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Shane Hollander, Man Who Would Eat Hockey If He Could

Summary:

[Scott Hunter]: thanks

[Shane]: I meant it.

[Scott Hunter]: I know

[Shane]: Please don’t have sex in the locker room.

[Scott Hunter]: lol

(or: four moments throughout the years, as seen through the eyes of the camera)

Notes:

This may not pefectly line up with The Long Game canon, mostly because I have not actually read The Long Game. Sorry.

(See the end of the work for more notes and other works inspired by this one.)

Work Text:

1

MontreAll @montreall 🔁 Hockey Daily @hockeydailyblog
oh my god

Shane Hollander: Do you think we’re having sex in the locker room?
hockeydailyblog.c…

 

holley @holley 🔁 MontreAll @montreall
oh my GOD

oh my god

 

MontreAll @montreall
Replying to @holley
Did you know he’s allowed to say that? I thought it was illegal for him to say the word sex

holley @holley
Girl

MontreAll @montreall
I Know

--

Hockey Daily Blog

Shane Hollander: Do you think we’re having sex in the locker room?

At the first All Star game after Scott Hunter’s Cup win and the kiss seen round the world, reporters found every opportunity to ask every member of his All Star team their thoughts on his sexuality, usually in the most homophobic ways they could manage to articulate in public. We’ve been getting the scripted media answers from most of them, with varying degrees of open support.

And then someone asked Shane Hollander.

It’s not that Hollander hasn’t been asked about Scott Hunter before—I don’t think there’s a captain in the league who has been spared at this point—but they’re on the same team for the weekend, which means they’ll be sharing a locker room, and apparently reporters think that the presence of a gay man is so terrifying that Shane Hollander, Man Who Would Eat Hockey If He Could, would be distracted from hockey out of fear of said gay man’s gayness.

The full media video is up top, but it’s long, so here’s the transcript of that exchange, because it is fucking amazing:

Reporter: Do you have any concerns about the locker room for this All Star game?

Hollander, visibly confused: No? Did they do something to the locker room?

Reporter: It will be your first time sharing a locker room with Scott Hunter—

Hollander, visibly more confused: No?

Reporter: —since he came out as gay very publicly during the Stanley Cup final.

Hollander: Technically it was after the conclusion of the final. It’s not like he came out during the game. That would have been an odd choice if he had done so. Not that he shouldn’t have, if he had wanted to. But it wasn’t during the final. If we’re being technical about it.

Reporter, audibly frustrated: My point is that it will be your first time sharing a locker room with him since he came out as gay. Are you concerned about his behavior in the locker room?

[There is a pause at this point that is, I cannot articulate strongly enough, so uncomfortable. The most uncomfortable.]

Hollander, sounding so baffled: Do you think we’re having sex in the locker room?

Reporter: What?

Hollander, politely: Do you think we’re having sex in the locker room? 

[He is silent. The reporter is silent. Everyone is silent. I am screaming.]

Reporter: No?

Hollander: I’m not sure what the concern would be, then. Hunter having sex with his boyfriend in the locker room would be unhygienic and, of course, inappropriate, but that’s…not a thing that happens there, so I don’t have any concerns. Does anyone have any hockey-related questions?

 

And there we have our unproblematic, baffled ally king Shane Hollander.

To be very honest I am not sure if he was fucking with them or if he genuinely didn’t understand that the reporter was being homophobic and trying to get him to play along, but either way, Hollander shut that shit down while making it clear just how ridiculous the question is.

I love that he didn’t even entertain the idea that Scott Hunter might hit on his teammates or do something sexual to make them uncomfortable, and in some very funny way I think it says something about whatever girlfriend Hollander might have or get in a relationship with, that he simply did not consider that someone in a relationship might look elsewhere. He went, that man is in a relationship. Of course the only person he would be interested in is his boyfriend.

I will cover the rest of the All Star game, of course, including the rest of the interviews, but I needed you all to know about the most batshit exchange I have seen in a long time.

--

[Scott Hunter]: thanks

[Shane]: I meant it.

[Scott Hunter]: I know

[Shane]: Please don’t have sex in the locker room.

[Scott Hunter]: lol

 

2

Instagram

Posted 2 hours ago 

[Slightly shaky video clearly taken by someone skating on ice. The camera turns around to show JJ filming himself. He smiles conspiratorially.]

JJ: Listen to this.

[The camera turns back around to show Hayden talking to an oblivious Shane.]

Shane: —thirty-second. He’s thirtieth in point totals but that has more to do with Hunter’s ability to turn his passes into something useful than his own personal aim. He also has a habit of flinching to the right when he’s about to feint, which is a tell he should have been working to fix from the first time one of his coaches pointed it out to him, but at this point it’s likely muscle memory so ingrained he will never fully overcome it.

Hayden: What if nobody mentioned it to him?

Shane, rolling his eyes: The Admirals’ coaches aren’t going to sabotage their own players like that.

Hayden: What if they didn't notice?

Shane: It’s obvious that he’s doing it.

Hayden: I didn’t notice.

[Shane hesitates. This is awkward.]

Shane: You’ll see it next time you watch him play. Anyway. Thirty-third is—

 

admirals-allie 3 mins

okay so I just spent the last like hour and a half watching old games and he’s not wrong but Shane Hollander is probably the only person in the world who has ever noticed that before wtf

shaneeeeeeee 2 mins

“habit of flinching to the right” girl it’s like half a molecule

admirals-allie 2 mins

I know

shaneeeeeeee 2 mins

Highest hockey IQ in the world

admirals-allie 1 mins

There’s high hockey IQ and then there’s fucking bionic eyes, he needs to be put in a terrarium with some enrichment and studied

 

3

Hockey Daily Blog

Shane Hollander and Ilya Rozanov, In Love, Outed

I honestly debated whether to post this, because they didn’t choose to come out this way, and I don’t want to be party to outing people.

