Rating:

Teen And Up Audiences

Archive Warning:

No Archive Warnings Apply

Category:

M/M

Fandom:

Game Changers | Heated Rivalry - All Media Types

Relationship:

Shane Hollander/Ilya Rozanov

Characters:

Original Children of Svetlana Vetrova, Ilya Rozanov, Shane Hollander, Original Female Hockey Players

Additional Tags:

Fake Character Death, lumberjack ilya rozanov, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, PWHL | Professional Women's Hockey League, Eventual Happy Ending, Future Fic, Second Chances, Crack, Crack not even a little bit taken seriously, but the hockey is taken way too seriously by every single character

Language:

English

Stats:

Published: 2026-04-01 Updated: 2026-04-19 Words: 5,208 Chapters: 2/3

If it had to perish twice

Summary

Twenty-four years ago hockey star Ilya Rozanov died in a tragic kayaking accident, or so the papers reported. Mila suspects otherwise. If she's going to defeat her rival and become Rookie of the Year for the PWHL, she needs to find Ilya Rozanov and convince him to train her. She must master the legendary move known as The Rozanov if she wants to have any hope of defeating Shane Hollander's protege Evelyn.

Ilya left the world of hockey behind a long time ago... but if there's anything that can bring him back to it, it's Svetlana Vetrova's daughter and the promise of defeating Hollander through a battle of rookies.

(It's the Ilya fakes his death and becomes a lumberjack AU!)

Notes

I would like to apologize to Yoda, all my readers, and Robert Frost. Probably also to lumberjacks while I'm at it. Oh, and to contemplativeme whose Reddit thread asking for a fic about Ilya faking his death and moving to a cabin inspired this. I don't think this is what you were actually asking for, sorry.

I have this outlined but I'm not sure what the rating is really going to be yet so I just set it to mature for now. The one thing I will say for certain is that you're going to need to turn your brain all the way off for this one. Don't worry, Hollanov is endgame!

Chapter 1: The Rookie

Chapter Notes

…But if it had to perish twice,

I think I know enough of hate

To say that for destruction ice

Is also great

And would suffice.

-Albert Einstein

March 2014

Hockey Star Ilya Rozanov, 23, dead in tragic kayaking accident.

Hockey league mourns his loss. Rival Shane Hollander unavailable for comment.

2038, northern New York

Mila was prepared to try anything, even if it involved a mysterious grocery delivery up a mountain to a man who may or may not be a ghost.

"Here's the address," the store clerk said, handing her a slip of paper. "You sure you're up for it in this weather?”

Mila nodded. "I've got four wheel drive and snow tires on my jeep, I should be good." She knew her jeep had a top safety rating, because it had been a present from her mother’s friend on Mila’s seventeenth birthday. The safest thing on the market, he’d assured her mother. Mila would have liked something a little flashier, but even she had to admit a sport’s car would have been the wrong choice for this particular drive.

She carried the grocery bags out and stashed them in the trunk then punched the address into her phone. The store clerk had warned her to pre-download the map since there wouldn't be a signal once she got up the mountain. The customer, Ivan, didn’t even have a cell phone. He called his order in on the landline, then the store sent a gig worker out to deliver it. That Ivan had no cell phone was even stranger than him possibly being a ghost, as far as Mila was concerned.

Seeing the job pop up on her delivery gig app had been a lucky break. Mila had been meandering around this town with no leads for an entire day beforehand and questioning whether she should give up and go home.

The road up the mountain was windy and narrow, the forest dense on either side of it. Mila had never been to the Adirondack mountains before. Winter was not an ideal time for a first visit, but she only had five days off for the Christmas break in the PWHL season, so she'd put bought snow tires and braved the cold. She was a hockey player, a little bit of ice didn't scare her. Of course, it was a little scarier on a narrow mountain road than it was on a hockey rink.

She turned off onto an even narrower dirt road, then finally a path that didn't feel like it was made for cars at all before she arrived at her destination, an abandoned logging camp at the top of the mountain.

