Then, suddenly, my inbox was full of writers pitching me about it and my group chats were on fire about "the gay hockey show," so I figured I should check it out. I will say, as someone who is deeply allergic to tv shows that people describe as "heartwarming" or "necessary" or "a balm for our troubled times," I am very glad that the first few episodes were sold to me as simply "super fucking hot."
"Heated Rivalry," a steamy hockey romance, has become a hit series for Crave and HBO. It's based on Rachel Reid's novel by the same name. Fans of the show or the novel can read other queer love stories set against a sports backdrop. If you're anything like me, your first thought when you heard Netflix was trying to buy Warner Bros. was probably, "What's going to happen to my beloved 'Heated Rivalry'?"
"We're thrilled to be making smut, and we want it to be titillating," he said. "But we also want to be making sure that we're pushing this relationship forward, because otherwise that gets boring."
But Heated Rivalry's third episode, "Hunter," is a lovely stand-alone installment and stealthily a canny move for the series overall. It's a very swoony, romantic speedrun through Scott Hunter's backstory, but it's just as effective as a way to reframe and contextualize the entire series, as well as a strategy for addressing Heated Rivalry 's biggest challenge: It's a TV show with no interior monologue.
