Work Text:
December, 2010
“What the fuck is that thing,” Ilya said, staring up into the stands. They were in Philly, a city he’d never visited before, to play a team he’d never played before, though he’d reviewed footage and had some idea what to expect on the ice. The footage had, however, not included this.
The Raiders had done the first stretch of their warmup, and the audience was trickling in, and the home team’s mascot had come out to do some mingling and entertaining. It was off the ice, wandering around among the audience members. It was a huge fuzzy thing, an amorphous blob, wearing a misshapen Fighters jersey, and as it turned, Ilya could see that it had enormous googly eyes on the front of its face.
“Oh that’s their new mascot,” Vic “Tory” Jackson said. He was an older defenseman, and Ilya was staying with him while he was a rookie. Tory was okay, nothing special but reasonably reliable if his shoulder was in good shape. His wife was nice. “It’s called Itty, I think.”
“What is it, though?” Ilya asked, watching it avidly as he stretched.
“I dunno,” Tory said. “A blob?”
“Is like. Legend creature?” Ilya asked. He was working hard on his English but relied really heavily on the translate app on his phone, and he couldn’t have his phone on the ice, so out here he was reduced to miming a lot. Fortunately he didn’t usually need to communicate anything complex.
“I don’t think so,” Tory said. “I think it’s just a freaky blob.”
As Ilya watched in delight, the freaky blob pretended to hump an incoming audience member, gyrating its oversized hips and leaping to punctuate its pretend assault.
“I love it,” Ilya said. “I am going to fight it.”
“You know mascots will just mess with you, if you show them the slightest attention,” Tory said warningly.
Ilya turned wide, astonished eyes on him. “Mess with me!” he said. “Someone might mess with me? My biggest fear!”
Tory laughed. Ilya was a bit of a target for that sort of thing, but had resolved that he had no choice but to thrive on it, so he was. “I guess that doesn’t scare you.”
“I’m going to fight it,” Ilya said, and got up from his stretch and skated over.
“Excuse me,” he said to the mascot, leaning on the door to the breezeway to address the thing where it was standing by one of the entrance staircases. “Excuse me. Please tell me. What are you.”
“That’s Itty,” said the small child descending the staircase to find her seat with her parents. Ilya looked at the child, and looked at the mascot, who had turned and was regarding him.
“What is Itty,” Ilya asked the child.
“Itty is an orange freak,” said the child’s father. “Hey, you’re that Russian kid.”
“I am,” Ilya said. “I have not been to Philadelphia before in my life. I do not know what this is.” He gestured to Itty.
Itty was of course expressionless, and the little mesh panel in its neck could only make out so much, but it was clear the person inside there had recognized that Ilya was an opposing player and thus fair game. It descended the stairs toward him, reaching out its hands. It was approximately human-shaped, Ilya supposed. There was a handler with it, who pulled off the guards on its skates as it reached the edge of the breezeway.
“Are you monster?” he asked it. “Or like. What is word. Bigfoot. Are you bigfoot. Is this thing in Philadelphia?”
“The whole design concept is that he’s a freak,” the man explained.
“He’s our freak,” the little girl said proudly.
“Oh,” Ilya said.
“You realize you’ve asked for this now,” the handler said to Ilya, and Ilya grinned at her.
Itty hopped over the gate into the breezeway and came toward where Ilya was leaning on the boards. Ilya stood back to let it hop the boards to come in, gliding backwards a little to size it up. He had done only half of his warmup, so he was wearing no helmet or gloves and had no stick with him.
Itty came towards him, seized him in its arms, and set to pretending to hump him too. Ilya yelled in delight. It was a somewhat-sanitized performance, with more gyration and less forward thrusting than verisimilitude would dictate, but it was still pretty unmistakable what it was pretending to do to him.
“Oh!” Ilya shouted. “Oh! This city so hospitable! I never have been welcomed like this before! But surely you buy me dinner first!” He had grabbed on to the thing and was using his weight to force it to skate in tiny circles with him. Of course the person in the suit was a very good skater, but no match for Ilya. Still, they gamely kept up the exaggerated humping.
“Itty,” he yelled, and yanked it into a bigger swoop. “Oh Itty! I never been this kind of girl before! I never feel this way!”
“Rozanov,” the coach said, “quit fucking around!”
“It fuck me first,” Ilya protested. Itty kept hold of his hand, and pulled him into a waltz-like twirl. He laughed and turned backward, mimicking the ice dancing he’d sometimes seen in some of the rinks he’d practiced in. “We are in love, Coach.”
“We gotta finish this warmup,” the coach barked. “Enough of that!”
“Yes Coach,” Ilya said. To Itty he said, “Our love is forbidden, Itty.”
The guy inside the mascot laughed. “I like you, kid,” he said. “I’ll find you at intermission.”
“Buy me dinner first,” Ilya said. The mascot let him go and skated away, and he twirled in place, pulling his arms in to his chest and then extending them forlornly after the retreating costume.
Thus began Ilya’s unhinged love affair with the Philly mascot. The Boston and Philly teams didn’t have a particularly notable rivalry, and currently the Raiders were on the upswing (with Ilya) while Philly seemed to be in a bit of a downswing, so the games weren’t particularly exciting and mostly Boston won them, unless Boston played very badly and Philly won them, which didn’t happen often and happened less as Ilya matured into the team structure. But regardless of how the games went, Ilya and Itty had time to get into shenanigans.
Sometimes Itty chased Ilya around. Sometimes Ilya chased Itty. After one particularly intense session, Ilya sent a bouquet to the mascot performer with a card attached that said,
Sorry I sexually harassed you,
I have learned things about myself
and am trying to improve.
