back to his bare dick (not that his attention really left his dick in the first place). Shane doesn’t say or do anything besides grip his iPad slightly harder. Clearly not satisfied with Shane’s reaction, Ilya releases a small, pathetic, petulant whine. Jesus fucking Christ. There’s a lip wobble now. Ilya means business. 

Gentlemen, we must stay focused, Shane thinks.

“Sit down?” Shane asks, patting the space on the couch beside him. “I want to show you what I made. I’ll get you coffee.” Ilya makes a small whining noise. “Please?” Shane asks. He tries his hand at his own pout attack, certain that Ilya will be as weak to his attack as Shane is to his pouts. 

“I’m naked and you want to show me presentation,” Ilya grumbles before he flops onto the couch next to Shane, opening up his duvet cape to tuck him into it too. Sweet victory.

“Okay, Mr. Professor, teach me all the things you looked up for me all night. I am good student.”

“I doubt that,” Shane says. 

“No, no. I am a very good student,” Ilya says. “I work best when my teachers give me rewards for good grades and good behaviour.”

“How many teachers do you have?”

“Just one,” Ilya laments. “And he is very strict. I have not received reward for good behaviour in a long time.” He throws a hand over his heart dramatically. “And I am such good student. This is abuse, I think. I will report it to school principal. It is sad, since he is my favourite teacher. I do not want him to get fired.” 

“What if your teacher gives you a reward after this one last lesson?” Shane says, grinning. 

“I could sit through one more lesson,” Ilya nods. “I’ll even take notes.”

Shane smiles and reaches for his HDMI cable. Because he brought his stupid iPad and not his laptop like a normal person, he had to dig out a USB-C to HDMI converter dongle out of a drawer. After a few moments, the connection between the iPad and his television screen whirrs to life. His handiwork, “OPERATION O CANADA (WORKING TITLE)” stares back at him in all of its red and white glory.

Shane is suddenly hit with a wave of nausea accompanied by a sense that maybe this is way too much to spring on a guy who probably isn't even his boyfriend. Oh my god, Shane actually is insane, and if Ilya hasn't realized it yet, this will be the thing that sends him running for the hills. They're not even boyfriends and here Shane is, proposing immediate marriage. Jesus fucking Christ. Ilya will run naked outside, throw himself off the dock, and swim across the lake just to get away from him. Or, maybe he will throw on some clothes, steal Shane’s jeep, and drive straight to the airport to get a one-way ticket for the soonest flight to Boston. Maybe Ilya will– 

Shane takes in a deep breath. “Actually, on second thought, we don’t have to look at this if you don’t want to.” He tries to keep his voice even, but it shakes anyways. 

“You were up all night making this for me,” he says, rolling his eyes good-naturedly. “Of course I will listen.” Ilya leans over Shane so he can press “present” on the iPad screen himself. 

Ilya looks at him so expectantly and so, so softly as Shane flickers his eyes between the beautiful man about to book it out of his home and life forever and the “OPERATION O CANADA (WORKING TITLE) by Shane Hollander” blown up on the screen. Somehow, Ilya’s expectant look encourages him to tap on the next slide. 

At this point, he might as well show Ilya how insane he is so Ilya at least has a chance to escape before they keep this, whatever it is, going any longer. 

Slides 2 and 3 go normally, with Ilya humming along to Shane’s summary of their current predicament and goals (concrete goals: Ilya has non-Russian citizenship [preferably Canada] as soon as possible, They can comfortably be a couple with less distance between them, change the narrative of their relationship so it doesn't feel like a bomb blowing up when they finally go public [or, god forbid, if something goes terribly wrong and they are outed]) 

(Abstract goals: peace of mind, safety, stability, a chance at happiness for the rest of their lives)

Ilya smiles at that part. Shane is glad he kept it in. 

Slide 4 is where Shane starts to panic again.

“Please don't freak out at this next slide. Just let me explain. The next one introduces the idea, and the ones after explain the reasoning and…” Shane babbles, refusing to tap “next” 

“Shane,” Ilya interrupts, nudging Shane’s side with his elbow. “It’s okay. Show me the idea.” Shane, stupidly, clicks. 

[Image description: a Canva presentation slide outlining a VERY basic outline of how a Spousal Sponsorship for Permanent Residency would work, with the final step being go public after obtaining Canadian citizenship. Underneath the outline is a link to Canada.ca Guide 5289: Sponsoring Your Spouse]

 Ilya stands up, staring at the screen. The duvet stays on the couch with Shane still wrapped in it, leaving Ilya standing up completely naked. This is it, Shane realizes. He is going to bolt. This really was too much. 

“There are other options, if this is too much,” Shane breathes out in a frantic rush. “I just…this feels more secure? But seriously, there are so many other options. Mountains of options that don’t involve us getting married right now.” Shane knows he is babbling. He’s stupid as fuck for putting this as slide 4 instead of easing Ilya in with less nuclear options. What on earth was Shane-at-2am thinking?

Ilya turns around and Shane braces for impact. 

“YES,” Ilya booms. He raises his arms above his head like he is cheering for a particularly impressive goal during a game.

“Huh?” 

“I am saying yes, Shane,” Ilya says. Behind the roar of blood in his ears that is making everything muffled and causing Shane to feel a little light-headed, he faintly registers that Ilya just got proposed to while stark naked, and he doesn’t seem to care.

“To…”

“Spousal sponsor, marriage, this,” Ilya says, waving his hand around and gesturing at nothing? Everything? “Yes.”

“Ilya, I haven’t even gotten to the slide that explains why–”

"Answer is yes,” Ilya reiterates. “I will read explanation slide later. Right now, I will suck your dick, and then we will eat breakfast, and you will explain everything in lots of detail.” Before Shane can even respond, Ilya basically launches himself at Shane.

As promised, Ilya is a good student (and encouraged by rewards), and he devotes his full attention to learning about The Plan (a cleaner working title than OPERATION O CANADA, Shane realizes) and including his input into each section of it. Well, almost his full attention. He keeps pausing to throw himself onto Shane’s lap and make out with him filthily every 5 slides or so.

Spousal Sponsorship was not the only option Shane included in the presentation, but it is the most solid option (and the option Ilya seems most passionate about).

(Shane is so, so lucky that Ilya is insane too). 

They discussed Express Entry as a potential pathway for Ilya to gain Canadian citizenship that did not involve a potentially ill-advised wedding, but both were decidedly less passionate about it as an option. Express Entry would mean that they'd have to wait for Ilya to become a free agent in a full year, then for him to sign with a Canadian team so he has a valid reason to apply for EE, and would involve a lengthy application in which they would need to explain why (through his work experience) Ilya should be granted permanent residency by virtue of the economic benefits he’d bring to Canada. Even then, it wouldn't be guaranteed, not that spousal sponsorship is either. But, at least spousal sponsorship relies on something they can control more easily than the solidity of Ilya’s career that requires a healthy, functional body to remain healthy and functional while almost constantly in danger of, well, becoming unhealthy and nonfunctional. Realistically, one particularly bad hit or fall could spell the end of the Express Entry plan. 

In the end, the processing times for a spousal sponsorship application submitted within the next few months and an express entry application submitted in two years would likely be the same. In a way, it doesn't matter which option they choose, because the timeline works out to three years regardless due to IRCC processing times.

Selfishly, Shane would much rather have the sense of stability that would come with the knowledge that something would be actively processed and in the hands of the Canadian government even while Ilya was still with the Boston Bears. Even more selfishly, a part of Shane’s brain really, really likes the sense of stability that would come with the term husband. Clear. Definitive. Would require full divorce proceedings and legal teams to reverse. That’s a very welcome type of stability after 7-9 years of a situationship. Another part of Shane’s brain reminds him that he is probably a little insane.

“This, this right here, this is important,” Ilya says, pointing a finger at the IRCC page he has opened on the iPad. Ilya, to Shane’s surprise, is quite diligently tapping on each link Shane added on each slide and is reading through the ocean of information the IRCC provides on spousal sponsorship. “‘When you agree to be a sponsor, you must sign an undertaking, promising to give financial support for the basic needs of your spouse or partner and their dependent children. Basic needs are: food, clothing, shelter and other needs for everyday living, dental care, eye care and other health needs that aren’t covered by public health services.’ This right here,” he continues to point at the statement. 

“Yes?” Shane asks, confused. 

“Canada says you must support me.”

“Ilya, you’re a multi-millionaire. That doesn’t count.”

Ilya pouts. “You do not wish to be my sugar daddy,” he says petulantly. 

“Again, you are a multi-millionaire.”

“Canadian government says you must become my sugar daddy,” Ilya insists. “Hockey world will fall apart once Montreal Voyageurs learn that I am basically on their payroll. Montreal protests. Prime Minister steps in and says ‘you must keep paying for Ilya Rozanov’s vodka and xbox subscription, it is Canadian law.’ Montreal loses the cup, obviously, because everyone is so upset that they all forget how to play hockey.” He says all of this while holding the Montreal Voyageurs mug Shane specifically chose for him earlier. 

“Asshole,” Shane says with all the love he can muster in his heart. 

Ilya clearly isn’t done with this. “I win the cup, and your coach cries himself to sleep because he signed the paycheque that bought me the food I eat that gives me energy to be better hockey player than his entire team.” Ilya punctuates this by shoving Shane’s bowl of oatmeal closer to him, a reminder for Shane to eat something that isn’t just black coffee and vibes for breakfast. 

After breakfast, they return to the couch. Ilya has commandeered the iPad and jumps around wildly between the slides. They’ve finished the entire presentation once, and now Ilya is reviewing it all again in an order that must make sense to him, although it makes no sense to Shane. 

He really is a good student. Shane feels his dick twitch. He kind of wishes Ilya put boxers or pants on so he could focus a bit better. Scratch that, no he doesn't. He wants to chew on Ilya’s bicep a little. 

Ilya is back on slide 8:  the nitty gritty of what they’ll need to actually, legally get married. A civil wedding at Ottawa City Hall takes a mere 20 minutes to perform with up to a maximum of 10 people in the room (including the couple, two witnesses, officiant, and 5 additional guests). They’d need to apply for a marriage license in advance, then schedule the actual ceremony, and…

“our two witnesses,” Shane says, bravely forcing himself to focus. “Two people we trust. At first I was thinking, maybe Hayden and Svetlana? That way we both have someone there for us, but then I realized that Hayden might shit himself to death if we sprung this on him.”

Ilya nods gravely. “I can’t have Montreal’s 15th best player on my marriage license, Shane. That would be a disgrace.” Despite Ilya’s expression and tone, Shane can tell that he is joking. Mostly. He’s like 65% sure Ilya is joking. “I could ask Svetlana. She will probably come and would not be a disgrace on our marriage license.”

“Maybe we should invite Scott Hunter and have him be a witness, since this is kind of happening because of him,” Shane muses. Ilya looks at him in utter horror, but before he can even think of a comeback, Shane doubles over laughing. “I’m kidding, obviously. Scott Hunter will not be on our marriage license. I wouldn’t do that to you.”

“Government of Canada does not accept signatures from people born before Canada became a country,” Ilya finally says, breaking into a small smile. “I think.”

“I think you’re right,” Shane says, still wheezing a bit. “See, you are already ready to take your citizenship test.”

“What about your parents?” Ilya asks, suddenly. 

Shane grimaces. One of the slides, slide 11, he thinks, is dedicated to a vague timeline of who should be told in what order. His parents are first on the list, but even the thought of telling them about this, about everything, makes his stomach feel like it’s dropped to the floor. It must show on his face, because Ilya immediately turns his body away from the screen to face Shane and envelops him in a massive, warm hug. 

“Hey, hey, we do not need to tell them if you think they…would not react well.”

Shane shakes his head. “I want to tell them.”

“Will it be…problem for them?” Ilya asks.

Shane continues to shake his head, slower now. “I don’t think so. I think they’ll be supportive. It’s just…a lot.” He twists his mouth into a lopsided grimace. “My mom might need some more time than my dad to process.”

Ilya nods. “Okay.” A pause. “Will we tell them before…or after ceremony?”

“Before,” Shane says without thinking. “Before is better. I would like my parents at my wedding.” Ilya nods but doesn't press. 

After taking a lengthy break from discussion (it’s hard to discuss much of anything with a penis shoved down your throat), Ilya is back to flipping through the slides and hammering out details. Shane thinks it’s cute how this has become their whole day.

“Proof of relationship,” Ilya muses. “Explain more.”

Shane nods. “Part of the application can be additional documents we provide that the immigration worker reviewing our case can consider. For spousal sponsorship, most people submit proof that they’re actually a couple. I was reading about it…” he trails off. “There is always concern that couples who submit for spousal permanent residency are…not real couples. Just applying to get easy PR.” Shane grimaces. “IRCC likes proof.” 

“Will be difficult for us…” Ilya muses, clearly disappointed. 

“I was doing some research, reading posts and comments from people who have done this secretly,” Shane says. “We can write a letter explaining why we aren’t publicly out yet. It’s easy for the IRCC to google us and know we aren’t lying about being public figures. Many people already know that Russia has anti-gay propaganda laws. They can make the connection that you being a public figure and having Russian citizenship would lead us to hide.” Ilya still looks disappointed. “We write our letter of explanation and provide other proof of relationship. People submit photographs, records of text or email conversations, in other people’s cases they’d show things like joint leases…”

Ilya smiles softly. "Photos. We can manage that…I think I have our iMessage history backed up on my iCloud."

"Ilya, that's...really stupid. What if you got hacked?"

"Yes, but that also means I have years of texts we can pick from." 

“We have to submit screenshots that look like conversations between a normal, loving couple,” Shane says. “No sexts.”

Ilya scoffs. “Sexts are good proof that we are together.” 

“Ilya, I am not sending some poor IRCC employee a screenshot of us talking about jerking off.”

Ilya fixes him with A Look, then shrugs. “We will return to this later. For now, come here.” He gestures for Shane to scoot closer. Once Shane attaches himself to Ilya’s side, Ilya raises his phone up and takes a selfie. 

“There. Photograph!” 

Shane planned to tell his parents in a very normal way, thank you very much. He wrote down each topic to broach in order, optimized specifically to ease them into their new reality. It's an order he plans to go with each time he needs to let someone into his life now. It's simple, really. (Insert name here) I’m gay. (Insert name here) I am in a relationship. (Insert name here) I am in a serious relationship with Ilya Rozanov. (Insert name here) We are getting married. See? Easy to comprehend, laid out carefully to minimize shock. Foolproof. 

He even laid out the groundwork in advance by texting his family groupchat: “Hey, I need to have a serious conversation with you. Can we have dinner tomorrow night?” Very concise! A serious tone to ensure they know he means business, but not revealing too much. A sense of urgency (but not too urgent), by asking them to have dinner in one day instead of springing it on them immediately or waiting too long by telling them closer to the actual wedding. Shane is a genius and master of subtlety. 

Also, he thought that if he kept it bottled in for longer than 48 hours, he might explode or possibly never tell them ever due to sheer fear and embarrassment. 

He had this perfect plan, and yet somehow it still got all fucked up. His father, bless him, came over to his cottage (not in the plan), a full 18 hours early (definitely not in the plan) to borrow a phone charger (seriously?) and caught his son and his future son-in-law making out against a window. Shane mentally kicks himself for designing a cottage with massive, floor-to-ceiling windows. 

So now he is sitting at his parents dining table a full day early, and the order in which he divulges information is all wrong, and the only thing keeping him from exploding out of his too-tight skin is Ilya’s arm sweeping across his back. 

“So, this serious conversation you wanted to have with us…” his mom trails off after the initial shock and reveal (out of order, Shane’s brain reminds him. He made the plan today and he has already fucked it up) is over and done with. 

“Yeah,” he croaks out. “This is the serious conversation.”

All things considered, the conversation goes well– better than he expected, really. He has no metric for how parents should react to their child dumping a decade’s worth of secrets on them, culminating with a “hey, I know I just turned your entire worldview on its head, but could you keep it together a bit longer so you can come to my surprise wedding and maybe freak out after that?” But, he thinks, Yuna and David Hollander are perhaps not the average parents when it comes to adapting and overcoming whatever Shane throws their way.

Well, his mom definitely is. His dad still looks like the bottom of his stomach has dropped to the basement and is flopping around like a fish on dry land. His mom, meanwhile, has flipped her internal switch from mom mode to manager mode. It's a switch she has mastered over the years, although her mom mode has gotten a bit rusty with lack of use as Shane entered adulthood and the MLH simultaneously. Shane’s childhood had ended with a bang, not a whimper, the second the ink was dry on his various MLH contracts and forms. Yuna Hollander had adjusted accordingly, bringing the manager mode to the surface and allowing mom mode to step backwards into the shadows of her mind. 

The Hollander family is good at compartmentalizing.

While Shane needed mom mode earlier, the return to manager mode is equally welcomed. She latches onto The Plan eagerly, drawn in by the gravitational force of a concrete, researched idea that she didn't have to make herself. Shane can practically see the excel sheet in her brain sorting itself out. In the time it takes for Shane to blink, Yuna somehow throws in her glasses and opens a laptop to poke around the IRCC website for herself. Ilya flicks his eyes between Shane and his mother in quick succession, a mixture of amused and slightly terrified, as he shovels another forkful of pasta into his mouth.

David, unlike Yuna, still looks like he might vomit at a moment's notice. 

“Sorry about earlier,” Ilya says quietly to David. 

David snorts a little. “It was my fault, Ilya. Sorry.” 

“Thank you for pasta and vodka,” Ilya continues. 

“This is all a little overwhelming, isn’t it?” David says suddenly.

“Yes?” Ilya mumbles around another forkful of pasta. 

“It doesn’t have to be like this."

(For Ilya, this is strangely kind and reminds Ilya a bit of his coach, LeClaire, fatherly in a way he still isn’t used to. LeClaire, however, doesn’t often keep the fatherly schtick going for an extended period of time, opting to use it briefly during vulnerable moments before switching back to the man who teaches AHL substitutes how to punch properly, like a real Boston Bear. David Hollander, meanwhile, seems like he has kept the fatherly schtick going for so long that he no longer remembers how to switch it off.)

“I’m sure you can find…other options, if you feel like this is too rushed,” David continues.

"It’s fine,” Ilya says and feels it fiercely. “I like rushing. I have always liked speed. You know, at last All Stars, I beat Shane in the speed competition by–”

Ilya feels Shane’s palm slap against his shoulder heavily and laughs. 

“Dad,” Shane interrupts them. “Do you know anyone in Ottawa City Hall who could make sure we get an appointment when, uh, preferably no one else is there? For privacy?”

David considers for a moment. “I think I might.”

Shane smiles. To Ilya, he supplies: “Dad works for the government.”

Ilya raises his eyebrows, impressed. “Secret government agent!”

David shakes his head, laughing. He looks less like he is going to vomit pasta and vodka now. “Treasury board,” he corrects. 

“Secret government agent assigned to treasury board. Very impressive."

July 2017

If you asked Ilya a few months ago what he planned to do over the summer, he would probably say something along the lines of “Wouldn't you like to know?” or “The same as always,” or, occasionally, “Call of Duty.” If you asked him what he would be doing on July 18th specifically, the last thing he would possibly say is "getting married to Shane Hollander.”

And then Scott Hunter somehow won the Stanley Cup and kissed his much younger and hotter boyfriend live on national television, and that somehow led to Ilya Rozanov and Shane Hollander transitioning from a situationship to getting married at 9am on July 18, 2017. Ilya should send Scott Hunter a fruit basket.

Or maybe not. He knows better; he learned years ago that calling someone a “fruit” comes across as homophobic when the second line center of the LA team called Carmichael a fruit back in 2012, and Cliff laughed so hard at Ilya’s confusion that he slipped and fell on the ice so hard that he injured his hip. Maybe Ilya won't send the fruit basket. He’ll send some flyers for retirement homes instead. 

David Hollander turns around on the worrying about them thing and cries the hardest which is embarrassing because the officiant is his drinking buddy who will absolutely make fun of him after this 

David Hollander's secret government contacts are varied and wide-flung throughout Ottawa. David and Yuna Hollander combine to make a terrifyingly organized team. While Yuna plans and organizes loudly, David quietly handled the nitty-gritty. Ilya understands why Yuna and David are together and produced the constantly ticking time bomb that is Shane Hollander. 

This is how, at 9:15am on a random Tuesday, Ilya finds himself wearing a suit and standing face-to-face with his beloved ticking time bomb, surrounded by Shane’s parents, Svetlana, and a wedding officiant: one of David Hollander’s drinking buddies (and employee of Ottawa City Hall) who is visibly trying not to laugh at the way David Hollander is openly weeping while taking a shaky video of the ceremony with his iPad. 

Ilya isn't in much better shape: his eyes are blurry with tears, and somehow through the blur he can see that Shane’s are, too.

Shane once told him that crying only counts when tears fall out of your eyes, therefore, David is the only person crying right now. 

After the quick (as Shane promised, 20 minute ceremony), Yuna ushers the newly-minted couple to a photo studio for mandatory wedding portraits.

(Shane tried to stop this from happening, citing that phone photos would be fine, but Yuna was steadfast. “I am not allowing my only child to get married and not take a million photos for me to frame and show off when I can,” she had ranted over the phone when Shane tried and failed to stop this particular plan. “And they WILL be professional! none of this iPhone garbage! Shane, you are sponsored by ROLEX. You WILL have professional wedding photos.” Her anguish could be felt through Shane’s iPhone speakers.)

“Do you think she needs an adult daughter,” Svetlana asks Ilya as she watches Yuna fuss over Shane’s hair before ordering the photographer to adjust the background slightly. “…Or perhaps a controversially young girlfriend,” she adds after a moment. 

“Gross, don't say that.”

“You've said worse to me for years. This is payback.”

“This is my wedding day, Sveta, you have to be nice to me and not hit on my mother-in-law.”

Svetlana fixes him with a look that screams “that's debatable.”

August 2017

(Note: all WhatsApp and iOS chats in this fic scroll [when there are enough messages]. PLEASE do not pass without scrolling through the chat boxes!)

September 2017

The second group of people on Shane’s “must-tell” list of people to drop the surprise marriage announcement on are the Pikes, much to Ilya’s chagrin.

Shane toyed with the idea of waiting a long time, perhaps multiple seasons, before telling Hayden Pike (IN PROPER ORDER) that he, Shane Hollander, is 1. Gay, 2. Married, 3. Married to Ilya Rozanov specifically. He never set an exact timeline for himself. Theoretically, it shouldn’t matter if he tells Hayden today or in two years. What’s done is done, and he is still gay and married to Ilya Rozanov regardless of if he tells Hayden Pike today or in thirty years. 

The thing is: there are many reasons for Shane to tell him sooner rather than later. First, the longer he keeps this a secret, the more his best friend will probably be hurt emotionally from the reveal. Second, he feels like he owes this to his friend, at least, given that Hayden has trusted him with so much (first person to meet Jackie [once they were sober], best man, godfather of his army of children, unfortunate receiver of a lot of information about Hayden’s sexual life that Shane really doesn’t want to know but Hayden is a chronic over-sharer when drunk), and now feels like an obvious time to reciprocate. Really, Shane’s been holding back on his best friend duties. Third, he keeps nearly slipping up and spilling the beans anyways, which is an unfortunate side effect of being comfortable with your best friend. Fourth, Ilya literally just texted Shane to tell him he is about to tell Cliff Marlow, who was second on Ilya’s “must-tell” list, and “a real homie,” which is a phrase Shane previously didn’t know that Ilya knew.

Fifth is probably the stupidest reason of all, but it’s the one most pressing on Shane’s mind: he kind of, maybe, really, really wants to wear his wedding ring sometimes (only where it is safe, like at home, and hopefully in the Pike family home), and kind of, maybe, really, really wants to wear it on a necklace the rest of the time, and Shane is pretty certain that Hayden and Jackie Pike are the only people who look at him closely enough to question the odd jewelry choice. 

