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[totearup]

Cliff can't believe he didn't figure it out sooner. The strange move to Ottawa. How happy he's been. And most damming of all, "Jane", it fucking rhymes!

He watches a highlight reel of Ilya celebrating with his line and realizes he's just going to have to accept it.

Ilya was in love with Zane Boodram.

[luulapants]

in a reasonable canon, shane would simply have THEE most dependent and intimate relationship with the montreal team nutritionist. like, he has her on speed dial. they text multiple times per day. she spends 60% of her work hours adjusting meal plans for his texture issues and aversions. nobody else really sees how intense their connection is.

when he was crashing out about trading to ottawa, he said, "You know, it's just gonna be really hard to leave melissa," and hayden was sitting right there like. "melissa?? it's gonna be hard to leave MELISSA??"

but i think we can probably convince melissa to move to ottawa with him, don't worry.

[lavenderprose]

Actually FUCK IT list of times Shane calls Ilya baby:

- Ilya gets a sunburn during the first cottage summer and neither of them realize it until Ilya is taking his shirt off that night and Shane sees the lobster-red flush across his shoulders. He sucks in a hiss through his teeth and says, "Oh, baby, ouch," and presses the big, broad pads of his fingertips so tenderly to Ilya's shoulder and Ilya has to close his eyes because he feels like he's going to crack apart.

- When he answers the phone and he's alone. "Hi baby," said so softly if it's been a long day. Or a hard one. Or if it's late. "Hey baby," more energetically, usually in the morning, in a way that reminds Ilya of how his teammates answer the phone to their girlfriends and wives. Masculine and jockish and very North American in a way that makes Ilya feel pleased for Shane, in a weird way.

- Glass on the floor in the kitchen. Ilya blindly following the sound of the shatter and not really even thinking about it until he's standing amongst the shards and Shane is gesturing frantically with the broom. "Put on some fucking shoes, baby, please! Fuck, where are your slides--no, don't move, I'll get them--"

- Said gently, as a question, on days when he perhaps stays in bed longer than can be justified by sleepiness.

- "Hey, baby," said some mornings when Ilya comes downstairs dressed for the day and Shane really likes his outfit. Usually an indication that Ilya will not be wearing those clothes for very long.

- In bed less often than you'd think. Really a vanilla sex only thing, because being called baby can sometimes bring Ilya out of it when he's really in the groove. But Shane will lose it a little sometimes, when Ilya says, "Tell me you like it," and Shane says, "Yes baby fuck fuck I like it fuck please don't stop fuck baby please let me cum" and that's. Very good. Obviously.

- Said with a very particular warning lilt and only AFTER Shane has already said, "Ilya." and then, "Rozanov." In the same tone. This is actually one of only two circumstances where the very elusive 'babe' comes into play. If Shane REALLY wants Ilya to stop whatever he's doing or saying, it's a hand around the wrist and the word, "Babe," quiet but firm. And it does shut Ilya up approximately 100% of the time.

- Other instance of 'babe': Any sort of crowd. 'Ilya' is three syllables (Because Shane...pronounces it a bit wrong.) and unique enough that Shane sometimes worries about drawing attention. 'Babe' is one syllable and can be barked above the crowd in the Captain Hollander voice loud enough that Ilya will have no choice but to hear him if he's within the surrounding 500 feet. They have Marco-Polo'd themselves back to each other with 'BABE' and 'SHANE' multiple times in multiple countries.

- One time someone accidently brings several bottles of fortified wine to the barbecue. It's quite high proof for wine and several people get tipsier than normal, including Shane. Halfway through the evening he puts his head on Ilya's shoulder and plays with his fingers and murmurs, "My baby," into the seam of his shirt and Ilya, looking down at him so fondly, says, "Yes. Yours. Drink some water for me, sweetheart."

