i am terminally A Sucker for characters who have a towering and generally earned ego about their own ability and absolutely no self-worth about themselves as a person at all. intoxicating combo.
I think what makes Skip divorce compelling for me is the contrast between perceptions and reality compared to Hollanov.
Skip look perfect from the outside, but their relationship was rushed and had cracks before the big dramatic coming out moment, and those cracks are gonna deepen in the media spotlight rather than heal.
Hollanov look scandalous and messy from the outside, but they’re actually aligned and stable. They’ve put each other through hell and come out the other side of it knowing what they want and what they’ll do to keep each other, and are more able to weather relationship difficulties as a result.
Writing out my thoughts about this got long, so more detail below the cut:
Like, from the outside Skip is the perfect, palatable marketable queer romance. They’re both attractive, white Americans. They had the angst of the closet due to hockey culture and Scott’s tragic backstory, and then the big dramatic kiss that was very much a cinematic moment. Now it’s the wedding and then happily ever after, roll credits. What a feel good romance movie.
But Scott and Kip were sort of broken up/having difficulties before the Big Damn Kiss happened, and their relationship itself was a whirlwind romance that had already started to show the cracks. Kip hated being a secret and was uncomfortable with Scott throwing around huge sums of money, while Scott was genuinely and rightfully terrified of the reaction to him coming out but also terrified of losing Kip. Scott had years worth of fear to work through, and Kip was very much just an average guy, working a minimum wage job and planning to go to grad school, and now he’s dating a multimillionaire who buys him ludicrously expensive gifts (despite how short a time they’ve been together) but is terrified of spending time together in public. It’s intense and overwhelming, but it’s not stable.
And then they rekindled their romance in a very dramatic, very public way, when emotions are running high, and became the face of queer hockey in the process. The world is watching and they demand a happy ending to the story. That’s a lot of pressure for a renewed relationship that had an unstable foundation.
Like, I could see a world where Scott realises, a few weeks or months in, coming down from the high of finally unloading the crushing secret of his sexuality and getting back together with Kip, that his continuing career now hinges on rainbow capitalism. As long as he can sell the happily ever after, the Admirals can keep selling his pride jerseys, the League sticks to silent or private disapproval, and Scott stays employed. But if Skip crash and burn, if they can’t sell the happily ever after and Scott’s back to his pre-Kip inconsistent performance because he’s suffering through a very public break up, will hockey keep him? Is he, Scott Hunter alone, worth enough to the Admirals and the League to keep him when he’s messy and human and not the perfect romance movie package? And if he and Kip break up, after so publicly being the face of queer hockey, what does that mean for every other queer hockey player that came out in their wake? Will the narrative turn on them all? But it’s fine because he loves Kip and he’s so so happy (is he though? Or is he terrified and stressed and struggling and the one person he should be able to talk to about it is instead his performance partner who wanted to leave him while he was trapped in the closet by fear)
Meanwhile, Kip went from being an average guy to semi-famous. He’s the new boyfriend of the Admirals Captain who finally brought New York a Stanley Cup. The Big Damn Kiss would be plastered all over sports news. He’s been thrust into queer activism in sports, and he’s attending fancy galas in a suit worth more than anything he’s ever owned, and has conservative old men coming up to him to say insultingly ignorant things they think are complimentary. For a little while at least, I think he’d have to deal with paparazzi and random hockey fans stopping him to talk (or hurl abuse at him). People are reading into his facial expressions, word choices, body language, picking at him and his relationship, and so he has to perform a perfect relationship rather than live it. It’s a lot, and he wasn’t really prepared for it. But he’s so so happy (is he though? Or is he caught in the whirlwind romance again and now his whole life feels out of his control?)
Meanwhile, the Rozanov-Hollander rivalry is legendary. Everyone has been convinced these two genuinely hate each other for a decade. Then Rozanov went to a shitty team (what? Why? Did Roz get one of his legions of hookups pregnant and had to move to her? Did he piss off his coach/teammate by fucking their girl? Is it drugs???), they announced a charity and a friendship, but still aren’t really seen together much outside of it, and a lot of people think it’s PR because obviously they hate each other. Everyone knows that.
And then they are outed against their will, and the internet wants to rip them apart. Their relationship and their careers are immediately under fire, people looking for more scandals to exploit. The people don’t want a happy romance movie ending, they want drama! Shane in particular is branded a traitor who would throw games for sex, because racism and homophobia fuse into an unholy ball of hatred that’s lobbed directly at his face.