Hayden and Jackie Pike both have an almost eerie tendency to notice changes in Shane’s appearance. Hayden, the few times Shane has accidentally come home with visible hickeys, has noticed (and commented on) them at a 97% success rate (even ones Shane carefully hides under high-necked shirts). Jackie, a secret clothes horse, can practically sense from 30 meters away when Shane is wearing a new pair of Reeboks he is contractually meant to be showing off in public.

Speaking of Jackie, she and the kids are away for the weekend visiting her parents in Gatineau, and Hayden stayed behind for some kind of sponsorship meeting (Shane is proud of him; Hayden has never successfully locked down a sponsorship deal the same way he has. It’s for some kind of new sports beverage that comes in a variety of concerningly-named flavours with even more concerning dyes and additives, but Shane pushes down the judgement bubbling at the base of his throat and tries to replace it with pride.). Hayden invited Shane over for the afternoon to hang out and watch a NFL game “or something.” 

The “or something” usually means video games, but sometimes means drinking beer until Hayden starts waxing poetic about something (his wife, his children, the depanneur down the street that gives him free samosas sometimes, and on occasion, Shane), and sometimes it means that Hayden just wants someone to sit next to as he scrolls through Instagram.

Today, it seems to mean beer, and Shane decides that now, while Hayden is 1.5 beers deep and comfortably sitting on the couch, is probably a good time to have a real conversation before Hayden deteriorates and starts talking about samosas or how beautiful Shane’s skating edges are.

“Hayd, can we talk?” Shane asks, fingers twitching at his sides. Hayden hums, taking another sip of his beer. “It’s about, uhm, Lily.”

“Oh! Finally.” Hayden looks relieved, almost.

“Finally?” Shane asks, a mix of startled and perplexed.

“You made it official, right? I saw you text her a little while back after you fumbled Rose Landry– still can’t believe you bagged Rose fucking Landry and then fumbled her, by the way– but I’m glad you’ve got Lily. I mean, it’s been years, dude!” Hayden rambles. “I told Jackie I saw you texting her again and she’s been on my ass about seeing if she can finally add Lily to the WAGs chat.”

Shane wrinkles his nose at that. 

“Not official?” Hayden plows on. “Come on, man. What are you even doing?” He sets his beer down on the floor (Shane wrinkles his nose at that, too. Hayden has a perfectly good coffee table with coasters that Shane bought for him and Jackie.) with a solid clunk. 

“We’re official,” Shane blurts out, raising his hands as if to physically stop Hayden. “It’s just, there’s more that I want to talk about?”

Hayden’s face cycles between a few emotions: joy, confusion, concern, then finally lands on shock. Shane keeps his hands held up, but Hayden moves forward anyways to aggressively slam his palms onto Shane’s shoulders before leaning in. Shane’s heartbeat kicks up in speed, confused. In his rush, Hayden kicks over the bottle of beer, which tips over and rolls around loudly. Thankfully, there wasn’t enough left in the bottle to spill out and soak the floor, but, still. Perfectly good table with coasters right there. Shane isn’t sure how Jackie handles her husband. Husband, right. Shane needs to focus on the way Hayden is already freaking out and Shane hasn’t even told him about the secret marriage thing. 

“Shane, buddy,” Hayden begins, frantic yet slow, completely ignoring the rolling beer bottle. His eyes bulge out of his head. “Are you telling me you got Lily pregnant?”

“Jesus, Hayd, no,” Shane sighs. “Please just let me finish talking.”

Hayden removes his hands and leans back a bit, expectant (but definitely relieved-yet-disappointed that his children aren’t getting any cousins anytime soon. Hayden has spent a lot of time imagining what a child of Shane’s would look like, if Shane’s kids would look as cute as the baby photos of Shane he managed to wrangle from Yuna Hollander, and if Shane’s kids would get along with his own. He has wondered if Shane having kids would cause him to spend even more time with the Pike family, or if he would detach from them a bit and focus on his own family. Hayden doesn't like to think about that often.). 

Shane sighs deeply before worrying his bottom lip between his teeth. He elects to stare at a spot on the floor while he tells Hayden the complicated truth of the situation rather than seeing Hayden’s facial expressions. Hayden’s hardwood floor has an interesting pattern to it, underneath the scratches and wear-and-tear of life under the feet of an army of small children. He fixes his gaze to a small knot in the wood that vaguely reminds him of Jupiter’s Great Red Spot. 

“Shane,” Hayden interrupts. “It’s okay, you can tell me.” 

“I’m gay,” Shane decides to blurt out first. While he can’t (refuses to) see Hayden’s facial expression, he can tell that gears are turning in his brain at a rapid pace. 

“Uh huh,” Hayden says stupidly. Mercifully, Hayden’s brain gears are somewhat oiled and turn well enough to remind him of how Shane began the conversation. “Lily. Is…” Hayden ventures. “Is Lily a guy?”

Shane nods. 

Hayden slowly breathes out a huge breath. “That’s…thanks for telling me, man. That must have been hard to keep to yourself. Obviously, I’m cool with you being gay,” he tacks the last part on quickly, like he is worried Shane doesn’t already know that Hayden is like, a huge ally. He’s even been to the Montreal pride parade before! He’s been to a drag brunch before (by accident! He thought it was a normal brunch! But he had fun! Now he wishes every brunch was a drag brunch, and that's just a glimpse into how ally-pilled Hayden Pike’s brain is!)! Shane smiles and snorts in response, finally flicking his eyes up to briefly take in Hayden’s reaction. 

The moment passes fast as Shane ticks off a box in his mental checklist of confessions for the day. One down, several earth-shattering confessions to go. This one was somehow the easiest among them. 

“There’s more,” Shane says. “It’s, uhm, a lot, and I know you might be upset, but, I promise I’ll explain?” 

“Okay?” 

“We’re married?” Shane says, voice lilting upwards at the end like it’s a question, not a factual statement. “Surprise?” 

Hayden remains silent for a moment before jumping to his feet in shock. He points an accusatory hand down at Shane, who is still seated on the couch. If he hadn’t already kicked that beer on the floor, he would have kicked it now. It was doomed from the start. 

“Are you fucking with me? When?” Hayden doesn’t necessarily sound angry, more shocked than anything else. It’s somehow reassuring enough for Shane to continue on.

“July,” he responds softly. 

Hayden begins to pace around the living room. He steps on a few stray Legos and doesn't even seem to notice, which could either be because he is a professional father who is very used to stepping on sharp plastic objects, or because his entire worldview was just shattered like a frozen balloon getting pile-driven into pavement. “Shane Hollander, you were best man at my wedding, and now you’re telling me you got married two months ago and didn’t think ‘Oh hey, I should probably tell my best friend in the whole world?’” Hayden turns on his heel to face Shane fully. “Actually, dude, I haven’t even met this guy! What gives! Shane, you’re the literal godfather of my children!” 

“Listen,” Shane begins, fully looking at Hayden now. “Please, it’s not that I didn’t trust you…” Shane shoves his hands into his hoodie pocket and squeezes his fingers together repeatedly. “The only people who knew were my parents, and even then, I didn’t, uhm, give them much warning?” it sounds worse and worse the more he says all of this out loud, he realizes faintly. Once again, Shane wonders if he is actually insane. At least Ilya seems to be insane too. 

“Dude,” Hayden says, unimpressed, before flopping back onto the couch with Shane. That’s something. That's definitely not nothing. He jams a finger into Shane’s chest. “Explain.”

“Which part?” Shane wonders aloud as he wrings his hands together inside of his hoodie pocket.

"Why did you get married and not tell anyone? I didn’t even know you were engaged.”

“We weren’t engaged long,” Shane begins. “Listen, we didn’t tell anyone because it’s…complicated.” Shane faintly thinks that complicated is an understatement, but can’t think of a more fitting word. 

He steels himself before continuing. “We decided to get serious, and we want to tell people eventually, but…Lily’s immigration status is shaky, and he’s from a country where it’s dangerous to openly be gay.” Hayden nods, face blanching slightly. “Or, bisexual, in his case,” Shane tacks on quickly. Gotta keep things accurate. “We decided to get married so he can apply for permanent residency and eventually citizenship, so we can be out without worrying about legal repercussions. He’s safe while he’s here, but it’s an issue with…” Shane stumbles on which words to use. “Being out, and being in the public eye? And that being considered, uhm, propaganda? It’ll still take a long time to process everything in Canada, so we can’t really be out for a few years.”

They sit in silence for a while. 

Shane and Ilya submitted Ilya’s PR application in the middle of August, after waiting for their official marriage license to arrive in the mail. The gap in time gave Shane enough time to compile what he considers to be a very coherent, indisputable “additional document” outlining their proof of relationship. Shane, admittedly, laid it on thick in the additional document. The 127 page PDF he submitted contains a smattering of photographs (mostly recent, but this is unavoidable) from their wedding in addition to some recent snapshots (such as a photo Shane took of Ilya sitting on the floor with David Hollander as they worked on a puzzle together. Shane has spent a worrying amount of time staring at this photo) as well as some photos Ilya had squirreled away in his iCloud over the past few years. Shane recognizes some of these photos, but some are new to him: a shot of Shane’s back wearing Ilya’s Boston Bears jersey taken 2 years ago (a bet lost after the Voyageurs lost a game, but it wasn’t exactly a punishment), a blurry photograph of Shane’s profile, staring at the wall art in Ilya’s apartment with Ilya’s smiling face in the corner of the photograph, and to Shane’s endless horror: a photograph of the two smiling at each other on the ice, taken by Cliff Marlow. 

Also in the document are some (SOME) screenshots of text message threads showing that the pair have been communicating and meeting up with some frequency for the past few years. Ilya suggested including some of the raunchier messages, but Shane would frankly rather die than send his sexts to a faceless Immigration Canada employee to peruse. Ilya had huffed in response, grumbling that their sexts were fairly definitive proof of their connection, but Shane held strong. Shane ought to talk to Ilya about properly deleting old files. He’d be so fucking pissed off if they’re outed because some joker decided to hack Ilya’s old iPhone backups.

The latter portion of the document is a letter of explanation, outlining as vaguely as possible that the pair, despite being in the public eye, are in a secret relationship, hence the lack of public proof or witnesses outside of a very, very small group of people, as well as their need for discretion and potential rush processing. For the sake of clarity, Shane included screenshots of articles about their shared rivalry and competitive history, just in case the people processing their application have never heard of MLH hockey before. Shane’s mom kindly reminded him that they live in Canada, so this is unlikely. 

As for the rest of the application, well, Ilya is no stranger to the song and dance of submitting excessive amounts of paperwork (with notarized translations in English) to immigration authorities. 

Shane hopes it’s enough.

All in all, the application was not too difficult to put together, given that Ilya already had some of the more difficult documents to obtain available and ready. The majority of the application was on Shane's side of the court as the spousal sponsor, a role he took seriously. Form IMM5533e was his bible for weeks. Ilya, bless him, had offered to pay for the application fee, biometrics fee, and additional fee owed to Quebec (for the tall crime of being a Canadian living in Quebec and daring to marry outside the province, because Quebec is a fucking nightmare to file immigration paperwork in), but quickly rescinded the offer when he remembered that technically speaking, the application is tied up with a promise that Shane will provide for him financially. 

He called Shane “Mr. Sugar Daddy” for a solid 2 weeks.

“Is Lily his real name?” Hayden finally asks. 

Shane grimaces, knowing that this is the bandaid ripping moment. “No, it isn’t.”

“Can you…tell me his real name?” Hayden asks. “I want to meet him, too. I know you can’t be out, but you can come over and we can have double dates and stuff. I'll keep your secret safe.” 

Shane stays quiet for a moment. “Maybe,” Shane mumbles and fixes his gaze back onto that knot in the hardwood flooring. “Okay, promise me you won’t freak out.”

"Uhh, promise?” Hayden says, unsure.

"I’m serious,” Shane grumbles. 

“Promise.”

“Ilya.”

Hayden pauses for a brief moment, which gives Shane just enough time to start to feel himself descend deeper into panic. Then, Hayden barks out a massive, loud laugh, which startles Shane so intensely that he flinches in place. 

“Dude, that’s crazy!” Hayden howls. “No wonder you were nervous! Jackie’s gonna love this,” he continues. 

“So you’re cool with it?”

“Cool with it? I mean, it’s hilarious that your husband and your arch rival just happen to share a first name. What are the odds?” Hayden is still laughing so hard that tears are beginning to form in his eyes. “Holy shit, when you two can finally go public, you know who is going to shit himself laughing? Rozanov! There’s no way he won’t use it against you just to fuck with you.”

“Hayd, no,” Shane warns. 

“I know, I know,” Hayden waves a hand dismissively. “The last thing on your mind is probably Ilya Rozanov’s reaction to this, but come on, it’s objectively funny.”

“Hayden, I’m married to Ilya Rozanov.” 

October 2017

“Dinner at mine tonight?” Hayden asks. “Jackie said she’d make salmon just for you, and Ruby is getting desperate to finish explaining Despicable Me.”

“Can’t hang out tonight, Hayd. I have plans.”

“Bullshit,” Hayden responds. “You never have plans.” Objectively, this used to be true. Nowadays Shane has many, many plans, between his nightly plans to look at Ilya’s penis through Skype and his various long-term plans laid out helpfully in his notebook, Canva (For Ilya’s sake.  He is a visual learner), and more recently, Excel. Shane loves that excel sheet. He’s colour coded it. 

“We’re playing Boston tonight,” Shane points out casually, quieter than before, voice low enough to be drowned out in the chaos of a post-game locker room. 

“What does that have to do—oh my god. Dude.” Hayden looks horrified. Hayden leans in close and pitches his voice into a low whisper. “You're ditching me for Rozanov.”

“My husband, who I am legally married to, yes,” Shane whispers back, tactfully ignoring Hayden's gag when he says "husband." “And it isn’t ditching if we never made plans to begin with. What about tomorrow night?” Shane leans back again and says this at a more normal volume, to avoid attracting anyone’s suspicions with their close-quartered whispering.

Hayden nods. “Jackie has been dying to know more about,” Hayden flails his hand around a bit.  “You know.” 

Uh-huh,” he nods. 

“I’ve been trying to convince her that, uhm, you-know-who can’t be in the WAGs chat.”

“Might be easier to just say Lily,” Shane smirks. 

JJ whips his head around from his spot at his cubby across from the pair, like a bloodhound who can sniff out girlfriend drama from a mile away. “Capitaine!” he calls out. “Did I just hear the words ‘WAGs chat’ and ‘Lily’?” JJ’s grin is downright maniacal. 

“Oh shit, did Hollzy lock someone down?” Patrice Drapeau yells out.

Gilbert Comeau barks out a laugh. “No way, not the dude who fumbled Rose fucking Landry.”

“Isn’t Lily the name of that girl you’ve been texting for years?” Andropov asks. Why the fuck does my team care so much about my personal life, Shane whines internally.

JJ butts in. “Oh yes, yes it is!” He strides over to Shane and Hayden and claps a hand on Shane’s shoulder.  “Is it official?” he asks. He lets out a loud whoop when Shane shyly nods. There’s no use denying it at this point, he thinks.

Some of the guys join in on the excited whooping, jeering and cheering at Shane as they finish putting their gear in their cubbies. Shane gets some pats on the shoulder as some of the guys head to the showers, which is nice in that sweaty, hockey-bro kind of way. He realizes suddenly that he missed this, a bit. When word first got around that Shane Hollander maybe was texting a girl regularly, the way some of the guys treated him shifted. Suddenly, it seemed like some of the guys saw Shane as less of a stick-in-the-mud hockey robot, but something closer to an actual human guy. Then, he dated Rose Landry, and the shift solidified into something Shane couldn’t avoid noticing anymore. The sudden shift unsettled Shane at first, but he grew to like being treated in this new way. Then, he and Rose broke up, and the mood shifted again. Shane, without his proximity to a woman they could comfortably assume he was sticking his dick inside of, was again a weird hockey creature that some of the guys on the team tolerated due to his sheer athletic prowess, and respected probably entirely due to the C stitched onto his chest. The sweaty shoulder taps are a wet reminder that those guys likely think he is human again now that they think they share something in common with Shane besides being made of carbon and hitting pucks into a net for a living. Heterosexual sex seems to be that third ingredient that turns Shane Hollander from a machine into a real boy, and Shane grimaces when he thinks about how that might change when the hetero- becomes homo- in their brains. 

Shane showers and finishes putting himself together around the same time Hayden does, as per usual. Then, they walk to the back exit together, as per usual.

Shane didn’t bother warning Hayden that Ilya would be waiting for them (him, more specifically. Ilya would whine and complain for days if Shane ever implied that Ilya was waiting for Hayden Pike). He thought that information would be self-apparent.

It isn’t, apparently. 

“Shane, is that the grim fucking reaper?” Hayden hisses, gesturing to the spot where Ilya is casually lounging against the outside walls of the Centre Bell. The lean looks too practiced and careful to be legitimately casual. He’s so fucking corny and Shane loves him so much. Shane rolls his eyes at Hayden and picks up his pace slightly to get to Ilya faster. 

“Bye, Hayden,” Shane throws over his shoulder as he jogs.

Hayden just jogs to catch up. “Are you fucking stupid, Shane?” he whisper-shouts. “What if someone saw you alone with him?”

“They would be jealous of me, I think,” Ilya drawls. “Getting to talk to Shane Hollander all by myself.” Hayden cartoonishly gags at Ilya’s flirtatious tone. “They would not be jealous of me right now. Having to talk to Hayden Pike is a type of community service. I should receive an award for this.”

“Christ,” Hayden groans. “Shane, your taste in men is terrible. Good luck. I’m going home to my wife.” 

“Coincidence,” Ilya muses, smirking a little, clearly enjoying Hayden’s visible discomfort. “I’m going home to my husband.” Ilya puts on his most gushy voice when he says this and revels at the way Hayden dry heaves in response.

November 2017

December 2017

Today’s practice is bookended with a reminder from their coach to RSVP for their annual team dinner, scheduled for Friday, December 22.

Annual holiday dinner is a vague enough term for it: the first portion of the event is the official part. The team books a private event room at a restaurant, brings their wives and girlfriends, and the team holds themselves together in a facsimile of a normal workplace holiday gathering. Then inevitably, the unofficial part of the event begins when someone (or half the team) gets messily drunk and begins to wreak absolute havoc on the space. Their coach and team members who couldn’t get an overnight babysitter leave (as well as Shane Hollander, who definitely can’t use the babysitter excuse, but he somehow tries [and succeeds] anyways). A karaoke machine always magically appears (and inevitably, someone screams Celine Dion so loud that a neighbour calls in a noise complaint), furniture is often broken, and several people go home with black eyes they can’t really remember getting. It’s all in the holiday spirit, very typical workplace holiday party stuff. 

Under normal circumstances, they’d probably be banned from every restaurant in the city, but they’re the Montreal Voyageurs, and damn could they tip. 

Shane’s never seen the latter half of the party happen in person, but he heard that last year, JJ tipped 600% after some of the guys broke a huge wooden dining table by trying to start a secret Montreal Voyageurs fight club in the middle of an Italian restaurant’s private dining room.

“Do we finally get to meet the mysterious Lily?” JJ asks, eyebrows waggling. Since September, JJ has tried almost weekly to get Shane to bring “Lily” to anything at all. Shane has held strong to his stockpile of excuses (she lives in Boston, she travels for work, she’s shy, she can’t be seen with me because of her career), but can tell that JJ’s patience is wearing thin. Shane won't even show anyone on the team a photograph of the girl, for Christ's sake.

“Uhm,” Shane starts. “She isn’t coming. She’s busy with work.” The work excuse is a tired but reliable one. Shane has used it repeatedly, and will probably use it repeatedly for the foreseeable future. It’s vague yet clean, and Shane has made it clear that he has no interest in expounding upon what this career his “Lily” is so busy with, which the guys respect. 

This is a lie: the guys don’t respect it at all. Shane’s become used to ignoring the eye rolls he gets when he uses the same excuse that even he is starting to realize is flimsy at best. The encouraging shoulder pats and comfortable smiles he got earlier in the fall have dropped off in frequency at an almost alarming rate. Somehow, Shane is the hockey machine again. The more excuses he used, the more he chipped away at his precarious “real boy” status in their minds.

Across the room, Comeau and Drapeau laugh, and two of the rookies share a long look. 

“Come on, you can’t seriously still believe that Lily is a real person,” Comeau sneers. A few guys nod, but JJ at least looks confused. “No one has ever met her or even seen a photo of her? Anyone in this room know anything about this chick?”

Drapeau chimes in: “My wife says she still hasn’t talked to any of the other WAGs, except Pike’s, who is apparently refusing to even give Lily’s number to anyone else.” Some of the guys laugh.

“Guys, shut up,” Hayden interrupts. “I’ve met her, I promise she’s real.”

“So the only people who are allowed to know anything about this ‘Lily’ are the Pikes? Suspicious.” 

One of the rookies, a loudmouth new recruit from Mississauga, elbows the guy next to him and says in a voice definitely meant to be a whisper, but loud enough anyways to sound like a canon to Shane’s ears: “Another point for the Pike-Hollander Cuck Theory.”

“The what,” Shane says. His body is frozen in place, hands paused over his jersey where he was just about to grab it and take it off. Next to Shane, Hayden chokes on his own saliva and goes into a loud coughing fit. 

“I already told you guys that theory is garbage,” JJ says, crossing his arms. Shane shoots him an alarmed and confused look before turning to Hayden, who is still coughing too hard to make any form of meaningful eye contact or even respond properly. 

“Can someone explain what’s going on,” Shane orders, looking around the room. He puts on his best captain face, but it doesn’t seem to strike any fear into anyone right now. JJ, at least, has the decency to look a little guilty. He hates how casual everyone else in the room looks, like this is a normal thing for them to be talking about. It is, he supposes. 

Hayden recovers from choking on his own spit, which is great news (4 young children will not become fatherless tonight), but bad news because he has to learn what the hell the Pike-Hollander Cuck Theory is. “I second that, what the hell is going on?” Hayden chokes out with a still-scratchy voice. 

“Well,” Andropov says, gesturing to the Pike-Hollander duo. “Theory is that Hollander fucks your wife while you watch.” Shane lets the back of his head thunk loudly against the wall as he closes his eyes and takes in a deep, slow breath. Maybe in a few days, Shane will laugh at the idea that his entire team thought he was capable of fucking Jackie Pike regularly. Right now, it’s not funny at all.

One of the other rookies pipes up. “Second theory is that Hollander’s your third.” 

Another voice counters: “No, no, the theory is that Hollander is the third and cucks Pike. They’re connected theories.” 

“What’s that word we looked up the other day? Polydactyl?” Andropov asks.

“Polygon,” Bouchard says confidently. 

“Polyamory,” JJ corrects. 

“I thought those were two separate theories,” another team member, Rollins, says. “Why did I put money on two separate theories if they’re the same theory?” 

“Jesus fucking christ,” Hayden says. 

Shane blinks a few times. “JJ, what the fuck?” Then, “How does Lily factor into this?” he asks, voice carefully monotone. 

“Obviously, Lily is the codename you use for Jackie?”

“Have you guys always been this fucking stupid?” Hayden asks. 

“I’m not hearing either of you deny it,” Comeau points out. He has a sleazy grin on his face, and something about it makes Shane want to hop over the bench and punch him. 

“I can’t believe I have to say this right now,” Hayden starts. “My wife and I are in a loving, monogamous relationship. Shane does not fuck my wife. Shane and I are not fucking. Jesus. Can’t a guy have a best friend?” 

