Chapter Text
September, Ottawa, Bell Sensplex
“Hey, kid,” Wiebe said when Shane pushed open the door to the coaches’ conference room. “Come on in. Roz made us get you a ginger ale.”
Shane huffed a laugh as he took the remaining free seat beside his new alternate captain, Zane Boodram. Shane had known Bood at a distance for years — had kept an eye on Bood as he came up through the OHL and World Juniors, the only Black player for Team Canada in his draft year. But then Bood had gotten drafted by Ottawa in 2015, at the start of the same season that Shane won his second Cup with Montreal, and he’d lost track Bood beyond his, honestly, good-not-great stats as a left winger. But it had been good to connect with him as a real person, a friend, and it fit with what Shane knew of Bood’s personality that Bood was the de facto social host for the Cens. Shane had observed for years that Bood had a talent for putting people at ease, he remembered as Bood clapped Shane on the shoulder while Shane took his seat.
As Shane cracked open his ginger ale, Theresa Agincourt smiled at him, flipped to a new page in the notebook in front of her and pulled her iPad closer. She was the new General Manager for the Centaurs, making her the first woman to head an NHL organization, ever in league history, but Shane knew the team was trying not to make a big deal out of it. They were taking the approach that she had been an important part of the Centaurs for over a decade in her role as Communications Director, that she knew the team and its systems inside and out, that she was talented and qualified. Shane still didn’t feel like he knew her, but Ilya trusted her, and Shane trusted Ilya, so there they were.
“Sorry for pulling you from the ice.” Wiebe leaned back in his seat, studying Shane. Wiebe had just had an amazing first year as a head coach, bringing a previously chronically underperforming team to the second round of the Divisional playoffs. He’d built a skilled staff of assistant coaches, all of whom were downstairs on the ice putting the prospects through their Training Camp paces. He had put his whole weight behind supporting Theresa’s promotion to GM, arguing that as Director of Communications she actually had understood all the disparate parts of the organization better than anyone, because it had been her responsibility to represent it accurately to the public. But more than that, Wiebe seemed like a genuinely good person, and as someone who had spent ten years dealing with Jacques Theriault, Shane was hugely relieved, almost regardless of Wiebe’s coaching record.
Almost.
“It’s okay,” Shane replied, quickly meeting Ilya’s eyes where Ilya sat between Bood and Wiebe. “I’m happy to help, in any way I can.”
Ilya beamed at him, wiggling slightly in his seat like an excited puppy, shaking his huge Dunkin Donuts cup so the ice rattled around and the orange straw waved like a flare. He had been smiling constantly that week, dragging Shane through the Tire Centre and introducing Shane to teammates he had already met “—It’s different this time, Hollander, I get to say husband—” and pointing out where Shane’s stall in the home locker room was right beside his own, and pulling out his phone to take dozens of photos of Shane ruffling Chiron’s ears.
Theresa laughed. “Of course. You’ve been in these meetings before.”
“Never on this side of the table, but yeah.”
“Sure.” Theresa leaned forward, holding Shane’s eyes across the table. “Before we get into it,” she said, her voice earnest, “I know I speak for everyone in this room — in this organization — that we are so thrilled you’re here. You have the kind of talent that we see once a generation, if that, and you’re already a huge part in shaping the future of this sport. We’ve only been in training camp for three days, and it’s already crystal clear you’re a great fit here. Any fool could see that you are kind and generous with the rooks, You’re the ultimate team player. I am so, so proud to have you on our roster. Everything else is just details.”
Shane stared down at the tab on his can of ginger ale, shifting slightly in his chair. Ilya laughed. “Hollander, you are so red—”
Reflexively, Shane flipped Ilya off, and then grimaced. “Sorry — I shouldn’t have done that,” he stuttered to Wiebe and Theresa, but his new coach was already laughing.
“Ah, c’mon, kid. We’re not going to pretend we don’t know you’re married. Relax.” Wiebe waved a casual hand through the air. “So listen, like Theresa was getting at, and as you know, it’s standard practice to pull in guys who got signed from free agency and pick their brains about their former teams. Your situation is worse than a normal free agency signing, in a lot of ways, so if there’s anything you’re not comfortable sharing, or would rather let me know in private, I completely understand. If at any point you feel pressured, you stop us, or you walk. Hear me?”
“Yes, Coach.” Shane tried not to let the surprise show in his face. He was already tugging on the string of the hoodie he’d stolen from Ilya’s stall after being pulled from practice for this meeting. Of course, Ilya had told Shane that Wiebe was different than your standard NHL egomaniac coach, and he always seemed like a good guy in press hits, but Shane almost didn’t know what to do with a coach speaking to him like this. He cleared his throat. “So… I was team captain for the Voyageurs beginning the 2013-2014 season, and initially had two alternates, Beaulier and Pike. Beaulier was the outgoing captain and knew he was going to retire in 2016, so it was kind of a phasing out situation. But Beaulier and Theriault and the management staff maintained this culture together that was pretty old school. You’re here to play hockey, not be friends, things like that. A lot of personal assignment of responsibility for losses, a lot of yelling at individual players in the room, having players in the same position on different lines compete with each other.”
Theresa made a face as she jotted something down in her notes. “Gross.”
“Yeah, it wasn’t great. I had hoped to be able to shift some of that around when I got the C, and I think I was allowed to do it for a while, because Theriault couldn’t argue with my results. There was less yelling after losses just because there were fewer losses.” He laughed, humorless. “But as I’m sure you can imagine, that attitude coming from the top fostered a pretty competitive culture. I was only really friends with Hayden and JJ Boiziau.”
Ilya already knew all of this, but when Shane glanced at his husband, Ilya was staring out the window, his delight from earlier replaced with something cold and still.
“So is Pike getting the C this year?” asked Bood, flipping a pen cap back and forth between his fingers.
Shane sighed. “I thought he would, but he texted me last night. They’re giving it to Gilbert Comeau.”
“What the fuck?” Ilya snapped. Theresa, however, exchanged a resigned glance with Wiebe.
“I thought they’d pull that,” muttered Theresa. “The org hasn’t done a ton of press this summer, but so far they’ve been pushing the narrative that you were the culture problem, and that they're going to be stronger without you. Giving it to a long-time guy like Comeau whose shitty politics line up with Theriault’s would be a good way to communicate some sort of bullshit return to traditional hockey values.”
“It’s also not a secret that Hayden and I are best friends. I’m not surprised he got passed up,” Shane agreed. Something hollow and cold nudged up inside his rib cage, but he ignored it as he had been doing since the previous night. Figure out how to use this information to help the Centaurs first, and worry about his personal reaction, his guilt at costing Hayden a career milestone, later. One thing at a time.
