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“Don’t get why we have to do that stupid land thing before each game.” Comeau sighed as he threw his jersey to the ground. “Waste of time. Just let us play.”
Shane felt sick to his stomach as he stared at his phone. Lily’s messages were on the screen, but he couldn’t focus on a single word. As he heard small noises of agreement around the room, he looked at J.J. – the only other person of colour in the room – and saw the same distant horror reflected in his eyes.
It’s a different sort of trauma to be a third generation Canadian, to have established roots in the country but people still assume you weren’t born here. The generational trauma was softer – the edges not sharp enough to make you bleed only bruise – but it was ingrained into your family in ways others wouldn’t even realize. They carried the weight of representation in a predominantly white sport to give hope to everyone across the country that looks like them.
“It's important.” Shane’s voice was distant to his own ears. The quiet tone sounded like a gunshot in the silent room. He felt like the words were being drawn out from deep within him, like they had been rattling against caged bars desperate to finally be heard. “Because Canada is the product of colonisation. It’s meant to be a moment of self reflection and accountability. We are paying respect, and saying we’re going to do better."
Their newest rookie from Calgary shifted from his hunched over position. His right skate was still unlaced, ready to be taken off, but he leaned back against his stall. Jamieson didn’t make eye contact with Shane as he said, “It makes me feel uncomfortable.”
Hayden shifted like a child called out in class for not paying attention, but he remained silent. Drapeau's mouth opened, only to close again. Shane’s heart sank as he realized how many people agreed with the rookie. They didn’t understand.
"It should." J.J.'s voice held the same far away quality as Shane's, lost in memories of his family and the neighborhood he grew up in. "I love Canada. Je suis tellement fière d'être Canadien, mais… . (I'm so proud to be Canadian, but...)it's hard. I'm here because Canada killed thousands."
Hayden startled and asked weakly, “That's a little extreme isn't it?”
"Non. ( "No.)" J.J. replied flatly. There were double takes in the room, men looking at J.J. as if they had never seen him before. Maybe they hadn't.
Shane could tell by the pinched expression on J.J.’s face that he didn't know how to say the words in English. That the heavy subject matter and the weight of his ancestors left him struggling to express himself in a way their white teammates would understand. How do you make people empathize and understand the struggle of systemic racism and genocide when they’ve lived in a privileged bubble their whole lives? Shane thought back to late night conversations and confessions, and of the group chat they have for the few BIPOC athletes in the MLH. There weren't even twenty of them in it.
He picked up the silence that J.J. left. “These are ancestral lands. Everyone here is the child of an immigrant. It doesn't matter if your family came here in the 60s or the 1600s, people already lived here. They had their own family and cultural traditions, and we built this country by destroying them. The last residential school wasn't even closed until 1997.” Shane finished bitterly.
“I don't understand, what is this word?” Andropov asked, his Russian accent thick with confusion. “Residential school?”
Inexplicably, Shane was hit by a wave of fond nostalgia. Ilya had asked him the same question years ago, sitting on a hotel bed with a lit cigarette dangling between his fingertips. It was their fifth All-Star Games - held in Winnipeg that year- and everyone had been surprised by the land acknowledgement at the start of the game. The Winnipeg Jets had started doing land acknowledgments before the beginning of every game at the start of the season, but no one had known if they would do so at the All-Star Game. Shane remembered the looks of confusion and derision scattered across the players on the ice. Winnipeg hadn’t hosted a major event for the MLH since.
Shane looked around the room, to see if anyone else would enter the conversation. Everyone born in Canada learned about them in grade 10 history class. A small unit, maybe talked about for two weeks by a teacher that either tried to get through it as quickly as possible, or a teacher that understood how horrific it was and struggled to get teenagers to understand.
“They took children away from their parents, native children, to assimilate them to become Canadian.” Drapeau said timidly, sounding like he was reciting from a textbook. “To take away their culture. Didn't let them speak their language, they cut their hair, beat them…killed them.”
Andropov's brow furrowed in confusion. Shane could tell he didn't understand the word assimilate, didn't understand the significance of forcibly cutting Indigenous hair. “Who are they?”
