Heated Rivalry


Heated Rivalry is a Canadian sports romance television series created, written, and directed by Jacob Tierney for Crave. Based on the Game Changers novel series by Rachel Reid, it follows two rival professional hockey players, Canadian Shane Hollander and Russian Ilya Rozanov, whose on-ice animosity conceals a passionate, secret romance. It also stars François Arnaud, Robbie G.K., Christina Chang, Ksenia Daniela Kharlamova, Sophie Nélisse, and Dylan Walsh.
The series had its preview screening at the Image+Nation LGBTQ+ Film Festival in Montreal, Quebec, Canada on November 23, 2025. The first season then premiered online on Crave on November 28, 2025, and was picked up for streaming on HBO Max in selected territories; Neon in New Zealand; and Movistar Plus+ in Spain.
Heated Rivalry received critical acclaim, with praise for the directing, writing, and the lead actors' performances and chemistry. It also achieved high audience viewership, becoming Crave's most-watched original series to date and HBO Max's top debut for an acquired, non-animated title since the platform's launch in 2019. The series has been described by media outlets as a global sensation and a break-out critical hit. In December 2025, it was renewed for a second season.
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Premise

Shane Hollander and Ilya Rozanov are two professional ice hockey players who compete on rival teams, the Montreal Metros and the Boston Raiders, respectively. Although their on-ice rivalry is amplified by media coverage and public perception, the two develop a private, initially casual sexual relationship that continues intermittently over several years as they pursue their hockey careers.

Cast and characters

Main

Featured

  • Trevor Hayes as Boston General Manager
  • Kaden Connors as Sasha, Ilya's former sexual partner and the son of Ilya's former coach
  • Harrison Browne as Connors, Ilya's teammate
  • Devante Senior as Miles, Rose's friend and co-star

Recurring

Guest

  • Aidan Shaw as Kolya Andropov, Shane's teammate
  • Wayne Ward as Tom
  • Billie Mary Silas and Sam Nicole Silas as Ruby and Emma Pike, Hayden and Jackie's daughters
  • Foster Blake as Maxime, the bartender at Le Tambour
  • Tyrone Edwards as himself
  • Lainey Lui as herself

Production

Development

Heated Rivalry is based on Rachel Reid's Game Changers novel series, with the second novel, Heated Rivalry, providing the series' title. Reid drew inspiration from the real-life rivalry between Sidney Crosby and Alexander Ovechkin for the book. She also cited Jaromír Jágr, Teemu Selänne, and Ilya Kovalchuk as other inspirations for the character of Ilya Rozanov, as well as Wayne Gretzky and Paul Kariya for the character of Shane Hollander.
Jacob Tierney first reached out to Reid on August 7, 2023, a day after The Washington Post ran an article about hockey romance novels. He had listened to the Game Changers series on audio book and wanted to discuss the possibility of adapting them to a limited television series. Tierney initially had doubts about whether the story could be adapted while retaining the books' sexually explicit content. Though queer romances such as the young adult adaptation Heartstopper had risen in popularity, Tierney said "the thing that is so fundamentally different in Heated Rivalry is sex. And so I was like 'okay, will anyone want this with that?' And the thing that was very obvious to me is that they were inseparable. Sex is character development; it's not just a random sex scene in every episode. learn about each other and they learn about themselves through this". When meeting with potential financiers for the show, Tierney and co-producer Brendan Brady said they were met with studio notes that wanted to "fundamentally change the story, or fundamentally change the tone".
In January 2025, it was first announced that Crave picked up the show off a spec script by Tierney. This was confirmed by Reid on her blog. In March 2025, a month before production began, UK-based distributor Sphere Abacus stepped in to finance alongside Crave and Bell Media, ensuring that Tierney's vision for the show remained intact. In June 2025, it was officially announced at the Bell Media Upfront that the series would be streamed on Crave. Tierney created, wrote, and directed the series. He also serves as an executive producer alongside Brendan Brady through their production banner Accent Aigu Entertainment. Lori Fischburg is a producer of the series, and Reid is a consulting producer.
Tierney's creative executive at Crave, Rachel Goldstein, discouraged him from adapting Heated Rivalrys epilogue into the series, as it could have been perceived as setting up a second season that had not been confirmed at the time. On December 12, 2025, it was announced that the series has been renewed for a second season by Crave, with HBO Max returning as a key distribution partner. The renewal follows strong viewer interest and streaming performance during the first season's rollout. The agreement also includes expanded distribution deals, with rights for season two secured across multiple international markets via Warner Bros. Discovery's distribution arm and other partners. It is set to adapt The Long Game, the sixth book of the Game Changers series, which serves as a sequel to Heated Rivalry. However, ten days later, Tierney told Variety that the second season would not premiere at the same time the following year, citing slower progress on the episode scripts. He also told The Hollywood Reporter that, although he would direct all episodes of the second season, it is a possibility that "other writers will come in to help out".