The Fighters’ PR team posted a photo of the card and flowers, and the mascot holding them, to their social media, which Ilya hadn’t entirely intended but decided to roll with.
Philadelphia Fighters
✓
@MLHFighters
@ilyarozanov 💐
2:03 PM · December 7, 2010
He DM’d them and said “My friends, please let me know if I make this too weird for you.” And then proceeded to get unhinged.
He hadn’t used social media very much yet. Some of it was international, but he hadn’t been encouraged to use any of it back in Russia, so his accounts were new. He had been verified on Instagram and on Twitter, and he decided Twitter was the way to go.
He sent a barrage of public @ tweets to the mascot, which had its own handle.
Ilya Rozanov
✓
@ilyarozanov
@IttyMLH they try to forbid our love
11:26 PM · December 7, 2010
Ilya Rozanov
✓
@ilyarozanov
@IttyMLH marry me
11:26 PM · December 7, 2010
Ilya Rozanov
✓
@ilyarozanov
@IttyMLH marry me for love but also green card
11:26 PM · December 7, 2010
Ilya Rozanov
✓
@ilyarozanov
@IttyMLH i will claim u on my taxes
11:28 PM · December 7, 2010
Ilya Rozanov
✓
@ilyarozanov
@IttyMLH are you male or female i will get u pregnant or u will get me pregnant
11:34 PM · December 7, 2010
It took almost twelve hours but people picked up on his unhinged rant and it started getting news coverage. They had just played Philly on the road and he had been amusing himself waiting in the airport, so it hit after they landed. They had a home game with Montreal the next day and he was trying to convince Hollander to meet up with him, but he had no faith it would work.
The Raiders’ PR head snagged him as he came in for the morning practice. “Mr. Rozanov,” she said, a little harried.
“I tell you, you call me Ilya,” he said.
“What are you doing on Twitter?” she asked.
“I am in love with Itty,” he said.
“I love it,” she said, “and it’s getting a lot of attention. Keep it up, it’s great work!”
He gave her a thumbs-up, took out his phone, and looked. No DMs from Itty. One from the Philly PR team saying they were delighted. He wrote another couple of them.
Ilya Rozanov
✓
@ilyarozanov
@IttyMLH you are playing hard to get
7:46AM · December 10, 2010
Ilya Rozanov
✓
@ilyarozanov
@IttyMLH I will try harder I am very determined man
7:46AM · December 10, 2010
He put his phone away and went to do his job.
That night he got to face Hollander in several face-offs. In the first one, they were too taken up with mugging at each other to say anything. But one of Montreal’s defensemen got Ilya pinned to the boards and said, “I hear you’re into that orange freak.”
“We are in love,” Ilya gasped, and managed to shove free.
At the next face-off, Hollander said, “I hear you’ve got a new flame.”
“Philly is a friendly town,” Ilya said. “I make friends everywhere I go.”
“You’re a friendly guy,” Hollander said.
“Are you jealous? Do you want to be friendly with me?” Ilya asked.
Hollander lost the faceoff. He also didn’t give Ilya his hotel room number, or respond to Ilya’s offer to come over.
October 2011
Ilya Rozanov
✓
@ilyarozanov
@IttyMLH you don’t answer my texts
4:11 PM · October 14, 2011
Ilya Rozanov
✓
@ilyarozanov
@IttyMLH you don’t answer my calls
4:11 PM · October 14, 2011
Ilya Rozanov
✓
@ilyarozanov
@IttyMLH my heart is breaking
4:12 PM · October 14, 2011
He had abandoned the mascot over the summer break, because he had too much else to do and also his mindset while home in Russia was not in the slightest bit suited to a pretend courtship of a vaguely human-shaped blob costume. But once training camp had resumed and he was back for his sophomore season he picked it back up, after shooting a DM to Philly’s PR people to see if they were ready.
He’ll write back to you now, the PR person assured him.
Ilya considered that for just a moment. Itty was male? He looked at the Philadelphia website and ascertained that they did use male pronouns for it. He knew enough English now to make the distinction confidently. Well, he thought, the monsterfucking was probably more notable than the implied homosexuality.
Ilya Rozanov
✓
@ilyarozanov
@IttyMLH I have trained hard in off season to impress you 💪🏻
12:03 PM · October 22, 2011
ITTY ✓ @IttyMLH
replying to @ilyarozanov
it’s hard to impress me 💅
❤︎ 70K 8:58 PM · October 8, 2013
13K people are talking about this
Oh that’s how they were playing it. Well. He left it unanswered for a while, as other preseason news dominated the cycle, and then on a quiet day he wrote back.
Ilya Rozanov
✓
@ilyarozanov
@IttyMLH I have also bought dictionary to impress you
12:03 PM · October 22, 2011
Ilya Rozanov
✓
@ilyarozanov
@IttyMLH I work on my English
12:04 PM · October 22, 2011
“Hey,” he said to the overdressed young marketing intern who was nervously shielding herself behind a clipboard as various players milled around, waiting for headshots and other intake processing. “Help me. I have Twitter feud with Philly mascot and I need fluent English.”
Her name was Sarah and it was her second week and she had not met any of the players yet and didn’t actually know who Ilya was, which was fantastic. She peered at his phone with him, thoughtful. “Ah,” he said, “I don’t want to be, ah. Wait.” He pulled up his translator app. “Inappropriate. I don’t want to be inappropriate with you. But I want to be, with Itty, I want to be like. Right on the edge of too, too sexy to say really. You know? Help me with this, I don’t know boundary in America.”
