Research and information blog for Heated Rivalry fanartists, fanfic writers, and other fanwork creators! If you can't find what you're looking for in our posts, shoot us an ask.
Hello! As stated in our description, this blog’s purpose is to make research easier and information more accessible for Heated Rivalry fanartists, fanfic writers, and other fanwork creators, particularly where the main cities in the Game Changers universe are concerned!
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Post Links [constantly updating]
Montréal - quick facts, québécois french
New York - geography
Boston - quick facts
Ottawa - quick facts
Toronto - quick facts
Russia - diminutives
Dementia masterpost
Mods
mod érable - questions about montréal, québec, canadian french, and hockey - @thegentlemanstar
mod molasses - questions about boston/new england, and queer theory - @diwata-nation
mod beigli - questions about ottawa, hockey, US and canadian immigration, being a first-gen immigrant, and a bit about medicine and sports injuries - @mudwizardbignaturals
mod ada - questions about russia, soviet/post soviet culture, russian language, immigration - @tteukbyeol
mod caniss - questions about ottawa, toronto, hockey - @cannissmajor
mod yubnub - questions about new york, being biracial, queerness, and france french - @yubnubforhire
Hi! I'm writing a fic where Ilya's irresponsible attitude towards driving and parking drives Shane absolutely crazy. This happens mostly in Boston and starts with the Irina Foundation press conference. Ilya has booked the venue and it makes no sense logistics-wise: impossible to get to and no parking nearby. I did some googling and apparently Back Bay area would be good location for Ilya to choose. Am i right?
Hi! Okay I’m somewhat torn on this.
My gut instinct is to lead you towards the North End, or Beacon Hill. They’re like parking black holes. They’re old and charming, which translates to: none of these buildings have parking garages. I just looked it up and there are a total of 2 garages in Beacon Hill. It’s all one way streets and permit only parking. And if there’s snow? Forget it. You Do Not Park in Beacon Hill. I Cannot Stress This Enough. The North End has SLIGHTLY more parking, but there are at least 3x more people.
Back Bay is definitely a good option — there are plenty of event spaces, it’s quintessential Boston, it’s very busy, very tourist-y, and statistically, it’s where most parking tickets come from. That said, there are a LOT of garages around, and a big barrier for the average person is the exorbitant pricing, which wouldn’t necessarily be an issue for Shane or Ilya.
Important through all of this is that in Boston, Pedestrians own the streets. Jaywalking is a way of life, and the drivers and pedestrians alike know it. I’m writing this from the passenger seat of a car, and in the time it took me to write this paragraph alone, three people have crossed the street in front of me. No crosswalks, no walk lights, no stop signs, just pure vibes. This is ESPECIALLY true in the more commercial areas. On a nice day, The Newb, the North End, and Beacon Hill are positively teeming.
Canonically, the Irina Foundation is founded on November 22, 2018, which…. Was thanksgiving? So that’s. Well. That’s certainly a choice that was made. I don’t entirely know what to do with that information, actually. If you go for a similar-but-not-exact-date, that definitely IS close enough to the holidays for Newbury to be hectic (any other year it might be Black Friday), but not too cold as to deter people, so things would certainly be VERY busy.
TL;DR: Back Bay is a good choice, especially for that time of year! Other options are Beacon Hill or the North End. Rachel Reid did not look at the USAmerican holiday calendar when writing TLG.
Does anyone have any idea what David Hollander’s pre-McGill hockey career might have been like? I think it would have been the OHA not the OHL at the time he might have been drafted to juniors, but I’m not sure if a player not trying to play professionally would have been in major juniors back then - McGill is not a powerhouse in terms of producing NHL players (certainly not past like the 1960s) so I’m not sure how comparable his experience vs. Shane’s would have been in youth hockey
most likely if david hollander went to university, he likely played locally and didn't participate at the juniors level at all! his experience would be very different compared to shane's past the age of 16, which is the age juniors starts. juniors teams generally play at a higher level than university hockey teams do, so david would likely have remained playing for his high school team or for a local team (ie the nepean raiders in ottawa), and then trying out for mcgill from high school.
Here again with a very specific Montreal ask -- is there, perhaps, a long hill in Montreal that one would walk up over the course of an afternoon to then look out over an immense and beautiful view? I would also accept anywhere else in Quebec that would satisfy. :D
(the lengths i will go for a metaphor!)
Montréal has the PERFECT hill for this actually—the Mont Royal itself after which the island is named !
you can go up it a faster way or on the long and meandering main path. it is absolutely gorgeous in autumn when all the leaves are colourful. in winter you can go sledding down part of it (which has been a tradition for a very long time—radio-canada has footage of people sledding from the 1960s !) and every Sunday in summer at the base of the hill there’s always a very large group of people playing assorted drums. there’s a man-made lake near the top called lac aux castors (beaver lake) where you can rent canoes in summer. there is a cross on top of the hill that is lit up at night and is widely considered an iconic symbol of the city (colonial legacy—a French “explorer”, Chomedey de Maisonneuve, erected a cross there in 1643). there are a couple of lookouts from which you can see all of Montréal. it is a very popular destination for tourists and locals alike, especially in the warmer months—in fact, a relatively common after-prom activity for high school students is to go up to the highest lookout (Kondiaronk) and watch the sun rise. and there are plenty more activities one can do there that are not occurring to me right now ! (i know you said metaphor but i’m elaborating in case anyone else wants to include our lovely hill in their creations.)
bonjour hi, mod érable here ! most people know that Canada is a bilingual country, but the specifics of that aren't widely known. as a francophone, i am here to help demystify the particulars of Canadian French, in particular French in Québec, since that's a) where Shane lives and plays hockey and b) where i'm from.
