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There comes a point in his career when Shane just expects things to be there.
He doesn’t know the exact moment it starts. It’s lost somewhere between promising after school practices and being drafted and raising two unexpected fingers for the photographs. Only then did Shane realise there was expectation there, and that a number could make him feel that brittle as he tried not to look at Rozanov beside him. He remembers his own smile when he finally plastered it on and how thin it probably was – like thin sheets of ice over a puddle on his morning run. Fragile and cracking up the middle. Not quite set. In hindsight, he thinks his disappointment had probably been just as transparent too.
(He also still remembers the nudge on his shoulder too – as much as he tries not to. His mantra of smilesmilelookhappysmile is interrupted by Rozanov bumping his shoulder and grinning as if it hadn’t hit Shane harder than any on-ice check ever had. But it had worked, because it forced him into action and Shane had finally smiled.)
His career comes with expectations, and routines and habits to meet said expectations. Shane isn’t special in that regard; all athletes build them up over time. Most are performance based, drilled in by coaches and dietitians and statistics that need to be met that, if not, sports networks will fret over. And some are more silly, like wearing nothing but Reebok trainers on his morning runs and how Shane wraps his stick six times after his first win with Montreal and just keeps doing it. It’s a routine he follows over and over and over again to set him up for success, until it’s as engrained as lacing up his skates and pulling a jersey over his head.
At this point in his life Shane doesn’t even see them as expectations to have, because they’re not. Not really. They are a matter of fact.
He believes that the ice will be solid beneath his skates and that his team will be at practice, and there’s a comfort that comes from that. Hayden is going to complain about his Spotify having Disney songs queued up before their next game because his kids use it at home. Even the expectation of a twenty minute delay on his morning commute (because Montreal traffic always sucks) is safe and familiar.
There’s routine hidden amongst all these expectations that Shane feels like he can rely on. The aches after a rough game and habitual claps on the back that always follow a good one are reminders that he’s doing a good job, even if he sometimes needs to scald himself in the shower afterwards. Clockwork camera flashes after an expected win in the press room remind him everything is going well. It’s predictable. It’s familiar. It’s all routine.
Coming to the arena early is not part of Shane’s routine.
If anything, it’s throwing it off because he’s scheduled for lunch with his parents in a few hours.
He doesn’t even have a dumb, leftover superstition from his rookie year to blame this all on.
No, instead Shane woke up in his hotel bed and was reminded of an unfamiliar bed and a soft, worn-in couch on the other side of the city and was pulling his shoes on and driving here before he could even think about it.
Or maybe he had thought about it, because he knows for a fact that Rozanov’s team won’t be here until later this afternoon.
(“Afternoon game tomorrow, so, no morning practice.” explained to him like a temptation. Just like the promise of five more minutes in bed and skipping his morning jog, or the temptation of a glass of wine during the season, or a lingering kiss in a doorway. Shane had heard it as an excuse to step away from their routine. And he had thought about it as he tied his stupid laces because it’s the one place in this fucking city Ilya Rozanov won't be.)
Shane’s been in enough arenas in his lifetime to know that if he keeps his hood up and his walk purposeful then nobody will even look at him, and he’s right. Nobody questions him on the way in – why would they? Who would expect Shane Hollander in TD Garden unless he’s scheduled to be?
He quickly finds himself in a seat in the highest section he can away from anyone actually working – taking the steps by two as penance for missing his morning run – and settles into the familiar sensation of cheap, flimsy arena seating.
It’s not routine, though he does have a habit of seeking solace in the cheap seats when his brain won't shut up and yoga doesn't cut it. Though, usually he carves it out in between morning practices and a puck dropping over a roaring crowd and every other obligation that’s printed into his timetables and stat pages and calendars. Never at a time he has no reason to be at an ice rink.
But Shane needs it, just for today. Just for today he can let himself sink into the familiar safety of a blank jumbotron and empty stands and ice that begins the day undisturbed.
It doesn’t remain undisturbed for long though. There’s still morning practice, even if it’s not Rozanov’s. Shane’s still settling in as Boston’s junior team makes their way onto the ice.
He slides further down his seat, out of paranoia if anything, as he watches their skates begin to score across the ice, watching on as the bright red of the centre line becomes more dull as each player passes over it.
A lifetime ago in Regina, Shane had sat in an empty arena and watched Russia’s team from the same vantagepoint, curious. He had wasted that morning tracking the goalie who cut up the ice with his skates in big, frantic scores with aggression that seemed ill-fitting outside of the technical use of a game. He had watched the way white jerseys stood out and red lettering that blurred with distance without his gameday contacts.
