SPOILERIFIC THREAD: The Long Game and Rachel Reid’s Game Changers Series
A thread for discussing Rachel Reid’s Game Changers series, including the recently released The Long Game, book six, *WITH SPOILERS* for all the books included. ALL your thoughts are welcome.
For those readers who prefer spoiler-free reviews and discussions, reviews of the earlier books can be found below:
Heated Rivalry (Game Changers #2), reviewed by Sirius
Tough Guy (Game Changers #3), reviewed by Sirius
Common Goal (Game Changers #4), reviewed by Kaetrin
Role Model (Game Changers #5), reviewed by Kaetrin
The Long Game (Game Changers #6), reviewed by Kaetrin, Sirius and Janine
(Two round up posts by Janine also appeared on DA–Rachel Reid’s Game Changers Series, Part I and Part II. You can find Game Changer, the first book in the series, reviewed in the Part I post.)
@DiscoDollyDeb (from the other thread):
With regard to Shane and obliviousness, what bugged me the most and felt like retconning to me was in the scene where Ilya and Shane watched the documentary about their rivalry. In Heated Rivalry Shane gets injured on the ice and Ilya is terrified for him and stays by his side until he’s carried away. Even though he’s almost out of it, Shane’s primary concern in that scene is for Ilya—that Ilya will be anxious for him and Shane doesn’t want him to worry. Shane tries hard to reassure Ilya that he is okay even as he’s being moved to a stretcher. The next morning, Ilya visits Shane in the hospital and Shane reassures him that he’s not paralyzed and says he wanted to text him the night before to let him know that.
In The Long Game, when Shane and Ilya see that same injury scene replayed on TV, Shane watches it and thinks “He’d never thought much about how scared Ilya had been. He’d been relieved that his injuries weren’t career-ending, and hadn’t thought much about the incident beyond that.” It’s true that Shane’s memory of how the injury happened was obliterated by the concussion and then fuzzy from the hospital drugs, but I just don’t buy that the same Shane whose first worry was for Ilya’s worry even when he was carried for the ice would *never* at any point after he began to recover have realized all over again that Ilya must have been scared.
With regard to the sex scenes, obviously I agree. And yes the scene where Ilya bottoms was really important. Really I feel that every scene was important though. For me the scene with the candles was my favorite and also hugely important, and the scene after Halloween’s party was crucial as well. Both scenes showed the love between them so much and the Halloween one showed it when things were rocky. I think if that hadn’t been in the book, I might have lost my faith that this would work out well in a believable way. And maybe it’s because I’ve been through major depression but that scene was really meaningful to me. When you are suffering like that, human contact and connection make a real difference even though you’re often unable to reach out.
(I have to say here that the depression representation was the best I ever recall seeing in a contemporary romance.)
I have no problem whatsoever with Reid’s decision to focus on Ilya here. It added so much to how I felt about their relationship and was absolutely the right choice for the book.
Maybe this comment would be better added to the Role Model review, but any other readers of Mennonite heritage out there? Did you feel as stunned as I did when the Ottawa Centaurs coach was introduced as Brandon *Wiebe*? And when, time after time in both Role Model and The Long Game, he turned out to be such a wonderful human being? If I could have conjured up Rachel Reid in my living room, I’d have hugged her to death. This may only resonate with a small subset of readers, but to give a character with that name such consistently positive representation, was a gift Reid gave me in every scene he was in. Every time I thought, Hey Mennonites and Christians everywhere, THIS IS HOW YOU TREAT QUEER PEOPLE. And yes I am shouting.
@Eliza: That sounds really interesting and moving and I wonder if you could say something to ignorant me about the connection between the name Wiebe and the Mennonite Christian community? I would love to know more. No need to if it feels like work to educate, though.
I think what you’re speaking to is representation and while I’m not Christian I felt similarly about the portrayal of depression. It was (as I said in the review) amazingly good and I just felt so understood when I read it. Just brilliant handling of the topic.
How do you guys (and anyone here who has read the book) feel about the ending? I have seen multiple people say they are unhappy with the handling of the outing and it sounds like the piece they are unhappy about is the treatment Shane received from his team and from the media. I actually thought that if anything he (and Ilya, too) got off lightly. It seems like a lot of readers are filtering it purely as Ilya and Shane being outed as queer, whereas for me it’s at least as much about them being outed as rivals who have been lovers for more than a decade. That is the bigger bombshell of the two. Not that they are queer but that they had a huge conflict of interest they did not disclose.