“Is Pike going to waive his no trades?” Wiebe asked, reaching for a printed out copy of the Voyageurs’ roster from the previous season and pulling it towards himself.
“I think he’s going to stick it out until free agency in a couple of years. His oldest kids, the twins, are turning nine this year, and Jackie wants to be able to control where they move.”
“Makes sense. So.” Theresa steepled her fingers together. “The organization is passing over its long-term alternate captain and giving the C to a guy who’s never had a leadership role on this or any other team. And he played right wing on a team where you and Pike were both on offense, so I doubt there was ever a real need to have him lead in an unofficial capacity for his own position, either.
Shane shrugged. “Not really, no.”
“So what do you think we can expect from him?” Theresa asked, watching Shane with a tilt of her head. “Is he going to be a good captain?”
Ilya snorted, and Shane ignored him.
“I would… be surprised,” Shane said slowly. Gil Comeau was an asshole, but Shane had been Comeau’s captain for six years, and the instinct to only ever speak well his guys still lived under his skin. But Comeau wasn’t his guy anymore, was he? “Like you said, he and Theriault have a lot in common. So I think it’s going to be pressure on individual players, narratives about being better than other teams rather than being better than themselves the day before, stuff like that.”
“Comeau is also going to be a dick, right?” Bood interjected, a small grin on his face. “I mean, to be clear, he’s already a fucking piece of shit, he’s been one for years, but — he’s got big shoes to fill, both on the ice and in the room. I guarantee he’s going to go out there with something to prove, and that makes him more worried about his own game than about the team.”
Shane took a long drink of his ginger ale to buy himself time to formulate an answer. “Probably, yeah. I mean, I don’t know that I was ever a particularly good captain to the Voyageurs —”
“You won them three Stanley Cups, what the fuck are you talking about?” Ilya demanded, and Shane sighed.
“Like yeah, they listened to me in practice and took my advice on plays, and stuff, but I never fit in with the team culture, and I don’t think I tried hard enough to change it.” He stared down the table as he spoke, and didn’t finish the rest of his thought — that Shane had seen Ilya captain the Bears, and Team Russia, and now the Cens, and Ilya had always been able to rally teams around him in a way that Shane never had. Sure, Shane had been able to mentor individual rookies, and they trusted him before they got too deeply enmeshed in the team’s toxic atmosphere, but that was as far as he ever got with the type of inspiration Ilya breathed. Calling plays and drills was, Shane was growing to understand the older he got, the least important part of a team captaincy. If his job had been to lead the development of team cohesion, to make sure every player could work together as a whole greater than the sum of its parts, he had failed.
Bood raised his eyebrows. “Sounds like it was a shitty team culture.”
“Yeah, well, whose job was it to address that?”
“Boys,” Wiebe intervened, looking from Ilya, to Bood, to Shane. “Let’s focus, okay? You all can argue about that part later.” Ilya slowly settled back into his seat, fuming, as Wiebe continued. “So it sounds like you think we can expect a certain level of crabs in a bucket from Montreal this season, is that right, Hollzy?”
“Why does English have all these stupid phrases?” Ilya grumbled. “Crabs in — what does that even mean?”
“It’s like after you go crab fishing, and you put them all in a bucket, but they’re still alive,” Bood leaned over to explain. “The idea is that if one crab crawls too close to the rim of the bucket to escape, the rest of the crabs pull it back down. So it means, like, ‘if I gotta suffer, we all gotta suffer.’”
Ilya frowned for a moment. “So we are saying that Montreal will play like shit without Hollander and will want to find someone on the roster to blame?”
Wiebe nodded. “That’s my guess. Likely Comeau, but Theriault will definitely get shit from the owners if the new lineup can’t deliver. We all know his coaching strategy was just ‘pass to Hollander and let him carry the team,’ and now the team doesn't have Hollander to pass to, but he hasn’t been developing the rest of the offensive line for years. That’s been true at least since 2017, when Hollander got hurt and Montreal immediately got knocked out of wild card contention. I’m sure they’ll put in the work during training camp, and they did draft that kid from Alberta in the first round, the center, what’s his name — but I doubt they can recover.”
Wordlessly, Shane gestured to Theresa for her printout of the Montreal roster, and she slid it across the table to him. “Gagnon is probably getting moved up to first line center,” he muttered, almost to himself, as he studied the list of the names of men he’d known for years. “He’s fast and has good reflexes, but he also hogs the puck. That’s why Theriault always wanted him centering the rookies. The idea was that if the rookies weren’t at Pike and Comeau’s level it was fine because Gagnon could still score.”
The smirk was back on Ilya’s face, even if Shane thought it wasn’t reaching his eyes. “Must be difficult to be a puck hog and still only manage to score twenty-two goals in a season.”
“How many assists did he have?” Theresa muttered to herself, pressing down on the screen of her iPad to unlock it.
“Seventeen,” Shane said, before she could look it up.
The next hour or so went like that — they all went over Montreal’s lines and systems and plays from the previous year, and Shane speculated what changes Theriault would make for the coming year without his star center on the roster. Theresa pulled up some tape to review on the conference room’s television, starting with the Voyageurs’ newly drafted rookies in their World Juniors showings. But then, they also played tape of Montreal’s 2021 season. It wasn’t the first time Shane had seen footage of any of those games; he took tape review seriously, after all. But this time, he swallowed hard and tipped his head back against his chair’s head rest as he watched Comeau refuse to pass to him when he was all alone on the ice.
As more and more of the game footage washed over him, a chill began in Shane’s chest, slowly spreading outward. It licked through his rib cage, sank towards his gut, crept up his throat. When he had come out to the Voyageurs locker room, he had told himself that it had gone fine. Sure, a couple of the older, more conservative guys had grumbled, but Shane had told himself it was an issue with a few players that he could ignore, and not the surface of a rot that ran deeper.
But now, as he watched a clip of Schneider check the past version of himself into the boards harder than should ever be acceptable for a team scrimmage during the season, Shane wondered if he had spent so long lying to the world about who he was that at some point the lies had turned inward, festering.
“When was this?” Ilya’s voice was quiet, controlled. He didn’t look away from the screen.
Theresa’s fingers danced across the screen of her iPad, her face grim. “This is media footage from morning skate, taken… December eighth.”
Ilya kept his eyes fixed forward. “You told me that bruise was from a check in Vegas.”
“I thought it was.” Shane wasn’t sure if this was how the truth normally tasted in his mouth. “I did get hit by Robinson in that game. He got two minutes for roughing, remember?”