Shane remembers watching the way Rozanov had shouted across the ice, how he checked his own teammates in practice with aggression that also seemed ill-fitting outside of a gameday, and how his skates cut up the ice; leaving behind lines that told Shane just how fast he could move.
Bold, brash, a strong skater and loud – Rozanov measured up to be everything Shane’s coaches had told him to expect. He was a problem to solve, something to outmatch. It plays like a bad highlight reel, the longer he sits. Repeating over and over again from different angles, like his own personal gametape.
(Shane had said his first name then, too. As much as he doesn’t like to think about it. Unfamiliar, in the way routines not yet fully formed are, as he went for a handshake, but he had still said it and expected – hoped – for a hand to be offered in return.)
Today, Boston’s junior goalie begins cutting up the ice around his net. Scraping up snow until the sound reaches Shane and a small part of him expects to hear Rozanov’s voice booming from the far side of the arena. It's muscle memory of seeing black and gold jerseys, even after all these years. Because Shane has expectations of Rozanov too.
He’s not even sure where they began. He guesses somewhere between prospect cup strategy meetings and a random house on the other side of Boston. But they’re there.
Because Shane expects text messages after a game. He expects warm eyes meeting his over centre ice whenever he’s in TD Garden – even now, as far from the centre circle as he can be, Shane feels like something’s missing whenever he looks up and nobody is looking at him. He can’t believe it’s taken this — a slow morning, cheating on his diet, Rozanov saying his fucking name – for him to realise that one syllable can make him feel as brittle as second place in L.A had at seventeen.
The small mercy is that here Shane doesn’t have to fucking smile through it.
He’s become so used to the routine of getting room numbers. Of the way hotel doors feel against his back and the soft-rough way Rozanov grabs his chin before he kisses him that it’s all blurred past routine and habit and become a matter of fact. Because Rozanov will say something during their next game that will leave Shane smiling into his mouthguard. There will be a text waiting for him every morning in the off-season because of the timezone differences. And there will always be the half-promise of a next time.
There’s a safety in the predictability of it all, a well-worn rhythm they fall into every gameday. It’s as engrained as wrapping his stick and pulling a jersey on; getting a room number, Rozanov getting under his skin. Even the way Hollander sounds when mouthed on top of the skin on the back of his neck and the inevitability of leaving because there’s practice. Or a game. Or real life to get back to.
At his last warm up Shane had even wrapped his stick eight times in quick succession, and then added one extra loop as a private joke to himself. Smiling into his gumshield like an idiot and picking up his phone to reply to a message he knew would be waiting for him. That’s when Shane should have caught it.
Because it works both ways. Shane knows that now. Because at this point Rozanov has expectations of him too.
Fuck.
Maybe it started like it was supposed to – his management and coaches probably told him Hollander was quiet, quick on a power play and to watch him. Just another player to beat. But at some point he expected Shane’s phone number, and he expected a new one to be texted through when Shane finally upgraded his SIM card. He expected Shane to do that stupid CCM advert and to open his hotel door in Toronto, and Shane had.
It's a routine that’s continued until now, because Rozanov expected Shane to stay – in his home. In his bed. Just as habitual as his cigarettes and stupidly cocky interview answers.
(“Stay?” he repeated, unsure if he heard Rozanov right. He’d told Hayden he would be back soon – he would be expected back soon. He knew he should go, should get up and leave. But Rozanov had interrupted his routine of a quick goodbye when he replied simply with a kiss on his shoulder, his neck, and then echoed the same word back into Shane’s skin.)
In the time he’s spent sitting, the juniors have finished their drills. Laughs and the sound of skates all heading in the same direction drift up to Shane as they make their way back towards the changing rooms before the coaching team takes the nets and cones with them, leaving just Shane and the ice for a moment.
It’s chewed up, he notes. Deep grooves torn into the boxes where the nets were. Shane can still make out where the cones were, just with the wear and tear of the ice around where they had been set – sweeping lines shadowing where the team had retried the same same manoeuvre over and over again until they got it right. Drilled into the very fabric of the rink as much as the minds of the Junior team.
There’s a flutter of motion near the visitor’s gate, and then a Zamboni begins its circuit, smoothing out the scores and snow and dangerous divots left by repeating the same mistake over and over. Soon it begins to look like the juniors were never there, even though they’re contractually bound to return and make the same mistakes, learn the same lessons and make the same marks tomorrow.
