shane hollander living through his sexuality discovery journey had to be like living out a real live soap opera. so many twists and turns. just like some truly wild shit happens and he's thinking, yeah sure that's probably like a thing that straight guys experience right?
first you have baby shane, like up to the age of 14/15 who truly does NOT understand what all the other guys on the team/in class are going on about. boobs? porn? girls? I mean, sure girls are fine, I guess, but he writes off his lack of interest in them because he's so focused on hockey. like, this kid lives and breathes hockey. he's constantly at practice, exercising/conditioning, reviewing tape, watching games, memorizing hockey stats, doing just enough schoolwork to keep his grades up so he can PLAY hockey. obviously he has no time for a girlfriend or interest in girls. and yeah, puberty happened and he gets boners and jerks off and stuff but he's not like thinking about anything in particular. if hockey stuff happens to cross his mind, that's just because he's so passionate and dedicated and focused on the game. the guys who play the game are just incidental and probably everyone thinks about dudes sometimes when they jerk off right?
then like in his mid- to late-teen years, shane's awkward, introverted, polite, mama's boy, neurodivergent energy in combination with his good looks makes him irrestible to all the girls tired of dealing with asshole jocks. he feels uncomfortable hurting someone's feelings, so if a girl approaches him with interest, shane is sort of like, sure you're a nice person, this will work out well for me. and then it NEVER DOES. like this poor man keeps getting blow jobs from these girls and his head (heh) is clearly not in the game. like, it's fine, it's ok, but what are all his teammates going on about? so shane is like, well, I can take or leave sex because i'm SO FOCUSED on hockey, that's all. (sidenote: all these girls going after shane because he's such a sweet, respectful alternative to asshole jocks are NOT HAPPY that, like the asshole jocks but somehow in a completely different way, shane is not jazzed about going down and is not the most generous lover lol). And shane is not super impresed by the other teen boys he knows because they're not his equal on the ice and he's not too worried about getting to know them well enough to decide how much he likes their personalities. so no real crushes that would make him confront anything about himself.
THEN shane meets this guy when he's 17 years old and this guy is like SO INTRIGUING to him. he's a Russian hockey phenom - maybe shane has watched some game tape of him, maybe watching him in open practice at World Juniors is the first time he's watched him play. either way, he's fascinated. this guy is GOOD. like, REALLY GOOD. like the only other person he's met so far who can keep up with shane. and on top of that, he's a completely different and interesting kind of player - he's charismatic and flashy and brash and he chirps like nobody's business. this russian kid also happens to be nice to look at. but that's not a weird thing for shane to think! he's just admiring this guy's dedication to his craft - clearly his body is a finely-tuned, hockey-playing machine, so the fact that shane notices his muscles (and his eyes and his smile and his hair) is ONLY because he's interested in his nutrition and conditioning plan. it's a professional interest. totally. he respects a guy who can keep up with him and appreciates the challenge. studying ilya, even physically, means shane can figure out how best to beat him on the ice. plenty of people probably think like that.
then that CCM post-commercial shower happens and shane is like, why did my dick have to decide today of all days is the day to act like it belongs to a teen boy? EXCEPT ilya doesn't make a gross joke or a homophobic comment or a threat. he PROPOSITIONS shane which completely blindsides this poor, sweet boy who, up to this point, everyone including himself thought was hockey-sexual. now he's CURIOUS. and it's apparently okay to be curious with ilya because he's curious too. and it's not just about how well the other one plays hockey. maybe there's more to it than that. so shane goes through with the hookup, and okay yes that experience was completely different than any other sexual experience shane's had before because he actually liked it and started to see what all this fuss is about. but in his head, shane is still thinking, i'll have time to find the right girl and settle down and maybe have a couple of kids after i retire. right now, my life is hockey, and maybe this is something some guys do with each other when they're too busy to focus on getting married and having kids. no reason to think i'm not straight, everyone sucks a dick from time to time.