Now, suddenly, Ilya was staring at Shane, the blue in his eyes iced over. “How many other injuries, Hollander? How many times did you let me believe you got hurt in a game, when it was actually —”
“Prekrati eto.” Shane had meant to be firm, to snap, even, but he couldn’t keep the plea out of his throat. The red string holding him together, keeping his lungs and heart and stomach where they were all supposed to be, was fraying already. “Ty mozhesh' prosto — ty mozhesh' pryamo seychas stat' kapitanom moyey komandy? Pozhaluysta? Mozhno ostavit' ostal'noye na potom — do tekh por, poka my ne vernomsya domoy?”
Ilya’s gaze softened, but just barely. He nodded once and returned his focus to the TV screen, but Shane knew him well enough to recognize the clench of Ilya’s fist where it rested on the arm of his chair. Theresa’s glance flickered back and forth between Shane and Ilya before she pressed ‘play’ again.
Ilya said very little for the rest of the meeting, and Bood stepped in with more commentary on the tapes. Shane forced the part of his brain where the memories lived to shut down, and breathed in his understanding of the tapes, only allowing himself to observe, and analyze, and plan.
“Last thing,” said Wiebe, after Theresa finally pressed the ‘off’ button on the TV remote. “Preseason is coming up, and I know we don’t have the full schedule yet, but let’s not act like we’re not going to see the Voyageurs at least once.”
Shane felt himself smile. “So I’m making it out of training camp, Coach?”
“Fuck off. You know good and goddamn well I’m dressing you for as many games as you’re healthy for. What I was about to say is that, since you’re a vet, nobody expects you to play the whole preseason. I want to be clear, this is entirely up to you, but I don’t think you should play any Montreal games.”
Shane went still. “Can I ask why not?”
“Sure. Two reasons.” Wiebe tapped his pen against his notebook. “Neither of which are anything you’re doing wrong, just to be clear. First, I’d rather not show everybody you and Roz on the same team until we absolutely have to. We can save that shit for the home opener, really scare people.”
Ilya nodded, smirking in the way Shane recognized from over a decade of face-offs. “Sounds fun.”
“Second,” Wiebe ignored Ilya, “I have safety concerns.”
At that, Ilya dropped the facade of his grin, and Bood put down the pen he’d been fidgeting with. Shane frowned. “That seems a bit —”
Wiebe cut him off. “Don’t. Tess and I were worried about this before the talk we just had and the tapes we just saw, but now, I really think we cannot take this seriously enough. These are men who have demonstrated a pattern of homophobia, going back to the defensive lines pulling back from you after you came out last fall. Now they hate you because you’re gay and because they’re telling themselves you threw a playoffs series. I don’t want you on the ice with them at the very least until we see how they play under Comeau.”
Shane opened his mouth to protest, and turned to Ilya for support. But Ilya was already nodding, his mouth set. “I agree with this.”
“Me too,” Bood added, and Shane glared at him. Bood held up his hands, defensive. “Look, man, you just got done telling us some really scary shit, and I know what I just saw. You gotta let us be worried.”
Wiebe lifted a hand to both of his captains, but didn’t take his eyes off Shane. “To be clear, Hollander, I am not scratching you. You’re here to play hockey. If you want to play, I’m not going to stop you. It’s your decision.”
Shane’s first instinct was to push back, to insist he was playing, preseason or not, to snap that he didn’t want any special treatment, but he forced himself to take a deep breath. Wiebe wasn’t Theriault, and Ottawa wasn’t Montreal. “Okay. What you’re saying makes sense.” Wiebe’s eyebrows ticked up on his forehead, but he didn’t interrupt. “I don’t want to be the headline during the preseason. It should be about the rookies and the AHL prospects. Making sure they have ice time, getting them used to each other. Getting sponsorship attention. If I go out there against Montreal, it’ll take away from that.”
Theresa leaned back in her seat, her eyes drifting past Shane to the wall behind him as she thought. “That’s a good point too. That’s what we’ll focus on, and we’ll make sure it’s the narrative we’re pushing. Our goal is finalizing our roster, seeing who should be on the same lines.”
Wiebe glanced down at his watch. “They should be about wrapped up on the ice now. Let’s head down there to hear how the day went.”
It was fascinating to watch Ilya roll his shoulders back and become the version of himself that his team needed for the conclusion of the training camp day. He stood with Bood and the coaching staff in the home box, listening as the assistant coaches called out feedback for the plays that Ilya had missed while he was up in the conference room with Shane, supplementing the feedback with advice disguised as chirps. The team laughed, with him and not at him, and Shane saw the exhaustion on the ice soften into satisfaction at the end of a good day as the players traipsed towards the locker rooms — veterans with a guaranteed spot on the roster to the home side, rookies and AHL players to the visitors’.
Shane had been in sweats since he was pulled off the ice to meet with the leadership, and he didn’t have any small talk in him, so while Ilya checked in with some of their teammates, Shane grabbed his duffel and headed out to the parking lot. The sky was cloudy as Shane leaned against the side of the Land Rover he now, officially, shared with Ilya. He breathed in the smell of freshly fallen rain on asphalt. In the park on the other side of Maple Grove Road, a group of teenagers looked to be playing a pickup game of soccer.
The beep of the car remotely unlocking pulled Shane from his thoughts, and he turned to see Ilya striding towards him, keys in hand. It still struck Shane, sometimes, how absurdly fucking hot his husband was. Ilya, in Adidas joggers and what could only be described as a muscle tank, had shoved a backwards baseball cap on his head. His face was set, stoic, eyes never leaving Shane’s face as he approached him. The thick gold chain bearing his mother’s crucifix glinted at his collar in the dim light from the overcast sky. His biceps and triceps rolled beneath his skin as he slung the strap of his duffel bag down from his shoulder. “Hey. Sorry that took so long.”
Shane shrugged. “It didn’t.” He threw his bag into the back of the car and waited for Ilya to do the same before slamming it shut. But he had barely managed to slide into the front passenger’s seat and click his seatbelt into place before Ilya reached over the center console and took a firm hold of his jaw.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
Shane opened his mouth, then closed it again. His instinct had been to say that there was nothing to tell, that hockey was a rough game, that it hadn’t been as bad as it looked on the tapes. But Ilya’s eyes were burning, his throat flexing as he swallowed hard, pain breaking through in the set of his eyebrows. So instead, Shane sighed and leaned into Ilya’s palm. “I didn’t want to worry you.”
Ilya’s grip on Shane’s face tightened. “Not good enough.”
“It’s the truth. We both had enough going on last year without —”
“Don’t fucking do that, Shane.” Ilya released his husband and sat back in the driver’s seat, glaring. “Don’t act like it doesn’t fucking matter that your team was hurting you and pretending it was the game. Don’t act like it doesn’t matter that you were pretending it was the game.”
