(please suspend your disbelief for the following post)
Shane hits free agency. There's no news about where he's going, if a team signed him up, or anything. Absolute silence from him and his team. People are either starting to panic thinking he's going to retire (at 30???? Shane Hollander????? Retiring?????), or that no team wants to sign him. It's chaos.
Then Shane's official account retweets a mini-documentary from a small local news station of Ottawa.
It starts with the reporter explaining that by going through their archives, they found out an old documentary from twenty years ago that they made with a class of local elementary students, and they thought it would be fun and nice to do a before/after, what did they become follow-up.
At first it alternates between footage of the first documentary, showing the students, etc, and then they switch to a bunch of adults talking in groups and eating at a buffet. You can easily recognize some of the grown-up children. Some of them not at all.
Then they go for the final question they asked the kids twenty years ago: what do you want to be when you'll be older? They show first the kid's answer, and then the adult they later becomes explains what they do now.
There were, of course, a lot of doctors (turns out med school really wasn't for me!), actresses (my parents tried to put me in a theater group and it was a disaster. never again.), various "a mom" and "a dad" (most of them did become parents), firefighters (I didn't make it but I did end up in a fire once), also a very strong "I'll be Prime Minister of Canada" (I work in politic now. I'll make it one day, just you wait!).
And then we cut to ten years old Shane Hollander. Very serious, very blunt, very sure of himself. "I'll be a hockey player."
There's a small laugh from behind the camera. " A hockey player?"
"Yeah. I'll be the best hockey player in the world and I'll get a lot of Cups and beat a lot of records."
"Would you be playing for Ottawa then?" the reporter asks.
Shane grimaces a bit. "I mean I love them but they're bad." Then he seems to think on it. "But since I'll be the best I can go play for them and make them win Cups too." He grins, now, earnest.
Hard cut to now thirty years old Shane Hollander, leaning back against a table, in jeans and an Ottawa Centaurs hoodie. The 81 on the sleeves reveals it's a Rozanov edition.
"Well I recently got married. We just came back from our honeymoon, actually." Then, he grins. "I'm a professional hockey player."
The reporter — the same one from twenty years ago — laughs. "What about the rest of your prediction?"
"Well, I'm one of the best current active players right now. My husband would say he's the best, stats would probably be mixed about it—" There's more laughter from behind the camera. "And until the end of the current season, I was a Montreal Voyageur."
"Until the end of the season?"
"Well," Shane says with a casual shrug, "our values didn't align anymore. And there was another place I wanted to be. I said it the first time, right? I need to bring some Cups to Ottawa."
Now, it's a gasp from the reporter. "So...?"
"As of two days ago, I'm officially an Ottawa Centaurs." Shane is smiling, and it's simple and fond and so terribly happy. "I'm very excited to play for my hometown, with this team. And, also, with my husband. I think it'll be very fun."
"And to get us some Cups, of course."
Shane grins, again. It's a bit smug, maybe, and there's a sparkle in his eyes. "Of course. I did promise it, didn't I? I respect my promises."
... Anyway that's how Shane officially announces he signed with Ottawa.
stormborns
turnnoffyourmind
germansingergirl
tangentwithtanner
titsay