“Protestant church.” Hayden muttered. Shane shot him a sharp glare. Religious churches may have started the idea, but it wasn't churches who opened schools across Canada.
Hayden flinched and corrected himself weakly, “They started the first one, but the Canadian government made the rest and kept them open for decades. Made it legal for them to kill children.”
“The Canadian government killed children…because of their hair?” Andropov asked incredulously.
“No, no.” Hayden said quickly, waving his hand back and forth. “Not because of their hair, well kinda because of their hair. Because they were…you know.”
“No,” Andropov said slowly to Hayden as if speaking to a small child. “I don't know. Is why I ask.”
From the small snickers coming from the corner of the room Shane knew that it was time to step in, again,. “Imagine if instead of deporting the Crimean Tatars, Russia decided to take their children. Put them in schools, and if the kids didn’t speak Russian they would be beaten or killed. The only way to survive is to let go of their heritage and culture.”
Somehow, Andropov managed to look even more shocked. “You know about the Crimean Tatars?”
“My dad likes to watch a lot of documentaries.” Shane said dismissively, the lie fell quick and easy off of his tongue. “The Canadian government thought deportation wouldn’t get rid of the problem, they didn’t want Indigenous people to go live somewhere else, they wanted them completely gone. The motto of residential schools was kill the Indian in him, and save the man. They wanted to make sure that the kids who survived the residential schools would hate being Indigenous and reject their identity. That way when they eventually had kids, those kids wouldn’t be raised with Indigenous culture and practices.”
The shock slowly morphed into understanding as residential schools were framed in a historical context he could understand and relate to. Andropov’s expression turned thoughtful as he asked, “So land acknowledgment, is to say Canada remembers terrible things were done, and they will not be done again?”
Shane nodded with relief, finally someone else in the room was starting to fucking get it. “There’s a lot of other geopolitics that go into land acknowledgement, but ya. We grieve for the people who were horrifically hurt, and honour their stories that are finally coming to light. We don’t ignore racism because it makes us uncomfortable, but think about what we have to do individually to change whatever racist behaviour we engage in.”
“I'm not a fucking racist piece of shit.” Comeau snarled, his face turning red from Shane’s last sentence. His tone was defensive, Comeau’s comment was the one that started this whole discussion. “I treat you and J.J. the same as I do everyone else.”
Shane felt the bone deep exhaustion that came from hearing such a familiar phrase. I'm not racist, plenty of my friends are black. I'm not racist, I love sushi. Everyone loved to think that just because they weren’t using overt slurs then they were in the clear. Shane’s childhood had been littered with people giving small glances and making assumptions when they saw his parents. He never heard someone call his mom a jap or a chink, but plenty of people had joked that she must have been a mail order bride.
“Did either of us say that you're a racist piece of shit?” J.J. sighed, vocalizing the exhaustion that Shane felt. "Tabarnak Comeau, I'm just saying that you've never had to walk into a room and wonder if you belong. Everyone is guilty of racial bias, even me. I had to unlearn and change stuff I said when I met Shane. I didn't get why the land acknowledgement is important until I talked with my Granmè (grandmother), and she told me more about what France did to Haiti.”
Comeau's mouth opened again, but Shane cut him off. He was tired of the entire conversation and just wanted to go home to Ilya. “Everyone here has been great to J.J. and I. We just want to make sure that if we ever get an Indigenous teammate, they'll know this locker room is a safe space. And that starts with understanding why the land acknowledgment before a game is important.”
He pulled his street clothes over top of his compression wear. He cringed slightly, knowing that he would pay later for the sensory nightmare of knowing that his clean clothes were touching his sweat soaked compression wear. But Shane didn’t want to spend a single second longer than he had to in the room. As zipped up his bag angrily, the pull tab broke and the clink echoed loudly through the tense room. He took a deep breath - counting to five in his head - and turned to face the team. His eyes found J.J. “Good win tonight everyone. Enjoy the day off tomorrow, you’ve earned it.”
As he walked out of the locker room, he paused in the hallway and heard a subdued, "À plus tard mes amis. (See you guys later.)"
