Have you read "We Breed Lions"? I'm in chapter 6 which is on the hazing rites of passages rookies receive and I just keep thinking about Snapping Birch. Like damn, it's a wonder Shane was able to stay sane in the Metro's locker room as long as he did. (I know reality and fiction are separate things, but the horrific reality of Canadian Junior Hockey culture helps me better visualize how the metro characters would grow so bold.)
That’s on my to-read list! I just watched Code of Misconduct, a documentary that’s based on the same gang-rape case that’s discussed in We Breed Lions.
The more I learn about hockey culture the more it reinforces the impression that there’s this expectation of no accountability overhanging everything that creates this environment of abuse. Players get hazed brutally and there’s no accountability for what just happened to them. Then they get older and haze others and face no accountability for what they just did. Then the echo chamber of homophobia and misogyny and cultural disrespect that they’ve been marinating in since they were eight emboldens them to the point that they rape someone who is then disregarded by law enforcement and paid off from a slush fund maintained by Hockey Canada for the sole purpose of burying the many sexual assault claims being levied against their promising young players.
Like. The culture is just insane. There’s so much abuse baked into the structure of the system itself. There are some absolute horror stories that have come out of Canadian Junior Hockey and I’d put money on the fact that there are worse things that we just. Never found out about. Because the system itself was built to cultivate and later bury abuse
#I hate the ‘Shane has never seen the dark side of hockey’ line for so many reasons#but one of them is the fact that I doubt that there is a single Canadian junior hockey player alive who has not seen the dark side of hockey#Shane Hollander was probably hazed within an inch of his fucking life growing up are you kidding me#there’s one detail that was mentioned in code of misconduct that also gave me pause#it briefly discusses the 2010 Chicago Blackhawks Stanley cup run where the team covered up the coach’s ongoing sexual assault of one of the#team’s players so it wouldn’t interrupt their Stanley cup run#one detail the documentary discusses that I wasn’t aware of is the fact that apparently the rest of the team knew about the abuse while it#was happening. which. absolutely shocking.#there’s this entire culture of team as family in hockey that may result in players rallying around each other but it’s not without#exception. sometimes they just. leave one of their own to be hurt. (via @polysyndetonaddictsupportgroup)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TuBFmEp0b1U (Sid v Ovi doc)
I'm sure loads of people have seen this type of thing and I know Ilya and Shane were only half based on Sid and Ovi but it just popped up on my feed and holy shit do more people need to contextualise hollanov using the way people talked about Sid and Ovi. Hollanov are like what if Sid v Ovi were even more insanely talented and we gave them even more reasons to hate each other.
I know for most people (especially those from countries that don't really do hockey), you might know Gretzky or Crosby or have heard of the Quinn brothers and think "yeah, they're good. whatever." but truly the levels of parasocialism that hardcore fans of a sport reach are insane. I actually think raiders and metro twitter would repeatedly reach levels of toxic previously unknown and we already know that canonically Shane got kidnapping threats and they both had effigies of themselves burnt outside of stadiums. Even just one of them coming out as queer would send the hockey world into a coma- which I wanted to talk about actually because whilst there's a level of respect that masc gay guys get over fem gay guys, these are guys that straight men identify themselves with, they look up to them, any hockey player ever wants to be like Shane or Ilya, so to suddenly have someone that's tied to your internalised ideal of manhood be something you regard as incompatible with being a man would definitely make some people mad- but to have both of them come out as queer and then add on so many layers of who people thought they were? Honestly even without Russia I could see them ending up dead.
(btw I love how grounded snapping birch is, even when it's funny it's horrifying- I quote 'Shane Hollander is a faggot. by skittles.' to myself all the time and Ilya's twitter rant is amazing.)
Shockingly, I actually haven’t watched the Sid v Ovi doc yet in my research for snapping birch, so I’m really excited for this. Thank you for sharing!