i am not a linguist, so most of this is approximated and in layman's terms, but i have done some research to try and make this as accurate and as comprehensive as possible. if anything is unclear or you'd like some additional specifications, send us an ask or go talk to me on my main ! also, warning, this is a very long post. i am very passionate :shrug:
first off : Canadian French is very different from France French, and Québécois French is not the only Canadian French ! long story short, Canada was ceded by France to Britain in 1763, and for a lot of the time since then, for various reasons, there wasn’t a lot of contact between French-Canadians and France, so French in Canada has been developing mostly separately from French in France for over 260 years. i, as a French-Canadian, can understand the vast majority of French people perfectly well, but some French people struggle to understand Canadian accents and dialects and will sometimes even assume we don’t speak French fluently.
on top of that, while Québec is generally known as « the French province » (and is the only province where French is the only official language), there are French-Canadians in every province and territory of Canada ! Québécois French has the most speakers, but francophones from the Maritimes to Ontario to Yukon have their own unique accents and dialects, notably Acadien French, mostly spoken in the Maritimes, the dialect with the second-most speakers. Acadien French is very cool but i am not « qualified » to speak on it so i direct you to these two articles and encourage you to find Acadiens online.
finally, French is one of the languages with the largest gaps between spoken and written versions, and this is exacerbated in all forms of Canadian French, as for most of our history French-Canadians were by and large undereducated and illiterate. so, the French that you find in newspapers or in online translators is very likely inaccurate to the way we actually speak.
hokay, that’s a lot of context. attachez vos tuques avec de la broche (hold on tight), we’re going into the characteristics of Québécois French !
the accent
like most accents worldwide, there are regional variants of Québécois French (for example, people from Saguenay-Lac-Saint-Jean are stereotyped as being hard to understand), older folk are more likely to speak with a more pronounced accent, and folks on television/the radio will speak with a more standardized accent than folks on the street (though still noticeably distinct from French in France). from my own observations + conducting some research, here are the most obvious characteristics of Québécois accents (as opposed to more « standard » France French) :
Québécois differentiate vowels more than French people do; in Québec, patte and pâte are pronounced differently, as well as mettre and maître, whereas most French people will pronounce them the same way.
we tend to drop the end of a lot of words, if they end in consonants or consonant clusters : capitaliste becomes capitalisse, correct becomes correc’, rythme becomes ryt’, livre becomes liv’, arbre becomes arb’, ministre becomes minisse, texte becomes tex’, and so on.
on the other hand, some people, especially older folks, do pronounce the final t in a lot of words where it isn’t necessary. tout becomes toute and fait becomes faite even in the masculine, bout becomes boute, lit becomes lite. we sometimes add ts even in words where there aren’t any : boue becomes bouette, laid becomes laitte and ici becomes icitte.
the t and d sounds at the beginning of words are softer in QC French. the second person singular pronoun tu is pronounced more like tsu and the word for lunch, dîner, is pronounced dzîner.
this part is going to make more sense if you already speak French, but the liaison is sometimes illogical in Québécois : the most common example is that instead of donne m’en we say donne-moi z’en, but this happens with a lot of verbs and not always with z.
especially in Montréal, -en and -an sounds will become -in, so dans becomes dins and référendum becomes référindum.
sometimes, words ending in -oi (« wa » sound) will be pronounced as -oé, most notably toi as toé and moi as moé.
Québec seems to have a personal vendetta against the letter l. it disappears in a lot of short words : the pronouns il, lui and elle are often pronounced y, i and a, dans la maison (in the house) becomes dans maison, dans les autos (in the cars) becomes din’z autos, sur la table (on the table) becomes su’a table, je la vois (i see her) becomes j’a vois. important to note that in cases where the word disappears entirely, we still usually know the word is there, it’s just not pronounced.
very occasionally, words beginning in consonants will begin in y instead. the only two examples i can think of are ta gueule (shut up) being ta yeule and, mostly for older people, diable (devil) becoming yauble. if a French-Canadian is telling someone to shut up over text they will be spelling it ta yeule.
the final as in a lot of words are pronounced more like English uh, notably Canada and most names ending in a.
old people especially will not pronounce their rs like standard French; in the West, they roll their rs like Spanish, and in the East it’s pronounced like this.
for a lot of these, the extent to which this is reflected in one’s writing varies greatly from person to person; we usually know the correct spelling of the word, but some people choose to purposely spell things as we pronounce them over text to make their writing less formal (for example, in conversations with friends).
additionally, the French Québécois accent in English is different from how French people speak English. when Québécois borrow English words into French, we tend to pronounce them as English words with a slight accent, whereas French people will pronounce them with French phonology. Québécois tend to have an easier time with English r. francophones generally will struggle with English th, but French people tend to pronounce it z and Québécois tend to pronounce it d (the becoming ze vs becoming de).
abbreviations
words are often shortened in Québécois French. ce, cet and cette (gendered variants of « that ») can become c’te and get -là added to the end, for example ce livre (that book) and cette voiture (that car) becoming c’te livre-là and c’te voiture-là. je (first person singular pronoun) gets turned into j’ in France too, but in Québec for je suis (i am) it becomes chuis or even chus and for je sais (i know) it becomes ché if it’s at the beginning of a sentence. the most extreme form is je vais (i will, i am going) sometimes becoming m’a. petit (small) becomes ti. plus (no more) becomes pus, BUT plus (more) does not. avec (with) becomes a’ec. the oft-mocked qu’est-ce que c’est (what is that) becomes kessé. and so on. some less clear ones are et (and) becoming pis, which is a shortened form of puis (then), and alors (so) becoming faque, which comes from ça fait que (that means)nb.
