A new LGBTQ+ favorite television series from HBO centers on two gay ice hockey players, rivals on the rink and lovers behind the scenes. HBO Max’s new drama became available for streaming last month, but since then it has received rave responses on both ends of the spectrum. The internet is practically blowing up over the new romance.
On Heated Rivalry, pro hockey stars Shane Hollander from the Montreal Metros (played by Hudson Williams) and Ilya Rozanov of the Boston Raiders (played by Connor Storrie) fall into a secret star-crossed love affair. The show is based on novels by Canadian writer Rachel Reid called Game Changers which have grown so popular since the show’s release, The Cut reported they were temporarily out of stock on Amazon and Barnes & Noble and even at public libraries and in local bookshops.
Despite the show exploring themes of characters being closeted, online discourse has ensued about the actors’ sexualities. Interviewers through the show’s press tour asked questions about the sexualities of the actors, to which show creator Jacob Tierney has dismissively responded saying discrimination in the casting process is illegal, in hopes of protecting the actors from being outed. Some critics of the show have said its material joins a list of gay-themed romances that “desex gay men just enough to make them palatable, like pets for young women,” according to a review from The Guardian.
“The problem is the actors’ ludicrously sculpted bodies resemble store mannequins dipped in vats of lube, and the rigorous on-set intimacy coordinators seem to have sucked all the spontaneity from the action, so the effect has the strange waxiness you get in a Bret Easton Ellis novel without his concomitant satirical savagery,” The Guardian writes. The Guardian’s review also criticizes the series for its lack of plot drama, featuring very little time on the ice, and with the main characters hooking up in the first 10 minutes of the show, it leaves little to be discovered.
CNN also criticizes the undercooked plot, writing that the characters’ relationship was “complicated and ill-defined,” and attributed the show’s booming success to the very depiction of gay sex as a hot commodity in media these days.
Yet, Heated Rivalry joins a still brief list of hit films and series explicitly depicting gay relationships making the series a win for representation, but still lacking in authenticity.