But they have been outed, it has happened, and I want to talk about it.

As some of you may know, I used to play hockey. I was pretty good at it—not NHL good, but pretty good.

As fewer of you know, I am also queer.

There are a lot of reasons why I stopped playing hockey, but one of them was the way that being queer is treated in the sport. It’s gotten a little, little, bit better, but when I was growing up, I heard every insult and slur in the book, and that was without any of them even knowing. It was just how people chirped each other when they were in the mood to be a little meaner than usual.

I love hockey, but hockey didn’t love me.

That’s just how it was. There are a lot of things that don’t love me.

And then Scott Hunter came out by winning the Stanley Cup and then kissing his boyfriend on national TV.

Things started to change. Mostly for the better, a little for the worse. Reactionary backlash is a thing.

For that first All Star game after Scott Hunter came out, I wrote a blog post about Shane Hollander’s response to a homophobic reporter. In it, I said something about Shane Hollander having a girlfriend.

I didn’t even think about it. He dated Rose Landry, but even if he hadn’t, even if he had never been publicly linked with a woman not his mother in his life—and if he hadn’t dated her, I’m not sure he would have been—I would have assumed he was straight.

There have been rumors recently, about Hollander, but I dismissed them as just locker room bullshit. There was shit going on with Montreal, and this was their punishment for him.

Ilya Rozanov, it was never even a question in my mind.

Of course the two best hockey players in the league—in the world—are straight as an arrow.

I am so happy to be wrong, and so sad to have found out this way. I wish they could have come out on their own terms, the way they wanted. This is clearly not the way they wanted.

So until—unless—they put out a statement of their own, I am not going to talk about this, the same way I don’t talk about the families of any other player in the league. Who they love is none of our fucking business unless they want it to be.

Author’s Note: I have turned off comments on this post, for obvious reasons. If anyone comes in the comments of any of my other posts and starts being homophobic, including by saying that they threw games for each other, I will block you.

PS: Hollander and Rozanov, I am 100% sure you don’t read my blog, but if you do, you are both my heroes, and I hope you know that there are so many little queer hockey kids who are going to be okay because of you.

 

4

Instagram

Posted 17 minutes ago

[Video is of Wyatt and Haas sitting on a bench, drinking Gatorade. Past them, on the ice, Shane and Ilya are doing passing drills, out-of-focus blurs on the ice.]

Haas: Why did nobody tell me Hollander is fucking psychic?

[The swearing is edited out, but his mouth is clearly visible.]

Wyatt: He’s not psychic.

Haas: I’m pretty fucking sure he is.

[Something happens on the ice that has Haas making a strangled noise. The Gatorade bottle is still held up to his mouth, but he has forgotten about it.]

Haas: See? How the fuck did he know where Rozanov was going to be? I don’t think Rozanov knew where Rozanov was going to be?

Wyatt, shouting: Hey, Holzy!

[Shane breaks away to skate over to them, coming into focus of the camera. Ilya is a half-second behind him, crashing into his back and nearly sending him sliding into the boards. Shane shoots him an irritated look, but Ilya just puts an arm around his waist and presses a loud kiss to the side of his head.]

Shane: What’s up?

Wyatt: Haas wants to know if you’re psychic.

[Haas turns bright red and tries to hide his head in his hands. He just ends up smacking himself in the face with the Gatorade bottle.]

Haas: Please don’t—

Shane, politely confused: No?

Ilya: My husband is just—what is the word when you are knowing things?

Wyatt: Knowledgeable?

Ilya: No, no, like smart but for seeing things?

Shane: Intuitive?

Ilya: Yes, that is it. My husband is very intuitive. Makes him almost as good hockey player as me.

[Shane shoves him, laughing, and Ilya lets himself be pushed a few inches away, then latches himself on Shane again. Shane doesn’t fight him very hard.]

Shane: It’s just practice. Watching tape, looking for patterns, seeing what people’s habits are. And then practice. We all do it.

Haas: Not like you. [He turns even redder.] I mean. You know.

Harris, from behind the camera: What sorts of things do you look for?

[Shane looks at the camera for the first time. His face shifts to a lighter version of his media-ready smile.]

Shane: As I said, patterns: what lines do people prefer, how do they like to turn, what are their tells, those sorts of things.

Ilya: My husband knows the pre-game routine for every current skater.

[The media-trained face disappears. Shane grimaces.]

Shane: Oh for fuck’s—it’s not like that.

[Ilya smiles, delighted.]

Wyatt: Not like what?

Shane: Rozanov is making it sound weird.

Haas: I mean.

[Everyone looks at him. He looks at the camera with very wide eyes.

Haas: Never mind.

Shane: It’s just important to know who you’re playing.

Ilya: And yet I am best player without knowing that.

Shane: Who has more Cup wins?

Ilya: We are married. Is shared property.

Shane: That is not how that works. 

Harris: Who has the weirdest pre-game routine?

[Shane opens his mouth to answer. He pauses. He looks at the camera. He visibly reconsiders.]

Harris: You know what? I don’t think we need to—

 

iceismylife 12 mins

How could you just leave it there???

ottawacentaursofficial now

You’re welcome.

Notes:

people: wow, you are so good at hockey
shane hollander: thank you :)
people: but what do you think of those gays?
shane hollander: they too are good at hockey :)

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