“Heated Rivalry” caught my attention once the news of a TV show was announced. I love hockey, I love to watch a new TV show, and what’s better than a little rivals-to-lovers?
“Heated Rivalry” immediately took the world by storm when it was announced in June 2025. The show is based on novels written by Rachel Reid and published in 2022. The show was originally set for a Canadian-exclusive release in November 2025 through Crave, a Canadian streaming service. This was huge for Canadian fans, but devastating for those located in the United States.
The show is about Canada’s Shane Hollander (Hudson Williams) and Russia’s Ilya Rozanov (Connor Storrie). The two players are the stars of their country and two of the best players in the fictional Major Hockey League.
Shane and Ilya have a secret, though. The two are in love with each other, but must keep it from the league, their friends and their family. The show spans eight years and their relationship through those eight years.
HBO Max acquired the rights to stream “Heated Rivalry” in the United States within a little less than a month of the show’s premiere. HBO’s acquisition of the series came after weeks of U.S. based fans begging for a U.S. release or discussing ways to watch it on Crave.
After becoming a certified internet star, Crave announced season two of the show on Dec. 12 before season one’s finale aired on Christmas Day.
“Heated Rivalry” started putting butts in seats. According to OutSports, many newly minted hockey fans have attributed their new interest in the sport to “Heated Rivalry.” For American fans, HBO also houses some sporting events, including hockey. The National Hockey League was reaping the benefits the show handed to it.
SeatGeek reported that the week “Heated Rivalry” aired its first episode, ticket sales for NHL games increased by 24%. In week two and week three, ticket sales remained higher still. Ticket sales always fluctuate and, as SeatGeek says in the report, it’s impossible to attribute the increased ticket sales to the success of “Heated Rivalry,” but it’s impossible to deny the show’s impact. One TikTok user posted a video with the caption “Going to my first hockey game after watching Heated Rivalry” on her TikTok account. Another woman posted a video along the same lines, calling it the “Heated Rivalry to first hockey game pipeline.”
“There are so many ways to get hooked on hockey and, in the NHL’s 108-year history, this might be the most unique driver for creating new fans,” an NHL league representative told The Hollywood Reporter when asked about “Heated Rivalry.”
NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman said he “binged” the show.
“I think it’s a wonderful story,” Bettman said to reporters on Jan. 12 before the San Jose Sharks and Washington Capitals game. “I thought the storyline was very compelling, and a lot of fun because I could see where they were picking at things we have done in the past.”
Bettman’s embrace of the show jarred those who have kept up with the NHL in the past two years.
In January 2023, Columbus Blue Jackets defenseman Ivan Provorov, who played for the Philadelphia Flyers at the time, refused to participate in the pride-themed warm-ups for the Flyers’ “Pride Night” game. The pride-themed warm-ups consisted of players wearing custom-made jerseys with a rainbow on the regular logos. Players also often used Pride Tape, a brand of hockey stick tape that is rainbow, rather than one solid color. The jerseys players wear, and the sticks they use during warm-ups, are later auctioned off to raise money for certain charities, depending on the organization.
Provorov’s act of “defiance” began a downward spiral for the NHL. After Provorov’s actions, the NHL told ESPN that players were “free to decide what initiatives to support.”
Uproar continued through the 2022-2023 season from Provorov supporters and Provorov adversaries. During the summer before the 2023-2024 season, the NHL announced that players would no longer wear theme night jerseys during warm-ups. This applied to not only Pride Nights, but nights like Hispanic Heritage, Indigenous Night and more.
These theme nights created a space for fans of all communities to see themselves. For fans and players of all ages, Pride Nights and other themed nights were spaces where they could see themselves represented.
“What happened last year was that the issue of who wanted to wear a particular uniform on a particular night overshadowed everything that our clubs were doing,” Bettman said when the news was announced. If there were no themed jerseys, there could be no distraction. No controversy.
The jerseys weren’t the only thing to go, though. The NHL also told its players they could no longer use Pride Tape during games or warmups.
Fans and players alike found the ban revolting. Toronto Maple Leafs forward Scott Laughton, who was with the Flyers at the time, told the press he would buy Pride Tape for himself if he had to.