“Still not convinced that if we called ‘Lily’ on Shane’s phone, Pike's wife wouldn’t pick up,” Drapeau sneers. “Or maybe Pike’s phone would ring? Should we test it?” 

“Again, have you guys always been this fucking stupid, or did you all get hit on the head recently?” Hayden asks. 

“I got hit on the head recently,” Bouchard says. 

Drapeau raises his hands like he is surrendering. “We wouldn’t be making theories if Shane wasn’t so fucking cagey about his girlfriend!” 

Shane just stares in silence. 

“Who definitely exists,” Comeau drawls sarcastically. “A real woman with a face and tits and everything.” 

“Are you assholes really this bored?” Shane asks, pissed off. “Should we do bag skates tomorrow?” 

“Defensive,” Andropov sing-songs. “I’m putting an extra 10 dollars on cuck theory.” 

“Well, I’m putting 20 on the Lily’s-an-escort theory,” the rookie from Mississauga says. “Dude, shut the fuck up,” someone else spits out. 

“Why is no one interested in my Lily-is-a-secret-government-agent theory,” Bouchard whines. 

“Fuck off, all of you,” Shane says. JJ gives him a long, considering look, then looks at Hayden. 

“I’m in. 10 dollars on the Pike-Hollander cuck theory,” JJ says to the room, still staring at the gawking duo. 

Shane sighs. “Fine.” He begins to quickly shed his gear, moving in quick, precise, visibly pissed-off movements. “You win. You guys want to know about Lily so badly. I’ll tell you why I’ve never brought her around.”

“Shane…” Hayden warns.

“No, Hayd. It’s fine. It was a matter of time, anyways.” Comeau and Drapeau share a look like cats that got the cream. 

Shane throws sweatpants and a sweatshirt over his compression gear. Tonight, he isn’t going to bother showering or making himself remotely presentable before he leaves the Bell Centre. Tonight, he is going to drop a hydrogen bomb onto his team, storm out, and drive straight home. Not even the horrible feeling of sweat soaked into his compression shirt can convince him to stick around any longer. 

“You haven’t met Lily because I’m gay, and Lily is my husband,” he hisses to his team. “And that is all of the information I will tell you, because he can’t be out yet, and I don’t plan to be out anytime soon either. So all of you are going to keep this between these walls, or else I will make every practice for the rest of your careers on this team a living hell. And no, Lily is not Hayden.” 

Shane turns to face JJ squarely before tossing his bag over his shoulder. “I hoped for better from you, JJ,” he says, and storms out of the room, which has been rendered silent. Hayden just shrugs and walks casually into the showers.

"Did he just fucking say husband?” Andropov says suddenly. 

The next day, Shane walks into the locker room (far too early. He assumed he could have a moment to himself this way and set the tone once his teammates trickled in, rather than walk into the room and have it fall silent) to find Theriault, completely red-faced and looking like he wants to make the locker room explode with his mind, already waiting for him. 

“My office, Hollander.” 

They’re quiet as they walk to Theriault’s office, which is a slightly-outdated looking thing absolutely coated in framed newspaper cuttings and photographs of Theriault posing with various MLH bigwigs over the years. It reminds him of bank offices, if bank offices had a set of hockey sticks mounted to the wall and a photograph of Theriault with an aggressively 1980s moustache that was taken in 2003. Theriault places himself on his throne, a large black leather office chair with probably too much padding, and Shane sits on one of the hard wooden chairs placed facing Theriault’s desk. There’s a thin layer of foam and leather on these wooden chairs in deep blue. Condensation beads onto the material if you are nervous and sweating and place clammy hands on the chairs as you sit on them; Shane has made this mistake several times throughout the years. He makes a point of avoiding touching the leather, opting to ravage his cuticles instead.

“To what do I owe this pleasure,” Shane asks, not a hint of pleasure in his voice. 

Theriault sighs. “I think you know what this is about.” 

Shane grinds his teeth together and absentmindedly grips his fingers together, squeezing his own digits individually to the point that it hurts before releasing and moving onto the next one. It helps distract him slightly from the way his heart is beginning to race faster and faster. 

“So…” Theriault continues.

Shane still doesn’t respond. 

“Is it true?” Theriault asks.

“What,” Shane manages to croak. 

Theriault, still red in the face, looks more and more disappointed as time ticks on. “Hollander. Your teammates told me that you have a secret husband now. What is this…weird prank?”

Shane makes a frustrated noise. 

“You know,” Theriault begins before grabbing a piece of paper and starts reading off of it. “The MLH deeply values the importance of diversity, equity, and inclusion…” 

“It’s not a prank,” Shane cuts Theriault off before he can continue to tersely read the canned statement the MLH communications department probably drafted up and sent to all coaches in case of media emergency.

Theriault, clearly expecting a different response (a denial, Shane imagines), stays quiet for a few beats. “Obviously, this stays inside of these walls,” he continues. “If it’s true?”

Shane nods again. Theriault sets the statement down and lets out a deep sigh. 

“And you will not let this impact the team or your performance in any way,” his coach continues slowly. “As captain, your job is to make sure that the team stays tight and focused.” Shane nods. He’s heard this all before. “We pay you a lot of money to stay focused and keep the team focused.” 

Shane stays silent, to which Theriault looks resigned about. He stares at Shane in a way that makes Shane cold sweat a little (he reminds himself: do not touch the leather chair); this is a new type of stare Theriault is leveling him with. Shane has categorized Theriault’s angry microexpressions into neat categories and knows how each downwards twitch of his lips translates to on a scale from “catastrophic disappointment” to “neutral displeasure” to “pride, but something’s still missing.” Only when the team has their hands on the Stanley Cup has Shane seen his coach’s expression clear into something that is pure pride. 

The look he gives Shane now is new and uncategorized. He quickly tries to pick it apart and does not like what he thinks it might mean. It’s similar to “catastrophic disappointment” with something else unreadable mixed in. Disgust, maybe. Shane worked very, very hard to be able to read his coach’s expressions and he very much does not like the new entry to this list. He hopes that he won’t have to see this one again, but knows in the back of his mind that this might be his new normal. 

“Well then,” Theriault continues. “I suppose we should use this chance to update your emergency contact information.” The forms are already printed and prepared, Shane notes as Theriault carefully slides paper and pen towards him, retracting his hand quickly like it might be burned if it gets too close to Shane’s own. He wonders if Theriault has a few blank copies at the ready at all times, or if he printed this one specifically for Shane, just in case.

Shane takes the blank forms and considers his next move for a moment. 

“Will this information leave this room?” he asks.

“You know how this works, Hollander. Don’t play cute. You get hit, someone on staff calls.” 

Shane shrugs. “Just checking.” Theriault’s new facial expression, the one with a layer of disgust enveloping the disappointment, solidifies itself in Shane’s mental catalog of Theriault expressions and their (possible) meanings. He hates it, and he hates that it’s probably here to stay forever. For some reason, this hatred and the adrenaline leaking into his bloodstream makes him want to be brave and see if Theriault has more expressions for him to categorize. 

He fills out the emergency contact and next-of-kin information on the form. He writes “Ilya Rozanov” under the name portions (avoiding writing “Hollander-Rozanov,” although Ilya has made it clear that he plans to make that legal change the millisecond it’s reasonably safe to do so. Technically, right now, he is still Ilya Rozanov and Shane is still Shane Hollander, but Ilya already giddily whispers “Mr. Hollander-Rozanov” into Shane’s ear in private when he gets the chance), writes down Ilya’s phone number and address, and then writes “husband” in the relationship-to-employee section. It’s quick and it makes Shane feel like he is signing Theriault’s death sentence, somehow, like this might be the thing that finally sends him into cardiac arrest. Wordlessly, he slides the paper across the desk towards Theriault. He wonders where Theriault stores the emergency contact information, and if Shane should be prepared to call someone for his coach.

Theriault glances down at the paper, and Shane tries not to laugh or panic (what an odd combination of feelings, he thinks. He is almost giddy with it) as Theriault’s eyes widen. 

“Are you fucking with me, Hollander.” 

“Nope,” he says, popping the ‘p’ obnoxiously, before standing up and walking straight to the door. His hands shake as he reaches for the door handle, which he hopes his coach doesn't notice.

“You’re benched,” Theriault calls out. “Go home. No practice today. Just…” he scrubs a hand over his face. “We’ll try this again tomorrow.”

Ilya’s coach calls him into his office, where Ilya finds the Boston Bear’s general manager already sitting and looking like he’d prefer to be literally anywhere else than here. Ilya can relate. He literally just finished practice and really just wants to leave. His coach hadn’t even let him go back to the locker room; Ilya was practically dragged by his collar straight from the ice and dragged into the office. An impromptu meeting with his coach and GM usually only means one thing: he tweeted something management thinks is stupid and will try (and fail) to strong-arm him into writing an apology statement, or someone else on the team fucked something up and he needs to step up as captain.

“Let’s get this over with,” the GM says grimly. He looks constipated. It’s the particular constipated face he makes when Ilya says something stupid and needs to be spoken to about it. Ilya wracks his brain for what specifically he could have said online the past few days to warrant it. All he’s done is retweet screenshots of that Zooptopia abortion comic that has been blowing up the past few months. Now that he thinks about it, this is probably about the goddamn Zootopia abortion comic. 

"I just had a very, very interesting phone call with Coach Theriault from Montreal," Coach LeClaire starts. He and Ilya hold eye contact for a moment, neither saying anything else. LeClaire holds a blank expression on his face, but there is a very slight telltale twitch of the corner of his lips that hints that he is, perhaps, trying to hold back a laugh. 

This meeting, Ilya realizes, is about a secret third thing that could cause his GM to make that particular facial expression: it’s not that he or a teammate said something stupid, it’s that Shane fucking Hollander said something stupid. He never thought he’d see the day. The Zootopia abortion comic retweets stay!

"You came up in the conversation," Coach LeClaire continues.

"I am interesting topic for coaches," Ilya responds casually. He isn’t sure why he opts to play stupid. He wipes his hands on his shorts quickly. They’re getting clammy, which is going to make the whole playing stupid thing really hard to pull off. Now that he thinks about it, he isn’t sure how he got brought up in the conversation, or even why he is here. Shane had told him last night that he told his team that Lily is his husband before he left the room. Shane insisted that he hadn’t told them anything about Lily. How the fuck did this get connected to him so fast?

He wishes he had a chance to check his phone before he got dragged into this meeting. 

"Coach Theriault seemed interested in ripping your head off." 

Ilya hums in response. “This is also common for coaches. I have that effect on them.”

"Get to the point, please," the GM sighs. "I already have a headache and I think it's about to get worse."

LeClaire huffs out a small laugh. "Here's the thing, Roz, Coach Theriault just had a very interesting meeting with Shane Hollander, and he thinks that maybe Shane is trying to pull a prank on the team." Leclaire does not look like he believes what he is saying. "And Theriault is also thinks that maybe you're 'colluding' with him-- his words, not mine-- and wants it nipped in the bud ASAP."

"Hollander is not known for his pranks," Ilya interrupts, attempting to sound casual, but blood is beginning to roar in his ears, and he can barely hear himself over the thrum of heartbeat as it begins to pump harder and faster. "What is this prank?" He already knows what his coach is about to say, but feigns innocence anyways. He isn't sure why he is still bothering. 

The Bears' GM puts his head in his hands.

"Apparently, yesterday, Hollander told the Voyageurs that he got married," LeClaire pauses, watching Ilya's reaction. Ilya tries very, very hard not to have a reaction at all. LeClaire plows forward. "to a man," he continues, slowly. Ilya holds eye contact, daring his coach to continue. "apparently, it's a shitshow over there, whole team freaking out. No one knew, and now Hollander is being tight-lipped about it."

"Interesting."

His coach and GM stare at him in disbelief, like they can’t believe he’s not saving them the trouble of explaining everything he definitely knows.

Eventually, LeClaire clears his throat and continues. “No, the really interesting part is that when Hollander submitted his updated paperwork, he listed you at both next-of-kin and emergency contact.” Another pause. “And put ‘husband’ down as your relationship to him.” 

Ilya hums, considering his options for a moment, and then carefully lands on the nuclear one. Subtlety is key, he thinks. He’ll follow Shane’s lead on this one. "I should probably update my information too, yes?" 

Shane is unbenched almost immediately. So quickly, in fact, that he only misses one practice session. Today, Shane has learned something new from his mother: sometimes, the only thing you need to do to fix a problem is to lightly suggest that a lawyer may get involved. 

Theriault won’t even look at Shane, which is also new. He categorizes this amongst the other Theriault expressions and files it firmly under “disappointment, disgust, embarrassment? To be determined.” 

Practice is a mixed bag of new and familiar sensations: around half of the team goes about it like nothing has changed at all. Shane appreciates these teammates. JJ seems to be trying, but keeps faltering visibly whenever he looks at Shane. Shane knows JJ and has known him for many years; he can tell that JJ’s faltering has to do with the suddenness of the confession, not the confession itself. JJ, at his core, is a really good guy. Hayden, meanwhile, is definitely overcompensating, loudly cheering Shane on, clapping his back, overall being incredibly, obviously, overzealously bro-y towards everyone. It’s inclusive but also horribly obvious, and it makes Shane smile a little. The rest of the team…

Well, Shane isn’t stupid. He can feel the harder-than-usual checks during practice scrimmages. Guys who used to small-talk with him are eerily quiet. Some keep flashing him strange looks (disbelief, disgust, confusion); Shane isn’t sure what to do with these, since he’s never seen them on their faces before. Some won’t look at him. 

Growing pains, Shane thinks faintly. Everyone needs some time to adjust. He just wishes they managed to get themselves sorted out during the one day he was (unofficially, Theriault insists, probably to avoid further lawyer threats) benched, so he didn’t have to see it. He keeps his head down and tries not to think about how most of the team is avoiding being in the shower at the same time as him.

“No, Shane, sweetheart. Don’t button your shirt all the way up like nerd. Leave the top two open,” Ilya scolds through the Facetime call. 

“Pervert,” Shane quips, to which Ilya responds only with a grin. 

Tonight is the Montreal Voyageurs Annual Holiday Party and Hayden has made it clear that Shane will be attending, even if he and Jackie need to drag him into the venue kicking and screaming. Shane, fully aware that there was nothing he could do to stop the inevitable (he could stop Hayden, but he cannot stop Jackie), decided that his best course of action would be to call his husband so that Ilya could distract himself from scrubbing his skin completely raw

(Ilya is good at distraction, especially in the shower).

Shane puts on a plain white button up (two buttons undone, as ordered by his husband) and black pants that ilya approved of along with a rolex watch (gold and on his left wrist to match and draw attention to the wedding ring on his finger, which he can’t stop twisting around nervously, on the left because wearing it on the right might not be obvious enough, and he’s feeling a little brave tonight). Ilya approves of the way he has rolled up the sleeves of his shirt to his elbows to draw more attention to the flashes of gold, despite it being December in Montreal with a real feel of -30 degrees. He has a coat and restaurants in Montreal blast the heat. He’ll survive the draft around his forearms.

Shane hangs up the call only when he receives a warning text from Hayden that says that he and Jackie will be there in 2 minutes, so Shane better get his ass downstairs.

True to their promise, Shane finds himself in front of this year’s restaurant/victim of choice, steered through its doors by Hayden and Jackie Pike, who have held an iron grip on him since dragging Shane out of his apartment and throwing him unceremoniously into their minivan. 

“Ostie,” Shane hears someone spit out when he, Hayden, and Jackie walk into the room. Hayden drops Shane into a seat and plops down into the space next to him. To Shane’s surprise, JJ drops into the seat to his other side. Jackie, meanwhile, ventures off to hug a few women that Shane recognizes are his teammate’s wives and girlfriends. 

“Hey,” Shane ventures. JJ shoots him a small smile. 

“Glad you made it, Capitaine,” he says, handing Shane a bottle of beer. A peace offering, Shane assumes, and smiles back. “Are you ready to fucking party?”

For the first time in his entire career, Shane sticks around the Annual Holiday Party after the first wave of people leave. He is also, for the first time in his entire career, a little bit drunk at the Annual Holiday Party.

JJ, clearly excited that Shane was accepting the offered beers, kept offering Shane beers. A peace offering, Shane assumed every time, and then sipped. He is on his fifth one by the time Hayden and Jackie leave to relieve their babysitter. The beers absolutely do not fit into his diet plan, and he’s going to have to punish himself over it tomorrow.

(Normally, Shane would go home with the Pikes, but they [specifically, Hayden and Shane] decided that maybe they should leave separately this year after the Pike-Hollander cuck theory fiasco earlier in the week. Jackie was disappointed. She, unfortunately, loves the cuck theory and cannot stop referencing it, reveling in her husband’s over-the-top reactions every time she brings it up.) 

(Shane finds it a little funny.)

Once the Pike’s vacate their places, Shane finds himself surrounded by women he doesn't really know. 

He vaguely knows that these women are WAGs, recalls that one of them is named Fatima and always has a kind smile on her face whenever Shane sees her, and thinks two of the others are named Stephanie and Emmy. The only one he knows for certain is Marisa, Andropov’s girlfriend, because when they started dating, Andropov walked his phone around to each team member in the locker room and asked them to rate her on a scale from 1-10 while flipping through her tinder profile. Marisa is really too pretty for Andropov.

“Shane,” Fatima says softly. “Can we join?” 

Shane nods, confused. Stephanie, he thinks, elbows JJ out of the way as the quartet swarm him. JJ squawks in surprise, to which Stephanie says something quick and snippy in French that Shane is too tipsy to translate quickly enough before JJ responds in equally snippy French. Seemingly placated, Stephanie allows JJ to return to his spot in the fold.

“We heard congratulations are in order,” Emmy says softly, moving to touch Shane’s hand, but stopping herself at the last moment as Shane begins to visibly shrink in on himself. 

"We’re happy for you,” Fatima cuts in. “We know some of the guys aren’t reacting so well, which is unfair.” 

“Yeah,” Marisa says. “Also, we’re like, insanely curious about the guy, and none of our boyfriends are telling us anything.”

Shane snorts a little, relaxing. “I haven’t given them anything to tell you, really,” he says at the same time JJ angrily snips “This wasn’t supposed to leave the locker room.” 

Shane sighs. “It’s fine, JJ. Of course the guys told their girlfriends.”

“It’s hot gossip,” Stephanie says, raising her eyebrows. Fatima slaps her leg. 

“We just wanted to tell you we support you and that things will get better with the team,” Fatima cuts in. 

Shane hums and takes another sip of beer. It’s gross. He kind of wants a ginger ale, but JJ keeps kindly getting him more beers, and it doesn’t feel right to reject JJ’s very obvious attempt at a peace offering. 

"How are you doing?” 

Shane slumps onto the table heavily, burying his face in his arms. It startles everyone. He seems to be in good company here, and the beer is starting to make him feel brave. And pathetic. Very sad. A little horny? He’s definitely, definitely not feeling the holiday spirit.

“Honestly? I miss my husband and I wish he could be here,” Shane whines pathetically. 

“Oh!” Emmy exclaims as Marisa and Stephanie coo in unison. 

JJ barks out a sudden laugh, which causes some of the guys at the table next to them to turn and look at the ragtag group. “I didn’t realize you were such a softie, Capitaine,” he says, with affection dripping through his voice. 

“I’m sure he’s waiting for you at home,” Fatima says softly. 

“I wish,” Shane whines again. It’s really pathetic. “He’s at home in Boston right now.” He pouts as he picks his head up from the table. “But he’s flying in so we can spend Christmas together,” he says softly, dropping the pout and replacing it with a small smile. Marisa keeps cooing at him like he is a child, which is awful, because he’s nearly 30 and also, objectively, a huge guy.

“Home in Boston?” Stephanie asks, concerned. “Does he live there?” Shane nods his head, pout returning to his face. 

Emmy picks up where Stephanie leaves off. “Is he planning to move to Montreal?” 

This makes Shane slump back onto the table. “Nooooo,” he whines. JJ quietly moves Shane’s beer away from him while Shane is distracted. “He needs to be there for work.” He turns his head towards Emmy, but keeps it resting on his arms. “At least we have Facetime and Skype and stuff.”

“Oh, honey,” Fatima says. “Long distance is really difficult, we understand.”

“Yeah, you guys travel a lot, so we understand. All of us are long distance at least part of the time,” Stephanie says. 

“It’s just…” Shane sighs and sits up yet again. “We’ve been doing long distance for 7 years, kind of, so we should be pros at it, but it’s just getting harder and harder.”

Marisa squeaks. “Did you just say 7 years?!”

“Shane, didn’t you date Rose Landry?” JJ asks. 

Shane grimaces. “Well. uhm. We were on and off for 7 years? Not exclusive.” He takes a swig of beer. “I don’t want to talk about it, please.” 

“Okay, okay,” Fatima says, placing a hand on Shane’s shoulder. “We won’t pry.”

Marisa scoffs. “Speak for yourself. Shane, can you tell us about him?”

Shane frowns. “No, I shouldn’t.”

Stephanie leans in, conspiratorially. “You can keep it vague. We’re just really curious.”

Shane leans back in his chair and considers for a moment. On one hand, he really, really shouldn’t tell these women he barely knows (and JJ) literally anything about Ilya. On the other hand, well…

He doesn’t have many people he can talk to about Ilya, and as much as he hates to admit it, he’s itching to have an outlet. He can tell his parents some things, but not…most things. Rose is partially aware of his situation, but doesn’t have the full context, and she’s so busy all of the time. And Hayden…Hayden still thinks Ilya has him under some kind of spell, Rasputin-style. Shane rues the day that Ruby and Jade Pike watched Anastasia. 

Under normal circumstances, Shane would shut this conversation down, but right now, several beers deep…

“He…he always knows when I get too far into my own head and he knows exactly how to take me out of it,” he begins. “He’s patient with me. He pretends that he doesn’t care about literally everyone around him, but his heart is huge and so full of love to give. He’s really funny, even when he doesn’t try to be. He…challenges me, in all parts of my life, which makes me want to improve. For him.” 

“This might be the longest I’ve ever heard you talk about something that isn’t hockey,” JJ muses. 

Maybe it's the alcohol cushioning his brain, or lowering his brain-to-mouth filter, but against his better judgement, he tells them: “and his dick is huge,” with a dopey smile. 

Shockingly, the table is delighted by this admission (except JJ, who says “C'est dégeulasse” but still looks a little ecstatic to hear Shane speak like that). 

“He’s so fucking hot it pisses me off,” Shane continues, bolstered by the reaction.

JJ laughs loudly in shock. “I feel like I'm meeting a new version of Shane tonight, but also don’t say anything more detailed, please, I need to look you in the eye at practice.” 

“Do not listen to him,” Stephanie says, throwing a hand over JJ’s mouth. “Keep going, Shane. How big is his dick?” Fatima, Emmy, and Marisa all laugh loudly. 

“Stephanie, what’s going on?” Rollins walks over to them, watching his girlfriend in confusion as Shane holds his hands out in a vague approximation of Ilya’s dick size, giggling when the four women (and JJ) drop their jaws in shock. Behind Rollins is Gilbert Comeau and his wife, Marie-Eve.

“Just hanging,” Stephanie says lightly. She accepts a quick kiss to the cheek from him, but looks visibly annoyed that their riveting discussion was just interrupted.

“I hear women love having gay best friends,” Comeau says, staring directly at Shane. “I should have known you’d fit right in with the WAGs. More your speed than the rest of us, right?” 

“Dude,” JJ says, rolling his eyes. 

Shane’s fairly certain that comment is meant to come across as homophobia, but he has heard significantly worse in the locker room and on the ice over the years. It doesn’t even rank in the top 40 homophobic and misogynistic comments he’s heard from Comeau in recent memory. Fucking whatever, man. Comeau can’t even bring out his A-game in front of his wife. 