“Hmm,” she said. “So you kind of want to skirt the line of not safe for work.”
“Not safe,” he said blankly. “For work.”
“You know,” she said. “NSFW.”
“What this means,” he said.
She explained the concept, a little haltingly but comprehensibly enough. Some of the difficulty, Ilya reflected, was that he had never had an actual job that wasn’t hitting things with sticks. “Is safe for my work though,” he said dubiously.
“You still have to adhere to like, workplace standards,” she assured him.
“Wish this was rule in locker room,” he said a little glumly.
“It should be,” she said, concerned.
“Most people don’t get hit at work so much either,” he pointed out.
“That’s true,” she said.
“I do get paid a lot though,” he said.
“There’s the perk,” she said, grinning.
Now Sarah was his ally and helped him. She had a better idea of what he could get away with saying. With her help he crafted a narrative, managing to come across as lovelorn and earnest. She also was remarkably helpful at researching acceptable limits of sexual depravity, and gave him a lot of extremely informative reading material that he struggled through on his own time.
Itty’s responses were mostly teasing. Sarah helped him schedule the tweets so they didn’t come in a barrage, but were sent at intervals. Unless it was funny; they did a barrage right before the next Philly game.
At the game, Itty tackled Ilya to the ice and rolled around with him. The guy in the suit was a new guy, a bit bigger and stronger, but Ilya was still stronger. He rolled them so Itty was on top, and then wrapped his legs around the mascot.
“I think we need safeword,” he said to the mesh panel in the neck. “I just learn about this, I read an article, do you know what safeword is?”
“Man,” the mascot performer said, breathing hard, “this is the most fun I’ve ever had in this costume, and I have a lot of fun in this costume.”
“I think safeword should be Purple,” Ilya said. “Okay? Is safeword? You get it? If you want me to stop for real and not an act you say purple.” He pretended to struggle, wiggling his legs.
“That’s hard to say with a mouthguard in, you sure?” the mascot guy said.
“I don’t have mouthguard in for this,” Ilya said. “Should I?”
The mascot guy laughed. “Maybe!” he said.
“I safeword then, is purple,” Ilya said, and wriggled out from under him.
“I’m stuck,” the mascot guy said, flailing a little, so Ilya helped him up.
Back in Boston, Ilya wrote,
Ilya Rozanov
✓
@ilyarozanov
@IttyMLH I’m pregnant and it’s yours
9:45 AM · November 2, 2011
Sarah's reply came up on his phone almost immediately, and he hovered, then clicked it.
.
.
.
Today 9:47 AM
That might be too far...
Ilya considered, and then sent:
Ilya Rozanov
✓
@ilyarozanov
@IttyMLH false alarm I was just late
9:50 AM · November 2, 2011
Ilya Rozanov
✓
@ilyarozanov
@IttyMLH we can’t keep on like this
9:51 AM · November 2, 2011
Ilya Rozanov
✓
@ilyarozanov
@IttyMLH when will you make me honest girl
9:55 AM · November 2, 2011
“Man, nobody does it like you, Rozy,” the general manager said.
“Nobody does anything like me,” Ilya said, giving him his most obnoxious grin.
“You should probably cool it down a bit on the Twitter beef with the Philly mascot though,” the GM said. “It’s kind of a lot.”
Ilya frowned. “Is true love, sir,” he said. “We are match made in heaven.”
“Maybe slow the pace down a bit,” the GM said. “If you get pregnant you’d have to be on IR for the rest of the season.”
“Maybe longer,” Ilya said solemnly. “I don’t know what Itty is, might not be human baby.”
“That’s a fair point,” the GM said. “To be honest it’s kind of weird.”
“I like to keep people guessing,” Ilya said.
The GM sighed. “Everything about this sport is weird, I guess I shouldn’t be surprised by this,” he said.
Ilya still made himself slow down on the Itty posting, figuring it was Sarah who’d get in trouble.
Unfortunately Sarah’s internship ended and he was left without a helper. He let the schtick lapse over the summer. The following season they made him team captain. He’d been an alternate the season before, so he had some idea of what went into it, but team captain was so much more work. He entirely forgot about Itty posting until they were getting on the plane for their away game in Philly.
“Are you going to make out with that freak?” Marly asked him.
“Fuck,” Ilya said. “I forgot about whole thing.”
He pulled his phone out.
Ilya Rozanov
✓
@ilyarozanov
@IttyMLH you broke my heart. I am not ready to see you.
1:03 PM · October 14, 2012
At the arena, Itty chased him all over the ice and he pretended to flee, though not effectively enough to actually escape. It was the same mascot performer, he recognized the guy’s voice-- his name was Jeremy, Ilya had sent him flowers too. “I forgot, I was going to call you guys,” he said, as he let the thing catch him and tackle him down to the ice. “You remember the safeword?”
“Purple,” Jeremy said, “but I don’t need it,” and Ilya howled with laughter, then rolled around screaming for a little while.
Marly came over and said, “Uh, should I rescue you?”
“Look out,” Ilya said, “it’ll get you too.”
Marly skated backward as Itty rolled off Ilya and got to its knees. “Uh,” he said. “No thank you, Mr. Freaky Thing.”
Ilya got up. “That might have been too much,” he said, and held out a hand. Itty shook his hand, but then pulled him into another waltz-style spin, and they twirled around the rink. “I do have to go do my job,” he said. Itty let go, and he skated backward away from it. “Return my calls!” he shouted, then spun around and skated back to warm-ups.
