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.