“Let me know if you need one too, Marie-Eve,” Shane says. Marie-Eve, to her credit, forcefully lets out a puff of air from her nostrils and smiles a little. “Rose Landry says I’m pretty good at my job.”

The opening notes of “My Heart Will Go On” cuts off the conversation before it can even progress; Bouchard has a karaoke microphone in his hand, and tears are already welling in his eyes. 

“That’s my cue,” Fatima says, getting up to collect her drunk husband. Shane can’t believe Bouchard managed to get a woman like Fatima to even look his way. Straight people are fascinating.

“It’s starting,” JJ sighs before taking out his wallet. 

Halfway through Bouchard’s heartfelt but wobbly rendition of Celine Dion, Drapeau stood up on a table, glass raised in a toast, which was never completed due to the fact that he promptly fell off of the table. Several glasses were victims. 

JJ decided to tip the restaurant staff early before more damage could happen, and Shane insisted on paying off the (remainder of) the team tab under the excuse of “captain duties.”

The first tab, technically, had been paid by Theriault, but after Theriault left, it was assumed that it was every man for himself. Shane can practically hear Ilya’s disembodied voice in the back of his head calling him Mr. Sugar Daddy, but he keeps that joke to himself. He has a feeling this crowd wouldn’t be too thrilled about it. 

By the time money had properly transferred hands, the team was on their third Celine song. JJ interrupted by grabbing a microphone straight out of someone’s hand to yell “CAPTAIN PAID FOR OUR TAB!”

And for the first time in days, Shane watched as the majority of his team (with the notable, but unsurprising exception of Gilbert Comeau) looked at him, actually, fully looked at him, and cheered. 

Straight people are weird.

Chapter 2: 2018

Chapter Summary

The year is 2018: the Voyageurs are a bit of a mess (but getting better!), many notebooks are filled out, Scott Hunter breaks, Shane has a cheating scandal, and the general public can't stop wondering what on earth Ilya Rozanov is doing in Ottawa.

Chapter Notes

WOW! First off I want to thank all of you for the support you've given me on chapter one! I usually write for long-dead fandoms (and never anything of this length) so posting this and receiving so much immediate feedback has been a wild experience for me. I really appreciate the comments, bookmarks, and kudos! To address the elephant in the room, yes , I have nothing else on this account. I will eventually have more LMFAO

I’m planning to have this fic span a few years. You may have noticed that I added a chapter count! I have a general idea of how long I want this to span, but I may add or subtract if things change.

I initially wanted this to follow the major story beats of TLG, but as I outline it, I think I’ll be deviating somewhat heavily, especially when we hit 2020! Just note that because this is a crack treated seriously fic focused on the soft launch chaos, I won't be unpacking things like Ilya’s mental health journey or Shane's ED. Just read assuming that is happening in the background as per TLG canon.

The only major exception is that in MY little hollanov AU-verse, Hollanov ARE communicating daily via phone call/skype/FaceTime/etc. I'm sorry Rachel Reid I know the lack of communication is so so so key to TLG but MY gay ass talks to my wife every second of every day and I want that for my good personal friend Shane Hollander too

Also, I do apologize if I get some Game Changers timeline things wrong. I will be so honest with you all, I have not read Tough Guy/Role Model/Common Goal. I WILL someday!! I am actively reading Game Changer but Scott is so fucking corny it hurts (which keeps making me laugh so hard that I can't take the book seriously) so I keep pausing to read other things. I just finished Eradication: a Fable by Jonathan Miles and thoroughly enjoyed it. I recommend it if you want a quick read! I am also rereading Never Whistle at Night: an Indigenous Dark Fiction Anthology, which is my favourite horror short story collection. Please check it out if you enjoy horror!

ALSO: PLEASE KEEP CREATOR SKIN ON IF YOU ARE ABLE TO!! THE TEXT MESSAGES AND WHATSAPP CHATS SCROLL!!!

January 2018

When Shane returns to Montreal from All Stars, the Voyageurs are a hot mess. Their practices go well enough, far better than they did at the end of December, but their actual gameplay has become bad enough that sports commentators are beginning to pick up on it like bloodhounds. Shane’s team isn't actively targeting him at practice, but, sometimes...he feels like he is the only man on the ice. 

Their loss to Buffalo, of all teams, (a gnarly affair that resulted in Buffalo beating them 2-1. Shane scored the only Montreal goal that night, and still the media flamed him alive) spurs another mandatory meeting for Shane with Theriault in his awful outdated office. 

"I will be honest, this isn't looking good," Theriault says. "The team's playing like dog shit. They were playing like horse shit right before Christmas, so there's improvement there, at least, but we both know this team shouldn't be playing like shit at all."

Is dog shit better than horse shit? Is there a sliding scale of shit and its associated value? Isn't horse shit used as fertilizer on farms? Wouldn't that make it good shit, objectively?

"You will fix this," Theriault says. It's an order, not a prophecy. "No distractions. Just hockey."

"Are you having this conversation with all the guys, or just me?" Shane wonders out loud.

"The other guys aren't causing the problem."

Shane can't stop himself from speaking his thoughts aloud this time. "It isn't my fault that the guys are so distracted imagining my sex life that they can't hold a fucking stick anymore," he grumbles. 

"And you will not make it any worse," Theriault warns. "Do not tell them who you married." He runs a frustrated hand over his face. “Allegedly,” he tacks on after a beat. "I cannot imagine the absolute fucking shitshow that would cause if it got out."

"Thank god the medical team signed NDAs," Shane says a little more sarcastically than he intended. 

"I'm serious, Hollander. There will be consequences if you let this team explode. Keep your personal life private."

Shane sighs. "Yes, coach."

He doesn't think he can fix his team, so he'll just have to play like hell and hope they eventually follow his lead. Maybe the fact that they just lost to Buffalo will encourage his team to get their shit together. He can't imagine that Montreal fans are being kind and understanding towards the team on social media right now.

Theriault taps his fingers against his desk impatiently, fingers drumming noisily against his old wooden desk. It's loud in a way that makes it clear that he is drumming against a hollow spot, and the sound bounces around Shane’s skull. Theriault’s hand drums so intensely against the wood that it shakes the lone framed photograph that has the honour of being propped up on the desk rather than hung on the wall: Theriault with a small child who looks vaguely like him, dressed in hockey gear. He was probably in pee-wee hockey. They're both smiling as wide as they can. This is Theriault’s son, Shane recalls. He must be around Shane’s age now. Theriault’s son never made it to the MLH or even the AHL. He faintly wonders where Theriault’s son is and what he is doing, if not hockey. He wonders what Theriault thinks of his son who couldn't make it to the league as he stares down the league’s top player with disapproving eyes. He wonders what it must be like for a hockey coach’s only son to not make it in hockey. 

"You know, Hollander. I didn't buy the Rozanov story," Theriault says conversationally. Shane feels his hackles raise. "I called LeClaire and he thought it was just so funny," he continues, voice turning seething when he says "funny." "He called me later, laughing, talking about how Rozanov's story matched yours."

Shane nods. Of course it matched. They're literally married? He's already explained this to Theriault.

Theriault shakes his head. "So then I called your mother," he continues. 

"You called my mother," Shane repeats. 

Theriault nods. "I called your mother, who also had a matching story, and then she told me she'd call back when she had a lawyer on the line." Shane smiles a little. She does that. She taught him that little trick. Theriault does not like that trick, clearly. Yuna Hollander has whipped it out on him twice in one month. She'll probably do it again.

Theriault sighs again. "Hollander. Level with me, please." Shane just stares in return.

"Is it actually real?"

Shane nods. 

"Have you ever colluded with him to fix games? Decide who wins? Played worse around him?"

"We play hockey, sir. We are professionals. Neither of us would ever, ever change our play style for the other person, throw games, whatever else. And if you check my statistics, you'd know that I tend to play-"

Theriault cuts him off with a wave of his hand. "Your mother said the same thing, kid." He sighs again, defeated. "You better play like hell next time you play against Boston, or else."

"Is that a threat, sir?"

Theriault's mouth twitches upwards, slightly. "For legal purposes, no."

February 2018

A notebook lands squarely on Shane's lap with a solid thunk before Ilya wraps himself, koala-like around Shane's side on the couch. They are both exhausted from tonight’s game, a Montreal-Boston game played in Montreal. 

It was a particularly rough game for everyone, mostly because Ilya and Cliff decided that it was time for about half of Shane’s team to simply die. 

The Hollander-Rozanovs are quite good at keeping their personal lives off of the ice (Correction: no, they are not. The ice has been used as foreplay for years at this point and there will likely be no stopping it for the foreseeable future, unless a miracle occurs and they end up playing side-by-side someday as true teammates, not temporary all-stars teammates. Even then, their ability to keep their personal lives off the ice would be close to non-existent. How can you separate those two places when they make up so much of you? Shane knows this dream is simply a dream; there is literally no way that Ilya will ever wear a Montreal Voyageurs uniform on the ice, and the hair on the back of Shane’s neck stands up when he thinks about playing for Ottawa’s current team. He feels a pang of guilt slash through his heart; he knows Ilya is hellbent on moving there once his Boston contract is up. It's the most effective way to wrack up physical presence in Canada and become eligible for citizenship sooner. It wouldn't be sustainable for Ilya to rely on the physical presence from spending summers in Ottawa and piecing together days traveling to and playing against Canadian teams in their own barns. It's not like Ilya and Shane could go to Boston together once Ilya has played a few years in Ottawa; the people of Boston would waterboard them both with melted Dunkin Coolattas, hooting and hollering as the sickeningly sweet fluid chokes them both, and the people of Ottawa would just watch it happen politely.) 

Ilya, however, has become increasingly upset watching Montreal games the past 2 and a half months. Despite Shane’s claims that whatever animosity existed in December had been resolved at the Christmas party by flashing his debit card around, Ilya knows better. He knows that Shane is severely underplaying how bad it is in order to convince himself that everything is business as usual. Ilya sees how the Voyageurs play like Shane isn't there. He sees how his defensemen refuse to defend him (with the exception of JJ, but Ilya is still giving him the side-eye for maybe possibly having a crush on his husband, and who wouldn't, really. Ilya doesn't blame him. Shane Hollander is magnetic, but he also legally is Ilya’s and Ilya’s alone, and he desperately wishes he could scream it out loud to the world without their lives crashing down around them). He sees how Hayden fucking Pike is the only guy who passes him the puck now. He sees the weird way the guys watch him as he stretches and warms up and plays the goddamn game they are all paid way too much money to play. 

He has also, unfortunately, heard things other players are saying about Shane. It only takes a few post-game bar hangouts with guys from other teams to realize something is up. It doesn't take a detective to know that Shane’s sexuality has become an open-secret in the league because someone in the Voyageurs let it leave the Bell Centre’s walls, and for that, Ilya (and thankfully, Cliff Marlow and his massive, hulking body) decides that they need to be dealt with. 

Ilya is a little proud of the way he and Cliff managed to injure two entire lines of Montreal Voyageurs, even if Ilya got ejected from the game for high sticking the shit out of Drapeau 3 times (which, he tried to hide as goal attempts, but the refs aren't blind, and he will admit that smacking Drapeau immediately after actually scoring a goal is bad form and not very sneaky at all). 

The rest of the Bears haven't really questioned why Ilya and Cliff were so hellbent on murdering the Montreal Voyageurs tonight. They just know that in the pre-game speech, Ilya told them to match his energy, but avoid harming Hollander, Pike, or Boiziau. They also notice how he hesitated before saying the second and third name, and translated it into: Hollander is completely off limits, but Pike and Boiziau can sustain minor injuries.

He thinks that maybe some of his teammates will ask about it soon. The Bears aren't very subtle– a side effect of their, well, general vibe as a collective. He noticed the way some of the guys looked like they were on the precipice of asking, but stayed firmly on the ledge rather than jump off of it. Ilya knows that he and Cliff are a frightening duo to behold when they share a vendetta. He's seen plenty of horny tweets about it.

(He sent one of them, a particularly imaginative short story in progress written by a Twitter user proclaiming to be freshly 18 and obsessed with Cliff Marlow’s hole, directly to Cliff. It was beautifully written, a real work of art focusing on Ilya and Cliff working out their combined rage on the ice through a series of sex acts Ilya isn't sure are actually possible. Cliff only responded with a middle finger emoji and a plea for Ilya to focus on his “weird husband.” Cliff has no eye for real art. What a shame.)

"What's this?" Shane picks up the notebook and opens the front cover, taking note of the coffee rings that appear on the first page and the way the corners turn upwards with misuse. 

"Plans," Ilya mumbles from where he has crammed his mouth into the junction between Shane's shoulder and the place where his neck begins. The position makes a sore spot on his ribs ache a little, but he pushes through it. Not even the jaws of life could separate him from this warm spot right now.

"Go on."

"You made many plans for us. I made plans, too."

Shane squints at the first page. He should wear his reading glasses, but he is legitimately interested in what Ilya has to say right now, and putting on his reading glasses usually leads to Ilya forgetting…just about anything that was happening in the moments leading up to Shane putting on his glasses. "Operation Comrades in Arms?" He reads out loud. 

"Title is...work in progress. Not relevant to plans. References old Soviet phrase I remember from poster. People think we are comrades, I like to be in your arms. It made sense to me when I wrote it."

"Maybe we should both stay away from naming things," Shane says. "Softlaunch ideas," Shane reads on the next page. There is a long bullet-pointed list underneath. 

Ilya cuts in before Shane can start reading in earnest. “The Irina Foundation is a good step, but that will get people used to seeing us standing next to each other. Working together. They won't get used to us making out this way.”

“No one needs to get used to us making out because we won't do that in front of them.”

Ilya shrugs. “You have your plans, I have mine,” he says ominously. Then, “This,” Ilya points at the notebook. "This is a list of ways we can show people we are together without having to write a big stuffy announcement and do a million interviews like boring, old Scott Hunter.”

“Ilya, are you suggesting we soft launch our relationship?”

“Yes!” Ilya cheers. “That. It would be funnier this way. Not yet, but maybe soon we could start. Imagine watching people try to figure it out.”

“What if it draws too much attention to us?” Shane asks softly. “What if our teams figure it out?”

“Your idea of posting a statement would draw too much attention to us, and our teams are full of stupid people who have brain cells replaced with protein powder,” Ilya grumbles. “And I wouldn't be able to post photos of you. No fun. This is much, much more fun, I get to post pictures of my pretty husband, make media confused, and maybe when we finally tell people, they won't be surprised enough to pay much attention.”

Shane hums.

“Hyphenate our last names legally, funniest result if this is leaked to the public,” Shane reads out loud. “You just want an excuse to legally hyphenate our last names, Mr. Hollander-Rozanov.” 

Ilya shrugs, grinning. “Is true. And it would be the funniest way to come out. Imagine how funny Twitter would be.”

“I guess,” Shane says as he skims the rest of the page. He has no idea how funny Twitter would be, because every time he trends on Twitter, he logs out of his account. He trends a lot. It’s a fucking nightmare. One time, he posted a photo of his lunch after his mother suggested he “let fans get to know him better.” The notifications poured in. Hundreds of 20 year olds with sparkle emojis and little 7s flooded his inbox to give him unsolicited advice about the nutritional value of his lunch. He works with a professional nutritionist, thank you very much. He does not need the advice of a sophomore English major from Baltimore. 

“Post lots of couple pictures together online, but never make it obvious? Tell people we have partners if they ask but refuse to say anything else? Wear our wedding rings in public?” he reads out loud. 

Ilya nods. 

“I feel like this will make everything…too obvious.” One thing Shane knows about Twitter (and Instagram, and Reddit, and Tumblr, and the occasional lengthy YoutTube video) is that people love to create theories, and while the Montreal Voyageurs may be shit at it, the folks over on Twitter have what it takes to crack a case wide open. The only cracking wide open he wants to do is for his husband. 

“Maybe some people will guess. Maybe they’ll post on Twitter and say they’ve solved big puzzle,” Ilya begins. “And maybe, maybe people will see these posts and say ‘no, this is fake’ or ‘no, that’s crazy, you are delusional fan with delusional opinions.’”

“You want to gaslight people?”

“We are not lighting anyone on fire, Hollander.”

“No, I mean–” Shane sighs. “You want to lie to people and make them feel crazy.”

“Is not lying. It is the opposite, actually. We tell the truth, but we do not tell them enough to have the complete story.” 

Shane considers this for a moment before letting a small smile sneak out. 

“I guess it would be pretty funny.”

“You were planning to gaslight people anyways.”

“You fucking asshole, you do know what gaslight means.”

Ilya grins. Ilya likes to do this schtick where he pretends not to know certain words just to watch people flounder. Because he’s a piece of shit, he weaponizes it most frequently during interviews. He’s been caught a few times after feigning confusion at words and phrases he has previously had absolutely no trouble with, but he, of course, just pretends even harder not to understand. There’s a video compilation of him doing this on Youtube that’s 13 minutes long. It has, after all, been years since the days he struggled to understand reporters’ rapid-fire questions. In their minds, Ilya is an unchanging figure. His reputation was solidified as soon as humanly possible, marketed to the masses, and not updated since. He might as well use it to his advantage.

Most importantly, he knows that Shane finds it funny. 

“Mr. ‘We-won’t-tell-anyone-we’ll-just-change-the-narrative-by-starting-a-charity-and-people-friends-in-public’ thinks doing exactly that is bad because we wear our wedding rings while we do it,” Ilya mocks. “Thinks that telling people we are friends is good but saying ‘yes I have longterm partner, also unrelated but look at this photo of me with my good friend Ilya’ is too mean.”

“I get it, I get it.”

“Mr ‘I-only-lasted-4-months-before-I-told-my-team’. Mr. ‘I-hardlaunched-my-relationship-to-my-coach’.”

Shane throws his head back in a scoff. “Come on, that’s just unfair.”

“Mr. ‘I-told-women-I-don’t-know-that-my-husband-fucks-me-good-with-his-massive-cock’.”

“Hey!” Shane yells, pushing Ilya’s chest lightly. “I didn’t say all of that.”

March 2018

Word has definitely, definitely gotten around the MLH that Shane Hollander is gay.

Someone on his team must have blabbed. Shane started to notice a slight uptick in strange comments made towards him during games in March, but now it’s like an avalanche. 

The games he’s played recently that have been slur-free are games against Boston (Ilya has done a remarkable job throughout his captaincy squashing that behaviour on the ice and locker room, but says he hasn’t been able to stop some of the older guys the second his teammates are outside of the rink. He’s been thinking of telling his team that he is bisexual just to freak some of them out, bolstered now by the fact that he won’t be a Boston Bear much longer. Cliff managed to talk him out of it) and Ottawa (they’re quite frankly, too soft to even try).

The guy directly in front of him, a new-ish player on the Toronto Guardians who was called up from AHL to fill in for a guy on IR, just managed to lob a combination of downright rude comments in the 5 seconds he had before Shane stole the puck from him. He may be a slow skater, but his quickness to combine a series of anti-gay and anti-asian slurs in quick succession is potentially record-breaking. Shane’s pretty sure he just heard a word that hasn’t been used since the 1950s. 

Shane passes the puck to Hayden, who scores. Hayden’s a good friend. 

April 2018

“Alright, I need everyone to fess up. Who wrote this?” Hayden swings a spiral-bound notebook around. “I know only 4 of you can even read.” It’s too early in the fucking day for this. 

JJ steps in behind him, crossing his arms menacingly. “Tell us before we start making assumptions.”

“What’s going on now,” Shane grumbles.

The rest of the team remains silent. They're not particularly good at silence; Berkes drops his jock, which falls to the ground with a solid thunk that echoes off of the walls. Renaud coughs (open mouth, not even attempting to over it with his elbow. Disgusting).

Hayden passes Shane the notebook and reads the first page. 

“Hollander husband theories?” Shane reads, voice taking a shrill note near the end. 

“Theories about who your husband is,” Mitty supplies helpfully. Three guys smack him. 

Shane sighs. “And are you all betting on this?”

“Yes,” a few respond. Some sound more confident than others. Some of them, miraculously, sound a little ashamed. 

“Do you not have better uses for your money?” Hayden asks the room.

“It’s just for fun,” Koch whines. 

“I think you guys think about my relationship too much,” Shane grumbles. 

“We’re just bored, cap, and you give us a lot of material,” Drapeau says.

"No, no, the issue is that he doesn't give us anything to work with, which is why we have to make theories," Couillard pipes up. 

“I have 10 dollars on the ‘The husband is a secret government agent’ theory,” Bouchard says. 

“I’ve got 50 on the husband not being real,” Comeau says. 

“30 on the husband being Scott Hunter.” 

“100 on the husband being coach.”

Shane throws the notebook in the recycling bin and makes his team do suicides until several of them puke. 

May 2018

What’s Going On With the Montreal Voyageurs? 

by Jean Paul Beaudry

Posted: May 26, 2018

If you asked me back in the beginning of the 2017-2018 MLH season which team I expected to see win the Eastern Conference finals, I would have probably told you that the Montreal Voyageurs were favoured to win. 

The Montreal Voyageurs have been on a championship tear, winning the cup in 2015 and 2016. The Voyageurs were also expected to be Cup contenders in 2017, before star center and captain Shane Hollander experienced a major on-ice injury that took him out (and the Voyageurs, who are known to flounder without their captain at the helm) for the remainder of the season. 

Shane Hollander returned in prime form at the beginning of the 2017-18 season and the Voyageurs, as expected, dominated. 

But then, something changed, and fans are beginning to ask: what on earth happened with the Montreal Voyageurs? 

The Voyageurs as a collective played some of their statistically worst games between January and February of 2018 (with the exception of Shane Hollander, who played exceptionally well, scoring the vast majority of Montreal’s meagre goals). Voyageurs fans watched in horror as the strong team they've come to know and love seemingly disintegrated on the ice. 

“Why is everyone on the ice acting like Shane Hollander doesn't exist?” Twitter user Shollanderhole asked. At the time this article was written, Shollanderhole’s tweet had amassed over 25,000 likes. 

In a post-game interview with Hayden Pike and Shane Hollander after an excruciating and frankly, embarrassing loss to Buffalo, Pike stated vaguely: “We’re working through some things as a team.”  Hollander, meanwhile, stated: “Our jobs are to put the pucks in the net. I hope my team remembers this soon.” 

They did not. 

The Voyageurs’ 2018 playoff run was cut short after a downright brutal loss to the Boston Bears.

Eagle-eyed fans noted on Twitter that Boston has been playing particularly brutally against Montreal the past few months. The Bears, particularly captain Ilya Rozanov, are no strangers to rough-and-tumble gameplay. 

“pretty sure Roz is racking up penalties for fun because he knows the voyageurs can barely skate right now,” a Reddit user wrote. Another Reddit user commented: “Can’t believe Montreal even allowed Rozanov and Marlow onto Bell Centre ice after they attempted 1st degree murder on half the team earlier in the season.”

We reached out to Montreal management for a comment. They did not respond.

Will the Montreal Voyageurs be back in form for next season? Voyageurs fans are hopeful the summer break will give the team time to regroup.

You may be interested in:

SHOCKING PHOTOS: Boston’s Ryan Carmichael seen drinking Starbucks frappuccino, angering Dunkin fans

“Please leave me alone”: We asked Ryan Price for his top Toronto restaurant recommendations

OPINION PIECE: Players should be allowed to beat up a fan of their choosing each game, as a treat

June 2018

July 2018

The Ottawa Centaurs legal team’s eyebrows shoot up to their foreheads when Ilya’s team alerts them that yes, while Ilya currently requires them to sponsor his work permit in Canada, they should be aware that Ilya ready has an active application for Permanent Residency through spousal sponsorship. They, mercifully, do not inquire further. Quite frankly, they seem shocked enough that they're even here negotiating a contract for The Ilya Rozanov, top 2 players in the league…on behalf of the Ottawa Centaurs, worst team in the league. They simply nod, looking slightly unmoored, before moving onwards to the next part of the contract.