On the plane ride home he wrote
Ilya Rozanov
✓
@ilyarozanov
@IttyMLH we can’t keep doing this
9:30 AM · October 15, 2012
October 2013
It had been a fortunate place to leave things off with Itty, actually. Because Hollander actually returned his texts for once, which was distracting, and he finally, finally got to deflower that hypnotically weird hockey robot, which was incredible-- not that Ilya really subscribed to, like, a hierarchy of sex acts, anything anyone wanted to do was always amazing, but Hollander had so clearly wanted specifically to take Ilya’s cock in his ass and Ilya had been teasing him about that specific thing for two fucking years, and then it had worked out so fucking gorgeously it was impossible not to consider it a pretty top-tier experience in Ilya’s personal library of hot things he’d done. Hands-free! Of course Shane was a sex overachiever too, it was inevitable. And so he forgot about the orange freak for a while.
To the point that Philly showed up for their home game and he had completely forgotten to do anything about it, and was so busy doing team captain things he completely forgot to even do any schtick with Itty. Itty hung around on the sidelines staring balefully at him, and he grimaced but there really wasn’t time.
Itty wrote:
ITTY
✓
@IttyMLH
@ilyarozanov baby is it really over??
8:58 PM · October 8, 2013
But by then it was Olympics stuff and Ilya absolutely did not have time to think about the stupid orange thing.
Oh well, he thought briefly at some point, post-Olympics, as he geared his team up for a serious run at the Cup. It had been a fun schtick. People still sometimes mentioned it. It even came up in one of the profiles a non-sports news site did on him in their analysis of the playoffs clearly aimed at non-hockey readers-- a throwaway line, “a showy, colorful player known primarily for his incredible scoring record but also notorious for his antics, such as a multi-year Twitter affair with the mascot from the Philadelphia Fighters” in among his real accomplishments. It made him laugh, and he DM’d the Fighters PR people with a screenshot of the article and said if u want to do any forlorn heartbreak posting u cld screenshot that line but im not respond i have 2 be serious rn.
They did, a single sad Tweet from Itty that said
ITTY
✓
@IttyMLH
It wasn’t just on Twitter 💔
❤︎ 50K 8:58 PM · February 14, 2014
4.5K people are talking about this
and followed up with a photograph of Ilya from rookie season pinned down under the mascot, legs wrapped around its hips, visibly laughing in delight.
It was a pretty good photo actually. Ilya saved it to his phone.
December 2016
He had almost forgotten about it, almost two years went by with only occasional waving to one another in passing at the Philly games.
But after Shane Hollander started dating Rose Landry, Ilya found himself scrolling on his phone, and thought of something he could do that wasn’t just looking through gossip sites to torture himself.
He DM’d the only other Raider who was ever active on Twitter, and asked him if he would send a public @ message telling Ilya not to text his ex.
I didn’t think u had an ex8:45 PM
The orange thing from Philly
I’m bored. It’s time for more stupid bullshit.
8:06 PM ✓
Oh that fucking thing
10:20 PM
Tuna wrote, but dutifully sent the tweet. He did a good job.
tuna
✓
@bobfortunato
@ilyarozanov don’t you DARE text your ex
6:22 PM · December 15, 2016
Ilya let it go for about fifteen minutes before he started.
Ilya Rozanov
✓
@ilyarozanov
@IttyMLH what we had was so special.
6:36 PM · December 15, 2016
Ilya Rozanov
✓
@ilyarozanov
@IttyMLH I’m sorry
6:37 PM · December 15, 2016
Ilya Rozanov
✓
@ilyarozanov
@IttyMLH you were so emotionally unavailable
6:37 PM · December 15, 2016
Ilya Rozanov
✓
@ilyarozanov
@IttyMLH my English is so much better now
6:37 PM · December 15, 2016
Philly had had, as usual, a really shit season. They’d been down a while now. Ilya didn’t actually like them as players particularly, and didn’t like playing there. But their PR team were lovely people and he’d sent them a gift basket every New Year’s. He had a large list of the support staff of various MLH organizations and facilities he sent flowers and gift baskets to, because he fucking could and because it was hilarious and because it wasn’t like he had a family to send shit to anymore.
Tuna, excellent sport that he was, quote-tweeted his first message and wrote,
tuna
✓
@bobfortunato
ROZY nO
Ilya Rozanov ✓ @ilyarozanov
@IttyMLH what we had was so special.
❤︎ 175 10:45 PM · December 15, 2016
which helped enormously.
He belatedly sent a message to the Boston PR people and said “warning: have reinitiated shenanigans with the fucking orange thing.”
The Philly PR team DM’d him with a string of excited emojis, and he wrote, “I felt like it was time”.
ITTY ✓ @IttyMLH
replying to @ilyarozanov
Rozy you think you can show your face here? You think you can just walk right back in?
11:03 PM · December 15, 2016
Ilya Rozanov ✓ @ilyarozanov
replying to @IttyMLH
Itty you treated me so bad. But I need you.
❤︎ 1.1K 11:04 PM · December 15, 2016
221 people are talking about this
Ilya let it go at that for the night, and DM’d the Philly PR people.
OK enough chaos for now. See you in two weeks.
Props on monitoring this account so late at night.
11:05 PM ✓
Are you drunk, Rozy?
Not to be like presumptuous but are you okay for real?
11:11 PM
He laughed, and wrote back
Yeah I’m actually okay I just got bored lol
11:13 PM
It wasn’t like he’d been dumped or anything. That was stupid.
He hovered his thumb over the screen, swiped briefly back to the gossip site he’d been using to look at pap shots of Shane and the actress, swiped them off the screen, and got off the couch. If he did a stationary bike ride now he could sleep in tomorrow morning.