Exhaling, Shane reached forward and wrapped his fingers around Ilya’s hand, where it was clenched in a fist on his knee. He focused on gently uncurling the fingers, rubbing at the small muscles beneath the skin until he could feel them start to soften. “I’m sorry, okay?” he said, quietly. “I didn’t want to think that it was deliberate. It’s a contact sport, after all. And it always felt like we had such little time together that I didn’t want to ruin it by worrying you over something that might not have been — that I didn’t want to think was true in the first place.”
Ilya relaxed his hand and entwined his fingers with Shane’s. “We promised, remember?” It wasn’t really a question, and Shane knew it. “Honesty, always, from now on.”
“I know. I’m sorry.”
They both sat, quiet, for a moment. Through the front wind shield, Shane could still see the kids and their soccer game.
Suddenly, Ilya spoke again. “Galina has been really helping me.”
Shane didn’t look away from the game in the park. He tried to tell himself he was surprised that Ilya was bringing up his therapist, seemingly out of nowhere, but. Honesty. Always. From now on. “I know.”
“It was your idea that I find a therapist, remember? Last winter?” Shane felt Ilya shift in the driver’s seat. “And you were right. Was a great decision. I should have done it sooner. And… and I think —”
“I think so too,” Shane sighed, deciding to put Ilya out of his misery. He let his head roll to the side on the head rest, so he could see the caution and the hope together in Ilya’s face. “I probably should have gotten on this a while ago.”
“I didn’t bring it up to make you feel bad, Shane.”
Shane squeezed his hand. “I know. I didn’t think you did, and that’s not what I was trying to say. Just that… you’re right, you know? It’s probably time.”
“Okay. Good.” Relief softened the lines in Ilya’s forehead. “I will help you, yes?”
“Yes.” Shane smiled. “Thank you. I love you.”
Ilya lifted their joined hands to brush a kiss across Shane’s knuckles before he grabbed the keys out of the cupholder. “Love you more.”
“It’s not a competition.”
Ilya snorted and started the engine.
October, Twitter
National Hockey League ✅@nhl
The National Hockey League thanks its organizations, players, and our @ahl partners for a great preseason. We are excited to announce the regular season schedule here: https://www.nhl.com/news/nhl-releases-2021-22-regular-season-schedule
But it’s gonna be my year 🦫 @censbeliever
Rozanov and Hollander and Barrett and Hayes and Chewie and Dykstra and Haas…….. Cens Nation I’m about to start believing in miracles
Katie C. 🍫@kitkatkatie
@censbeliever god it’s too early to hope i know that but my boys my boys!!
Jennie 🦋💙🐳 @voyajennie
Idk man Voyageurs until i die but i can’t imagine this team without hollander. If those rumors about the team being shitty when he was outed are true, i hope comeau can get the locker room together
i hate hockey 🍿🍋 @tricia_sandoval
@voyajennie you don’t think comeau is part of the problem? Remember when the ref mic caught him calling scott hunter a sissy bitch last year?
Jennie 🦋💙🐳 @voyajennie
@tricia_sandoval i still don’t think that’s what he was saying! The audio was shit!
i hate hockey 🍿🍋 @tricia_sandoval
@voyajennie [PHOTO ATTACHMENT: gif of Marcia from “A Very Brady Sequel” tilting her head and saying ‘Sure, Jan’]
Matt C @matty478
First Montreal Ottawa game in Week 3. Can’t wait to see the boys kick Rozanov’s fucking ass. Hollander has been overrated for years.
Pike Kid #5 @hayyyyydennnn34
@matty478 Come on man he won us three cups. I think it’s shitty that he left us too but let’s be serious about his record.
Matt C @matty478
@hayyyyydennnn34 it’s not his record. It’s the team’s record. And hopefully now that he’s fucking gone and not hogging the puck we’ll be able to see how a real team operates
Blackhawks 2021 🪶@goblackhawks298
This ottawa montreal game is gonna be so fucking funny. We all saw ottawa get dogwalked by comeau in the preseason
i said 5️⃣0️⃣ @ilyasmole
@goblackhawks298 are you talking about the split squad exhibition game where only Rozanov and the rookies played the full game? In the preseason where the point is to see the chemistry between players? In games that don’t matter?
Blackhawks 2021 🪶@goblackhawks298
@ilyasmole yeah lol seems liek those rookies ain’t shit. This year is gonna be a bloodbath for ottawa if this is how they’re playing from the start
Ilya’s Orange Porsche🧡 @shaneholeander
@goblackhawks298 i mean if you want to pretend that preseason games tell us literally anything, how do you feel about your boys sending out their whole first line, all their alleged strongest players (comeau gagnon pike boiziau olson) and still only beating ottawa 4 to 3? Why was it that close? Why is drapeau letting three pucks in the net?
Ilya’s Orange Porsche🧡 @shaneholeander
@goblackhawks298 and while we’re at it fuck the blackhawks and patrick kane deserves to rot in prison i will never let this go
Blackhawks 2021 🪶@goblackhawks298
@shaneholeander @ilyasmole lmao sure you guys are right it was the rookies it was just a preseason game whatever and that means Roz is too distracted by his personal bullshit to get the team together and they can’t perform. Good luck to your man out there i guess. Gonna be funny when he crashes and burns.
Cassie Archer! 🏹 ✅ @cassiearcher96
NHL regular season schedule is out! Ofc ottawa/montreal is coming early in the season. Surprised it’s not earlier, actually. Advertisers and sponsors have got to be screaming for this one. Gayest team vs most (ALLEGEDLY) homophobic team: fight
Daisyyy 🌼 @babydaisy
@cassiearcher96 what did you and @lunapreston think of ottawa’s preseason?
Cassie Archer! 🏹 ✅ @cassiearcher96
@babydaisy thanks for asking! They really seemed to be pulling their punches tbh. All the big stars were spread out with those split squads. Barrett and Hayes didn’t play the Toronto game, Hollander didn’t play the Montreal game, of the four offensive stars (Roz, Hollander, Barrett, Haas), no more than two of them played in any of the four games, and never on the same lines (1/x)
Cassie Archer! 🏹 ✅ @cassiearcher96
@babydaisy We didn’t even get Roz and Hollzy together! and that’s got to be a deliberate choice. Wiebe had an insane year last season as a rookie coach, and now the cens have Theresa Agincourt as first female GM in the history of the league (which i will still not shut up about literally ever), and they bagged Shane Hollander. That’s a lot of eyes on them (2/x)
Cassie Archer! 🏹 ✅ @cassiearcher96
@babydaisy I’m sure they would have loved to come out of the preseason with a better record than 2-2, but what we did see them doing was really fine-tuning which rookies worked best on lines with which stars. If i had to guess, tehre will be a line of C Roz LW Bood RW Barrett (perfected during the playoffs last year), and then C Hollzy RW Haas LW Boyle or LaPointe. Holmberg still developing. (3/3)
Luna Preston 🌖💜 ✅ @lunapreston
Weird preseason for Montreal, I gotta say. Rebuilding seasons are rough for any team, but the way they played in those four games was… i think tense is the best word? Running a split squad with NO rookies and all their big names and still nearly losing to Ottawa? I’d almost feel bad for Comeau if he wasn’t ALLEGEDLYYYYYY a homophobic piece of shit
Luna Preston 🌖💜 ✅ @lunapreston
Like tell me you feel like you have something to prove without telling me you feel like you have something to prove
celeste 🧚🏽♀️@shanemybeloved
@lunapreston So you think those rumors are true?
