Work Text:
To meet diagnostic criteria for ASD according to the DSM-5, a person must have persistent deficits in each of three areas of social communication and interaction (see A.1. through A.3. below) plus at least two of four types of restricted, repetitive behaviors (see B.1. through B.4. below).
Transcript of the Two-Man Advantage podcast (July 2024)
Jay Park: Hey guys, Jay here! [waves at the camera] Joining us today on Two-Man Advantage is a very special guest. I know you’ve been begging me to do this for months, so consider your wishes granted. It’s—drumroll please—Shane Hollander!
Shane Hollander: Hi, everyone. It’s Shane. [pause] Am I supposed to introduce myself?
JP: I mean, usually there is some form of introduction for guests, but you’re Shane Hollander. You’ve won four MLH Cups. That’s an introduction by itself.
SH: Okay. Well, then, I guess I should say thank you for inviting me? Uh, I’m really glad to be here on the show.
JP: I can feel the enthusiasm just, like, radiating off of you.
SH: Oh, fuck off. [beat] Wait, this isn’t live, right? We can cut that out?
JP: You’re insane if you think I’m cutting that out. This is about the truth, Shane! Authenticity!
SH: I don’t think my PR team would agree.
JP: Your PR team’s boring. Don’t they know the fans love relatability?
SH: I’m not sure how much of my life is relatable.
JP: You play hockey. You have a dog. You’re a queer icon. You’re a millionaire. …Okay, maybe not relatable, but it’s aspirational. That’s the dream for at least twenty-five percent of Canadian teenagers. Maybe even thirty.
SH: Couldn’t you say the same thing about yourself?
JP: I am living sixteen-year-old me’s dream. That’s how I know. [beat] Specifically, sixteen-year-old me’s dream was to meet Shane Hollander. So. Nice to meet you. Again.
SH: [turns to face the camera, deadpan] We’re acquainted.
JP: I’m acquainted with all the gay hockey players. It’s a talent.
A. Persistent deficits in social communication and social interaction across multiple contexts, as manifested by the following, currently or by history (examples are illustrative, not exhaustive; see text):
- Deficits in social-emotional reciprocity, ranging, for example, from abnormal social approach and failure of normal back-and-forth conversation; to reduced sharing of interests, emotions, or affect; to failure to initiate or respond to social interactions.
- Deficits in nonverbal communicative behaviors used for social interaction, ranging, for example, from poorly integrated verbal and nonverbal communication; to abnormalities in eye contact and body language or deficits in understanding and use of gestures; to a total lack of facial expressions and nonverbal communication.
- Deficits in developing, maintaining, and understanding relationships, ranging, for example, from difficulties adjusting behavior to suit various social contexts; to difficulties in sharing imaginative play or in making friends; to absence of interest in peers.
JP: You just won the MLH Cup this June—your first with the Centaurs. Huge congrats on that, obviously. I think you’ve definitively proved your critics wrong.
SH: Thank you.
JP: However, the story of the summer has been more than just that victory. In a statement last week, you revealed that you were diagnosed with autism earlier this season.
SH: Yeah. [shifts in his seat]
JP: That’s a big topic. Could you describe how that all started, I guess?
SH: It’s kind of a long story.
JP: [pretends to check watch] We’ve got time.
SH: Well, aside from the team psychologist, Ilya and I each see a therapist on our own. It’s something that started a couple years ago because of the stress of being outed and transitioning teams. I was… in a pretty bad place, at the time, and it took a while for me to, uh, open up. But once I started making progress on those issues, I still kept going once a month, just to make sure I was staying consistent and not putting all of my issues on Ilya.
JP: I’m sensing something happened, then, to change the status quo?
SH: Kind of? A friend’s kid was diagnosed. We’re hockey players—none of us really knew anything about autism—so we just thought he was a quirky kid. But then one of his teachers brought it up and he got evaluated and turns out he’s on the spectrum. And my friend was doing all this research, worried he was a terrible dad, and he and his wife started noticing certain… similarities.
JP: Oh my God. [makes a sound halfway between a cough and a laugh]
SH: So the next time I saw my therapist, I was like, can you believe this? My best friend’s wife told me she thinks I have autism. And the look on her face was just—I fucked up. Even I could tell.
