As “Heated Rivalry” stars Connor Storrie and Hudson Williams noted while presenting an award at the Golden Globes, much of that room, and a good portion of the world, has probably seen them naked. The meteoric rise of the six-episode first season— based on the books by Rachel Reid depicting the secret, swoon-worthy romance between a pair of hockey players — has been well-documented since its U.S. premiere on HBO late last year. So has fanfare for previously unknown actors Storrie (who plays the bold, bisexual Russian Ilya Rozanov) and Williams (the sweetly anxious Canadian Shane Hollander). What’s perhaps more fascinating right now, though, is how that momentum just keeps going — and growing.
Themed club nights are taking place from Texas to D.C. A three-minute sing-along to T.A.T.u.’s “All the Things She Said,” a 23-year-old song used in the show’s beloved “club scene,” is happening Saturday in New York’s Tompkins Square Park. A look-alike contest is, of course, next. The announcement that Reid is writing a seventh book in her Game Changers series, also focused on Shane and Ilya, probably got more engagement than Oscar nominations will. And new people keep finding it. Welcome in! Welcome in!
Over in one of our Style section Slack rooms, a question about whether we should write about “Heated Rivalry” got 67 replies in, like, zero hours. If we can’t stop talking about it, we figured you probably couldn’t, either. Here are nine reasons we’re still obsessed. — Jada Yuan
It respects and likes jocks
I, for one, breathed a sigh of relief when I realized “Heated Rivalry” wasn’t going to veer into stereotypical, cliché territory by having one of the two leads confess he actually only ever wanted to, say, go to art school, or be a competitive ice dancer, but got pressured into the depressingly macho world of hockey excellence by Society and Norms. No, these men are both fully queer and fully jocks. And because the show is willing to take them seriously as such, I have to imagine it’s given dude-coded sports media — thinking especially of those charming “Empty Netters” and “What Chaos” guys! — an easy on-ramp to get in on the fun. — Ashley Fetters Maloy
The chemistry between the leads IRL is off the charts
It takes “Heated Rivalry” all of about seven minutes of screen time to establish what Shane and Ilya’s dynamic is: One’s sweet and unassuming, and the other’s a sexy mischief machine. But as press tour footage of Williams and Storrie interacting as themselves has proliferated, it’s become clear that while all that chemistry they share in the show does translate offscreen, it’s Storrie who tends to be smiley and modest, and Williams who’s the 
emoji in human form. I’m sure plenty of us rewatched the show after seeing those clips, just for the “Freaky Friday”-ness of it all. — AFM
The sex is steamy, playful and more realistic than most
Remember in “Call Me by Your Name” when Elio and Oliver start getting it on, and the camera pans out the window to … a literal tree? That’s the treatment of intimacy between men that many of us have come to expect from Hollywood. Not since the gay men of my generation watched “Queer as Folk” (also a Canadian co-production) in our parents’ basements has there been such unflinching and detailed depictions of gay sex on TV. Oral, frottage, power play, negotiating positions — these are not the sort of dynamics we’re used to seeing reflected in media that also includes romance, family and public life. The combination feels revolutionary. — Naveen Kumar
It’s from Canada, not Hollywood
Canadian streamer Crave and its parent company, Bell Media, fully funded “Heated Rivalry,” which led to a singular final product. As showrunner Jacob Tierney explained to The Washington Post last month, procuring American backing would have meant ceding creative control. “You have people who are paid to give notes. And they give notes whether the notes make any sense or not,” Tierney said. Those changes would have sloughed off the more unusual elements of the show’s structure, cut or censored some of the aforementioned sex scenes and otherwise granted it the kind of sameness that makes so much streaming content forgettable. He hopes there’s a lesson for future adaptations: “Find the people that love [the source material] and let them make it, instead of getting a group of people together with a thousand pages of notes to tell you everything that’s wrong with it.” Maybe that’s the Canadian way. — Rachel Kurzius
It’s sexy AND wholesome
“Heated Rivalry” may start off with an impressive tear of graphic sex scenes, but its transformation over the course of the season from raunchy to romantic is both gradual and thorough. The same show that gave us an illicit locker room encounter 14 minutes into the first episode and made every fictional hockey team’s logo a bawdy visual innuendo ends its first season on a pair of tender, sun-dappled images: Shane and Ilya drinking coffee together at sunrise and the Hollanders instinctively folding Ilya, now without a family of his own, into the clan with a warm driveway send-off. You almost want to recommend the show to your parents, until you, you know … remember. — AFM
It’s a romance among consenting equals
A love story between Shane, who realizes he’s gay, and Ilya, who’s bisexual — both at the top of their professional field — allows women to sink into a fantasy where it feels like there’s no chance of anything veering into a creepy or scary gray area we often fear. At least that’s one of the theories for the growing popularity of “fujoshi” — a Japanese term for female fans of romantic stories centered on men. The cruelty and humiliation that always seems to be waiting around the corner in so many depictions of straight relationships (here’s looking at you, “Euphoria”) is never on the table. There’s no power imbalance, no chance of sexual violence. Every encounter is enthusiastic and consensual. Nothing sexier than that. — JY
The leads are both ‘mainstream hot’
The explosion of streaming services in the 2020s brought a welcome surge of LGBTQ+ stories, but none have broken through like “Heated Rivalry.” One look at the nemeses-turned-lovebirds, and the appeal is obvious: Young, jacked cis men fit the dominant ideals broadly revered by pop culture tastemakers — namely, women and gay men — more than any other letter in the queer alphabet. While you’re on HBO, check out another Canadian import acquired by the network, “Sort Of,” from creator and star Bilal Baig, about a genderfluid millennial fumbling their way into adulthood. The protagonist doesn’t play pro sports, but the series is a tender and sophisticated home run. — NK
It frees romance from the tyranny of clever banter
It’s time for us to admit that what counts as witty repartee in many modern romances is milquetoast. I learn nothing about the characters, their growing interest in one another or the stakes of the story when they argue about whether “Die Hard” is a Christmas movie. In “Heated Rivalry,” we first see the characters connect with few words. When they finally open up to one another, it speaks volumes about their changing dynamic and their newfound ability to acknowledge their true feelings. It turns the “will they, won’t they” dynamic on its head. After all, we’re not waiting for them to kiss. Instead, we’re rooting for them to use their words as well as their bodies to express themselves. — RK
There’s a palpable sense of discovery
Plenty of shows have a parasocial fandom, but what’s made this one’s so endearing is the deep satisfaction we get from having “discovered” it. “Heated Rivalry” is a low-budget word-of-mouth phenomenon. It dropped on HBO with almost no publicity because, well, the network realized what it had only three weeks before its premiere. The stars’ first red-carpet setup looked like it was in the basement of a mall. Watching the actors get recognition (they were previously working in food service) and navigate their incredible sudden rise with humility allows us to feel a sense of ownership: To quote a phrase I’ve seen many times on X, “We picked the right people to make famous.” I’m personally rooting to see more of Williams, a biracial Korean Canadian who would’ve had a much harder time breaking into the industry without this boost. — JY
The post 9 reasons everyone’s still talking about ‘Heated Rivalry’ appeared first on Washington Post.
