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Inter-Organisation Mail – Ottawa Centaurs
From: MLH
Subject: All-Stars Draft Selection
2022 All-Stars Draft selection process has been officially opened. Find below the list of eligible candidates for this year. These players will be placed on the voting list for the public and private vote. Please make sure these players are available for the week beginning the 7th February 2022 and can travel to Detroit, Michigan.
- Wyatt Hayes
- Luca Haas
- Nick Chouinard
- Evan Dykstra
- Zane Boodram
- Tanner Dillon
- Chris Young
- Martin Holmberg
- Jean LePointe
Should you have any questions or concerns feel free to contact us and we will endeavour to assist.
RegardsJanice Hale
Internal Games Secretary MLH
The email popped up in Coach Wiebe’s email just after morning practice on the first day of January. It had been known for a while now that the MLH had ruled that any actively rostered players would not be eligible to be called up to their respective national teams for the 2022 Winter Olympics. The MLH, or maybe just Crowell, has taken this as an opportunity to use this downtime in the schedule to fit in this season's All-Stars game.
Wiebe looked over the email and recounted his roster quietly in his head, people were missing. Why did the list seem so small? Three names missing off the list were Rozanov, Hollander and Barrett, which had all previously been All-Star representatives in previous seasons. Heck, Rozanov and Hollander have basically been to every single one since their rookie seasons, captaining their teams on most occasions. Something felt off, like this was intentional and that there was clearly a connection between why they weren’t added and the previous year that has surrounded the Centaurs and all the barriers they broke and how well they had railed Crowell up by going against his need to keep personal lives of players out of the media or bring attention to things he couldn’t control.
A knock at the door pulled Wiebe out of his thoughts. “Come in” he prompted, pulling himself more into the present. Harris entered and his face was doing its best to control the anger he was trying to keep hidden inside.
“Have you seen this?” Harris gestured towards his phone, his email app open showing Wiebe the screen showing the email he had been CC’d in from the MLH. “They think they can just not invite our three queer openly players? They think they can just shut out Roz, Shane and Troy like this? They all go every year to this event and now all of a sudden they’ve just been removed from one of the biggest events of the year?” Harris was seething inside, his words coming out stronger than he normally would speak, especially to Wiebe.
“Im not sure there is anything we can really do here, but I can see the connection they have in common, clearly Crowell doesn’t want distractions this year, especially now that Roz and Shane are married and all the fall out.” Wiebe seemed to be just as angry as Harris in this moment. “We need to tell them though, this is completely unfair and utter bullshit, are they still in the building Harris? If they are can you get them to come up to my office. Think we need to talk. I’m also going to make a few calls in the meantime”
Harris nodded and headed out. Wiebe picked up his office phone and tapped in the extension for the back office; he needed to know where he legally stood in all this, to challenge the MLH on their decision to just ignore and ultimately discriminate against his players. “Mara, get Yuna, Farah and one of our lawyers on a Teams call ASAP if they are free, we have a situation” a muffled agreement came across the line, and he sent the phone down. Pacing the room until he heard footsteps down the hallway.
Filtering into his already mediocre sized office, made smaller by the bodies of three well built hockey players and Harris, all four with a confused look on their faces. They had clearly been dragged out of changing as they were all in various levels of dress. Troy was in joggers and a t-shirt with wet hair, Shane was still in his base layer as he preferred to take the time after practise to decompress and run though things in his head before going to shower, and Ilya was shirtless, wet curls sticking to his forehead wearing shorts and a pair of slides.
“Why have we been summoned, Coach?” Ilya broke the confused silence between them all.
“I just got an email about the All-stars event, and I’m so pissed off, I’m trying to keep myself calm but right now Crowell can go fuck himself” Wiebe all but spitting out Crowell’s name.
Shane, tilting his head, looked between Ilya, Harris and Wiebe unsure of how to really react to this side of his coach he hadn't seen before.
“Well we always knew he could go fuck himself, but what has he done now?” Ilya asks, a slight smirk trailing over his lips, he hasn’t really seen Wiebe this worked up before but he was enjoying it slightly that he was so angry at something Crowell has apparently done that it broke character for him.