"Looks like it's haunted," the store clerk had warned her, "but the cabin in the center is occupied. Ivan will meet you to get the groceries and then you can head back down."

Mila had alternate plans.

She parked her jeep in front of what was clearly the only cabin that was still in good shape. Most of the other buildings were falling down and overgrown. The water tower was still standing, but it had clearly seen better days.

She had managed to grab about half the groceries and lift them out of the trunk before the lumberjack appeared. He looked like an apparition straight out of an old story, with broad shoulders clad in a plaid shirt and a big, bushy beard. At least he wasn't carrying an axe.

Mila wondered if she should greet him by the name he'd given the grocery store, or the one she suspected was correct.

He held out his hands. "I'll take those. You should head back down before it gets dark."

Mila handed him the groceries, then shook her head. "I can't leave yet. Not before I ask you a question."

"I paid the store over the phone."

"Not that." She took a deep breath. She’d gone on this quest with one purpose, and now that she was standing here she needed to be brave. "You're Ilya Rozanov. I need you to train me so I can win Rookie of the Year in the PWHL."

She’d been worried that he would deny it, or that she would wind up second guessing herself. What if he wasn’t the long dead hockey star?

"Leave," he said, the friendliness gone from his visage.

"No." Mila strengthened her stance. “You’re the only one who can help me master my hockey game. You scored sixty-seven goals your rookie year and—”

"I don't play hockey anymore. I haven't been Ilya Rozanov for a long, long time.”

"You're still Ilya Rozanov, the only man who could challenge Shane Hollander on the ice. You're my only hope."

Ilya flinched at the sound of Shane Hollander's name. Mila wondered if Rozanov ever regretted losing his rivalry to Hollander via forfeit.

"I have nothing to teach you. Go."

Mila gritted her teeth. "I'm Svetlana Vetrova's daughter. Mama told me to give you this." She handed him a letter in a sealed envelope. It was her mama who’d long suspected Rozanov was still alive out there somewhere, hiding from his mother country of Russia. She’d given Mila years worth of clues she’d gathered when Mila had begun planning this quest two months ago.

Ilya took the letter from her delicately, as if it might be coated in poison. He opened it slowly and read the contents.

"Well?" Mila asked impatiently.

"She says if I don't agree to train you she'll haul me out of hiding herself. Same Sveta as ever."

"So you'll train me."

He took her in properly for the first time. "You're too old. If you wanted to play professionally you should have started training from much younger."

"I did. I am playing professionally. I was drafted second overall in the PWHL. I won't rest until I'm the best player in the league.”

"And who was drafted first?" Ilya asked, confirming to Mila that he didn't have a way to watch the games from out here.

"Evelyn.” Mila spat the name out like a curse. She’d spent her life in Evelyn’s shadow, always one step behind her in skill. “Shane Hollander is helping her train. That's why I need you. It's the only way I'll ever defeat her."

"Why is Hollander helping train this Evelyn?”

"He's a family friend. And Evelyn got drafted to Ottawa, so he lives nearby. I play for Montreal.”

“And where is your mama, Sveta?”

“Boston. I could sign there when I’m a free agent. Wouldn’t you like to see a team from Boston win the Walter Cup?” 

Ilya rubbed his bearded chin. “It’s been twenty-four years since I played for Boston. I won’t do this for them. But for Sveta… I’ll train you. But only if you can keep up.”

They agreed that Mila could stay in one of the other abandoned cabins for the next four days. Ilya pointed out one that was still standing and told her the water and electricity should still be on. That was when Mila noticed the solar panels attached to the roofs of every standing structure in the camp. She wondered where the water came from. A well, probably.

Mila decided to live out of her suitcase instead of trusting the rickety furniture with her clothes. She’d brought enough for two weeks, and she’d picked up her own groceries at the store. She hadn't been sure of the welcome she'd receive when she'd gone hunting for Ilya Rozanov. Old internet rumors of a mysterious lumber jack who had bought an entire logging town and taken up residence were what had finally led her to this town.