JP: [jaw dropped] She forgot to tell you?
SH: She thought I already knew. Apparently I’m that obvious.
Shane often struggled to form and maintain relationships during childhood. According to both himself and childhood witnesses, he displayed persistent deficits in both verbal and non-verbal communication. He would often refuse to engage in imaginative play or conversations about other children’s interests, and found it much easier to connect to older children and adults through hockey; due to this, Shane was often regarded as a “loner” or “teacher’s pet” by his peers. Although he has developed strategies to fit in (e.g., forcing eye contact, scripting conversations, or mirroring others’ behavior, colloquially known as “masking”) and has an established group of friends, this pattern persists into adulthood. He claims that as a highly regarded athlete, he often worries that others simply “put up with [him]” despite social-emotional deficits.
JP: So you had no idea before then.
SH: [shakes head] I’ve always known I was different, but I’d never considered there was a name for it. It was just Shane being Shane. I was shocked, even kind of offended at the suggestion.
JP: But?
SH: But then I mentioned it to Ilya and he was like, yeah, makes sense, Hollander. [Jay laughs] And he’s been so good about being open with mental health, and everyone apparently agreed with him. [wrinkles nose; Jay laughs again] So I reluctantly said, sure, run the tests. I didn’t want to be a chicken.
JP: Did you think they were right at first?
SH: Well, at that point I just wanted to prove everyone wrong. But then I did my own research—I have a whole spreadsheet full of it—and looking at the diagnostic criteria I was like, oh fuck, they’re not wrong.
JP: Not the spreadsheet! I think that’s a universal experience.
Shane states that he often feels as if he cannot express his emotions in a way that is understandable to others. Notably, he displays a constricted affect in speech and facial expressions; this has been present since early childhood. In situations such as interviews, he often relies on coached phrases and displays of emotion to avoid misinterpretation; however, these displays are unconvincing, regardless of whether they match his true feelings. Altogether, this has gained him a reputation of being “robotic”. Shane claims that this upsets him at times, but that he can do little to change it at this point.
JP: So, how did it feel when you got the results back? Good? Bad? Complicated? Probably the last one.
SH: It’s been… honestly, I don’t know how to describe it. It’s not news that you’re, like, happy to receive, typically. I was anxious about it in the months preceding the diagnosis, even though I came to terms with the fact that I was probably going to receive it. But it’s actually been a big relief? [beat] I’m still Shane Hollander. It’s just… information, and information is good, it’s useful. That’s the mentality I always try to have.
JP: No, I get it. I was diagnosed as a teenager—I was kind of going through it at the time too, so I was seeing a psychologist who then was like hey, no pressure, I know it’s not why you’re here, but you might wanna get checked out for this thing, and I was like what? I can’t be disabled. I’m an adult, I have friends. I cringe looking back on it, but even in spaces where it was more accepted back then, it was still the early 2010s. My psych was just really progressive for the time. But he recommended some more up-to-date resources, and everything sort of—clicked. Like, the weird shit I did had an explanation, now. [pause] Plus, in retrospect, it made me realize that a lot of players I knew were probably not neurotypical, but they were flying under the radar because athletes are supposed to be, like, superstitious or routine-oriented or hyperactive or otherwise neuroatypical.
SH: Yeah. I actually used that to my defense, before I came to the same conclusion.
JP: This is a call-out for some of my BC linemates. Raging ADHD and autism on that team, let me tell you. I think at this point ninety percent of my social circle belongs in the DSM-5.
B. Restricted, repetitive patterns of behavior, interests, or activities, as manifested by at least two of the following, currently or by history (examples are illustrative, not exhaustive; see text):
- Stereotyped or repetitive motor movements, use of objects, or speech (e.g., simple motor stereotypes, lining up toys or flipping objects, echolalia, idiosyncratic phrases).
- Insistence on sameness, inflexible adherence to routines, or ritualized patterns of verbal or nonverbal behavior (e.g., extreme distress at small changes, difficulties with transitions, rigid thinking patterns, greeting rituals, need to take same route or eat same food every day).
- Highly restricted, fixated interests that are abnormal in intensity or focus (e.g., strong attachment to or preoccupation with unusual objects, excessively circumscribed or perseverative interests).