If it Shane was a football player and Ilya was a hockey player and they were both stars in their respective sports and then were outed as lovers and either or both of them got the kind of treatment Shane got in this book I might be upset, but that was not the case. They were athletes in the same sport who for years competed for two of the biggest teams against each other. The trophy that was hockey’s highest honor sometimes went back and forth between them. That they didn’t tell anyone that they were in a relationship for over ten years of playing at the highest level (while completely understandable) is a huge scandal. If it hadn’t been treated as such I wouldn’t have bought into this book at all.
@Janine: I’m happy to attempt to answer your question, but I don’t know if I can do it well. I’m also ignorant of a lot of my history, mainly because when I was a kid growing up, I thought that being Mennonite was intensely weird and to be honest, when my dad would talk about it, I tuned a lot of it out. Since then I’ve filled in some of the gaps, but many remain so if any readers here spot an error, it won’t offend me to point it out. In a nutshell, the Mennonite denomination is named after Menno Simons, a Catholic priest who, in the 1500s, came to believe that infant baptism was unbiblical. He and his followers were persecuted and moved to various places in Europe that sheltered them. Russia was one – I think it was Catherine the Great who welcomed Mennonites and gave them land. Eventually they came to be persecuted there too, so many Mennonites came to Canada, parts of the States, Mexico, Paraguay. Mennonites are usually pacifist and strong proponents of social justice, but there are so many different groups and off-shoots. There’s also quite a bit of disagreement about homosexuality. Some churches are inclusive of LGBT members; others are not. My family of origin would be in the latter group.
Wiebe is a Mennonite name, and my maiden name. It was a very joyful thing to read about a Wiebe being the best of what we can and should be.
@Janine: I agree Janine. It took me a while to appreciate exactly what the scandal of it was (I was just a bit clueless about it) but when I really considered what Shane and Ilya had been doing and how easily their commitment to each other vs their commitment to their respective teams could be questioned – well it was a big issue. We readers know that Shane and Ilya were always consummate professionals on the ice but only because we have been inside their heads for their entire relationship. In order for them to both keep playing, they really had to be on the same team. (I don’t see that playing in entirely different competitions was a viable option for all the reasons). Was it a little too perfect? Maybe. Did I care? No.
@Eliza: Thank you for sharing that Eliza. I didn’t know the significance of the name.
Regarding the outing of Shane & Ilya: I agree that the response of Shane’s teammates (who had known he was gay for a while) was based mostly on Ilya being a sports rival, especially after Shane trips in the one of the playoff games and Ilya ends up scoring the winning goal for his team. Remember in HEATED RIVALRY when Shane comes out to his parents and his mother’s biggest concern was did he (Shane) ever deliberately allow Ilya to win? I’d say Shane’s team’s response was more bitterness at Shane’s chosen boyfriend than homophobia. The NHL Commissioner’s response, however, is purely homophobic.
One thing I would have liked to have seen was Scott & Kip’s wedding. In fact, for a long time I though Shane & Ilya’s outing would come courtesy of a paparazzi who spied them canoodling together at the nuptials. After all the build-up about the wedding that threads through the previous five Game Changer books, it was a bit of a surprise to suddenly have Scott appear and be asked how married life was treating him. Although perhaps Reid felt she went overboard with Scott & Kip: there’s a scene in COMMON GOAL where the MCs sort of eyeroll together about how much time Scott & Kip are spending on planning their wedding.
@Eliza: What a lovely connection, Eliza! Thank you for sharing this with us, as I had no idea Wiebe was a Mennonite name. I do wonder if Reid is going to write more books in this world as she seemed to be setting up people like Coach Wiebe and the rookie, Luca Haas, to have more story going foreward. If so, it will be interesting to see if there is a Mennonite mention.
@Janine: Janine, I hated the reaction of Shane’s teammates to their outing, but I got it. Not only was Ilya a rival, but he was a real trash talker, and he had probably driven each and every one of them crazy all those years. Like Hayden asked, why did it have to be him, of all people? In my mind, I thought of it like finding out that Michael Jordan and Magic Johnson were in a secret 10 year relationship (I know, that dates me!) It would be bizarre to say the least.