J.J.'s face was blank as met Shane in the hallway and they walked in silence together, barely breathing as they struggled to compose themselves against the anger that now came to them once they left the locker room.
“You lied in there Shane,” J.J. scoffed. “They haven't always been great to us.”
Shane exhaled shakily, thinking back to the laughter and expectation that he would calculate every tip at a restaurant because of his eyes. Thought back to how Hayden just assumed that he would help Jade with her math homework. Shane would help the kids with any homework, but only seemed to be asked about math. “I know, but we both know staying longer wouldn't have been productive.”
“Yeah,” J.J. agreed quietly, anger simmering below the surface. Out of the corner of his eye, Shane could see the shaking of his shoulders. “They were too angry and defensive to hear anything else.”
Shane bumped his shoulder against J.J., a small comfort of solidarity. “Not all of them, Andropov seemed to get it.”
The quiet understanding that came upon the Russian's face once Shane compared it to the Crimean Tatars. That had been a risky move on his part, he knew that some Russians agreed with the forced deportation, but Shane’s intuition had told him that Andropov would share the same viewpoint as Ilya. He was grateful to have been correct. At least someone in that room started to understand why the land acknowledgement was an important start to reparations.
J.J. nodded slowly and his shoulders finally stopped shaking. “Never thought our Russian would get it before a Canadian. Some of the vilest shit chirped at me came from Russians.”
Shane thought back to Ilya. Of the intense focus he had given Shane while he explained land acknowledgement. How Ilya had follow up questions and made sure to give each acknowledgement his full attention. The questions about Japanese internment camps after he read about them in relation to residential schools, and the uncharacteristic hesitation from Ilya when he asked if anyone in Shane’s family had been interned.
They hadn’t, thank God they hadn’t, but they still felt the effects. How could they not? It didn’t matter that they had arrived legally with dreams of a better life, they were labeled as outsiders. Poor by the country’s standards, but rich by their community’s standards. They were starting over from scratch, but they only had to do so one time. His heart ached to think about the families who had everything taken away from them. The nightmare of building a life only to have the government completely seize everything and auction it off. To survive the dehumanization of internment camps, only to be released and find out that your business had been sold off, that your possessions were destroyed, and you had to start from zero all over again.
In the bitter recesses of his own mind, Shane couldn’t help but know that in another life he wouldn’t be the only Asian player in the MLH. Third generation Canadian, and some Japanese families were only now escaping the clutches of poverty. Three generations and some families never recovered from everything being taken away from them from a signed piece of legislation.
“Rozanov gets it.” He said impulsively, his heart beating wildly at the admission. It felt wrong to try and take this moment to humanize his boyfriend, but he couldn't resist the temptation to share how good Ilya was underneath the antagonistic mask he wore for protection.
J.J. stopped walking. “Fuck off, t'es sérieux? (are you serious?)"
Shane laughed breathlessly at the shocked look on J.J.’s face. He could see the hope buried underneath the shock. The naked want to believe that one of the best players in the league wasn't a piece of racist shit, but the caution from having been burned before.
“Has he ever said anything racist to you? Or any Boston players since Rozanov became captain?” Shane countered.
He could see the cogs turn in J.J.’s brain as he went over all his previous interactions with Ilya. “No...no he chirps my skill but never my looks.”
Shane's lips twitched in a small smile. “Back at our third All-Stars, he asked me what chink meant because Kent said he couldn't believe they lost to one.”
“Kent est un salaud.(Kent is a bastard.) J.J. muttered. “Câlisse, that was the year Rozanov broke Kent's jaw right?"
He nodded, wrestling with his self control to not get hard at the reminder that Ilya put someone in the hospital for him. Over a slur Shane had endured since he was in Timbits. (Canada’s Under-7 hockey league.) “Then he asked for a list of slurs he wouldn't know in English and if any Raiders had used them against us.”
“Us?” J.J. asked dumbfounded.
Shane didn't bother trying to control his smile. “Us. He said there was no space for that in his locker room. Lazy to chirp skin when Boiziau defense is weak.”
Loud laughter rang through the parking lot from Shane's bad impersonation. He ignored the hand J.J. raised to cover his watering eyes. "Crisse, capitaine. (Shit, captain), fucking Rozanov gets it but Comeau doesn't.”
