Just when you thought you were out, we’re pulling you back in.
“Heated Rivalry” may have completed its six-episode run in December, but it’s never a bad time to, well, “reheat.”
If you’ve somehow missed out on “Heated Rivalry” mania, here’s a crash course. The Canadian series stars Hudson Williams and Connor Storrie as Shane Hollander and Ilya Rozanov, two rival hockey players with a big secret: They’ve been hooking up on the down-low for their entire careers.
It’s based on a series of hockey romance novels by Rachel Reid called “Game Changers,” named for the first book (“Game Changer”), which focuses on the love story between New York hockey star Scott Hunter (François Arnaud) and Kip Grady (Robbie G.K.), a smoothie shop worker with dreams of attending grad school.
After “Game Changer” came “Heated Rivalry” — the main source material for the show — then “Tough Guy,” “Common Goal,” “Role Model,” “The Long Game,” and the upcoming “Unrivaled,” which will be released in the fall.
In the agonizingly long wait for season two, we’ve combed through the first season’s six episodes to find Easter eggs, fun details, and more that were scattered throughout the show.
Here are 15 details you might’ve missed in season one of “Heated Rivalry.”
Creator Jacob Tierney has a cameo in the first episode as the director of a commercial starring Shane and Ilya.
He’s the guy wearing the beanie behind the monitor.
This isn’t the first hockey series Tierney has been involved with — he co-created “Letterkenny” (which he also sporadically appeared in) and was a director and executive producer on its spinoff “Shoresy.”
The fictional hockey podcast heard throughout the season, “Man in the Crease,” is hosted by two real Canadian radio personalities.
If you’re a fan of Montreal hockey, you might recognize the hosts of “The Morning Show with Conor McKenna and Shaun Starr” as the two voices behind the fictional “Man in the Crease” podcast, a pretty consistent provider of hockey exposition throughout the season.
In episode three, Kip and his friends thank The Kingfisher’s bartender, Kyle. He’s one of the main characters in “Common Goal,” the fourth book in the series.
The Kingfisher is an important location throughout the “Game Changers” book series, as the favored hangout of Kip and his friends, including its bartender, Kyle, who is named in episode three.
Kyle is one of the two protagonists of “Common Goal,” which is about his relationship with New York Admirals goalie Eric Bennett.
There’s a piece of art that resembles the set for Dropout’s “Game Changer” in the smoothie shop, perhaps a nod to the novel “Game Changer,” Scott and Kip’s story.
This could be a reach, a happy accident, or a really subtle Easter egg, so walk with us here.
The spiral print, seen hanging in the smoothie shop, is the exact same shape as some of the set decoration of a game show on Dropout.
Why is this significant? Because the name of the show is “Game Changer” — also the name of the novel focused on Scott and Kip that the third episode is based on, and the inspiration for “Game Changers,” the title of the overarching book series.
A poster for Rose Landry’s film “Under Dark” can be spotted at a bodega.
To the left of Kip’s head, you can see a poster for “Under Dark,” an apparently bad film starring Rose Landry, the movie star whom Shane briefly dates in the next episode.
Rose herself calls it a “horrible FBI movie.”
Producer Brendan Brady has a cameo as the director of a different commercial in episode four.
At the beginning of episode four, we see a montage of Shane and Ilya’s relationship over a couple of years, as they stay in contact during the offseason.
Brady, one of three credited executive producers on “Heated Rivalry,” plays a director of one of the commercials Shane shoots — he does one for an underwear brand, and another for cologne.
Ilya and Shane have a brief conversation about another player, Ryan Price, while watching TV. He’s the main character of book No. 3, “Tough Guy.”
Ryan, in both the books and the show, is what’s known in hockey as an enforcer. Basically, his unofficial job is to protect his teammates by intimidating the other team (and sometimes by getting into fights) — but he doesn’t enjoy it.
In “Heated Rivalry” (the book), readers meet Ryan while he’s on the Raiders with Ilya, and the two connect during a flight.
That scene didn’t make the show, but Ilya does tell Shane during a conversation that Ryan “is not what you would think” and calls him quiet but “not [a] bad guy.”
It’s unclear if Ryan will be introduced in season two (or three) of “Heated Rivalry,” but if you’re interested, you can learn more about him by reading “Tough Guy.”
A commenter shown during the social media montage is a nod to Rachel Reid, author of the “Game Changers” series.
The first commenter, who wrote “You can feel the chemistry through the screen omg,” has the username @reidoftherachelle, almost certainly a nod to “Heated Rivalry” author Rachel Reid, whose real name is Rachelle Goguen.
Shane tells his parents he doesn’t want to waste the two weeks he has off a year with some stranger; that’s exactly how long he’ll spend with Ilya at the cottage.
Sensing that Shane is in a funk, his parents (Yuna and David) tell him that Rolex wants him to attend Wimbledon and sit in their box, and sit next to a “Swedish princess.”
However, Shane rebuffs them, saying he “only gets like, two weeks off a year” and doesn’t want to spend them “next to someone he doesn’t know.”
That’s because, of course, he wants to spend them with someone he does know. In the next episode, Shane invites Ilya to his cottage and says that they “could have a week or even two” together.
In Rose’s newest movie, she seems to be playing a Mystique-esque character.
It’s mentioned in the previous episode that Rose is in Montreal filming the new “X-Squad” movie, a clear reference to the “X-Men,” but it doesn’t click into place that she’s basically the Jennifer Lawrence of this universe until we see her getting painted blue and fitted with a red wig, just like Lawrence did when she played Mystique in four “X-Men” movies.
During the title card for episode six, you can hear the distinct sound of a loon, or, as Ilya would say, a “stupid Canadian wolf-bird.”
For fans of the book, the cottage episode was always going to be a big deal, and they could breathe a sigh of relief when they heard a bird call over the title card for episode six, “The Cottage.”
It meant that Tierney and the rest of the producers knew how important every little detail was, including a loon call, which Ilya would later mistake for a wolf (much to Shane’s amusement).
This little moment is so important to Ilya that, in “Role Model” and “The Long Game,” it’s revealed he’s even gotten a little loon tattooed on his arm.
As Shane and Ilya drive to Shane’s cottage, the song they listen to on the radio is the theme song for a Québécois show called “Le chalet,” or “The Cottage.”
The song is called “L’anarchie des jours heureux,” and is performed by La Bronze. It translates to “the anarchy of happy days” — a sentiment that Shane and Ilya can certainly relate to during their secret getaway to Shane’s cottage.
Shane’s Rookie of the Year award is on display at his cottage.
It’s right up there on the ledge, on top of the blue book.
We saw Shane win the award in the second episode, and we saw him mistake Ilya’s stress about returning to Russia for jealousy about losing the award to Shane.
Clearly, they got past it.
Shane and Ilya switch clothes while at the cottage.
We first see Shane wearing the brown flannel when he’s grilling burgers for the two of them (and getting teased by Ilya for not halving the recipe).
The next night, Ilya rocks the same flannel when he tells Shane that he’s got “a problem”: He can’t stop thinking about another hockey player with “beautiful freckles.”
All of the MHL team logos might have you doing a double-take.
This one’s confirmed by Jacob Tierney: Almost all of the MHL logos in the show are either, for lack of a better word, phallic — or look like a butt.
“I’m not trying to be subtle,” Tierney said on an episode of the hockey podcast “What Chaos!“
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