You don’t like Shane Hollander? Do you think he’s a self-absorbed, selfish jerk? Do you think he doesn’t love Ilya as much as Ilya loves him? Do you think he doesn’t deserve Ilya Rozanov at all?
Congratulations, you might be entitled are damn lucky, and you better make a thank you gift to whatever deity you worship because you have never ever had to live with mind-crippling fear.
Because, believe it or not, that’s Shane’s reality. Shane’s so fucking terrified all the time. In all his life. Do you remember losing the Junior World Championship felt like he let Canada, a whole country down? At the age of 17?
I got you, no worries. It’s so easy to fall for Rozanov (just ask Hollander about it). He’s handsome, he’s funny, he's a larger than life rockstar bad boy, secretly having a heart of gold and a traumatized childhood. Romantic wet dreams come to life. While Shane… is boring. Polite, quiet, hard-working, so very private. The golden boy of Canada, the NHL star all mothers want for her daughter, knowing she’d be in good hands. No one dreams about a guy who can talk your ears off about hockey “fun facts” but knows shit about your favourite singer. Well, or maybe just a very few of us do. Those damn freckles and dark eyes.
I yelled at Shane so many times when I first read the books. That was my first instinct, I couldn’t help it. During HR: “Oh gwad, why are you like this? Why can’t you accept you are into men? Why is it so hard? How dare you run away when the Ilya Rozanov made you tuna melts and called you sweetheart? OMG you really dating Rose? After all this? I can’t believe you! You are a coward!” And while I read TLG, I was sometimes so angry at him “Can’t you see Ilya is suffering? Can’t you see what he gave up to be with you? Why can’t you appreciate or at least acknowledge any of his sacrifices?” even before the boxing day fight happened.
But you know what. I started thinking, and wow, this works wonders!
Because I realised how fucking scared Shane was. All. The. Time. Carrying the expectations, whether they were set by himself or not, the performance, the anxiety, the need of control, the eating disorder, so much internalized homophobia running deeper than the Mariana trench, living every day in a toxic environment .
Hollander made hockey the core of his personality. He is a hockey player. If he’s not a hockey player, he’s nothing. And a hockey player can’t be gay. A hockey player can be an asshole, can be an alcoholic, a dirty fighter, a rapist, can have 6 kids from 4 women, whatever, but he can’t be gay. I’m sure if whoever would have come out to Shane from his team, from NHL, personally, Shane would earnestly support the hell out of him. But this doesn’t apply when it was about himself, because he wants to be the best hockey player, and once again, (at least the best) hockey players are not gay. Deadly sin. Unacceptable.
So when he started to discover that yes he, in fact, might be gay, you just can’t imagine the level of freaking out he had. He felt like he had no one in the world to talk about it. It shuttered the whole picture about himself, the very core of his personality. Tell his parents? He can’t risk them being disappointed in him. Oh sure, they would support him, but Shane might have thought they would be upset if it turned out their son was not the perfect hockey player they were always so proud of. Remember he couldn’t tell them even after he came somewhat clear with his feelings months before the cottage? That it had to be David accidentally finding out about them to make Shane face his parents who loved him the most in the world? Should he come out to friends? What friends? Shane didn't have friends outside hockey until Rose - can we take a note that the first person to whom he ever admitted he’s a hole, not a peg, is completely outside of hockey, and isn't interested in Shane as a hockey player? - his friends are fellow hockey players, and here we are back to square one.
Then his relationship with Ilya was so stressful. He not just had to wrestle with his gay awakening, he had to handle the whole sneaking around thing. Ilya thrived in danger, while Shane very much did not. He is bad at pretending, he felt guilty about it, he was terrified out of his mind someone would find out their secret and it would end their careers - and once again, if he is not the Shane Hollander, he’s nothing. It’s a fucking existential crisis to him, especially in the beginning. And yes, he still couldn’t talk about it to anyone. Ilya was lonely, but so was Shane. Different reasons, same outcome. Yes, it changed a bit for the better to Shane, with his parents, with Hayden and Jackie knowing about them, but the fear of being discovered and the consequences were just as serious to him.