It was impossible to go completely off the grid in this day and age, but Ilya Rozanov had done his best. Besides, after being declared dead it wasn't like anyone had been looking for him.

The next morning, she cooked herself a quick breakfast of bacon and eggs then grabbed her skates and headed to the frozen lake Ilya had pointed out to her the night before.

Ilya was already on the ice, leaning on a hockey stick. He reached down and tossed her a tree branch.

"Wait, don't I get a hockey stick?" Mila asked. "I brought my own, I could grab it."

"No," Ilya said sternly. "You must earn the hockey stick. You are not ready for it yet. First lesson of hockey: patience."

"Umm," Mila said. "I feel like it's a pretty fast moving sport. And I'm not sure how a tree branch is going to help improve my game."

"No questions. I am the teacher here. Today we will drill lifting a rock with a stick."

"I was actually hoping you'd teach me The Rozanov?" Mila said. "I know the Michigan and I'm pretty good, but the Ottawa goalie will be expecting that. I need something new if I'm going to get to sixty-eight goals my rookie season."

"Sixty-eight," Ilya said flatly.

"Yes." Mila grinned. "One better than you."

Ilya shook his head and turned away. "I cannot teach you. Too arrogant. Too impatient."

"I'm too arrogant? Mama told me you used to brag about how many goals you were going to score."

"Yes, and I could not be taught. I am wiser now."

"Is that why you're living in some fucking ghost town in the woods?"

The only sound was the wind howling past them. Mila knew she'd let her temper get the best of her and made a mistake.

"I am a lumberjack now because of the mistakes I made in my youth. Mistakes I do not care to revisit. Goodbye, Mila." Ilya walked away.

Mila screamed and slammed her stick down on the ice. She’d come too far to be sent back with her tail between her legs like this.

Ilya disappeared back into his cabin, and Mila stayed standing on the ice. She needed to master the Rozanov if she was ever going to defeat Evelyn and prove she was the best rookie the PWHL had ever drafted.

She hit a rock with her tree branch, sending it skidding across the ice. The sight was so satisfying that she hit another one, and another, and then she followed after them and began practicing picking them up with her stick.

She knew how to get a puck on her stick, but the branch was bumpy and uneven, and the rock wasn't exactly the friendly shape of a hockey puck. It took her a dozen tries to get it at all, and what must have been a hundred after that to get it reliably.

The sun was beginning to set when Ilya emerged from his cabin again. "You should have left by now."

Mila looked him dead in the eyes and deftly picked up a rock with her tree branch. "I can be taught."

Ilya didn't so much as nod to acknowledge her. "Get yourself inside and eat dinner before you freeze to death. We'll meet out here again in the morning."

Mila tossed the branch aside and held her head high as she walked to her cabin. Let Evelyn spend the Christmas break learning from Hollander. No one was going to see Mila Vetrova-Landry coming.

Chapter End Notes

As always, my update schedule will be unpredictably chaotic.

Chapter 2: The Mentor

Chapter Summary

Mila returns to play in the PWHL, with her new mentor along to help.

Mila took another shot at the puck in front of her, reciting the steps in her head as she flipped her wrist and tried to hit it with her backhand. She fucking missed.

Mila groaned as the puck sat innocently on the ice, now behind her as she skated past. She'd spent the previous three days learning the steps of the Rozanov and was now trying to put it together, unsuccessfully.

"You don't want it enough yet," Rozanov said. "Envision victory in your mind and reach for it."

Mila growled in frustration. "Don't tell me I don't want it enough, all I've wanted my entire life is to be better than Evelyn!"

"And that is why you fail," Rozanov said.

Mila glared at him. "What, because my motivations aren't pure enough? The hockey puck doesn't know me."

"Your problem isn't the source of your motivation, Mila, it's that in your heart you don't believe you are truly good enough to do this. And as for the puck, introduce yourself."