BUT IT KEEPS HAPPENING. what does this mean??? it means shane is still too busy with hockey and one day he'll retire and start coaching or something and then he'll find a woman that he thinks is nice and sexy and interesting and that he feels a spark with. ilya is just like stupidly hot, which is something men AND women notice and appreciate, so what if shane is just one more in that crowd. so maybe shane isn't 100% straight, but he thinks he remembers hearing somewhere - maybe in a class? maybe in a youtube rabbithole? maybe from an ex? - that sexuality is probably on a spectrum anyway so statistically probably not that many people are 100% straight and shane doesn't need to worry about it because he will find the right girl. one day. he totally will.
BUT THEN the sex is consistently mind-blowing and he starts catching these things that might be feelings? he's not sure because he's never had romantic feelings for someone before. maybe it's just some pavlovian association with the mind-melting orgasms. logic and science dictate some experiment should be conducted to test this theory out. so yeah, maybe he hooks up with 1 or 2 guys who aren't ilya. and maybe those hookups are nowhere near as good as sex with ilya, but they ARE better than any sex he's had with a woman. is he gay? NAH... probably just teenage fumbling and it would be better now that he's an adult with more experience. boy is in some hardcore denial. and yeah, sex with ilya is the best, and he also enjoys ilya's jokes and feels comforted by his presence and misses him when he isn't around and OHMYGOD he caught feelings. and this is bad because shane could lose hockey and ilya is definitely not on the same page about boring shane hollander so shane needs to get out while he still can.
so when rose landry falls into shane's lap, this is the perfect opportunity for him to test his hypothesis that he CAN be sexually attracted to and fall in love with a woman. it just has to be the right woman! and if rose landry isn't the right woman then who is? so shane dedicates himself to heterosexuality. he's going to be the best boyfriend. and rose is so nice and funny and interesting that he does genuinely LIKE her and like spending time with her. if she isn't quite as snarky or challenging or interesting as a certain someone, then that's not something to think about. he's also going to do all the sexual stuff and do it really well because shane is hypercompetent. except... he can't find the same level of passion and dedication for sex with rose that he can for hockey or sex with... you know, what doesn't matter. he's definitely not thinking about someone else to get and stay aroused... he's definitely not confused, intimidated, and slightly horrified by certain lady parts that just don't feel right and being the peg also just doesn't feel right... so when rose basically tells shane he's gay after nearly 10 years of a secret, on-again off-again, psychosexual affair with A MAN, shane can honestly say that this is the FIRST time he has considered this possibility. prior to that dinner, he had considered that he was straight but busy (hockey-sexual), straight but not finding the "right" women, maybe not 100% straight but would be okay with a woman one day, to probably into dudes but also probably still into women (or at least a hypothetical woman somewhere!).
now shane has to face the fact that not only is he gay, he is also irrevocably in love with and dickmatized by ilya fucking rozanov, the most annoying man he's ever had the misfortune to meet. they've been circling each other for nearly 10 years and shane hasn't been able to get him out of his head yet and maybe he doesn't want that problem to ever go away. maybe ilya is the most sexually appealing person shane has ever seen in his life. and maybe every time shane is within reach of ilya he feels like he's going to die if he doesn't get that dick in him one way or another. but also ilya is the one person who GETS IT - who gets what it's like to be exceptional and experience a ton of pressure from a young age. he gets the physical toll of the sport and the dedication it requires and they speak the same language of hockey. and maybe shane laughs and feels more relaxed when he's with ilya. but that doesn't mean that... shit, that totally means he's gay. and not just that he's gay, that he's gay for ilya rozanov. what the fuck.
and the russian bastard in question? has the AUDACITY to LAUGH when shane comes out to him! as if shane hasn't just been on this exhausting journey of self-discovery for his whole entire life because he was too busy and then too in denial to examine what 10 years of clandestine hookups with another man meant. so maybe all this time and energy he spent trying to fit in, trying to blend in, reassuring himself that he was "normal" was a total waste. so yeah, his life looks a lot different now than he thought it would when he was 15, but that's because it's so much better than he could have imagined.
TLDR; just thinking about the absolutely wild journey shane must have gone on to think that coming out as gay at the age of 25 to his 8-year situationship WHO IS A MAN was a good and necessary thing lol