Casting

Hudson Williams and Connor Storrie lead the cast as Shane Hollander and Ilya Rozanov, respectively, alongside François Arnaud, Robbie G.K., Christina Chang, Dylan Walsh, Sophie Nélisse and Ksenia Daniela Kharlamova. Williams and Storrie signed on for three seasons. Both actors were working as restaurant waiters prior to being cast. Tierney said it was essential to him that he found two actors who had the "physicality of hockey players" who were also comfortable with nudity and intimacy. He also wanted to find them together since "the show lives and dies on their relationship". And also said that Williams and Storrie had a chemistry that was obvious from the first read, even though it was over Zoom.
Storrie revealed he had auditioned for the role shirtless, even though that had not been required. Williams was the third actor he had a chemistry read with, while Williams read with one other possible actor. When Tierney asked Storrie about his impression, he suggested Williams. Similarly, Williams felt an "inexplicable X-factor" about Storrie, telling Tierney: "The other guy was good, but Connor felt like he was going to pin me down and fuck me". In a December 2025 interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Williams stated that he portrayed the character of Shane as autistic after receiving confirmation from Reid that the character was on the autism spectrum. He cited his own father, who is on the spectrum as well, as an inspiration.
Arnaud, a long time friend of Tierney, received a call from him personally, asking him if he had received the script yet and telling him: "I didn't write this for you, but I cannot hear anyone else's voice in my head when I read it". Arnaud was surprised, perceiving the script as soft pornography, but changed his mind after understanding how the sex scenes are used to drive the story forward. Chang initially shared Arnaud's sentiment, recalling that while reading the scripts she thought, "Is this soft core porn? What's happening? It's hot. What the heck is happening right now? This is amazing. It's like Fifty Shades of... Oh, my God!" Kharlamova, whose role was substantially redefined for the television adaptation, stated that she approached the character with the intention of challenging stereotypical portrayals of Russians in Western media, noting that Russia has "around 200 different ethnic groups" and is "such a big country with so many different cultural influences", adding that she was "very happy to show a different side".

