“Logo text While TikTok’s algorithm caters to each user’s obsession of the moment, it feels nearly impossible to be on the app without seeing at least one video about Crave and HBO Max’s new gay hockey romance series, Heated Rivalry. The series, created for television by Letterkenny alum Jacob Tierney and adapted from Rachel Reid’s”, — write: www.hollywoodreporter.com
While TikTok’s algorithm caters to each user’s obsession of the moment, it feels nearly impossible to be on the app without seeing at least one video about Crave and HBO Max’s new gay hockey romance series, Heated Rivalry.
The series, created for television by Letterkenny alum Jacob Tierney and adapted from Rachel Reid’s novel of the same name, centers around a fictional hockey universe. Heated Rivalry focuses on two rival professional hockey players — Canadian-born Shane Hollander (Hudson Williams) of the fictitious Montreal Metros and Russian-born Ilya Rozanov (Connor Storrie) of the fictitious Boston Raiders — as they navigate a years-long secret fling.
“I was a late-to-the-romance-genre person, I’ll admit,” Tierney told The Hollywood Reporter a little over a week before the show premieres Friday on Bell Media’s streamer Crave. Until last week, the show had yet to find an international home. However, shortly into this conversation, Tierney and his producing partner and fellow executive producer Brendan Brady shared that HBO Max acquired the show in the US and Australia.
“I thought[thebook[thebookHeated Rivalry]was great. I did not ever truthfully think I was going to adapt it, or that it was especially adaptable because of the level of smut to it,” Tierney continues. Which is fair, considering Reid’s prologue begins with and never really lets off the gas in that regard. But he called Brady after reading about the romance genre’s popularity to tell him about his “crazy” idea. “I was like, ‘If somebody else options this, I’ll feel crazy because it’s gay and hockey. That’s me. I should be the [one to adapt the book]”and then we did,” he says.
Tierney and Brady always knew there was a built-in audience — a largely queer, largely female-skewing audience. The writer-director stresses that they knew the numbers were there, but because it’s considered outside of the mainstream, it would take some explaining. “When you explain it to people, [they don’t get it]. They don’t get that the audience is women either,” he says of the book’s core fanbase. “We were like, ‘But these fans are really into it.’ Then you make the thing and you’re like, ‘Fuck, I hope they are. I hope they respond to this because it’s all alchemy. There’s no math.’”
Luckily for the pair and Bell Media, the fans are really into it — and the show hasn’t even officially aired yet. There’s plenty of reasons why that might be, but Heated Rivalry‘s arguably perfect casting of its two leads in Williams’ Shane and Storrie’s Ilya likely has something to do with it.
The pair’s chemistry is palpable in the trailer — released last month on Crave’s accounts and last week on HBO Max’s accounts — and that chemistry only increased tenfold in the sneak peek released last week. Not since Matthew Macfadyen’s Mr. Darcy we have seen such intentional hand acting.
But as with any adaptation, there’s always fear that the built-in fanbase won’t see eye-to-eye with the show’s creative decisions. “I was scared for [Williams and Storrie]. I wasn’t scared for them once people saw the show, but in the lead up — in general, people aren’t nice — so I was very ready for people to [say] all kinds of stuff,” Tierney says, pointing to criticisms that can come when an adapted character isn’t exactly how fans imagine them.
He says they spoke with the two actors about the potential for backlash. “What I knew is that, for me, they were perfect, and they were cast because of a chemistry read where we were all like, ‘Holy shit,'” Tierney says. “This fanbase was so supportive from the beginning. It was a huge relief.”
Brady adds that the cast and crew had been in a bit of a bubble. “We also had the benefit [of] nobody knew that this was really happening until after we had shot it,” he says.
The show’s just over 90-second official trailer has spawned a genuinely impressive amount of TikTok edits considering the limited material to work with. After a search through dozens, some highlights include edits to The Maria’s “No One Noticed,” Tate McRae’s “Sports Car,” Billie Eilish and Charli XCX’s “Guess” and Sabrina Carpenter’s “When Did You Get Hot?” Tierney describes an edit he particularly liked to Olivia Rodrigo’s “Get Him Back.”
Williams as Shane Hollander (left) and Storrie as Ilya Rozanov (right) in Heated Rivalry. Sabrina Lantos/HBO
The social media fanfare only seems to be growing as the show’s premiere grows closer. Tierney and Brady certainly feel the pressure; they’re not shying away from that. “I’m a fan. I love these books. I’m not trying to fuck with them. I’m not trying to change them,” Tierney says plainly.
“We wanted to live up to the expectations for the fans,” Brady adds. The executive producer says the show has received so much “reinforcement” over the last month since the trailer was released, leading to the show’s eventual sale to HBO Max. “The fans’ involvement in this experience has very much led to these amazing opportunities. It just feels like we’ve had a really great time getting to help bring this [show] to a community that wants it.”
Tierney notes that Shane and Ilya’s story doesn’t exactly follow your typical romance structure, but the writer-director wasn’t looking to follow the same formula anyway. “This is what I told Rachel [Reid] — the thing I want to do with it is take it seriously, which is to say I don’t want to do what I think a lot of people do when they look at adapting romance, which is simplify, truncate, shorten,” he says. Adds Brady, “[We] wanted to elevate this to the level that it deserved.”
Reid’s novel, presumably the same as the series, takes place over seven years, beginning when Shane and Ilya are teenagers and taking them into their mid-20s. The timeline was a big reason why Tierney thought the story could work as six one-hour episodes.
“This could actually sustain it because part of this [story] is that they’re not together right away. They are people who meet up and fuck three times a year. Then suddenly they discover they can’t shake each other,” Tierney says.
“The emotional resonance of that requires an accumulation of meaning that you can’t fake,” he adds. “It wants air. It wants to breathe.”
While the steamy nature of the story has likely helped fuel some of the social media love — some of these TikTok edits are, well, for lack of a better term, downright horny — it was also, as Tierney mentioned, a bit of an obstacle when it came to adapting. But the writer-director quickly found his footing.
“What I loved about [the story] and why I did ultimately think it was adaptable is because sex is the language of their love. Sex is how you tell the story because their sex changes as they get to know each other, as they get to know themselves,” Tierney says.
“This thing grows and you watch them fall in love. They don’t talk much. They fuck and they text, and that’s kind of what they do, which feels very contemporary and real too,” he continues.
Hudson Williams and Connor Storrie in Heated Rivalry. Sabrina Lantos/HBO
As the show prepares for its release — Heated Rivalry will air in Canada and in the US simultaneously — Tierney and Brady are ready for fans to jump into the world of Shane and Ilya. “Come for the smuttiness, stay for the romance,” Tierney jokes.
“What’s funny about episodes one and two is they are the setup episodes. There’s sex all the way through; I’m not going to pretend there’s not, but they’re kind of, in a way, the most horny or whatever,” he adds. The writer-director notes that the sweetness and the romance, much like in Reid’s novel, sets in as the story goes on.
Tierney promises to keep it spoiler free — as spoiler free as one can get for a story that by all indications seems to be a faithful adaptation of its source material — but is excited to see how people react to the show’s overall message.
“The thing that we really don’t get as queer people is a happy fucking ending, where we’re allowed to exist, fuck and smile at the same time. Usually it’s like, pick one,” he laments. “You get to have it all in this one.”
Heated Rivalry‘s two-episode premiere releases Friday on Crave in Canada and HBO Max in the US and Australia, with new episodes dropping weekly on Fridays.