Ilya, however, is struck by the need to explain himself further before going forward. He knows the Bears management team and that his secret is safe with them. He does not, however, know anything about the Centaurs management team. Before Ilya puts ink to paper on his contract with the Ottawa Centaurs, he asks for a private meeting with the Ottawa GM. 

“I need to disclose a personal relationship before I sign anything,” he says, once the door is shut to the GM’s private office. “This relationship will not impact how I play on the ice. It also, for now, must be secret.”

Ottawa’s GM simply laughed, like this isn't a huge deal. The biggest deal, perhaps. “Rozanov, you have to understand that this is the acquisition of the century for this team. You could be having sex with the Queen of England and we’d still want you in a Centaurs jersey.”

Ilya smirked. He is truly about to test this man’s limits of acceptance.

“This is about my spousal sponsorship application,” he continues. “You should know I have a husband.”

The GM nods, quirking up a single eyebrow. 

“As I said earlier, this does not impact anything. There will be no problems on our end. We want you on the team.”

Ilya pushes forward, feeling confident.

“You may know my husband,” he continues, playfully this time, like he is dangling a treat above a dog.  

The GM laughs again. “Go on, then.” God, Ilya hopes this goes well. He isn't sure what he will do if the reaction is so bad that he has to go crawling back to Boston to beg for another contract. He and Shane didn't really plan for the Centaurs rescinding the offer. They also, frankly, didn't plan for Ilya to potentially blow his chances by outright telling the GM about his marriage before a contract is signed. It's one thing to tell management that you're married to someone they maybe aren't expecting you to be married to. It's something completely different to tell your potential employer that you're effectively married to the enemy: a competitor from the same country, in the same conference, captaining a rival team. Something of this calibre has the potential to be a legal nightmare for management, and here Ilya is kindly alerting them that taking him on could potentially spell countless migraines for their legal team. 

It seems right to warn them, anyways.

“He is quite famous.”

“Do you want a drumroll, or something?” 

Ilya smiles while bracing himself. “His name is Shane Hollander.”

The GM simply laughs. Then, Ilya reaches into his pocket and slides him a copy of their marriage certificate: proof. He stuck a folded-up photocopy (as well as a copy of his confirmation that his PR application had been submitted) into his pants pocket this morning just in case the legal team asked. Shane warned him not to keep those documents in his phone photo gallery, although it would be much more convenient. The GM looks at it in thinly-veiled shock before going into another fit of laughter.

“We can work with this,” he says through giggles- honest to god giggles, before shaking his head. “Let's go get you in a Centaurs uniform.”

Ilya Rozanov signs with the Ottawa Centaurs, leaving Boston fans confused

by Jean Paul Beaudry

Posted: July 5, 2018

In a move that has shocked the hockey world, Ilya Rozanov, 27, has signed with the Ottawa Centaurs-- not the Boston Bears, the team he has captained since 2014.

Rozanov joined the Boston Bears in 2009 as the #1 draft pick.

An insider source from Boston claims "We are all shocked. Up until a few months ago, everyone was certain Rozanov would resign with Boston. Boston made a very attractive offer. Despite everything, Rozanov's team become a bit standoffish during initial negotiations. We still don't know what happened to cause this."

We reached out to Rozanov's team but his spokesperson declined to comment. Rozanov, however, took to Twitter and wrote the following statement, which many are taking to be in reference to his move (although currently unconfirmed):

"I like a challenge."

Hockey fans are supplying their own theories for the shocking Rozanov move from one of the top teams in the Eastern Conference alongside the Montreal Voyageurs and New York Admirals, to what many consider to be the worst team in the entire league. Theories range from a better salary from Ottawa (details on the new Rozanov contract have not been released), a longtime partner residing in Ottawa, a desire for a change of scenery, to more out-there conspiracy theories, such as a theory exploding on 4chan that Rozanov is working with the Russian government to uncover Canadian government secrets.

Regardless of the reason, the entire Hockey world's eyes will be on the Ottawa Centaurs this season, perhaps for the first time in the team's history.

You may be interested in:

The New York Admirals Harlem Shake controversy and what it means for LGBT+ rights

OPINION PIECE: We need to ban hockey players from soundcloud. Here's why. 

JJ Boiziau's top 10 #bodygoals moments (with photos!)

[Image description: an Instagram posts from an Ottawa bakery. Shane and Ilya are sitting together in the photo. The caption notes that photo 7 on the image carousel has a celebrity sighting and thanks the guys for coming by. There are some comments on the post expressing shock "IS THAT SHANE HOLLANDER AND ILYA ROZANOV????," "HUH" and "This is the craziest jumpscare Ive experienced in my life wtf]

[Image description: an Instagram post from Shanehollanderhockeyplayer. It shows Ilya sitting at a restaurant in front of a small flame. Ilya is looking to the side, kind of unimpressed. The caption reads "Fire never seems to impress him..."]

August 2018

In August, Shane and Ilya finally receive an update on Ilya's PR application. 

Shane knows that this is fast. He knows because he has invested hours into refreshing the processing estimates page on the IRCC website, checking various immigration blogs, and watching the r/ImmigrationCanada subreddit like a hawk. He knows it is normal for these applications to take an excruciatingly long time. He knows that when they applied, there was a 35 month processing estimate hanging over their heads. 12 months for their application to be assigned to an immigration officer is, in the grand scheme of things, nothing. They even have a note on the application that preliminary document checks have been completed, and Ilya has been asked to complete his mandatory health check.

A normal physical does not count. As professional hockey players, they get these often. They do physicals more often than the vast majority of people on the planet. Sending a decade of Ilya's detailed medical records still wouldn't count; Ilya needs to go get a special medical check by a pre-approved immigration medical clinic. 

The medical exam is laughable at best; a doctor presses lightly on Ilya’s bladder, asks him to cough, then hands him a cup to pee in. Then, Ilya has to go to a second location to get a chest x-ray exclusively to prove that he does not have tuberculosis. All he needed to do was be prodded briefly, and all results would be sent directly by the clinic to the IRCC to attach to his profile. It would have been better to get the Boston Bears to forward nearly a decade-worth of medical records to IRCC. Ilya didn't need to get blasted with radiation to prove he doesn't have tuberculosis when he has an extensive paper-trail of medical records outlining every inch of his body.

Ilya just laughs at Shane’s fury. 

September 2018

"So, you're friends with Rozanov now?" Comeau asks Shane as everyone gears up for practice.

"Yeah," Shane says, attempting the casual tone has has practiced time and time again. He knew this question was coming. He came prepared. They don't call him the most media-trained man in the MLH for nothing. 

"Does he know about," Comeau gestures towards Shane's...everything. 

"What," Shane asks, the question coming out more like a statement. He has to work on that. It never comes across well. He should ask for more media training, he thinks.

"That you're a fag," Drapeau chimes in. There are a few yells in protest at the word. It really is just a few. It's mostly Hayden, JJ, and a weak yell from Carroll, a quiet 21 year old from Ajax who hasn't quite found his place in the locker room yet.

Shane considers his options. He could lie and say that Ilya has no clue. It would firmly send his team off of the trail. Then again, he doesn't want his team to think Ilya Rozanov, his best friend in the world (ha!), isn't a safe person for Shane to come out to. This would negatively impact the friendship narrative. On the other side, he could tell his team that last weekend, Ilya rammed into Shane so intensely that they both cried. Or he could tell them that after practice, he plans to go home and talk to Ilya on Skype for 7 hours straight and hopefully come two or three times in that timespan.

He could also, he thinks, keep it vague.

"Yeah," he lands on. Media training coming in clutch.

"And he's...cool with that?" Comeau says, clearly a little taken aback. Oh buddy, if only you knew, Shane thinks. "Didn't peg him as an ally-type,” Comeau adds, a twinge of disgust in his voice.

Shane feels a muscle in his jaw twitch. "Yes."

"Does Rozanov know about...your husband?" Couillard asks, stumbling a little over the dreaded H-word.

"What is this, 20 questions?" Shane asks. 

Drapeau snorts. "We're just trying to learn a little about our dear captain's life. I don't know if you've missed this, but it's a hot topic around here."

"It shouldn't be," Shane says to the room in general. "We are here to play hockey. Focus on that."

Andropov's hand shoots up. Shane shoots him a withering look, and Andropov slowly lowers it. Still, he pushes forward:

"Wait, has Rozanov met your husband?" 

The room falls to a hush. Hayden Pike, the absolute traitor, snorts loudly. A lot of eyes whip towards him.

"Yeah, Rozanov knows Shane's husband. I can confirm." 

Shane groans. "Hayd, what did I literally just say?"

Hayden shrugs. "Whatever. They're going to continue asking." This must be revenge for their dinner with Hayden and Jackie back in August, he thinks. Ilya must have gotten on Hayden’s final nerve, not that there were many to get on in the first place. 

"Do you all...hang out?" Mitty asks. 

Hayden snorts again. Shane is going to text Jackie threatening to give Hayden a DIY vasectomy. She'll let him, he knows it. He'll look up a YouTube tutorial. The Pikes have enough children already. They've got a medical room in the Bell Centre with supplies and stuff. Shane has befriended all of the medical team, so he knows that they'll probably let him borrow the room and their supplies if he asks nicely enough. He isn't above bribery if its necessary. 

"Yeah, Rozanov loves Shane's husband. They're equally annoying," Hayden says.

"I keep forgetting that Pike knows the husband," Andropov muses, clearly thinking...thoughts. Shane wants to stop this immediately. Andropov shouldn't be thinking anything besides puck-in-net.

"Everyone on the ice. Now," Shane says in the most menacing way he can. Bouchard protests because he has tied his skates wrong. 

October 2018

Preseason Games Show Promising Start for the Montreal Voyageurs 

by Jean Paul Beaudry

Posted: October 19, 2018

Ladies and Gentlemen, your Montreal Voyageurs are back!

After a statistically bad (by Montreal standards) second half of the season earlier this year, Voyageurs fans were concerned that the team they know and love was breaking down before their eyes. 

The Montreal Voyageurs, in an impressive start to their season, have proven them wrong. 

“The summer break gave us time to process our last season’s losses and come back hungry for another cup,” Captain Shane Hollander said in an interview. “There is still room for improvement, but I am feeling more confident about this season.”

Hollander refused to comment on what happened behind-the-scenes in spring 2018. 

A now-viral video on YouTube, posted by Voyageur Dmitri Andropov’s girlfriend Marisa Flores Machado, shows a sneak peak at what a Voyageurs practice looks like. The shaky, 2 minute video features the team doing some impressive footwork drills. This, however, is not why the video has gone viral– At the 1:43 mark, the video shows Flores Machado loudly greet Voyageurs captain Shane Hollander, who waves back enthusiastically. 

Comments on the video are analyzing the friendly relationship between Hollander and Flores Machado. 

“Did Andropov’s girlfriend just openly call Shane Hollander ‘mi cielito’? What the fuck is going on” Youtube user TOGuardians4Life commented.

“I would bet real money that last season’s drama is because Hollander fucked someone’s girl” YouTube user xx_EXOL_42069_xx wrote. 

“If Shane Hollander smiled at my girl like that I’d probably just end it all right there in front of him, permanently altering the course of his life” YouTube user TrudeaussyLuvr69 commented.

So what do you think? Do the Voyageurs have a shot at the cup this year? Will we ever know what happened in the locker room in early 2018? Is Shane Hollander a homewrecker? Comment your thoughts below.

You may also like:

I watched every Marisa Flores Machado video for Shane Hollander sightings. The results may shock you!

No one asked, but Wyatt Hayes just dropped his preferred Star Wars watch order, and people have questions 

Troy Barrett on the lasting legacy of Akira Kurosawa on film: “What?”

November 2018

Scott Hunter keeps trying to make extremely meaningful eye contact with Shane across the ice, which Shane fucking hates. He attempts to shoot daggers with his eyes, but he thinks it maybe does not come across well through his visor.

Unfortunately, Mitty sees...something. Behind him, Shane can hear the heavy sluice of his blades on the ice come to a stop in front of Berkes, and a too-loud attempted whisper conversation as Mitty says "10 bucks on Hollander and Hunter being a thing." 

Shane feels a little nauseous. 

The team has, it seems, come to terms with Shane being gay (and married). In fact, some of the team seems to delight in this. Creating and speculating on the who, what, how, why, and where of it all has become a hobby for a select few teammates. Shane knows they have a group chat where they keep track of theories and how much money each guy has on each theory. He managed to get JJ to (lightly) bully Roy into adding him in. JJ sends Shane screenshots. 

Miraculously, no one on his stupid team has suggested that he is married to Ilya Rozanov. Based on the bets, it seems that the team thinks it is significantly more likely that he is married to Justin Trudeau (a solid $90 dollars is riding on that theory) than it is that he is married to his actual husband (zero dollars ride on this; Ilya is not even present on the theories board).

(Jesus, is Ilya's reputation as a womanizer so solidly baked into the MLH that people can't even imagine them together as a crack theory? There are 10 dollars riding on Shane's husband being the ghost of Georges Vezina...and Ilya isn't even on the radar?! Ilya wears cheetah print in public and yet people think the man is heterotron 8100. The world is cruel.)

Maybe Shane and Ilya aren't as obvious as they think they are. Sometimes, Shane thinks the whole world will figure them out if they just look at him too closely. Earlier in the summer, when he posted a photo of Ilya on Instagram and promptly turned off his phone, he thought that he'd turn it back on just to see a million notifications and several TMZ articles about their relationship. Instead, all he got was a few thousand likes, some confused comments,  text messages asking if he and Ilya are actually friends (or if they are victims to some sort of league PR campaign), and a link to a reddit thread of people arguing if both he and Ilya had their social media accounts hacked. 

He at least thought his team would connect the dots. Some of them have known him since he was a teenager. He's grown up with them. They've spent countless hours in the same space. They've studied his play style, his quirks on the ice, his pre-game rituals, what some of his micro expressions mean. Some have even memorized sections of pre-game speeches he accidentally repeats, word for word, when he can't think of anything new. 

His team has not connected any dots. 

Later, he bends for the first faceoff of the game. Scott is still trying to make eye contact. Scott attempts to say something, but Shane beats him to it.

"Not here," Shane spits.

About a minute later, Scott slams Shane into the boards and quickly says "I'm mic'd." 

Aw, shit. Shane thinks. My fucking loudmouth team. 

Shane skates the fastest he has ever skated in his entire life, desperate to subtly reach each player on the ice (and the bench) and tell them: please, dear God, don't say anything homophobic to Scott Hunter while he has a mic on (Subtext: don't say anything homophobic about me near Scott Hunter while he has a mic on). 

He approaches Drapeau at the goal, who takes his chance to say "I see the fairies were having a meeting." Shane cringes hard and delivers his warning. Hear ye, hear ye: Scott Hunter is wearing a mic, and for some reason he didn't think to tell us before the game began, but instead tried to communicate this very important fact via interpretive eyebrow raises.

That night, Shane watches the New York stream of the game, and is pleased that his message was seemingly delivered fast enough; the sole exceptions were an odd attempt from Hayden to say something supportive to Scott (which fell oddly flat, because Hayden's overly supportive allyship often horseshoes in such a way that "supportive!" comes across as "possibly sarcastic in an antagonistic way"), and Drapeau's fairy convention comment. 

Shane opens Twitter, hands shaking, just to see that no one seems to be in agreement of what the hell he was even referring to.

He needs to use this as a learning experience for his team; what they say on the ice might not be as private as they think. The ice is an insular place, but that insularity can only go so far when they are being broadcasted and watched like well-paid zoo animals.

Why is Ilya Rozanov so secretive about Ottawa?

By Jean Paul Beaudry

Posted: November 21, 2018

Months after Ilya Rozanov shocked the hockey world with his decision to leave longtime team the Boston Bears for the Ottawa Centaurs, the question on everyone's mind remains unanswered: why on earth did the #1 (or #2, depending on the day) MLH player choose to move to a dead-end team?

The Ottawa Centaurs, despite gaining the impressive player, have continued their tradition of slogging through losses.

Rozanov has been noticeably tight-lipped about his move to Ottawa, both in in-person interviews and on social media, a first in Rozanov’s career.

In one post-game interview, Rozanov pretended to not understand English when questions turned to his move to Ottawa (despite having very solid command of the language just moments prior). In another interview, Rozanov continuously and immediately responded "no comment," every time reporters said the word "Boston."

After taking time to sign jerseys (both Ottawa and Boston alike) after a Ottawa-Boston game at TD Garden, a viral video posted to YouTube shows Rozanov responding to fan questions about his move with statements like "I am excited to have Dunkin Donuts munchkins after this. In Canada, they have Tim Hortons timbits. Is similar but not the same." and "Today's weather is very nice," and, most inexplicably, "did you listen to the new BTS album? Nikki Minaj feature was good. Hollander did not enjoy, because his taste is bad." Hollander's team did not respond to our request for a comment.

Despite the disappointing win/loss record the Centaurs are seeing so far, Rozanov is still on fire, carrying the team on his back, according to some.

"This is a rebuild," Rozanov said in a recent post-game interview after a devastating loss to the Toronto Guardians. "This team has heart. I am confident this team has what it takes to win, once we click." In response to another question, Rozanov firmly stated: "When I was drafted by Boston, the team was also rebuilding. I won the cup. Soon, the Centaurs will too."

"It's good to see that Rozanov has not lost his boldness," one Twitter user quipped.

Centaurs fans took to Twitter to post encouraging messages in support of Rozanov amidst accusations that the move signals the beginning of the end of his career. Posts tagged #roztherebuilder and #thisteamhasheart flooded the website.

On the other side, angered Boston Bears fans posted #IlyaRozanovisOverParty in response.

You may also be interested in...

Montreal goalie Patrice Drapeau under fire for reposting straight pride content on instagram story

Toronto's Anders Nilsson comes out as a flat earther in shocking Instagram story

Ranking Shane Hollander's Reebok ads throughout the years (with photos)

December 2018

Shane is standing inches away from his husband in front of many, many cameras and eager reporters, and he doesn’t know what to do with his hands. Or his face. Or his entire corporeal being. 

He knows deep in his bones that he should be used to this. He’s spent a large part of his life standing, sitting, or skating directly next to the love of his life while eager cameras and microphones are trained on them, chomping at the bit to get that next big soundbite that will trend in hockey fan spaces. He knows this circus act well. Ilya thrives in it. At this point in Shane’s life, he should probably as well.

But this? This feels different. They’re used to attending events as rival hockey players, not as what is essentially a business partner relationship. They’ve had many relationships, and this is just another label and set of rules to add to the pile, and yet, he doesn’t know how to navigate it.

Shane schools his face into what he hopes comes across as pleasant (later, he’ll watch the tape and notice that it comes across more as constipated. His own mother will sigh and tell him he does that a lot in front of cameras.). He grips a microphone in his hand. The evil, evil voice in his brain tells him that it’s phallic and reminds him that he is standing directly next to his husband. The kinder part of his brain says, shut up.

The reporters present have been vetted to hell and back by Yuna Hollander in advance. The vast majority of reporters who wanted to attend, she told them grimly, just wanted to see what on earth Shane Hollander and Ilya Rozanov acted like when they weren’t at each other’s throats. Ilya had laughed at Yuna’s phrasing. 

Despite their attempts to post photos together and appear more friendly during games (approaching each other pre-game, on the ice, in a clearly chummy way, more playful ribbing post-game, the whole nine yards of on-ice friendship), the hockey world still is convinced that they want to poison each other in their sleep. The reaction still, every time they are within a meter of each other and not slamming each other violently into the boards, is shock, apprehension, and confusion. A vocal subsection is under the impression that this is a strange PR move; perhaps, the league decided that they had pushed the Hollander-Rozanov rivalry too far and needed to overcorrect to solve some sort of unknown PR issue. Another portion had become convinced that Ilya committed some sort of major infraction in Boston and had either been banished to Canada or ran to Canada to escape scrutiny, and was now using Shane ‘Canada’s Golden Boy’ Hollander to recuperate his image before the real story even hit the press. Some thought Shane was taking pity on Ilya after Ilya moved to the Centaurs. Shane is beginning to think that if they posted a sex tape, people would assume it's a deepfake. He will never voice this thought to his husband who would probably take it as permission to post a sex tape on his instagram. 

On fanfiction websites, the number of works in the Hockey (RPF) category that featured Shane Hollander and Ilya Rozanov, already quite high in number, had exploded in recent weeks. Cliff sends Ilya links all the time. Shane has stopped him, multiple times, from creating a burner account simply to comment on fics that make Shane top him. They’re wrong and must be corrected, Ilya argues. Shane tells him to put the phone down, like Ilya is some sort of dog. He obeys anyways. 

From what Shane can tell, the venn diagram of people who think their relationship is real and people who are taken seriously within the hockey world are two completely separate circles, separated by an entire ice rink. 

Now, off the ice and on neutral ground, surrounded by (well vetted but still curious) reporters trying their best to get the scoop of the century, Shane desperately hopes that no one can see the way Ilya’s eyes turn gooey every time they flick to Shane and that the mics can't pick up the way their tones veer dangerously close to flirtatious. 

He doesn’t have to worry about that right now, he thinks. The Irina Foundation is too important and serious for them to flirt the way they do elsewhere. The benefit of them forming this business relationship is that this is a space where they can’t bring themselves to flirt in public, not while the ghost of Ilya’s mother looms over them. The mics, in reality, are only a concern when someone on the ice is mic’d up for a game. 

(“It would be fine if people heard us flirt,” Ilya had told him. “Straight men who are friends do it all the time.” Shane would be shocked to his core if he heard half of the shit the Boston team says to each other on a daily basis. It's a straight man right of passage to call your best friend a hunk and offer, jokingly, to pounce on it crazy style. Ilya is still working on reaching that level of rapport with the Ottawa Centaurs.)

(Shane told Ilya that that's not a normal way for bros to talk. As examples, he pulled up text conversations he has had with Hayden and JJ. Ilya alerted him that that was absolutely not how straight bros talk, and then attempted to block both of their numbers. Shane managed to wrestle his phone free from Ilya's grasp in time, and now has to keep an iron grip on it each time Ilya is reminded that sometimes, Shane’s friends talk to him.)

Chapter End Notes

2019 is where the Real Shit begins...

Immigration note: Professional athletes need work permits!!! Ilya wouldn't need a work permit for Canada as an employee of the Boston team (his work visa would be a US one, which would also allow him to travel into Canada to play ON BEHALF OF HIS USA TEAM), however, once he moves to Ottawa, he needs a Canadian work permit (which, again, would also allow him to travel to the USA to play ON BEHALF OF HIS CANADIAN TEAM). This is because employment in Canada can help lead to permanent residency and then, eventually, citizenship. That's why I added the bit about the Centaurs needing to sponsor his work visa. Ilya would have to apply for a permit and provide an employment offer from the Ottawa Centaurs to prove he has a job waiting for him in Canada. There are ways to get open work permits (it's more complicated, though. I did this but had a somewhat straightforward path because I went to University in Canada), but Ilya wouldn't need this if he only plans to work as a hockey player lol

Also I know the medical exam bit is SO unnecessary to the story but the other day I was thinking about how my wife and I had to travel like 2 hours out of the city to find an immigration-approved medical clinic with availability AND a separate immigration-approved x-ray clinic just for like, the least involved medical exams of our lives. We wasted so much money on ubers. Good news is that we don't have tuberculosis.

