Things Are Heating Up: THE Heated Rivalry Review We All Need

Kaitlyn Belile, Features Editor

I do not think I have ever consumed a piece of media and felt like it consumed me back. But “Heated Rivalry” (HR) did just that. You might be wondering what makes me personally qualified to write such an article, but my qualifications are that I have watched the show twice and am now on my third watch. 

So what is “Heated Rivalry?” Many people just say it is a gay hockey show but they would be so incorrect. First of all, it is a queer hockey show (they are not both gay, one is bisexual). Second of all, it is not just a hockey show. It is a six episode series that follows two rival hockey players, Ilya Rozanov (played by Connor Storrie) and Shane Hollander (played by Hudson Williams), as they navigate slowly falling in love but not being able to be public about it.  There are no openly gay players in Major League Hockey (MLH), which makes it difficult for Ilya and Shane to feel comfortable even seeing each other – the same is true in the National Hockey League in real life. Since the summer before their rookie season, the men have met up with each other in hotel rooms or their apartments in their respective cities. They secretly see each other for several years, and still keep in touch by using aliases, Lily and Jane, to text each other while they are apart. 

My sister watched the show when each episode was still coming out weekly, and begged me to read the books in Rachel Reid’s “Game Changers” series. I recently found myself with time, so I started reading the series – just out-of-order. I started with reading “Heated Rivalry” (which is Shane and Ilya) and then I read “Game Changer” (Scott and Kip) then “Tough Guy” (Ryan Price and Fabian – who is not mentioned in the TV series but Ryan Price is), then “Role Model” (Troy and Harris who are not in the show at all) and I finished with “The Long Game” (Shane and Ilya’s second book). As soon as I started reading HR, I was hooked. I literally could not put it down and finished it in like three days. It was that way for all of the books, I read them fast due to how incredible the writing is. 

The soundtrack: incredible. Peter Peter, a Canadian musician, composed a lot of the music for the show. His pieces were integral to the way the show was received by the audience. It created ambiance for some of the most important scenes in the series. There are no words in his music, just instruments. Peter Peter’s songs for the show were named based on the scene that they were featured in. There is one song in the show that was used in a sequence, “My Moon My Man” by Feist that has been a STAPLE for me as of late. I drove 20 minutes to work the other day with the song playing the entire time. Another song I love is “Bad Things” by Caitlin Russo, which plays at the end of the last episode. “I’ll Believe In Anything” by Wolf Parade is the last song that I’ll mention because it tied together the fifth episode which is an incredible and wildly important part of the show. 

I have been seeing an absurd amount of HR content on social media because I just want to keep consuming this content. If you loved “Heated Rivalry” as much as I did, you are probably waiting impatiently for season two. If that is true, PLEASE read the books. Rachel Reid is an incredible author, and the entire book series is captivating. Also, Shane and Ilya’s sequel (which will be season two) is genuinely gut wrenching and brings a lot of emotion to their story. It dives deeper into the grief Ilya feels and the heavy weight of expectation that Shane feels. Whether you choose to explore the book or the television series, I hope you become as obsessed as I am!