‘Shoresy’ Is Back, a Hockey Sitcom With ‘Heated Rivalry’ Ties

If “Heated Rivalry” left you pining for more Canadian TV series about emotionally complex hockey players, here’s some good news: Season 5 of “Shoresy” arrives this week, with all six episodes debuting on Hulu on Saturday. “Shoresy,” the first two seasons of which were directed and executive produced by the creator of “Heated Rivalry,” Jacob Tierney, is more of a foul-mouthed comedy than a romantic melodrama. But the show’s macho, beer-swilling, skirt-chasing hockey guys do sometimes cry, think deep thoughts and even fall in love. (Just not with one another.)

“Shoresy” was created by Jared Keeso, who also created the cult-favorite slice-of-life comedy “Letterkenny,” where the title character originated. (Tierney also directed, co-developed and co-wrote “Letterkenny.”) Shoresy is a bullheaded middle-aged hockey coach who in his playing days was known as one of the sport’s biggest trash-talkers and meanest fighters. The series began with Shoresy at the tail end of his playing career, helping to turn around the fortunes of the Sudbury Bulldogs, a semipro team in a tiny northern Ontario league.

In Season 4, the newly retired Shoresy’s relationship with the game changed, as he started mentoring younger players and spouting off on sports talk shows about the state of hockey. In Season 5, Shoresy’s big mouth leads him to a new opportunity, coaching a team of Canadian Senior League all-stars against a European squad that has been terrorizing local teams in exhibition games. The Europeans employ an aggressively physical style of play that the Canadian leagues have largely abandoned. Enter Shoresy, who has spent his whole hockey life advocating more violence.

This new “Shoresy” season lives up to the show’s reputation for raunch, beginning with an opening scene in which several players, in hilariously graphic detail, describe their masturbation habits. But Keeso is capable of turning on a dime from fast-paced farce to sweet sentiment. Just a few scenes later, Shoresy is in a locker room with his arm around a sobbing junior player, encouraging the young man to regain his confidence.

There is a larger point to all the unapologetic vulgarity and old-school hockey talk. “Shoresy” depicts a culturally diverse and ever-evolving Canada that remains united in its love of hockey. In between all of the characters’ rapid-fire jokes and insults, Keeso examines what it is about the sport that inspires devotion — and whether it’s enough to hold communities together in troubled times.

Also this week

The two-part true crime docuseries “Murder in Glitterball City” may remind you of the 1990s best seller “Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil” in the way that it uses a bizarre homicide case as a way into exploring the subculture of a southern city — Louisville, Ky., in this case. Both episodes debut on Thursday at 8 p.m., on HBO.
For two seasons now, “The Night Agent” has told the thrillingly twisty story of Peter Sutherland (Gabriel Basso), an F.B.I. special agent who keeps getting dragged into super secret international missions. Season 3 arrives Thursday, on Netflix.
Adam Scott plays a boring lawyer and Janelle James is the magician who teaches him how to bring flashy entertainment to the courtroom in the adult animated comedy series “Strip Law,” debuting Friday, on Netflix.
Adjani Salmon returns for another season of savvy showbiz satire in “Dreaming Whilst Black,” in which he plays an aspiring filmmaker who struggles to maintain his creative integrity within the British movie and TV industry. Season 2 debuts on Friday at 9 p.m. on Showtime and starts streaming the same day on Paramount+ Premium.