Filming

Principal photography for the first season commenced in April 2025, with filming taking place across the Canadian provinces of Ontario and Quebec for 36 days. The first day of shooting included Shane and Ilya's Las Vegas hotel room encounter, while the hockey rink scenes were completed over a week of filming near the end of the shoot. In Ontario, locations included Toronto and Hamilton, with Dundurn Castle in Hamilton used as a stand-in for Moscow during a jogging scene involving Ilya in the episode "Olympians", and the outdoor of the McMaster Burridge Gym serving as the setting for Ilya and Shane's first meeting in the opening of the episode "Rookies". Additional filming in Hamilton took place at FirstOntario Concert Hall, which was used for the Los Angeles party sequence during the MLH draft.
All hockey sequences, including locker rooms, ice surface, and stands were filmed at the Sleeman Centre in Guelph. A cast of real-life hockey players were used to fill out the team, while body doubles were cast for close-up shots of the lead actors in action on the ice. Williams was doubled by Jonah De Simone, while Storrie was doubled by Ralph Taggart. De Simone says he suggested the groin stretch that Hollander does in one episode and that Williams would later demonstrated on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon.
The first-season finale was filmed in Muskoka. Several Montreal landmarks are featured in establishing shots, including Windsor Station, St. George's Anglican Church, Montreal Biosphere and Parc Jean-Drapeau. Additionally, the Montreal skyline is visible from Shane's high-rise apartment and a framed picture of Saint Joseph's Oratory of Mount Royal can be seen on the bathroom wall of Ilya's Montreal hotel room in episode "Rose". There are also a number of Montreal-specific references, including Mile End, McGill University and Rose Landry's St-Viateur Bagel shirt. According to Playback, studio production shooting occurred in Toronto at Dark Slope on a practical soundstage as well as on an LED volume soundstage using virtual production for specified shots.
Heated Rivalry was filmed out of order, which Tierney described as "one giant five-hour movie". The series' numerous sex scenes, which contributed to its notoriety and critical attention, were overseen by intimacy coordinator Chala Hunter, and the absence of frontal nudity was a decision made entirely by Tierney. While the scenes were heavily choreographed, Hunter allowed what she described as "artistic interpretation". The Las Vegas sex scene in the episode "Olympians" was filmed on the first day of production. Williams later stated that he chose not to use protective padding during its filming, resulting in stomach pain. He also expressed dissatisfaction with his physical appearance in that scene. The conversation between Shane and Ilya in a Tampa hotel in the episode "I'll Believe in Anything" was also filmed on the first day of production; the scene served as one of Williams and Storrie's audition scenes. The episode also features Storrie delivering a four-page monologue in Russian; after a particularly strong take, Tierney asked Storrie's dialect coach, Kate Yablunovsky, how much of it could be used, to which she replied, "All of it. He humbles me". The episode "The Cottage" was filmed during the final two days of production. A scene in which Ilya performs oral sex on Shane while the latter is on the phone with Hayden was partially improvised. Hunter noted that Storrie improvised a beat "so unexpected she had to step away from the monitors". The final scene filmed during production depicts Ilya telling Shane about his late mother while lying in Shane's lap.
According to Storrie, Williams and Chang, filming of the second season is expected to begin in the summer or fall of 2026.

Music

The musical score for Heated Rivalry was composed by Peter Peter. He released the tracks "Rivalry" and "It's You" as a double single on January 9, 2026. The former serves as the series' theme song, while the latter accompanies the scene in the episode "Olympians" depicting Shane and Ilya's first instance of anal intercourse. The full soundtrack was released digitally on January 16, 2026, via Milan Records. CD and LP releases are set to be released later in 2026.
Peter Peter was contacted by Tierney over Instagram in mid-2024 asking if he would be interested in screen composing for a television show. The musician became a participant in the process, reading early versions of scripts, and composing music inspired by them. He eventually disposed of those songs when he received footage from the episodes, and re-wrote the music to the images over about seven weeks.
In addition to its original score, the series has featured needle drop songs across its episodes, including Dilly Dally's "I Feel Free", Feist's "Sealion" and "My Moon My Man", Wet Leg's "Mangetout", Wolf Parade's "I'll Believe in Anything", Baxter Dury's "Lips", t.A.T.u.'s "All the Things She Said" and its remix by UK producer Harrison, Satine's "C'est toi", and Cailin Russo's "Bad Things". According to Billboard, the songs' appearance in the series resulted in increased official on-demand streaming activity. The Hollywood Reporter reported that the Spotify streams for the t.A.T.u. track more than doubled following the release of the fourth episode. Classical music also makes a number of appearances in the series, including Sergei Rachmaninoff's Piano Concerto No. 2 and Ludwig van Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata which feature during the episodes "Olympians" and "I'll Believe in Anything", respectively.
On the What Chaos! podcast, Tierney stated that he had intended to ask Carly Rae Jepsen to submit an original song for the first season, but "didn't even try" due to budgetary restrictions, adding that he would "definitely be asking" in the future. Miley Cyrus also expressed interest in contributing music for the second season.