Then, former Arizona Coyotes defenseman Travis Dermott used Pride Tape during an October game, only two weeks after news broke of the ban. It was barely noticeable, wrapped around the top of his stick, where his gloves would cover it most of the time. Dermott was the first, and only, player to use Pride Tape during the ban.
The now-defunct Arizona Coyotes and Dermott never heard anything from the NHL regarding Dermott’s defiance. Then, two weeks after the ban’s public announcement, the quiet act of protest caused the reversal of the ban.
“You really see how people are hurting, and it’s because of a system that maybe no one’s intentionally trying to be malicious about, but until you’ve really had that first-person experience seeing people hurting from it right in front of you, it’s tough to kind of take steps,” Dermott said in an interview with NPR.
The NHL met with the NHPLA and NHL Player Inclusion Coalition to confer about theme nights after the protest. The NHL rolled back its ban of Pride Tape, now allowing players to use it in warm-ups and games.
The flexible spine of the NHL revealed a deeper-rooted issue. Homophobic language within locker rooms is not uncommon, and it’s prevalent within youth hockey culture.
At the national level, rumors found their way around the league about New York Rangers forward J.T. Miller. Miller was traded from the Vancouver Canucks to the New York Rangers in January 2025 for problems in the locker room. Among the rumored list of reasons was calling one of his own teammates a homophobic slur.
In 2016, during a Stanley Cup Playoff game, former Chicago Blackhawks player Andrew Shaw shouted the same slur at a referee from his spot in the penalty box. The backlash came quickly.
Shaw told Sports Network senior reporter Mark Lazeres that he didn’t know what the word actually meant. For years, he grew up around the same guys and coaches, throwing the word around like it was nothing. Until the televised moment, Shaw hadn’t felt the repercussions of the word.
In 2022, the American Hockey League team, the Rochester Americans, suspended one of their players for using “anti-gay” language. The player was suspended for 8 games and was required to take classes on diversity and inclusion.
The same year, in the Ontario Hockey League, the Niagara Icedogs indefinitely suspended its general manager, Joey Burke, and head coach Billy Burke for a text investigation that had homophobic language in it. In 2025, the OHL is requiring an investigation into the Icedogs for their team culture.
The National Hockey League is the only major league sport with no active, out gay player.
“It’s fair to say that you don’t hear the homophobic F-slur in the NHL much anymore, if at all. But that hardly means homophobic language has been eradicated from the league,” Lazeres wrote in March 2025.
Former professional women’s hockey player Harrison Browne revealed in an Instagram reel on Jan. 22 that USA Hockey updated its USA Hockey Participation Policy, previously known as the USA Hockey Transgender policy.
“They’re (USA Hockey) effectively erasing transgender from even the name,” Browne said in the video. Browne is a prominent transgender hockey player and featured in episodes of “Heated Rivalry.”
“In all programs where participation is restricted by sex, athletes are only permitted to participate in such programs based on their sex assigned at birth, except that a female (as assigned at birth) may not play in programs restricted to females if they have undergone any male hormonal therapy,” the updated policy reads.
The language within the policy “effectively bars” transgender men from participating in ice hockey at any level, according to Browne. The updated policy shows that hockey is not progressing, rather the sport is regressing.
“I did not feel comfortable playing on the men’s side because of the culture of homophobic, transphobic, misogynist language and practices within the space,” Browne said.
The homogenous culture of the hockey world means that players aren’t always learning right from wrong. They learn from their coaches and friends who learned from their coaches and friends, so forth and so on.
Former ice hockey player and founder of Alphabet Sports Collective, Brock McGillis, was the first hockey player to come out as gay in November 2016. McGillis’s story is rife with self-hatred tied to the homophobic language entrenched within locker rooms and hockey culture.
McGillis believes that “Heated Rivalry” won’t help hockey players come out. “Hockey bros, the straight guys, aren’t watching this.”
“Heated Rivalry” won’t change locker rooms, and that’s the change that the NHL and hockey need. That doesn’t mean the show hasn’t found a way of comforting the closeted hockey players watching it, though.
“It’s definitely the people who reached out anonymously, who are like, ‘I’m still in the closet,’” Williams told late-night TV host Andy Cohen. “Hockey players, football players and basketball players— those are the ones that really kind of hit you and (make you) go, ‘This is a fun show, and it’s celebratory, but it sometimes just hitting people right in the nerve.’”