Québécismes
a « québécisme » is a word particular to Québécois French. you may have heard of the Académie française, those anal weirdos who keep trying to keep the French language Pure™ by inventing fucked-up French versions of English words that have been adopted into the language. well, Québec has one of those too ! (although slightly less dickish and slightly more successful, i believe.) the Office québécois de la langue française (OQLF) is the organisation supervising the use and protection of the French language in Québec. among their more useful creations are the Banque de dépannage linguistique (BDL), essentially an FAQ of questions about French, and the Grand Dictionnaire terminologique (GDT), a massive dictionary of French such as it is used in Québec, both of which contain explanations of various québécismes, among other things. both databases are in French and are accessible through the Vitrine linguistique website.
formal québécismes
some québécismes are considered standard enough to be used in more formal speech ; you’ll see them in the press or hear politicians use them. many of these are neologisms invented by the OQLF to describe modern realities, such as courriel (e-mail), which comes from courrier (mail) and électronique (electronic). (while courriel is the official translation in France, in day-to-day speech people tend to use mail.) other more formal québécismes usually refer to realities in Québec but not in France, for example related to flora, fauna or climate. examples include, but are not limited to :
pourriel (junk e-mails, from courriel + poubelle (trash))
clavardage (online chatting, from clavier (keyboard) + bavarder (to chat))
mot-clic (hashtag, in the social media sense)
bleuet (blueberry)
blé d’Inde (corn, directly translates to Indian wheat, from the early misconception that the Americas were India)
suisse (chipmunk)
bienvenue (you’re welcome)
érablière (maple farm)
cabane à sucre (sugar shack; a maple farm with attached other attractions, like restaurants, shops, petting farms, or orchards, to ry and make some additional revenue off visits)
la saison des sucres (lit. sugar season; refers to the period of time where érablières are producing maple syrup, also the perios where people go most to the cabane à sucre)
the words for meals are different; in France, breakfast—lunch—dinner is petit-déjeuner—déjeuner—dîner whereas in Québec it’s déjeuner—dîner—souper
informal québécismes
a lot of the words characterising Québécois French are rather informal and would largely be used in day-to-day speech. many of these come from archaic French words that are no longer widely used in France but survive in Québec, words originating from regional dialects in France that are used Québec-wide, or malformations of English words. (there’s a section later on for English words adopted wholesale into Québécois French.) examples include :
à cause que (because)
astheure (now)
itou (as well)
tiguidou (okay, all good)
frette (very cold)
char (car, from the old French word for carriage)
piastre/piasse (same as using « buck » for dollar or « quid » for pound)
chum/blonde (boyfriend/girlfriend, respectively)
dépanneur (cornerstore)
débarbouillette (washcloth)
maringouin (mosquito)
bécosse (outhouse, from English backhouse)
bine (bean, from English. well. bean)
pinotte (peanut. you get it)
capoter (to freak out; J.J. uses this in the show !)
niaiser (to fool around; to tease)
envoye [ewey] (come on; frequently shouted at the television during hockey matches)
ayoye (ouch)
pas grand-chose (not a lot)
pantoute (not at all)
de quoi (something, as in « do you want something to drink » = est-ce que tu veux de quoi boire)
expressions
Québec has lots of unique expressions ! many of them come from our specific realities, like our history or our winters. or hockey
attache ta tuque avec de la broche (lit. tie on your hat with wire; equivalent to « hold on tight » or « brace yourself »)
avoir son voyage (lit. have your trip, your journey; means to be sick of something)
être effronté, avoir du front tout le tour de sa tête (the second one lit. to have forehead all around your head, « effronté » comes from the word for forehead; means to be cheeky, impudent)
se calmer le pompon (lit. to calm your pom pom; means to calm down)
cogner des clous (lit. hit nails; means to be falling asleep)
niaiser avec la puck (lit. to fool around with the puck, means to fool around. example at the end of this ad with some Canadiens players)
avoir la couenne dure (to have thick [pig’s] skin)
ça prend pas la tête à Papineau (lit. it doesn’t take Papineau’s head—Louis-Joseph Papineau was a French-Canadian nationalist in the 19th century who ended up with a price put on his head by the Canadian government. means it doesn’t take a lot of smarts, of skill)
pas d’chicane dans ma cabane (lit. no bickering in my cabin. used to get people to stop arguing)
other characteristics
there’s a few other things we do that i can’t fit neatly into the other categories so i’m putting them pêle-mêle here :
in standard French, there are two ways to make a sentence into a closed question : inverse the order of the verb and the pronoun or add est-ce que. the first is more formal than the second. here’s an example question : il nous voit (he sees us) can be turned into nous voit-il ? or est-ce qu’il nous voit ? (both : does he see us ?) in Québec, there’s a third way : add the second person singular pronoun tu after the verb (even if the sentence is not in second person singular). our above sentence would become il nous voit-tu ?
we tend to put -autres (lit. others) as a suffix on plural pronouns. nous is often nous-autres, eux is often eux-autres, etc.
the particle ben is ever-present. our constant companion. it can be an expression of annoyance : ben, non (well, no), or of hesitation : ben, je sais pas (well, i don’t know). it can mean well : j’ai ben mangé (i ate well). it can mean very : y’est ben beau (he’s very pretty). it can lessen an expression : je t’aime ben (i like you—as opposed to je t’aime, « i love you »). it can mean a lot : j’ai ben des livres à lire (i have a lot of books to read). it can be doubled and used in the negative : j’ai pas ben-ben d’amis (i don’t have a lot of friends). i am not kidding when i say i probably use ben in every second sentence <3
là là is also frequently heard though less multi-use. it can be used as an expression of annoyance : là là, arrête (roughly « okay now, stop. ») or an expression of authority : là là, on m’écoute (alright, listen up). if it’s ben là, it's an expression of annoyance roughly equivalent to « come on ».
we tend to say chez nous (at our place) rather than chez moi (at my place) no matter what, even when we live alone.