What really bothered was when Reid had Shane trip in that last playoff game between Montreal and Ottawa, which allowed Ilya to score. That trip caused his teammates (and no doubt the media) to question his integrity and professionalism, it gave them an excuse to disrespect him even more, even after he led them to 3 Stanley cups. It made Ilya look like Shane had given him that win as a gift, rather than something he earned. However, that’s when it really hit home for me that their being on rival teams would not work going forward. Every game they played against each other would be scrutinized for signs that one was favoring the other in some way. I kind of wish Reid had made this an explicit concern which Shane could have voiced earlier in the books. Since I am not a sports fan, I had not thought it through to that extent, and it made Shane’s intense fear of revealing his relationship with Ilya more valid. I do wish we’d had a scene where Shane stood up to his teammates, just like he stood up to the Commissioner. That would have helped ease the pain of his mistreatment a bit. But I’m glad he left Montreal for Ottawa, and I hope he and Ilya make them pay dearly for their disrespect.
@Eliza: Thank you, Eliza, for sharing and explaining. I can totally understand how you feel, especially coming from another persecuted religious minority group. There are traumas that are passed down through generations in families and stereotypes in books and elsewhere. It was a relief to me when it got easier to find books where Jewish characters weren’t stereotyped. I’m so glad that for you this book was an act of grace . ((((HUGS))))
@Kaetrin: Yes, exactly. We’re in their heads and so we know they haven’t been cheating, but how does anyone else know? In real life I think we might also ask ourselves not just whether it’s cheating but whether it’s affecting their game in a negative way. In Heated Rivalry, when Shane got injured on the ice, I can’t imagine that Ilya wasn’t off his game for the rest of that game. I think it even says he was, but I’ll have to check. The latter situation is one where if the coach knew that it was the man Ilya loved who had just been carried off the ice concussed and possibly paralyzed, he might have pulled Ilya out of the game after that happened because he’d have known that Ilya would not be at his best. So even in a small way like that, the conflict of interest might be seen as coming into play and that does suggest that their coaches and team managers at least should have been told.
@Kaetrin:
Oh yes, I agree here too! It was a little too good to be true but I wanted a HEA. This one was close enough to believable that I could enjoy it. If Reid had gone the fully believable route the ending would not have been that happy.
@DiscoDollyDeb: Oh yes I totally agree on the commissioner, he was clearly homophobic and possibly racist too (that moment when he said Shane was proof that the quiet approach works, Shane wondered if the commissioner was speaking of his sexuality or of his Japanese background.).
Yes re the teammates, it was a lot more about the rivalry, but that’s not actually what I was getting at. I was referring to what Becky’s most recent comment is touching on; what would happen IRL in this kind of situation. The scandal would be huge and there would be outrage not just from homophobes but from plenty of other people in the league, the media and from fans. For them it’s the disloyalty that would be the issue.
@Becky: I wondered whether Luca was going to get a book, and maybe the coach–although he’s happily married, he could be paired with Luca if he loses his wife. Reid has done an age difference romance before so I don’t think that would preclude it. However, coach/player is also a conflict of interest. IRL other players on a team where that happened might wonder if the coach could really be impartial or if he would favor the player who was his lover in terms of keeping him on the ice when he shouldn’t be, or else pulling him off when he should be to bend over backwards not to show favoritism. It would be an interesting conflict and one she would have to deal with. Even with a team of sweethearts like the Ottawa Centaurs, it would be hard to see all of them handled that well. And I imagine the homophobes might really come out with six out queer people associated with the same team.
@Becky: Re Shane’s teammates, yes! They hated Ilya on a personal level even when they believed he was straight. I think in Heated Rivalry they even joked about killing him if they could get away with it.
Setting this aside for the moment, there’s also the issue that for a team to play well, they have to play a team, not every player for himself. They have to be unified. They have to depend on each other on the ice, trust each other to be there to protect them and aid them, and if you lose trust, what happens to that sense of teamwork? A secret this big does make people lose trust, and it’s not so easy to feel betrayed in one area and yet have trust in another. It’s not just Shane that would be off his game in a situation like that-I’m sure it was affecting J.J.’s game for example.
I also think that IRL there would be plenty of people reasoning that if they hadn’t disclosed this big conflict of interest then where there’s smoke there’s fire. If they were 100% loyal then they should have been aboveboard. Etc. I can imagine that many fans would feel betrayed too, and it could cost Ilya and Shane sponsorships and affect their brands–and perhaps the brands of the team.
I saw people complaining that Ilya and Shane’s teammates didn’t support them enough but I think that in a real life situation like this one Hayden would lose his job for having supported Shane as much as he did. He kept a secret that could blow up the whole team. If Shane was cheating, or even if most of the team believed he was (it’s not like Hayden was in Shane’s head) Hayden would be viewed as having misplaced loyalties. Players and fans might feel betrayed by that too.
