Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

Shane doesn’t mean for it to get as big as it does.

It’s not like he’s not a busy hockey player.

It’s not like there aren’t other things he could be doing with his free time.

But he picks up the book Jackie Bergeron is in the middle of reading for the Metros’ WAGs book club while he is at Hayden's house and immediately has to put it down.

For one thing, the sex is bad. 

And the hockey is worse.

He thinks to himself, I could do better than that.

And it spirals out from there.

It’s become a habit at this point. He has a running document of concepts. During the season, he picks one to write during plane rides when he’s not watching tape. He gives himself word count goals and blasts past them while he's trying to ignore Comeau and Roy arguing in the row across from him.

He sends his drafts to Farah and lets her have her wicked way with them. He’s never actually talked to the publisher. Farah takes care of all of that. She emails him comments on his drafts and makes sure his advanced reading copies all have plain covers.

Each summer, he spends one afternoon signing insert pages with a stylized J.D. and the occasional doodle of a stick and puck.

Jane Dutch is simply another pseudonymous writer on the hockey romance scene.

No one is ever going to find out, because why would they?

It’s not like anyone is ever taking that close of a look at Shane’s notebooks.

It’s not like anyone’s ever going to know what he’s been basing them off of.

2010-2011

He starts writing the first one in October of 2010, after he takes one glance at Jackie's book club read. He's not much of a reader, but holy shit, the hockey is so bad.

It's like the author had never even been on skates. Or been to a game.

The story really comes secondary to the hockey. He finds himself planning out a theoretical season for this fictional team, playing with conference lineups to make it a little less true to life, calculating the point values necessary to get Max Taylor to have emotionally significant conflicts during the playoffs.

It's more...fun, than he expected it to be. Sometimes he'll insert a snippet of a game the Metros have just played, go back over it in writing so he can understand where the lines are not connecting. He brings up an insight once in tape review and gets an impressed look from Theriault. They work his adjusted play into the next game, and he scores off of it, so of course he has to continue.

The romance aspect comes a little bit less easily.

Max isn't him. And Lizzy isn't definitely Jessica. He tries to think on the way some of the other players have talked about meeting their wives.

But he keeps coming back to room 1410. 

He keeps coming back to how it felt to have Rozanov take the reins. How it felt to be enveloped like that, taken in a tide of lust and pure id.

He brings in room 1221, after All-Stars, the anticipation of it stirring in his bones.

Icebreaker by Jane Dutch

“Max glances up into the crowd and meets a familiar brown-eyed gaze, one he hasn’t seen since he left Kitchener for the big leagues. Lizzy Anderson is wearing his jersey with a sad smile on her face…”

In Jane Dutch’s debut novel, superstar Max Taylor comes back to his hometown for a charity exhibition game, only to run into his biggest what if—childhood friend and resident artist Lizzy Anderson. This second chance romance brings a sharp new perspective on what it takes to be the best in the game, and whether love is enough to bridge the gap.

“Some of the most accurate hockey I’ve ever seen on the page, and a love story that is all sweetness and spice when it really comes down to it. Jane Dutch is a fresh new voice in the hockey romance scene, and we’re all excited to see what she’s bringing to the table.” ~ The New York Times

Summer 2016