Luna Preston 🌖💜 ✅ @lunapreston
@shanemybeloved i mean…..we saw what we saw all of last season. Several sports analysts confirmed that checks on hollander were up all year, but not on other voyageurs offensives, so if the d lines were slacking it was deliberate. His goals were below average (for him; 52 goals is an insane number for a normal person) and his assists/overall points were down bc nobody was fucking passing to him
Katie C. 🍫@kitkatkatie
@lunapreston i’m happy to be told i’m wrong and i’m just a cens fan and hollanov truther until i die, but like. It didn’t seem like comeau and gagnon were playing well together? Again could totally be reading into this but idk it seems like Comeau’s first priority was to be on his best behavior and not start shit, and he was so focused on not losing it that he wasn’t playing to his full capacity?
Luna Preston 🌖💜 ✅ @lunapreston
@kitkatkatie honestly that’s my read too. Anybody who got the montreal C after hollander was going to have a bad time, but if comeau is part of the reason hollander left (ALLEGEDLY SO CASSIE DOESN’T YELL AT ME) and he also can’t perform, or get gagnon to perform? That’s not great for him.
celeste 🧚🏽♀️@shanemybeloved
@lunapreston couldn’t have happened to a more deserving piece of shit
Luna Preston 🌖💜 ✅ @lunapreston
@kitkatkatie i mean nothing HAS happened to him yet! It’s been four games! None of which counted!
Katie C. 🍫@kitkatkatie
@lunapreston still tho the victoire would never let this happen
Luna Preston 🌖💜 ✅ @lunapreston
@kitkatkatie oh there’s a lot going on here that the victoire would never let happen
Siobhan 🔪🌻 @shiv_girlie
so here's the highlights of the Eastern Conference preseason
- Ottawa: Dad (Roz) taking the kids (rookies) to the park, being encouraging and not keeping score.
- New York: Hello we are the defending Stanley Cup champs. We are still on record as the best team in the NHL. We did not get bad at hockey over the summer. We may have gotten better. Fear us.
- Montreal: apparently missed the fucking memo that this is the preseason? running the regular season first line ragged? like oooh you're beating teams made up mostly of rookies good for you??? we get it you think you can play hockey without shane hollander but like. can you.
- Toronto: still absolute garbage. i have nothing funny to say. fuck that whole organization.
Maddie Moo 🐮🤠 @boodsleftskate
So we now just live in a world where both ottawa and montreal had 2-2 records in preseason? How am i more nervous now than i was in literal playoffs last year
Izzy 🍄 @isabelle_levesque
@boodsleftskate like i hope tess agincourt knows i would quite literally die for her but why is she keeping same line hollanov from me? Is it homophobia (THIS IS A JOKE)
Shane Believer 🐐@teamhollander2424
My boy had a quiet preseason. Five goals in two games isn’t nothing ofc but it felt like he was doing a lot of Observing and Learning
Anya Hollander-Rozanova 💖🐶 💖 @puppyanyahr
@teamhollander2424 He’s locking in and i bet when the szn starts we will not be ready
celeste 🧚🏽♀️@shanemybeloved
@teamhollander2424 @puppyanyahr
He’s never let us down and i bet he’s about to play the craziest fucking hockey of his life
Jennie 🦋💙🐳 @voyajennie
@shanemybeloved I love him too but he did let us down that one time
celeste 🧚🏽♀️@shanemybeloved
@voyajennie shut your fucking mouth he came out as gay and got basically hate crimed in that locker room and then he tripped in his EIGHTH CAREER NHL PLAYOFF RUN if you feel let down that’s your fucking problem
Pike Kid #5 @hayyyyydennnn34
@shanemybeloved @voyajennie whoa you don’t need to talk to her like that
celeste 🧚🏽♀️@shanemybeloved
@hayyyyydennnn34 @voyajennie i’ll talk to anybody how i want if they want to even suggest shane hollander throws games
Ottawa Centaurs ✅ @CentaursOfficial
Happy Home Opener Night! Ottawa, welcome back to the Canadian Tire Centre. Let’s play some hockey, yeah?
[PHOTO ATTACHMENT: A group shot of all the Ottawa Centaurs, in practice jerseys on the ice. Ilya Rozanov and Zane Boodram stand at the center of the back row, while Blake Young, Luca Haas, Harry Holmberg, and Jack LaPointe sit or kneel in the front row. The rest of the team is crowded around in loose rows. It is clearly an outtake of a more formal group shot, as everyone seems to be laughing and nobody is looking at the camera. Ilya Rozanov’s face is turned towards Shane Hollander, and Hollander looks back at him with a soft smile.]
[PHOTO ATTACHMENT: LaPointe, Hollander, Haas, Holmberg, and Young sit on the bench in the home team box, practice jerseys on but helmets off, arms around each other. Holmberg lifts a bottle of blue Gatorade to the camera in a toast. All are smiling, bright and easy.]
Brienne🦄🔮💜💖💙 @hollanovunicorn
Shane and the rookies is so soft i’m gonna cryyyy
Daisyyy 🌼 @babydaisy
they r in luv ur honour
[PHOTO ATTACHMENT: zoomed in screen shot of Ilya Rozanov’s face in the group photo. He is in profile, eyes partially obscured by his helmet’s visor, but his mouth in a gentle smile.]
[PHOTO ATTACHMENT: zoomed in screen shot of Shane Hollander’s face, turned to look at something out of frame. His expression is tender.]
Cassie Archer! 🏹 ✅ @cassiearcher96
Ok so *that* was a fucking home opener!!! 7-2 Ottawa. Hat trick for Shane Hollander, two each for Ilya Rozanov and Luca Haas. Hayes not allowing any goals as soon as he was put in the second period. Jesus Christ.