Chapter 3: 2019, part 1

Chapter Summary

January-June 2019: JJ fucks around and finds out, there's a lot of hullabaloo about an embroidered jacket, Ilya finally enters his WAG era, and Shane Hollander does something very brave and very stupid.

Chapter Notes

I have nicknamed this chapter “the behemoth” because due to the html it’s well over 100 pages on google docs, which is making it very hard to work on (especially because sometimes I write on my phone and scrolling for 110 pages on the google docs app is awful)...so anyways I’m releasing the 2019 chapters in 2 parts and have changed the chapter count again! This chapter is VERY HTML heavy. I'm planning to have more actual writing in the next few chapters lol INCLUDING more of the news articles since you all in the comments seem to enjoy them so much!

Some of you may remember that my end notes on the last chapter are about how much I was regretting my Whatsapp formatting. Well. I had a bad week and decided the best way to process was to sit down and figure out a way to make coding the Whatsapp chats easier for me, and then I ended up writing more chats? Hence: the 100+ pages on google docs for just the first half of 2019. Whoopsies. Enjoy WAG chats and me poorly photoshopping some stuff that made me cry laughing for some reason

I also realized mid-chapter that I’ve been spelling Theriault’s name wrong the whole time lmfao anyways it’s corrected for this chapter but the jury is still out on if I am going to fix the first two chapters

 

Also: thank you again for the kind words!! I really appreciate the love and support for this silly little thing

JANUARY 2019

"So..." JJ says, rubbing his chin. He opens his mouth, then closes it, repeating the action a few times. It makes him look like a fish breathing. 

After practice, JJ invited Shane to his apartment. Alone. He made the request quietly and urgently in a way that is unbecoming to him and deeply at odds with his usual demeanor. Shane accepted quickly, which seemed to surprise JJ a little, like he expected resistance and wasn't sure what to make of the quick acceptance. It sets sirens off in Shane's head; he has never seen JJ act like this, which must mean that something has gone horribly, horribly wrong. 

Shane nurses the ginger ale JJ handed to him when they got settled in the living room. Shane knows that JJ does not usually buy ginger ale, which means he probably bought a case just to have on-hand for Shane, or he bought it specifically for...whatever this is. It isn't like JJ just grabbed him a can because he was getting one for himself. JJ grabbed himself a Lacroix, one of those sodas that tastes like carbonated water that has been sitting in the same room as a lime for a few days. It probably has less sugar than his own ginger ale, Shane thinks guiltily. 

"The charity," JJ finally says. "Congratulations, Capitaine."

Shane smiles. "Thanks, JJ. We're really happy that it's finally a reality. I actually wanted to ask if you want to help. We're going to run hockey camps for kids in Montreal and Ottawa, and it would be amazing if you'd help coach some of the Montreal kids."

JJ looks at him like he's caught off guard. "Oh!" A small smile grows on his face. "That sounds like it could be fun, but..." he trails off a little, considering something. "Rozanov," JJ says, eventually. "You've been spending a lot of time with him recently, non?"

"Yeah, we're friends," Shane says carefully. 

"Right, friends," JJ says in a weird tone Shane can't quite place. "Listen, I'm about to say something that might be crazy, but..."

"He's a nice guy once you get to know him," Shane jumps in. "I swear."

JJ hums, pursing his lips slightly in vague disapproval in the process. 

"Shane, be honest with me."

"I am being honest. He really is a good guy! A great friend!" Shane doesn’t understand why his friends refuse to believe that Ilya Rozanov is a good guy underneath his media demeanor. Sure, he plays rough sometimes, but so does a huge swath of hockey players. He chirps on the ice like everyone else. He has cocky responses to interview questions sometimes, but these moments almost always go viral- he’s a reporter’s wet dream (and Shane’s wet dream. It's happened 11 times throughout his life. Ilya is disappointed that it's “only 11” but Shane thinks it might be 11 times too many. He spends a good chunk of his life in hotel rooms shared with Hayden Pike; he can't live in constant fear of his brain deciding to replay Ilya Rozanov’s top 10 greatest hits in Shane’s own dreamscape, while poor Hayden Pike snores less than a meter away from him). 

(Shane doesn’t understand how Ilya managed to become the poster child of assholery in sport when players like Dallas Kent exist. Sometimes, Ilya cries when he watches movies meant for children. They tried to watch Up recently. It was absolute carnage. Ilya went through an entire box of tissues and accused Shane of psychological torture.)

"You're suddenly spending time with him," JJ cuts in before Shane can defend his “friendship” with Ilya further. "He moved to Canada. You've posted photos of each other online, which neither of you ever do- I mean, seriously, Rozanov's instagram is just a bunch of blurry photos of random shit and vague captions, and suddenly he's posting pictures of you? And he's apparently spent time with you and Hayden and...your mystery husband, who you refuse to tell anyone about, except apparently Hayden and Ilya fucking Rozanov."

"JJ..." This is not where Shane thought the conversation was going. Suddenly, JJ's living room feels like an interrogation room. JJ's Ikea lamp feels like a spotlight designed specifically to make Shane crack under pressure, and the ginger ale feels like a manipulation tactic intended to make Shane feel comfortable enough to share as much as he can, once his outer shell has been broken. 

“A while ago, I asked Hayden if your husband was Rozanov’s friend” he says, nonsensically. “I thought that maybe that would explain why you and Rozanov are hanging out now.”

Shane doesn't know what his face is doing. 

“But, you know, Hayden has…a very bad poker face. He said yes, but I could tell he was lying. I asked him if he was lying and he said yes.” Shane, despite his best efforts, laughs a little hysterically at this.

JJ laughs, shaking his head. “Mon ami, you trust bad liars with big secrets,” he says, tutting his tongue against the roof of his mouth. “I kept thinking, but nothing made sense. Then I watched your charity press conference," JJ continues. "and I kept thinking 'I've never seen Capitaine look at someone like that'."

Shane internally curses himself. He really fucked up. He shouldn't have stood so close to Ilya or even looked in his general direction during that entire press conference. The heart eyes! They will be his downfall! First the fanfiction writers on Tumblr, now JJ, eventually: the entire world! They're not ready to soft launch their marriage, only a friendship. Shane knows that they're toeing a dangerous line until Ilya gets his hands on a PR card. He knows that, in all likelihood, they'd be fine if information got out. Ilya has a solid contract with the Centaurs and says the management team was very calm and collected about the marriage reveal. They know that the Centaurs would have his-their- back(s) if they were forced to weather a media hurricane. They know that people finding out about their relationship wouldn't jeopardize Ilya’s employment, work permit, and chances at a life in Canada. They both know that his PR application will likely be approved (Shane has spoken with an immigration lawyer, who reviewed their documents and told them their chances of approval were high, especially given Ilya's already-demonstrated economic benefit to the Canadian sports economy). 

They know that the likelihood of Russia deciding to make an example out of him is low.

Once their immigration concerns are (mostly) squared away (Shane knows he won’t feel 100% comfortable until Ilya has a Canadian passport in his hands; A permanent residency card is not a passport. A PR card does not afford someone the same level of protections abroad that citizenship does, and Ilya has to travel outside Canada fairly often by virtue of their careers. At the very least, the only country he visits with any regularity is the United States, and for now, that’s safe enough), they’ll have a new monster to defeat: the hockey world and their reactions to their relationship.

That is, if the Voyageurs, Bears, and Centaurs management teams haven't already let it slip league-wide. He doesn't think they have; letting their emergency contact forms info become industry gossip could spell major trouble for their teams. If their teams let that info slip through their tightly-clasped fingers, inevitably, management of a rival team will accuse them of collusion. It's a headache their teams will NOT want to deal with, they think. Shane can practically imagine the shade of purple Theriault’s face would turn if someone hinted that the Voyageur’s success came from the benevolence of– god forbid– Ilya fuckingievitch Rozanov.

Shane realizes, suddenly, that he is going too far into his own head when JJ lightly nudges his shoulder. Once he manages to recapture Shane’s attention, JJ continues: "After a while, I remembered that I have actually seen you look at something like that before," JJ says, ominously. Shane fights himself to retain eye contact with JJ. "Your phone. While you are texting Lily."

Shane loses his personal battle and looks down at the table, worrying his bottom lip between his teeth. 

"Shane," JJ starts again, careful. Shane, again, faces him with the countenance of a man who knows he is about to be executed via firing squad and has come to terms with it. The year is 1879 and he is Wallace Wilkerson, defiantly staring down the barrel of the gun of his executioner, except he isn't Mormon, didn't allegedly kill anyone, and hopefully won't die of exsanguination after the bullet fails to end him with a clean blow.

"Did you marry Ilya Rozanov?" Boom. The shot has been fired. Shane is pinned to the wall by the bullet. It doesn't kill him with a clean blow. Bleeding out on JJ’s living room floor was never part of the plan, so he pushes forward.

"Yes.”

JJ's head falls back against the couch heavily. 

"Calisse," he says eventually. Shane feels it in his soul.

JJ turns his head, still resting against the couch, to look at Shane. He looks exhausted, somehow.

"Soryy, I figured it out, but still...hearing you confirm it...it still feels like a shock," he says. "I'm just," he waves his hand around uselessly. "currently trying to combine the Rozanov in my head with what you've said about Lily."

"Ilya," Shane says. 

JJ looks a little queasy. "Ily-- oh, tabarnak. You aren't subtle, Capitaine. Of all of the code names for Ilya in the world, you chose Lily?!"

"It was his idea," Shane says quietly.

JJ huffs out a small laugh. "You know, every time you've described...your husband," he says, avoiding saying Ilya's name. "You make him sound like, like the best guy out there." Shane smiles, because Ilya is the best guy out there according to him. He never lied about that. "I don't know what I was expecting, but I imagined a very different man in my head," JJ continues. "So, to know that this mystery perfect man of yours is the same guy that can't resist insulting every guy who puts on a pair of skates…” 

“You're handling this better than Hayden did,” Shane says quietly. 

JJ laughs a soundless, breathy laugh. “I can’t believe Hayden figured it out before me,” he says. “I guess he’s always watched you closer than other people do.” 

Shane doesn’t know what that means. 

“Hayden didn’t figure it out,” he says instead. “I told him.”

JJ makes a weird face. “You told him,” he repeats. “Why?”

Shane turns his can of ginger ale around in his hands a few times. “Obligation, I guess,” he lands on. “I was the best man at his wedding. I thought about it when I got married.”

“I’m sure he was happy to hear that you thought about him at your wedding,” JJ mutters petulantly.

“He was too busy being relieved to know I didn’t get Lily pregnant to focus on that,” Shane says.

JJ splutters. “I don’t want to imagine pregnant Rozanov, Shane. Why would you make me do that?”

“Why wouldn’t you want to imagine that?” Shane wonders aloud. He thinks Ilya would look pretty cute pregnant. It’s unfortunate that neither of them can be. Science is a rapidly developing thing, he thinks, maybe someday the impossible will be possible. Without realizing it, he smiles at the thought.

JJ shakes his head. “Mon ami, you are a strange one.” He nudges Shane’s side with his elbow, snapping Shane out of the daydream JJ practically threw him headfirst into. Listen, he isn't responsible for that one, it's JJ’s fault!  “Okay, help me combine the Ilya Rozanov in my head and the husband I thought you had. Tell me about him.” 

“You’re really, really handling this better than Hayden,” Shane says, a little breathy with the sheer relief he is feeling.

JJ’s face twists into something weird. “I will be honest, capitaine, I’m trying really hard to handle this well.” He takes in Shane’s confused expression for a moment and moves to clarify: “I’m not happy that Hayden knew before me, and that you didn’t tell me at all. I’m definitely not happy to find out you really are married to the asshole who can’t stop beating the shit out of us,” he takes a deep breath, considering his next words. “I think it will be a while before I am okay with all of this. I’ll try, for you, but I can’t promise to be okay with it immediately.”

Shane nods, a little disappointed but not too shocked by JJ’s admission. 

“Hey,” JJ says, elbowing him in the side again, soft and friendly. “Ami, I’m serious, tell me about him. I want to understand what you see in him.”

(attn: WhatsApp light mode = Ilya POV, WhatsApp dark mode = Jackie POV)

February 2019

March 2019

[Image description: an Instagram post from RealRozanov81 showing him cooking something. The caption says "rassonik" in cyrillic. It is geotagged Ottawa, Ontario.]

April 2019

Montreal clinches playoff spot!

By Jean Paul Beaudry

Date posted: April 16, 2019

It's official: the Montreal Voyageurs have clinched their spot in the playoffs! 

Montreal narrowly defeated the Toronto Guardians in the race for the Eastern Conference wildcard spot. The Voyageurs will be joining the current top three teams in the Eastern Conference: Tampa, New York, and Boston. 

This victory has come as a surprise for some fans who believed Montreal's cup dreams were over after last season's uncharacteristic spring breakdown. After a strong start to the 2018-2019 season last fall, many fans expected Montreal to follow the same trajectory it did in the 2017-2018 season: a strong fall presence followed by a series of trainwreck performances in the spring. 

Instead, the Voyageurs took these low expectations as a challenge. 

Captain Shane Hollander has shown a particularly strong performance, currently holding his highest-ever personal record of goals and assists at this point in the season. 

"One thing is for certain: Shane Hollander took last year's loss personally and is on a personal mission to claw his way back to the top. Those stats don't lie!" commentator Jillian Byrd said in reference to Hollander's impressive season. 

While the Voyageurs as a whole are an impressive team, some members are having a better season than others. Voyageurs Hayden Pike, JJ Boiziau, Dmitri Andropov, and Felix Renaud have had a particularly impressive season. The rest of the team has had a middling to poor season in comparison to previous seasons. 

Montreal's biggest downfall this season has been in its own goal: Patrice Drapeau, starting goaltender, is, for lack of a better term: off his game. 

This combination of players on fire (such as Hollander and Andropov) and players having more…temperate seasons led fans (and sports betting experts) to question Montreal's ability to actually make it to a playoffs run. 

“There will always be ways we can improve as a team,” Captain Shane Hollander said after the Montreal-Bears game. “Team building is a process that never finishes. But, we have a strong foundation. We’ve won together before. I think we have what it takes as long as we all focus on the game.” 

Do they really have what it takes? How will the Voyageurs fare in the playoffs? Only time will tell! 

You may also like…

“I’ve never read a full book before”: Fan speculation on hockey player literacy levels leads to difficult conversations on the state of adult literacy

EVERYTHING you need to know about the Ilya Rozanov and Azealia Banks beef!

OPINION PIECE: We must do everything in our power to prevent hockey players from doing Tiktok challenges 

May 2019

June 2019

Montreal manages to not only claw its way into the finals, but win the cup. 

Sports analysts initially predicted a 47% chance of a Montreal win, which skyrocketed to a 70% chance the moment Shane Hollander scored a goal within the first minute of the game. This 70% chance was bolstered to a solid 80% chance when Tampa’s first line centre twisted his ankle so badly that he needed to be helped off of the ice. 

The 80% lowered to a more conservative 60% when Tampa scored. 

At 1-1 for the majority of the game, the chances of the game going into overtime seemed almost inevitable. Tensions ran high. A fight broke out, instigated by a Tampa defenseman (although, Shane will admit, the Comeau deserved that hit), and Montreal went on the power play. Shane scored in the final moments of the game on an assist from Hayden, stopping the game from entering overtime and more importantly, securing his third Stanley Cup. 

Given the way that he can barely feel his feet anymore, and the way half of the Voyageurs look like they are going to keel over and die on the ice, it’s a miracle they even managed to make it this far, much less win the whole thing. The celebration is almost instantaneous. The Montreal bench all but pour onto the ice and rush to their captain, slapping each other into bear hugs along the way. JJ picks Shane up and fully swings him around princess-style while cheering a deafening yell. Shane wobbles on his skates with exhaustion when he is finally set down. For this entire final game, he has been powered by almost nothing but pure adrenaline and desire to prove that this team– his team– could do it again, and now they’ve done it.

Families, slowly, make their way to the ice. Yuna Hollander covertly turns to Ilya, who managed to nab a seat directly behind the Hollander parents, and squeezes his hand. It’s an apology as much as it is a celebration. Ilya, in another universe, belongs on that ice along with them as the captain’s husband, but they discussed this in advance; Ilya, no matter what, would stay in the stands so they couldn't accidentally recreate the Scott Hunter kiss in the heat of the moment. Ilya would never forgive himself if his big coming out moment was a direct callback to Scott Hunter’s, like a cheap Shein knockoff. His will be better. 

His presence at the game at all is a little bit surprising, but not too surprising. Sure, it's a bit strange seeing Ilya Rozanov in the stands of a hockey game that isn't his own, but now he lives close to Montreal, and more importantly, is publicly close with Shane Hollander. 

Regardless, Ilya tried to hide himself a little. He wore a baseball cap and assumed it'd be enough. It was not in the slightest. He has seen about 30 photos of himself at different angles and levels of blurriness posted on twitter. Only a few Twitter users have caught onto the fact that he is sitting suspiciously close to the Hollanders. God, he sucks at disguises. 

It also does not help that Ilya was put on the Jumbotron at one point during the game. There is a gif on twitter of the moment that shows, through a shaky phone camera, Ilya's face on the Jumbotron before panning down to Shane, visibly grimacing on the ice. The clip has been reposted 1.3k times and counting. Cliff retweeted it because he's a dick. 

Ilya retweeted it because, well. You know. 

Yuna and David Hollander make their way onto the ice and Ilya stays rooted to his seat as planned (extensively and after lengthy debate with Shane the night before, except both sides of the debate were represented by Shane, who was really cut up about it. Ilya just watched and nodded along and presented devil’s advocate arguments as needed [which was never, but he did it anyways]). Before making her way down Yuna quietly hands him a folded-up jacket, which he recognizes immediately as his own Hollander 24 WAG jacket. 

“Shane told me it was at his apartment. I picked it up just in case you wanted it,” she whispers before casually sauntering down the stairs behind her husband, like she didn't just hand Ilya the equivalent of a hydrogen bomb. It’s almost too casual, like she’s making every effort to pretend to be casual, knowing full well that Ilya is absolutely gaping behind her. 

Ilya can see women wearing matching jackets to his own (with different names, of course) making their way down to the ice. A few make eye contact with him and discreetly nod, just slight enough for him to catch but not enough to draw much attention (not while the Montreal team pile drives each other into the ice in pure elation). He’s most surprised by Marie-Eve Comeau, who flashes him a wild smile and thumbs up (from a distance, it would come across mocking, but Ilya knows better. They've been texting a surprising amount. He’ll never, ever tell Shane that Comeau’s wife is actually kind of funny).

Ilya watches the ice. He watches his family congratulate his husband. He watches the women he’s been texting for months take their rightful places next to their husbands and boyfriends and kiss in public. He watches Shane’s team, the same team that practically abandoned him a year prior before suddenly getting their shit somewhat back together, throw themselves onto him in pure elation (he suspects the embarrassment they received from angry fans online was enough to set fires under their asses, but secretly, he also suspects that maybe they decided that they’d be fine with having a gay captain if it means they could speculate about his life to their heart’s content). He watches his husband foist the Stanley Cup above his head on the jumbotron. He watches his husband pass the cup to the teammate next to him, lock eyes with the camera, and blow a kiss. Ilya grips his carefully-folded jacket a little harder. Even if the people around him don’t know it, he knows that kiss is just for him. 

For now, it’s enough.

Shane Hollander is a very brave and occasionally impulsive man.

At age 3, Shane watched a large man gliding on the ice hit a puck into a net and thought: I want that. He began to tell everyone in his life "I will be a hockey player when I grow up," and everyone humoured him the way that adults do when children make their plans known. The exceptions were his parents, who took him deathly seriously, and knew deep in their bones that Shane's split-second decision was final and unstoppable. They knew themselves after all, and Shane was a combination of them, mixed with a stubbornness Yuna recognized from her own mother.

At age 7, he was handed a diagnosis he didn't understand but made his parents blanch. A kind man wearing an ugly tie that has been seared into Shane's memory tells him that he has autism, and Shane nods although he doesn't know what it means, just that the adults in the room are taking the news gravely. Afterwards, when he and his parents went for ice cream, his mother quietly told Shane: Let's not tell anyone else what the doctor said today. Let's keep this our little secret. Her voice wobbled strangely when she said it, and Shane decided that he would never do anything to make her sound like that ever again.

(In hindsight, Shane knows that she was so young and terrified and so, so concerned that people would look at Shane as something less than for having yet another complicated label they were too scared to understand stuck onto him and that the sum total of his labels would overshadow everything else about Shane.)

(Years and years later, he would learn that young Yuna and David Hollander were confused when his teacher softly suggested they get him assessed for autism. To the Hollander parents, Shane was a perfect combination of all of the best parts of them. They asked the doctor to explain every reason he had for diagnosing Shane, and did not like that the best parts of them were all neatly listed on a piece of paper as symptoms. They didn't like what that meant for him or for themselves.)

At age 8, after being pushed down onto the ice by a larger and rougher player who spat and called him an ugly word the kid probably learned from a parent, Shane decided that he would become the very best at hockey. He knew at a young age that if he was any less, he would be eaten alive. He practiced even hard and focused on hockey with an almost uncanny precision. He was always the most intense player at practice, the first and last on the ice, always begging his coach to let him try a play one more time. 

(What if it isn't enough? hammered into his head. Sometimes, the voice was his own. Sometimes, it was his mother’s voice.)

At age 18, he was drafted and signed a contract with a legacy team, one rife with history and expectations, happy to foist them upon his barely-adult shoulders, and confident that he'd rise to the occasion. He signed the papers with a pen that felt too heavy in his hands, and ended the day grasping his dick that felt too heavy in his hands as his brain filled with Ilya Rozanov, Ilya Rozanov, Ilya Rozanov.

(Part of him thought that maybe his brain was full of Ilya Rozanov that night because Ilya, drafted before him, had just proven that Shane’s efforts were almost enough, but not quite enough. The more reasonable part of his brain told him that he wouldn’t be imagining his mouth on Ilya Rozanov’s broad chest if it was just about the draft.)

At age 18, he walked into a sex toy store, not quite famous yet but just famous enough that a single photograph taken at the wrong place at the wrong time could haunt him forever, hoodie tugged over his head and hands thrust into his pocket, and purchased a dildo, desperate to stop himself from thinking in what ifs, the draft, Ilya Rozanov, and the other boys he spent too long at throughout his life.

(It helped, kind of, but in many ways it made the what ifs even worse and completely unavoidable.)

At age 19 he opened the door. 

At age 21, far too young, he assumed captaincy of a massive ship and all of its expectations. He spoke to the media, to his team, to his mother with a feigned confidence that said "this doesn't make me feel like I'm crawling out of my skin, or my skin is too tight. I am comfortable here. I belong here, behind these cameras, under scrutiny, speaking to strangers who look like they want to swallow me whole."

(Despite his best efforts this hasn't really been enough; over the years, the media has called him awkward and stilted, media trained to an uncomfortable degree. He learned quickly to supplement what he lacked with more goals, more wins, more impressive records under his belt.)

(And, faintly he remembers, he is pretty enough to the point of distraction. He has mountains of advertisement photoshoots to back this up, himself posed as a model when he knows he is just a strange interloper into their world. He didn't understand it himself when he read the article declaring him the hottest man in the MLH, his traitorous brain telling him that Ilya Rozanov should be in that place [not 5th like the article said, those heathens], not when Shane is so used to seeing his own eyes in the mirror and has always found the sight so boring, but had never grown tired of looking at Ilya fucking Rozanov) 

(He wonders what would be different if he wasn't as good at hockey as he is or if he didn't look as nice as he does. He wonders, sometimes, if Ilya Rozanov still would have wanted him the way he does sometimes.) 

