Guys tape everythingâwrists, fingers, knees, anklesâand Ilya having strong opinions about how Shane tapes his wrists wrong and physically taking his hand and redoing it. It takes forever. You have to hold the wrist, keep tension on the tape. Shane spending the entire time staring at his face like he's having a religious experience.
The thing where your teammate finishes taping your stick because you're still messing with your skates. Deeply domestic. Completely normal hockey behavior. Ilya doing it for Shane without asking because he knows exactly how Shane likes his blade wrapped from years of studying him as an opponent. Shane does not Trust anyone else to even touch his stick
Ilya starts stealing Shane's sticks during morning skate and refusing to give them back until Shane physically wrestles them out of his hands.
Sharing a water bottle on the bench. Deeply unsanitary. Completely normal. Something you only really do with guys you're comfortable around. Ilya grabbing Shane's by mistake the first week and Shane not even mentioning it.
The thing where after a bad loss nobody talks. The room is silent except for tape ripping and gear getting packed away. Ilya sitting down next to Shane, shoulders touching, and saying absolutely nothing. Somehow that's the most anyone has said all night.
Sharing an iPad on the bench, shoulder-to-shoulder, drawing routes on the screen with gloved fingers. One of them grabbing the other's arm to point something out and not letting go because they're both still watching the clip.
The full-body lean that happens after a brutal shift. Just putting your entire weight onto the guy next to you because you're too tired to hold yourself up. Ilya doing it once without thinking and Shane automatically widening his stance to take the weight.
Ilya grabbing Shane's elbow during a TV timeout and physically moving him six inches to the left so he can see the whiteboard. Shane just lets himself be repositioned.
Guys smacking each other on the ass after a good play is so normalized in hockey it's practically invisible. The first time Ilya does it to Shane they both feel like they're getting away with something.
The way players grab the backs of each other's necks to get their attention. The way they grab cages to be heard over crowd noise. Ilya catching Shane by the visor and pulling him closer until they're practically nose-to-nose to say something, and Shane immediately going still.
Getting your jersey number called for a penalty and having to go to the box and your linemate skating you over, just a hand between the shoulder blades guiding you to the box door, and Shane doing this for Ilya once and Ilya looking back at him through the glass from the penalty box and Shane just tapping his own chest twice like I've got it, go sit down (I realize they're both centers but maybe occasionally Ilya plays wing, like mentioned about All-Stars in that bed convo w Sveta)
The two of them coming back to the bench after a shift and immediately starting to explain what they saw at the exact same time. "The weak-side D keeps cheatingâ" "I know, if we swing lowerâ" Neither of them stops talking. Somehow they're still having the same conversation.
Every winger they've ever played with eventually develops the same thousand-yard stare while Shane and Ilya spend an entire TV timeout discussing a faceoff they already won three minutes ago.
The thing about Shane being able to look completely bored while doing something physically absurd. Ilya being one of the only people who's ever been able to tell the difference between Shane coasting and Shane being fully locked in because he's spent years reading him from the other bench.
Now he reads him from the same bench. At some point Ilya realizes he can tell whether Shane is nervous by whether his right leg is bouncing. Shane is Hockey Jesus and therefore never nervous about himself, obviously. But teammates doing stupid shit? Suddenly the leg is going.
Shane automatically skates over to grab the extra guy after every scrum because nobody gets to cross-check Ilya except him.
The first month they accidentally keep ending up in the same support lane in the neutral zone. Both of them trying to do the responsible center thing on the breakout, swinging to provide an outlet, reading the same play developing and arriving in the same spot. One goes low to support the defenseman. The other is already there. It takes a month of bumping into each other before they stop thinking the exact same thought at the exact same time.
pThe breakout where Ilya is supposed to be the outlet but gets tied up on the wall. He manages to free one arm and taps his stick twice on the ice. Don't go middle. Go wide. Shane reads it instantly.
At some point they've developed an entire private language of stick taps that nobody else understands.
When the power play isn't working, they have entire conversations between whistles that are maybe thirty percent words and seventy percent stick taps, glove grabs, shoulder shoves, and pointing at patches of ice.
The Ovi-Backstrom thing, neither of them is permanently Ovi and neither of them is permanently Backstrom. Some shifts Shane is the shooter. Some shifts Ilya is. Some shifts they're both trying to set the other guy up. Figuring out who's who isn't really a system so much as a running conversation.
Shane pinching at the blue line, which coaches have spent his entire life trying to discourage. Ilya rotating back to cover before Shane has fully committed to the pinch. Making the decision for him before he's made it himself.
The first time they line up together for a defensive-zone draw and Ilya casually puts a hand on Shane's back and shifts him six inches to the right. It's not even a weird thing. Players reposition each other all the time. Shane still short-circuits because nobody has ever moved him before. He's always been the one directing traffic.
Shane taking a defensive-zone draw because it's on his strong side. Ilya automatically drifting to the wing. No discussion, no ego, just both of them recognizing what gives them the best chance to win possession.
Which is maybe the strangest thing about them. They've both spent their entire lives being THE centerman. The guy the play runs through. The guy who takes the draw. The guy who decides. And now they keep finding themselves yielding little pieces of territory to each other without even thinking about it.
They both tap their sticks on the ice in the exact same rhythm before a faceoff. Someone points it out. They deny it with suspicious speed. (They are the Exact Same People It's Creepy).
Both of them mutter constantly during games. To themselves. To the puck. To nobody. For years they did it from opposite benches. Now they're muttering at each other halfway through shifts, sometimes English, sometimes Russian, and their wingers genuinely cannot tell whether they're communicating or just happening simultaneously.
The line change where Shane is jumping over the boards and Ilya is coming off and for one second they have to occupy the exact same piece of ice. A hand on an elbow. A shove at the hip, crawling over each other. Alternatively, one of them trying to get on the bench where the other is already sitting, and like missing a little, so now Shane's dragging Ilya over the railing by the back of his jersey like a feral alley cat
Shane bodychecking Ilya into the boards during practice and then immediately grabbing his jersey to make sure he's still upright.
Ilya scores goals that look psychic because he knows where Shane is going before Shane does. The back-door tap-in where Shane hasn't even looked at him yet and Ilya is already there, stick on the ice, because he read Shane's shoulder angle and knew the pass was coming. Shane doesn't even have to find him. Ilya is just always in the right place because he's been studying Shane longer than Shane has been studying himself.
The goal celebration where Shane grabs Ilya's face in both hands and shakes it around viciously.
The chest bump that turns into Ilya holding him there for half a second longer than necessary because they're both laughing too hard.
When one of them gets named first star, the other immediately interrupts the interview by spraying him with a water bottle
Shane grabbing the back of Ilya's helmet and shaking it the way you'd ruffle someone's hair if the helmet wasn't there.
After wins Ilya getting Shane in a headlock and dragging him halfway across the ice.
The video session where the coaches are breaking down Ilya's one-timer and Shane keeps quietly finishing the explanation because he's spent years trying to defend against it. Ilya turning around to stare at him. Everyone else in the room already grinning, Shane having absolutely no idea what is funny.
Shane flicking the back of Ilya's helmet every time he says something stupid during film review.
Both of them are notorious video guys, which means they keep accidentally finding themselves alone in the video room after practice. At some point they stop pretending it's an accident.
The power-play meeting where the coach draws something up on the whiteboard and Shane reaches over, moves the bumper route two feet, and looks at Ilya. Ilya nods. The coach just sighs and updates the diagram because unfortunately they're right.
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