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Some things are learned for survival.
Ilya Rozanov learned English because the NHL could save him from Russia if he could stay long enough. To stay long enough, he needed to be good enough. To be good enough, he needed to know how to speak the language.
Some things are learned for love.
Shane Hollander learned Russian because he heard the other half of his heart breaking in an alleyway over the phone. He wanted to be sure that if ever there was another time when English could not suffice, the love of his life would not be left talking to empty air.
Some things are learned the way a drowning man learns to swim - frantically and against his will.
Ilya did not want to learn French. French was a stupid language for perfect assholes. But listening to his boyfriend's - no, his husband's - perfect voice wrap around French for pressers, commercials, at awards shows, he found himself learning it without meaning to. The French made decent music.
Some things are learned for sheer love of the game.
Shane and Ilya decided to challenge themselves to learn Japanese to surprise Yuna, and because they wanted to take a trip to the town Shane's family was from. Yuna had been delighted by her boys pouring over study books and Japanese language podcasts. David managed to wrangle up some of the poor quality Japanese he'd learned to impress Yuna’s parents a lifetime ago. They all went on the trip together and Yuna cried. Ilya absolutely did not thank you very much.
Some things are learned because you really just meant to help out a friend.
Rose was learning ASL for an art house film and she wanted it to be amazing. Perfect. She had coaches and instructors. But she wanted it to be flawless. There was a co-star she was absolutely not trying to impress. So Shane and Ilya agreed to help, by learning with her. It was shockingly useful, and Ilya’s face was so expressive. Shane gave his man of honor speech at Rose and her co-star’s wedding in English and ASL.
Some things are learned because you're comforting the homesick.
Luca Haas was homesick. He was a Stanley Cup winner, he had good friends and a perfect team and a very, very beautiful Canadian boyfriend. But he was a long way from Switzerland and the only person he knew who spoke German was the man who owned the German restaurant down the street from his condo who insisted on giving him free food when they won. Ilya realized his nervous rookie was homesick when the rookie's boyfriend asked him how to learn a new language. Two months later, the boyfriend , Shane, and Ilya were speaking stilted Swiss German to a shocked Luca over dinner.
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Some things were learned the same way you learn that there's a kind of math that involves more letters than numbers - with a growing sense of overwhelming dread.
The Ottawa Centaurs knew several things about their captain and assistant captain. They were madly, insanely, disgustingly in love. They were still, despite being closer to retirement than to rookies, the best players in the league. They were polar opposites in every way that didn't matter and perfectly matched in every way that did.
Much to the chagrin of veteran players, the awe and sometimes horror of rookies, and the exhaustion of the entire coaching staff and their very stressed PR manager, they treated competition like some kind of foreplay. Oh, sure. They were caring and gentle and sweet. But they were also unholy menaces, on and off the ice. Bood and Pike had a theory that it was because they had been pitted against each other at the age of 16 and accidentally learned that competition and love were the same thing.
Either way, it was incessant. Some of it was easy to comprehend - they competed fiercely in every scrimmage, in every increasingly bizarre skills test someone came up with for Harris to film and watch go viral online. Pickup games of soccer, foot races, hand stand contests judged by increasingly entertained Pike children.
And it wouldn't be so bad. The arguing about who the best retired NHL player was, the best 90s cartoon, the hottest guy on the Canadian Olympic swim team. It would be fine.
If anyone could understand a single solitary fucking thing they were saying.
If their absolutely nonsensical arguments weren't some horrible and horrifying Russian-English-Quebecois French-Japanese-ASL-Swiss German amalgamation.
If it didn't take 6 translators and an Excedrin to figure out what was happening.
If Harris hasn't had to just stop trying to caption their candid videos and ESPN hadn't begged to mic them up on repeat because Twitter went wild trying to translate their petty chaos.
If it didn't take 30 minutes and Hayes’ new translation app to discover that they were arguing about fucking breakfast cereal.
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But, you know, some things are learned because understanding makes you better.
The Pike kids all speak three to five languages fluently.
The Centaurs’ online ratings were higher than any other team in the league.
The players know to listen for plays called in languages that are not their own.
Rookies find a home where their native languages are picked up, integrated, and shockingly (and sometimes grotesquely) evolved by two deeply strange men.
And when an interviewer for Out Magazine asks the first husbands of hockey, for a feature releasing on their 10th wedding anniversary, what the secret to their long lasting relationship is, despite the odds, they both reply with one word:
Communication.