Allie!!! @eversince2017
@cassiearcher96 I LOVE GAY PEOPLE
hollanov forever 💙🖤 @hollanovvvv
@cassiearcher96 The literal only thing that could have made this better would have been Roz and Hollzy on the same line
Cassie Archer! 🏹 ✅ @cassiearcher96
@hollanovvvv i agree that would have been great For The Plot but Wiebe is really smart to not concentrate all the power on one line. We saw how tired the Panthers’ first line was by the third period. If I was Wiebe and Agincourt I’d keep this shit up all season. Definitely not a normal first line / second line split in terms of talent.
🌸🌷priti in pink 🌷🌸 @priti_ramamurthy
@cassiearcher96 @hollanovvvv nobody pulled any penalties tonight but do you think Hollzy and Roz are both on the power play?
Cassie Archer! 🏹 ✅ @cassiearcher96
@priti_ramamurthy oh for fucking sure.
Ilya. ✅ @ilyarozanov81
Back by unpopular demand: gayest team in NHL
[VIDEO ATTACHMENT: cell phone video of the Centaurs’ locker room after the end of the game. Players are changing out of their gear and jerseys, talking over each other. Beyoncé’s “DON’T HURT YOURSELF” can be heard playing over the room’s speakers. The camera catches Shane Hollander scrubbing a firm hand in a grinning Luca Haas’s hair, then Nick Chouinard laughing with Wyatt Hayes, then Evan Dykstra wrapping Blake Young in a play headlock, then Josh Boyle smiling while throwing a glove at Zane Boodram, then, finally a mirror reflecting Ilya Rozanov as he holds his phone up. Rozanov is bare-chested but still in his uniform pants, and he sticks out his tongue at the mirror before the camera cuts.]
Ilya’s Orange Porsche🧡 @shaneholeander
If this video gets me pregnant can i go after all of them for child support
Sweetiepie Luca 🍰 @babygirlhaas
SHANE HOLLANDER RUFFLING LUCA’S HAIR I’M
WE'RE SO BACK 🦫 @censbeliever
Man i didn’t know if i’d ever get to feel like this as a fan of this team. Holy shit.
Rose Landry ✅ @RoseLandryOfficial
@ilyarozanov81 so proud of my boys!!! Detroit is going to kill you on Thursday but I hope you’re enjoying tonight!
Ilya. ✅ @ilyarozanov81
@RoseLandryOfficial 🖕🏽(💞)
Matt C @matty478
Let’s see if they can actually keep it up for a whole season
[This tweet has been deleted]
Ilya. ✅ @ilyarozanov81
You should be so lucky to see what i can keep up for a whole season
[This tweet has been deleted]
Jake from Ottawa ‼️ @gocensgo1990
Jesus Christ
marie watches hockey ♊️ 🦫@cens_hope_eternal
My brother and I are crying in a sports bar. We just watched the @CentaursOfficial season opener. This team was such a huge part of our childhood, and I felt like I couldn’t keep watching hockey after my grandfather died.
marie watches hockey ♊️ 🦫@cens_hope_eternal
Having this with my brother is healing a part of me i forgot about a long time ago
marie watches hockey ♊️ 🦫@cens_hope_eternal
It’s not just the winning, but winning feels good. It’s the joy. It’s watching the players look like they’re happy to be there. It’s watching kids (queer kids, kids of color) in the stands. It’s watching parents sit with their kids during a game with three queer players on the ice.
marie watches hockey ♊️ 🦫@cens_hope_eternal
I’m just really happy. Thank you hockey thank you cens thank you ilya thank you bood thank you shane
Shane Hollander ✅ @shanehollanderhockeyplayer
@cens_hope_eternal thank you for this, Marie. We hope we can keep making you proud
marie watches hockey ♊️ 🦫@cens_hope_eternal
@shanehollanderhockeyplayer Omg! Hi Shane Hollander! Welcome home!
Shane Hollander ✅ @shanehollanderhockeyplayer
@cens_hope_eternal Thank you. Nowhere else I’d rather be.
Luna Preston 🌖💜 ✅ @lunapreston
Guys guys guys guys GUYS GUYS GUYS GUYS GUYS
[This tweet has been deleted]
shane's freckles ✨ ✨ ✨ @shanesfreckles
So is this whole season a jacob’s ladder scenario that i am hallucinating or are the Cens really up seven and three? Like is this team good now?
Mia 💋 @uuuh-melia
Seriously between New York winning the stanley cup last year and ottawa playing like this now, can we make the argument that suckign dick makes you better at hockey?
Sofiya Portnova 🌹💃🏻 @sofiya_portnovaaaa
@uuuh-melia We can say that as a joke but in all seriousness not hiding a huge part of your identity and pretending you don’t love your partner while hating yourself probably makes you better at hockey
shane's freckles ✨ ✨ ✨ @shanesfreckles
@sofiya_portnovaaaa … girl fuck you i was trying to be funny and now you made me sad
Gay Girls and Goals podcast✅ @GayGirlsGoalspodcast
Today we’re honored to put up a really special Interview Monday episode of Gay Girls and Goals. @ilyarozanov81 & @shanehollanderhockey stopped by to talk about their love story, their careers, and who is really Yuna Hollander’s favorite child
Nina 🐥@chirpyrozy
Is it possible to submit one episode of somebody else’s podcast for an oscar
Ottawa Charge⚡️ ✅@Charge-dOttawa-Official
Great to see you tonight, @ilyarozanov81 and @shanehollanderhockey!
[PHOTO ATTACHMENT: From left to right, Ilya Rozanov in a Charge jersey, Marie-Philip Poulin in full Montreal Victoire uniform and gear, Brianne Jenner in full Ottawa Charge uniform and gear, and Shane Hollander in a Victoire jersey, all smiling with arms around each other’s shoulders.]
Siobhan 🔪🌻 @shiv_girlie
You know what I trust lesbians with my life and the fact that lesbians keep showing up for Shane and Ilya tells me more than any press statement ever could
gay romantic celly ⛑️😘 @helmetsmooch
I KNEW shane hollander was a PWHL enjoyer.
Brienne🦄🔮💜💖💙 @hollanovunicorn
FIRST OTTAWA MONTREAL GAME OF THE REGULAR SEASON TONIGHT HOLLANOV NATION TIME FOR REVENGE!!!!
trey @shootthepuckup4498
thank god montreal is finally going to shut those cocksuckers up tonight
November, Ottawa, Hollander-Rozanov Residence
“Okay, so I’ll be the first to say it,” announced Young, after Ilya had made sure that everyone had had a chance to put together a plate, and they were all spread out around the backyard. “That game was fucking weird, right?”
“So fucking weird.” The words burst out of Boyle’s mouth like he’d been dying to say them from the second the final buzzer had sounded the night before. “Like, man, I don’t know what I expected, but it sure as shit wasn’t that.”