- "YES BABY." Yelled directly in Ilya's face during goal cellies. Obviously. This is also the first thing Ilya hears when the ringing in his ears stops after he scores the game-winning goal in overtime in game seven of the Stanley Cup finals. Knees on the ice, sobbing, screaming, laughing, and his husband barrels towards him at damn near light speed, tackles him, skids onto his knees and sends them sliding along the ice together, knocks Ilya's helmet off and puts his hands on his face and yells Yes baby! Fuck yes, baby! We did it!

[softgnome]

Personally I do think that sometimes non-hockey fans can end up mischaracterizing Shane and Ilya because they don't know enough about hockey/hockey playstyles

The Ilya we see in Heated rivalry would not be throwing the first punch, he's not an enforcer. Ilya is a star center and a Pest. He wouldn't be doing his job correctly if he was punching players every other game, it would end up with not enough ice time to let him be the playmaker he's paid to be.

But being a pest can be playmaking! Find a player to bait, emotionally push them just enough that they try to fight you, and then get the fuck out of there before the ref gives you both penalties. This gets your team the power play. There is probably someone on Ilya's line dedicated to helping him get out of the fights he starts, and finishing them for him!

I also think this is also something that Shane would respect. Ilya is good at it and it's a good strategy for his team. I don't think Shane would see it as some dirty tactic, because Shane probably thinks everyone with a brain can see it for what it is! He probably thinks everyone should be able to see that being an asshole is a tactic for Ilya, that it's something to ignore and not fall for, that it's a strategy and not personal beef.

I think Shane's more disappointed when a Metro falls for it. Shane sees it as Ilya set up a Looney Toons ass obvious trap and one of his teammates ran into it. Why be mad at Bugs Bunny when you can be mad at your defenceman for falling for a fucking Bugs Bunny trap.

[lavenderprose]

Ilya is so lucky that Shane proposed. Ilya would have been a nervous fucking wreck for the entire day beforehand. Wake up in the morning. Look in the mirror. Today's the day. Sob. Breathe. Okay I'm good! Turn around and Shane's hair is all in his face, still asleep on Ilya's pillow. I am NOT good. Cold shower. Breakfast that Ilya does not eat. Morning jog wherein Ilya runs like someone is chasing him. Lunch that Ilya does not eat. Drive out to the cottage. Make Shane pull over because Ilya needs to dry heave on the side of the road. "Baby we don't have to drive out today if you're not feeling well." "NO WE HAVE TO." Get to the cottage. Immediately send Shane on some kind of extended fool's errand. Shane wants to stay because Ilya is SHAKING and he is so worried. "No my love I'm fine it's just the breeze off the lake haha." It's thirty fuckig degrees Celsius. Shane finally gtfo's. Yuna, David, Rose FUCKING Landry all descend to help Ilya set up. Well. Ilya is supposed to be helping but he is standing on the deck fully dissociating. Yuna brings him tea. "Are you going to throw up the tea?" "Yes probably." Yuna takes away the tea. 800 electronic tea lights on the deck. In a parallel Ilya has no way of understanding, he both puts on and takes off a suit. Yuna fixes his curls into the hockey boy quasi-mullet that magnetizes Shane's fingers to Ilya's hair and says, "Oh, you're so handsome!" Ilya cries big fat tears. David tells a story about how his proposal to Yuna almost didn't happen because David went to the hospital for heart palpitations that morning. Thank You David That Does Not Help Even Remotely. Ilya slav squats on the lawn for twenty minutes. Shane's car pulls up in the driveway and everyone hides while Ilya vibrates in the entryway. Shane has no less than thirty grocery bags hanging from his arms, still complaining about why the grocery service cancelled their delivery last minute. Ilya leads Shane and all thirty of his grocery bags onto the deck. Shane is doing his favorite thing (bitching) and his second favorite thing (Follow Ilya) so he doesn't notice his own mother tiptoing behind him collecting the grocery bags he drops like breadcrumbs. There is an Oscar-winning actress hiding under his sofa and Shane does not notice because Ilya takes him on the deck and drops to his knees and Shane is like, "Haha, right now?" and then he sees that Ilya has a look on his face like he's just been told the sun is never coming up again and he has his hands on Shane's knees and he is saying, "Shane. Please?" and Shane puts his hands on his head and says "Oh my God baby what's happening to you" as Ilya melts and melts and then from the depths of the cottage someone who sounds a lot like Shane's very own father is whispering "The ring the ring" and when he looks back down Ilya is fumbling a ring box out of his pocket. The first picture of their proposal is Shane glaring into the middle distance with a hand cradling Ilya's curls like a baby while Ilya ugly sobs into his knee.

