If it was easy for them to be in contact, Rookie Ilya could’ve just emailed someone at the league and asked them for Shane’s email address. Then emailed Shane and gotten his phone number that way.
Ilya is ESL but he’s definitely not stupid. If getting Shane’s contact information through the league or through their respective teams was possible, that would’ve been much less risky than giving Shane his room number at All Stars while Shane is sitting next to Scott Hunter. Whom Ilya has no reason to believe isn’t both straight and homophobic.
I have to assume that teenage Ilya did try to get contact information for Shane via a less risky route. And he was probably told to fuck off. There’s no good reason for you to email the other rookie that the league and your teams have decided is your sworn enemy. Bad for the rivalry marketing if it turns out the rivals have each other’s email addresses and maybe phone numbers. And are amiably sending each other memes.
And teenage Ilya couldn’t keep pushing for Shane’s email address when a bunch of adults were telling him he didn’t need it. Risky that they’d think it was weird of him to keep wanting to talk to Shane. Start looking into Ilya (who is hiding in plain sight, and absolutely can’t afford to get sent back to Russia in disgrace).
They were both barely 18 when they got drafted, and 19 when they started playing for the league. They had a lot of talent and potential, but very little actual power at that point in their fledgling careers. Especially compared to the suits. Those men held teenage Shane and Ilya’s careers in the palms of their hands. And the suits had invested a lot of money in the rivalry narrative.
When they were 29 year old established superstars, Roger Crowell, Montreal’s coach, and the league still tried to push them around. Even though they had a good support system. Their agent knew about their relationship, Shane’s parents knew, Ilya was separated from his abusive family in Russia and already had Canadian permanent residency.
As 19 year old rookies, it would have been much easier for Crowell to push them around. Their agents and Shane’s parents didn’t know about them, Ilya’s agent would’ve been a Russian handpicked by Grigori, he would’ve been on a work visa, they didn’t have the financial cushion of ten years in the league, etc, etc.
Crowell walked into that meeting with 29 year old Shane and Ilya full of confidence that he could bully them into going along with a lie. His confidence was misplaced. But if that meeting had been with 19 year old Shane and Ilya, he would have had a whole lot more leverage.