The whole team, and their spouses and partners, were gathered on the back patio of Shane and Ilya’s home. The Dykstra, Boyle, and Chouinard children, along with Anya, were just inside the massive sliding glass doors, piled on the sectional and watching Moana. Normally Bood would host these things, but Milo, currently tucked into his dad’s chest while Bood ate a burger with his free hand, was barely three months old. Ilya had forbidden Bood and Cassie from having the team over to their house for the foreseeable future. Shane’s four million burgers was a downgrade from Bood’s barbecue with his secret sauce, but this team was brave and strong, and Ilya was sure they would survive.
It helped that after Shane had finally, officially, moved in during the summer and everybody had had to sit on blankets on the grass at their wedding, they had ordered a whole set of outdoor furniture. And Shane had had contractors come to put in a fire pit. Because of course there was a fire pit. Where would Shane yell back and forth with the loon population of Canada if not by a fucking fire pit?
Ilya dropped into a chair beside Shane’s, and accepted the can of Coke that his husband had been holding for him. “Yes, very strange. And we should talk, but we should also make sure Wiebe and Tess and everyone can honestly say they don’t know what we were talking about. Harris, asking you to not be Director of Communications right now, yes?”
Harris sniffed from his seat next to Troy on one of the big sectionals. “No shit.”
“Okay. Yes. Thank you.” Without looking, Ilya placed his free hand in Shane’s lap, and felt his husband begin to fidget with Ilya’s wedding ring. “I know you wouldn’t. Fucking weird week, like Young said.”
They had all expected the heightened, almost rabid, media scrutiny of their team in the run up to the first match-up with Montreal of the season. Members of both teams kept getting asked about each other during press coverage, and Ilya was running out of interesting ways to say that he was excited to see if Montreal still knew how to play hockey without any good players on their team. But because Ilya captained a group of good fucking people, he had only had to tell his team once to focus and to support each other, to not make any more than the absolute mildest of chirps, and to keep Shane’s name out of it. By the third week of the season, the Centaurs had won fourteen of their first nineteen games, and Shane seemed happier on the ice than Ilya had thought he’d ever see him again.
Even so, it had almost felt like playing in a very annoying, very loud fish bowl for the week. Ottawa fans had been coming out of the woodwork ever since last January, but a combination of the playoff run and signing Shane Hollander meant that the Canadian Tire Centre had started actually selling out. And most of it was great. Ilya nearly lit up with pride every time he got to meet a fan who shared with him how much joy he and the team were bringing to the city. Just… for every wonderful fan interaction, there was some other asshole constantly yelling down at them, from the stands, from the internet, from the press rooms. Examining them from all angles, combing through footage frame by frame to find evidence of tension in the room, of anger between Shane and Ilya, of mistrust among the players.
And it wasn’t fair. This was a group of players who had always been good as individuals, with the potential to be great. And now, they were great. Wiebe and Theresa and Bood — and Ilya, he was able to acknowledge — were finally in a place where they could raise the standard of play as a team. They were working together, fitting with each other like puzzle pieces, finally. Developing together, growing together, trusting each other enough to begin to operate as a unit. As a team, they were picking up momentum in a way that felt breathless — Ilya felt like he was on a roller coaster that had just gone over its big drop, knowing in his bones that gravity was about to hurtle him along the rest of the track.
There were probably a dozen more metaphors Ilya could use to describe the feelings breathing down his neck recently, because English was a stupid language that never said what it really meant, but his team was good, both in terms of talent and character, and they were building towards something huge, and they could barely even talk about it, because all anyone wanted to ask them about was one game against one shitty team.
So, when the Voyageurs had finally come to Ottawa, for the Centaurs’ twentieth game of the 2021-2022 season, it was under a cloud of sports media punditry, advertiser speculation, and fan chaos. Ilya had watched Shane with extreme caution for any sign that the new, confident calm that wrapped Shane up like a cloak was a lie. That the pressure was creeping into his heart. Ilya had almost lost Shane once to a franchise that was willing to work him to death as long as he performed for it, and Ilya would happily walk into the St. Lawrence River with rocks tied to his ankles before he allowed the same thing to happen to Shane in Ottawa. Sure, they had won their first game against the Voyageurs in a 3-0 shutout, but Ilya had honestly expected that. They were a better team. But he would have been lying if he said the game had gone how he thought it would.
“Hollzy, I’m sorry if this is weird to say in front of you —” Bood’s voice brought Ilya back to his own backyard, and the feeling of Shane’s fingers entwined with his “— but like. For years the Voyageurs only had two things going for them.” He held up a finger on the hand that wasn’t cradling baby Milo to his chest. “One was Hollander.” Bood held up another. “The other was the ability to fucking pass to Hollander.” Dykstra, Hayes, and Young all nodded as Bood continued. “We saw them voluntarily give up the second one last year, because they’re dumb as shit, but they were still winning games because even if you were fucking half dead you’d still be the greatest player to ever do it.”
A chill went up Ilya’s spine. He swallowed hard and stared into the flames before him, because those Montreal game tapes still pressed against the back of his eyelids every time he tried to sleep. Hockey was a violent sport, it was what they had all signed up for. But it wasn’t supposed to get genuinely dangerous. Teammates were supposed to protect each other. A star center should have defenders around him, should have wingers to pass to so that he could take pressure off himself. Shane had lost that. Shane had spent the last year coming home to Ilya with his skin more purple and blue and tender every time, and Ilya hadn’t seen it. He hadn’t seen it.
Fucking half dead.
Shane drew his fingers back from Ilya’s wedding band and instead gripped Ilya’s hand. Ilya inhaled deep and let himself be pulled back to earth. “Thanks, Bood.” Ilya felt Shane’s voice wash over him, pulling him back to shore. “I agree it was weird, but it’s also what they were doing in preseason.”
“They must have got cussed the fuck out by Theriault, who probably got cussed the fuck out by the owners,” said Hayes thoughtfully. “Everyone was so nervous, but I think it started with Comeau. Like he’s the one who was really on his best behavior and hating every minute of it.”
“Seriously, what do they feed newborn goalies in the hospital that makes them see shit like this?” Holmberg muttered to nobody in particular.
“Hey, Hollzy sees it too.” Hayes waved at Shane, who slowly nodded. “We talked about it after tape review this morning. It’s like Comeau is a bottle of pop that somebody shook really hard and then put back in the fridge. He’s holding all this anger here,” he waved a hand at his own torso. “He’s not pulling penalties, but it’s like there’s something in here that really, really wants to start punching people.”
“Doesn’t help that Pike didn’t want to be there and Gagnon can’t play for shit,” Barrett threw in. “Rebranding that asshole as their star center — what a fucking joke. It’s not just that he didn’t score any fucking goals. He barely took any shots, and I’m pretty sure he didn’t try to lend assists to anybody.”