The further it travels, the more Shane can make out the thin sheet of water being spread over the ice to fill in the cracks and, and —
Shane can’t help but think about the look that crossed Rozanov’s face, as much as he tries hard not to.
There was a split second where Shane saw him cracked open. Open-mouthed, breathless and surprisingly quiet as he said Shane’s name with the same carelessness he had shouted over ice in Regina a lifetime ago. Shane had been able to read those lines with the same understanding he can track remaining grooves on an ice rink. Lines Shane had felt compelled to cover with his mouth, trying to smooth them over back into predictability. Right before Shane had opened his own mouth, following his lead right into grooves that were already broken into dangerous, game-ending divots.
(“Ilya,” He’d said. Bold, brash and loud and everything Shane Hollander is not. It slid uncontrollably out of his mouth, skittering into the cooling air between them.)
He hadn’t expected the way Ilya had looked up at him, like he was something important and not just a habit, not just a safe option, and even now Shane feels his chest tighten at it. He heaves in a sharp breath, cold and fragile, like a frozen puddle right before it gives out under his Reeboks on morning runs.
He had expected Shane to stay. He had chased Shane’s mouth, eyes still closed. Still expecting more from him and Shane hadn’t been able to. He couldn’t, he just couldn’t–
(I, I can’t do this.” Panic crawled up his throat. His stomach lurching as he forced his body to get up. Like it was just a bad hit he needed to shake off, falling back into a familiar mantra of getupgetup. He just needed to leave, to get up. Get up, Hollander, getupgetupgetup–)
Shane slumps further into his flimsy, plastic seat.
He can still hear the “Hollander,” echoing through his head as much as he doesn’t want to. How fond it was – too fond – compared to the way it’s usually belted over PA systems and crowded stands. His ears are ringing with the “Hollander,” that twisted Ilya’s mouth, eyes following him in a similar way he watches him across face-offs and so, so different. His mind keeps looping them, like the Zamboni’s circuits. Like gametape after a bad loss. He can still hear Ilya repeating it as if it could smooth everything back over, trying to get them back onto familiar ground. To clear, smooth centre lines and face-off circles and the safety of surnames.
(Get up, Hollander. Get up. Fucking get up.)
Shane shoves his hands in his pockets and stands, ready to leave, just as the Zamboni reaches the centre line.
He has a lunch he can’t afford to be late to. He has a fucking game to prepare for. He has e-mails to respond to and a morning run to make up for. He has a schedule to get back to. He has a team to bring another Stanley Cup to.
And yet, Shane hesitates. Just for a second.
He catches sight of black and gold jerseys in the rafters, and thinks of the Bell Centre’s ceiling, and the blue jerseys that hang there. He thinks of the trophy case that is always going to expect just one more cup. He sees the empty seats and thinks of all the people that are expecting Shane Hollander to put on a show here later, when his schedule tells him to.
He watches as the Zamboni completes another lap, the ice beneath it coming out with a clean sheen, glistening in the overhead lights.
It looks safe, predictable, and exactly what he expects to feel underneath his skates later.
Shane’s fingers flex at his sides, useless without a hockey stick or tape or warm skin to occupy them with. Part of him wishes he could go down onto the ice now, and get it over with. Another part wishes his phone would buzz with another text from Lily. A smaller, third part of him wishes he could just take the day off. And an even smaller, stubborn part of him wishes he could bring himself to skate over the uneven, choppy ice that the Zamboni is yet to clear, and just allow himself to glide unpredictably. To not know when the safety of smooth, even ice could change to worn-in divots and the inevitable fall from it all. Just for once.
He allows himself the thought that if he did then maybe – just maybe – he wouldn’t have to force himself back up afterwards. Maybe he could lay there and allow the cold to seep through his jersey and jut relax into it. Maybe just for once he could ignore the schedules and the contracts and all the people needing Shane Hollander to get back on his feet.
In reality, Shane scuffs his Reeboks against the concrete as he finally begins to file down the stairs.
It’s a stupidly childish thought, like a teenager having a tantrum for placing second. No, it’s worse than that, because Shane knows that the ice will be perfectly safe and exactly what it needs to be to create a good game. For no other reason than that it needs to be.
At this point Shane doesn't see it as an expectation to have, it's just a matter of fact. It's not worth the time of day dwelling on it.