Québec is not a country. Québécois do not act like this. our provincial capital (Québec City) is in an administrative region called Capitale-Nationale, our provincial assembly is called l’Assemblée nationale, we have a national anthem (Gens du pays), etc. as such, Québécois will often refer to Québec as a country, a nation or a state in casual speech.
english words
due to our close proximity with our anglophone neighbours, both English Canada and the United States, and the prevalence of USAmerican culture and media, a lot of English words get adopted into our French. a word is considered an anglicism when there exists a French equivalent with the same meaning—for example, using « foreman » instead of contremaître—and we are discouraged from using them. if there exists no French equivalent, then it’s a normal loanword, like bacon. worth noting the French also do this, and we have many anglicisms in common, but we don’t always anglicise the same things the French do; for example, for « to park in the parking lot », in France, people will generally say se stationner dans le parking, whereas in Québec we would generally say se parker dans le stationnement. there are also some words that look like anglicisms but aren’t—the French word for foosball is baby-foot. the song « Québécois de souche » by (nationally-beloved band) Les cowboys fringants is a good example of a lot of common Québécois anglicisms.
swear words
the moment you’ve been waiting for : SWEAR WORDS. Québec has unique swear words that developed as a result of our deeply Catholic past + very very rapid widespread secularisation in the 1960s. i’m pretty sure all of these are considered sacrilegious in some way. oh well. (we also swear quite a bit; don’t be afraid to use these in your writing.)
we call them sacres because they come from sacred words, i.e. French church words. the longer a sacre is (in syllables) the more severe. here is a non-comprehensive list :
crisse (from Christ)
osti/esti (from the host)
câlisse (from chalice)
tabarnak (from tabernacle; the most famous)
sacrament (from sacrament; less common)
calvaire (from calvary; less common)
ciboire (from ciborium; less common)
baptême (from baptism; less common)
simonaque (from simony; less common)
maususse (from English Moses; less common)
the first four are by far the most common; the others you will hear very occasionally or mostly from old people. a few of them can be turned into verbs : décrisser and décâlisser both mean « to get the hell out », and décâlisser can also mean « to wreck ». some of them can also be used as nouns : p’tit crisse is essentially « little shit » and calling someone mon tabarnak is a great way to start a fight. the verb être en (to be in) in front of some of them turns them into synonyms for angry : il est en tabarnak means « he’s fucking furious ». you can emphasize the ones that start with s sounds by adding saint- before them. most importantly, these stack with de : if someone says esti, they’re annoyed. if they say esti de crisse, they’re very annoyed. if they say câlisse d’esti de crisse de tabarnak, they’re furious. if they say esti de câlisse de tabarnak de maususse de saint-sacrement, run. a fun website you can use to generate strings of québ swear words is https://lorembarnak.com. this scene from iconic and unfortunately copaganda Ontario-Québec coproduction film Bon cop, bad cop also does a pretty good overview.
we also have some unique insults : niaiseux, épais, colon, tarla, moron, and sans-dessein all mean stupid or idiot, in approximate increasing order of severity. moumoune means coward. têteux means bootlicker. frais chié—« freshly shitted »—means arrogant, and also péter plus haut que son trou de cul, which literally means « farting higher than your arsehole ».
finally, an important point : the word for dyke in French is gouine. the word for fag in Québec specifically is fif. tbh i don’t know what they say in France for that one.
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alright alright that is all ! apologies for the very long post. i promise i tried to cut things. please remember that Québécois French is a minority dialect belonging to a people who had to fight hard to keep it & be nice. if you have any further questions, want to check in on a translation, or just want to talk about QC French, send me an ask here or on my main blog @thegentlemanstar :] - mod érable
Hello!!! hoho! My question is about Montreal architecture. Basically -- are there any (and if yes, what are the) kind of cutesy/idealized features of apartments in Montreal? For instance, when I was visiting Montreal a few years ago, I saw a lot of balconies and a *lot* of buildings where there were exterior stairs up to the entrance that were much more exposed than I would have predicted. They also went higher up than I'd have expected. Are either of those actually like, known as desirable (or undesirable) features of buildings in Montreal? Or are there other things that feel like "Montreal" architecture specifically?
yes !! you’ve hit the nail on the head with the exterior stairs !
these are widely considered emblematic of Montréal architecturally, to the point where in many places you can’t actually remove them because they’re considered to have significant historical or architectural value. you primarily see them around Rosemont, Plateau and Mile End. of course, they’re a death trap in winter, but come on. they’re sooo cool.
these are pretty much only on -plex style housing, i can’t think of anything for apartment blocks. in the Old Port there’s a pretty particular mix of English and French traditional architecture which gets mentioned often. that’s all i can think of for now ! - mod érable
Hey guys, if Yuna Hollander wanted to dote on her future favorite son, what sort of Russian bakeries/restaurants/spots would she be able to find in Ottawa? I am thinking of writing a fanfic set in the rest of the 2 weeks at the cottage :)
Hi! You're actually in luck bc I'm a frequent flier at these sort of places bc I'm Hungarian*!
I am SO sorry about the late response university was whipping my ass.
Worth noting to start that The Cottage is not going to be in Ottawa, it'll probably be in Quebec outside of Gatineau or along the rivers, but they'll be at a small town at best and not in Ottawa itself, however they can always drive to Ottawa :p.
So for a lot of Eastern European diaspora, we actually frequently can't find places specific to our culture in our area, Russians in particular aren't frequent immigrants nowadays so finding a Russian place is much harder than you'd think. However, a lot of Eastern European store owners will cater to Eastern Europe as a whole, not just their specific culture, so you'll find Russian imported goods in a store run by a Romanian, as an example. Without further ado, here's some places Yuna and later Ilya might be able to find!
Lakomka International Deli - Run by Ukrainians, they sell deli stuff and a lot of Central/Eastern European foods, really good barrel cabbage (Hungarian thing). They're our main source for stuff. I can confirm they do sell Russian stuff as well (I can read enough Cyrillic to differentiate "Сделано в России" and "зроблено в Україні" lol). It's right by the Ikea so Yuna might have just seen it in passing. I'm pretty sure the owner speaks Russian as well as Ukrainian.
