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Author: rockinhamburger
Readers: celli, be_brave13, YouAreAKitty, and MeggieJolly
Length: 0:23:18
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Sara: Hey listeners. Thanks for tuning into this very special episode of Light the Lamp…
Naomi: Your favourite podcast for all things hockey. [ice skating sfx, goal horn sound, cheer] We’re your hosts, Naomi…
Sara: And Sara.
As you can see, this episode is popping into your feeds out of the usual schedule. But don’t worry, the regularly scheduled episode will drop next week, please don’t flood us with messages about that.
Naomi: Yeah, listeners, we appreciate the enthusiasm, we really do, but it’s always a little intense, the frenzy when we release a special episode and people start wondering, loudly, if we’re skipping a week. So, rest assured: This is an extra, not a replacement.
Sara: Obviously we couldn’t just tack this interview onto a regular episode. Can you imagine? There is nothing regular about our guests today. We’ve been mysterious so far, which is silly since you’ve already seen the title and know exactly who we’re interviewing.
Naomi: Yes, or maybe you saw one of the posts on social media and came here specifically for the interview. Either way, you already know we’re interviewing hockey’s finest, Shane Hollander and Ilya Rozanov. Welcome to you both, and holy fucking shit, thank you so fucking much for talking to us today!
Sara: Yeah, this is fuckin’ wild!
[laughter from everyone]
Ilya: It is our pleasure.
Shane: Yeah, thank you for having us. It’s nice to be here. We’re big fans of your podcast. No one’s really out here doing it like you two.
Ilya: Yes, it was no-brainer.
Naomi: Was it!? Okay!
Sara: Okay!! Um, so it is not at all intimidating to have two legends in the studio with us today. Apologies if it takes a second to kind of lock in here. It’s just absolutely mind bending to be sitting across the table from you.
Naomi: Yeah, you’re both, like, ridiculously good looking. It’s so surreal it’s making my brain skip.
Sara: Yeah, we’re sorry for being so starstruck. We’re officially locking in now.
[Laughter from Ilya and Shane]
Ilya: If it helps, Hollander is super boring. Not much to be nervous about. You might fall asleep during interview.
Shane: And if it helps, Ilya was only the second best player in the league, so what’s the big deal, really?
[Naomi and Sara laugh, incredulous still but with that kind of relieved note of tension released]
Sara: Alright, we’ll just get started here. And I’ll be honest, we thought about listing all of your achievements, but… well, the list is really long.
Naomi: Yeah, like, we drafted one, just to see, and it was three paragraphs long. It was like reading out a rap sheet.
[Ilya and Shane both laugh.]
Sara: We tried reading it out, and it was so cartoonishly funny to sit there rattling off everything you two have accomplished, both separately and together, that we knew we had to do this differently.
Naomi: Yeah, I mean, there’s no precedent for this. We couldn’t find a single interview featuring the two of you, where someone had to list all of your accomplishments, partly because you don’t give a lot of interviews together. Understandably, you have to be very careful about that.
Sara: Yes, so we appreciate that you’ve given us the honour. We hope you’ll forgive us for choosing not to list all of your accolades all at once. Instead, we’d like to walk back through them together and remind everyone of your record-breaking success.
Naomi: It just feels like the right thing to do, given you’re both being inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame in just a few weeks. Is that alright with you?
Shane: [audibly relieved] That would be great, actually.
Ilya: [low chuckle] Okay, but you will miss out on Shane’s blush while you list it all.
Sara: [laughs] Oh, shit, you’re right, we’ve made a terrible mistake.
[Everyone laughs]
Naomi: Alright, let’s start at the beginning. You first met on the ice in 2008 for World Juniors. Was that the first time you met in general?
Sara: There are conflicting stories online about that, whether you met earlier. All speculation of course.
Ilya: Ah, well, we did meet for first time during World Juniors, but not on the ice. We met outside, in the parking lot of arena. It was my first time in Canada, I barely spoke English, and then this guy comes over to introduce himself.
Shane: Yeah, and this guy was smoking. Like, right underneath the no-smoking sign.
[Everyone laughs again]
Ilya: Is true. I don’t like to follow rules, and I did not back then. But Shane made sure to tell me I was not supposed to smoke there.
[More laughter]
Naomi: Amazing. What was that first conversation like, if you don’t mind me asking?
Shane: [fondly] It was pretty short. I introduced myself, shook his hand. Said he shouldn’t be smoking there. [soft laughter from all of them] Then I told him he was an amazing player to watch and I wished him good luck in the Championship. D’you remember what you said, Ilya?
Ilya: That you would not be so nice when I beat you. [Naomi and Sara laugh, joy obvious in their voice] And then I did beat him. Went back to Russia with gold, and Hollander had to take home silver. So sad for you.