They are not marketable in the same way Skip are. They didn’t have the movie perfect coming out. Shane is Asian in a white-dominated, conservative sport (meaning he needs to be the perfect token Asian guy that doesn’t make waves or the league will get rid of him, and oh look, here’s a scandalous relationship with another MLH captain they can use as an excuse) and awkward in a lot of public social situations outside of media trained interviews, plus the golden boy reputation means there are definitely people who wanna see him fall off the pedestal they put him on; Ilya is an ESL immigrant with a fuckboy reputation from a country where homophobia is enshrined in law. They have both publicly dated other people, and Ilya’s playboy reputation is treated as evidence that he can’t be in a real relationship. Biphobia makes him a target for both straight and gay haters.
But Hollanov have been together in some fashion for over a decade. They have gone through situationship hell, jealousy, a messy painful breakup, ghosting, a sexuality crisis, a long-term long-distance relationship, injuries and mental health issues, and a near-death experience. They have tried to stay away from each other, and been drawn back to each other every time. They have hurt each other and still come back together with love and forgiveness. They have seen each other at their worst, and when it came down to the wire, they would both throw everything away to keep the other one.
They are solid in a way that Skip can’t compare with because they have had the time to grow their relationship before the media storm. They did their messy, unstable period in private and figured (some) of their shit out by the time they were outed. But none of that is visible from the outside, so the world just sees Russian fuckboy asshole+media trained into blandness hockey robot, and think there’s nothing there beyond the sex, and they happened to get caught doing it. They’re waiting for the inevitable collapse of the relationship and more sordid drama to consume… and then it’s the fairy tale of Skip that shatters, while Hollanov are happily married and playing on the same team.
#myskip aren’t bad people, and neither of them is at fault for the divorce. They just didn’t have a chance to iron out their issues before they were put in the relationship crucible on live-stream. In the fluffy world of feel-good romance stories, their love is enough to hold them together. But in the real world, sometimes it isn’t, and that’s okay.
(And yes, you could apply this same logic to Hollanov, and say that their love isn’t enough to overcome a world that wants them to hate each other, and that ultimately rips them apart, but then I would cry, so I’m not going to. Those bitches are clinging to each other come hell or high water)
Skip is like the only ship I like that I will even entertain a permanent divorce arc for.
A) because you can not convince me Scott came out for himself in the Game Changer book timeline.
B) They met in January of 2017, and Scott came out in June. They'd only been together for six months at that point. Scott just came out to someone other than kip maybe a week before he came out publicly.
C) Scott had never dated ANYONE at all before he dated Kip.
D) I'm fully convinced Kip never fully understood the potential repercussions of Scott coming out, including the fact that Scott would be even more famous than he already was.
E) (wow) Even before Scott and Kip got married, they were already in the eyes of the public after the kiss. And their relationship would be under a lot of public scrutiny. Imagine what people would say if they broke up just a month later. hell imagine what people would say about them getting divorced.
F) In the book, Kip is Sooo against Scott spending money on him that their lifestyles would eventually clash. which ACTUALLY MAKES THOSE POSTS WHERE AFTER THE DIVORCE KIP ACTUALLY USES HIS ALIMONY TO GO ON VACATIONS AND WHATEVER SO JUICY
As a birthday present to myself this year, I decided to finish some of my wip pods - first up, you and me alone by defcontwo @softbrah .
I recorded this fic for 2024 Voiceteam, and got as far as exporting it for posting twice in the last couple years (before finding something else to tweak in the editing and sending it back to the labyrinthine prison wip folder). Despite this, every time I worked on it I laughed and smiled because I love this fic so freaking much. Congrats on your escape, little buddy <3
(*it is marked as chapters 1 of 2 because there was a surprise second chapter in 2025. who knows maybe there will be a surprise second pod chapter eventually <3)
@beaniebaneenie I am in love with your tags. YES to all of it!!!