Mila stared awkwardly at the rubber puck laying on the frozen pond. "Hi, puck. I'm Mila."

"Not like that. Like this." Rozanov skated by in a blur, striking the puck with his backhand and executing a perfect Rozanov.

Mila fumed with jealousy. She did believe she was good enough. Or at least, she believed she should be good enough.

"I'm not going to be ready in time," she said. "I have to leave for Montreal tomorrow or I'll miss the next game."

"Then you will never be ready."

"No!" Mila slammed her hockey stick down on the ice. "Come with me. You can train me at the practice rink as well as here. I just need a couple more weeks of your time to make sure I become the best."

"I cannot leave here," Ilya said. "I haven't left this place in two decades."

"Go in disguise, no one will know it's you. You're hardly recognizable looking like that, anyway. A pair of sunglasses and people will think you're just a hipster."

"...I am not a hipster."

"I don't know, you're cosplaying as a lumberjack, it's close enough."

"Mila..."

"Please, Rozanov. I can master this, I can. I just need your help and I'll be the greatest hockey player the PWHL has ever seen. Think how proud my mama would be of me."

That seemed to get to him. He looked up at the sky and blinked rapidly. "I cannot let anyone know I am there. We will have to train in secret."

Mila nodded rapidly. "I'm friends with the captain. She'll help me spend extra time at the practice rink, no questions asked. No one will even notice you're there. I won't blow your cover, I promise."

Rozanov let out a deep, exhausted sigh. "Okay, daughter of Sveta. I will do this for you. But you must learn the move quickly so I can return. If... people find out I am not dead, it will go badly for me."

"You don't think they'll be relived? You'd have a thousand offers to coach if everyone knew Ilya Rozanov was back from the dead."

He paused, a flicker of longing running across his face. "No, I cannot risk it. You will learn what you need, and then I will return to being a lumberjack."

"Are you actually, like, working as a lumberjack though or just-“

"Lumberjack is not a job, Mila, it is a mindset."

Mila was fairly confident that being a lumberjack actually was a job, but she was done with arguing and risking the agreement she'd gotten from Rozanov to return.

Mila assumed that Rozanov would be carpooling with her, but he took one look at her car and scowled. "Too boring. Would not be caught dead in such a car." And then he pulled a cherry red sports car out of a rotting shed. The car looked remarkably well kept, but Mila assumed there wasn't much else to do other than car maintenance on this mountain. Mila ran her hand along the hood and wondered if she could ditch her jeep here, then decided it against it. She was an adult, but not so old that her mama wouldn't scold her for abandoning an expensive gift on a mountain for being boring.

"You're sure that's safe to drive down the mountain?" Mila asked instead.

Rozanov scoffed. "I do not fear ice and rocky peaks."

The shiny red sports car barely made it down the mountain, but they got to the bottom in one piece somehow, despite it slipping nearly off the road a few times.

"Worth it not to be boring," Rozanov muttered as they paused in town to prepare for the drive to Montreal. Rozanov picked up a cheap burner phone so Mila would have a way of contacting him if they got separated.

It turned out that Rozanov had a fake passport good enough to get him across the border. The drive was only a bit over two hours. Mila wondered why Rozanov had chosen a hiding place so close to Canada.

Mila went back to her apartment. Rozanov didn't inform her where he'd be staying.

Mila was billeting with the captain of the team, Bubby. The apartment was a decent size for a city like Montreal. None of the players in the PWHL were millionaires, but good players like Bubby did well for themselves. As a rookie, Mila's salary was still just enough to starve on, but Bubby giving her a place to stay helped out a lot, and the team covered enough of her expenses that she got by. Besides, Mila's moms were millionaires, so money wasn't exactly her top priority.

"Have a good Christmas?" Bubby asked her as Mila hauled her luggage back through the door. "Where did you go? You didn't say."

"Training trip," Mila said vaguely. "Found a coach for extra practice. Hey, would you mind if I started getting to the rink early?"

