“Heated Rivalry” is exactly what the NHL and the hockey world needed.
HBO’s adaptation of the popular romance novel is an absolute banger. The hockey aspects might move a little fast for some (admittedly, I had trouble keeping up with the first episode), but it is absolutely worth watching.
I mean, if NHL commissioner Gary Bettman binged it in one night, then it’s absolutely rock-solid. However, the show isn’t necessarily the main focus. I think the show does a great job at breaking down some large barriers that the NHL and the hockey world as a whole have needed to address for a long time.
“Heated Rivalry” expands on the inclusivity of the LGBTQ+ community. The two main characters, Shane Hollander and Ilya Rozanov, start as junior hockey rivals playing for their home countries — Canada and Russia. The rivalry narrative is pushed further as Rozanov and Hollander are the No. 1 and 2 draft picks in the draft.
As the media forces the two players together, their relationship deepens, so much so that the two share intimate moments in hotel rooms throughout their rookie seasons.
We see that Hollander is a lot more hesitant, worrying about the public and his brand, as he has multiple brand deals with Reebok and Rolex.
This is the reality with many athletes. At the end of the 2022-23 season, the NHL moved to ban all “on-ice demonstrations.” This included banning the use of “pride tape” for players to use during pregame warmups.
Many teams had held “Pride Nights” in the years before, opting for Pride-inspired logos, numbers and tape for players to use during warmups. Players would return to their regular jerseys and tape for the 60 minutes of game time.
Players, mainly of Russian origin, began protesting Pride-themed games, so the NHL moved to ban all theme-related games.
Not quite the right move when trying to grow the game. The move was immediately met with backlash and defiance. Among them was the NHL’s best player, center Connor McDavid.
Episode three of “Heated Rivalry,” “Hunter,” follows established Major League Hockey (MLH) player Scott Hunter. He is another gay player in the league, but finds it hard to come out and be his true self, as he feels like the hockey world is not ready to accept him.
Hunter meets another man at a cafe named Kip. When Hunter met him, he was struggling to start the season. Hunter had zero points in the first seven games of the 2013-14 MLH season.
After meeting Kip, Hunter’s season immediately turns around. He scores a hat trick in his first game after meeting Kip and starts playing better.
At the end of the episode, Kip and Hunter have to end their relationship because Hunter cannot be public. He fears the backlash of the hockey world and feels that too many people count on him.
The NHL is still the only North American professional sports league to not have an openly gay player on a roster.
Hunter’s character goes beyond being that voice for the LGBTQ+ community. It stands as a representation that athletes don’t have the luxury to speak up and speak out.
Just recently, Ottawa Senators goalie Linus Ullmark had to take a leave of absence from the team for mental health reasons. People on social media began spreading rumors about his leave of absence.
“The rumors that was being spread about me and my family started the day after I take an absence of leave,” Ullmark said in an interview with TSN after coming back from his leave. “And people wonder why hockey players, professional athletes, are not talking. Why we’re not showing any sort of emotions, why mental health in men and in women are a stigma. It took them less than 24 hours from my absence of leave to try to find reasons to why I’m gone, saying that I’m a homewrecker, a person that no one likes on the team, and I can’t defend myself.”
Along with this, the hockey world has been rocked by two sexual assault cases. One coming in 2010 involving the Chicago Blackhawks and the other coming in 2018 involving the Canadian world junior team.
In 2021, former Chicago Blackhawks forward Kyle Beach said that an assistant coach on the team, Brad Aldrich, sexually assaulted him and threatened his position on the team.
“To be honest, I was scared mostly. I was fearful. I had my career threatened,” Beach said in an interview. “I felt alone and dark…I felt like there was nothing I could do and no one I could turn to for help. And I didn’t know what to do because as a 20-year-old, you can never imagine being put in this situation by someone who is there to help you… just scared and alone with no idea what to do.”
After Aldrich was fired following the fallout of the investigation, he was arrested and pleaded guilty to fourth-degree criminal sexual conduct for sexually assaulting a 16-year-old boy.
In 2022, four players from the 2018 Hockey Canada’s under-20 junior team were named in a lawsuit that said that Michael McLeod, Dillon Dubé, Cal Foote, Carter Hart and Alex Formenton had sexually assaulted a woman.
In July, 2025, all five players were acquitted and were allowed to rejoin NHL rosters in December, 2025.
Rick Westhead, a sports journalist for TSN, broke the original story and wrote a book titled “We Breed Lions,” detailing the complex, systemic issues in hockey’s culture.
As a show, “Heated Rivalry” is fantastic. Raunchy? Yes, but the show is very well written and Connor Storie and Hudson Williams do a phenomenal job acting in the show. There’s never been a better time to get into hockey.
