Hockey Needed Some Virality. Then Came ‘Heated Rivalry’

The hockey-romance novel universe has largely existed as a self-contained parallel to the sport of hockey itself. But the smash success of the Canadian show Heated Rivalry has fused them. Now, there is no tearing them apart.

Heated Rivalry, based on Rachel Reid’s romance novel of the same name, follows two closeted, male teenage hockey stars on the cusp of being drafted, who begin a secret affair and eventually fall in love during their decorated pro careers.

There’s lots of sex, and at least some hockey. 

The series, on Crave in Canada and HBO Max in the U.S., sits at a staggering 96% on Rotten Tomatoes going into Friday’s season-one finale; on Tuesday, the fifth episode, “I’ll Believe in Anything,” briefly tied Breaking Bad’s finale for the highest-rated episode on IMDb ever. The series has just been renewed for a second season.

Everything about the explosion of Heated Rivalry has been organic. 

Part of the wild fandom looks like any other entertainment phenomenon: Fan-edited clips with millions of views; social media posts poring over every line from every interview with the show’s stars, Connor Storrie and Hudson Williams.

But the devotion to Heated Rivalry has also penetrated hockey’s tightest circles, where fans have painstakingly picked apart whether that open-ice hit was legal, and whether the Montreal Metros’ and New York Admirals’ benches would have actually held back Shane and Scott from fighting. (Yes, above board; no, they would have let them scrap.)

Thanks to Ilya Rozanov (Storrie) and Shane Hollander (Williams), people who care about hockey are hooked on a gay romance show. But perhaps more importantly, people who are hooked on a gay romance show are starting to care about hockey. 

‘None of Us Saw This Coming’

Among the people caught off guard by the runaway success of the show were the hosts of the daily What Chaos! hockey podcast. On Dec. 1, Pete Blackburn and DJ Bean unpacked the first two episodes of Heated Rivalry in a nearly hour-long segment, not entirely certain whether their audience would care.

“We were doing it from the beginning because it was just extremely up our alley,” Bean tells Front Office Sports. (They have beef with Heated Rivalry’s fictional Man In the Crease podcast.) 

“Maybe not every listener would want to hear about this TV show—maybe they only watch hockey,” Bean says. But the clips of their discussions shared on X/Twitter took off with tens of thousands of views, both from existing listeners and people who’d never heard of What Chaos! or any other hockey podcasts, many of which are also covering the show. 

“None of us saw this coming in terms of how rabid the fan base is and how passionate they are and how they’ve attached to almost anybody talking about the show,” Blackburn says. “I would like to say it’s equal to K-pop with how crazy it is online. It’s been stunning.” 

After the success of its initial segment, What Chaos! hosted Heated Rivalry showrunner Jacob Tierney. The segment has more than 75,000 views. It’s the show’s third-most viewed clip on their YouTube channel—their reaction video to the first two episodes is the top. “I never imagined I would listen to an entire episode of a hockey podcast but shit happens,” a viewer commented.

“The crazy thing is that we’ve had so many people come for the show discussions, and stay for our regular episode. Numbers are jumping like crazy, too,” Blackburn says. The show has added more than 5,000 YouTube subscribers in the past three weeks. The most astonishing thing they’ve noticed is who is listening. “In terms of viewership and listenership, there’s been a lot of comments being like, ‘You guys are kind of getting us into hockey.’”

Bleacher Report hockey writer Sara Civian has been quietly keeping tabs on the wildly popular hockey-romance community on TikTok. For years, she’s watched the interest in the genre swell—and along with it, “a new demographic of people that are genuinely interested in hockey,” she tells FOS. 

After the explosive response to the first few episodes of the show, Civian posted a Heated Rivalry mailbag on her Substack, The Civ Report, to answer questions from hockey-curious readers. She got more than a hundred responses from around the world. “If you’re reading this and you’re new to hockey,” Civian wrote, “welcome, we’d love if you stuck around!” Questions included which teams to support, how the NHL Draft works, how players understand line changes, and which players are queer allies. 

“I want to attract new fans. We do have a little stagnancy issue where we’re the fourth most popular sport in North America,” Civian says. “It’s not always the most inclusive or diverse [sport] … I want to always be changing that, and it’s really cool when a younger, new demographic comes in wanting to take an interest now.”

‘Such a Perfect Surprise’

With the success of Heated Rivalry, the NHL sees the opportunity to tally a more diverse fanbase, especially when it’s in growth mode and locked on taking an even bigger slice of the sports pie.

“There are lots of different ways to get hooked on hockey,” league spokesperson Jon Weinstein tells FOS, “and in the NHL’s 108-year history, we have to admit this might just be the most novel and surprising way new fans are finding our sport.”

Now, the league—and hockey at large—will have to deliver for a new group of fans that have high expectations for inclusivity. With its majority male fanbase, hockey has not traditionally been the most open space for women or marginalized groups. 

In locker rooms from youth through the pros, the sport’s culture has long-documented issues with sexism, racism, and homophobia. The NHL has had an uneven relationship with Pride, including controversies over Pride-themed specialty jerseys and warmup gear, and a 2023 ban on rainbow stick tape that was quickly reversed. No players actively on an NHL roster are openly gay, and some have protested associations with Pride initiatives.

Lacey Conine runs the Double Hockey Stix brand, which carries irreverent hockey-related accessories. She’s always offered an unlicensed hockey romance line, but since Heated Rivalry, her orders have surged. “People know there’s this huge missing market of women between the ages of 18 and 34 that the NHL cannot hit and cannot satisfy,” Conine says. “And that is my number one market of who’s buying my stuff.” 

The next move, Bean says, is up to the league: “The NHL should be thanking the heavens this show is about their sport, and doing everything they can.” Blackburn adds, “This is the most buzz that hockey or a hockey-adjacent thing has generated since 4 Nations—and 4 Nations was a real flash. This has generated a prolonged interest in hockey for over a month, and it’s being talked about everywhere.”

Some teams are not wasting time.

Speakers across NHL rinks have been blasting t.A.T.u.’s “All the Things She Said,” the defining track from Heated Rivalry episode four. And at the Bell Centre, during the first intermission of the Dec. 9 Pride Night game between the Lightning and Canadiens, the show’s trailer played in English with French subtitles on the big screen. (Bell Media owns Crave.) François Arnaud, who plays Scott Hunter, also joined the French-language RDS broadcast. 

“This is the most insane thing I’ve ever experienced at the Bell Centre,” one fan said in the background of a TikTok of the trailer on the big screen as the ice was resurfaced below. “There is no way. I cannot believe this.”