#the hollanders

[thesedarkcafedays]

So being boring is... is genetic.

[Spoilers from The Long Game below]

from x.

[mybloodstream-caffeine]

David: I guess I'm just surprised our Shane fell for such an infamous player,,, who knew our kiddo would have a thing for the bad boy, huh hon? Ha ha

Yuna, remembering David's college hockey days as an enforcer where he would get into knuckle dragging fights almost every match and would always shoot a blood-stained grin up at her in the stands from the sin bin while sporting a black eye and a broken nose, waving at her with his knuckles taped: Hm. Yeah. Shocker.

[tinylilhollander]

Notable absence of David's name here and I just know it's because he and Ilya stand in the garage geeking out about the Ducati together. Ilya offers him the chance to ride it and David has to reeeeeeeally think about it before shaking his head, because he knows how much his bike used to stress Yuna out and he won't go behind her back. But he sighs wistfully as Ilya covers it back up.

[littlegirlinvisible]

HEATED RIVALRY WEEK 2026 (@heatedrivalryweek)  Day 6 — Favorite Scene: shane hollander having the absolute worst time of his life coming out to his parents and trying to explain his romance with the bisexual depressed russian terminator comedian ilya rozanov, meanwhile said bisexual depressed russian terminator comedian is having the time of his life obsessing over the whole concept of the word 'lovers' and trying his hardest not to tell the hollanders he’s been fucking their son for years 😭.

[watermelontuesdays]

I keep thinking about Yuna and David and how they thought, maybe Shane might be gay because they know him pretty well, and just all the innocent, ill-conceived, and hilarious ways they tried to hint at it before the Rozanov-Cottage-Ass-Grab Incident.

---

David: Work had us do some inclusivity training today. It was pretty interesting.

Shane: That's cool, dad *doesn't know what that means, but never knows what anything related to his dad's work means*

---

Yuna: That Anderson Cooper. He's such a cutie.

Shane: who?

---

Yuna: You know, I hear the actor who plays Sheldon is gay.

Shane: Who? *but in an alarmed way because she said the word that should never be said*

Yuna: Big Bang Theory?

Shane: What?

---

David: You know who has good music? That Lady Gaga.

Shane: Sure *can't name a number Lady Gaga song (though would recognize some if played to him)*

---

Yuna, internally: Ok, i got this one.

Yuna: Did you hear Marie-Philip Poulin is dating Laura-

Shane: OMG, did you know... *proceeds to info dump all of Poulin's stats and awards and all the awesome goals he's ever seen her make*

[heated-pixels]

Thinking of little Shane Hollander getting super excited in little league hockey as a kid after he gets a winning goal, but, having not yet fully realized how much effort has to go into making other people realize he’s excited, end up saying “let’s go” in the most monotone voice most people there had ever heard from a kid.

Yuna and David would understand though. They’d know just how happy he was, and they’d manage to show it on their faces too.

And they’d stop to get a treat or something, and Shane would talk all about his game and his parents would listen intently because they knew how much this game meant to him. Even if some others struggled to realize, they knew.

They always knew.

[themenacewhowrites]

In my mind, David Hollander was the placid kind of hockey player who was kind of hard to goad, wasn’t very satisfying to chirp, did not chirp exceptionally well, was good enough to be a Problem for everyone he ever played against, big enough that you might think twice about fighting him, and definitely think about it a lot more the next time if you ever fought him once because he usually left a few of your teeth on the ice when he did start swinging his canned-ham fists.

David Hollander was probably one of the nicest, most frustrating, mildly enraging, creeps-up-on-you-like-an-avalanche kind of players to ever win a hockey scholarship (and use it for a degree in Accounting and Maths).

He knew the game. He could get a good read on you after a few minutes on the ice. He could pick a couple good words to throw you off just enough. He was pretty hard to throw off. He was harder to actually knock down. If you hit him, he’d be guaranteed to hit you harder. He played the same game every single time he hit the ice. He didn’t bamboozle anyone with his tricks, but he didn’t get bamboozled either. He’d see straight through your tricks and shortcut to stepping on your moment. You could not squirrel him up by pulling out fundamentals that most people forget about, because he knew them better than you.

David goddamn Hollander could be “Generic Canada Hockeyman: Exhibit A” any time anyone needed to know the first thing about hockey. Any boy taking his girl to her first hockey game would say, “Just watch number 24, he plays good hockey.” Because David played technical, clean, clear-cut hockey. You always knew what he did when he did it, because it looked like it came straight out of the book.

That’s what Yuna would tell you, if you asked her about her boyfriend’s hockey, and surprisingly also this would be your answer from his coach.

And also every person who played against McGill during his time on the team hockey there, if they knew anything about the finer art of ice hockey at all.

David, if asked about his hockey, would just say that he just loved the game and had fun playing the best he could while getting his degree in Accounting.

This drives Yuna insane. She would not waste her time on a mediocre hockey player.