"No problem, Mila. Just don't burn yourself out, okay? You're so dedicated, but there's such thing as too much."

"I can sleep once I'm at the top."

Bubby sighed and shook her head, but didn't argue further.

Rozanov showed up at the rink the next day with a trench coat on over his plaid shirt, a fedora on his head, and sunglasses. He looked like he was trying to be in disguise, and everyone who saw him stared.

Mila spent an hour trying to get the legendary move right under his tutelage, and then there was a normal practice. They stopped at noon to take a break before the game that night.

"You have to come to the game," Mila insisted to Rozanov. "You can analyze what I'm doing wrong. And tell me how to defeat Evelyn."

Rozanov sighed. "I will take the risk this once. But only once, Mila, I am supposed to be in hiding."

Mila chose not to check her phone as she spent the afternoon meditating before the game. "Believe you are better," she whispered to herself, "Believe you can send Evelyn crying back to Ottawa."

Mila grabbed Rozanov when she spotted him at the door and dragged him to the bench.

"Players and coaches only," Bubby said.

"I know, this is my mentor. Umm. Notroz. It's a Russian name."

"He can sit in the row behind the bench, then."

Mila nodded and got Rozanov a seat. The Ottawa team took to the ice for warmups and Mila glared at them. "Evelyn," she muttered sourly.

Rozanov looked between her and Evelyn with a frown. "Are you sure that is not a mirror on skates?"

"She's my identical twin." Mila crossed her arms. "Except everyone thinks she's better at hockey than me."

"So when you said Shane Hollander was a family friend, you meant your family."

Mila blinked. "Yes. Why?"

"The fucking jeep," Rozanov whispered for some reason.

Mila spotted Uncle Shane in the stands when he waved to her. Mila waved back, then when she turned to speak to Rozanov again, he was gone.

The game went sideways from the first puck drop. The Ottawa Charge captain won the face off and was across the blue line into the Montreal side so fast Mila cursed from where she was sitting on the bench. When she was sent out on the second line, she managed to get the puck and race into the neutral zone before fucking Evelyn checked her into the boards and took it back. Mila got back up and raced after her, but Ottawa had scored by the time she tried to swoop in for a defense. It wasn't an auspicious start to the first period. The game grew more lopsided from there. The Montreal goalie was standing on her head trying to keep all the pucks out that Ottawa was flinging at the net, but it wasn't enough.

Near the end of the second period, Mila saw her opportunity. She raced towards the net with the puck on a breakaway. The Ottawa goalie was good, and Mila knew her best chance of making this shot was The Rozanov. She flicked her wrist, feinted, hit it with her backhand... and missed the fucking shot. It went wide of the net, flying off to the side to be picked up by an Ottawa defender who'd just caught up with her and raced back to the Montreal side.

The game ended in a shut out, 0-4. Mila fumed as she showered and packed her bag.

Evelyn and Uncle Shane were waiting for her by the side door. Evelyn radiated smugness like a piece of uranium glass that had been praised for its hockey skills. "Good game," she said.

"Sure," Mila replied through her teeth.

"Were you watching a bunch of old game footage over the break?" Uncle Shane asked her.

Mila should have prepared for this. Of course he would recognize his old rival's move."Thought I'd try something new. I should've practiced it more first."

Uncle Shane was looking at her too closely. "Tough move for a rookie. And retro-analyzing how to pull it off is even tougher."

"Yeah." Mila kicked a rock on the ground. "I'm not going to be just any rookie."

"Of course not." Uncle Shane ruffled her hair. "You're Svetlana Vetrova's daughter."

"And Evelyn Vetrova-Landry's sister," Evelyn said smugly.

Mila glared at her. "I'll be better than you by playoffs. Just you wait."

Evelyn scoffed.

"Okay, that's enough of that," Uncle Shane said. "Why don't we call your moms and tell them how the game went?"

The next few weeks of games went better. Mila was improving, and her number of goals scored was steadily climbing. Montreal was a strong contender for a playoff spot, but only if they could defeat Ottawa.

