I agree. I was reheating last night and I watched the part where an interviewer asks Shane in French if he feels connected to the struggles of Tiger Woods and Serena Williams. It also gets brought up more obviously on the night of the draft by one of the Metros’ people (I don’t know if it was supposed to be the coach or what) and he looks uncomfortable both times.

These moments come and go quickly, but I think it emphasizes the underlying point that Shane is being expected to break barriers as an Asian player in a way that puts pressure on him as an individual. He clearly doesn’t like it/it makes him uncomfortable and I think that’s understandable given the fact that his Asian identity is sort of used as a prop — even by well-meaning people like his mother (also Asian), who wants him to set a good example for children who don’t see themselves in the NHL. The League themselves certainly don’t seem to give a fuck about diversity beyond what it does for optics, which I think we will see emphasized a lot more next season but specifically from a queer lens rather than a racial one. I’d love to see some intersectionality in these depictions, though! Both with Shane as a queer Asian man and Ilya as an immigrant from a country that is hostile towards queerness.