Chapter Text
The Saturday afternoon sunlight was weak and watery as it often was in a Montreal November, streamed through the large windows of the kitchen. It illuminated a scene of controlled, yet rapidly escalating, domestic chaos.
On the surface, the room was a picture of refined, post-retirement life: granite countertops, a vase of simple white tulips and an espresso machine that cost more than a month’s rent on Shane’s first junior hockey apartment.
In the center of it all stood Ilya Rozanov, a six-foot-two wall of retired Russian hockey muscle, locked in mortal combat with a four-year-old. Specifically, with four-year-old Irina Hollander-Rozanova's hair.
“Ilya, hurry up! We're going to be late for her first class! Her first one!” Shane’s voice, still carrying the clipped, authoritative tone that had once commanded power plays, drifted down the hall from the direction of the mudroom.
“You think I do not know this, Hollander?” Ilya called back, his deep voice a rumble of concentration.
“You think I want her to be late? I am fighting a… a sentient being made of static electricity and fairy fluff.” He held a tiny sparkly hair elastic between his teeth and was attempting to wrangle Irina’s fine, dark hair into a ponytail. It was, as Irina had just pointed out, not the right kind of ponytail.
“Papa,” Irina stated, her small, serious face a perfect blend of Shane’s determined set to the jaw and Ilya’s expressive eyes. “It has to be a ‘high pony.’ Not a ‘low pony.’ A ‘high pony’ is for hockey.”
Ilya grunted, releasing a strand that immediately sprang back into his face. “This is a high pony, moya zvezda.”
Irina twisted in her booster seat on the kitchen island stool to look up at him, her expression one of profound disappointment. “No, Papa. That’s a ‘crying pony.’ It’s sad.”
From the mudroom, the sound of a closet door being frantically opened and closed was followed by a crash. “Shane?!”
“I’m fine!” Shane’s voice was strained. “The bin of winter hats fell. We have seventeen winter hats, Ilya! Seventeen! But where is her new helmet? The one with the little roses on the side? Where?!”
Ilya closed his eyes for a brief second, a lifetime of facing down opposing defensemen flashing before them. This was a different kind of pressure. He opened them and met Irina’s gaze in the reflection of the stainless-steel toaster. “Okay, malyshka. Truce. Show Papa. Show me the ‘hockey pony.’”
With a sigh that suggested she carried the weight of the world on her tiny shoulders, Irina twisted further, grabbed a fistful of her own hair at the very crown of her head, and held it up. “See? Here. So my helmet doesn’t make a bump. Coach Megan says.”
“Ah.” The logic was, of course, infallible. Coach Megan, the instructor for the Petit Pioneers program, was apparently a deity in the Hollander-Rozanov household, her pronouncements on ponytails, skate-tying, and the proper way to hold a mini-stick treated as gospel. “Coach Megan is correct. Papa was… incorrectly informed.”
He gently pulled her hair back to the spot she’d indicated. She held it for him, a little helper. He carefully wound the elastic, his enormous, scarred fingers moving with surprising delicacy, the same hands that had once slashed and hooked their way to scoring titles now performing the intricate task of securing a neon-pink elastic around his daughter’s hair. He smoothed the flyaways, and when he was done, Irina patted the top of her head.
“Good job, Papa,” she said, with the air of a queen knighting a subject.
The relief was short-lived.
“Where are her tights?” Shane’s voice echoed again, tinged with panic. He appeared in the kitchen doorway, a man undone.
Shane Hollander, the stoic ex captain of Montreal Metros, the face of Canadian hockey for a generation, stood there looking utterly lost. His greying hair was disheveled, his plaid shirt was half-untucked and he was holding up a pair of tiny, glitter-encrusted sneakers as if they were alien artifacts.
“I have the sneakers. I have the cute little sweatpants with the sequined moose on the pocket. But the tights. The pink ones. The ‘lucky’ ones. Gone.”
Ilya and Irina exchanged a look. It was a look of shared history, of inside jokes, of a deep and abiding love for the frazzled man in the doorway.
“Under the bed, Papa Shane,” Irina said patiently. “I put them under the bed for the mouse.”
Shane blinked. “The… mouse?”
“The mouse who lives under my bed. Mr. Cuddles. He was cold.”
Ilya’s lips twitched, fighting a smile. He slid off his stool, walked over to his husband, and placed a large, grounding hand on his shoulder. He could feel the tension thrumming through him. “Shane, breathe. We have time.”
“We do not have time!” Shane whispered fiercely, so Irina wouldn’t hear. “It’s a fifteen-minute drive. It takes her ten minutes to put her coat on by herself because she’s ‘a big girl.’ It’s her first day, Ilya. Her first real taste of it. What if she hates it? What if the ice is too cold? What if the other kids are mean? What if-”
Ilya silenced him with a kiss, brief but firm. It was a trick as old as their relationship. “Then she will hate it, and we will go for hot chocolate. But first, we must get her there.”
He gave Shane’s shoulders a squeeze. “You find the tights. I will get her coat and her skates.”
The mission re-focused them. Shane, with a new sense of purpose, disappeared back down the hall toward Irina’s bedroom. Ilya lifted Irina off the stool, settling her on his hip with an ease born of four years of practice.