- Hyper- or hyporeactivity to sensory input or unusual interest in sensory aspects of the environment (e.g., apparent indifference to pain/temperature, adverse response to specific sounds or textures, excessive smelling or touching of objects, visual fascination with lights or movement).
JP: Would you say you have more positive thoughts about it now, are you still working through it? I know internalized ableism can be a bitch.
SH: It is still a little… uncomfortable to think about. Because you have this sense of—self, right? You might not love who you are, but you have to know who you are, especially when you’re also a brand, a commodity, just so you can recognize the boundaries of who you’re allowed to be in public and in private. But now everything’s tilted off its axis. Do I love hockey because that’s who Shane Hollander is, or is that the autism? Is it the reason I’m even good at hockey? Or would I be better if I was born… normal? I was overthinking everything, at first.
JP: You were realizing it’s not something you can really separate from Shane Hollander the person.
SH: [nods] Or even if someone had noticed, maybe that would have changed my life. And then I feel kind of upset, because I missed out on that support and understanding, and instead I blamed myself. And as someone who works with a lot of younger players, I would never want that to happen to them.
JP: But ultimately it’s just what if, what if, what if forever. You can understand why it happened that way, but you can’t actually go back and change it.
SH: And I can’t even blame my parents. There wasn’t “autism awareness” in the 90s, and it’s genetic, runs in families. My mom has an Excel sheet for everything and my dad works for the treasury board. Whenever I did something weird, they assumed it came from one of them.
JP: [raises voice an octave] It’s like they combined our brains, honey!
SH: [laughs] Yeah. So right now I’m just looking to the future, the present.
Shane’s main interest is hockey; beyond his professional responsibilities, he chooses to spend the majority of his free time on hockey-related activities. This is beyond the scope of typical anxiety-driven behavior, although it is especially noticeable in times of distress. Shane’s interest in hockey has been present since early childhood, and is both highly restricted and intense. As part of his occupation as a professional hockey player, most aspects of his life are highly organized, and he displays several “game-day rituals”; Shane claims to prefer this level of structure and expresses distress when forced to deviate from his routine. (Note: Possible secondary interest in architecture/design.)
JP: What are you doing, exactly? I’m assuming being autistic does impact your life as a hockey player, and probably just life in general.
SH: My biggest problem has always been with, uh, socializing. I think everyone has commented on that at some point—Shane Hollander, hockey robot. Being in the MLH means interviews and advertisements and sponsor events and just… constantly performing. There are PR people to tell me what to do, so it could be worse. I mean, there are times when it feels overwhelming, and I’ve been trying to be more proactive at recognizing my limits. But there’s the other side, where it can be a good thing—I’m good at routines, at strategy. I don’t struggle with motivation the way some people do. And when there are teammates who do struggle with those things, the team supports them, no question. So a lot of the process is learning how to ask for help.
JP: Do you have any strategies for the sensory aspect of hockey? I know that was definitely something I struggled with.
SH: I know autism is associated with being sensitive to sensory stuff, but I’m—I think it’s called sensory-seeking? I do have things like not tolerating certain clothes or foods or when something is unexpected, but mostly I struggle with understimulation. Part of why I love hockey is that it makes me feel like I’m—in my body. And it redirects some of the urge to, like, be too aggressive with myself while…
JP: Stimming?
SH: Yeah, that’s the word my therapist used.
JP: Who needs a weighted blanket when you’ve got all two hundred glorious pounds of Ilya Rozanov? The greatest check you’ll ever experience.
SH: [narrows eyes] We’re not looking for a third.
JP: [folds over in hysterical laughter] [unintelligible]
Shane displays above-average pattern recognition and semantic memory, with a notable ability to cite hockey statistics, history, and tactics. When combined with his natural tendency to focus on the details of a situation, this allows him to make high-level strategy decisions and provide specific feedback to teammates; this sometimes leads to an excessive fixation on small details, which he describes as “getting stuck”. Shane has been working on being more flexible, especially in non-hockey situations.
JP: Going back a little bit, but do you have any feelings about your whole “hockey robot” reputation?
SH: Yeah, I mean… I’m not a robot. I have feelings just like everybody else. But I’m not naturally very expressive, and when I tried to express myself growing up, I was always being told I was doing it wrong.
