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Summer, 2021. Shane Hollander is Major League Hockey's hottest free agent. MLH fans and organizations alike must grapple with their expectations: Hollander is not the young man the league discarded in 2017, for better or worse. There is more to his life than hockey, even if he says frustratingly little about his boyfriend, another player known only as Lily.
When the Ottawa Centaurs lace up for the 2021-2022 season with a stacked lineup, failure is not an option. What the world believes to be the newest iteration of a longstanding rivalry just might be hockey's greatest love story.
- Part 3 of Everything they Say
- Language:
- English
- Words:
- 86,488
- Chapters:
- 26/35
- Files:
- 1
- AO3:
- #83150341
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Spring, 2021. The Ottawa Centaurs are playoff-bound, Shane Hollander is suing the MLH for discrimination, and Ilya Rozanov wants the rookie that's sleeping with Hollander and stringing Luca Haas along off his f*cking hockey team. He's barely keeping it together as it is.
Meanwhile, the Boston Raiders are playing the long game: trading for Hayden Pike, making sure that if Hollander comes back to the league, they've got their bargaining chip in place. A month later, Pike would agree with them, as news outlets report Hollander's attachment to a player in the league with a familiar alias.
- Part 2 of Everything they Say
- Language:
- English
- Words:
- 30,536
- Chapters:
- 11/11
- Files:
- 1
- AO3:
- #81268246
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It's the 2020-2021 season. Ottawa Centaurs forward Derek Briggs, an undrafted player from the Swedish Hockey League, is having a fantastic rookie season. He makes the team out of camp, claws his way up to the second line, lives through an almost plane crash, and has a crush on his fellow rookie that just might be reciprocated. The Centaurs might even make the playoffs.
Then, news breaks that Shane Hollander is suing the Metros and MLH for terminating his contract after he came out to them in 2017. Derek, who played with Shane in Sweden after he was forced out of Montreal, gets a lot more popular for all the wrong reasons. The media seems to think he's the secret hockey player Hollander's dating, Crowell is breathing down his neck, and all of a sudden, Centaurs captain Ilya Rozanov has it out for him.
- Part 1 of Everything they Say
- Language:
- English
- Words:
- 34,190
- Chapters:
- 10/10
- Files:
- 1
- AO3:
- #80082426
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home for the summer by DistantStorm
Heated Rivalry (TV), Game Changers Series - Rachel Reid
2026-01-01
Summer, 2019 Hayden doesn’t know if he’s seen his kind of happiness on his best friend’s face before, which is saying something considering they’ve won two cups together. He doesn’t let himself think about that for long because it pulls tight on something in his chest and he’s trying to be the kind of sloppy drunk that has lazy sex at three in the morning, not the kind that cries about social injustice and admits he might not hate Shane’s boyfriend as much as he says he does. OR: Hayden Pike and the terrible ordeal of tolerating Ilya Rozanov. Summer, 2019 Of all the things Hayden Pike was expecting from his annual four-day weekend at Shane’s cottage before training camp, spending a quiet evening around the fire pit wasn’t really it. At least, not with Rozanov in the picture. He’d almost asked Shane if there was any time Roz wouldn’t be around, but Jackie had insisted he at least make an attempt to play nicely. So, here they were, blessedly child free since David and Yuna had collected the kids this morning after breakfast, taking them back to their cabin down the way for a slumber party, drinking wine, and relaxing. Shane had started the fire before sunset and they’d all watched the sun sink beneath the ridge beyond the lake, talking about mostly nothing. Hockey talk was banned unless it was about the foundation camp that started in two weeks, and nobody was allowed to work out in the mornings unless it was to do a camp activity since they were all technically on vacation. At some point, Rozanov had gotten up to go inside, returning moments later with a new bottle of wine, which he set in a white-marble chiller at Hayden’s elbow. Hayden had stared at him, wondering who had possessed him since he was pretty sure Roz would rather die than act as a good host to Hayden, whose glass was nearly empty, but Roz was too busy folding his massive six-foot-three frame onto the couch opposite them, resting his head in Shane’s lap like it this all normal and not disgusting. Not disgusting like that, Hayden might