“Come, zvezda. Time for battle gear.”
Her room was a delightful explosion of pinks, purples, and hockey memorabilia. A signed photo of Marie-Philip Poulin hung next to a framed print of a unicorn. On a low shelf sat a pair of gleaming white figure skates, a hand-me-down from a neighbor, which were to be her first pair. Ilya knelt, his knees cracking in protest, and began the ritual.
He pulled on her thin, cushioned skate socks. Then came the padded hockey pants, which she insisted on stepping into herself, wobbling dramatically before giggling. Ilya fastened the Velcro tabs, his heart swelling at the sight.
Then, the skates. This was the sacred part. He slid her tiny foot into one, making sure her heel was snug, and began to lace. The laces were short, the metal eyelets small. He tied them not too tight, not too loose, just as Coach Megan had instructed at the parent orientation. He tied them the same way he’d laced up for his first game in the MHL.
Shane appeared triumphant, holding the pink tights aloft like a Stanley Cup. “Found them! Mr. Cuddles was using them as a blanket.”
He knelt beside Ilya, their shoulders brushing. Together, they finished the task: the jacket zipped, the tiny mittens secured and the pink helmet with the little rose decal settled on her head. Ilya did the chinstrap, his face close to hers.
“How’s it feel? Not too tight?”
“It’s good, Papa.” She looked at them both, her two giant dads, her eyes shining with excitement. “I’m ready.”
The sight of her, all kitted up and so small, standing in the middle of their living room, hit them both. This was it. The culmination of years of secret glances, stolen moments, fierce arguments and a love that had defied an entire sport. From the heat of their rivalry to the warmth of this family.
Ilya cleared his throat. Shane sniffled, quickly wiping at his eye with the back of his hand, pretending it was just an errant eyelash.
The drive to the local rink, the revered Centre Étienne-Desmarteau, was a short one. Irina chattered away in the back seat, a mix of English, French, and Russian, her personal polyglot of love. She informed them that she was going to score “a million goals” and that she would let them both have a turn holding her medal.
Inside, the rink air hit them: the familiar, beloved smell of cold ice, stale popcorn and Zamboni fumes. It was the smell of their lives. The sounds echoed; pucks clacking against boards, the scrape of skates, the shouted encouragement of parents. They found the small side rink reserved for the Petit Pioneers. Along the boards, a cluster of parents stood with cameras at the ready.
On the ice, a handful of children in mismatched gear were already gathered around a cheerful woman in her thirties, Coach Megan. Some clung to the boards, others wobbled on their skates like tiny, adorable drunkards.
Ilya lifted Irina onto the bench. Shane knelt in front of her, his eyes serious, holding her small hands.
“Okay, baby. You remember what we talked about? Just have fun. If you fall, it’s okay. Just get back up. And if you want to stop, just wave, and we’ll come get you. Okay?”
Irina nodded, her focus already on the ice.
Ilya leaned in, kissing the top of her helmet. “Bудь смелой, moya lyubov. Be brave, my love. Play like your Papa Shane. Score like your Papa Ilya.” He winked at Shane.
Shane rolled his eyes, but a smile broke through. “Just play like Irina.”
She slid carefully off the bench and onto the ice. For a second, her ankles wobbled and both men lunged forward instinctively. But she found her balance, took a tiny, shuffling step, then another. She made her way, slowly towards Coach Megan and the other children.
Ilya slipped his arm around Shane’s waist, pulling him close. Shane leaned into him, his hand coming up to rest on Ilya’s on his hip.
On the ice, Coach Megan gathered the little ones in a circle. She demonstrated how to get up after a fall, flopping onto the ice like a cheerful starfish before gracefully rising to her feet. The children giggled. Irina watched enraptured.
Then, the coach produced a bucket of small, orange pucks. She placed one in front of each child. “Okay, Pioneers! Let’s see those shots! Aim for the net!”
Irina looked at the puck in front of her. Then she looked up into the stands, finding her two fathers instantly. She gave them a tiny, shy wave.
Shane and Ilya waved back, two of the greatest rivals-turned-lovers the hockey world had ever seen, now just two nervous, adoring dads at a Saturday afternoon practice.
Irina turned back to the puck. She drew back her little stick, her face a mask of concentration that was pure Shane. With a surprisingly solid thwack, she shot the puck. It slid, wobbly and slow, across the ice. It didn’t go anywhere near the net, instead veering off and bumping gently into the boards.
She missed. And then she did the most beautiful thing they had ever seen.
She laughed.
A bright, delighted peal of laughter that echoed in the cold rink. She turned back to them, her face glowing. “Did you see?! I shot it!”
Ilya felt Shane’s arm tighten around him. He looked down to see tears streaming freely down his husband’s face now, no pretense. Ilya’s own vision blurred. He pressed a kiss to Shane’s temple, his lips lingering there.
They stood there, holding each other, watching their daughter discover the simple, unadulterated joy of the game. The game that had brought them together, torn them apart, and given them everything at the end. And in the cold stands of a local Montreal rink, it felt like the only place in the world they could ever want to be.