I know no two hockey players have ever openly dated one another so this is asking for conjecture. But what would the real risk to Shane and Ilya be here in terms of the league itself? Putting aside Russia and internalized homophobia and other players’ responses to them, I’ve seen fanfic writers conjure up everything from just an HR form they have to sign to a formal investigation about tampering with games. Would love your thoughts!
i have also read a lot of Very Dramatic Reactions from the league in fic and it does take me out of the story a bit. obviously, as you said, it's just speculation since we don't have any currently out gay players in the nhl (we do have luke prokop but he currently plays in the ahl!). but i think it's highly unlikely that the league or the commissioner would go full Movie Villain on them. do i think the league would be happy about two superstar players revealing they are in a secret relationship? probably not, but i think this would be less because they're concerned about game tampering (that's soooo silly to me sorry) and more because the leadership of the nhl (owners, GMs and front office guys, probably many coaches, etc.) tend to be extremely conservative and extremely protective of their sport's white, straight, hyper-masculine culture. nhl men in positions of power would be pissed because the vast majority of them are rich, strongly right-leaning guys with homophobic attitudes and having gay superstars makes your violent tough guy sport look like it's full of [insert homophobic or misogynistic slur of your choice].
i assume that the mlh has a union like the nhlpa that is charged with advocating for players and protecting their rights. i think that if the commissioner or the league tried anything funny (which idk what that would even look like, maybe messing with contracts or pressuring them behind the scenes or trying to force them to sign legally binding paperwork they didn't want to sign?) the mlhpa would get involved on their behalf. depending on when in their careers they were outed, i think that shane and ilya would have a lot of visibility AND a lot of contract protections (no move/no trade clauses, etc.) and therefore a fair amount of leverage. i think that rather than a dramatic assault from the league, it would be much more likely that they would get sort of... frozen out or passed over for things. men's hockey culture is soooo intensely about conformity and not making waves and keeping your head down and putting the logo on the front before the name on the back (ie subjugating the needs/desires/personality of the individual to the needs and priorities of the group or team). so i think you would get a lot more of like... people acting like an openly gay player was a distraction, because of the media attention and the insistence on standing out as an individual, and then not wanting to sign/extend players or put them in positions of influence or have them represent their country on an international stage or whatever.
i could also see them giving shane and/or ilya less grace or less of a leash for things they used to get away with... like maybe shane's intensity and social awkwardness used to be treated as evidence that he was just an exceptional player, way more locked in than anybody else, really an admirable quality.... but after he comes out, that combo of intensity and awkwardness gets recast as like, he can't make a room gel, guys don't like playing under him because he's too rigid, etc. or ilya's gleeful chirping and showboating and penalty-taking used to be read as evidence of his competitive spirit and his fire to win, and people loved his shit-stirring personality... but after he's outed those same behaviors get recast as childish, irresponsible, unprofessional, etc., and all of a sudden you have people saying that he shouldn't have the C anymore or he's too interested in media attention and not serious enough about his play or whatever.
i think the jason robertson situation this year is a good example of how an exceptionally skilled player can get recast as a 'problem kid' almost exclusively because he doesn't fit the mold that Hockey Men in Charge have of what a hockey player should look/act like. robertson, who is filipino-american, is playing insanely well this year and still got passed over for the olympic team in favor of less skilled players, and every commentator is like "HOW did this happen????" and the people in charge of team USA are just like hmmmmmmm we can't quite put our finger on it but we don't think that guy's an olympian. we just don't think he matches our image of what a team USA hockey guy looks like. can't quite figure out why but we actually kinda hate that guy and will never put him on a team USA roster no matter how good he is. i think you can easily imagine something like that happening to a player who came out as gay... and the message would be like oh it's for sure not that he's gay! it's just that for reasons we can't/won't articulate we think that he's just not the kind of guy we want on our team.
or idk i could imagine something similar happening in contract negotiations, where all of a sudden the offer coming from the team is insultingly low or the terms are really bad, and then it's shane's fault he didn't want to extend! he's clearly not a team player, he didn't care enough about the metros to take a hometown discount, etc etc., and the team could then justify trading him before his contract's up or letting him walk in free agency without it seeming like it was just about him being gay. so yeah all that plus the myriad ways that guys or coaching staff could make shane and ilya feel uncomfortable or unwelcome in the room if they wanted to... all of the above seems likelier to me than a situation where they are being actively and publicly persecuted by the league.