“You three aren’t invited to All-Stars, just you three…” Wiebe trailed off waving his hand between the group gesturing.
Shane finally figured out how to react to this moment and now he was genuinely confused but curious. “Howcome? What was said?” He asked. Wiebe turns around his monitor towards the group and they all shuffle forward to read.
“I still don’t get why our names aren't there-“ Shane realised mid-sentence what three of them had in common that their team didn’t… ”Wait, they haven’t invited us because we are gay?” Ilya muttered something under his breath in Russian, Troy huffed though his nose catching onto what Shane was saying.
“How the fuck is this fair to us? Just because we are all openly gay? Like what the actual fuck do they think will happen if we were there? Throw gay orgies?” Troy was doing his best not to actually laugh as he ended his little rant, Harris lightly elbowing him in the side after hearing the last sentence.
“What about the other people in the league who are queer? Hunter, Tompson from Seattle and that goalie from Winnipeg?” Shane racked his brain for names of other people who had also come out publicly in the last couple seasons after Hunter took Kip’s lips to his own after winning the Cup.
“I’m going to go ask their social media teams” Harris pipped up while typing out at rapid fire speed on his phone, likely sending DMs to contacts he had at the Admirals, Seagulls and Warriors.
“I think we should call Yuna, no? maybe Farah too?” Ilya spoke up in a calm tone similar to his captain's voice. “if this is the actual reason that we’ve been excluded then we need them to do something about it” It wasn’t usual for Ilya to take control of situations like this, Shane was the thinker and planner when it came to PR things, like mother like son. Shane nodded quietly while rereading over and over the email on the monitor in front of him. “I think we need to call them, yes baby”
“Already on it, I had the back office try and set up a meeting between all of us”. Wiebe is already two steps ahead of Ilya’s thought process. “Troy you are free to stay or leave as you wish, you are part of this but I know Yuna and Farah do not work with you personally”.
Troy simply nodded and sat himself on the floor leaning against the wall, his face unreadable in that moment as he looked up at Harris still tapping away.
A notification appeared on the monitor, the ringtone of a Teams call audible around the room. Clicking accept; the faces of Yuna Hollander, Farah Jalali and Derek Hughes the Centaur's lawyer appeared on screen.
“Hello guys, sorry to drop this onto you last minute but we have a situation here, I assume Mara filled you in on the email we received” Wiebe welcomed the group of frame where the camera was facing Shane and Ilya, their faces both looking unimpressed at first but softening when they both seen the face of Yuna.
“Yes, Mara sent us all the email. I must say that this is abhorrent behaviour from who I can only assume is Crowell. But as much as I hate it, I really don’t think there is much we can do in regards to this. Derek might know more about the inside policies and any laws that could be broken by this release, but for now it’s probably best we force the league into making a statement as to why they have banned our players from participating” Farah jumping straight in, her steadfast mindset making it clear to all that she was not taking any of this bullshit on the nose.
“I heard back from the Admirals, Hunter’s name is also missing from their draft, still waiting on news from the Warriors and Seagulls however” Harris spoke looking up from his phone towards the computer monitor. “So we know it’s not just us that’s targeted by the MLH at this time”.
“Mom, what can we do ourselves right now? Is there anything we can do? I really don’t feel comfortable with this whole thing” Shane looked directly at the face of Yuna, hoping that there was something in her face that could be read as an answer.
“I’ll work with Farah and we’ll come up with a game plan, for now I want the three of you to just stay off social media about this, we want to catch the league up in their own game before going public with anything, but dont worry for now sweety” Yuna shifts her vision between Shane and Ilya.
“OK, thank you for this ladies, we’ll converse later without the guys and see what the league has to say about this” Wiebe signed off and closed the call. Looking back at his players ushering them out the room with a hand gesture.
“Brandon, I’ve heard from the Seagulls too, apparently Tompson’s name is also missing, this kinda solidifies that this is some sort of disagreement about people’s sexuality and I must say I am thoroughly disgusted by this, not just because of Troy but as this feels like erasure of our community” Harris says dejectedly looking up at Wiebe from his phone.
Shit.