#heated-rivalry

#heated-rivalry

We already knew that Heated Rivalry, the smutty Canadian romance about two rival hockey stars who fall in love and have to grapple with being closeted pro athletes, has become a sensation, particularly among thirsty straight women. (My Instagram Search & Explore page is currently serving me a truly embarrassing amount of gay hockey player content.) Last week's episode, "I'll Believe in Anything," took the obsession to new heights;

Rachel Reid didn't intend for anyone to write a dissertation about her horny little gay hockey series. Then again, the Nova Scotia author behind the Game Changers series could never have anticipated the level of fanfare that's accompanied the television adaptation of her books: Heated Rivalry. The show, commissioned by Canada's Crave and distributed by HBO Max in the US, debuted in late November and quickly became a massive hit. It's the number one Crave original series of all time,

The LGBTQ+ sports drama has taken the internet by storm since it first debuted in Canada at the end of November. Since then it's made its way to the US, Australia and beyond. The series, based on Rachel Reid's Game Changers novel series follows the lives of two rival ice hockey players, Ilya Rozanov ( Connor Storrie) and Shane Hollander ( Hudson Williams).

In keeping with Reid's books, Heated Rivalry does not hold back on the sex-not even a little. Some scenes are so unabashedly explicit that even Grindr has weighed in: The app recently posted screenshots from Episode 2, specifically a montage of Shane and Ilya sexting, paired with a caption that riffs on one of the show's now-iconic lines: "You were hard, weren't you? For how long? The whole episode?" An excellent question.

Tierney said "we did not expect this level of reaction to this show." He also said, "I thought by the end maybe we'd have a cult following." Discussing the show Letterkenny that he worked on previously the showrunner said he was used to "a slow burn," with that show taking four seasons to find its audience. "This has been the complete opposite," he remarked of Heated Rivalry.