[harleyspinn]

are there any fics of ilya meeting shane’s extended family and if not then why not

[angel-mistakes]

During a game the Jumbotron falls and Shane is still underneath it when it begins plummeting to the ground. Ilya doesn’t have time to think about, just moves across the ice and tackles them both out of the way in time. Ilya shields Shane from potential debris and lays on top of him protectively until everything settles.

He pushes up but still remains on top of him, asking if Shane is hurt. Shane shakes his head. No, he doesn’t think he is. He asks the same to Ilya, can't help but put his hands on him as he asks-- cradling his face-- but Ilya's alright too. Neither got hit with anything. They’re both okay.

The Jumbotron falling makes headlines because fucking duh. Thankfully no one was seriously injured, although some of the players got bumps and bruises from falling bits but nothing horrific. Everyone was able to skate out of the way. No one got crushed. No one got killed.

The moment with Shane and Ilya gets talked about too. It goes viral, even outside of the sports sphere. There’s all different sorts of angles of it, even multiple close up shots from the photographers and fans that were there during the event.

People speak about the humanity shown bc even with the rivalry, their first instincts were to hold onto each other during a horrifying brush with death. People talk about how Ilya had been safely out of the way before he put himself in danger to make sure Shane was out of the way too.

Yuna Hollander becomes Rozanov’s biggest fan after that. He saved her son. She reaches out to Rozanov herself to invite him to a dinner, which Ilya accepts because it would be rude to decline. After that-- Yuna and David practically adopt Ilya having no idea about the relationship he has with their son. Maybe Yuna even becomes Ilya's manager when she realizes Ilya's own team has been taking advantage of him.

[queenofshenanigans]

Canon divergence where JJ clocks Shane's "crush" on Ilya early on after the charity reveal, but instead of thinking that it's hopeless because Ilya is terminally straight, JJ thinks to himself "Well, it's a known fact that 99.99% of professional hockey players would go gay for Shane Hollander if he smiled at them, Ilya Rozanov isn't so special to be part of the .01%" and then goes about concocting increasingly chaotic shenanigans to get Ilya and Shane together. Somewhere along the line he's having dinner with Bood, and this is how the Centaurs get roped into things because yeah. That makes so much sense. Cap and Shane Hollander??? Obviously. And between Bood and JJ, two of the most social guys in the MLH, pretty soon it's like a network of matchmaking hockey players including half of the Bears and a couple of Admirals (not Scott Hunter who noped out IMMEDIATELY, because fuck them kids).

Is this realistic? No! Do I care? no! I'm very fond of all the himbo hockey bro fics Ive been reading lately and this particular flavor would be so fun.

[fractally]

Ok sorry last one. For tonight at least I just have a million JJ thoughts

I also personally think that once JJ sees Hollanov he's pretty much on board right away (as compared to Hayden staying cool for a long time). I think this because JJ clocked Shane's feelings and DIDN'T JUDGE THE CHOICE. He just was sad for Shane because he thought Ilya was straight! I think once he sees it so obviously reciprocated he's actually super tickled by it and happy to see Shane happy.

I get the vibe he's way more sex positive than Hayden so I think when Ilya makes gross sex jokes about Shane instead of getting all weird he just goes "hell yeah brother" and hi fives Shane (who wants to die).