I fully agree and I really do wish that the heated rivalry canon/fanon acknowledged the pressures on the relationship. One of the hockey games I went to recently involved the guy sitting in front of me shouting “COULD SOMEONE PUT HIM IN THE FUCKING GROUND ALREADY” about former Olympian Quinn Hughes and “WHERE DO THE REFS PARK.” Sports fans can be very passionate and attached to players in a way that’s not very kind to the players from the other team. I cannot see them taking the news that the two most popular players that have been set up as rivals since their rookie season are kissing in the Canadian moonlight. Like. I don’t think this is a “some people will always be homophobic :(” like I think they need to be worried about being shot
#how many of Shane’s kidnapping threats do you think came from Boston fans#people are emotionally invested in the rivalry#if you are a Shane Hollander fan you hate Ilya Rozanov and vice versa#the tensions on this relationship are mind blowing and honestly I think it only adds to the romance#lovers have never been more star crossed#people have tied their ideas of masculinity to Shane and Ilya#those people think of homosexuality as mutually exclusive with their masculine ideals#Shane and Ilya’s relationship challenges that in a way that I think would be very dangerous for them#people are going to be mad about it and some of those people are going to be violently mad about it (via @polysyndetonaddictsupportgroup)
About the geopolitical implications of Shane and Ilya coming out, the show has painted itself into a huge corner with Svetlana. She's the daughter of a (former?) Russian minister. We can safely assume her dad is definitely one of Putin's oligarchs. She regularly goes back home. Ilya coming out would paint a huge target on her back as well and put her in a great amount of danger. She wouldn't be able to go back home either.
So now you have Ilya wanting to come out despite this putting two POCs in danger. I'm really curious how they're going to handle this because the implications are bleak as hell.
There's also the matter of Ilya's brother and niece who would probably end up as political prisoners/pawns in Putin's game of one upmanship.
The more I think on it, the crazier it gets with their coming out. Suddenly, the entire continent of Europe would care about hockey so they can make memes about whether Ilya has fucked Putin or whether Putin has sucked Ilya's dick. There would be songs, sketches and endless commentary. JD Vance the couch fucker or Trump/Clinton would be peanuts in comparison.
Shane, Ilya, (show) Svetlana and everyone near them would have targets on their backs for the rest of their lives. The Long Game makes no fucking sense. Ilya would know all this. People from former Soviet/communist countries live in constant fear of the state. It's been 36 years since the fall of the Berlin wall and my parents are still cautioning me against saying too much against the government, even in the privacy of my own home. And I'm not even Russian, it's way worse over there.
Having citizenship certainly helps but it doesn't mean Ilya's safe from political repercussions. I am losing my mind thinking about it. Sorry if I'm not making sense but it's so crazy to me how Rachel has glossed over all of this so Ilya can throw a tantrum cause his boyfriend won't go with him to a party.
I really do wish we saw more about just who Ilya Rozanov is in Russia because it has the potential to inform so much of the conflict.
Canon suggests that Ilya is a big deal in Russia. He is the captain of their Olympic team at a very young age. They pick him over every single athlete actively playing in the KHL. His family is politically connected. He is personally and publicly linked to Putin’s Minister of Sport, and he is attending functions with him and his family while people go “wow, wouldn’t it be great if Ilya married his daughter?”
Again, hockey is very tied to Russian state propaganda. Hockey players are used to promote a sense of nationalism. Ilya has very likely been plastered over state propaganda for years. He has likely been photographed with Putin himself. Sincerely, what the fuck happens if the guy you’ve been pushing as the nationalist ideal citizens should aspire to defects from the goddamn country to go make passionate gay love to Canada’s own special hockey boy?
It would be very embarrassing for the Russian government. Legitimately, I have no idea what would happen. I don’t personally see them just taking it lying down.
And I think the conflict grows more interesting in the the sense that I think that canon is at least open to the interpretation that Ilya’s family purposefully pushed his hockey career as a political measure.