Rozanov coached her through grueling extra practices in the morning as she struggled to master the move. She didn't attempt it during a game again, not wanting to embarrass herself a second time until she could be more sure of success.

And then they were getting ready to hit the road, and their first stop would be Ottawa.

"I think it is time for me to return to the life of a lumberjack," Ilya said. "Your improvement has been-"

"The move isn't perfect yet," Mila argued. "I'm getting better, but I need to be fantastic."

"You must accept-"

"No! You told me I have to believe that I can be better than Evelyn, and I do, but I'll never reach my full potential if you abandon me now!"

Something vulnerable creeped into Rozanov's expression then. "I can't go to Ottawa."

"You'll wear your disguise. It worked the last time we played against them, didn't it?"

"It is an excellent disguise, but I'm not sure..."

"If you don't help me, then Evelyn will win, which means Shane Hollander will win."

Rozanov took that into consideration but didn't answer immediately, so Mila pressed on.

"This could be your chance to finally win the rivalry."

"Fine. I will do this under one condition. You win Rookie of the Year. No trying and failing, no excuses."

"Agreed," Mila said and shook his hand.

Ottawa was as boring as it always was. When Mila had hoped she would be drafted first, she'd assumed it would be where she'd end up since they'd had first draft pick. Of course, they'd taken Evelyn instead, and Mila had been drafted by Montreal second. She liked the nightlife of Montreal better, but she was still bitter about it.

And since Uncle Shane lived in Ottawa, he'd begun helping out with the team after Evelyn had gotten drafted, even though the team he'd retired from that had put his number in the rafters was in Montreal. But his aging parents were in Ottawa, so that's where he was.

Mila was planning on signing to Boston when she got a chance, anyway, to be closer to her own mothers. Evelyn liked to give speeches about loyalty to her team, so she'd probably stay in Ottawa if she didn't get traded.

Mila glared at Evelyn when they met at face off ten minutes into the game, their teams still zero to zero.

"I have a secret weapon now," Mila bragged. "I'm going to be Rookie of the Year."

"You wish," Evelyn said. "I'm still ahead of you in goals."

"Not for long." Mila won the face off.

The game stayed locked at zero to zero well into the second period. Mila wasn't willing to try The Rozanov again, but she couldn't get a goal in, and neither could anyone else on her team.

Two minutes into the third, Bubby finally scored off a rebound.

Mila celebrated with her team, and then less than a minute later Evelyn stole the puck off her stick and scored on a breakaway.

The game grew tenser as the time ticked down on the third and the score stayed tied.

Mila got the puck and raced toward the Ottawa side. An Ottawa defender stepped into her way so she shot it over to her teammate then skated around the defender, dodging a shove that would have sent her into the boards. Her teammate passed it back to her, Mila took the shot, and... it was blocked by the Ottawa goalie. Mila raced to try to get it on the rebound, fell into the crease, and hooked her stick around a defender trying to get in her way. She swore when she heard the ref's whistle blow.

"Number 74, two minutes for hooking."

Mila fumed all the way to the penalty box. There was only a minute left in the game, which meant she sat there and watched as Evelyn made a beautiful goal on the power play and the Ottawa team cheered.

"I almost had it," Mila complained to Rozanov as they walked back through the arena afterwards. He hadn't disappeared this time, but he had added a fake nose to his already extensive disguise.

"No," he said. "You let your temper get the better of you. Anger leads to hate, hate leads to leading the league in penalty box minutes instead of goals. "

Mila groaned. “I’m not a penalty box princess! I’m, like, sixth in the league in penalty minutes, there are five whole players who get more penalties than me."

"Mila," Evelyn called out behind her.

Mila turned and saw Evelyn standing with Uncle Shane. Beside her, Rozanov froze.

Uncle Shane was staring at Rozanov, which was understandable because Rozanov looked ridiculous in his disguise, but the look in his eyes was pure murder. "Motherfucker."