not be the most observant guy but he’s not a fucking homophobe, thank you very much, but disgusting because it’s the Russian Stallion, Mister God’s Gift to Women and Hockey, certified playboy Ilya fucking Rozanov. “Comfortable?” The word is barely audible over the crackle-pop of the fire, slurred and quiet. Not perfectly enunciated in the way Rozenov always speaks to, well, everyone. Hayden almost thinks—no shit Sherlock, that’s because he’s aware of the language barrier, then remembers once again this is Roz and he’s not really interested in giving the man the benefit of the doubt. “I’m okay,” Shane confirms, sinking his fingers in Roz’s hair. “You?” “Da.” Roz hasn’t looked up from the fire since he’d laid down. “You are comfy. Like pillow.” Kill me now, Hayden thinks. It’s one thing to know, nebulously, that this is a thing. Like, he knows that Shane and Rozanov are a couple in secret, and if Shane’s happy and Roz isn’t a dick to him, it’s not really Hayden’s business. It’s another thing to experience them being domestic. Jackie, seeming to sense Hayden’s spiraling thoughts, nudges her empty glass at him. “Refill me, baby.” Hayden, being a good husband who would like to get laid tonight since their children will not be around to interrupt them and Shane had put them in a guest room on the opposite side of his massive actually-not-a-cottage-but-a-mansion, abandons his own near-empty glass and does what she asks of him. “I always forget how beautiful it is out here,” she says, pausing only to take a sip of wine when Hayden passes it back. He always fills it up too high to be polite, but she never complains. “No wonder you love it.” “Yeah,” Shane says at the same time Roz murmurs, “It is good to be home.” Jackie, who kicks him in the shin because his mouth is hanging open because, like, what the fuck, acts like nothing has happened. Like Rozanov isn’t tense and trying to sit up, like they can’t see the muscles in Shane’s left forearm flex or his fingers splaying across Roz’s ribs to keep him from doing what? Running away? Hayden needs more wine, and even then he probably won’t be able to process this. “Thank you again for inviting us,” she tells Shane, or Roz, maybe both of them? Honestly, Hayden’s smart enough to know he’s not the brains in his relationship, so he takes a hopefully not audible gulp of wine, finishing the glass so he can top it back up. “Our pleasure,” Shane replies, a small smile lifting his lips at one corner. Roz’s left hand closes over Shane’s kneecap as if he needs to hold onto something solid. Like he’s just accidentally admitted something about himself. All this time, Hayden’s kind of thought that Shane would be the one clinging to Roz. Obviously that’s not really how a relationship works. It’s not always even-steven, of course it isn’t, but he just couldn’t reconcile Ilya Rozanov, the mouthy asshole who spent the last eight seasons terrorizing the league—and Shane, especially—with whatever the fuck this is. The guy who turned down what was reportedly ten million a year in Boston to go to Ottawa for slightly less than, who’s currently staring so somberly at the fire Hayden wonders if he can put it out with his eyeballs or something because he’d called this place home and got embarrassed by it? Except—maybe Roz is because he doesn’t really have another place he can just… be. No sneaking around or pretending. Fuck, Hayden thinks. That is really fucking sad, whether Roz is an asshole or not. He looks down into his wine, decides if this keeps up this line of thinking he’s going wind up a weepy drunk. He sets the glass down on the table and rises to his feet. “Alright losers,” he says, before adding, “And my beautiful wife, whom I adore.” Jackie giggles. Roz rolls his eyes and raises an eyebrow in silent question. “I think it’s time to get this party started. Beer pong, anyone?” “We will wipe the floor with you,” Roz drawls, instantly interested in a challenge. “Be careful what you wish for.” Shane finds Hayden’s eyes over Roz’s head and nods microscopically, looking kind of emotional, like he knows what Hayden’s doing.
- Language:
- English
- Words:
- 1,768
- Chapters:
- 1/1
- Files:
- 1
- AO3:
- #76889216
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“If we are burning jerseys,” Ilya begins, eyeing the massive blank space on Shane's side of the room where his Montreal sweaters used to live, “I would have gone to the store for marshmallows.” “Burning polyester smells like shit,” Shane replies, scrunching his nose. OR: The one where Ilya is attracted to Shane an absolutely normal amount, the Centaurs go 1-1 in their first two games against the Metros, and Shane reckons with Montreal as a concept.