Canon suggests that Shane is someone who entered hockey out of genuine love for the sport, and that led him to achieve at a high level, and he ended up getting promoted because of that. But it also suggests that Ilya was someone who exhibited a talent for the sport and did not have much choice in pursuing it. His family was in control of his life, career, and training. His family was the driving force behind his career, and they continued to exert control over it even after he joins the NHL.
Why does his family do that?
The easiest interpretation is that it’s just about money. He is their golden goose and their cash cow and they will milk him fucking dry. But that interpretation is interesting in the sense that his family already seems to have money.
His brother has money troubles, to be clear, but that’s different from his family having money troubles. His brother may just not have access to the family accounts, and his brother was not the one to make the initial decision to push Ilya’s hockey career. That was most likely his father. And he doesn’t seem to have money troubles—I can’t even remember a time in canon where he asks Ilya for money.
Like. He lives in a fucking estate. His family home is palatial. That’s not mutually exclusive with money troubles—maybe it’s generational wealth that’s started to run dry—but I think canon’s at least open to the interpretation that the decision to pursue Ilya’s hockey career was not initially about the money. And I personally like the interpretation that the family saw it as a way to potentially climb the political and social ladder.
Sergei Vetrova achieved at a high level in hockey and became Putin’s Minister of Sport. And Russian hockey players are an important part of state propaganda. If they have a family member who’s succeeding in that space, that may be a way to integrate themselves even further with the government’s leadership. Here’s my son and his historical talent—put him on your posters, make him the captain of your Olympic team, tell the whole country to be like him. There is political capital that comes with that. I personally like the interpretation that Ilya was pushed so hard to achieve in part because his family saw an opportunity to exploit his ability for their own careers and social status.
And Ilya would know that. It would inform why he doesn’t want to come out or risk pursuing a real relationship with Shane in heated rivalry perfectly. But it cheapens all of his later actions in the long game.
I just. I have trouble reconciling Ilya’s actions in the long game with his character. His trauma from his family and his treatment in Russia is a bedrock of his character and his motivations. His actions just don’t make sense to me if you just rip that away.
#I just don’t see a world where Ilya coming out would not be politically embarrassing for Russia#pov the guy you told everyone to emulate fucks off to another country forever and marries their prince of hockey#what happens if a figure of state propaganda defects from the fucking nation#and I do really think Ilya would be a prominent part of their state propaganda#they made him the captain of their fucking Olympic team#he is meant to be the best of their best#they are promoting him and that does not happen for free#Ilya fucking off to be happy and gay in Canada has implications for every single person he leaves behind in Russia#it has implications for Svetlana#it absolutely has implications for him#it’s not as simple as coming out and he’s smart enough to realize that#especially if his actions can be taken as criticism as the Russian government (via @polysyndetonaddictsupportgroup)
“Not everything works out the way Crosby wants, but he seems to give considerable thought to what he says and does. “At some point, how you act is just who you are,” he said. “I may not always have the most exciting answers, but that’s who I am. I can’t change that.” “Win or lose, Sid has to face the music all of the time,” Penguins teammate Pascal Dupuis said. “Half of us, if we lose, we get undressed, and try to get out of there as soon as possible. But Sid stays and answers the question.” Crosby can’t go anywhere in Canada or Pittsburgh without being instantly recognized. Dupuis says Crosby has to take to the back alleys in Canada to enter a restaurant without creating a commotion. “He gets interrupted four or five times, every course,” Dupuis said. “We can see why everybody loves him because he treats everyone with respect.” Even with that, Crosby has managed to maintain some level of privacy. The main reason: He’s not a true man about town. I’m probably not going to a movie at 7 p.m. on a Friday night,” he said, laughing. “But even if I didn’t play hockey — let’s say I was a firefighter — I wouldn’t probably go to at 7 o’clock show on a Friday. If I’m going to a movie, it’s going to be in the afternoon, on a Monday, when it is a little quieter.” He offers another example. “When it comes to Christmas shopping,” he said, “I don’t like being in a mall after Dec. 10, whether I play hockey or do something else. That’s just who I am.””