January 2017
At the next Fighters game, Ilya and Itty did an improvised but premeditated ice dancing routine. Ilya didn’t actually know any ice dancing but he’d seen it done. He’d pre-pep-talked the team to give himself time to fuck around. It felt really, really good to just do something goofy. And the mascot was still Jeremy, and did his best to match Ilya’s choreography.
“Man, why do you do all this?” Jeremy asked.
“I get bored,” Ilya said.
“You should come skate for our team,” Jeremy said. “You’re really good. You have a lot of fans here now.”
Ilya laughed. “I know too much,” he said. “You forget, I have been in US some years now.”
“Philly’s not that bad,” Jeremy said. “We have nice museums.”
Shane has probably been to all the boring museums in Philadelphia, Ilya thought, which shouldn’t hurt. Well, he and Rose could go to museums together. Rose didn’t seem like the boring museums type but if she liked Shane she must love being bored. That shouldn’t hurt either.
“I didn’t expect you to pick the schtick back up after so long,” Jeremy went on, when Ilya hadn’t answered.
“It’s only when I’m single,” Ilya said, which he really had not planned to say, and he’d been single the whole time, this was stupid. He grinned. “Don’t want anyone getting jealous in real life. What we have is so special, Itty. Hey, on this turn you should dip me.”
“I don’t know if I know how to do that,” Jeremy said.
“Put arm around my lower back, brace yourself with left foot, I will put left foot back and lean back with right foot up,” Ilya said. That should work. “If you drop me I will probably live.”
“If I drop you and you get hurt I’ll get fucking sued,” Jeremy said nervously.
“If I get hurt from this I deserve it,” Ilya said. “Okay now, twirl and-- dip--”
Jeremy did his best, and Ilya managed to lean back pretty far and kick one foot up briefly before he had to straighten up. He looped his arms around Itty’s neck, which was really Jeremy’s head, and pulled the thing down and pretended to kiss it passionately, burying his face in the thick ruff of fake fur all around the face, and carefully aiming for the part that wasn’t the black mesh Jeremy saw (and breathed) through because it would be kind of too intimate to mash his face on that.
“Oh my god,” Jeremy said, laughing, but didn’t drop him.
“You are good sport Jeremy,” Ilya said, releasing him and ruffling the fake fur.
“Thanks, Rozy,” Jeremy said.
“Warn your boss I am going to tweet a bunch of really unhinged shit at you now though,” Ilya said. “Hey, you should cheat on me.”
“With who?” Jeremy asked.
“Anyone who’ll do it,” Ilya said, and grinned at him. “I’ll find you somebody.” He skated backwards away and blew him a kiss.
“You’re so fucking weird, Rozy,” Marly said, as Ilya came back to the warmups.
“I just keep things interesting,” Ilya said, going to the bench for his water bottle. He looked up, and there was a video on the Jumbotron of him kissing Itty. Perfect.
They mostly crushed the Fighters. There was one weird bit where a defenseman smashed Ilya into the boards-- lucky shot, usually Ilya could get out of that kind of slow-ass hit-- and said “Why are you doing weird fag shit with our mascot,” and Ilya heaved him off and spat at him.
“Fuck you, at least I ask him first,” he said.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” the defenseman demanded, and a ref came between them at that point.
“You ask him,” Ilya said, but he skated away rather than get more into it.
He texted Scott Hunter, whose number he had been given ages ago when he’d been made a team captain, and he’d never used it for anything. There was a directory, so the team captains could talk directly to each other.
Today 9:05 AM
Scott Hunter this is Rozy can I ask you a favor
Delivered
It was a while before Hunter wrote back.
Messages
Scott
Hunter
Contact
Today 9:05 AM
Scott Hunter this is Rozy can I ask you a favor
Today 10:33 AM
What kind of favor?
You play Philly tomorrow.
Yeah?
Can you do me a favor and let the mascot hug you.
Why would I do that?
I want have public breakdown on Twitter over it.
Jesus Christ why are you so weird
Because is harmless
because I am bored
because news always finds pointless drama and I want to give them something funny to obsess over so they stop fixating on ugly shit.
Read 10:47 AM
...
TBH Roz it’s always made me a little uncomfortable, you and that mascot
It’s all prearranged. I DM Philly PR team on Twitter mostly. The guy in the Itty suit is named Jeremy. Is very nice guy. We have safeword, when we wrestle If u really want to stop something u say word “purple” & he knows you mean it.
I am actually shocked that you know what a safeword is
Marketing intern taught me about it when we did research for this whole bit! V. useful concept.
I don’t want to know what you do in your personal life
You don’t, actually, you are very old and might have heart attack
Fuck you
Will you do this favor? Will you let Jeremy hug you? Look really uncomfortable if you want.
Read 11:01 AM
Today 11:58 AM
Actually Roz I don’t know if I am comfortable with it.
Aww :( Jeremy is nice guy, won’t even hump you if you ask him not to.
Roz it feels weirdly like a gay joke and that kind of shit makes me uncomfortable. I’ve worked really hard on my locker room and I heard you’d been doing the same.
I have! No Scott! Is not gay joke! Is monsterfucker joke.
I don’t know if that’s better, Roz
It is consensual monsterfucking
Okay you really have been working on your English
I have :) thank u for noticing. Is many years now. Scott plz. Jeremy will not hump u.
Roz, I really don’t think I want to do it. I’m not this kind of guy.
…
will Bennet do it
Read 12:06 PM
...
Today 12:44 PM
I’ll ask him.
Ten minutes later the Admirals goalie texted Ilya.