I think this eventually escalates to JJ asking Shane way too invasive questions about gay sex and Shane is like "don't you know like a million gay men. you were trying to set me up for ages ask one of them"

[fractally]

I love Shane so much like it's such a classic comphet thing to be all "oh I'm not *gay* I would still date a man/woman. Like look I'm attracted to Chris Hemsworth / Jennifer Lawrence. They're hot. I'd date them"

and most people eventually realize the inherent absurdity of this because you can't date the hottest celebrities on earth and that's a stupid standard and obviously attraction should be more innate than that.

But Shane Hollander CAN date Jennifer Lawrence and by god he's gonna try

[suraks-sweet-tits]

Look sometimes I am gonna call Ilya gay if it works better for a punchline. I am bisexual. I know Ilya is very proud to be bisexual and that is a very special wonderful thing and he does correct people. But I feel like Ilya Rozanov and I would be in agreement that you can be both a proud bisexual and think that saying gay instead works better for the bit sometimes. And Ilya Rozanov is always gonna understand doing something for the bit.

[darkstarknight03]

Has anyone written an AU where Grigori doesn’t die? Like he still gets dementia, but it’s later, like maybe it shows up just as he and Shane are just starting to figure their shit out, and maybe in another world he would have stopped tolerating his family at this point and cut them off but right when it looks like he might be strong enough to do so the dementia arrives and he knows he can’t leave. He can’t go to the cottage in the summers, he can’t be brave enough to call Shane his boyfriend, and he spends the next four years still terrified of leaving the closet and disappointing his father. Maybe he still moves to Ottawa, maybe he gets to come home two weeks early every summer for the Game Changers camps because he can make the excuses if it’s work, but it isn’t the same. Instead of spending the three years before The Long Game romanticizing the idea of being out, he is still repressing a lot of his feelings about things out of fear. He thinks Harris is cool as fuck but also Harris terrifies him. He can’t participate in pride nights and the team knows why but that doesn’t stop him from getting accused of being homophobic. He gets his PR card through work like he does before, but it’s just insurance rather than opportunity. He hasn’t yet considered the possibility of never having to go back. The conflict in the long game is similar but also completely different, and if anything it’s Shane who seems to be wanting more (maybe he hasn’t come out to the voyageurs so that Ilya would feel more comfortable publically associating with him). They aren’t even engaged when the FanMail video comes out, and then a week later, Grigori dies, and Ilya can’t even go to the funeral.

[gaynehollander]

Shane sitting poolside in Tampa, watching Ilya play with the kids, interspersed with cuts of him playing hockey on a team with Ilya, literally the most at peace he's ever been. Ilya getting out of the pool and splashing him with water, telling him to get his wallet out, playfully teasing him and interacting with him in public in a way that feels easy and lighthearted and true. It's almost like he's being given a taste of his dream future and, listen, the thing is that he gets it all.

I give TLG a lot of shit but beyond that, there is the hope for the future he saw glimpses of in Tampa. Once they get through all of the hardships, all of the awful things Shane sometimes feels will threaten to pull him under, he will get what he got to taste in Tampa and he will get it for good. He will get to play on a team with his husband, he will get to have that lighthearted banter with him in public and it will get to feel easy. He'll get to lounge by the pool and watch Ilya with the kids, whether they're Hayden's or their own someday, maybe.

Shane Hollander will get everything he never dared hope for and I will say "good for him."

[darkstarknight03]

I shit you not when I first watched that scene I couldn’t remember what Ottawa’s colors were and I thought they were black and gold (got them mixed up with Boston, sue me) IN WHICH CASE I was like omg they’re FORSHADOWING their FUTURE bc the eastern conference jerseys are like vaguely those colors and I ended up being wrong but imagine if I was rightttt

[darkstarknight03]

Yesterday I saw a post about Ilya getting his bachelors degree just for funsies and I was like oh that’s cute but unrealistic but TODAY I found out ALEXANDER OVENCHKIN has a PhD!!! So actually!!!

[darkstarknight03]

He gets his bachelors from Boston University because when Sveta started going in Fall 2011 he would sometimes get bored and just follow her to her lectures

Sometimes he would answer questions and the teachers (recognizing him) would be like, do you go here???

