Review: Heated Rivalry, "Olympians" | Season 1, Episode 2

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One of the things about a rivalry is that it’s never going to be completely even. When Shane Hollander and Ilya Rozanov began their rookie seasons, it was with Ilya as the number one draft pick, and Shane as the second. When they ended that season, it was Shane who was named Rookie of the Year, while Ilya was left brooding on the rooftop.

“Olympians” follows a similar pattern, on a professional level: Ilya hits rock bottom when the Russians don’t even make it to the medal round of the 2014 Olympics, but then rises to the top of the league by hoisting the cup for Boston by the end of the finals. And while he does eventually “beat” Shane by being named the league’s MVP at episode’s end, what he said on the rooftop at the end of “Rookies” remains true: none of this is necessarily about Shane, even if this is a show about their relationship. Note how we don’t even learn who wins gold at the Olympics, because it doesn’t matter if it was Shane and the Canadians or Scott Hunter and the Americans (or, heck, the Latvians who beat the Russians). What matters is that this is a low point for Ilya Rozanov the man, and a motivator for Ilya Rozanov the hockey player.

One of the central challenges of a show with two main characters is trying to strike a balance between them, and I do think that “Olympians” undoubtedly shifts the scales to Ilya from this perspective. While both Shane and Ilya got some scenes with family in the first episode, Ilya’s trip home to Russia is a much more substantial bit of backstory, expanded from the books with the presence of Svetlana and Sasha, the coach’s son who is only mentioned in passing in the novel. It’s context that Shane doesn’t have for Ilya’s experiences, but it’s context Shane desires, which helps make this imbalance work in the show’s favor. This is an episode about Shane, comfortable in his career if not necessarily within his life, watching Ilya from afar and wanting to be able to do more than…whatever this is. It makes it all the more fitting that it ends with Ilya watching him, a dynamic that thrills them both without creating the space to consider the emotional needs their professional rivalry can’t address.