Today 12:55 PM
this is eric bennet what is this about
This is Rozy will you let the Philly mascot briefly sexually harass u at game 2mrw so i can have twitter breakdown about it
Why
For the bit, benny do it for the bit
It’s a joke?
It’s not just joke, is entire schtick i have been doing since rookie season with full participation and consent of philly pr dep’t. Mascot performer’s name is jeremy and if u say “purple” to him he will understand that is u asking to stop for real.
What do you actually want me to do
I want you to let him harass u in some way so someone can take a picture of him hugging u. U do not have to look happy or participate at all, just let him hug u. Is so i can get upset he cheats on me.
Why are you in a relationship with the Philly mascot
Benny it is because death comes for us all whether we have truly lived or not
You are maybe the weirdest guy in hockey do u know that
Will u do it or not
I will do it
Benny u are the best
Read 1:16 PM
One Day Later
Ilya Rozanov
✓
@ilyarozanov
@IttyMLH explain this
10:52 PM · January 8, 2017
Ilya attached the picture of the orange mascot locked in an embrace with the Admirals goalie Eric Bennett, who looked horribly uncomfortable and sort of resigned, but perhaps a little bit amused.
Ilya Rozanov
✓
@ilyarozanov
@IttyMLH you cheat on me
11:12 PM · January 8, 2017
Ilya Rozanov
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@ilyarozanov
@IttyMLH I THOUGHT WE HAD SOMETHING
❤︎ 6 11:20 PM · January 8, 2017
He typed up a series of increasingly deranged messages and queued them up to post late into the night, and then went to bed. In the morning many of the gossip sites had picked up on the situation, and Ilya scrolled and cackled as he read about it.
They were going into the week-long break for the All Star game, and Ilya was delighted to have monopolized so much of the media coverage. He’d entirely knocked Rose Landry off the gossip pages.
Ilya Rozanov
✓
@ilyarozanov
@IttyMLH I THOUGHT WE HAD SOMETHING
❤︎ 33 11:20 PM · January 8, 2017
4 people are talking about this
Ilya Rozanov
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@ilyarozanov
@IttyMLH all these years
11:21 PM · January 8, 2017
Ilya Rozanov
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@ilyarozanov
@IttyMLH our reconciliation… it was fake
11:24 PM · January 8, 2017
Ilya Rozanov
✓
@ilyarozanov
@IttyMLH you want older man?? I grow beard for u
❤︎ 165 12:50 AM · January 9, 2017
Ilya Rozanov
✓
@ilyarozanov
@IttyMLH my heart is broke
1:03 AM · January 9, 2017
tuna ✓ @bobfortunato
replying to @ilyarozanov
Rozy stop texting him
❤︎ 577 7:15 AM · January 9, 2017
87 people are talking about this
broke in Tuna, who was the best sport ever.
Ilya Rozanov
✓
@ilyarozanov
@IttyMLH MY LOVE IS PURE
❤︎ 3.4K 1:26 AM · January 9, 2017
411 people are talking about this
He had decided to strategically deploy some Russian here because now there was a feature where Twitter would auto-translate it.
Ilya Rozanov
✓
@ilyarozanov
@IttyMLH Сердце моя разбитая
| Translated from Russian by . bing
@IttyMLH my heart is broken
3:00 AM · January 9, 2017
Ilya Rozanov
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@ilyarozanov
@IttyMLH Походи по мне
| Translated from Russian by . bing
@IttyMLH walk on me
3:05 AM · January 9, 2017
Ilya Rozanov
✓
@ilyarozanov
@IttyMLH Плюнь мне в рот
| Translated from Russian by . bing
@IttyMLH spit in my mouth
❤︎ 25K 3:32 AM · January 9, 2017
2.3K people are talking about this
Ilya Rozanov
✓
@ilyarozanov
@IttyMLH Я б тебе четырёх детей родил
| Translated from Russian by . bing
@IttyMLH I would have borne you four children
4:35 AM · January 9, 2017
Ilya Rozanov
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@ilyarozanov
@IttyMLH Я их прям назвал уже
| Translated from Russian by . bing
@IttyMLH I even named them already
4:40 AM · January 9, 2017
He texted Bennet.
Today 8:44 AM
Thank u so much
No problem what the fuck is wrong with you
Very long list
Read 10:55 AM
February-March 2017
Ilya didn’t think about Itty again for a long time. Hollander broke up with Rose and showed up single to the All-Star game. They got to play on the same line. It was some of the best hockey of Ilya’s life. And they had really good sex. And Shane actually liked him even though his family life was messy. And maybe-- they couldn’t have a relationship or anything but maybe they could have an affair. Ilya had never even had an affair. He’d only ever had a series of hookups, and a few longer-term arrangements in various flavors of sexual friendship. And whatever he was doing with Shane wasn’t that. It couldn’t be a relationship. But it was something.
Ilya’s father died. He asked the Raiders please not to make any kind of statement and to just not discuss his whereabouts, because he couldn’t stand it. He’d invested so much in being a “colorful character” in this league that surely somebody would make some kind of joke about it and he absolutely just could not withstand that kind of thing at this moment. He’d pissed people off, with his showboating and flamboyance and simple attempts not to be bored, and normally he could take whatever flak bounced back at him but right now he was made of glass.
When he got back after the funeral his agent had released a very brief matter-of-fact statement for him, so he didn’t have to do that. He didn’t update any of his social media profiles because they were all cocky or funny and he just wasn’t now.