Pierogis - Another Ukrainian-owned business. They sell pierogis and are literally right next door to my beloved Lakomka. Haven't been but I will probably go soon and answer back. Ukrainian pierogis aren't quite Russian pierogis but it's still a lot closer to home than others. Worth noting Ukrainian diaspora/immigrants tend to understand that Russian immigrants/diaspora aren't in Russia for a reason, so Ilya won't be getting shit for being there. They sell foods for orthodox holidays so Ilya might be ordering from them.
European Delicatessen - No website, another deli. I don't remember being there (though I'm pretty sure we have), they sell a lot of imported goods and snacks. If I recall, they're German-leaning.
Reddit mentions Avant-Garde Bar, which sells Eastern European booze.
Chimnies - Chimnies sells kürtőskalács, or chimney cakes. They're a Hungarian-minority dessert that a lot of Eastern Europe is obsessed with. Would be kind of like a Southwestern USAmerican eating at a Mexican restaurant.
-Mod Beigli (szeretlek!)
*my family isn't from Hungary, we're a Hungarian minority from what is now Romania (Transylvania specifically), but I speak Hungarian (sziasztok!) and am ethnically Hungarian, not Romanian
do the hand shake things that they do in the Juniors in the show carry on into the NHL or not
how do draft picks work? like how is decided which teams get draft picks?
1) That handshake thing is what is done at the end of elimination games, even in juniors. The handshake line existed because it was the last game of a championship. A normal, regular-season game won't have handshake lines, but when a team is eliminated in the playoffs they will!
2) Draft picks are really complicated, so buckle up. The 16 teams who did not make the playoffs of any given year are put into a lottery (or teams that were given a draft pick via trade), and the team with the worst record gets the highest chance of a #1 pick. Since 2021, this lottery only determines the top 3 picks, and after that it is determined by regular season standings and playoff results. Before 2021, the lottery determined picks 1-16. However, a team cannot get more than 10 slot higher than their previous pick, so if the Canucks got #16 one year, they can only get at most #6 the next year, even if they are, say, drawn for pick #2 (this happened to the Utah Mammoth this year). The lottery is to prevent what is called "tanking", which is basically a race to the bottom.
There are 7 rounds total, and each team gets one pick per round (draft pick trades notwithstanding). Teams with bad league standings will have more desirable draft picks, which is why they often trade in draft picks. It's really confusing, sorry. This article might help.
hey party people! quick organizational thing! so we don't get caught up in the main tags anymore, we're going to change all our organizational tags (ie ottawa, russia) to "hri __" (HRI meaning heated rivalry info), sorry for any confusion and clogging up of tags
Ilya Rozanov's Immigration Status and Passport in Canada
I'm doing Canada, it's more critical for when he lives in Canada in canon, and I'm more familiar with the system.
If Ilya were to play for a Canadian team, he would be most likely obtaining an Employer-specific work permit at first through his team, but he would quickly be able to apply for permanent residency through express entry, and the team would likely sponsor his residency, since he resides in Canada and spends his time not working also in Canada (the cottage).
When he is outed, he would become a person in need of protection, which according to canada.ca is someone who is proven to be unable to return to their home country because they will face danger of torture, risk to their life, or a risk of cruel and unusual treatment or punishment. Furthermore, he may also be a "protected person", or a conventional refugee, as he fears he will not be able to return to his country of origin because of his social group (sexual orientation is specifically listed as an example). Ilya would most definitely fall under one of these two categories, especially with how public the issue is.
When he is married, Shane would be able to sponsor his citizenship and permanent residency (send as many asks as you'd like over that, I'm intimately familiar w spousal sponsorship), but his status as a protected person or person in need of protection will give him extra help, specifically, travel documents.
In Canada, you must be a Canadian citizen to obtain a Canadian passport, otherwise you will have to use your passport from your country of origin. However, in certain cases, such as with refugees, people cannot get passports from their country of origin, in which case a travel document is issued. The terms of travel documents vary between individuals, such as how long they are valid or what you can do with them, but the one thing they all have in common is that they cannot be used to return to your country of origin.
Permanent residents in Canada get plenty of rights, they can hold most federal jobs, are covered by provincial healthcare and services, pay taxes, and some places are considering giving them the right to vote in municipal or even provincial elections (I don't have a link on this but my dad has been a PR for many years). Since Ilya is only a citizen of a country that will persecute him if he returns, he would most likely choose to pursue Canadian citizenship for the safety net, but he does not need to.
Another thing to note is that an embassy is technically the soil of the country it represents, if I were to enter the Hungarian embassy in Ottawa, I would be on Hungarian soil and subject to Hungarian laws, so I'm not going to want to walk in with my pride flag. It wouldn't really be reasonable for Ilya to be arrested if he went to the Russian embassy, but there's nothing saying he couldn't, so he would likely not take that risk.
I am not an immigration lawyer, nor am I your immigration lawyer, just the son of a refugee and an immigrant. Do not take me as advice for anything other than writing.
hi lovely people! I am trying to write a fic where a different team tries to poach ilya from the centaurs. what would that look like from a logistical perspective? would it pretty much come down to trade negotiations that would happen with ottawa management? would a no-trade clause make it impossible for any discussions like this to happen, or are there ways to get around that? and how much say, if any, would ilya have in the whole thing? thank you so much!!! i love that this blog exists <3
some things i put together while i was on my break for rehearsal the other day:
ilya would likely bring a NTC (no trade clause) to the table, which would reduce how much he's paid, but ensure he won't be traded until his contract is up
"tampering", which is what it's called when teams try to negotiate with players before their contracts are complete, is usually done between a player+their agent and the team trying to sign them, not with their current team
this is generally not allowed and teams can get fined for it
feel free to shoot another ask if you're still confused, but what you're describing is called tampering and is not allowed
Forgot to say in the original post, Ilya would be more likely to have a no-move clause (NMC) than an NTC, which would mean he can't be sent to the AHL equivalent or lower as well as not being traded. This would make Ilya be paid even less, but the IRL Ottawa Senators' AHL team, the Belleville Senators, is on the coast of Lake Ontario and even further West than Ottawa, Ilya would NOT want to be moved either.
hi there! in my future au i have brewing, shane and ilya have a daughter, but im unsure whether to make her last name “hollander-rozanov” or “hollander-rozanova.” i have no idea the culture surrounding hyphenated russian-western last names.
also, the rest of her family (shane, ilya, and her brother) would be “hollander-rozanov”s and ig i dont want to… seperate her almost? its also the reason in my au that i made ilya’s name “hollander-rozanov” instead of “rozanov-hollander.”
also, thank you so much for this blog literally you guys are so cool <3
Because Russian is a very gendered language, all Russian last names ending in -ov have to be feminized, even in the case of hyphenated names.
