There is a highly frustrating moment in The Long Game where the narrative asserts that Ilya āa white guy moving through the NHL with the default assumption of straightnessā is somehow āmore aware of hockeyās flaws than Shane was.ā
Ā«Ā Ilya couldn't pretend to know how it felt to be let down by the game he lovedānot in the way Max or Ryan had been, but he was more aware of hockey's flaws than Shane was. He'd been paying more attention, over the past few years, to the darker side of his sport.Ā Ā»
It frames systemic toxicity, racism, and homophobia as academic concepts, headlines that a privileged player can choose to āpay attention to,ā while completely flattening the reality of the person who actually embodies a marginalized identity in that space. It treats Shaneās canon quietness and hyper focus as a kind of naive insulation, instead of a survival tactic most people of color are familiar with. But in her fic, Josephides completely corrects this structural narrative failure, we can see how fanfiction doesn't have to change Shane's canon behavior to correct what RR missed, it just need to give his actions the profound, realistic psychological weight that the original text didnāt spare him:
āShane had been ignoring chirps all his life. Most of them were easy to ignore ā bullshit about his performance (he was, statistically, actually the best), about being an emotionless hockey robot (he was focused), about his āunmasculineā lack of interest in fighting (he wasnāt a fucking enforcer and he wasnāt interested in being unnecessarily injured).
A few chirps had crossed over the line from chirping into outright racism. He had been coached by his mom to anticipate that, since before Juniors even. Ignore, ignore, ignore, that was the name of the game. Just like when he had been bullied as a kid. Rise above it, Shane, youāre better than them.
But today, Dallas Kent had verbally attacked Shane for being gay. Or queer, as he spat across the ice. As well as someā¦ well, overt allusions as to Shaneās preferences in bed.
Correct ones, in this case, phased in such a way to reinforce that Shaneās preferences were considered lesser.
Because ā as with all the other things that were wrong with Shane ā he had to have the wrong kind of preferences. In this case the kind of gay that only liked to take it up the ass.
When Shane had come out to his team a few weeks ago, he had anticipated that this new othernesswould spread through the NHL. Maybe someone in his team told their wife. And their wife told a friend who told her husband who happened to be on another team. Who then told their team. Hey guys, you never guess what Mel told me she heard about Hollander. Heās a flaming queer.
It had been tactical decision. A way to come out without really coming out. Unless someone asked him directly, and he confirmed it, no one would actually know for sure outside of his team and they sure as hell didnāt want to talk about it. And no one would ask Shane Hollander to his face if he was gay. And he would never confirm it. Not yet anyway.
But people like Dallas Kent would have new material to taunt Shane with on the ice. And if you were going to chirp someone about being gay, clearly the way to do it was to make some kind of weirdly negative parallel to taking it like a girl. Which kind of told Shane what Kent thought about women, too.
So he had a lot to process and he didnāt feel like doing that on the phone with Ilya, who had already messaged him several times to ask what Kent had said to him. Because Ilya had apparently been able to tell through the TV screen that it wasnāt the usual shit.Ā ā
This fanfiction snippet beautifully reclaims Shaneās characterization by transforming his canon silence from a sign of naive ignorance into a calculated survival mechanism. Josephides demonstrates that Shane is hyper aware of hockey's toxic culture, he uses a rigid, internal "Shane logic" to filter out standard performance chirps while relying on a lifelong, multitiered defense system to navigate systemic bigotry. By explicitly noting that his mother coached him to face racism, the text acknowledges the exhausting reality of being a marginalized athlete in a hostile space. Ultimately, his approach to his sexuality is treated not as an emotional journey, but as a "tactical decision" designed for risk management, proving that Shane doesn't need to be taught about the "darker side" of the sport, he has been quietly surviving it his entire life.
The canon text stumbles hard because it treats awareness of hockey's "darker side" like an elective interest. But for a gay Asian man excelling in a hyper masculine historically white sport, awareness isn't a choice, itās a minefield he has to navigate daily.
Hereās the link to @josephides fanfic.
