The Decibel - Why Heated Rivalry has everyone hot and bothered

Episode Date: December 22, 2025

The Canadian television show Heated Rivalry has found major success not just in Canada, but with American audiences, too. The show, a love story between two male hockey players, has broken television streaming records and taken over social media.The Globe’s television critic J. Kelly Nestruck joins The Decibel to talk about why Heated Rivalry has resonated with so many people, and how significant it is for a Canadian show to break through to global audiences so quickly.Questions? Comments? Ideas? E-mail us at [e-mail] Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

You've probably heard of the hot new show that's steaming up TV screens. And when I say hot and steamy, that's putting it lightly. It's called heated rivalry. Heated rivalry. Do you know about it? I blushed. I screamed. I gasped. Oh, my God. Pretty. Pretty. Handsome. Cut up, doodle mattress. That's gay. Right? Like, that is gay. I don't think I've ever seen the internet jump onto a piece of media as fast as they have with heated rivalry.

What are they feeding them in Canada? I am so obsessed with these sweet little gay hockey boys. It's concerning. Thank you Crave. Thank you, Canada. God. The Canadian TV show is about a gay love story between two hockey players. And in the few weeks since it premiered, it's become a cultural phenomenon.

It's all over social media. It's being dissected in group chats and online forums. And it's not just here in Canada. The show is a hit in the U.S. and internationally. The sixth and final episode of the first season will air this Friday. So today, I'm talking to the Globe's TV critic, Kelly Nestrek. He'll tell us why heated rivalry has got so many people, well, heated. And how this Canadian show managed to score with international audiences.

I'm Cheryl Sutherland, and this is The Decibel from The Globe and Mail. Hi, Kelly, thanks very much for being on the show. Hi, happy to be here. I'm really excited to be talking about a very steamy hockey show today. That's a very spicy episode. So before we break down why this show is doing so well, for those who haven't watched heated rivalry yet, what is it all about?

Well, it is a romance TV. series about two male hockey players. One is Russian named Ilya Rosenov and the other is a Canadian named Shane Hollander and they sort of represent their national temperaments to a certain extent and how they both play on the ice and interact with people. And they meet during the Junior's like tournament and there's sort of like a spark of rivalry there but turns out it's more than just the fact that they're playing against each other and like the best players on their respective teams. There's an attraction there. They gradually, over years of meeting in different competitions, and then later as members of the Montreal and Boston hockey teams in a

NHL-like league, they end up having a relationship that begins primarily as sexual and is a lot of very hot sexual encounters, furtive because of the context of their lives and the sort they both feel, I guess, that this is not something that they can be open about. Right. I will say, Kelly, I watched the trailer and then I didn't watch the show until before you came on. I actually kind of watched a couple of episodes. And I knew what it was about. All my group chats are talking about it.

It's all over the place, right? But I wasn't prepared for how sexy it is. It really is quite a lot, isn't it? It is. The sexual acts are all not seen, but it's all very clear what's going on in every. encounter. And it's a whole variety of ways in which these two men, you know, get to know each other physically before they get to know each other emotionally. Yeah, absolutely. Okay, so there's a lot of excitement. I don't know which sex acts I could describe on the decibel,

but I don't think I need to. You know, you can just watch the show. I mean, yes, you'll see those scenes very quickly in the first episode, right? Yeah, it's like 17 minutes, boom. Yeah, exactly. Okay, so there's a lot of excitement. and discussion about this show, which is a Canadian show, right? And we don't normally hear about a Canadian show kind of breaking international barriers in terms of how popular it is. Can you give us a sense of how big it is?

Yeah, well, it's a Crave original show. So that's Bell Media Streamer Crave. They make a lot of their own programming that they put alongside the acquired programming that they get, which is mainly from HBO, but from a whole bunch of different places, in fact. And so heated rivalry was something that they commissioned from Jacob Tierney,

who's worked before on shows like Leonard Kenney and Shorzie for the streamer. And it had a lot of buzz behind it. It's based on very popular IP, but sort of underappreciated IP, these high heat romance novels by Halifax author Rachel Reed. She refers to her novels as cute smut.

So they're like romance with a lot of sex scenes in it and their M.M. Romance is what, so male, male romance primarily. And yeah, so anyway, there was a huge amount of buzz that sort of naturally grew around the show. First I heard about it was even before it was officially announced on Reddit forums. People were talking about it. And then as the show has gotten closer to premiering, there was like just sort of an organic, or maybe, you know, maybe the marketing team is really brilliant. But anyway, it seemed like there was like a lot of fan interest in this series, interest in the casting, interest in the trailer.

