#1x04 rose

[another-hollanov-blog]

Laughing at how unwillingly he went up those stairs with Rose. My man was going through all 5 stages of grief at the thought of having to top rose while his top kissed women at the club.

[thesedarkcafedays]

Heated Rivalry 1x04 Rose

Couch evolution

(+ bonus, if you want pain and misery)

[canadian-wolf-bird]

RACHEL FEE CYANO x HEATED RIVALRY Stay // Up In Smoke // Stairway to Heaven // Alone Together // You Look Pretty // Wow Genetic 💙🤍 One of my favourite artists launched an etsy shop in honour of Hollanov's anniversary. There's still a couple of original cyanotype prints available for purchase!

[dadvans]

Rose

the worst part about heated rivalry episode 1x04 "Rose" is that there is a near perfect t.A.t.u cue to All The Things She Said and i paused the episode and said to my wife, "this could only be made better by one more thing," and pulled up spotify and muted the episode and pushed the episode back by fifteen seconds, and she essentially said "you're putting on Malchik Gay aren't you" and i screamed like a witch and melted, because that was EXACTLY what i was doing

other stray episode takeaways:

i like to imagine episode budget was like "you can have one nice house interior to shoot in or two child actors" so we got almost all of hayden's family laughing off-screen

AGAIN: harrison browne!!!!!

i also like to imagine this show has multiple sexy montages to classic Feist music bc Feist herself was like "show the men fucking each other to me at zero cost, waive the royalties" -- that is the universe i choose to live in

speaking of: that bang on the glass into hard hotel fuck snippet during the My Moon My Man montage was perfect

i have a lot of thots and feelings about how i feel positively about this show being shot and reconfigured through the male gaze that i can't voice right now but the sex scenes really send a zing up my spine

my wife's family in montreal for years has been like "can you handle cold winters???" when i spent all my winter holidays in wisconsin/michigan with chain smokers as a kid and then lived in sapporo so i could never hate you, rose landry, you get me spiritually

All The Things She Said is more iconic but please do urself a service and rewatch that shit with Malchik Gay, ur welcome

[angel-mistakes]

Rose Landry is Ilya’s picture of Dorian Gray

[patchesofuniverse]

OK so there's a little detail in Episode 4 that bothered me at first, but I've decided that I'm actually a fan of it, and it might fix something that bothered me in the book! (This post contains a few minor details from the Heated Rivaly book before the read-more; actual spoilers are at the end under a cut. I have not read The Long Game yet, so please do not spoil that for me! Thanks!)

We learn in this episode that Ilya has a roommate on the road: Connors (the recipient of "TELL PEOPLE!") This bugged me because I think Ilya and Shane are at the point in their careers where they wouldn't have to share a hotel room anymore. The exact timeline has changed over time in the NHL, so I'm not 100% sure, admittedly. And we know that Shane and Hayden are besties, so maybe they just keep sticking together even though they could request their own rooms. (In the book, Hayden is a rookie the same year as Shane and Ilya. Unclear if the show keeps Hayden in that draft class.) Certainly, even if they were required to have roommates, Shane or Ilya would have some say in the pairing, and it wouldn't be random.

This implies that Ilya has someone on his team who he likes enough to choose that person as a roommate. The number of hotel nights per road game varies, but I feel confident in saying that they would be roommates for 40-50 nights at least, assuming 41 road games per season. Or maybe they aren't roommates, but one of them is hanging out in the others' room! So even though we just met Connors this episode, he is a friend of some kind to Ilya.

One thing I didn't like in the book is that it presents Ilya as unattached to his Boston teammates. He's a sociable guy who's pretty good at reading people! And I don't think he would have been made captain if he wasn't on good terms with his team. That goes beyond the locker room - hockey teams do constantly have team dinners and outings and stuff because they need to trust each other so they can work together. Plus he's a partier, so he should have met other folks in that circuit in Boston. To me, there is just no way that Ilya wouldn't have options to watch the remaining playoff games with, even if they're just acquaintances. (C.f. Hayden hosting Montreal players to watch the Cup final, when Boston wins it.) So in-universe, I like the implication that show!Ilya is friendly with his teammates.

On a meta-level, I appreciate the Ilya and Connors friendship for three reasons:

1) Jacob Tierney and the other showrunners chose a prominent queer athlete to play Ilya's friend. Harrison Browne was the first openly trans professional hockey player. Browne has talked about how affirmed he felt having been selected to embody a professional hockey player (in a men's league) on screen. And he's also mentioned how much of the culture is actually the same despite the gendered leagues (same article as above). I'm so happy for Browne regardless of all the other story stuff mentioned in this post.

Spoilers ahoy!

2) Although Connors is almost certainly a cis character, Browne's presence is a subtle example and reminder (for the audience) of where Ilya is heading. There are currently no openly gay NHL players; there is one AHL player who is under contract with an NHL team, but hasn't played an NHL game yet. Assuming the show follows the book, then we know that Scott is the first to come out. Scott is therefore the more direct parallel to Browne: Scott will come out as gay in a homophobic league/mens' sport culture, while Browne came out in a womens' league that was actively debating the place of trans people in sports. They could have had Browne play an Admirals character, or even just one of Kip's queer friend group. Instead I think his presence is a reminder (for us, the audience) of the courage needed to be first, even though Scott doesn't show up in this episode.

3) Finally, returning to the idea that book!Ilya is unattached to his Boston teammates. I can see why Rachel Reid might have made that choice - it makes it easier for book!Ilya to choose a shitty team just to be closer to Shane. However, I think it decreases the likelihood that Boston would keep him around. Ilya is a partier who is honest about liking trouble, so if he's also not friendly with his teammates? I think he'd either pick a new team when his entry-level contract expired (after 3 years) or you'd have a Tyler Seguin parallel where Boston trades him away. I don't think they'd have made him captain. Show!Ilya gives a rousing locker room speech and we do see him celebrating the cup win with his team, more evidence of his connection with them.

If show!Ilya is more attached to his teammates, then we have another emotional hurdle he has to overcome to be with Shane. And I suspect that's an easier obstacle to parse for a non-hockey audience! There's an unspoken expectation in the NHL that players are supposed to be loyal to the franchise that drafted them, particularly if they're chosen high in the first round. A first overall pick often means a team is "rebuilding", and the newly drafted player will be the centerpiece for a new era, maybe a new "dynasty". This expectation is not mentioned in the HR book until Shane calls out his Mom for thinking about it near the end. That's after Shane and Ilya have formulated their plan to have Ilya change teams, so it's not an emotional obstacle that book!Ilya ever engages with.

I hope the show will engage with that emotional side of things, at least a little bit. I think leaving friends, or having a strong team connection he's leaving behind, will add some angst to Ilya's decision. He's not just leaving a winning team and other people's expectations, there are some actual emotional stakes at play.

(Now, do star players leave the NHL teams that drafted them? Yeah, but usually because they want a chance at a(nother) Cup. A former number one draft pick choosing to sign with an obviously bad team, especially without consulting with that manageent about whether they're going to build a good team around him? Bullshit. Also if Ilya's not negotiating with Boston in the last year of his contract, they might trade him rather than risk him walking away and leaving them with nothing. I'm going to stop now before this turns into an entirely different post...)

[another-hollanov-blog]

[another-hollanov-blog]