Shane: I won gold the next year, Rozanov.
Ilya: Yes, and then who went first in draft, again?
Shane: An asshole, that’s who.
[Everyone laughing now, hard]
Naomi: Oh my god, is this a sample of everyday life with you two?
Sara: ‘Cause if it is, it’s delightful.
Shane: [blushing] I mean, pretty much. We do like to compete, and that’s been there from the beginning. Like, you just heard it in our first meeting. There’s always been this… fire under us. Making us want to compete.
Sara: So you like the competition, the rivalry.
Ilya: We do, but media narrative back then was that we hated each other. We did not ever hate each other. There was always respect mixed into competition.
Naomi: Was it hard, then, to be constantly compared and pitted against each other? We’ve been watching a lot of old clips from those early days this week, and it’s so obvious in retrospect that reporters were hoping you’d say negative things about each other because even a hint of that got a lot of headlines.
Shane: Sometimes it was hard, yeah. Losing to him could make me feel… like I’d failed, and I did let it get to me a few times.
Ilya: I did also.
Shane: Well, it was different for you.
Ilya: Moya dusha, it was not so different. [To Naomi and Sara] Shane is a very nice Canadian man, so his memory is also very nice. I was not so good about losing Rookie of the Year. I knew I was going back to Russia with that failure and that I would hear about it.
Shane: That’s why it was different. I didn’t have that kind of pressure on me.
Ilya: You did. Maybe you are forgetting, but there was crazy pressure for you to be best hockey player in the league.
Shane: Not from my parents.
Ilya: Okay. But pressure is pressure.
[A quiet moment while that sinks in]
Sara: Oof, I can’t imagine the pressure you were both under. I think that highlights how hockey doesn’t really allow for those honest conversations. Because for all of the stress and pressure you were both facing, from the outside looking in, you were dominating the league and making it look easy. You were both so poised and calm in interviews. But that’s hockey, isn’t it? You’re not supposed to say that the pressure got to you, unless it’s in the context of the game, the shift, the play.
Naomi: The focus is always supposed to be on the game, and the media narratives feed into that, so if you go off script, you stand out, and you’re not supposed to stand out. There’s no public forum for players to talk about the mental fortitude you need to have to roll with the stories they decide to tell.
[Ilya and Shane let out rueful chuckles]
Shane: Yeah, absolutely.
Ilya: This is very correct analysis.
Shane: There’s a reason everyone jokes about how the interviews all sound the same. There is definitely a script you’re supposed to follow.
Sara: It makes me wonder, then, what it was like watching each other win the Stanley Cup. As listeners know, Ilya won the Cup with the Boston Bears in 2014, and Shane immediately pulled off two Cup wins in a row with the Montreal Voyageurs. I still remember those years vividly - no one could talk about hockey without mentioning the two of you. What was that like for you both?
Shane: I loved watching Ilya win the Cup. I mean, sure, did I wanna win? Of course. But I just felt so happy for him. I’d had a pretty good year, taking home the gold medal with Team Canada. Ilya had to fight so hard, to show that Team Russia’s performance in Sochi was not an indication of Ilya’s calibre as a player. To come back from that and win the Cup in the same year? Incredible.
Naomi: It really was. That’s actually the year we started the podcast. It was a good year for hockey. What was it like for you, Ilya, to see Shane win it all the following year?
Ilya: I was happy for him too. It was… inevitable, yes? He’s always been second best player in league, of course, but I knew he would win eventually. But right after, and two years in a row? No one could say, ‘well, he got lucky,’ the way they do sometimes for a Cup win. You cannot argue with back-to-back Cup wins.
Sara: And then you did it again in 2019!
Shane: Well, I didn’t do any of it alone.
Ilya: Стоп! Do not listen to him. He was the backbone and heart of that team, from the moment they drafted him ‘til the moment they fumbled him.
Shane: Ilya…
Ilya: What? It is true, and everybody knows it.
Sara: It is true.
Naomi: Everybody does know it.
[Shane and Ilya both laugh at this]
Sara: That brings us to your decision to sign with the Centaurs, Ilya. Which, you know, makes all the sense in the world now, but back then I remember thinking it was kind of a baller move. Like, you could’ve walked away with a fat stack, but it was obvious even then that there was something more important than money motivating you.
Naomi: Yeah, and that’s the kind of drive and motivation that matters in this game.
Sara: And we’d be remiss if we didn’t reiterate that Montreal absolutely dropped every fucking ball with you, Shane. You deserved so much better. I know it couldn’t have been easy, but I hope there’s been some vindication over the years.
Naomi: Which brings us to the Ottawa Centaurs’ dynasty years. Please let’s talk about how your team absolutely dominated the league for almost a decade, winning the Stanley Cup in ‘22, ‘23, ‘27, and ‘29. I mean, that doesn’t fucking happen anymore, not since the expansion. I think people thought it couldn’t be done. But you did it, and you came close so many times, getting to the ECF or Stanley Cup Finals almost every season you played for the Centaurs.
