The promotional posters for the series were photographed by Caitlin Cronenberg, daughter of David Cronenberg. Podcast, Tierney stated that he had intended to ask Carly Rae Jepsen to submit an original song for the first season, but „didn’t even try“ due to budgetary restrictions, adding that he would „definitely be asking“ in the future. The Hollywood Reporter reported that the Spotify streams for the t.A.T.u. track more than doubled following the release of the fourth episode.
Hockey, its fans may tell you, is a sport you have to fall in love with live. The thing that hockey fans tell you if you tell them you don’t like hockey is that you can’t watch it on TV. Heated Rivalry is ineligible for consideration at the Primetime Emmy Awards because it does not meet the Television Academy’s eligibility requirements for the U.S. co-productions. However, by the release of the season finale on December 26, weekly viewership had increased more than tenfold to 324 million minutes. According to data from the research group Luminate, the show debuted with 30 million streaming minutes in its first week, failing to break into the top 50 streaming programs.

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The series has been described as a slow-burn story that’s emotional and filled with sexual tension. „Heated Rivalry“ follows the story of two competitive hockey players, Ilya Rozanov and Shane Hollander — played by Connor Storrie and Hudson Williams. If you want know when it is streaming for free, click ‚Free‘ in the filters above and hit the notification bell.

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A cast of real-life hockey players were used to fill out the team, while body doubles were cast for close-up shots of the lead actors in action on the ice. All hockey sequences, including locker rooms, ice surface, and stands were filmed at the Sleeman Centre in Guelph. The first day of shooting included Shane and Ilya’s Las Vegas hotel room encounter, while the hockey rink scenes were completed over a stretch of just over a week of filming near the end of the shoot. Principal photography for the first season commenced in April 2025, with filming taking place across two Canadian provinces, Ontario and Quebec, for 36 days, according to Tierney. He also wanted to find them together since „the show lives and dies on their relationship“. Tierney said it was essential to him that he found two actors who had the „physicality of hockey players“ who were also comfortable with nudity and intimacy.

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Heated Rivalry is, almost exclusively, the story of Shane Hollander (Hudson Williams) and Ilya Rozanov (Connor Storrie), two high-level professional hockey prospects who fall in love. It doesn’t feel like hockey, and it doesn’t feel like anything else on TV right now; it feels a little bit like falling in love. While it isn’t ascending to Bluey levels of global streaming dominance, what’s unique about the show has been its growth. To really appreciate what’s going on on the ice, you have to be in that big refrigerator, shoulder to shoulder with the raucous crowd, bodies flying at you left and right.
In the terms of film theorist Linda Williams, they are both series within the realm of “body genres”—dramas built around showing the body in moments of distress and/or elation. The Pitt has nearly a dozen series regulars in the main cast, another dozen recurring characters, and many dozens more who filter in and out of the E.R. This is, I might guess, what good hockey is like. Though, for what it’s worth, the moment when that happens, when these two plotlines converge, is one of the most electrifying sequences I’ve seen on TV in the past couple of months. This episode is counterprogramming to the Ilya-Shane romance. In this stand-alone episode, we watch Scott come to terms with his own sexuality, begin secretly dating a barista named Kip, and see that relationship run up against the wall of Scott’s inability to come out.
For a time, which started on December 20, 2025, it tied with Breaking Bad’s „Ozymandias“ (2013) as the only television episodes to receive a perfect rating on the platform, and ranked among the highest-rated episodes of all time. Tom Smyth of Vulture and Mads Misasi of Tell-Tale TV both gave the episode perfect five star ratings, while Cody Schultz of Show Snob described it as „a masterclass in storytelling“ and one of the greatest television episodes of the year and of all time. David Caballero of Collider gave the series an 8 out of 10, noting the effective early development of their characters both individually and as a potential couple, and the prominent yet accessible use of hockey in the story.

• Classical music also makes a number of appearances in the series, including Sergei Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 2 and Ludwig van Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata which feature during the episodes „Olympians“ and „I’ll Believe in Anything“, respectively.
• The series also debuted at number two in Australia, and consistently ranks as the number one show each week.
• I found myself laughing about it as the series began, but, as episodes unfolded, there started to be something almost hypnotic about the constant yada-yada’ing of everything that didn’t involve our two leads.
• However, ten days later, Tierney told Variety that the second season would not premiere at the same time the following year, citing slower progress on the episode scripts.
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• There is a momentary break in this dynamic in the third episode, when we return to an earlier moment at the Sochi Olympics and follow Scott Hunter (François Arnaud), a fellow hockey player who’d mostly only appeared at All-Star games and award ceremonies to this point.
• The series‘ numerous sex scenes, which contributed to its notoriety and critical attention, were overseen by intimacy coordinator Chala Hunter, and the absence of frontal nudity was a decision made entirely by Tierney.

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• Heated Rivalry is a Canadian sports romance television series created, written, and directed by Jacob Tierney for Crave.
• Although HBO Max later acquired the series, it became involved only after the first season had been completed, meaning the show was not developed as a U.S. co-production from the outset.
• This November, though, a little Canadian series called Heated Rivalry figured out how to make hockey work on television.
• The degree to which they must “keep it quiet” in their lives is reflected in the show’s formal patience about saying anything out loud.
• Shane Hollander and Ilya Rozanov are hockey stars drawn together by rivalry and desire.
• You will also get access to the content from Disney+, Hulu and ESPN Select streaming libraries.

The series debuted on Crave with a two-episode premiere on November 28, 2025, followed by weekly episodes, with the finale airing on December 26. According to https://www.boombetonline.nl/ Billboard, the songs‘ appearance in the series resulted in increased official on-demand streaming activity. He also told The Hollywood Reporter that, although he would direct all episodes of the second season, it is a possibility that „other writers will come in to help him out“.
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In its brisk, bustling six episodes, the outlines of a wider world beyond Shane and Ilya are blurry. Between the week of its debut and the week of its season finale, on December 27, viewership grew tenfold—from 30 million to 324 million streaming minutes logged—with a growing and notable majority of viewers being women. This November, though, a little Canadian series called Heated Rivalry figured out how to make hockey work on television.
The six-episode series tells the story of the forbidden queer love affair of two professional hockey players, and it does so by documenting each of its lovers’ dalliances at length and in languorous detail. It was arguably one of the greatest places and times to be alive as a hockey fan in the United States. By January 21, 2026, episodes were averaging 8 million viewers and the show hit a series high for weekly viewership the week prior. Alongside the announcement of its second season renewal, Deadline Hollywood reported that the series had become Crave’s most-watched original series to date, with viewership increasing by nearly 400% in its initial seven-day streaming window following its debut on November 28.

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Streams is a new feature that carefully curates content from within the Disney+ app or provides access to live linear streams, such as ABC News, to give you a continuous streaming experience. “Heated Rivalry,” a romantic drama inspired by Rachel Reid’s book series “Game Changers,” dropped its first two episodes on the streaming service on Nov. 28 and left viewers wanting more. All six episodes of the romance series’ first season are available to stream on HBO Max. Canadian actor, director and screenwriter, Jacob Tierney wrote and directed all six episodes of the series‘ first season.