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. Jacob Tierney first reached out to Reid on August 7, 2023, a day after The Washington Post ran an article about hockey romance novels. Heated Rivalry is based on Rachel Reid’s Game Changers novel series (2018–2026), with the second novel, Heated Rivalry (2019), providing the series’ title. 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. Shane Hollander and Ilya Rozanov are two professional ice hockey players who compete on rival teams, the Montreal Metros and the Boston Raiders, respectively.
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Streams is a new feature that carefully curates content from within the Disney+ app or provides access to live linear streams, such as ABC News, to give you a continuous streaming experience. “Heated Rivalry,” a romantic drama inspired by Rachel Reid’s book series “Game Changers,” dropped its first two episodes on the streaming service on Nov. 28 and left viewers wanting more. All six episodes of the romance series’ first season are available to stream on HBO Max. Canadian actor, director and screenwriter, Jacob Tierney wrote and directed all six episodes of the series’ first season.
Heated Rivalry is, almost exclusively, the story of Shane Hollander (Hudson Williams) and Ilya Rozanov (Connor Storrie), two high-level professional hockey prospects who fall in love. It doesn’t feel like hockey, and it doesn’t feel like anything else on TV right now; it feels a little bit like falling in love. While it isn’t ascending to Bluey levels of global streaming dominance, what’s unique about the show has been its growth. To really appreciate what’s going on on the ice, you have to be in that big refrigerator, shoulder to shoulder with the raucous crowd, bodies flying at you left and right.
- Canadian actor, director and screenwriter, Jacob Tierney wrote and directed all six episodes of the series’ first season.
- 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.
- It doesn’t feel like hockey, and it doesn’t feel like anything else on TV right now; it feels a little bit like falling in love.
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- The story is told, largely, through the performance of Shane and Ilya’s physical chemistry, as well as the loaded moments when that chemistry disappears, freezes up, or transforms into something else.
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. 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. Miley Cyrus also expressed interest in contributing music for the second season, as did rapper Bbno$.better source needed 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. 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 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”.
- HBO Max also revealed the show is the No. 2 driver of first-time viewers on the platform since its release.
- The series has been described as a slow-burn story that’s emotional and filled with sexual tension.
- 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.
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- Time-jumping and globe-trotting to show us every single time they hook up over the course of about a decade, the show’s immediate devotion to their affair starts to bleed out into the viewer’s perception and anticipation of it.
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Each new episode drops on HBO Max at 12 a.m. Here’s everything you need to know about “Heated Rivalry” and how to watch the rest of the season. HBO Max’s newest series has viewers buzzing. Learn more about what content you can watch with Streams at the Disney+ Help Center.
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The six-episode series tells the story of the forbidden queer love affair of two professional hockey players, and it does so by documenting each of its lovers’ dalliances at length and in languorous detail. It was arguably one of the greatest places and times to be alive as a hockey fan in the United States. By January 21, 2026, episodes were averaging 8 million viewers and the show hit a series high for weekly viewership the week prior. 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.
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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. All hockey sequences, including locker rooms, ice surface, and stands were filmed at the Sleeman Centre in Guelph. The first day of shooting included Shane and Ilya’s Las Vegas hotel room encounter, while the hockey rink scenes were completed over a stretch of just over a week of filming near the end of the shoot. Principal photography for the first season commenced in April 2025, with filming taking place across two Canadian provinces, Ontario and Quebec, for 36 days, according to Tierney. He also wanted https://www.boombetonline.nl/ to find them together since “the show lives and dies on their relationship”. 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.
The promotional posters for the series were photographed by Caitlin Cronenberg, daughter of David Cronenberg. 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. 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.
Kein Rassismus, Sexismus, Homo-/Transphobie, Misogynie o.ä.
Ads served on select live and linear content on Standard and Premium Plans. Ads served on select live & linear content in No Ads plan. I was catching up on Heated Rivalry this January, just as I was also beginning to blitz through new episodes of the second season of HBO Max’s other viral hit, The Pitt. There is a momentary break in this dynamic in the third episode, when we return to an earlier moment at the Sochi Olympics and follow Scott Hunter (François Arnaud), a fellow hockey player who’d mostly only appeared at All-Star games and award ceremonies to this point. I found myself laughing about it as the series began, but, as episodes unfolded, there started to be something almost hypnotic about the constant yada-yada’ing of everything that didn’t involve our two leads.
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. After only two episodes had aired, Harper’s Bazaar listed it among the best queer television series of all time. 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. Additional episodes of the series will premiere each week through Dec. 26, 2025, when the finale airs. The TV series follows two rival hockey players, Canadian Shane Hollander (Hudson Williams) and Russian Ilya Rozanov (Connor Storrie), as they navigate their professional lives and mix business with pleasure.
In the terms of film theorist Linda Williams, they are both series within the realm of “body genres”—dramas built around showing the body in moments of distress and/or elation. The Pitt has nearly a dozen series regulars in the main cast, another dozen recurring characters, and many dozens more who filter in and out of the E.R. This is, I might guess, what good hockey is like. Though, for what it’s worth, the moment when that happens, when these two plotlines converge, is one of the most electrifying sequences I’ve seen on TV in the past couple of months. This episode is counterprogramming to the Ilya-Shane romance. In this stand-alone episode, we watch Scott come to terms with his own sexuality, begin secretly dating a barista named Kip, and see that relationship run up against the wall of Scott’s inability to come out.