Release

The trailer for Heated Rivalry was released on October 9, 2025. The promotional posters for the series were photographed by Caitlin Cronenberg, daughter of David Cronenberg. On November 19, 2025, nine days before the series premiere on Crave, it was announced that HBO Max had acquired US and Australian rights to the show for a day-and-date global release. HBO Max's acquisition of the series, which was spearheaded by the company's content chairman and CEO Casey Bloys and the SVP content planning and programming Jason Butler, was attributed in part to online social media buzz generated by the Game Changers fanbase who campaigned for global distribution.
Heated Rivalry was scheduled for release in February 2026, after the 2026 Winter Olympics. However, in late September, Tierney and the executives decided to push the release forward to take advantage of increased audience interest in new series during the holiday season. The series debuted on Crave with a two-episode premiere on November 28, 2025, followed by weekly episodes, with the finale airing on December 26. In advance of the program's television premiere, the first episode received a preview screening in Montreal at the 2025 Image+Nation festival on November 23, 2025. The series is also streaming on Sky-owned Neon in New Zealand and Movistar Plus+ in Spain. On December 19, it began streaming on HBO Max in the Philippines. On January 10, 2026, it premiered on Sky in the United Kingdom and Ireland.

Marketing

On December 10, 2025, the trailer for the series was screened at the Pride Night game between the Montreal Canadiens and the Tampa Bay Lightning.
In January 2026, HBO Max and the 2026 Winter Olympics organizing committee announced that Storrie and Williams would be torchbearers for the games' torch relay; the two actors took part on January 25 in Feltre, Italy. HBO Max was scheduled to begin streaming both Heated Rivalry and the 2026 Olympics to Italian viewers in February.

Reception

Critical response

Praise was given to Williams and Storrie's performances, as well as the actors' chemistry. In The Washington Post, Rachel Kurzius wrote "Their faces capture a complex cocktail of feelings, their chemistry is bonkers and Storrie pulls off an impressive Russian accent". For their performances in the first-season finale, TVLine named both Williams and Storrie as "Performers of the Week", while /Film described them as the strongest break-out performances of the year. Williams also received acclaim for his portrayal of an autistic character, with Time praising the performance for its nuanced, non-stereotypical depiction grounded in an authentic understanding of autism. Time review was endorsed by the Autism Research Institute.
David Caballero of Collider gave the series an 8 out of 10, noting the effective early development of their characters both individually and as a potential couple, and the prominent yet accessible use of hockey in the story. Kaiya Shunyata of RogerEbert.com described the series as "revolutionary" and called it "one of the most entertaining shows of the year" as well as "the most significant queer show of the year". In The Globe and Mail, J. Kelly Nestruck lauded Tierney's writing and direction, saying he "teases out the nuances of homophobia in hockey in the time period depicted – the first two episodes careen from 2008 to 2014 – and the cultural challenges of being queer and closeted in Canada versus Russia without ever skating too close to the zone of social-issue drama". Despite not being available to legally stream in Russia due to anti-LGBTQ laws, it achieved an 8.4 user rating on Kinopoisk, making it one of the highest rated shows in the country. Writing for Vanity Fair, Mikhail Zygar stated that Ilya Rozanov's story likely resonated with the Russian queer community.
Within just a few weeks, commentators began remarking on the show's impact as both a queer story and a romance novel adaption. After only two episodes had aired, Harper's Bazaar listed it among the best queer television series of all time. By the end of the year, the series ranked among the best TV shows of 2025 on the lists by Cosmopolitan, the New York Post, Refinery29, The Seattle Times, and the Toronto Star. Media outlets also noted the show's crossover appeal among hockey fans. Vogue Adria and InsideHook highlighted the Empty Netters podcast, hosted by former ice hockey players, for its enthusiastic coverage of the series which they cited as an example of "non-toxic masculinity" within the sport.
The fifth episode in particular, received widespread critical acclaim. Tom Smyth of Vulture and Mads Misasi of Tell-Tale TV both gave the episode perfect five star ratings, while Cody Schultz of Show Snob described it as "a masterclass in storytelling" and one of the greatest television episodes of the year and of all time. Whitney Evans of TV Fanatic praised the episode's structure and pacing, as well as Storrie's performance, highlighting his Russian accent work and screen presence. Writing for Fangirlish, Lissete Lanuza Sáenz named it the best episode of the year, commending the performances of Williams and Storrie alongside the direction, cinematography, lighting, and writing, while fellow writer Lyra Hale highlighted the episode's portrayal of intimacy as a model for romantic storytelling on television. BJ Colangelo of /Film also praised the performances, specifically Williams, Storrie, and Sophie Nélisse, and remarked that the series and Storrie are deserving of Emmy recognitions.
In addition to its critical reception, the episode achieved notable audience recognition. Shortly after its release, it entered IMDb's rankings of highest-rated television episodes, attaining a rare perfect 10 out of 10 rating. For a time, which started on December 20, 2025, it tied with Breaking Bad "Ozymandias" as the only television episodes to receive a perfect rating on the platform, and ranked among the highest-rated episodes of all time. Following the episode's reception, the series itself also entered IMDb Top 250 TV shows chart.

