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Upcoming draft favorite benched without injury: What is happening with Shane Hollander?
By Darryl Harris I MLH News
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@hollandernationismymiddlename
Wtf is going on with shane hollander, is my boy not gonna be drafted??
10:11 PM · April 29, 2009
1,230 Retweets 56 Quote Tweets 72 Likes
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From: [email protected]
To: all-teams, Bcc: [email protected]
CONFIDENTIAL: Updated list of player eligibility
The finalized list of eligible players for the upcoming draft is now available on the MLH Player Portal.
Please note:
- Due to an increased number of suspicious log-in attempts, the option to access the Portal via VPN or other proxies has been disabled. In case of access issues, reach out to [email protected]
- As noted in multiple follow-up emails, Shane Hollander is no longer listed on the Player Portal. The player has been removed due to failing to meet draft eligibility requirements, specifically section 3.4.d. which dictates that all prospects must comply with general league eligibility in order to be eligible for the draft. Any team attempting to draft the player will result in the immediate loss of their draft pick and will not be compensated in later rounds. Please note that due to current data privacy legislation, the league is unable to provide any further clarification. Please consider this our final message on the matter.
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Man In The Crease: Episode 234
Man 1: Okay, so give me your theories.
Man 2: There aren’t many, you know. Normally the rumours would be wild at this point, but the lack of comments from the league, the teams and from Hollander’s family make it all the more befuddling.
Man 1: But there are some. Theories, I mean.
Man 2: Well, yes. Apparently, someone has seen Hollander multiple times in Ottawa General Hospital in the past weeks. So people are quite convinced that it’s health related. Something that could be exacerbated by becoming a professional hockey player maybe?
Man 1: Then why all this hush-hush? They could just say that, and people would leave them alone. But it’s become a whole new sport now—the family is being hunted for a soundbite.
Man 2: A soundbite they are clearly not getting.
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NHL Draft: Rozanov goes first, the Cens’ struggles continue, and the notable absence of Shane Hollander
By Carly Cooper I MLH News
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FIVE YEARS LATER
“You’re being very pissy today,” Johnsy says when Shane drops a bucket of pucks on the ice with a little too much force. “You’re usually pissy in the morning, but this is even too pissy for you.”
“Stop saying the word pissy, Johnsy. You sound—juvenile,” Shane says, but places the next bucket down a little more carefully.
“So you want to tell me what’s eating you? Or you’re going to suffer through things silently until it comes to a boiling point and you yell at one of the kids?”
“I don’t yell at the kids. Or—okay, I yell at them a lot, but it’s encouraging yelling. It’s positive. They like it when I yell at them.”
Johnsy sighs as he continues to arrange the jerseys by size. Most of the kids are around the same age, but some of them have already hit their growth spurts during the last year, so now the camp had to stock up on a ridiculously wide range of sizes for them. Some of them could even fit him and Shane and that’s honestly terrifying.
“Is it because Rozanov is coming?” Johnsy asks eventually when it becomes clear that Shane, very surprisingly, is not going to start talking about his feelings on his own.
Shane freezes. It’s almost imperceptible, he’s moving again immediately after, but it’s there—a small, clear reaction that it is most definitely about Rozanov.
“I just don’t get why he has to come,” Shane says, sounding defeated. After knowing Johnsy for god knows how long, Shane knows he’s not going to drop the topic. “He’s going to mess up our routine and the kids will be startstruck and we won’t be able to teach them a goddamn thing.”
“The kids will be ecstatic, though. You know they will be. It’s a literal MLH player, playing hockey with them on the ice.”“Well, okay, good. But this camp is supposed to give them a chance to learn, to get better. They’re not kids who can afford to pay for extra coaching classes or fancy boarding schools. They’re clinging to this camp with tooth and nail because some of them only get these two weeks to try to get better during the summer.”
Shane’s been involved with the Boston Hockey Foundation ever since his freshman year in college, and he’s been in love with the camp’s mission from day one. The camp is exclusively for underprivileged kids—all wide-eyed and eager to learn youth who usually can’t even afford proper gear throughout the year. But here they get to learn from college players (and Shane) and sometimes even from retired MLHers or some players coming in from the minor leagues to get some hands-on experience coaching. And boy, do they learn—Shane almost gets teary eyed whenever he thinks about how far some of these kids got in just the last three years he’s been training them.
And now Rozanov, Ilya fucking Rozanov, of all people, will come in and ruin their progress just so he can use it as a photo op for his fucking Instagram.
“You really think that one of the literal best players of the MLH can’t teach a thing or two about hockey?”
“If he’ll even bother to teach them something. I’m sure he’ll just come in, do a spin-o-rama and smile prettily at the cameras.”
The jerseys are now all folded up, which gives Johnsy the chance to grin at him menacingly. “Oh, so it is Rozanov’s pretty smile we’re worried about. That’s okay, Holly, I’m sure he’ll sign a picture for you.”
“Oh, fuck off,” Shane says, which is as lame a comeback as they get.
“All I’m saying, babe, is that maybe, just maybe Rozanov will surprise you. But only if you let him.”
Good one, Johnsy. Joke of the fucking year.
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It was Coach Wiebe who set Ilya down one day and told him that he needed help.
Well, to be more precise, he didn’t use the word help, but the general idea of ‘you need help or you’ll kill yourself and bring us all down in the process’ was very much implied.
“There’s this hockey camp that a friend of mine is running in the summers. It’s for poor kids—well, underprivileged is the word they use—who can’t really afford those top-tier hockey camps that rich kids use to get a leg up in the league. It’s a lot of hard work and mentoring, but the college kids and some of the retired old jerks of the league are doing an amazing job. And they’re always looking for volunteers to join them.”