#been saying this for years#jack absolutely did not get the help he desperately needed#and bitty is a terrible partner specifically because of how much he worships jack- he will never correct him#bitty will never meaningfully challenge the narrative jack wants to tell#jack is an addict who is addicted to drinking and hockey but also to being the best#he cannot deal with the idea that he is not the best hockey player in any room he's in#watching tape through the entire night and refusing to sleep during a cup run is not healthy and is actually harmful to the rest of the team#as someone who cannot stand to lose? hockey is the worst place for jack#because even the best teams will lose 30+ games every season#half the teams miss the playoffs every year#and everything he does will be picked apart by every announcer#that's never going to change#and just like an addict whose drug of choice is substances‚ jack is forever chasing the high of what it used to feel like that first time#that first time the announcers loved him and he could do no wrong‚ when he didn't have any baggage and he was 'perfect'#but he was never perfect because those announcers couldn't see how badly he was hurting himself to do it#by insisting that he's somehow 'cured' while changing none of the conditions that brought about his initial downfall?#jack is setting himself up for an even bigger crash#like icarus with another pair of wax wings#and jack cannot cope with being in the shadows#so his wings will burn once more#it's just a matter of time#and just as before#its likely that he will blame someone else for it because he cannot accept that his own actions may have caused his failure#until jack deals with his own fear of failure and allows himself to be human#until he accepts that he is fallible (and until he has friends and partners who allow him to face the consequences of fallibility)#this story will always be a tragedy#even more so because most of the characters don't realize what genre they're in#as long as his friends continue to make excuses for him and his partner continues to literally idolize him#jack will have no motivation to face his demons and confront the truth: that he is not fine and has not been fine in a long time#check please is a tragedy not a romance or a fairy tale
it drives me bonkers to think about jack in the years since the end of the narrative. gnawing on it like a dog with a toy.
did jack, who never really stopped drinking or partying, ever have any actual reckoning with his addiction? could he tell anyone - his parents, his partner - about the true nature of his substance abuse and suicidal ideology?
being called a hockey nepo baby literally nearly killed him. how did he handle the inevitable accusations of now being a hockey DEI hire?
there’s no way that the NHL abandons the jack and kent narrative. they’re just not getting away from each other. do he and kent ever speak to each other again? can he ever be honest about what happened between them? does he ever reconcile with the other kids from his junior team which are also probably in the league or the minors? did he ever have positive relationships with them to begin with?
how does he deal with the fact that you cannot win the stanley cup every year? how does he deal with the fact that his career will inevitably come to an end?
does jack ever get any real friends? it always seemed like most of the the SMH team either actively disliked or simply tolerated jack. for those he was good friends with, he was never transparent or vulnerable with them. if those were supposed to be his best friends during the best years of his life, where on earth does he go from here?
are he and bitty happy?
because the narrative wants us to believe that jack would thrive after the happily ever after panels closed, but everything the narrative ever showed us is that jack is setting himself up for absolute and unequivocal disaster.
logging onto tumblr like heyyy i'm thinking about the same character i've spent the past few weeks thinking about. no change here. just wanted to let yall know
HEY WOMEN'S HOCKEY FANS!!! do you want to watch even more women's hockey this summer??? (and other hockey but this is a woho blog lol)
check out the AMERIGOL LATAM CUP!! this tournament includes teams from Latin America, the Carribean, and some other non-traditional hockey markets and will take place from August 1st-9th at the Florida Panthers IceDen in Coral Springs, FL and the Palm Beach Skate Zone in Wellington, FL.
you can also watch it for free on the AmerigolHockeyTV channel on sportsengineplay.com!
there will be women's hockey, men's hockey, u16 u14 and u12 (the hocklets!!), a sled hockey showcase (!!), and a skills competition
Link to watch: https://sportsengineplay.com/AmerigolHockeyTV/Amerigol-Latam-Cup-2026?viewType=list
Link to schedule: https://www.amerigolhockey.com/news/2026-amerigol-latam-cup-tournament-schedule
hannahbellemare Nr41 retires at 41!
Our Captain has come home!
After 24 years of playing pro Hockey he has officially hung up his skates.
Growing up in the ghetto in Paris, beaten and abused by your father, empty bank accounts, skates 3 sizes too small and a wooden hockey stick that you had to hide from the police so they didn’t arrest you for carrying a “weapon.” Sneaking on to 1h metro rides to and from every practice cause you couldn’t pay for the ticket. All you had was the overwhelming Love and determination of your mother, your amazing siblings, and a dream.
NHL player ✔️
World Cup player ✔️
National team Captain ✔️
Olympian ✔️
Papa ✔️
You achieved everything you dreamt of and more!
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2087
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