- Language:
- English
- Words:
- 5,771
- Chapters:
- 1/1
- Files:
- 1
- AO3:
- #76754666
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During Ilya's first season in Ottawa, Shane asks his dad to pick Ilya up from the hospital after a mild injury. Or: Ilya doesn't realize that the Hollanders are a package deal. David, in his way, tries to remedy that. It's late when his phone buzzes. Not so late that he's asleep, though he probably should be, because it's been a very long evening and he's never been able to switch off when a game doesn’t go well. It used to be just Shane that he’d be up late worrying over. He’s seen plenty of injuries, Shane’s been skating since he was two years old, but it doesn’t get easier when it’s your kid. And now, there’s two of them. It was different last year when Ilya played for Boston. He and Shane were so new—to them, at least—so they’d just text. Yuna would ask how he’s feeling in the family group chat and Ilya would always reply that he’s fine, make some comment about an opposing player he’d get back next time, always put on that brave front or direct attention back to Shane. But now, two summers and then some, not to mention the foundation, it’s different. They know Ilya now. He comes over for dinner every other week—once a month with Shane when their schedules match, once a month alone—and always insists upon doing the dishes with Yuna, trying very hard to follow her rapid-fire stream of consciousness and well-intended micromanagement of his career, the occasional yet accidentally painful questions she blurts with no filter. It takes nearly six months of regular dinners for the man to relax when Shane isn’t present, something that troubles Yuna but Shane (and David) insist isn’t to do with something they’ve done wrong. They know that he’s good at cards but prefers playing Yahtzee and he refuses to play Sorry! on principle. (“Why call it Sorry? I am not sorry you are losing.”) They know he’s quiet sometimes, that there’s a shadow in his eyes. Especially when Shane is gone. When that happens, they share a glance, save doing dishes for the morning, and turn on old reruns of game shows he saves on the DVR to drone on in the background. Yuna can’t stand them, so she watches for five minutes before growing bored, wandering off. She always throws the fluffy pink blanket from the hallway closet over Ilya before she retreats to her office or the bedroom, only coming out if Shane calls. Speaking of: David reaches for his phone, slides his finger across the screen to answer. “Hey, Shane.” ”Hi Dad,” Shane sounds tired. Montreal played tonight too, but this kind of tired, this weight, it’s different. “You talk to Ilya? That was a nasty tumble into the boards.” Shane sounds far away. It’s quiet though, so he must be back home. “Doctors just read the scan. Looks okay, thankfully. They want him to stay overnight for observation since he doesn’t have anybody at home, but,” Shane trails off. “Is, um,” he pauses again, sounding a little nervous. “Is Mom asleep?” Ah, he thinks, knowing where this conversation is headed. “Yeah, she turned in about an hour ago when Ilya texted the group chat. Did you tell him to—“ “He doesn’t want to be a burden,” Shane blurts, honest to a fault, then “Fuck. He’d be so mad that I said that.” “You are calling me to pick him up, right?” David’s already grabbing his keys from the bowl at the edge of the kitchen counter, has one foot shoved into his boots. It’s freezing this time of year, but the garage is warm enough that he won’t need to wait for the car to warm up before he hops in. ”I—yeah,” he agrees. “Okay,” He answers, easy, pointedly ignoring Shane’s sigh of relief. “We’ll pretend the other part didn’t happen. Your game go alright? Saw you got three assists, not bad. Mom was screaming at Tampa like they’d personally insulted her when you got hooked, though.” ”Yeah, game was good,” Shane is totally tuned out, but he usually crashes hard on the second night of a back-to-back and this game went to a shootout. He’s supposed to drive out to Ottawa in the morning. He'd make the drive tonight, even though he shouldn't, which means Ilya has probably talked him down. “Just tired. Worried.” David hits the button for the ignition and the car comes to life as the garage door opens. He can hear the subtle beep as the call switches to Bluetooth. “I’m in the Audi, and there’s no snow on the roads so I’ll be there in forty. Want me to call him when I get close? You sound like you’re going to conk out any second.” ”Would you?” “’Course, kiddo.” “Thanks, Dad. I’ll text him that you’re already on your way so he can ask for the discharge paperwork.” And so that Ilya can’t try to call and stop him, Shane doesn’t say. — ❄ — It’s just after one in the morning when Ilya puts his bag in the trunk. He’s quiet, squinting against the bright white of snow flurries and yellowy parking lot lighting. David hands him a pair of sunglasses when he throws himself into the passenger seat, in lieu of a greeting, the extra pair he kept in the glovebox from two seasons ago when Shane had his most recent concussion. “Is mild,” Ilya insists, staring straight ahead. He takes the glasses, holds them loosely in his fingers, but refuses to put them on. “Three days rest, team medic clears me, back on ice in a
- Language:
- English
- Words:
- 1,604
- Chapters:
- 1/1
- Files:
- 1
- AO3:
- #76528941
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life is what happens to you (while you're busy making other plans) by DistantStorm
Heated Rivalry (TV), Game Changers Series - Rachel Reid
2025-12-26
David doesn’t have any recollection of leaving Shane’s place. He sort of comes back to himself halfway down the gravel road, settling back into his body, into reality, and has to pull over at the turnaround where the gravel meets pavement so he can breathe. It’s only ten minutes back to their cottage, eight when Yuna drives and she will immediately know that something is wrong so he has to get himself together and pray she’s distracted enough not to notice that something is wrong. No, he thinks, slamming his palms on the steering wheel, not wrong. That isn’t the right word. It’s just not his story to tell.
- Language:
- English
- Words:
- 1,365
- Chapters:
- 1/1
- Files:
- 1
- AO3:
- #76487401