So, to readers who think Hayden should have gone further, what do you feel he should have done instead? Quit the team in protest of how they were treating Shane? It’s not like another team would hire him after that, that would be even less likely for him than for Shane. By Ilya’s POV, Hayden’s not a particularly great player. And what if it was his life’s dream to play in the NHL? Should he kiss that dream goodbye just to support Shane, who after all is a multi-millionaire and who, lets face it, however good his reasons may have been, had done a not-so-great thing by not disclosing a major potential conflict of interest? It’s not an easily defensible position for Hayden to take. To say nothing of the fact that Hayden has a family of six to support.
@Janine: I hated the way their coming out / getting outed was handled. It honestly kind of ruined the book for me. But my problem wasn’t really with Shane’s teammates. I haven’t seen anyone name all of my problems with the outing and the ending, so here’s my list of reactions (in no particular order)
1 – I can’t believe that more people in their lives didn’t push them to consider how to come out as a couple, especially after they got engaged. I wanted a lot more than Rose saying they needed a plan B. Shane and Ilya both have histories of denial, so I actually bought that part, but why didn’t their agent do more once they came out to her? Why didn’t she reach out to OutSports or other resources for LGBTQ+ athletes for help managing this? I’ve read enough coverage of how pro (male) athletes have come out to really question this.
2 – the whole FansMail thing struck me as silly and to have them be outed on a FansMail video was so jarring. Such an odd authorial choice.
3 – Shane tripping in the playoffs. Again, what a weird authorial choice. I couldn’t decide if she was trying to even the scales by having Shane sacrifice his winning team too, but it really took me out of the story.
@Becky:
Exactly! And not just every game from now on, but also every major game from their past, from when Ilya played for Boston. Most of the ice hockey fandom would want to see those games again knowing what they now know. There would be TV ratings in that, it would be on the air on sports channels for quite a while.
I am somewhat versed in sports scandals, having seen the movie Eight Men Out. The whole country was devastated when it came out that the Chicago White Sox threw the 1919 World Series on purpose. There were books and movies still being written and made about the “Black Sox Scandal” (as it was known) over seventy years later –this is the level of scandal we are talking about.
So for me this was part of the subtext of their relationship even in Heated Rivalry. I think in the first or second scenes of Heated Rivalry Shane’s teammates talk about how much they hate Ilya. Both books were always clear on the fact that the rivalry was a factor beyond the fact that they were closeted queer players. But readers bring their knowledge and experiences to a book so it didn’t register with some readers as strongly as it did with me.
I was aware and that was why I loved the ending of Heated Rivalry so much. The whole time I read reading the book I couldn’t imagine a HEA for them because of the rivalry. I just could not see a way for them to be together. Shane’s dad says that when they talk about hiding the relationship for the rest of their lives; he says something like “I wish I saw another way but I just don’t.” When they came up with the plan to make the rivalry die down some and then “develop” a romance after they retired I thought it was brilliant because it was a solution and one I could buy.
TBH I saw Shane’s concern as not just about having a huge scandal where every game would come under scrutiny, but also being fired and being unable to hold any NHL-related position for the rest of his life. Realistically, that’s probably what would happen. He had a lot on the line and hockey was his life. I totally understood his desire to wait. The only issue I had was his obliviousness to some of the signs that Ilya was in pain. He did see some of it, and said he worried, but there were times when he seemed almost completely unaware. All in all though I ended up loving him at the end of the book.
I don’t know when he could have done that though. After the truth came out he still had to play several games with them and that meant teamwork and a level of rapport where you can at least work together. Yelling at them would not have made that easier, nor could he walk away because he was still under contract. He did start wearing his engagement ring openly and he even took a picture of it to send Ilya from the locker room shower–that was very brave.
One of the things this discussion has made me aware of is how necessary it was for Ilya’s depression to be at the core of the book. If Ilya had not been suffering so much, he would have been the asshole for pressuring Shane to go public. Shane’s career might have died right there and that’s a big ask to ask of someone whose whole life has been hockey since childhood and who is a world-class athlete at that. Giving Ilya a severe case of depression made it totally understandable and right for him to need Shane to choose.