At age 25, after years of opening the door, he tried to close it by very publicly dating a woman who was too famous and much, much too kind for him, who let him down easily and forced him to think about the dangerous what ifs he tried to ignore by dating her in the first place. 

At age 26 he watched Scott Hunter make a sudden, life-changing decision and the what ifs solidified into a tangible thing that settled into the bottom of his stomach when Ilya Rozanov called and made a brave, impulsive decision of his own.

At age 26, he proposed to his boyfriend of 4 days (or 7 years, or 9 years, or not his boyfriend at all, depending on how you look at it), desperate to solidify this nebulous something that haunted him for years.

At age 26, he told his parents the truth, knowing it might break their hearts.

(It didn't, but he wonders if the Yuna Hollander of decades ago, the one who was handed information about her son she didn't want to process or share because that would make it too real, would have weathered it half as well.) 

At age 26, he took the love of his life's hands into his own and said: I do, no matter what happens. 

At age 26, he told his entire team, the same one that foisted decades of expectations and promises onto him years before (and kept heaping them on), that he is gay and married and while the reaction wasn't...amazing, the world kept spinning. They kept winning. Shane was still the best (and awkward, and pretty) and they respected that well enough. 

(Shane refused to think about what if they didn't respect that well enough.) 

Now, at age 28, champagne-soaked and euphoric, he thinks: I am going to do something so fucking stupid and so fucking brave right now.

Ilya knows that Shane is well aware that the reaction to this will not be good, even if the Voyageurs and their entire coaching and management team are completely high off of the elation of winning the cup for the third time in recent memory. He just isn't sure how quickly the mood will sour. He wonders if the Voyageurs will react immediately, or if the initial shock will be dampened by the sheer ecstasy of the win, which will inevitably fade with time and be slowly replaced with anger or disgust. Shane has a few years left on his Voyageurs contract. There is plenty of time for the joy of a win to mutate into something ugly.

He wonders if Shane even cares, now that he has definitive proof that having a husband isn't a distraction; the cup was literally handed to him on live television just moments ago. There is little else the team could ask for. 

He trusts that Shane is ready for whatever consequences there might be. He glances down at his wadded-up jacket that Yuna Hollander went out of her way to pick up and hand to him, and puts it on.

Ilya appears in the doorway of the Montreal Voyageurs locker room. He stands directly outside the threshold, hands in his pockets, and boy, he looks so, so nervous. Shane takes in the vision before him and sees the act of Ilya wearing the jacket for what it is: permission.

The spray of cheap champagne partially blocking Shane's vision mixed with the harsh fluorescent lighting makes Ilya look like he's sunlit and twinkling. Shane zeroes in on this, the rest of the room completely forgotten. Ilya is his universe; Shane's vision tunnels to only him. He thinks that this might be the prettiest sight he has ever seen. 

Shane does the only thing he can do at the moment: he beelines to the door, launching himself over benches and fallen teammates and puddles of champagne along the way. Ilya has a small, nervous smile on his face, which grows as Shane approaches at record speed. It’s a miracle that Shane doesn’t slip on the champagne on the floor.

Ilya opens his mouth, seemingly to say something. Congratulations, perhaps. Are you sure about this. Is this okay. Maybe he planned to comment on how it's a miracle Montreal won when their defense is so shit. 

Shane doesn't care to hear it. He fists his hand into the front of Ilya's shirt and drags him past the threshold and into the locker room. Ilya stumbles a bit as he crosses the door, clearly surprised by his husband’s force. Shane guides him to the nearest wall, just next to the doorway, and spins them around so that his own back is pressed against the wall. Ilya cages him in mostly with muscle memory. 

Selfishly, Shane wants to make sure the embroidered HOLLANDER 24 on the back of Ilya's jacket is facing the entire room. 

Shane reaches his fingers deep into Ilya’s hair and pulls him in for a kiss that is, admittedly, more tongue than anything else. Ilya responds almost immediately, hands reaching up to cup Shane’s face as he shoves his tongue down Shane’s throat with equal ferocity. He thinks about his previous two cup wins and texting Lily under the spray of champagne and thinks: this is so much better.

In the heat of the moment, just about everyone in the room is distracted. As a result, Shane gets a solid 45 seconds of slobbery tongue action in before anyone audibly reacts. He really relishes those 45 seconds of peace he gets.

"OH HOLY SHIT," poor, poor Bouchard yells, the first to look at the pair and process what he is seeing. 

Shane, through the wet sounds he and Ilya make, can hear commotion begin behind them. It’s a very different form of commotion than the one the room was enveloped in just moments before; this commotion is less celebratory and much, much more shocked. It comes in waves as portions of the room, previously sucked into their personal celebrations (it's a lot of yelling, so one can't blame them for not noticing the quieter pair near the door absorbed with each other), have their attention drawn towards them. 

The reactions, at first, are mostly yelps and words of shock. His team isn’t that creative, so he mostly hears phrases like “WHAT THE FUCK” and mishmashes of Quebecois swears used in odd ways by players who aren’t fully fluent in French yet.

For a few moments, no one says anything coherent (besides “WHAT THE FUCK”), until Hayden Pike notices what's going on.

"Shane!” Hayden yells in horror. His voice pitches up an octave. “Why is he here?!” 

The sheer terror in Hayden’s voice makes Ilya laugh into the kiss. Reluctantly, he separates his mouth from Shane’s own, tilting his head downwards so their foreheads and noses could still touch while giving Ilya room to whisper.

“This is not a proper way to introduce me to your team,” he says quietly through a small smile. The low, rumbling huskyness of his tone makes Shane really, really upset over the 2 inch distance between their lips. 

Neither of them see this, but behind them, Hayden throws his hands up in frustration. JJ, meanwhile, has shaken off his initial shock (while he knew that Shane and Ilya were together in theory, seeing them actually, physically kissing in front of him is an entirely different thing to come to terms with) and pats Hayden on the back consolingly. 

Coach Theriault clears his throat. “Hollander,” he begins, a warning in his tone. Shane doesn’t respond, instead opting to kiss the tip of Ilya’s nose. Ilya scrunches it, suppressing a giggle.

Whatever Theriault intends to say next is interrupted when a small group of women enter the room. Their matching jackets make them look like a team of their own. In a way, they are. The hockey world, like most professional sports worlds, are held up by the people surrounding the actual players. From what Ilya has learned the past few months, the WAGs probably deserve the cup more than the actual Voyageurs.

"Oh! Ilya!” Juliette exclaims happily after turning her head to see what every man in the room was staring at in differing levels of horror. She claps her hands a little before bouncing over to Mitty, who looks completely shell-shocked. Marisa smacks a quick kiss to Ilya’s cheek as she passes by before skipping to her equally confused boyfriend. Fatima flashes the pair a thumbs up. Hannah just busts out laughing. 

“ILYA?!” a disjointed chorus of confused cries emerge from the newly-victorious Montreal Voyageurs. Shane nearly forgot that the Voyageurs can’t see Ilya’s face from their current position. All his teammates can actually see of Ilya is his mop of blond curls and Shane’s name emblazoned on his back like a claim. He supposes that he subconsciously gave himself the opportunity to back out by positioning them this way; In theory, Ilya could have run out of the room with his head covered and kept his identity hidden. 

In practice, that opportunity has come and gone, not that Shane planned to actually use it. Instead, he huffs out a small laugh. “Show time,” he whispers ominously, before grabbing hold of one of his husband’s hands, stepping to the side and forward into the room, dragging Ilya behind him and turning him around at the same time. Ilya lets himself be dragged willingly.

“Hey everyone, I, uh, want to introduce you to my husband,” he says to the room. “Ilya Rozanov.”

The room is dead silent. Behind them, Laeticia, Jennifer, and Emmy have made their way into the room, but stop dead in their tracks when they notice what’s happening. Ilya turns his head to check who has entered and offers a small, shy wave to the newcomers, who respond in turn. Hannah tries to stifle another laugh and fails. 

“Hollander-Rozanov,” Ilya corrects, looking at Shane. No one says anything. Ilya has a shit-eating grin on his face that he is visibly failing to conceal. He must be so pleased to be able to rain on the Voyageur’s celebration parade in the most confusing way imaginable, Shane thinks. 

“We haven't legally changed our names yet, Rozanov,” Shane scoffs pointedly at his husband. Ilya’s grin grows wide enough to make his eyes crinkle and start to disappear. This specific flavour of Ilya look is usually followed by him saying something that, more often than not, leads to a fight on the ice. To see it in their own locker room must feel destabilizing for at least some of the guys in the room. 

JJ suddenly barks out a laugh that cuts through the tension like a cleaver. “Everyone knows who he is, Capitaine.” 

“What the fuck is going on,” Couillard mutters. 

“Oh, I didn’t realize I was this drunk already,” Renaud says, clearly not drunk at all. “What the fuck is the percentage on this champagne?” 

Theriault swipes a hand across his face. “I thought we discussed this, Hollander,” he says, defeated. 

Shane shrugs and tilts his head towards his coach. In the back of his mind, he registers that Theriault is making full eye contact with him (for the first time in many, many months), and his facial expression is not the mask of vague disgust he has become familiar with. Instead, Theriault looks fully and truly exhausted. He supposes that the epic high of a cup win mixed with the epic low of a surprise semi-public disclosure of a possible media disaster would do that to someone. “We discussed keeping myself and the team focused on hockey. We literally just won the cup, in case you didn't notice.” Shane glances towards Ilya. “I think I’ve already proven that marrying my husband hasn't impacted my hockey?” 

“Coach, you knew?!” Koch yells out.

Shane does not envy Theriault’s position. If he were in his shoes, Shane would be panic-calling every legal, PR, and HR representative that has ever stepped foot in the building, and then some more, just in case. Thankfully, Shane stands opposite of Theriault in this situation, and knows full well that Theriault deserves to suffer and flounder a little. It’s a very welcomed shift in their dynamic. 

Theriault turns to his sweat-and-champagne-soaked team. “This,” he hisses. “Does not leave this room. There will be consequences if anything leaks.” He swivels his head around wildly, attempting to catch the eye of each man in the room. “The last thing we want is for the media to catch wind of this and question our win tonight. We will have a meeting about this once I talk to legal. For now, keep quiet.” Theriault lets the statement settle into the room before turning to his phone, probably to contact Legal and PR and HR.

"Shane,” Hayden breaks the silence, voice weary. “Did you have to make out in front of us?”

Ilya laughs, pleased and just a touch hysterical. It makes the hair on Shane’s arms stand up. The sound startles some of the guys in the room, but Shane assumes they’re reacting for very different reasons than he is. “Yes, absolutely,” he says, grinning. “Should I do it again?” He slings an arm around Shane’s waist and pulls Shane just a smidgen closer. Shane would purr if it was physically possible for a human to do so.

“NO,” Hayden yells. Laine, for some reason, shrugs, and says “Go for it,” which draws several confused and concerned noises from the guys around him. 

"Wait,” Couillard says, interrupting whatever Laine has going on. “Who won the Hollander husband bet?”

Bouchard blinks. “I don’t think any of us did,” he says after a moment before continuing. “Uhm, who was the closest?” Marisa hits him lightly on the shoulder, to which he responds with a quiet but offended “what?”

“Grab the notebook,” Roy orders. 

“I don't think we need to be here for this,” Shane says, squeezing Ilya’s hand. “Let me grab a change of clothes.”

“No, Hollander, media is expecting you,” Theriault says, looking like that is the last thing he wants to send Shane out to do right now. To the wider room, he yells. “No one else talks to the media yet!” Then, “Again, we will have a meeting before anyone else is cleared to speak to the media. If you must post on social media tonight, focus on the cup and yourselves only!” He turns back to Shane. “I can't get you out of media duties,” he grumbles. “PR is blowing up my phone demanding you.”

Shane nods good-naturedly. Trying to get out of post-cup media duties was something he didn’t really expect to succeed in. 

“Hollander, please, do not say anything to the media that isn’t related to the game or winning the cup,” Theriault says, quieter, almost pleading. “Please.”

Shane nods. “I don’t intend to take attention away from the team’s win,” he says, truthfully. “I just wanted to celebrate with my spouse, like everyone else.”

Instead of responding, Theriault shoots Ilya a withering look. “You,” he points a finger directly at Ilya’s chest. “Stay back here, far away from any cameras and microphones until your husband gets back.”

Ilya does an exaggerated salute. Theriault eyeballs the Montreal Voyageurs logo on the front of Ilya’s jacket with unrestrained disgust. 

JJ suddenly approaches them from behind and slings an arm around Ilya, startling him slightly. “I’ll babysit him,” he says mostly to Theriault and Shane, who nod. “I have some questions for you,” he says ominously to Ilya. “Shane, you go do your capitaine thing and tell the media about how cool we are as a team.”

“Debatable,” Ilya says.

"Watch it, Rozanov,” JJ snaps, but there isn't much heat behind it.

SUBJECT: [IMPORTANT] MANDATORY MEETING

From: Alexis Theriault

To: @Voyageurs All Team

Jun 12, 2019 11:57PM

This is in regards to an incident that occurred in the locker room after the Stanley Cup win earlier this evening.

The Montreal Voyageurs management team reaffirms that players have the right to privately engage in celebrations with loved ones after wins, especially wins as significant as the Stanley Cup.

We would like to remind all players, team staff, and loved ones that private moments shared in the safety of the team area should remain private moments.

All team members of the Montreal Voyageurs, including players currently on Injury Reserve, are expected to attend a MANDATORY meeting TOMORROW AFTERNOON at 2pm.  Players on Injury Reserve unable to attend in person should join via Skype. A link will be emailed to you shortly. 

Do NOT speak to the media before this meeting.

 

Regards,
Alexis Theriault

Coach, Montreal Voyageurs 

(514) xxx-xxxx ext. xx

1909 Av. des Canadiens-de-Montréal, Montréal, QC H3B 2S2

Shane, Hayden, and JJ make their way into the team meeting room a little too early.

Shane is thankful for his friends. Without him even asking, Hayden and JJ decided to pick Shane up from his apartment and drive with him to the Bell Centre (Hayden drives. JJ, despite his best efforts to hide it, is definitely hung over. He's wearing a pair of sunglasses that he refuses to take off even indoors, and he pounds two gatorades during the short drive from Shane's apartment to the rink). They let Shane walk a step ahead of him, flanking him on his sides like a mafia boss walking into a meeting with two goons. 

Theriault, the Montreal GM, and a few other Voyageur staff members are already in the room. Some staff try to set up a Skype call and connect the laptop to a television screen using a HDMI cable. Theriault and the GM have a quiet discussion at the head of the conference table. They both look slightly exhausted.

The team, slowly but surely, slinks into the room almost on time. It only takes a single glance to notice that a solid 80% of the team appears to be very, very hungover.

Bouchard has to call in via Skype; for some reason, he opts to turn his camera on, which means the team gets to look at him resting his cheek against his toilet seat and occasionally retching into it. The positioning of Bouchard's web camera is at a dutch angle and is just a touch blurry.  Bouchard's bathroom lighting mixed with the composition of the shot seems to fascinate one of the management staff, who loudly comments that "it looks like arthouse softcore or something, right? I’m not crazy for thinking that, right?" Theriault tries and fails to figure out how to turn off Bouchard's camera for him, and Bouchard is in no physical condition to figure it out for himself. 

One other person joins via Skype, Taylor, a guy who has been on injury reserve for the past two seasons. Shane wonders if anyone texted him to explain why they're having this meeting. He's peppier than the rest of the team, clearly well-rested, not hungover, and based on the excited attitude oozing from the screen, probably doesn't have a single clue that Shane traumatized a good chunk of his own team yesterday. Poor bastard. He's about to have his world rocked if he hasn't already learned what happened from the Voyageurs group chat. Shane doesn't know if anything has been said in the group chat over the past 12 hours, since he muted it almost immediately after leaving the Bell Centre.

Once (almost) everyone is in the room, most of the guys stare openly at Shane like he is some sort of alien creature they've noticed for the first time. 

Shane offers a small wave, which is returned by a smattering of the younger guys, while the rest just continue to stare. Only some of them seem to be staring antagonistically, he thinks, but isn't quite sure. Some of the stares seem to be more...curious. Investigative. Mostly, fuzzy and confused rolled together? Comeau scoffs loudly and folds his arms against his chest before leaning his chair back. He's going to tip over, Shane thinks, but doesn't comment on it.

“Let’s get this over with,” Montreal’s GM eventually opens the meeting with, which is not exactly the type of opening speech you’d expect from a GM whose team just won their third cup in recent memory.

“Alright,” Theriault begins, looking as excited about the situation as he would be to get waterboarded, “As you all probably know, there was an incident yesterday in the locker room…”

Drapeau scoffs loudly. “You mean, when our captain brought the enemy into the room and started eating his fucking face?”

“Dude,” Hayden protests.

“I don’t remember you being very happy to see him in the locker room, either,” Shane mutters, unable to stop himself despite the way his entire body is starting to shake a little. 

“I’m trying to help,” Hayden hisses.

“Of course he wasn’t happy! We all need to bleach our fucking eyes,” Couillard says.

“We all had to see you and Claire practically hump each other at the bar later-” JJ says.

“That’s different-” Couillard yells.

The GM claps his hands once loudly, startling everyone. 

“I want to make a few things very, very clear,” Theriault announces. 

“This,” he gestures towards Shane. If he wasn’t so terrified, Shane would probably be inclined to protest the action. “Everything you know about Hollander’s personal relationship,” he spits these last two words out like they personally offend him. “Will. not. leave. this. Arena.” He lets the last sentence hang in the air. Shane, for just a moment, thinks of Ilya’s notebook of softlaunch ideas, and remembers that Ilya is not, in any way, shape, or form, under the supervision of Theriault or the Montreal Voyageurs management team, and thank god for that.

Hell, it’s not like there’s anything in Shane’s contract preventing him from continuing to lightly hint at a personal relationship with Ilya Rozanov, who he is legally married to, even if he receives verbal orders from his coach to keep it all under wraps. That would be far too specific of a stipulation to include in someone’s contract. Discrimination based on civil status is illegal in Quebec. Shane imagines signing a contract that says I will not tell anyone outside of a specific hockey rink anything about my husband, nor will I tell the government that I signed this contract, which is a real thing and huffs out a small, breathy laugh that comes out mostly through his nostrils.

The baffled look Hayden shoots him in response is, frankly, insane. Shane has to stifle another laugh that borders on hysterical, like his nervousness has morphed into a giddy beast.

Theriault ignores Shane. “Let me tell you all why you are going to keep your mouths shut.” he continues. “If people know, what’s the first thing they’re going to wonder about?” 

The question is probably meant to be rhetorical, but Mitty raises his hand. 

“Who tops?” Mitty asks without being called on. Renaud slaps him on the back of the head so hard the noise echoes throughout the meeting room. 

Theriault pauses for a moment, clearly collecting himself. On the television still showing the team Skype call, Bouchard audibly retches into his toilet. “No,” he says, eventually. “They’re going to wonder if we won the Stanley Cup because our captain batted his eyelashes at Ilya fucking Rozanov.”

“Hey–” Shane begins to protest, but is cut off. 

“Other teams in the league would start accusing us of colluding with the fucking Centaurs– god help us all– and that would lead people to question our wins.” There’s a rumble in the room as the guys start to quietly talk amongst themselves. “That’s the last thing we want, right? Right?” Theriault asks. 

“Right, coach,” a few respond. The response is weak.

“We want the world to know that we struggled last season, rallied, came back with a vengeance, and won the fucking cup fair and square,” Theriault pauses to look at Shane in particular. “Which we did.” 

“We did,” Shane affirms. 

“We have done an internal investigation,” Montreal’s GM interrupts. Shane just blinks, taken aback. He didn’t know about any investigations. “We have found no evidence of collusion on either side. Hollander took the necessary steps to alert management of his change in marital status and disclosed his relationship in a timely manner.” Shane grimaces, thinking about how he didn’t technically disclose all that quickly, and only did so because he drove himself into a corner. “According to the Bears and Centaurs management, Rozanov also took the necessary steps.”

There’s more low muttering from the team. 

“We checked footage of previous games and found no evidence that Hollander or Rozanov’s playing style were different when playing against each other,” the GM continues. “Therefore, we have concluded that there is no cause for concern.” The look the GM gives the room screams ‘I wish there was something I could do, but we can’t think of a way to punish Hollander without it becoming a discrimination lawsuit.’ At least, that’s what Shane thinks the look means. He doesn’t have much experience cataloging the GM’s expressions.

He wonders if he should be recording this meeting. 

“In short, we’ve earned our wins and cups, and we want to make sure the world continues to believe that we’ve earned our wins and cups,” Theriault adds in.

"The Centaurs weren’t going to make it to the playoffs anyways, so it’s not like that was a concern…” JJ says, suddenly. Shane elbows him in the side. 

“Cap,” Comeau sneers as he tips his chair back a little more. He really is going to fall, Shane thinks. “Don’t you think you owe us an explanation?”

"He doesn’t owe you shit,” Hayden says.

Shane sighs. He knew this would be coming. Here goes nothing. “I will talk about this right now so we can all get this over with, and after this, I want the focus to be only on hockey. No more betting on my life, okay?” he says, standing up. “Q&A session. Right now. This is your only chance. Go.” 

“This isn't a press conference, Hollander, this is a team meeting about keeping your chaos in check,” Theriault groans. 

Bouchard pipes up from his Skype window, his voice coming out a little mottled through the television speakers. “Well, I’d like to ask some questions,” he says. A few guys nod and make noises of assent.

Montreal’s GM just presses his lips together into a thin line and motions for Theriault to sit down. 

"Go,” Shane commands, crossing his arms over his chest.

“Are you for real?” Bouchard asks, eagerly breaking the ice from his spot comfortable on his bathroom floor. 

“What?” Shane asks, mystified by the question. “Yes? Obviously?”

"Like, this is actually real? For real?”

“Uhm, yes?” For some reason Bouchard accepts this and nods before retching into his toilet again. Theriault finally figures out how to mute him. 

“When did you get married?” Andropov asks.

“2017. Next question.”

“How long have you been together?” Mitty asks. 

Shane prepared for this, but falters anyways. “It’s complicated. We’ve been involved…in some way, since 2009.” He fudges the year a little, opting to include the draft night gym in his calculations. It’s a small lie: he thought that maybe, citing a year before his rookie year even began, that it would really press on his team how tied-up Ilya Rozanov has been in Shane’s own illustrious career. Mitty didn’t ask how long they’ve been fucking, so he doesn’t have to stick to 2010 as a response. He also really, really did not want to tell his team that they were officially together for approximately one month before eloping. It’s a messy story. “Next question.”

"Rose Landry,” Drapeau says in lieu of a question. 

"A close friend of mine,” Shane grits through his teeth, very much not keen on explaining anything that happened in late 2016-early 2017. “Next.”

“Of all of the men on earth,” Couillard starts. “Why…this one?” Hayden, the absolute traitor, laughs. 

Shane blinks hard a few times before landing on a quick, astute: “Fuck off, next question.”

Comeau snorts. “Let’s just ask what we're all wondering: have you guys been cheating? Throwing games? Do you have a system, or something? You suck his dick and he lets us win?”

There are a few nods around the room. Shane grits his teeth harder. “If you watch footage of our games you'd see that we play just as hard against each other as we do everyone else. I’d rather die than let him win, and he’s the same way.” Shane looks around the room a bit. “Honestly, you’ve all played against him. Do you think he goes easy on us?”

A chorus of weak “no,”s echoes through the room. 

Drapeau chimes in: “Did you force him to move to Ottawa to mess up the Bears?”