It is the most common Russian last-name ending. In countries that were forcibly russified by the Soviet government (for example, Kazakhstan, where I am from), surnames of other origins were legally altered to 'sound more Russian' by adding the -ov ending.
For example, my maiden name, which I will obviously not disclose here, also ends in -ov. Therefore, according to Russian grammatical rules, all women in my family have their surnames ending in -ova, while all men in my family have their surnames ending in -ov.
We don't think of this difference as 'separation', because these are plain and simple grammatical rules. You have to remember that English is a lot more gender-neutral as a language than Russian is. Outside of having grammatical gender, most word classes (such as verbs and adjectives) in Russian receive gendered declensions. According to these rules, surnames have to be declined as well.
I don't think it's impossible to leave the last name undeclined in isolated cases, such as hyphenated names. Some couples might wish to forgo grammatical rules, but if that's what you're going for in your story, you might need to come up with a believable justification. Ilya, who has Russian as his L1, would likely be disturbed by the grammatical discrepancy. It sounds incorrect.
Hopefully I've answered your question, but you can always leave a note or send another ask if my response was insufficient
am i the only one who cares about this? almost certainly. but let's distract ourselves from the horrors and/or inculcate some class rage. short version: all these boys are on the wall when the revolution comes. furthermore, with the magic of yuna hollander, compound interest, and ultra high net worth investment strategy access,
the hollander-rozanovs will conservatively have 1.9 billion dollars by age 65.
i would argue that we do not think about this enough.
anyway lifestyle voyeurism is fun; i mocked up the earnings trajectory for an ordinary player, a top ~20% player, and our boys just to properly inform my own worldbuilding. enjoy, and don't ask me why i decided to spend my vyvanse on this today
the major constraint on player paychecks is the salary cap--hollanov's rookie year, the most an nhl team could pay all its players total was $60M. in 2017 the cap was $75M. it is unusual for a superstar to take up more than 11-12% of cap space, because it means the team will really struggle to pay for a standout team around them. plenty of superstars give up cash (take 'team-friendly' deals) because they'd rather win than have an extra $3M a year.
the other constraint on player paychecks is taxes; at the upper level, they can be upwards of 50% because of marginal tax rates & the fact that they pay in their home state/province AND wherever they physically play a game. 'jock tax!' it's a thing, and it's harder to sidestep those taxes than in other insanely paid jobs.
please note:
anyone consistently on a line with a hollander or a rozanov, particularly someone with an A, is almost by definition a top 20 forward in the league. your marleaux, your boiziaux, and yes, your pikes don't make alllll that much less than your superstars, though their careers might be slightly shorter and they won't make much endorsement money
smart players recognize that the money could stop at the end of any contract if they get hurt, and risk-manage appropriately. teams do pay out 100% of the remainder of a contract regardless of injury status.
here are the dollars very briefly. this is where players end up at 65, based on their gross and net lifetime earnings, with retirements at 30, 35, and 40, respectively:
PVAR=the value of their investment portfolio at nhl retirement
Post-NHL gig numbers include the compounding value of those salaries after living expenses--S&I includes ongoing endorsement $
i ran out of obsessive and irrational interest in this before factoring in inflation which does in fact matter quite a bit but you get the idea (fuck)
here's how that looks year over year
AAV=average annual value of a contract (an $80M 8 year contract is $10M AAV, no matter how much money's paid each year)
an ordinary good boy -- reliable depth player -- bottom 6 forward or bottom/middle pair D, 500+ games, 7ish years in the NHL
if he is a reasonable man he should act like he makes $100k/yr until he's 25 and $300k/yr after that. a lot of players are not reasonable and walk away with very little! the important thing to note for our purposes is that 25- to 35-year-old bottom sixers buying mclarens and investing in their brother's nightclubs are making really, really stupid decisions because they are FUCKING their compound interest. he probably does buy a lovely house at 25 and a lake house at 28.
age 18: draft year--he probably goes back to develop in major juniors or the ncaa for several years
age 20ish: entry level contract ($850k-975k per year). typical ELCs are 3 years (they cut off at age 25). often during this time he'll play in the AHL for a couple months, where he gets paid $82k per year.
age 23ish: if he's comfortably on an NHL roster by the end of his ELC, he will probably sign a bridge deal, which is a 2-3 year term for $2M AAV.
age 26: his next and last contract might be 3-4 years, 5 if he's lucky, for ~$3M AAV.
age 65+: the nhl has a pension: this guy, who's probably played ~500 games, will get $175k (inflation-adjusted) annually from age 65 on. fuck i forgot to include this in my model
he retires from the nhl around age 28-30; he might go play in europe for $100-400k annually or go back down to the AHL for the love of the game. his body is wrecked and he almost definitely has CTE, but heyo.
a very good boy -- not quite all-star -- a long term starting goalie, top pairing D, or top 6 forward, 15+ years in the NHL. wyatt hayes? brandon carlo might be a good fit among current players.
he bought a condo at 24, built a gorgeous, enormous house when he was 28, and renovated a second very nice house on the water when he was 30; he has a substantial real estate portfolio by 35; he spent minimum $500k on his wedding; he can invest in one to two brothers' nightclubs before he retires from hockey if he must.