@Becky:
I forgot add this reply to what you said re. wishing that Reid had made Shane voice a concern about how coming out would create a scandal that would put them under great scrutiny and possibly cost them their jobs. Yes, that would have made Shane’s fear of revealing the relationship more understood as valid, but I think if she’d done it it would have made Ilya’s needs look maybe a little more selfish and self-centered. Depression does narrow so much to the self, and the pain the self is centered in, and though I could be wrong, I think one of Reid’s goals with this book was to put the reader inside that experience so that Ilya’s heartbreak and his needs could be acutely felt. It kind of creates a situation where the more focus you explain why Shane needs what he needs the more irreconcilable things start to look. It would be less romantic because readers might see Ilya as (however good his reasons) asking more from Shane than Shane should reasonably be asked to give up. It would start to look tragic and not resolvable in a happy way. In real life, that wouldn’t necessarily look so bad, but in a book you have to rely on a POV to situate the reader in the focus that you want them to have. And the focus here had to be on Ilya’s heartbreak both for the angsty feels to work but also for the romance to work.
@cleo: Thanks so much for answering my question. I can understand what you mean and agree with some of your points. Here are my thoughts:
1. That’s a good point that more people should have asked them to consider all the angles and they should have talked to advocacy organizations in advance. I don’t disagree at all, BUT I think that ultimately it wouldn’t have made much difference how they’d come out because of the rivalry conflict. There was no keeping that from outraging people. In some ways I think a press conference would actually have been worse. They would have been asked point blank questions about how they justified keeping this big of a conflict of interest undisclosed, whether they’d ever cheated (as in sports cheating), who else knew (which might hurt Hayden and Svetlana or even cost them their jobs), how long this has been going on, etc., and I don’t see that that would have been better. I think Reid handled it as she did because from a writerly perspective it makes a happier ending not to shove all that in the reader’s face. Also there would be too much to unpack just when you want to wrap up the book.
TL;DR, those advocacy organizations might be great at helping athletes figure out how to come out as queer and deal with being viewed as stereotypes, but I’m not sure they’d be as useful in helping them come out as far as being rivals and viewed as betrayers of their teams.
2. Agreed, the FanMail was silly. I think the author was going for some degree of humor + the truth coming out in such an incontrovertible way that it would lead to the most impactful confrontation scenes (with the the coaches, the Montreal team, J.J., etc.). I wasn’t a fan of the FanMail at all (I thought some of the humor in the scene where Hayden told them was awkward) but I did enjoy some of the fallout (the scenes between J.J. and Shane, between Ilya and his coach, and–my favorite–the sign Ilya’s neighbors made for him).
2.-B By the way, I thought that some of the foreshadowing that they’d be outed was clunky.
3. I didn’t see Shane as sacrificing his winning team. Or rather, I saw him as having already largely sacrificed his winning team before that, when he proposed to Ilya. His opposition to coming out was based on fears of losing his team. When he proposed he chose Ilya over Montreal and over hockey. He was basically saying, “I would give it all up for you.” And he wasn’t saying it as some kind of hypothetical, he was saying it as someone who had clearly believed that that was very possible.
The tripping was awkwardly written, but I think the real reason Reid put it there was for readers who didn’t understand why the rivalry, in the context of the revelation that they were a couple, was a scandal and why it outraged so many people. Kaetrin and Becky have said in this thread that they didn’t get it until they saw that scene, so I see that scene as necessary.
Although the FanMail concept was a bit bonkers, I always assumed Shane & Ilya would be inadvertently outed (as I mentioned above, I thought something would happen at Scott & Kip’s wedding), so I was prepared for an outing that they did not control, even if I wasn’t completely down with the method. I think Reid was right to focus on the rivalry aspect of Shane & Ilya’s relationship once they were outed. I also think Shane’s trip, allowing Ilya to score and his team to advance in the championship, was necessary to show what the guys would be up against.
I think the Game Changers series should end with THE LONG GAME, but I hope Reid begins a new series by returning to some of the supporting characters we’ve seen in previous books. Remember the big Finnish player from GAME CHANGER? I can’t remember his name, but he pops up a few times in subsequent books.
@cleo: Cleo, I largely agree with your points 1, 2, and 3, so don’t feel you’re alone. Those things bothered me, but not enough to significantly diminish my enjoyment of the book.
I do want to follow up on your first point. I also wondered why Ilya and Shane did not involve their agent once they got engaged and made the plan to come out after the season was over. If I were their agent, I would have had a mountain of statistics at hand showing that Shane and Ilya played just as well or better against each other vs. any other team, throughout their entire careers. I would have had them sit down, as a couple, with some big interviewer. I would point to each and every award they had won. And I would have Scott Hunter and other allies lined up to back them. I like to think that some of those things happened after The Trip and before the wedding. After all, Ottawa signed Shane, despite the scandal. I believe Janine is right— to go into all that stuff would have made this a different story, less about Ilya’s depression and their need to be together, whatever the cost, and more about their careers. The fact that they were willing to risk their incredible careers to be together, even in the face of a “worst case scenario outing,” was pretty moving.