So he started talking to some people and managed to apply and the university was honestly just happy to have him so he starts in the fall of 2012

Also crucially he did his first year of university in 2009-2010 during the “gap year” back in Russia

And when he gets to Boston he’s literally 19 so he’s going to MIT parties and Harvard parties and BU parties and Tufts parties and Boston is Boston so they all sort of bleed together but he really enjoys how many college kids are in his new city

He takes as many virtual classes as he can even though that’s not really a thing in 2012, so he ends up taking just the most random set of classes while only occasionally able to slip in the required courses for his major

He only takes two or three classes a semester because obviously he’s a very busy guy

These combination of factors makes it so he doesn’t actually graduate until spring 2018 (6 years later) and even then he was really locking in the last year before he left Boston, made easier by the fact he wasn’t partying as much and he was able to take summer classes the previous summer for the first time, since he wasn’t going home to Russia

He works up the nerve to take a virtual gender studies class his last semester and learns a lot about himself but also has no idea when he would ever use that information

“So do you think you’ll be able to come up the last week of May if you don’t make the playoffs?” “Oh actually I’m busy that week” “with what?” “I’m graduating” “graduating what?” “College, Hollander, oh my god” “WHAT?!”

Crucially Ilya’s major is sports science (it’s just what’s easiest to get all the credits for since that’s what he studied in Moscow and also His Job) (yes I know BU doesn’t actually offer this as a major but let’s *pretend*) which is also really helpful for being a captain of a professional sports team. It’s also one of Sveta’s majors (she’s doubling in business statistics) so they get to do some of it together

I say “crucially” because a lot of people think Ilya “doesn’t really care” about hockey and is just a slacker who Just Happens to be good when that’s… just not how it works.

Like Ilya generally eats good food and doesn’t drink during playoffs and has a pretty fucking decent hockey IQ, he just doesn’t make it His Whole Thing like Shane does.

Also he didn’t pick his major because hockey is his hyperfixation (like Sveta lol) he just did because it’s what’s convenient and relevant to his life.

Also maybe possibly subconsciously because then he can talk to Shane (and Sveta, which is the version he tells himself) about all the stuff they’re autistic about

Shane LOVES reading research articles and books and studies about hockey and how to optimize himself and Ilya’s like “I know all about that!” and it’s incredibly endearing to Shane but it also makes him kind of crazy because what to you MEAN he’s been doing all the same shit as Shane AND he has a bachelors degree like he’s literally been GOING TO CLASSES to learn about the stuff that Shane just offhandedly reads about and somehow Shane is the insane one???

Like he’s so jealous but also so proud and turned on and he can’t believe his boyfriend is so smart and perfect in literally every way

Anyway Ilya moves to Ottawa and pretty much immediately starts working on his Masters because he has a lot more time now, especially in the summers.

I don’t know where he gets the degree from, possibly still BU, but it’s all online, and it’s still sports-science adjacent, and because he’s been working at the camps he decides to focus on like childhood development in sports.

Because he’s able to lock tf in during the summers he manages to graduate in two years, just before The Long Game starts

That season is the first one Ilya had spent without doing school stuff since his sophomore season in Boston, which contributes to why his depression is so much worse that year because he isn’t able to distract himself during his free time

So all of that previously productive free time is spent bed rotting :)

(Also Ilya failed half his classes during the fall of 2016 because he was depression spiraling. Happens to the best of us.)

Both Galina and Shane mention to him sometime during their engagement that maybe going back to school was good for him and would give him something to do.

But then it’s the first season with Shane on the team and Ilya is fine letting his husband take up all his free time.