JP: “Wrong”? I feel like I always imagined you as a teacher’s pet.
SH: Oh, I definitely was, but it took a long time to figure out how to, uh, “mask” [air quotes]. When I was younger, I was always too honest and got in trouble for being mean to other kids without meaning to. Then when I was quiet I got told I was smug. And then I’d bottle it all up and just get so angry sometimes, but I wasn’t allowed to be angry, either. So. [beat] I don’t think my teammates hated me, but none of them wanted to get too close. So I just threw myself into hockey. It didn’t matter as much on the ice that I couldn’t read people because I could read the play better than anyone else.
In sessions, Shane often displays self-stimulatory behavior (e.g., nail/cuticle biting, rocking, leg bouncing), although this appears to be unconscious and ceases once noticed by others. He wears a limited selection of clothing and places a considerable value on texture; a similar pattern can be seen in his food consumption, which is also highly regimented. (Note: Patient has exhibited a history of disordered eating/orthorexia nervosa consistent with Level 1 ASD individuals.) However, he sometimes struggles to evaluate physical sensations such as temperature and pain, and claims to occasionally feel a distressing “feeling of wrongness” during periods of inactivity.
JP: So. The one question everyone is probably wondering: Why did you decide to go public with it? Being autistic isn’t something people really talk about outside of, like, niche internet circles. This is a really risky move for your image.
SH: I would never have considered doing this even six months ago. I’m—I think everyone knows I’m a pretty private person, and yeah, I do care about my image. But over the season, I had a lot of time to think.
JP: Not about the Cup?
SH: The Cup I was sure about. You kind of get a feeling when you know you’re going to win it, you know?
JP: [laughs] I wish. But I guess overthinking it would be counterproductive, yeah, especially when you have so much experience it’s basically muscle memory.
SH: I’m not really great at identifying how I’m feeling. I was telling myself this doesn’t change anything, I’m not ashamed, but I wasn’t sure that was actually true. It’s so stigmatized, and I know if I was diagnosed growing up, I’d have hated being considered disabled because it’s not something hockey players are supposed to be. It’s not something successful people are supposed to be. Being queer and Asian was already too much.
JP: But that’s all bullshit. You’re proof of concept of that.
SH: Yeah. I tried so hard, and it still didn’t work because there are some things my brain doesn’t do. But I’m still successful. I’m the best fucking player in the MLH.
JP: Sorry, Ilya!
SH: So if I can’t be seen as competent and autistic—specifically autistic, not just rigid and unsociable—there’s something wrong with how other people are thinking about autism, not me.
JP: So you wanted to show everyone that it’s not something to be ashamed of?
SH: [nods, then shakes head] Kind of? I wanted to prove to myself that I wasn’t ashamed. And, like, as a public figure, I’ve always had so little agency over what people know about me. Coming out was something that was taken from me. This was something I could do on my own terms, before my medical records got hacked or something. Doing this after winning my fourth MLH Cup was as much control over it as I was ever going to get.
JP: [pause] Shit, man. I just… thank you. Even if it should be for you first and foremost, that kind of courage changes lives. I remember, like, ten years ago, a lot of other people in hockey fandom saw you as the best representation we were going to get. Like, a ha ha, what if Hollander was one of us! armchair diagnosis via Tumblr. Most of us only half-believed it, and there’s always the fear of getting too parasocial about celebrities’ private lives, but when you feel like the world’s against you, you kind of cling onto anything.
C. Symptoms must be present in the early developmental period (but may not become fully manifest until social demands exceed limited capacities, or may be masked by learned strategies in later life).
D. Symptoms cause clinically significant impairment in social, occupational, or other important areas of current functioning.
SH: I still have mixed feelings towards the idea of being, like, good representation. Everyone knows I’m gay now, but for a long time I was more preoccupied with being half-Japanese because that was something I couldn’t hide. There aren’t many non-white players in the MLH, and if it’s like that now, you can imagine how it was in 2009, 2010. I was constantly reminded by other people that I was this other—and obviously that seems wrong now, but most of it wasn’t overt racism. These were people who were trying to be well-meaning, even friends and family. They wanted me to understand how important it was that I was breaking barriers. And it is important. But at the same time, it added so much pressure to be perfect, because any mistakes I made would reflect on people like me, all the kids who looked up to me. I just… didn’t want to let anyone down.
