The new streaming series Heated Rivalry debuted on HBO Max late last week – and “heated” is also one way to describe the internet’s reaction to the surprisingly explicit new show.
Based on the Game Changers novel series by author Rachel Reid, the series tells the story of two rival professional hockey players, Asian-Canadian Shane Hollander (Hudson Williams) and Russian Ilya Rozanov (Connor Storrie) who embark on a secret romance that spans years.
The first two episodes of the six-part series dropped on Friday, and wasted no time in bringing the heat: Shane and Ilya shower together minutes into the premiere, and consummate their secret relationship with a spicy hotel sex scene minutes later.
From there, the explicit scenes continue: Graphic sexting, d**k pics, steamy secret hook-ups, as the pair’s respective hockey careers go stratospheric and they try to continue their sexually-charged secret relationship without ever being found out by their families, fans or teammates.
The fan reaction on social media has been intense, and a rare example of fans of a popular literary franchise (Reid’s Game Changers series now spans six books) praising a TV adaptation for doing justice to the story – and for not shying away from the book’s many graphic sex scenes in bringing it to the screen.
“This is a lot freakier than I thought it would be,” one fan tweeted. Another said the show “really put the heated in Heated Rivalry.”
“I didn’t expect things to be this steamy. this is a LOT, but I’m here for it ALL,” said one viewer.
“Heated Rivalry is a perfect show. No notes,” another raved.
Others were shocked at just how quickly the series cut to the chase and showed the two characters get physical: “The shower scene being in the first 15 minutes of Heated Rivalry … this show is for SINNERS. Give me 50 more seasons.”
Among the praise, there has been the inevitable speculation about the two leads’ sexualities.
The show’s writer and director Jacob Tierney stepped in to shut down a question on that topic during a recent interview with his two stars.
When a journalist for the outlet Xtra asked the two actors if they felt pressure to confirm or deny whether they are gay, Tierney spoke up with a firm response.
“I’ll answer this for them. I don’t think there’s any reason to get into that stuff. I’ll tell you something about the casting of both of these roles. You can’t ask questions like that when you’re casting, right? It’s actually against the law. So what you have to gauge is somebody’s enthusiasm and willingness to do the work. And that’s what’s so impressive about both of these guys is they came into this being like, ‘Yeah, we’re here to do this, and we are here to make this story feel authentic and to be as real as possible.’ And they f**king hit it out of the park,” he said.
And it seems one key to the show’s success was finding the right chemistry between the two leads. In an interview with Out, Hudson Williams, who was cast first, described the moment he knew Storrie was the right person to play his love interest.
As with everything to do with this show, it’s … a little more graphic than you may expect.
Williams left it to showrunner Jacob Tierney to relay his exact feedback after he’d done a screen test with Storrie, the latest in a number of actors he’d auditioned alongside.
“Hudson told me, ‘The other guy was good, but Connor felt like he was going to pin me down and f**k me,’” Tierney recalled.
Heated Rivalry streams locally on HBO Max, with new episodes dropping every Friday.