Sara: Yeah, and in 2030, the last year you played in this league, you were as close as a team can get without winning it. I think everyone remembers where they were when Colorado got one past Wyatt Hayes in double overtime.
Ilya: Fuck, yes, we should have won that for Hazy. He was so fucking good and he deserved another Cup.
Shane: Yeah, it wasn’t his fault, but he blamed himself. But if you watch the footage, then you know it wasn’t on him to stop that goal; it was on us.
Sara: Meanwhile, he won the Vezina, Hart, and Ted Lindsay that year.
Ilya: Ah yes, we mention this every chance we get, but for some reason he does not hear what we say. Maybe your listeners can remind him he is elite goalie whose job is to stop pucks, not score goals, hm?
Naomi: I love it. Listeners, you heard him. Make it rain compliments.
[Shane and Ilya both laugh]
Sara: Now, you both retired three years ago, after 20 seasons in the MLH. And I hope this comes across gently, but you two were still at the top of your game and looking like you could go for another five years. Of course, fans and reporters know only what teams and individual players choose to share, so if this is something you’d prefer not to discuss, we totally understand, but… Are you willing to talk a bit about what led you to the decision to retire, together?
Naomi: We completely understand if you’d prefer to move on. We know it can be a tough topic for players to discuss.
Shane: No, it’s okay. [after a moment of silence, Ilya and Shane sharing a long look] Well, there were a few reasons, but the big one was… We wanted to have kids.
Ilya: Yes, I… I did not want to wait any longer to have kids. My father, before he died, he had dementia. It is hereditary, so there is chance I will have it as well. For me, this was important, to have children while I can still take good care of them. And the process to have children, for me and Shane, is more complicated and we knew it might take time.
Shane: I didn’t want to wait either. I was done waiting, you know? Don’t get me wrong, I am… so grateful for my hockey career, most importantly because it brought me Ilya. I don’t know who I’d be without hockey or without him. And I know I’m a very privileged person, but… but there’s no point pretending it hasn’t been very difficult.
And I’m not talking about the physical toll it takes to play in the major leagues, or the sacrifices that athletes have to make for the game. I knew all that going in, right? I knew I’d be working out 3-6 hours every day; that wasn’t surprising or even challenging, at a certain point. Once you find a rhythm, it’s just what you have to do.
The difficult thing has been sacrificing who and what I want for this sport, something that’s completely separate from the game, or at least, it should be. I couldn’t even accept who I really was until I was 25 years old, and then I spent another five years suppressing that part of me publicly because I thought I had to do that in order to play hockey. But it should’ve never mattered, right? What does being gay or being queer have to do with shooting a fucking puck?
So, I guess I was just done giving up who and what I want for the game. 20 seasons is enough, isn’t it?
Sara: Wow. 100%!
Naomi: Oh my god, yes, you’re right and you should say it.
Ilya: Mm, my husband is very brave, very smart, yes?
Sara: Yes! But seriously, Shane, I’m so glad you’re saying this. I think it’s really important for people to hear it. There’s a real ‘shut up and play’ attitude in all professional sports, right, and it can get amplified by the media and a lot of fans who don’t want to hear athletes talk about anything outside of the game because it pierces the bubble of pretending that you’re not real people, that you’re just machines that play hockey for their entertainment.
Ilya: Da. Who wants to hear millionaires complain about playing sport for their job? ‘Wow, you and your five sports cars must be having terrible life.’
Naomi: Yup, no one likes hearing that a rich person might have it difficult. The other thing is, people love to say, ‘well, it’s just 20 years of your life; play hockey and then you can do what you want when you retire.’ But where is the sense of irony about the fact that you were both outed against your will, had your privacy invaded by the media and the fans, but you can’t talk about what it’s like to be openly queer in the league? You’re supposed to shut up and play hockey? There’s so much pressure players face to not talk honestly about the toxicity in hockey culture, to just conform to the idea that hockey is for straight, white men. The message is: ‘You can play, but only if you don’t cause trouble; only if you’re one of the ‘good ones’.
Shane: Yeah. I didn’t really know all this in my 20s or anything, but with some distance from playing and time to think, I can see how much pressure I felt to be perfect because if I messed up, what did that say about people who look like me? I didn’t want to add to that pressure by acknowledging this other part of me that would make people even more aware of how different I am. But that led to denying it for myself, and it just really sucks that I spent so much time uncomfortable in my own skin, pretending to be someone else.
I just wanted to put all of that down and figure out what life looks like beyond hockey. And we both knew we wanted kids, so we decided we were done waiting.