Was Hollander self-absorbed? Was he too wrapped up in his own head? Well, yes, a bit, I allow. But listen. Living in constant fear fucking narrows your mind to the point you can’t function properly. It's a mental health issue. It's a condition. You are scared, terrified even, you feel like you have no control of the situation - what do you think Shane's “performance diet” came from? - you are under pressure in every possible way, you either lose the love of your life or the carrier which you worked so hard for, your beloved game, which is just as part of you as your lungs, as long as you can remember. Because certainly you can’t have both, and it’s fucking unfair, but that’s the way it is. Do you really shame someone under these circumstances? And Ilya didn’t tell Shane everything about himself, but Shane still notices some things. He notices how sad sometimes Ilya looked. He’s not completely unaware of how this kinda half long-distance relationship with a scattered schedule affected Ilya. Shane feels it too. He also suffers. He asked Ilya if he was okay, and Ilya didn’t give him a straight answer.
Do you know how big a step was for Shane to come out to his team? You just can’t imagine, because that alone potentially could end his career, even if they didn’t know about Rozanov. Do you remember how the other few people who dared to come out after Scott Hunter were elimanted? The Europeans had to go back to Europe, the Americans were “retired” or did not have ice time at all? Pretty sure Shane wouldn’t get away with it if he wasn’t The Shane Hollander, Hall of Fame aspirant, and Montreal was just smart enough to shut up and keep it low instead, not partially because Shane didn’t want any fanfare about it.
So Shane was ready to give up everything for Ilya before TLG. Did you get that?
That he didn’t have to right away, was just because of all his hard work on ice, his sheer talent and private personality. So he was like, “I was lucky once, I can’t be lucky twice”. That’s why he was so alarmed to be seen with Ilya outside official events. That would have been the last straw.
And in the end, he was ready to make that last step. They would have come out by themselves, by their own terms if not that stupid fanmail video, and all the shitshow which followed.
Shane separated himself from hockey. For Ilya. He overcame his fears, he combated with his crippling anxiety, he fought himself and won, he changed and rebuilt how he viewed himself, who he is, from the scratch, because he loved Ilya.
He skipped his own shadow for Ilya. If it’s not true love, then I don’t know what it is.
@dntat-makesthings, @shanehollandertwentyfour anything you might want to add?
Shane Hollander Defense Squad until the day I DIE.
Something I would like to emphasize is that people focus a lot on Shane's words and his inner thoughts but then don't go onto taking in his actions.
Does he overthink everything? Yes. Does he anxiously talk and sometimes spiral about this out loud? Yes.
But a key factor in all of this is that he never just stays there and lets those thoughts get the best of him. At the beginning, he always went and met Ilya in hotel rooms despite his fear. When they finally confessed, he was ALL IN. Yes, he was an anxious wreck, but also YES, HE CHOSE ILYA AND LOVED HIM UNCONDITIONALLY FROM THEN ON. (The only time he outwardly acted with fear was dating Rose after the tuna melt scene, and that's because the shift in Ilya's behavior kind of terrified him. He made a mistake, as I'm sure plenty people have in the lives.)
Example: When David sees them at Shane's cottage, even though all throughout the aftermath Shane is spiraling, he goes and tells his parents the truth and introduces them to Ilya. He's terrified, and yet his actions never hesitate.
In The Long Game, it's established that both he and Ilya did long-distance and made it work. Shane was always there for Ilya as Ilya was for him.
And yes, Shane is not perceptive emotionally like Ilya is. That is called a character flaw! He overthinks out loud to Ilya who, mind you, accepts this part about Shane and calms him down. When it's too much (because it can be!), it's not a deal break. It never was, because unlike a lot of people, Ilya understands that this is how Shane is as a person. Understand that Shane is flawed.
Still, when it is too much, when Ilya can't take it anymore and they have the boxing day fight, Shane accepts it all, feels terrible and changes. He let his fear get the worst of him, reflects upon it, and CHANGES. Could it have been sooner? Sure. But Ilya also has flaws that interfere with everything. And the thing about human behavior and relationships is that not everything happens logically. That's just how life is.
The most important part is, when Shane is faced with Ilya's pain, he is also faced with his mistakes and he OWNS UP TO THEM. When he is horribly made to chose between hockey—which as the original post explains, was his entire personality at some point—and Ilya, he chooses Ilya! No hesitation!
A lot of people are just overthinkers, anxious thinkers. Shane is one of those people and he grows and changes. At his core he will always lean to that side, as Ilya will lean towards bottling up his feelings.
They love each other unconditionally, as Shane told Ilya when Ilya finally confessed to seeing a therapist. And that's what matters most.