JP: I get that, man. I mean, I’m not famous-famous, but I remember how it was when people started noticing. I read this article about myself and I was like, God, it would look so bad if we lost right now. Because even if the results had nothing to do with my identity, that’s all people saw when they looked at me. And like, as a fellow Wasian, you’re probably familiar with the whole model minority thing, right? A lot of people think it’s good that those kinds of stereotypes exist because they’re positive, but the pressure of it wrecked my mental health at times. I can’t imagine dealing with that on such a public stage.
SH: Yes! And sometimes I felt inadequate to even be that representation, because even if people only saw that Japanese hockey player when they looked at me, I wasn’t really sure what I saw when I looked at myself. Or—I’m not sure how to describe it—
JP: You didn’t always want to look at yourself that way?
SH: Yeah. It’s—you know how it is, growing up mixed in Canada in the 2000s. Playing hockey.
JP: Hiding the lunches your mom packs you and begging for your friends’ Lunchables instead. Being called pretty instead of handsome—and it’s not a bad thing to be pretty, but just once you want to be called something else, right? Struggling to understand your grandparents but also being too embarrassed to practice. You’re just… perpetually stuck in the middle. It’s like you’re this close to being accepted by the white kids on your team [makes pinching gesture with thumb and index finger], and if you try hard enough to be what everyone wants you to be then maybe they’ll forget you’re not one of them.
SH: You just have to be better than everyone else, but not too much better or they’ll start resenting you.
JP: Yeah. And it’s an Asian thing, and a queer thing, and an autism thing, too—like, you don’t know how much is expected of you, so you end up overcompensating all the time until you’ve run yourself into the ground. [pause]
SH: When did this turn into a therapy session?
JP: Maybe it always was one. [raises eyebrows]
When overwhelmed, Shane finds it difficult to interact with people and prefers to remove himself from the situation. If unable to do so, he displays a decreased ability to react to his environment and maintain socially appropriate behavior, occasionally “shutting down” entirely (e.g., losing the ability to speak or make eye contact).
SH: Yeah. But anyway, the diagnosis has brought up a lot of those old feelings about that. Being a symbol instead of a person. Like, I obviously don’t want people to be assholes about it, but I don’t want to be infantilized or fetishized either. I just want to play hockey.
JP: Have you talked to Ilya about it? It’s not exactly the same thing, but I know he became a kind of figurehead with his work with the Irina Foundation. It’s both of yours, obviously, but it always seemed really—personal, with him, especially since he’s talked about his own struggles with depression.
SH: Ilya’s been a massive help during the process. Part of it is just being my husband—and he’s done so much to accommodate me before either of us even knew what autism was. But also, yeah, he’s done a lot of research on it independently, and he’ll fight anyone who so much as looks at me wrong, and he gets the… shame, I guess. And by taking that step first, of refusing to be ashamed for struggling, he’s really encouraged me to do the same.
Specify if associated with another neurodevelopmental, mental, or behavioral disorder. Coding note: Use additional code[s] to identify the associated neurodevelopmental, mental, or behavioral disorder[s].
JP: Are you going to be incorporating neurodiversity or disability work into the Irina Foundation?
SH: I think so, yeah. I mean, I’ve had my own share of mental health issues [makes a face]—anxiety, uh, being overly controlling with my diet… Those are things I’ve worked on in therapy, but in retrospect are kind of difficult to separate from the autism. Neurodivergent and disabled individuals are much more likely to experience mental illness both due to inherent challenges but also due to the shame and the lack of support they get, so I think it’s an important cause. Like I said earlier, it would have had a big impact on my life, and there are so many potential MLH players who are pushed out because they aren’t supported enough.
JP: You want to be what you needed when you were a kid. Not a perfect role model, but proof that you don’t necessarily have to be perfect to succeed.
SH: Yeah. That’s the dream. I didn’t get that as a kid, but knowing I can be that for my friend’s kid is...
JP: Fucking awesome? Proof that we can change the world one coming-out at a time?
SH: Yeah. That. [a small smile can be seen on his face]
After meeting with Shane and completing a full clinical interview and assessment, I can confirm Shane meets the criteria for a diagnosis of Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) Level 1.