Audience viewership

According to JustWatch, Heated Rivalry ranked fourth on its television streaming chart during the week of December 7, 2025, while Whip Media, based on data from its TV Time viewership tracking platform of more than 25 million users, reported the series placed sixth during the weeks of December 7 and 14. According to FlixPatrol, which compiles proprietary streaming viewership data, the series ranked second on HBO Max's Top 10 most-watched series chart in the United States on November 29 behind It: Welcome to Derry. The series also debuted at number two in Australia, and consistently ranks as the number one show each week. Conversely, the show ranked below the top ten in Nielsen streaming ratings due to its classification of being an acquired show, putting it into competition with long-running comfort shows like Grey's Anatomy or NCIS.
Alongside the announcement of its second season renewal, Deadline Hollywood reported that the series had become Crave's most-watched original series to date, with viewership increasing by nearly 400% in its initial seven-day streaming window following its debut on November 28. According to data shared by Crave's social media accounts, the show exhibited unusually high "stickiness", with a rewatch rate where approximately one-third of the total audience watched the entire season more than once. Furthermore, 15% of viewers were reported to have completed the series five or more times and episode 5 was the most rewatch among the six episodes.
HBO Max also revealed the show is the No. 2 driver of first-time viewers on the platform since its release. The series became a significant word-of-mouth success, characterized by an "unusual" growth pattern in its viewership. Despite a minimal marketing campaign and a low-cost licensing fee of approximately $600,000 per episode, it experienced a rapid surge in popularity following its late-November premiere. According to data from the research group Luminate, the show debuted with 30 million streaming minutes in its first week, failing to break into the top 50 streaming programs. However, by the release of the season finale on December 26, weekly viewership had increased more than tenfold to 324 million minutes. Additionally, after the show was fully released, its viewership hardly slowed down. During the week of January 2, 2026, the show was viewed for over 254 million minutes. By January 21, 2026, episodes were averaging 8 million viewers; just over a week later, that increased again to 9 million.

Accolades

Heated Rivalry is ineligible for consideration at the Primetime Emmy Awards because it does not meet the Television Academy's eligibility requirements for the U.S. co-productions. Although HBO Max later acquired the series, it became involved only after the first season had been completed, meaning the show was not developed as a U.S. co-production from the outset.
AwardYearCategoryNomineeResult
GLAAD Media Awards2026Outstanding New TV SeriesHeated Rivalry
The NYC LGBT Community Center2026Cultural Impact AwardJacob Tierney and Brendan Brady
Queerty Awards2026Best TV DramaHeated Rivalry
Queerty Awards2026Best TV PerformanceFrançois Arnaud