“Hey.” Shane said as he placed his hand on J.J.’s shoulder. He kept his grip firm - grounding - a reminder that J.J. wasn't alone and Shane would always have his back. “We'll get through it. Today, we were the only ones to speak up, but next time there will be more. You saw Hayden, Andropov, the rookies, and Drapeau at the end too. I believe it'll be better next time.”
He looked at Shane skeptically. “You really believe that?”
“I have to.” Shane replied with a brittle smile. He had been telling himself it'll get better since he was nine years old and his mom got a kid kicked off the team. He didn't know if it had actually gotten better, or if he was just desensitized to it.
J.J. nodded solemnly, probably remembering similar experiences as a child. Or maybe not. Not every kid was unfortunately fortunate enough to have a tiger mom like he did. There was an art to picking your battles, and a Black mom deciding enough was enough would receive a different reception to an Asian mom doing the same thing. They were fighting the same battle, but a Black person would always receive a harsher punishment for showing their anger.
“Do you ever-” J.J. looked around the parking lot quickly to see if anyone was near them. "Pense-tu jamais a quitter l'équipe? À renoncer ta clause de non-echange? (Do you ever think about leaving the team? Waiving your no trade clause?)"
He couldn’t help but flinch at the question. It was unfathomable, two core players talking in public about whether they should jump ship. A confession whispered in a different language as if that would keep their teammates from understanding the traitorous words.
Maybe it would, a majority of the team wasn’t fluent in French. Shane knew he would have to be fluent to play the best hockey possible, and made sure to study extra hard so he would always be able to communicate with his teammates. He was an outlier though, most Canadians never bothered learning French outside of what was mandatory for school. If they even came from a province that required French learning. God knows how many hockey players came out of Alberta proud to not know French even after moving to Montreal.
”De temps en temps. Toi aussi? (”Sometimes. You too?)" His voice was almost inaudible.
”Chaque février, quand ils me demandent si j’ai des idées de posts Instagram. (”Every February, when they ask me if I have any ideas for Instagram posts.)" J.J. said bitterly, exhaustion lining his face. "Ils adorent montrer mon visage, mais ils détestent quand je parle créoles haïtienne. Mais ou irais-je? Nous sommes que dix-sept, et sauf toi, j’aime seulement Vaughan et Bood. Mais leurs équipes sont horribles!” (”They love to use my face, but hate if I speak Haitian Creole. But where would I go? There’s only seventeen of us, and besides you, I only like Vaughan and Bood. But their teams suck!)
”Ouais… (”Ya…”)Shane agreed quietly.
The others… everyone in the group chat was friends because they dealt with the same shit. Sometimes they got together for drinks after games, and Shane felt ashamed to admit he had a better time with them than his actual team. He couldn’t deny the jealousy he felt when Bood said that the Centaurs ate all the Trinidadian food he made for team barbecues. But Shane didn't know what would kill him more though. Being on a team with a good locker room but losing games constantly, or staying in Montreal to win another Cup while dealing with microaggressions.
“Too bad we can't transfer together eh Capitaine?” J.J. laughed weakly, as if a joke would make the entire situation hurt less.
Shane’s lip twitched into a small smile, but he felt too sick for anything else. The entire day had been too much. Normally, he was energized after playing Boston. The fight and the struggle of winning over their divisional rivals – of beating Ilya – left him running high for days. But right now? He felt like they had just lost the Cup in game seven.
“See you later." J.J. said with a soft squeeze to Shane's hand that was still on his shoulder. It surprised Shane, but he could feel the gratitude in the motion. The affirmed support that he would defend Shane just as fiercely.
They nodded at each other once more, before getting into their cars to leave. As Shane watched J.J. drive away, the urge to crumple over his steering wheel and cry nearly overcame him, but God only knew who would come out of the doorway next. He had already personalized it too much in the locker room. If any Voyageurs came out and saw him crying in the parking lot they would attribute the whole conversation to Shane being overly sensitive. It would undo the work J.J. had done.
He would save the tears and the anger until he was home. He would fall apart only once he was in Ilya's arms.