Shane drew Ilya’s hand into his own lap. “Yeah, he’s always been bad at that.” He glanced around the circle, briefly making eye contact with Lisa Hayes, then Melissa Boyle, then Cassie Boodram. “What did it look like on TV?”
“What, like you didn’t watch the replay?” Cassie laughed.
“Yeah, but I’m asking for your opinion.”
Melissa took a thoughtful sip of her beer. “Honestly? It looked very fucking normal, and it’s like the booth was trying to get the audience to be disappointed about that, like it was boring that Shane wasn’t getting actively hate crimed. The announcers kept saying shit like ‘oh who’s gonna drop gloves first, Rozanov or Comeau,’ or ‘when are we gonna fight, do you think they’re gonna clear the benches —’”
“And then none of that shit happened!” Selena Chouinard threw her hands up in the air. “Like even during warm ups when Pike and Boiziau went up to the red line and beckoned you to go over there to hug them, Shane, the commentators were like ‘oh this show of sportsmanship likely won’t last long!’”
“People wanted a bloodbath,” Harris chimed in. “And then they didn’t get it. Not all people, for sure — our fans are genuinely excited to see the win, and they’re proud of you guys for the game you played, and love having another W in the column. Our analytics are saying that it’s pretty much exclusively people from outside of Ottawa and almost entirely outside of Ontario who are pissed nobody dropped gloves, or even pulled anything more serious than a minor penalty.”
“And those minor penalties were just for fucking boarding.” Troy rolled his eyes. “Like, Haasy, I love you, but you weigh a buck fifty soaking wet. A strong wind could get a boarding penalty against you.”
Boyle halfheartedly threw a balled-up napkin in Barrett’s general direction. “Leave the kid alone.”
Ilya sighed deeply, feeling Shane’s hand tighten momentarily around his. “Okay. Two things, I think. Well, maybe three.” He paused, gathering his thoughts, and looked away from the fire to find Shane’s eyes. They were soft, and Ilya lingered with them for a moment before turning back to the group. “First, I am fucking proud of you, and fucking grateful. We went into this game saying we were going to play good, clean hockey. Shane Hollander brand of hockey. Legal and precise checks only, no chirping, no starting shit. Finishing it if we had to, but trying not to let it get there. And we did. So I am saying this as your friend, and Shane’s husband, not your captain… thank you. We knew that anything we did wrong, any mistakes we made, if we threw the first punch, it would reflect back on him. And you focused, and you scored, and you defended our net, and you kept each other safe. So, thank you.”
“You don’t have to thank us for that, Cap,” LaPointe piped up, to murmurs of agreement from around the fire. “He’s our guy too, you know.”
“Thanks, LP,” whispered Shane.
“Yes, good. Okay. So thing number two.” Ilya sat up straighter. “Montreal did not play good hockey last night. They did not necessarily play bad hockey either. They played very mediocre hockey, which anyone who knew how their systems were built around Hollander could see coming. What we learned about that is that we do not need to do anything to the Voyageurs. Comeau cannot lead, and Gagnon is not a team player, and Drapeau is clearly bad at goaltending. Sucks for him that Miitka retired. Pike just got a promotion from fifteenth best player to third, not because he is doing anything differently but because everybody else is worse.” Ilya ignored Shane’s exasperated sigh. “We will see them three more times this season, yes? They will get worse as the season goes on and they realize they cannot win without Shane. Nothing extra for us to do there. This is not a question of honor, or of pride, for us. Play well, push yourselves, keep each other safe. Let them do what they will do, and we will win the Stanley Cup.”
At that, a chorus of groans and curses erupted. “You cannot just say shit like that, Cap!” “Well now we’ve jinxed it.” “Being cup contenders was fun while it lasted—”
“Shut up, all of you, or you will wake Milo!” Ilya called out, as Shane tilted his head back and laughed. Ilya was proud that he was only momentarily distracted by the way the firelight danced across Shane’s Adam’s apple. “I still have the third thing to say!”
“Feels like the third thing doesn’t matter if we’re just going back to not making playoffs —”
“Shut your mouth, Dillon, of course we won’t make playoffs if you have a shitty fucking attitude. Now. Third thing. Listen.” Ilya waited until everyone had settled down. “Probably we can expect more press like this, at least until the All Star break. What do you think, Harris?”
Harris nodded thoughtfully. “Yeah, that seems likely. Montreal’s current record is six and fourteen — well, six and fifteen, now—”
“Imagine being homophobic and bad at hockey,” Hayes stage whispered to Lisa, who tried and failed to look like she meant it when she shushed him. “Like pick a struggle.”
Harris went on. “And the post-game questions they’ve been getting have basically all been some version of ‘So how big of a mistake do you think it was to get rid of Hollander, especially since he just very gayly scored two goals and put up an assist in his first game against you?’ Which, I’m not going to lie, has been funny to watch, but now this is their story. And I think it’s going to be ours, too, for a while.”
Silence followed, and Ilya watched as his teammates’ faces settled into emotions ranging from resigned to determined to furious.
“So is it just gonna be like this?” Luca broke the silence. “All season?”
“Hopefully not all season,” Shane sighed. “But this is the most interesting story now, and we didn’t give the media the payoff that they wanted.” He opened his mouth, then closed it, staring back down at the firelight glinting off of Ilya’s wedding band. “My first instinct… is to apologize to all of you. For making you have to deal with this —”
Again, the group burst forward with groans and protestations. “Tomato, tomato!” Bergy yelled, and Ilya made a mental note to google the phrase later. He would have asked, but he was doing leadership things now, captain things, and he had to look like he had the answers.
“Hollzy, brother, shut the fuck up,” sighed Bood. “We’ll keep saying this until you fucking hear us, but we’re glad you’re here. It’s not just that you make Cap happy, or that you are the best player in the NHL, maybe the best in the history of the sport —”
“Fucking rude,” Ilya interrupted, only for Bood to ignore him, which was even more fucking rude.
“— it’s that you’re a good friend. Like, we’re friends, Shane. Do you get that? It’s important to me that you get that,” Bood finished, eyebrows raised.
Ilya knew Shane would have tried to laugh it off, had he not glanced around and seen his teammates nodding, or murmuring their agreements, or grinning at him. Finally, Shane turned back to Ilya, who lifted his free hand to reach over and brush back a lock of Shane’s hair. “Well?” Ilya asked, as he tucked the offending strands behind Shane’s ear. “Do you get that, Hollander?”
Shane swallowed hard at the feeling of Ilya’s fingertips skimming across his cheek, then turned back to Bood. “Yeah. Yeah, I think I get that.”