— Sidney Crosby finds balance in life in the spotlight
(via paulmartinamericanhero)
you talking about the security threats Shane faces and how it's so normalized reminded me of one of my pet peeves about how this fandom reacts to Shane's sex condo
He is right that if Ilya were to come to his normal apartment he would get papped and they both would get caught and that they should instead meet up at a secondary location!!! He's hockey Jesus in Montreal! You think theres no one outside his apartment building waiting to get an "outfit of the day" on a slow news day? You think whoever they send to go hang out outside Shane Hollander's apartment isn't going to recognize Ilya fucking Rozanov his greatest rival? The likelihood of them getting caught goes up so much more when spending time together in any type of place Shane Hollander is known to spend time around, that's just what happens with high level celebrities and Shane Hollander in fuckign Montreal is a high level celebrity!
Hockey players just don't have that level of sheer instant recognition in the States, even in Boston, a hockey city, so not needing a secondary location there makes sense a bit. But in fucking Montreal??? Yeah, that's not Shane being adorabley paranoid about anyone overhearing, that's him being practical.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, I really think so much of canon and fanon would benefit from the context that Shane plays for goddamn Montreal.
Shane very likely got dropped kicked into a much higher level of “local celebrity” type fame than Ilya did at the start of their careers. This has nothing to do with their promise as prospects or relative fame going into this—it’s pure location. Montreal is one of the most hockey-obsessed cities on the goddamn planet, and Shane Hollander was the trailblazing prospect who was being eyed to revitalize the entire team. Shane was probably getting recognized in 9/10 of his interactions in that city. Shane Hollander is fuck off famous in his city. And while Ilya himself is absolutely a major celebrity in his own right, his brand of hometown fame was probably much less invasive than Shane’s purely because I sincerely doubt there is a single city in North America that can compete with Montreal’s concentration of dedicated sports fans. It is purely about the kind of markets they got dropped into. Ilya found himself in a popular market with Boston but Shane found himself in what may be the hockey hub of the world.
Think of the scene where they first talk about it. Ilya says that they’ll fuck at Shane’s apartment like it’s no big deal. Shane is immediately so stressed out by the idea that Ilya is like “you’re having a panic attack. Calm down it’s just a plan to fuck.”
You can read that as “Shane is adorably paranoid about being overhead whereas Ilya is calmer.” Or you could read it as “Shane was signed by a team located in the city with one of the largest hockey markets on the planet and so Ilya’s approaching this from the perspective of who’s sometimes recognized in the club or the store as the next big thing in hockey but can for the most part still go about his day and Shane’s coming at it from the perspective of someone who hasn’t left his apartment without having his privacy violated since he was signed to the goddamn team so this reaction is pretty reasonable, actually.”
Ilya’s not tapped into fucking Montreal local news. At this point in canon, he’s played in Montreal maybe once. It’s probably as simple as a plan to fuck at Shane’s apartment for him. But for Shane, his own home is very likely not a safe option.
Shane probably laid in that all stars bed with Scott Hunter a wall over having a panic attack about the idea of them fucking in his actual apartment because he was thinking about the number of times he’d already been pap’d trying to go into his own goddamn complex. People probably wait in locations he’s known to frequent hoping to catch a glimpse of him. If they get a sight of Ilya Rozanov showing up to fucking Shane Hollander’s apartment complex, people are going to talk.
In light of that, the sex condo is one of Shane’s more reasonable safety measures. He created an option where he controlled access to the entrances and exits. He could skulk in there in a hoodie with his head down once in a blue moon and have no one else ever associate that building with Shane Hollander. He was an incredibly famous teenager in the hub of his fame who was trying to minimize risk that was born of a crushing amount of scrutiny focused directly on him. It was a smart decision. He shouldn’t get shit for it.
