Chapter Text
Montreal, Canada, 2009.
Shane’s rookie season.
He’s a bit younger than most of the people on the team, being one of the only rookies drafted this season, but he believes himself on a higher level than anyone on the team, whether that’s because of his hockey skill or himself as a person.
He watches as they behave like clowns, saying disgusting, hateful things. And he thinks to himself all the ways he could put an end to this when he’s captain. Because he will be captain. It’s only a matter of time.
And he is finally given the C he decides it’d be better to ease the team into his style of leadership. That is, until one of them acts extra clowny, disgusting, and hateful.
He actually heard their conversation from the beginning. They’d been putting their practice uniforms on when some of his teammates started speaking about some nameless celebrity who’d been papped with his arms around another man, and for homophobic men they were oddly giddy about the gossip. They were all saying subtle, snide things. Then one loud asshole decided to be… well loud.
Shane honestly can’t even remember what else he said, but he remembers the slur. The strong, angry “faggot” spoken into the world. He also remembers how no one reacted, how the other men laughed along like it was funny.
He decks the fool who said it, then he grabs his head in the same hand, palm over his mouth. He looks to the other idiots who were gossiping but he says loudly, like he’s addressing everyone in the room “I don’t want to hear any of this bullshit again. You will not speak this way in my locker room. You will not think this way in my locker room.” Then he lets go of the poor sod and continues putting on his gear like nothing happened.
The men took several moments to begin changing themselves, all of them staying completely silent. At the end of practice he reiterates what he said in the locker room and adds onto it.
He makes sure all eyes are on him before he says “I will, under no circumstances, ever allow that kind of hateful garbage, whether, homophobic, racist, or misogynistic to ever be spoken in my presence. But that isn’t a pass to say anything like that as soon as I leave the room.”
He looks around, making eye contact with everyone. Some, like JJ, Hayden and a few others, look like this is no problem at all. They even look happy about this.
Some, like those in the locker room, look pissed. Like it’s some horrible inconvenience to not be a horrible person. He makes sure to send his best “if looks could kill” glare their way.
He tells them they don’t want to find out what happens if he catches them. And later on in the week he sends all of them books on the history of the LGBT community, on the history of people of color’s rights, and the history of women’s rights. That makes him feel a tiniest bit silly. But he figures if they learn about the hardships that they all faced maybe they’ll grow hearts (and brains).
This isn’t the last thing he needs to correct however. This team still has a long way to go before they meet his standards.