I am willing to bet that women in the United States — and beyond — have probably never been more interested in men’s hockey than they were going into the Winter Olympics this year. And that’s largely because of a few entirely fictional hockey players.
In November, a series called Heated Rivalry premiered on Crave, a Canadian streaming service, and was quickly picked up by HBO Max.
Based on the Game Changers novel series by Rachel Reid, the show follows the illicit romance between Ilya Rozanov (Connor Storrie), a cocky Russian, and Shane Hollander (Hudson Williams), a straitlaced Asian Canadian, who meet as rookies in a fictionalized version of the National Hockey League.
They play for opposing teams and are marketed to hockey fans as fierce, bitter rivals, but the truth of their relationship is far more interesting: after a few charged encounters, they start hooking up in secret whenever they’re in the same place — often after facing each other on the ice. Over the years, their steamy situationship blossoms into a surprisingly tender romance. Meanwhile, a key subplot revolves around another closeted player named Scott Hunter (Françoise Arnaud) who falls for Kip Grady (Robbie G.K.), a smoothie-making grad student.
The series, made for approximately five Canadian dollars and starring a cast of unknowns, has become a massive hit and cultural phenomenon, turning leads Storrie and Williams into overnight stars. Less than a year ago they were both waiting tables; now they’re Olympic torchbearers who get swarmed like K-Pop stars wherever they go. This weekend, Storrie will host Saturday Night Live. Bookstores around the world are selling out of Reid’s novels, three of which are on The New York Times bestseller list this week. You can even rent the lakefront cottage from the show on Airbnb (good luck getting a reservation).
Its popularity has largely been fueled by women, who make up roughly two-thirds of the show’s audience. Numerous think pieces have tried to understand why women are “feral” for Heated Rivalry. According to one compelling theory, the show’s portrayal of an intimate relationship unburdened by gender hierarchy is particularly appealing to female viewers, especially at a time when we are being bombarded with headlines about powerful, predatory men. A few years ago, a debate about whether women were safer getting stuck in the woods with a bear or a man blew up on social media. Most women said they’d feel safer with the bear, though I imagine their choice would be different if the man were Shane or Ilya.
Though it has garnered a lot of attention for its graphic sex scenes, Heated Rivalry has really caught on because it’s an emotionally insightful love story about young men learning to be vulnerable with each other in an environment steeped in misogyny and homophobia. It suggests that true masculinity is about being open-hearted and empathetic, and it celebrates men without denigrating women. (Both Shane and Ilya pursue relationships with women over the course of the series as they try to figure out their feelings for each other, but these women are portrayed as supportive friends and allies, not adversaries.)
I have had countless conversations about Heated Rivalry over the last few months, with women and gay men who have also become obsessed with the series. I’ve evangelized to friends who haven’t gotten around to watching, telling them it will only bring them joy in a gloomy time. More than once, I’ve seen the Heated Rivalry phenomenon described as a mass psychosis event, and it’s an apt comparison: the show is so uplifting it will temporarily alter your brain chemistry (in a fun, non-life-threatening way).
Part of what makes it so intoxicating is how it imagines a world less infected with misogyny.
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Reid, the books’ author, grew up in Nova Scotia loving hockey but feeling alienated by the culture around it, particularly by the allegations of sexual abuse by Canadian hockey players. She wrote the books in part to process her complicated feelings about the sport, imagining what it would be like for a closeted player in a setting rife with toxic masculinity — and what would ensue if they finally came out. “I started thinking about the ripple effect — what would happen to the other players?” she said in The New York Times.
In reality, the NHL is also the only men’s professional sports league in the United States that has never had a current or former player come out as queer. (By contrast, the Professional Women’s Hockey League currently has 30 openly queer players.) The league has been criticized for measures like banning rainbow stick tape (a decision that was reversed) and getting rid of Pride jerseys.
The show’s enormous popularity has inspired at least one gay amateur player to come out of the closet. It has also compelled women and queer people to check out the sport, according to a source as authoritative as it gets: the National Hockey League itself.
“There are so many ways to get hooked on hockey and, in the NHL’s 108-year history, this might be the most unique driver for creating new fans,” a representative for the league told The Hollywood Reporter in December.
Heated Rivalry, though fictional, provided a huge PR boost to the actual sport just in time for the Milan Cortina Winter Olympics. The men’s and women’s Olympic finals both set viewing records in the US — a sign, perhaps, of growing interest in a sport that is still more of a regional pastime than a nationwide obsession. For the first time in history, both the American men and women’s teams won gold in the same games.
But within a few hours of the men’s final on Sunday, much of the goodwill and enthusiasm generated by Team USA’s gold-winning performance had been squandered in a beer-soaked orgy of misogyny. First, there was the embarrassing spectacle of FBI director Kash Patel shot-gunning beers with the victorious men’s team in a Milan locker room (meanwhile, the agency he supposedly leads is removing Epstein documents related to Trump).
Then there was the president himself, who dialed in via Patel’s cell phone to invite the men’s team to the White House and make a gross joke at the expense of the women’s team. “I must tell you, we’re going to have to bring the women’s team,” he said. “You do know that. I do believe I probably would be impeached [if he didn’t].” Here’s where one of the players could have said “We are proud of the women”; instead, they laughed approvingly.
It was (literal) locker-room talk of the worst kind — sexist, demeaning, and the exact opposite of everything that made Heated Rivalry so irresistible. (Laugh at snide comments about women? Ilya and Shane would never.)
The president’s obvious contempt for female athletes was especially galling given that American women once again outperformed the men at the winter games, winning 63.6% of Team USA’s overall medals and 8 out of 12 golds.
The women’s team subsequently declined his offer to visit, while most of the men’s team happily showed up to eat cold McDonald’s at the White House and serve as props at the State of the Union.
The backlash against the men’s team has been swift and intense, but so far only one player has expressed anything close to regret. Goalie Jeremy Swayman told reporters, “We should have reacted differently.” (A more typical response came from player Jack Hughes, who claimed that detractors “are trying to find a reason to put people down and make something out of almost nothing.”)
Women’s captain Hilary Knight offered a more forceful denunciation. “I thought it was sort of a distasteful joke and unfortunately that is overshadowing a lot of the success,” she said.
Once the men’s team gets over their jet lag — and their indigestion from all those cheeseburgers — I’d suggest they fire up Heated Rivalry and take some notes. It won’t make them better players, but it might just make them better men.
Meredith Blake is the culture columnist for The Contrarian
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Thanks for this. As a gay man, I couldn’t figure out why this series garnered so much interest from women, outnumbering men-watchers by nearly 2 to 1. This article helped to understand why. It helps that the relationship between the two men was brilliantly acted and the writing superb.
Proud of our women’s hockey team, and not thrilled by the men most of whom had no problem being used as props by a scheming carnival-barker and his pet deer-in-the-headlights too drunk on Michelob to give a rat’s ass about his job back home. (On the other hand, probably the deer’s employees were glad to see him leave town…)
Great column, thanks!
I was disgusted by the men’s team.
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