"Swear jar," Evelyn said, which Mila found babyish because they weren't five anymore, they both swore plenty around their teammates, but since Uncle Shane had known them since they were children he rarely swore around them.

Uncle Shane grabbed Rozanov's arm and yanked him into a side room.

Evelyn and Mila looked at each other with wide eyes.

"Who was that?" Evelyn asked.

"Ilya Rozanov," Mila said defensively. "He's been training me to defeat you."

"Wait, the Ilya Rozanov? Isn't he dead?"

"No, mama was right, he's been hiding in the mountains."

"What do you think Uncle Shane is saying to him?"

It wasn't often that Evelyn and Mila were in synch with each other, they didn't possess the mind reading powers so often attributed to twins, but they did fall into alignment when it came to getting up to trouble. They crept closer to the door and Mila pressed her ear to it to listen.

"You let me think you were dead," Uncle Shane had raised his voice enough that Mila could make out the words clearly.

"I didn't have a choice," Rozanov said. "Russia-"

"Fuck that, you had a choice. You could have told me."

"No. What would you have done? Given up your hockey career to hide in the woods with me?"

"Yes! I would've chosen you over hockey, but you never gave me a chance."

Mila gasped. There was nothing she would choose over hockey, and before this moment she had assumed Uncle Shane felt the same.

"I could not have let you do that," Rozanov said. "You deserved to play hockey."

"Was it my fault?" Shane asked so softly that Mila had to press her ear to the door to make out the words. "Am I the reason you had to go on the run from Russia?"

"It's Russia's fault."

"Ilya."

"I was the one who should have been more careful."

"Ilya, please."

The room went too quiet for Mila to hear anything else. She turned to Evelyn and whispered, "What the fuck?"

Evelyn shook her head rapidly. "I thought they hated each other?"

All anyone ever talked about was the rivalry between Hollander and Rozanov. Whatever this was, it had happened years before Mila had been born and she'd never heard a word of it.

Mila pulled out her phone and started frantically googling.

Searching their names with twenty-fourteen brought up stories of Rozanov's supposed kayaking death. In all of those, Hollander was only referred to as Rozanov's long time rival. That story was from March, so Mila tried searching for February 2014 instead and found they'd been at the Olympics. Had she heard that before? Maybe? She vaguely remembered that America had won gold that year for men's hockey, but she wasn't completely sure about that because Mila didn't pay that much attention to men's hockey.

It took further digging, but she finally found it. It looked like the story had been all but erased from the internet, but there was still an old Reddit thread about it. Hollander and Rozanov caught kissing at the Sochi Olympics. Most of the responses on Reddit seemed to assume it had been a prank, but Russia had thrown everything they had at Rozanov, pulling his passport and putting out a warrant for his arrest on the grounds of him being an activist against the state.

Based on the words she'd just overheard, Mila assumed it hadn't been a prank. "Holy shit." She turned her phone toward Evelyn, who read the information quickly.

"So they were what, in love? Oh my god. Poor Uncle Shane. How could Rozanov have run off without him?" Evelyn said.

"What are you talking about, Rozanov is the one who had to give up hockey." A fate worse than death, as far as Mila was concerned. "And it pretty much was Uncle Shane's fault."

Evelyn glared at her.

The door swung open. Rozanov stormed out, readjusting his disguise. "Mila, we're leaving. And you're winning the scoring race."

"Like fuck she is," Uncle Shane called after him. "Evelyn is already ahead, and I've been training her for months. Sorry Mila."

What the hell had happened after they'd stopped listening?

"Ottawa is winning the Walter Cup this year," Evelyn declared.

"Damn right we are," Uncle Shane said. "Grab your things, Evelyn, you're doing extra training tomorrow."

Evelyn groaned and shuffled off to fetch her bag.

Mila hurried after Rozanov. "Why is-"

"No questions," Rozanov said. "Only winning."

It looked like the rivalry was being… reheated.