Connor Storrie and Hudson Williams in Heated Rivalry

At a time when many young people prefer TikTok to television, a Canadian series, Heated Rivalry, has become a phenomenon. HBO bought the rights to air the series in the United States shortly before its premiere on the Canadian subscription network Crave. No one expected the show to become a smash hit. The ratings have been record-breaking, and the show and its creator and stars are all over the media. What is odd about all this is that Heated Rivalry is about two hockey players whose relationship changes over eight years from occasional furtive hot sex to love. In an era when our government is not supportive of lgbtq people unless they are billionaire Trump supporters, the success of Heated Rivalry is quite amazing. What it shows is that the homophobic evangelical right wing is woefully out of touch with this aspect of contemporary culture.

Like the Asian BL series I discussed in my last blog, Heated Rivalry appeals to gay men, of course, though some on the gay left see the show as politically incorrect, but its main appeal is to young straight women. The best-selling books on which the series is based were published by Harlequin for a female audience. The people mobbing appearances by the show’s stars are young women who see in this romance of two sexy but sensitive jocks a version of masculinity that excites them—even though these two guys only have eyes for each other.

More amazing are the blogs where straight guys who usually talk only about sports devote their shows to enthusiastic play-by-play analyses of episodes of Heated Rivalry. It’s now cool for straight guys to discuss sex scenes involving athletes. Is it cool because the leading characters are athletes? Heated Rivalry vividly dramatizes how difficult it is for a star gay athlete to be open about his personal life. 

A principal reason for the success of Heated Rivalry is that it is an excellent show, notches above the writing, direction and acting of most television. In his book Aspects of the Novel, the great British novelist E.M. Forster discussed round and flat characters. Television is filled with flat characters who don’t change from episode to episode. The characters in Heated Rivalry deepen and grow throughout the series. We the viewers always know that there is more they are not showing each other and us. It is the unspoken moments (and I don’t mean the sex) that are often the most powerful, as well as the moments when a character says the opposite of what he or she feels. There’s a scene in episode three when Kip, a young barista who has fallen in love with the captain of the New York hockey team, tells his female best friend, “I’ve never been so happy.” The look on his face tells us and her the opposite. 

If you don’t know already, Heated Rivalry is the story of two hockey players who ascend from being prize rookies to star captains of opposing teams. Half Asian Shane Hollander (Hudson Williams) plays for Montreal; Russian Ilya Rozanov (Connor Storrie) plays for Boston. The hockey world sees them as rivals who hate each other. From their first meeting as teenagers, they are attracted to each other but know that anything more than occasional hot sex is impossible for them. Over eight years, they deal separately and together with the conflicts their feelings cause them. Ilya, who enjoys sex with women but comes to love Shane, knows that exposure would be disastrous in Putin’s Russia where his father and brother are police officers. Shane has great difficulty accepting his homosexuality. His crises are more internal and more painful as he finds it difficult to express his feelings. These guys only become happy together in the deeply moving final episode when they are in Shane’s beautiful lakeside retreat. For the first time they, cautiously at first, express their feelings for each other.

Hudson Williams and Connor Storrie were unknowns before Heated Rivalry exploded onto the scene. All I can say is that it is impossible to imagine the show with any other actors. They both are brilliant at showing unspoken anguish and confusion. There’s a moment in the season finale when the two men finally say “I love you” to each other. Shane then says to Ilya, “Is it killing you too?” to which Ilya responds, “Not anymore.” The difficulty they both have felt getting to this point of emotional release has been heartbreaking for them and for us viewers. The chemistry between them is palpable.

I could go on about how Heated Rivalry is a Canadian version of the BL series I wrote about last time. It follows many of the conventions of BL. It is also better written than any BL series I have seen (I need subtitles for the Asian series so can’t really judge the quality of the dialogue.), less dependent on melodramatic peripeteia and more reliant on nuances of character. Like BL series, it is deeply romantic, based on the possibility of “till death do us part” love in an age in which divorce is easy and many young people have given up believing in the ideal of marriage. 

Where Heated Rivalry differs from the relatively chaste Asian series is in the many hot sex scenes between the male leads. There are lots of rear ends but no genitalia. Television is still squeamish about showing men’s privates. The sex always expresses the dynamics of an evolving relationship. These guys like sex, but they also stop to ask permission. “Can I fuck you?” is repeated a lot. There is always respect and consent. The millions of female fans must appreciate that as much as they must like watching good-looking men enjoying sex with each other. Of course, the men are all magnificently built. Even the young art historian who supports himself as a barista looks like he spends all day in the gym. I know a lot of art historians and none of them is built like this guy!

The show has enormous emotional range from humor to complex intimate moments to scenes of emotional exhilaration like the end of episode five when the veteran closeted New York team captain after winning the championship comes out publicly by pulling the man he loves onto the ice and kissing him in front of thousands of fans and the television cameras. Wolf Parade’s song “I Believe in Anything” is blaring as the camera swirls around the lovers. It is one of the most emotionally thrilling scenes in the history of television. It has an enormous effect on Shane and Ilya, who are watching.

Scott and Kip’s very public kiss.

Asian BL series and this gigantically successful Canadian series are popular with women because they want to love men like Shane and Ilya—successful, physical men who can express their feelings and who can cry. It’s always women that these men can confide in. Soft masculinity is out of favor with the powers that be in Russia, China and the United States. It isn’t out of favor with the ardent followers of Heated Rivalry.