Age 18: if a high draft pick (these are usually your early/mid-first-rounders) might go straight to the NHL. Might play a couple years in juniors/NCAA before signing, might play maybe a season total in the AHL if performance isn’t consistent. Very good players under certain conditions can earn up to $850k bonuses on their ELCs, doubling their early salaries. Because of compound interest this is extremely valuable money!
Age 21 or 22: signs longer bridge, 4-6 years, $4-5M AAV
Age 25 to 28: signs prime contract, 5-7 years, $5-6M AAV. The prime contract tends to end between age 32-34, and might come with trade protection.
Age 32-33: signs twilight contract (idk if they call it this lmao), 3ish years, $3M AAV.
More likely to have a post-NHL hockey career--possibly Europe, then broadcasting, coaching, scouting, front office type gig.
Our very good boy has made so much money that the pension is what he spends on lawn care. This is 'fuck you and your mother and both horses you rode in on' money by age 40, and 'my descendants will not experience a legal consequence for three generations' money by the time most people retire. sadly one usually cannot buy unpulverized grey matter or a full replacement pelvis, which is what these men actually need.
our generational talents: your hollanders, your rozanovs. i basically did this math on 2 draisaitls* with 1.5 crosby endorsements; it's all very handwavy.
in short, the idea that ilya had to sell lambos to move to ottawa is laughably stupid. these men have more money than god. ilya rozanov could build a 100-foot godzilla robot and use lambos to teach it to juggle. if we take it at face value, shane stressing that "ottawa can't afford him" implies that his price tag for his relationship with ilya is ~$3M a year, the loss of which by the end of a five year contract in ottawa would be under five percent of shane's net worth. ughghghhhghghghghghghghghghghghghg
Age 19: ELC, bonuses, never touching the AHL. (I don't know why Rachel kept Shane & Ilya in juniors for the year after the draft. If these guys are Crosby/McDavid/Celebrini, they're top line centers right away--juniors has nothing to teach them and their teams need them badly.)
Age 22: Ilya signs a 5 year deal, Shane signs a 7 year deal. Could have been longer if they wanted, but a shorter contract means they can renegotiate under a higher salary cap sooner. My guess is $7.8M AAV each, which would have been 12% of the 2013 $65M cap. Superstar contracts are structured as 'signing bonuses' + league minimum salary to guarantee payment, so every October Shane and Ilya and Shane got $4M after taxes dropped in their checking accounts, then ~$100k a month thru April.
Age 26/28: I'd bet Ottawa paid thru the nose and gave Ilya $12 (15+% of cap, a little less than what Draisaitl got for his prime contract) for however long he wanted, not knowing Shane would be coming. That means Shane would have to take closer to $9 in 2020 to not totally fuck them out of cup chances.
Projecting forward, their NHL careers probably end around 2030; their all-in depends on the salary cap when they negotiate, how team-friendly their deals are, and how sharply their performance declines, but they'll gross $150-200M each from hockey.
Assuming Yuna manages Shane as well as Crosby has been managed, and Ilya gets the Yuna treament for the last half of his career, hollanov is likely grossing an additional $150M between them by the time they leave the nhl, and then conservatively $5M annually in new contracts and royalties for the next 25 years. this could be more like $10M for a while if somebody takes a fancy job.
Haha. Hahahahaha. At this scale wealth functions differently; there's access to private markets, management fee waiving, and tax counseling. All sorts of bullshit. The swing on the math depends on a lot of assumptions i won't get into, but let's ballpark they retire from the NHL with around $500M gross, $250M net, and $375M investible from their money compounding during their careers. if the world as we know it still exists and they live to 80, they'll be sitting on more than four and a half billion dollars. in conclusion,
if they don't get the FUCK OUTTA HERE WITH THEIR 30-KID HOCKEY CAMP MENTAL HEALTH FUNDRAISING FOUNDATION-------
tough break about the cte and the car crash bodies, tho.
*why draisaitl? there was no 2009-2011 draft player close to generational caliber; crosby was 2005, mcdavid 2014. the salary cap era started in 2005 at 39M and changed the shape of the math, for one, so inflating crosby’s early contracts wouldn’t be particularly precise; sid is also a useless comp because he famously has pegged his salary at 8.7M for his entire career because he’s an insane superstitious freak about his number. moreover, sid signed a 5 year bridge after his ELC, and then a 12 year prime (lol) in 2013, which is no longer allowed—the max contract length became 8 yrs in 2012. sid’s likely $160M 22-year career is probably a low estimate for our boys (inflation also gets fucky here. does trump exist in the game changers universe?). mcdavid wants to win a cup badly and, instead of signing an 8 year monster contract with edmonton, signed a 2 year very team friendly, basically saying “get me a team that can win or i’m leaving”; his next contract is an enormous question mark. drat locked in w edmonton for the next 8 years, so he’s at least a known quantity thru age 37. anyway it doesn’t really matter and i’m way overthinking this! basically if they start in 2010 and they stay healthy they’re probably putting up 200M each.
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fun fact: baseball has no salary cap. while floor is comparable to the nhl ($750k), the ceiling these days for AAV is $70M/yr : ) i am of the opinion that this actually matters to how the game is played. the agents and GMs of players who are worth a billion in salary over the course of their careers would not, for instance, allow them to risk a puck to the teeth or a blade to the eye, and would tell them to get over themselves and put a fucking face cage/bubble on. fighting would also probably stop, and reffing would look very different. separate rant. sorry. sorry
@whatimages this is your fault
Can you add a quick facts for Toronto? I'm writing about Ilya getting drafted there instead of Ottawa.
Toronto Quick Facts!
The Team:
In the books, Toronto’s hockey team is called the Toronto Guardians, and I believe that in universe, they are a decent team, but that is NOT the case IRL. Maybe Ilya would save them.