Eventually though they settle away from their honeymoon stage (and it takes a while! Like a few years!) and they’re like yeah we probably should spend some time not constantly attached at the hip and maybe have some of our own hobbies

So Ilya starts working on his PhD

This time though he does a program about like gender and diversity and stuff like that

Stuff he never really let himself publicly study while he was closeted, except that one class his final semester of undergrad

He ends up just getting a second masters before working on his PhD thesis

So his thesis ends up being about how diversity is developmentally valuable in sports, using examples from hockey in Russia and Canada and the US, and seeing how exposure to diversity has impacted some of the Irina Foundation kids who within a few years are already being scouted for juniors programs, and seeing how the presence of out queer athletes has changed hockey culture over the last decade, etc.

He doesn’t finally get the PhD until around now (2026) and then he spends the last few years of his career guest lecturing at random universities on his days off during road trips

Shane is sooo proud of him and also feels a little better about it all because the whole gender thing is not at all a thing he would study (his previous insecurities having been that he COULD have gotten a degree like Ilya but he never did) but it’s still something he’s interested learning about and he loves hearing Ilya talk all about it

And then when Ilya retires all of this stuff is really useful for if he wants to become a coach somewhere, because 1) you unsurprisingly learn a lot in sports sciences that is relevant to coaching and 2) if he does it at the collegiate level I’m pretty sure you need a degree to work at a university? I might be wrong tho

I personally hc that he ends up coaching in the PWHL though and those girls are all really smart and a lot of them have gotten degrees concurrently with their careers and obviously are very interested in his area of study so it’s just kind of perfect.

[transthatmasc]

Saw something earlier that mentioned Ilya becoming a PWHL coach when he retires and it’s completely rewritten my concept of Ilya as a character.

Yes absolutely he is becoming a PWHL coach. He’s doing constant promotional work to expand the league and its audience and doing interviews where he talks shit about all the creeps and losers in and running the NHL. “if me and my husband, Shane Hollander, had been female hockey players, we would have been criminally under paid and almost entirely ignored despite our epic love story. These women take their jobs incredibly seriously and play outstanding hockey. Of course some of them want to kiss each other. Would happen more in the NHL if the vile behavior of some players was not both tolerated and supported by teammates, coaches, and administrators.”

His players love him, the owners don’t understand his methods but can’t argue with results, and the NHL is actively pursuing their second defamation lawsuit against him even as they are actively trying to prevent Luca from doing public appearances with his new husband.

Now that they have his undivided attention, Shane becomes a regular guest commentator for PWHL games (never for Ilya’s team though, he’s in the stadium for those generally) and becomes a highly regarded figure for many PWHL fans.

Also, Shane Hollander loves lesbians. He goes out for mojitos and grain bowls with some of the women from Ilya’s team every month and they all get a little tipsy and grill each other about hockey stats and house renovations. He suddenly discovers the appeal of arranging play dates for your kids when he can hang out with some of the other SAPs and talk about play off chances and the fact that the team is on a road trip during the local spring break week while the kids play with foam blocks in the living room.

[darkstarknight03]

Yesterday I saw a post about Ilya getting his bachelors degree just for funsies and I was like oh that’s cute but unrealistic but TODAY I found out ALEXANDER OVENCHKIN has a PhD!!! So actually!!!

[caralikesgay]

at some point in 2018, shane is in the montreal locker room with his team, and they're listening to music, he thinks jj is on the aux today, and a song comes on he's never heard before (not an uncommon occurrence). it has a good beat, and catchy lyrics (later, he'll find out that it's screwed by janelle monae), and then it launches into a bridge repeating the phrase everything is sex, except sex, which is power (and later still he'll learn that this is actually based on a quote from someone else, but he can never remember who). the line is already starting to worm its way into his brain, turning itself over in his mind, when he hears a teammate on the other side of the room make the joke first — he's thankful that he hears it, it gives him a moment to think over the correct response to say out loud as the chirp makes its way across the room to him. by the time someone actually says to his face "that's like you and hockey, right hollander? everything is hockey, except for hockey, which is about—?" he's able to flatly say "winning" like it was the first thought that came into his head, instead of the truth.

everything is hockey, except hockey, which is about having sex with ilya rozanov. well then what's having sex with ilya about then? that's also about hockey, weren't you paying attention?