His agent had collected some cards and things for him, and he picked them up and brought them back to his place to go through them. Mostly normal stuff, expected stuff-- the team of course had sent a basket, there was a floral arrangement from the GM, a card from the coaching staff, a gift basket from the owners. A gift basket from… he read the tag and discovered it was a collection of the Russians from the groupchat. Mostly Nekrasov, he supposed.
He leafed through more cards, mostly from professional contacts, the union-- oh, a collection of refs, that was nice. Oh, Maria Jackson, whose house he’d stayed in his rookie year-- her husband had retired after they’d won the Cup. She always sent the nicest cards. This one made him wipe his eyes.
The last card, he turned over twice, trying to figure out why someone in Pennsylvania--
Oh. It was the Philly Fighters’ PR department.
Jeremy had signed it twice, once as himself and then next to it in block caps as ITTY.
It was inexplicably moving.
He opened Twitter for the first time in weeks, and the only thing he did was compose a new tweet.
Ilya Rozanov
✓
@ilyarozanov
@IttyMLH thank u
6:06 PM · March 3, 2017
Spring 2017
Ilya drifted away from using Twitter at all. He had an Instagram, mostly so nobody took his handle, but he didn’t use that either. Truth be told he didn’t have the energy for it. He was busy, in the playoff run. Shane injured meant there was no joy in chirping Montreal, and none of his team’s other rivals were interesting.
He had to go through most of the playoffs hurt, which sucked, and then Scott Hunter won instead of him, which stung. But then Scott Hunter kissed his boyfriend on international television live no delay, and Ilya felt like the whole world was changed.
It was, surely.
He hit the ground running and started the work, and within 36 hours of Scott’s announcement he had painstakingly run down each member of his team and gotten them to confirm that they would not only not issue any contrary opinions on social media or in any interviews, but would also stand behind a unified statement of support from the team. In most cases this was easy to get, but there were a few team members he had to chase down and debate, which was exhausting. But in the end, they all agreed-- the Raiders were overall haters, gleefully proud of how many people they pissed off, but on this particular issue the hate was not funny and they would refrain.
(One of his non-Itty-related Twitter sprees had involved a number of fans creating a set of fantastic graphics with the Raiders logo changed to say Haters, and Ilya had a custom t-shirt of one which looked just like the official merch, which he wore to calculated effect now and then. It was one of his prized possessions.)
He took this to management and they declined to put out a statement, and he could only text Scott Hunter rather glumly with his unofficial message of support, but it was better than nothing, and he went off for his off-season break feeling… incredible.
He enjoyed that new world for several weeks, basking in an unprecedented period of golden joy. He’d never had anything like it in his life. He was someone’s boyfriend, for the first time in his life. He was twenty-six years old and he was in love and he’d met the in-laws and they liked him and he’d never had anything like this in his life. He felt like he could do anything.
And then he and Shane had to leave the cottage and go their separate ways and pretend not to know one another particularly well. It would be another whole year just like the one before. And everything was different, but physically nothing was different.
It did change Ilya, somewhat. Because it meant he failed to realize that he had a perfect mechanism for shit-stirring right here and topical in the news, until almost August.
The news cycles had chewed through Scott Hunter’s dramatic coming-out, his award speech, innumerable statements and appearances, and there had been a collection of thinkpieces, terse neutral articles, scathing editorials, statements and counterstatements that had come and gone. By now the hockey world was pretty quiet, deep in the off-season, rumbling in pre-season news, and there was a chance nobody was going to talk about Scott Hunter at all anymore.
It was Ilya’s time to shine.
He logged back in to his Twitter account, scrolled through the takes, and considered.
Eventually he composed a new tweet.
Ilya Rozanov
✓
@ilyarozanov
Scott Hunter is not first MLH player to be openly lgbtq
❤︎ 42K 9:45 AM · July 23, 2017
29K people are talking about this
He let that cook for a little while, and scrolled back to review where he’d left off and everything that had been said since on the topic. He refreshed, and went through the replies to his new post. A lot of confused responses. He picked one with a handle he recognized as a real person, and replied,
Ilya Rozanov
✓
@ilyarozanov
I did not beg @IttyMLH to spit in my mouth in front of god and twitter to not have that count
❤︎ 74K 10:37 AM · July 23, 2017
12K people are talking about this
He left that to cook for a while longer still. He refreshed eventually, and after scrolling through replies he found one that made him cackle out loud.
It was Eric Bennett’s verified account, and it had replied to his most recent tweet with the simple phrase
Eric Bennet ✓ @EBennet
replying to @ilyarozanov
Jesus Christ
❤︎ 110:54 AM · July 23, 2017
He favorited it.
Scott Hunter called him. “Rozy what the fuck are you doing,” he said.
“I understand confusion,” Ilya said. “I forgot that the Tweet where I asked Itty to spit in my mouth was in Russian so a lot of people didn’t understand it. Twitter has translate function right in it, I did not think it mattered so much. Works pretty good!”
“Rozy if I didn’t know you were supportive I would have killed you by now,” Scott said, and he did sound actually angry. Ilya had spoken to him in person at the awards ceremony, so he’d better know that Ilya was supportive. He’d even come to Scott Hunter Night at the club afterward, that was how supportive he was. Plus having gotten every player on the Raiders roster to consensus about not being shitty. Plus he’d texted the other team captains about what he’d done with the Raiders so they knew. “What the fuck are you doing?”
“I am expressing solidarity,” Ilya said. “But also. Do not deny it. I kissed a man on jumbotron before you did!”
“Itty is not a man,” Scott gritted out.
“He uses he/him pronouns and while he does not identify as man he does identify as menace which I argue is same thing,” Ilya said. “Certainly is not woman!”