@Janine: You have mentioned several times how much you appreciated the depression representation in The Long Game, and I agree wholeheartedly. Depression runs in my family, and it manifests in so many ways. Like Ilya, most of us are very functional the vast majority of the time, and we are reluctant to admit we are feeling down, always hoping we can get out of it without schlepping into therapy or getting on meds again. Our loved ones don’t always see it because we hide it. And yet, as Reid shows with Ilya, it’s there, that dark undertow waiting to grab us. It was hard to read of his suffering, because it brought back my own and that of my loved ones. I certainly have failed to see their pain as soon as I should have, missing clues or letting myself be brushed off when I inquired, just like Shane did. It felt to me that Reid has very personal knowledge of depression, and I was grateful that she used her gifts as a writer to show her readers this view of a functional depression, and how small disconnects can add up to great pain and deepen the depression. And that even a strong man can benefit from therapy. And that it’s ok to say how you’re feeling and what you need. It was a powerful storyline and I really appreciated it.
@Janine: I agree that holding a press conference probably wouldn’t have helped but doing an exclusive interview with ESPN or publishing an exclusive coming out essay in some big paper could have helped them control the story.
@Becky: Thanks!
I agree with both of you that the depression rep was really good. That part really resonated with me.
“I also think Shane’s trip, allowing Ilya to score and his team to advance in the championship, was necessary to show what the guys would be up against.”
Yes, agree. It certainly was for me.
regarding Cleo’s point 1 I think that the issue was more about the rivalry than the fact that Ilya was bi and Shane gay. And as Janine said I don’t think that a queer-friendly magazine could have helped much. That said, Cleo has a point that their agent didn’t seem to raise the issue of the rivalry – or, at least, not explicitly enough to make it clear to me that it was going to be a BIG DEAL and yes, they needed a plan B. That’s why that tripping scene ended up being so necessary for me because I’d just never considered it as a problem before but all of a sudden my eyes were opened.
As to the FanMail thing, I assumed it was a similar service to the real life one (https://www.cameo.com/) where people pay celebrities of all stripes (though not usually A-listers!) to send messages and birthday greetings etc to their loved ones as a gift. So it all made sense to me and I didn’t think of it as particularly silly. I know a couple of people who have had a favourite celebrity send a message to their husband or sister as a gift and because they’re massive fans, they’ve thought it was the best thing. And, like attending conventions, it’s another way for celebs to make money.
@DiscoDollyDeb: I meant to reply to this earlier–I also thought of that scene in HR when Shane’s mother asked him if he had ever let Ilya win on purpose. Yuna was an expert on the sport and on Shane’s playing and she also knew her own son but it still crossed her mind. That shows how hard it is to tease apart allowing the other person to win from the relationship. Shane’s answer was perfect “When you and Dad play Yahtzee, do you let him win?” It got at the core of what playing against each other meant to Shane and Ilya–that they enjoyed beating one another. But it wouldn’t necessarily be easy to convince other people of that, and if nothing else, that joy would have been gone after they were out (if they were still on rival teams).
With regard to the wedding of Scott and Kip–I was just as glad that it wasn’t in this book. I don’t care about them that much and it would have taken precious page space from characters I care about more (Troy and Svetlana, for example). I did think the scene where Scott stops by Ilya’s house and expresses bafflement at Ilya and Shane’s relationship was priceless, though.
@DiscoDollyDeb: Oh, I assumed that too (that they would be outed unexpectedly). It seemed like the obvious place for the next book to go. In fact I was kind of dreading that that would be what the whole book would be about because it didn’t seem like something that would provide enough rich material by itself, so I was glad there was more to the book than just that.
It will be interesting to see if she does another NHL-based series. On the one hand, how many queer hockey players can there believably in the NHL and in new relationships that will turn out to be true love and who come out at the same time? At some point the conceit can get stretched too far. But on the other hand Reid is very good with the hockey milieu and after loving this book I would definitely read another.
@Janine: RE: how many queer players can there believably be in the NHL, my (very slapdash) internet research produced this:
The NHL had 903 players play one or more games in the 2018-19 season. Each team is to have a minimum of 20 players or maximum of 23 players at any one time on their roster. Therefore, over the 31 teams there are between 620 and 713 players in the NHL at one time.
