Yearning for your next romance obsession? Like an early holiday gift, Heated Rivalry premiered on HBO Max on Nov. 28 — and the swoony saga of opposing hockey players is scoring with viewers.
Rink Romance
Based on Rachel Reid’s novel of the same name, Heated Rivalry follows Shane Hollander and Ilya Rozanov (Hudson Williams and Connor Storrie, respectively) as they explore a private, passionate connection when they’re not facing off on the ice.
Heated Rivalry (which originally aired on Crave in Canada) spans nearly a decade. But it doesn’t waste time introducing Shane and Ilya’s physical chemistry through intimate scenes — the first of which arrives less than halfway into Episode 1, “Rookies.” Of course, even before the LGBTQ+ romance made it to air and fueled a thousand thirsty tweets, its stars and showrunner Jacob Tierney knew they were onto something special.
The Chemistry Behind Heated Rivalry
As the team shared with Out in a new interview, both Williams and Storrie had done chemistry reads with other potential scene partners as part of the audition process — but Storrie felt “instantly” Williams was the right pick.
And Williams returned the love. “There was an inexplicable X factor that just felt realer than what I thought it could possibly be,” he said. “And that was something.”
He felt so sure about Storrie, in fact, that he texted the showrunner his summation in quite vivid detail. As Tierney recalled: “Hudson told me, ‘The other guy was good, but Connor felt like he was going to pin me down and f*ck me.’”
For the showrunner, it was a validating sign. “And I was like, ‘Well, I think I cast this right,’” he told Out.
Indeed, that kind of chemistry would prove integral to Tierney’s vision for Heated Rivalry. As he explained in a separate interview with Toronto Life, “We deserve to have a gay show that is sexy and horny and fun.”
And while Tierney thought he might get executive pushback for some of the show’s spicier moments, he was ultimately surprised — and heartened — by the opposite reaction. “Someone on the corporate team even thought one of the sex scenes was too quick,” he said. “I was like, ‘It’s six-and-a-half minutes long, you thirsty, thirsty people!’”
Heated Rivalry’s six-episode first season will continue to drop on Fridays through Dec. 26. And while it may take Shane and Ilya some navigating, Tierney said the show is very much a “happily ever after.”