#my nth day of asking canon and fandom to contextualize Ilya and Shane’s relationship in the context of their external stressors because it#becomes soooo much more juicy of a narrative then#Ilya and Shane’s stressors are similar but at the same time fundamentally different#Shane has the pressures of being famous for hockey in the most hockey focused city in the planet#he is Being Watched#Ilya has the pressures of being a Russian athlete who can never be sure if he’s being watched by the fucking state#Shane is coming from the pressures of toxic canadian youth hockey and Il#*ilya meanwhile is fresh from the hyper controlling training environment of Russia#it informs SO MUCH of their actions and it adds so much depth to the narrative#I feel like so many of Shane’s early actions are characterized by uwu anxiety by the fandom. no like. that kids been living under a state o#public surveillance since he was 12. hockey players aren’t as fuck off famous in the states but in motherfucking Montreal??? Shane cannot g#to the store without being recognized. you could probably document his path through the city based on how many people stop him for pictures#it’s also important to note that Shane never left the hub of his fame and Ilya had to cross an ocean and start fresh#Shane grew up as canadas hockey boy. he never left the country. he’s played for one of their biggest hockey hubs since his career started#Ilya was initially big in Russia and had to establish himself in the America market#ilya’s the guy who showed up from a different continent Shane is /canadas hockey prince who’s been the subject of major national attention#since age 14-16/
heated rivalry 1.02 (gif by pavlmescal) // heated rivalry 1.04 (gif by texasbama) // sketch by nickie zimov // queer (gif by riickgrimes) // photo by ignazio losano // heated rivalry 1.06 (gif by thisfeebleheart) // queer (gif by riickgrimes) // photo by walter iooss jr. // heated rivalry 1.06 (gif by selena-soto)
I was always hungry for love. Just once, I wanted to know what it was like to get my fill of it -- to be fed so much love I couldn't take any more. Just once.
[Ilya's version]
[the lily and the crown, roslyn sinclair || rookies, heated rivalry || roadside attractions with the dogs of america, ada limón || study of a wounded hound, edwin henry landseer || hound, ferdinand von wright || rookies, heated rivalry || unknown || desperation sits heavy on my tongue, @/tullipsink || unknown || olympians, heated rivalry || nobody, mitski || olympians, heated rivalry || @/fugazi || in a dream you saw a way to survive; “I swear, next time I’ll see you I’ll be funny, clementine von radics || olympians, heated rivalry || moon song, phoebe bridgers || I'll believe in anything, heated rivalry || how to be a dog, andrew kane || A DOG ON A LEASH IN A LANDSCAPE, GERMAN SCHOOL, 19TH CENTURY || conscience makes cowards of us all', briton riviere || rose, heated rivalry || solve for desire: poems; “to g, after the party”, caitlin bailey || the cottage, heated rivalry || unknown || norwegian wood, haruki murakami]
If your lover lives in Hong Kong and cannot get to Chicago, it will be necessary for you to go to Hong Kong. Perhaps you will spend your life there, and never see Chicago again. And you will, I assure you, as long as space and time divide you from anyone you love, discover a great deal about shipping routes, airlines, earthquake, famine, disease, and war. And you will always know what time it is in Hong Kong, for you love someone who lives there. And love will simply have no choice but to go into battle with space and time and, furthermore, to win.
i think about shane being so brave when he calls ilya that first time all the time. he just goes straight to his phone and hits call. he's so worried about him that he CALLS HIM. they don't do this. they send off flirty texts and meetup times back and forth. they don't call. they don't speak. they don't facetime. just dancing around the fact that they can do this, that they want to, but neither pulling the trigger. so for this to be the first time, for shane to be so worried that he just presses that call button is so big. it's so brave! for him to be by the phone, waiting for at least a message back. for him to pick up immediately when ilya facetimes him back. not a second thought about being on camera. about seeing ilya. about being seen soft and vulnerable in his home. it's an instant choice of "i'm here for you" and "i got you" and "i will listen" and "i like you" and "i will hold your worries" and "i will make time for you" and what is all of that if not bravery and love?