So, if there’s 3 to 5% of the general population somewhere on the rainbow spectrum (and that’s a conservative estimate – seems to be much higher among the Gen Z crowd), and if there are 620 hockey players playing (again taking the conservative number), there would be at least 18 to 31 queer players. LOTS for Rachel Reid to write about SO GET BUSY. (And gosh if my math is wrong I’ll be so embarrassed but someone please correct me.)
@Becky:
I agree with this 100%. It was an obvious thing to do, and even though I don’t think it would have made a big difference, I think they should have done it.
I don’t see how statistics could prove anything here, or even offer supporting evidence. Say, for example, you have statistics that show that Ilya’s old team (the Boston Bears) beat Scott’s team (the New York Admirals) just as much as they did Shane’s team (the Montreal Voyageurs). It doesn’t prove anything because the New York Admirals are a different team than the Voyageurs, with different strengths and weaknesses, and the same team pitting themselves against one team would face a different situation with another.
Say the statistics showed that Ilya scored just as much against the Admirals’ goalie as he did against the Voyageurs’ goalie. It still doesn’t prove anything because the goalies of the two teams are two different players with different abilities. Then there’s the fact that Ilya and Shane don’t make these plays happen all by themselves. On one given day Shane could be holding back and his team would still win. On another he could be playing his best and they would still lose.
Now maybe a player (like Scott) who is himself expert and who played against both of them, who has an instinctive grasp of how Shane and Ilya move their bodies when they are making their best effort and what facial expression means they are determined to win, might be able to watch a particular game between their teams and, based on his personal experiences, conclude that in that particular game at least, they probably weren’t cheating. But that amounts to gut feel, not anything provable. And given that even Shane’s mother didn’t discount (in Heated Rivalry) the possibility that they were cheating, for every player who went out on a limb to say that he didn’t think there was cheating, there would be multiple others whose gut feel would say the opposite or who would just go on TV and say, “it’s ridiculous to go by what so-and-so says.” Which it would be, because to anyone outside that kind of information isn’t that meaningful.
To say what? “We didn’t cheat”? Anyone in their position would say that, whether or not it was true, and everyone would know that. I think the interviewer would be obliged to ask some uncomfortable questions, i.e. “How long was this going on?” “Did you ever think about how it would make your fans feel to find this out?” Maybe it would help with some fans, I don’t know. But it wouldn’t prove they didn’t cheat.
That’s not meaningful either because Shane and Ilya could have been trading off who was going to help who win. Maybe in 2013 Ilya won the “most outstanding player” NHL trophy with Shane’s assistance, and in 2014 Shane won it with Ilya’s assistance. That kind of strategy could allow both of them to get a better chance at winning the “outstanding player” trophy than other players.
To give a personal example, when we were kids, my younger brother was a sore loser at strategy games. I am extremely competitive at board games and I hated losing, especially since he was a great player and it wasn’t easy to win against him. Nevertheless, I let him win more than once because I didn’t want to see him cry or toss the board and all the pieces across the room. Did he know he didn’t win fair and square? No, he didn’t, because he’s an excellent player (chess champion at school). If even he didn’t know, how can anyone else prove it? There’s only my word for it.
@Becky: Yes, all that was marvelous. I loved loved loved the scene at the very end when they are having breakfast and Shane reminds Ilya to take his pill. Such a small little touch but one that acknowledges so much–that a happy ending is possible even for people with chronic mental illnesses.
@cleo: See what I said to Becky. I’m not saying they shouldn’t have gone on TV or written essays (an essay might have been the best of their options) and I definitely think their agent should have tried something, but I don’t think it would make a lot of difference.
Sports fans are passionate about loyalties to teams. I kind of feel like if it helped with anyone, it would be with the people who don’t care so much about sports and would watch the interview or read the essay for its human interest aspect or its gossip-worthy aspects. The people who’d want to know all about how these famous and successful players fell for each other and what keeping the secret felt like etc.
Would it help to make some of those people more sympathetic? Maybe. Would it convince the people who really cared whether they cheated that they didn’t cheat, or the people who felt that they shouldn’t have kept such a big conflict-of-interest secret that that’s okay and they were aboveboard? I don’t think so in most cases. I would guess (I don’t recall really) that Tiger Woods may have done some damage control stuff like that after his cheating/car crash scandal, but if so, it didn’t make a lot of people feel that his having cheated on his wife was okay.