Shane’s eyes threaten to pop out of his skull with the force he rolls them with. “Jesus christ, guys, he moved to Ottawa to be closer to me. It’s not like he could sign to fucking Montreal. Ottawa’s the closest team. I didn’t marry the guy to tank his career,” Shane answers.

“But it worked,” Mitty says wonderingly. 

“No,” Shane says. “Ottawa has been giving us more of a run for our money the past season. They’ll be a problem for us in a few years. They’ve got Ilya now,” a few guys visibly bristle at hearing their captain call him Ilya instead of Rozanov, which is crazy considering they watched Shane lick the man’s teeth yesterday. “They got Hayes recently, and he’s really promising. And we all know there’s talk of a coaching change.”

"Insider info?” Koch asks. 

“No. Predictions based on watching their games, playing against them, and reading the news. You have eyes. Use them.” 

Renaud’s eyebrows knit close together, like he is legitimately worried when he asks: “Do we have to be nice to Rozanov now?”

"Play against him exactly the same as you would normally,” Shane says.

Finally, Comeau raises his hand and loudly asks: “Are you going to force us to watch you cuddle on the fucking ice?” Then, his chair finally tips over, and Shane announces that the Q&A is over.

Theriault stands quickly, trying to regain control of the room. “Final reminder: none of this leaves this room. Do not tell anyone.”

“What about our girlfriends?” Andropov asks.

“I think our girls already know,” Comeau grimaces as he sits again in his now slightly-damaged chair.

“Wait,” Couillard says, clearly shaken. “How did they know?”

“And they didn’t tell us?” Koch asks.

“Guys, Rozanov has been in the WAGs chat for months,” Hayden says, loud, causing the commotion in the room to come to a screeching halt. “They talk, like, daily.” 

Just like the day prior, the reactions, at first, are mostly yelps and words of shock. His team isn’t that creative, so he mostly hears phrases like “WHAT THE FUCK” and mishmashes of Quebecois swears used in odd ways by players who aren’t fully fluent in French yet. It’s like this admission is just as shocking as seeing Ilya and Shane make out in front of them. 

The GM must be trying to merge his hands with his face, considering how often and hard he slaps them together and leaves them there to become acquainted. “Meeting over. Remember that the cup parade is on the 16th. Meet here by 9am.” 

Shane leaves the room as soon as he humanly can.

He’s the fastest skater in the league, so that is to say: he leaves very quickly. 

Chapter End Notes

did you know that if you are a mcgill alumnus, you'll occasionally get emails from mcgill that include the words "shane hollander's dad" in the tagline? Now I need you to imagine writing heated rivalry fanfiction on your phone and receiving a notification from the mfs that gave you a masters degree talkin about david hollander. #ilivedit

Also yes I know in canon the voyageurs/metros win their third cup in 2020, but in MY canon divergence world I plan to canonize covid-19 lockdowns...so I shifted it to 2019. Sorry to whoever wins in 2019 in canon. I will not forget your brave sacrifice for my stupid crack fic

Chapter 4: 2019, part 2

Chapter Summary

July-December 2019: Ilya enjoys his dinner with JJ (and Hayden), the Hollander-Rozanovs are accused of homophobia, Shane gets a new hobby, Ilya haunts the Voyageurs in new and exciting ways, and several leaks from the Voyageurs camp cause a stir online.

Chapter Notes

This chapter is dedicated to the single commenter who has already clocked exactly where I am going with the Voyageurs and Theriault. I feel kinship with you.

To prepare to write this I finally sat down and read Role Model, and promptly fell to my knees when I realized that I'm not at the part in the timeline to write Troy or Wiebe which is SO sad. Troy, sweetie, wait for me!

Also, yesterday I was on twitter clicking ao3 links with reckless abandon like I always do, and the first link I clicked was this fucking fic??? I made a weird dying whale noise. Thank you to everyone who is putting this thing on the Jumbotron and sharing it with friends I'm like ????? kind of shocked by this reception??? Thank you thank you thank you all for the kind words and support!! I really love reading your comments. I'm blown away by all of your comments like wow wow wow I will be responding to more of them soon

July 2019

For their second wedding anniversary, Shane Hollander and Ilya Rozanov legally change their names to Shane Hollander-Rozanov and Ilya Hollander-Rozanov. 

To be more accurate, they submit their paperwork to legally change their names. Ilya ignores the processing time and claims that the moment the paperwork is submitted, it’s legal. Shane doesn’t have the heart to tell him otherwise. Ilya is just so, so fucking excited about it. 

It will, after all, take a massive amount of time for it to be legally recognized. Early in July, they both had to apply for Level 2: Criminal Records and Judicial Matters Checks from the Ottawa Police (to check for outstanding arrest warrants, probation records, etc). Processing, like all bureaucratic timelines, takes far too long for their liking, at 2-4 weeks for this particular application. Thankfully, they received their background checks within 2 weeks. 

After obtaining their police background checks, they were able to complete their actual applications to legally change their names, mailed directly to the Service Ontario office in Thunder Bay specifically to avoid having to go in-person to the singular office that would process in-person in Toronto. 

The idea of being seen in one of the dreaded Service Ontario lines in Toronto, Ontario’s biggest city, filled Shane with dread. They had agonized over the cost-benefit analysis of going in-person (in this case, the benefit being how objectively funny it would have been to be caught red-handed, literally holding their name change paperwork), but ultimately, the cost won out: Shane’s skin crawled at the idea of being trapped in a Service Ontario location like a zoo animal, pacing back and forth next to a smattering of families with screaming young children and inevitably having to autograph a random health card renewal form for someone’s cousin’s best friend’s girlfriend while someone took covert photographs of Ilya that would be flying across twitter before they even managed to make it out of the Service Ontario line..

Knowing Ilya, he'd probably have worn his WAG jacket to the Toronto office, pretending to be cold in the scorching July heat, and oh, sorry, Shane, I have to wear this jacket, it's the only one I have. All of my other jackets have mysteriously disappeared. So sad. This must happen.

So, no. 

The pair had also agreed that the move might be too risky at the current moment; while Shane’s team knew about them, Ilya still hasn’t told his own (although, one Ottawa WAG knows for reasons Shane is still unclear on; Ilya claims that Caitlyn Dykstra specifically is just “too perceptive for her own good,” and “very insistent,” but has refused to explain how on earth she, and only she, figured them out. He gets the sense based on the way Ilya carefully avoids disclosing any details that the story might be embarrassing for Ilya in some way, which makes him desperate to know what happened). The plan does not include letting a random gaggle of Torontonians know about their marriage before Ilya’s own teammates.

Granted, they both know that they’ve completely messed up The Plan several times over at this point. Shane fucked it up on day one. It was definitely never, ever in the plan for Shane to come out to his team via public makeout after winning his third Stanley Cup. He can’t even imagine writing that down in a notebook or excel sheet or powerpoint (sorry, Canva presentation, let’s be specific here), much less executing it as a premeditated plan. Shane is beginning to come to terms with the fact that he has somehow blown his own plan far more than Ilya has. Ilya seems to delight in this fact. He’s beginning to think that Ilya might like surprises more than he lets on.

Anyways, they’re looking at an approximately 24-week processing time for their legal name changes. Once they are processed, they will be issued official name change certificates. In Shane’s case, since he was born in Ontario, he will also receive a new birth certificate. Ilya laughed out loud when he read this on the Service Ontario website. “Ontario will say you were born to be a Hollander-Rozanov, моя маленькая скрепка,” he wheezed through his giggles. 

“My little paperclip?” Shane translates dutifully, which just makes Ilya laugh a little louder.

“I do not regret this”: Ilya Rozanov finally speaks out on his first season as an Ottawa Centaur!

By Jean Paul Beaudry

Posted: July 18, 2019

After a full season competing as an Ottawa Centaur, the hockey world finally has an answer to the question we’ve been asking since Ilya Rozanov left the Boston Bears: Why Ottawa, of all teams?

In July 2018, Ilya Rozanov became a free agent and almost immediately signed with the Ottawa Centaurs after a shockingly shorter-than-average negotiation period. Rozanov, 28, previously was captain of the Boston Bears for multiple years. After being drafted by the Bears in 2009, winning the Stanley Cup with the team, and becoming one of the top players in MLH history as a Bear, most assumed the decision for Rozanov to resign with his longtime team a foregone conclusion.

By all accounts, the Ottawa Centaurs are not a team that fits Rozanov’s image. Over the years, Rozanov has become known for his aggressive playing style (fitting for the Boston Bears), passion for winning, love of sports cars and parties, and appreciation for the city of Boston. Boston is also considered the primary rival of the Montreal Voyageurs, the team captained by Shane Hollander, Rozanov’s fellow draft mate and longtime rival. 

The kind-hearted Ottawa Centaurs, meanwhile, have struggled to keep their heads above the water and rise in the rankings in the past few years, and Ottawa is not exactly known for its party scene. 

Rozanov has been notoriously tight-lipped about the reasoning behind his move to Ottawa…until now. 

In an end-of-season conversation with the Ottawa Citizen's Lucy Nguyen, Rozanov said simply: “I moved to Ottawa for my partner. I do not regret this.” 

When pressed to divulge something– anything!-- about the partner that could convince notorious womanizer and party-goer Ilya Rozanov to settle down and move countries, Rozanov simply smiled. 

Rozanov, as per usual, had a lot more to say about the actual team than his personal life. “As I said earlier this season, we are rebuilding. These are good guys and they can play good hockey. I think we will change things with time. Sometimes, you need to play the long game to get what you want.”

As for Rozanov’s reaction to the Montreal Voyageurs winning the Stanley Cup, he said: “This victory was well-deserved by some of the team. Sometimes, Montreal plays like Hollander, Pike, and Boizau are the only men on the ice. Montreal must appreciate these players and learn how to play at their level. Voyageurs know they can text me if they need tips. I have all of their girlfriends’ phone numbers.”

…Interesting statement from a man who apparently moved to Canada for his partner! 

So, there you have it: the most information we’ve gotten to date, and probably the most information we will get for a long, long time.

You may also be interested in:

Commissioner Roger Crowell on the importance of diversity, equity, and inclusion

We asked Montreal’s JJ Boiziau for Montreal club recommendations and he said “Literally ANYTHING besides Cafe Campus”

“Knitting centers me” New York’s Carter Vaughan on his surprising off-ice obsession

August 2019

While JJ has known about Ilya for several months now (and had plenty of time to come to terms with the reality of his friend and captain being married to the person JJ has previously called "le pire trou de cul du monde") Shane knows that actually seeing the two of them together is...something else entirely. This is why he insisted on inviting JJ over for dinner before kicking off the first round of the Montreal version of the Game Changers hockey camp. JJ has agreed to run defense drills at the Montreal camp, and even scheduled his Cup Day to coincide with the end of the camp week so the kids have a chance to get up close and personal with the real Stanley Cup. 

Shane invites JJ and Hayden for dinner with him and Ilya. He invited Hayden mostly so he can act as a buffer, but also because Hayden, for whatever reason, is still weird around Ilya, and Shane really wants him to get over that. He read about exposure therapy recently and thought that maybe if people in his life are more frequently exposed to Ilya, they'll all come around to him.

“Wow, this new house is…intense?” Hayden says as he and JJ make their way through the front door. Shane finally sold his Montreal apartment and the sex condo and instead purchased a home, like Ilya did in Ottawa.

“Is much better than the sex condo,” Ilya says in lieu of a greeting, leaning against a doorframe. 

"What the fuck are you talking about,” JJ says. Everyone is so bad at greetings today.

“Don’t ask about the sex condo, please,” Shane says, before giving his friends a quick hug. “Thanks for coming, dinner’s almost ready.”

“I made joumou,” JJ says, lifting up the container of soup he brought. 

“He was worried that you’d cook some unseasoned salmon and rice, or just hand us protein shakes,” Hayden says. “I tried to tell him that the best part about you two being married is that you cook actual normal food together.”

“I will not subject myself to chewing on raw grass,” Ilya says as he reaches towards the soup, taking it out of JJ’s hands. 

“You could stand to eat a vegetable or two sometimes,” Shane says, rolling his eyes. “Thanks, JJ. The soup smells nice.”

“I do eat vegetables,” Ilya says. “You force feed them to me.” The way he says this is like he has plucked the dialogue from the beginning of a bad porno, especially when accompanied by the really obvious leer he does at Shane.

“Is this a sex thing?” JJ quietly but frantically asks Hayden, like Hayden must have all of the answers, and that the answers will be nice and appropriate like they both want them to be. 

(They will not be nice and appropriate.)

Hayden sighs. “I hate this already,” he grumbles instead of responding.

Ilya is being weird.

Hayden can feel the intensity of Ilya’s gaze pressing into him, like he intends to blow Hayden up with his mind, or force him to kneel and– whoa, there. Reel it back. Jesus christ, calm down, Pike.

Luckily, he thinks, the glares are divided into two, so he doesn't have to bear the full brunt of it alone. Ilya cannot stop glaring daggers at Hayden and JJ. He also is very obviously struggling to eat his meal with just one hand while his other hand is occupied holding onto Shane. Throughout the meal, it slips from his shoulders, to his waist, back and forth, occasionally brushing up to Shane’s neck and hair. It never breaks contact with Shane, not even when Ilya definitely needs to use a knife to cut his food and could totally use a second hand. Instead, he spears his food with his fork and rips the chunks off with his teeth, eyes locked onto JJ or Hayden while he does it like some kind of caveman trying to emulate his bear fursona to farm aura down at the village bonfire, or something. At one point, Shane gets a small grain of rice stuck on the corner of his mouth, which Ilya very carefully brushes off with his thumb before popping it into his own mouth. Ugh.

Shane doesn’t seem to notice the weirdness of it all, which leads Hayden to believe that maybe Ilya does this often. He hides his phone under the table and starts texting JJ. 

“You okay?” Shane asks, interrupting the under-the-table texting conversation. He pauses with his fork mid-air. Hayden’s traitorous eyes slide to Shane’s wrist again, where he is greeted by mottled purple and green wrapping around like a bracelet. Jesus fucking christ.

“Ouais,” JJ responds. “So, uhm, how’s…Ottawa?” he asks, daring to look at Ilya, who just raises an eyebrow casually. Christ, Ilya totally just clocked both of them staring at those bruises, and he looks pleased as hell about it. They've fallen directly into his sick little trap.

Shane’s phone rings, interrupting the moment.

“It's my mom,” he says, standing up. “Sorry. I'll just be a second.” Shane drops a small kiss onto the top of Ilya’s head before making his way out of the room while answering the phone call.

“So,” Ilya says, once Shane seems safely out of earshot.

“So,” Hayden parrots. JJ grimaces.

“Your team,” Ilya says, gravely serious. “How are they…reacting?”

This is not where JJ nor Hayden thought the conversation would be going.

“They're, uh,” JJ begins, floundering a bit.

“Getting there,” Hayden supplies. JJ shoots him a grateful glance.

“Do you have a plan to protect Shane,” Ilya asks, except it comes out more like an order: Have a plan to protect Shane.

“Working on it,” Hayden says tersely, hitting the side of JJ’s leg lightly. They haven't worked on it. Shit, they should work on something, right? What the fuck are they going to do when the season begins? “The team, uh, isn't talking about it much at all,” Hayden adds. 

“Yeah,” JJ adds. “They used to talk about Shane’s mystery husband a lot. I think you shocked them out of it.” Ilya simply nods. 

“Shane has been checking the group chat,” Ilya says. “He says it is slow, because of summer.”

“Yeah, summer. Uhm, when Shane sends team updates, the guys thumbs up react and stuff, so, you know,” Hayden adds quickly. “It's, uh, normal.” 

They do not mention the separate group chat, the one that Shane is definitely not in. JJ and Hayden suspect there may be a third that even they aren't privy to, but they aren't certain. Sometimes the separate group chat they are in is suspiciously dry in a way the Voyageurs chats aren't usually. 

“The real test will be when pre-season training begins and the team has to see Shane in person,” Ilya says. 

“It should be fine,” Hayden says. “You know the WAGs are being pretty defensive about…it, and are talking through it with the guys,” he says, stunted, before quickly tacking on: “Which, obviously you know because you talk to them all the time!” 

“Yes.” 

JJ snorts. “It is a privilege to not have a girlfriend,” he chuckles. “I am safe from your private army.”

“Oh, you are not safe,” Ilya says, definitely not joking at all.

Shane, having finished his phone call, returns to the room and stops dead in his tracks when he sees the odd atmosphere the trio have created in his absence. “Ugh! Ilya!” Shane says, throwing his hands in the air in frustration. “I had literally one rule for tonight.” 

“No, I promise I was good, I didn't break the rule!” Ilya whines. Hayden and JJ shoot each other silent confused looks, confirming that the other man does not know what on earth is happening now. 

Also, Hayden will never, ever get used to Ilya Rozanov whining like a child. He’s like, 6’3”, built like a tank, and probably spends his free time beating people up for fun. What the fuck is this? 

Shane turns to JJ and Hayden, face flushing slightly pink. It makes his freckles stand out even more than usual, Hayden’s brain points out, which he does not vocalize because that's an inside thought. “I’m sorry, I told him you guys don't like me like that, but I know it's been eating at him for a while…” Shane says, rubbing a hand across the back of his neck, staring at the wall in front of him instead of at his friends. Hayden and JJ still have no fucking clue what he is talking about. 

Ilya turns bright red. “солнышко, I’m serious, I was good, I didn't bring it up,” he continues to whine.

“What are you talking about?” JJ ventures, a touch on the nervous side.

Shane drops his annoyed expression and replaces it with a slightly confused one. “Oh. Ilya didn't yell at you for having crushes on me?” he asks. His head tilts a little, causing a few locks of hair to fall into his eyes as he asks. Hayden would find it precious if it weren’t for the words coming out of his best friend’s mouth. Inside thoughts, a small voice in his brain reminds him. 

In shock, JJ spits some of his drink onto the table, which earns him a deeply unimpressed look from Ilya. Shane rushes to grab some napkins, thrusting a handful towards JJ to clean himself up before starting to wipe up the table.

“Not…that I think you have crushes on me,” Shane continues as he scrubs furiously at the spittle mixed with beer. “It's just that Ilya thinks you do and gets worried sometimes and it's…” he is rambling. Suddenly, Shane drops the napkins from his hands and uses his hands to cover his face instead. “Oh my god. I broke my own singular rule,” he moans.

Ilya picks up the napkins and finishes the job. “Was a silly rule,” he says consolingly. 

“I’m sorry,” Shane whines. “I’ve made this weird.”

“It was already weird,” Hayden mumbles.

“Well!” Ilya says, voice far too loud. He claps his hands together as he says it, causing Hayden to jump in his seat. “Now that that’s out there…quickly. Answer.” 

“What?” JJ asks.

“Do you want my husband like that?” He asks, eyes flitting between Hayden and JJ before he continues. “Because too bad, so sad, I got him first,” Ilya gloats like he is 8 years old and just won a playground game of tag. “I think you call it dibs, which I have called. I called dibs a decade ago.” 

“Ilya,” Shane complains. “Stop.”

“Non, I don’t want your husband? That's my friend?” JJ responds. It is probably not a good move to end the sentences like they are questions, like something that could be up for debate. Ilya’s eyebrows practically raise up to his hairline.

“I’m straight,” Hayden says, like it answers Ilya’s question. He thinks it’s a solid response: of course he does not have a crush on his good buddy Shane. He is straight! Heterosexual McGee. He is happily married to his lovely wife Jackie, with whom he has four children. He loves Shane like a brother. He is so secure in his sexuality that it’s not a problem for him to look at Shane a lot. Shane’s objectively attractive; Many people think that way! It’s in magazines and news articles! His wife agrees with him! They’ve spent a lot of time discussing how pretty and sexy their good buddy, godfather of their children, is. This is normal, healthy even! It’s not Hayden’s fault that some of his teammates are so insecure in their masculinity that they can’t even admit when a dude looks hot.

Ilya just levels the two of them with a stare.

“Sure,” he says, like he doesn’t believe them. Hayden does not like this look.

“See, Ilya? Calm down,” Shane says, satisfied with their responses. 

“Okay, моллюск,” Ilya says before wrapping an arm around Shane’s waist possessively. 

Is Shane Hollander homophobic? Fans speculate which Voyageurs are allies after several Montreal Voyageurs seen at Montreal Pride 2019

By Jean Paul Beaudry

Posted August 22, 2019

Montreal Pride (Fierté Montréal), Montreal's annual celebration of LGBTQ+ history, diversity, and inclusion, kicked off its 2019 edition with 150 free events held between August 8-18. The celebration culminated in the Pride Parade on Sunday, August 18, featured an appearance by Justin Trudeau, and was grand marshalled by athlete Val Desjardins, advocate and M. Cuir Montréal 2011 Dany Godbout, award-winning author and activist Ma-Nee Chacaby, creator of the transgender pride flag Monica Helms, actor and advocate Wilson Cruz and founder of Proud To Be Us Laos Anan Bouapha.

Several members of the Montreal Voyageurs, 2019 MLH Stanley Cup Winners, were spotted at the pride parade donning their jerseys.

Montreal Voyageurs spotted in the crowd include Pike, Miitka, Laine, Renaud, Bouchard, and Koch.

"It's an amazing feeling, as a gay hockey fan, to see members of my favourite team proudly support the community," one Twitter user wrote under a photograph of Bouchard smiling and waving a lesbian flag. 

Fans are speculating that the Voyageurs were offered a spot in the parade but declined due to internal divisions.

Fans are also wondering why the vast majority of the Montreal team was absent. 

On Twitter and Reddit, fans have focused on the absence of Voyageurs captain Shane Hollander and alternate captain Jean-Jacques Boiziau. Both captains are known to be in Montreal running the Game Changers Hockey Camp, a charitable childrens summer camp that is part of the Irina Foundation, a charity founded by Shane Hollander and Ilya Rozanov of the Ottawa Centaurs. 

"Surely, if Hollander and Boiziau want to 'foster inclusion,' they'd get off their asses and do the bare minimum to support the LGBT+ community," one Reddit user wrote.

Hollander and Boiziau fans were quick to defend the two captains, stating that the Game Changers Hockey Camps are intended to foster diversity, equity, and inclusion within hockey. "Hollander and Boiziau are doing way more than the bare minimum to support LGBT+ athletes...they're putting in the actual work. That's way more important than painting a rainbow on your cheek and standing in the sun for 3 hours," another Reddit user commented. Other defenders have been more direct in their defenses, such as a Twitter user who simply wrote: "You dumbasses, Shane Hollander is BUSY. The last thing he probably wants to do is bake in the sun surrounded by 50,000 people."

Voyageurs fans are also speculating about the lack of appearances from other Voyageurs. In 2018, Patrice Drapeau was embroiled in scandal after sharing straight pride graphics to his Instagram story. Drapeau was, as expected, absent from Montreal Pride. Fans on Reddit have also dug up old Facebook posts (at the time this article was posted, 96 distinct Facebook posts) from Gilbert Comeau, posted between 2009-2012, that are being deemed "deeply concerning and homophobic." Comeau has not posted on Facebook since 2013. 

"2012 was a long time ago, y'all. People change. Don't cancel my goat!" a Reddit user commented on the megathread. 

Some Voyageurs fans are defending the team's lack of presence at the parade, stating:

"Keep woke out of hockey"

"The MLH already has pride nights. What more do you want?"

"The voyageurs aren't required to be at the pride parade, guys. It's cool that some of them went but honestly the others are probably just busy (like Hollander) or just not into parades"

You may also be interested in...

Ottawa fire department called to Zane Boodram's home after "barbeque mishap" with Ottawa Centaurs

Video of Scott Hunter jogging in NYC goes viral after fans question his running form

"I've never seen a man crash out to Bad Bunny like that," anonymous source discusses an evening with Ilya Rozanov in December 2016