Cultural Notes and Rewatch Musings
Here are my thoughts and some cultural notes about hockey/Canada you might miss. These are things I have just kind of learned by growing up in Canada and sort of surrounded by hockey even if I don't care 99.9% of the time and haven't followed it in any way for like 20 years.
Russian Hockey Style
They mention that Ilya has great hands and is really fast. This is typical of Russian-style hockey. Russians are typically known for being fast and good puck handling.
This is also because of the difference between the size of ice rinks in international competition vs. North America/NHL. International rinks are larger, so Europeans are typically faster. In contrast, North Americans are also typically known for being more physical and aggressive, basically a lot more checking/body checking.
Ilya's dad saying that Ilya lacks discipline is a choice and clear indication of who he is as a character. Russian style hockey is known for being super disciplined and almost military in style. A lot of the Olympic teams the Soviet Union sent were from the military/Red Army.
When they mention that Ilya is the type of player that works for Boston because of his persona and playing style, they aren't kidding. Boston is known for being a physical and gritty team. They're like the Detroit Pistons of hockey.
International Competition
So when you have international competitions on international regulation sized ice rinks, the Canadians and Americans can sometimes struggle with speed or being able to cover the size of the rink. In contrast, Europeans can struggle with the physicality and checking when they first come to play in the NHL. When international competition is played in North America, they typically do not play the international ice rink size, so for Russia to win the universe's World Juniors means that they were able to overcome any ice size hurdles/mismatches. The World Juniors start every Boxing Day (on TSN! lol ads). It's an Under 18 tournament.
Another note on international vs. NHL hockey is that international hockey has a lot less of a tolerance for fighting. You have much higher penalties and consequences for fighting at international competition, so she see a LOT less of it.
Hockey in Canada
Yuna saying that watching hockey made her feel Canadian is a totally universal immigrant experience in Canada. Watching hockey games is how my mom learned some of her English. I think we all have memories of how big a deal hockey is culturally in Canada. My dad remembers watching the Summit Series vs. the Soviet Union while on university campus. When I was in high school and taking a test during the Olympics in Turin, my teachers were keeping track of the hockey scores and informed us of whether or not Canada won when we finished our exam.
How the NHL Conferences Work
The NHL is broken into two conferences, Eastern and Western. The Eastern conference is further broken into the Atlantic Division and the Metropolitan Division, while the Western Conference is further broken down into the Central and Pacific divisions. When Ilya is saying that they he and Shane will see each other often, it's because Montreal and Boston are both in the Atlantic Division. In a hockey season, you end up playing the teams within your division the most, four times. You'll play other teams in the conference three times and then teams in the opposing conference twice. The most classic rivalries are always within the same division because the animosity builds.
To get to the Stanely Cup Finals, you have the beat three teams within your own Conference and be the Conference Champion. The Stanley Cup Final is always played by the Eastern Conference Champion and the Western Conference Champion. You would never play the a team in the same conference in the Finals in the modern NHL. (It is confusing though because of the Central Division teams though and at least 3 teams in the Pacific Division are landlocked and nowhere NEAR the Pacific Ocean).
Ads
The ad that Shane and Ilya film to promote the MLH is like EVERY single ad EVER in the history of the NHL on like TSN/Sportsnet. Like the colours and everything.
Yuna is SOOO Asian mom coded, especially with the representation thing.
Beyond Team Rivalries
In addition to the rivalry between Shane and Ilya from being on opposite MLH teams, there's also a really big longstanding rivalry between Canada and Russia/Soviet Union in hockey. It was a bit of an extention of the Cold War and there were a number of big matches/international competitions in the 70s, the most culturally significant being the Summit Series. And with that context, it's also why Sochi was such a shitty Olympics for Russia and drove them to do state-sponsored doping, they wanted to basically re-do what Canada did in Vancouver, but bigger and better. For reference, Canada won gold in both men's and women's hockey on home ice and topped the gold medal table.
Media and Sponsorships
The locker room interview Shane watches on his phone is basically exactly what ALL NHL locker room interviews look like. It's hilariously accurate.
Yuna's brand deals are not really accurate. There's no way in hell Rolex is going to sponsor a rookie Canadian hockey player in a Canadian market. In fact, most players on Canadian teams typically have fewer brand opportunities than players who play in the states. Part of it is market size and the types of companies that are available in Canada. He'd more likely be doing detergent, razors, grocery stores and Tim Hortons. You're not going to see high end/haute couture fashion houses or purfume work with hockey players (unless it's like Axe body spray).
Hockey is just way less lucrative than other major sports like the basketball, football or baseball. There are a fraction of the eyes on it. Literally, your franchise/top earning player on a hockey team is making what a pretty good player would make in the NBA. Like Danny Green made more money on the Lakers than Sidney Crosby in one season.
Animal Symbolism
Shane not so subtly references unlikely animal friendships and mentions a tiger and a bear. It literally symbolizes not only himself, the tiger and Ilya, the bear, but both animals are significant in their respective cultures and are representations of the people (Asia) and the country (Russia). I'm much more familiar with the symbolic nature of tigers in Asia.
Bilingualism
Shane speaks French in an interview in Montreal because that's definitely expected or heavily pushed upon players in Montreal/Quebec. But not only that, being that he's from Ottawa, even though he's an Anglophone, he'd be very competent in French anyway. Ottawa is one of the only cities in Canada that's truly bilingual. Since it's the capital, everything is in French and English. Plus, Quebec/Gatineau is literally a short bridge walk away. It's literally behind the Parliament buildings.
All Star Games
All Star games always have some sort of theme for teams to play against. However, most year's it's East vs. West and it's really only in recent years that they do weird/fun things like North America vs. Europe etc.
Hockey Things
Ilya's quest for 50 goals his rookie season is hilarious and I love his moxie. Literally, if he was on track for 50, he would likely have won the league's top scorer award.
Shane jokes that the Finns will talk about the cousins they're in love with, but I'm pretty sure that the Finns will just not say anything at all lmao. Famously, Mikka Kipprusoff, the Vezina winning goalie of the Flames pretended he didn't speak English.
Musings
It's super funny that they can't have penetrative sex because their gay godfather is next door.
Did you know that Shane is the Irish version of John and that Jane is the feminine version of John?
Hayden is SUCH a himbo.
I know Scott isn't technically supposed to know about Shane and Ilya during the whole 1221 cruising incident. But I can't help but think he sure as hell knew/figured it out when he did his big macho 'where's your boy Rozanov?' thing and then had to backtrack because he's like 'oh shit', 'oh shit', 'oh shit.' The vibe is very much protect the baby gay.
Shane sounds like he definitely gets Asian glow.
Lastly, they're SUCH boys at the end of episode one and they can't communicate yet.