To bring up what is really salient here, though–even though you’re 100% right that Ilya and Shane’s agent should have tried these things, I don’t think seeing her do them would have made the book better or the ending feel happier. On the contrary, it would highlight what a mountain of opposition and judging they were facing–and right at the end of the book, which is when an author of a romance wants to leave her readers with a happy glow.
@Eliza: Good point that there are probably more queer NHL players than many people realize (although I would guess fewer than the general population percentage would be drawn to professional sports because of the heteronormative attitudes and the homophobia they face in that profession).
As far as I can tell, there is currently only one out NHL player and he’s playing in the minor leagues: Luke Prokop. It was a big deal when he came out last year. The fictional NHL is a lot more inclusive than the actual one. But it’s not as if the NFL, MLB, or NBA has anything to brag about in that arena.
@Kaetrin (I posted this above by mistake before; I intended this in reply to your comment so I’m moving it here):
Re FanMail, I didn’t have a problem with the concept of such a service existing; I actually suspected it already did exist in real life. It was the way it happened that seemed kind of contrived. A lot of things had to go wrong simultaneously for it to happen–Hayden to discover a stain on his shirt at the last minute and have to change quickly, the mirror to show the window (which I got the impression it normally didn’t), Jackie to realize there was a toy in the car she needed and Ilya and Shane to take that opportunity to steal a kiss. The unlikelihood of all that happening at once made the way they were outed read as a little contrived/clumsy.
@Janine: Oh I agree there. It was a bit contrived. I think it needed to be a photo or something like that though because just one or two people seeing them kiss would have been possible to deny deny deny. As it was, the photographic evidence and virality (it was always going to go viral!) of it forced their hand and I think that’s what Reid was going for – box them into a corner so they had to come out as a couple.
@Kaetrin: Good point. DiscoDollyDeb mentioned paparazzi earlier and that might have been better, though.
@Janine:
I don’t know. To me, if their agent had done all of that earlier in the book – like after Shane and Ilya came out to her or after they got engaged, maybe Reid wouldn’t have had to have Shane trip to really illustrate what they were up against.
@cleo: I had a strong suspicion that something would happen to make people think that Shane was losing on purpose because it seemed inevitable from a narrative perspective. The book had to go somewhere like that for its black moment because that was what was at the heart of Shane’s conflict with regard to coming out. It needed to be dramatized. That was a big part of what made it awkwardly written for me—it was something the author had to make happen so it didn’t read as totally natural. I think the agent doing things preemptively to mitigate the outrage would have made the scandal seem manageable and then we would be wondering why Shane was being so resistant, and/or worse, his resistance might have seemed contrived.
So I finally had time to read all the comments here and wanted to add my two cents about the ending and coming out, etc. I did not have an issue with how them coming out was handled . That does not mean that I think they could not have come out with plan B or plan C. Of course they could have and probably should have however, why would they if they did not want to? Does it make sense? Throughout the book they (together or separately) are hesitant about the timing, how to handle it, etc – in other words to me it read that while they both wanted to come out eventually, they were not ready about precise timing. They were especially not ready, not in sync about it in the beginning of the book.
I guess to me it is more believable to see people choosing not perfect cause of action even if it may lead to a disaster later than to involve their agent more at that stage of the proceedings. And of course it was clear to me that they will be outed eventually and earlier than they both would have wanted – but thats because in many romances and when the couple does not want to come , usually they have to anyway :(.
Re: issue with Shane’s team. I agree with Janine that to me it read more like an issue with them being rivals and that them being on a rival team probably would not have worked anymore.
@Sirius: I’m curious—did you expect them being a couple to be treated as a scandal (that they would be suspected of cheating) all along or was it something that only occurred to you after Shane tripped, as happened to a couple of people here?
@Janine: in what sense being treated as a scandal? If the scandal being that two rivals were lovers all along then yes I think I may have expected that as a possibility. actually I guess the only thing I expected with certainty is that they would be outed before they were ready, but I did not have a definite scenario in my head. I think Shane tripping was the only thing that I considered awkward writing – author manipulating the event to happen in order to invoke the thought that he may have cheated
@Sirius: I guess what I mean is more whether you saw the rivals being lovers as a potential issue. For example when Shane was resistant to coming out, did you feel it was more because the rivals being in love would be an issue, or more because them being gay (not that they were lovers) would be the issue?
Yes, I agree it felt like a manipulated event.
@Janine: oh, oh. I thought it would be an issue, yes, but I did not think that it would be a bigger issue than them being gay before they were outed. However, when it happened, I did think that Shane’s team reacted that way more because of them being rivals and being in love.