I think not enough people understand that Shane was willing to give up hockey for Ilya from the beginning. He is dead set convinced that being outed, especially with his League assigned enemy, will ruin any chance he has to play hockey professionally. And yet he still is the one that prompts their relationship becoming serious at every turn. He asks Ilya if he feels it too at the Tampa All Stars. He asks Ilya to come to the cottage. He asks Ilya to be honest about his feelings. He makes a ten year plan to get to a point to be together openly. He proposes. Shane has been choosing Ilya over hockey since the minute he said 1410 and he has reinforced that decision every time. And hockey is *everything* to Shane. It is his reason to live. He genuinely has never wanted anything more in his life- except for Ilya. Ilya asking “would you choose me over hockey” is the equivalent of asking a partner “would you die for me”. It’s intense and heavy and alarming. The fact that he hesitated is because he knows how scary the choice is to say aloud and he still does. Shane saying “fuck you” to Crowell is literally the most punk thing he could have done.