“Is this coming from PR? Because Harris hasn’t mentioned anything to me.” Ilya says. He doesn’t know if he sounds defensive already, but he feels so goddamn tired, he can’t even really bother to change how the words leave his mouth.
“No, this is coming from me. I think—I think this season has been a lot. And I’m assuming you’re not going back to Russia this summer?”
Ilya shakes his head, a small, almost abrupt gesture, like he wants to shake the idea of ever returning to Russia out of his mind.
“So you have time over the summer.”
“I still don’t understand why you want me to coach kids on how to hold a stick. I should be resting, no? To have energy for next year.”
Wiebe doesn’t respond immediately. Ilya can’t read his face—but it’s like his coach is waiting to allow him to figure out the answer to that question. Like he knows Ilya is smarter than this, even though Ilya knows it’s wishful thinking.
“You played really well this season. The playoffs were a shit show, but that wasn’t on you—honestly, it was on every single other person in this organization, but not you. But now everyone is going home for the summer: they’re getting married, and having kids, and recharging with family they haven’t seen in months.”
Ilya has no idea why Wiebe likes to twist the knife once he stabs it into his chest.
“All I’m trying to say is that you need something bigger to look forward to. Not just you playing for the Cup. You need a purpose, something that is outside of you and your career.”
“And teaching kids how to hold a stick will do that?” Ilya snorts.
But Wiebe doesn’t laugh. “Honestly? It might just do.”
For a long moment, they just stare into each other’s eyes, neither willing to be the first one to look away.
Ilya sighs, defeated.
“Send me the contact.”
Wiebe smiles widely, so Ilya adds warningly, “Don’t get too excited. I’ll think about it.”
But Wiebe just keeps smiling while he scribbles down the number on a piece of paper, like he knows that he’s already won.
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It’s only the second day of camp, and Shane already has a headache.
Don’t get him wrong, he loves this gig. It pays almost literally nothing (they give them like a 20 dollar per diem and let them eat the same shitty mac and cheese the kids scarf down with a hunger that would put wolves to shame, but that’s all they really get out this monetarily), but the relationship he’s built with these kids is worth a thousand times more than that. Seeing them grow confident in their skills, seeing them skate just a bit better, just a bit faster and just with a bit more ease every single day, is something that Shane still can’t get over—not even after doing it for three years now.
But god, are these assholes loud.
“Coach Holly,” someone shrieks. The first day Shane heard such a high pitched scream he was convinced someone was dying or about to fall off the edge of a tall building. Since then, he’s learnt that it’s the silence that should scare him—shouting like the world is ending usually just means the exact opposite for these little shits.
“Yes, Hayden,” he says. He doesn’t even have to phrase it like a question, he’ll get an answer anyway.
“Is it true that Ilya Rozanov is going to come today?”
“That was supposed to be a secret,” Shane sighs. “Who told you that?”
Hayden points in the general direction of the rink. “Uhm.”
Shane’s is going to kill them. “Johnsy,” he shouts. “Get your ass here right now.”
In his defense, Johnsy at least has the decency to look sheepish.
“It slipped out. I swear I didn’t mean to tell them.”
“Gosh, now we won’t be able to get them to do anything, they’ll be way too wired waiting for fucking Rozanov to show up. And let me tell you now, I’ll be very surprised if he’ll even show up on time.” The thumping in Shane’s head is getting worse by the second.
“Sorry,” Daniel adds. “Maybe you can check when he’ll be here?”
“Sure,” Shane says, although there aren’t a lot of things he’d be less interested in doing. He gathers up his stick and heads up to the tunnel to make a phone call.
The foundation’s office staff handled everything with Rozanov so far, but starting from today, Mr. Kerson (Mike Kerson, two-time MLH champion, and the main benefactor of the camp) was very clear that Shane, Daniel and the two other full-time coaches for the camp would need to start playing nice with the MLH star who decided to grace them with his presence.
The plan is for Rozanov to do three full days with the kids, although Shane has some inklings that after the first day’s photos and videos are done, Rozanov will have some new, “unexpected” engagements he’ll need to attend to. Still, Shane can’t fucking wait for these three days to be just over and done with.
He’s looking at the two numbers in his phone (one for someone from the Raiders who helped set up Ilya’s schedule, and one directly for Rozanov), contemplating which one he should be calling, when a familiar voice starts talking right next to his face.
“Do you know where can I find a Coach—Coach Holly, I think?”
Shane does not shriek when Ilya Rozanov comes face-to-face with him, but it’s a near thing. Fuck, how did he appear out of fucking nowhere?
His heart is going a mile a minute and he has no fucking idea what Rozanov just asked. “Wh—what?”
Ilya takes an annoyed breath, like he’s gearing up to explain something for the thousandth time to an overzealous 5-year-old. “I am looking for Coach Holly. I am here to train kids.”
“Oh.” Shane says. “Sorry, that’s—I am Coach Holly.”
Ilya squints his eyes. “You’re a man.”
Shane freezes. “Yes?” He asks, even though he’s pretty sure that this should no longer be a question in his life.
“I thought—Holly is a female name, no? You Americans are so confusing.”
Oh. Oh.
“I am Canadian,” Shane says, which is very much not the point he wanted to make first, but the words just tumbled out of his mouth. “Also, Holly is not my name. Well, it is kind of? It’s because of my last name, the kids just like to use this as a hockey nickname or something, but it is not my name name. As in not my first name? I—” fuck, he’s rambling like an idiot in front of Ilya Rozanov, this is a disaster. “I am Shane.”
Ilya looks at him with a clearly amused expression. “Nice to meet you, Shane Holly. I am Ilya.”
And fuck, when Shane looks at the bright smile on his face and the dimples on his cheeks, something stirs in him and—no, please, not this. Not him. Anyone else but him.