The Toronto Maple Leafs haven’t won the Stanley Cup since 1967. They’re awful, but their fans (me) have this blind, unbreakable loyalty to them, so home games are always sold out, and there are flags, banners and merch all around the city.
They play at Scotiabank Arena, which is right downtown near the CN tower.
The Leafs have loyal fans all around the country, not just in Toronto, but most people in Ottawa REALLY hate the leafs. Same with Montreal, so there would be possibly an even bigger rivalry between Shane and Ilya if Ilya played for Toronto.
The City:
It’s HUGE! The GTA (Greater Toronto Area) has a population of 6 million people
Toronto is a 5h 30min drive from Montreal and 6h from Ottawa.
Toronto is comprised of 6 cities, affectionately called The Six (I turned the 6 upside-down it’s a 9 now -Drake) I would say the main cities/parts are Toronto, Scarborough, North York, Mississauga (Sauga), Markam, and Etobicoke
Our most famous landmark is the CN tower, it can be seen basically anywhere in the city and it lights up different colours at night. (What colour is the CN-Tower, it’s red tonight -Drake) It’s at the southern-most end of Toronto right on the lake.
It’s located next to Lake Ontario, which is one of the great lakes an it’s so big it looks like an ocean.
Ilya would probably live in a penthouse right downtown close to the arena.
The winter is not very cold compared to Moscow and Ottawa. This winter we finally got a decent amount of snow and the entire city shut down. The summer is HOT and SMOGGY.
The Culture:
Toronto is the most multi-cultural city in the world
The Toronto accent is kind of a myth. I feel like people in Ilya’s circle wouldn’t be talking like that, so I don’t think it’s really relevant. The more relevant accent/slang can be found in the show Shoresy!
Ilya would ABSOLUTELY be listening to Drake. And The Weekend. He’d probably party with them, too. Sorry :(
Things to do:
In Toronto, we love our sports! Everyone loves the Leafs, our baseball team the Toronto Bluejays and our basketball team the Toronto Raptors. Our PWHL team is called the Toronto Sceptres.
There’s sooooo many bars and restaurants and they’re all open super late into the night.
Church street is called the Gay Village, that’s where all the gay bars and clubs are. That’s also where most pride events take place.
It’s a go-to stop for musicians on tour. Non-Canadian musicians always put Toronto and Vancouver on their list and skip the rest.
In August, there’s a big fair called the CNE, which is accompanied by a very noisy air show.
If you have any info you think I missed, please comment!! But that’s all for Toronto, LMK if you have any other questions about it!
hi lovely people! I am trying to write a fic where a different team tries to poach ilya from the centaurs. what would that look like from a logistical perspective? would it pretty much come down to trade negotiations that would happen with ottawa management? would a no-trade clause make it impossible for any discussions like this to happen, or are there ways to get around that? and how much say, if any, would ilya have in the whole thing? thank you so much!!! i love that this blog exists <3
some things i put together while i was on my break for rehearsal the other day:
ilya would likely bring a NTC (no trade clause) to the table, which would reduce how much he's paid, but ensure he won't be traded until his contract is up
"tampering", which is what it's called when teams try to negotiate with players before their contracts are complete, is usually done between a player+their agent and the team trying to sign them, not with their current team
this is generally not allowed and teams can get fined for it
feel free to shoot another ask if you're still confused, but what you're describing is called tampering and is not allowed
heyy! first of all, this blog has been such a help, thank youuu
i was wondering if there would be any scenario in which shane AND ilya would get injured during a game, like at once?
i don't know enough about hockey to think of anything. thank you!
Hi! Yes, there could definitely be cases where they get injured simultaneously! It would be unlikely, I've only been able to find one case of it happening where both guys don't just skate it off, but it is possible. Generally, though, one player ends up worse-off than the other in a hit.
It's possible they could skate into each other, or one checks the other and gets clipped with his stick as he falls, but the only example I can find is the above one where they both slide into the boards hard. They would most likely be intentionally trying to hit the other, not intending to injure (most players do not intend to injure their opponents, that is called head hunting and is extremely frowned upon), but falls can be unpredictable and you can't always know the angle you're going to hit at. As for the severity, most likely they'd be out for the period (about 20 minutes) to get checked over or the rest of the game if they're really unlucky, it'll be nearly impossible for them to significantly injure themselves. Sometimes, though, people can hit the boards badly, so if you go for a board crash, then you can increase the severity.
Some things can get dicey when skates are involved, but hockey players are taught how to fall and rarely do skates get anywhere critical. There could be a case where there's a goal involved, so they wouldn't have to be intending to check, but most likely only one would be there bc they're not defensemen and don't spend as much time super close to their own goals, so a player is more likely to slam into a d-man than a forward, but a big pileup is possible.
It would be extremely unlikely for them to be hit by two different people in two different events, because there are rules on who can be checked, and players generally don't go for that kind of big penalty unless they have a VERY good motivation. Short of being a hate crime, it would be extremely unlikely for two players on two different teams to be hit on the ice simultaneously, as one of said hits would be a blatant penalty.
You've inspired me to write a post about hockey injuries, expect to see that soon!
Hi! Very niche fanfic research questions about Ottawa: 1) is there any large park that would be a suitable location for a pet/dog costume competition? 2) do people actually recognise hockey players in Canada? What would people's reaction be if they saw players like Hollanov/other centaurs at a large public event such as a.... Pet/dog costume competition?
(ps: thank you for doing such an awesome job for the community!!)
1) There are quite a few! The one I think of immediately is confederation park near parliament! There's a bunch throughout the city, Ottawa has a lot of big parks!
2) Yes, it would be weird, and people would post about it, but if they're notorious for being dog people then it'll just be like haha those two at it again.
They likely wouldn't get swarmed, generally people in Ottawa are used to famous people and wouldn't be annoying about it.