Ilya: It’s true, we could have played another few years maybe, but how many Stanley Cups does a person need? We should probably let other teams have a chance.
[Naomi and Sara laugh again]
Sara: It’s funny because it’s true.
Naomi: Now, you did post about this officially on your social media pages, so I wanted to ask… You recently shared that you just welcomed a baby girl. What’s it like being fathers?
Ilya: Perfect. She is… best thing we have ever done. Stanley Cups do not compare.
Shane: [sounding choked up too] What he said.
Sara: You also notably did not share a name or photo of her. There’s a lot of pressure to share those kinds of details on social media, so I wanted to ask how intentional that was and if that was important to you.
Shane: Yeah, um, there were some pretty important decisions that were taken from us, so we wanted to hold onto our privacy and only share that when we’re ready. Right now, we just want her for ourselves.
Naomi: Of course, that makes perfect sense. Now, very important question: how cute is she?
Ilya: Boyzhe, she is the cutest fucking thing in the whole universe.
Shane: No, you don’t understand. That’s not an exaggeration at all. Ilya, you have to show them.
Sara: Shit, really? You guys don’t have to.
Ilya: It is fine, unless you have camera in your eyeball, I am not worried.
[Laughter, then a bit of silence]
Naomi: Oh my god, listeners, they’re not kidding. She is the cutest little thing.
Sara: That hair! That nose!
Ilya: Yes, we talk about this nose every day. It should be illegal to be so cute.
Shane: Yeah, we keep telling her she’s gonna get arrested if she doesn’t stop.
Ilya: But she does not listen. Just like someone else I know.
Shane: Okay, fuck off, that’s way more like you than it is me.
[Laughter rings out]
Sara: So, Shane, Ilya… now that you’re weeks away from being inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame, together, the same way you’ve been linked throughout so much of your career and life… Normally, I’d ask what’s next for you both, but I think it’s pretty obvious that raising kids is what you’re focused on right now.
Shane: Yeah, it is. [With stereotypical hockey interview persona] Uh, we’re gonna stick to our systems, you know, really take our time and enjoy this stretch with her. Obviously we gotta simplify our game right now. But this team is really good together, so we just gotta take this one shift at a time, you know?
[Everyone laughing]
Naomi: Well, we wish you all the best as you continue on this journey of parenthood together. On a personal note, Sara and I talk a lot about how hockey brought us together.
Sara: Yeah, we met in 2009, covering NCAA hockey for our college papers, and we’ve been together ever since.
Naomi: We just wanted to say how amazing it was to watch you guys play in this league. I think people are finally starting to realize how spoiled we’ve all been, what a privilege it was to see the two of you break down barriers, surpass expectations, shut down the skeptics, and prove once and for all that this is our league too.
Sara: Yes! We don’t have to explain ourselves or justify a place here. You guys showed everyone that when you’re that good? They’re not gonna have a choice, and they better get with the program or get left behind.
Shane: Thank you, that’s so nice of you to say.
Ilya: Also, congratulations. You have been together 25 years, yes?
Naomi: In November, yeah. We’re also hitting 20 years of marriage in the fall, so we’re having one big party.
Sara: Gonna do a vow renewal.
Ilya: Ah, Shane and I will do this for 15th wedding anniversary, not next summer, but one after. You will come?
Naomi: Um!
Sara: Of course, if you-- you don’t--
Naomi: Yeah, you don’t have to invite us! It’s sweet of you, but…
Ilya: Hold on…
Shane: Oh, he’s gonna send you the Save the Date. We’re really planning this one in advance. Our wedding was a bit of a shitshow.
Naomi: I’m sure it wasn’t.
Shane: No, like, we didn’t have chairs.
Naomi: [trying not to laugh] Oh wow.
Shane: Yeah, and there were around 200 people there. I think all 200 of them have made fun of us for not having chairs. Which is fair!
[More laughter]
Ilya: [buzzing notification] Okay, it is sent. You will come.
Sara: Well, yeah, of course. We’ll be there. And obviously you’re welcome to come to our vow renewal, although I’m sure you’re both very busy and have many things to do in November.
Ilya: We would love to.
Shane: Send us the details? Our calendar’s a lot more free these last few years.
[Naomi and Sara laugh incredulously]
Naomi: Wow. Okay, definitely having a normal internal reaction right now.
Sara: Yup, same here! But I guess we should get back to saying thank you for joining us, and thank you for reflecting on the amazing hockey careers you’ve both had.
Naomi: We wish you the best for the ceremony in a few weeks. Can’t wait to see your names added to the Hall of Fame, where they belong, without a shadow of a doubt.
Shane: Thank you so much, and thanks again for having us.
Ilya: Thank you. Okay, here, I have more photos, you want to see? Oh my god, in one of them, she is dressed like slice of pizza…