“You told me yourself it wasn’t a gay joke it was a monsterfucker joke,” Scott said. “You said that verbatim.”
“Ah,” Ilya said, slightly dismayed. “I did.”
“So,” Scott said.
“Monsterfucker is not queer even if monster is?” Ilya inquired.
“It’s not the same fucking thing!” Scott said.
Ilya sighed. “Scott,” he said. “If only people who make jokes about this are ones making bad jokes against it, we lose.” Scott didn’t say anything, and Ilya went on. “And you know there is no mystery whether my joke is meant to be laughing at or with, because my stance is extremely clear.”
“Do you really want this kind of attention on yourself?” Scott asked.
“Is somewhat cowardly,” Ilya said. “Is plausibly deniable.”
“You must not be in a relationship with anybody,” Scott said. “To not be worried about scrutiny.”
That chilled Ilya right through: Scott knew something, somehow, from his tone. But Ilya said impassively, “People think I’m kidding.”
“Why do it?” Scott asked.
“Distraction,” Ilya said. “It won’t take attention away from you, but it softens it a little. Because they won’t laser focus on you if I am being showboaty sarcastic asshole.”
“I don’t need you to jump in front of a puck for me,” Scott said.
“I am not,” Ilya said. “If nothing else I am reminding people that is no way you are only gay player in league. While being chicken and not really actually honestly coming out. Because I can’t do that.”
“Why can’t you?” Scott asked.
“I don’t have green card,” Ilya said, and he heard Scott make a little noise. “Is only work visa, Scott. Needs renewing. They don’t renew, I get deported, and,” he let his voice sing-song a little, “is crime in Russia to be gay. I do all this work to get consensus from my players and management won’t let me post statement? Oh, I know some things now, Scott. I know who would not jump in front of puck for me!”
“Then why risk this?” Scott demanded.
“Why did you?”
“I have my citizenship, for one,” Scott said. “And I have a partner who can handle the attention.”
Ilya sighed. “I will retract my statement, and say since Itty identifies as menace not man I cannot say I was out by having public affair with him.”
“I guess it’s really too late to do anything else,” Scott said.
Ilya laughed suddenly. “You know I did get shoved into boards and called fag over the Itty thing,” he said. “Which, I remind you, I truly was doing seven years ago. I started it my rookie season.”
“Jesus,” Scott said. “You’ve only been put into the boards once over it?”
“I mean,” Ilya said, “only once that they said it, you know. I get put in boards a lot.”
“I mean, you generally deserve it,” Scott pointed out.
“I do not deny this,” Ilya said.
“If I had my way you’d live in the boards,” Scott said.
“Oh, just try it, old man,” Ilya said. “Well, but there is my point-- I cannot be other than what I am.”
One news outlet picked it up in seriousness, and wrote, “Is Ilya Rozanov taking allyship too far?” but they didn’t contact him for a comment and he figured leaving a comment on the article would be too much. He did not write any more on Twitter either. The coach sighed at him that his antics were a bit much but also took no action. Management, either ominously or positively, said nothing.
Shane was pissed at him, but not enough to do more than huff a little.
He let it lie, and didn’t stir it up again. The next time he skated in Philly he went and held hands with Itty, and as discussed, they did not wrestle. “For real,” Ilya said to Jeremy, “I only do schtick when I am single, and now I am not.”
“Oh wow,” Jeremy said. “Congrats.”
“Is not public,” Ilya said. “Won’t be public. But it’s also funnier this way, yes?”
“Hey uh,” Jeremy said. “Don’t take this the wrong way but. Are you uh--”
“I can’t talk about that for real,” Ilya said.
“Well, I’m gay,” Jeremy said. “And it’s been like. A lot to see what’s going on lately. But I’ve read some articles and the general consensus is that you’re doing a lot of like. Ally kind of work.”
“Yes,” Ilya said. “Is important to me.” He patted Itty’s face, which was above Jeremy’s head. “Love is love. I wish you the best.”
“You too, man,” Jeremy said, and let go of his hands, and they skated away from one another.
At Ilya’s suggestion, Itty took up with a rookie from New Jersey that someone on the Philly PR team knew somehow, and the two of them had harmless and much less depraved shenanigans. Ilya himself behaved like a still-friends ex. He’d never been anyone’s anything enough to be an ex-anything so it was all new to him but he figured it out as he went. He would always go and talk to Jeremy briefly at their games with Philly, but that was mostly because he liked the guy.
July 2018
When he left Boston, the media shitstorm was incredibly intense, which he had expected. There was a lot of interpersonal shitstorm he hadn’t fully anticipated either. He was slightly touched, though, to see that amid all of it, the Philly PR team posted a cheesecakey photo of Itty in an Ottawa jersey. Even if it was Photoshopped, which he rather thought it was, he appreciated the gesture.
March 2021
Getting outed sucked. It was kind of a relief but it also sucked. It was worse for Shane, Ilya knew that, had known all along it would be, had done all the things he had done because he had known that and had wanted to protect Shane as much as possible.
It was why they hadn’t come up with a plan B, as Rose Landry had suggested they do. Have a plan in case your plan doesn’t work, she’d said, and they hadn’t done it. Because Ilya knew, their careful Plan A had already been too much for Shane, would already have hurt him. A plan B would have hurt worse.
He’d laid a little groundwork, though, almost despite himself. And this was one long, long payoff.
He logged back into his moribund Twitter.
Ilya Rozanov
✓
@ilyarozanov
People forget I came out years ago
❤︎ 183K 1:14 PM · March 20, 2021
17K people are talking about this