And then this led to crave being able to set. the show to HBO Max in the US, as well as in Australia and some other international services in New Zealand before the premiere for simultaneous streaming. So unlike most Canadian shows, which land in a market of, what, 40 million people, and there's not a lot of media around Canadian TV. This one landed, and there was immediately like an explosion of think pieces. There were reviews that were mainly positive, but what really fueled the interest in the show where all these think pieces, like why are obsessed with gay hockey smut in the cut was one of the

headlines, you know. We'll get into that as well. But I want to kind of get into how popular it is right now because it is doing quite well on Crave. Like, what do we know about how well it's doing? Well, that's a good question, you know, like people measure ratings in different ways these days. It's not like the old days when you just sort of like check on Nielsen.

So what we do know is that it's been the number one show from mostly since it premiered. We're about five episodes in now. On Crave, Crave has about 4.3 million subscribers in Canada, so that's like the fourth most popular streaming service in Canada. Crave has told people that it is their most watched original debut over the first seven days, surpassing the show that previously said that record this year,

Aunt Pattee, which is a great Quebec series that you should look into as well. So we know it's doing really well there. Now, on HBO Max, it's a whole other thing, right? There's like 57 million subscribers. in the U.S. to HBO Max, and it's been like the number two show on there, basically, since it's premiered, outperforming a lot of their own original content. Heated rivalry was number one on HBO Max for a day.

But then, you know, it's obviously resonating because HBO Max, since this premiere, it has acquired it for all their services across Europe, Latin America, and in the UK and Ireland, Sky just picked it up. So it's getting international distribution, and it was almost immediately renewed for a second season. So from those metrics, we know, it's like a blockbuster, you know, and it's a blockbuster that was not as expensive to produce as most HBO content. Yeah. And you mentioned that it was picked up by HBO Max simultaneously, to be released simultaneously. And that doesn't normally happen for Canadian TV shows.

No, I mean, Canadian TV is reaching a larger audience right now than maybe it has in a long time because a lot of the shows end up on streamers after a couple of seasons. Like, we've seen a CTV show called Sullivan's Crossing, which is also a romance, but not a spicy romance. And it was picked up by Netflix, and it was in the top 10 for a number of weeks earlier this year and fueled a lot of interest in the show, including here at Canada. But it's rare for a show to premiere in Canada and in the United States at the same time, like a Canadian show. It happens all the time with American shows, obviously, the other way. But, yeah, it's quite a big moment for the Canadian TV industry. Yeah, absolutely. So you've laid out that the show is a smash hit.

And something else you talked about was this cut article that talks about, why is this so popular with straight women? Because it is a very popular show with straight women, even though it's about a gay romance. Why is it appealing to straight women? Well, I gather this genre of romance, you know, in the novel form is, you know, most of the genre's readers are women. And so that's translated to the TV show, which has been adept, you know, the books were written by a woman.

who is attracted to men as part of her deal, as how Rachel Reed describes it. And it was adapted for TV by Jacob Cheney, who's a gay man. So he's put his own sort of lens on the material while being quite true to it. So anyway, it's been a crossover success. You know, I guess I can only really speak for what people told me in interview. So Rachel Reed has told me that, like, for a lot of women, they're interested in high heat romance that involves two men

because that sort of like actually takes women out of the picture. because a lot of women have sort of complicated relationships with men. And so they get to enjoy sort of hot, steamy, sexy guys going at it and not really insert themselves into the picture and bring their own histories into that fantasy scenario. And then there's another aspect that Jacob Chirney talked to me about, which is that in a lot of standard romance, the male character tends to be sort of macho

or have like sort of some sort of, Like a particular type of masculine energy is exuded by the lead that in this case, you get to see men be more vulnerable as well. You get to see sort of like a more dominant and a more submissive partner. But it's both men. So you get to see sort of an enjoy sort of emotional vulnerability that men aren't allowed to apparently express even in the fictional world of romance novels, which I am not an expert on. Kelly, I think you're missing one very important point here. Yeah. The chiseled abs.

Oh, right. Yeah. I was more drawn to the sculpted buttoxes. Yes. You know, like there's a lot of shots of that, and I was very impressed and need to get back to the gym. It's been, well, five years since the pandemic. That's, you know, that's a lot to live up to. There's a lot to live up to in that show for sure. Many, many sculpted bodies and butts.

Yeah. One thing that didn't get into my interview is I'm enjoying the series. I'm watching it with my wife, who is, you know, into the series as a lot of women are. And it's like been a, you know, fun, spicy thing to watch together. And Rachel said, oh, yeah, actually I hear a lot of marriages have been saved by husbands and wives. I've heard this too, actually. I've heard this too. It's so interesting.

Yeah. Well, it's fun. You know, it's a fun watch. Oh, okay. How is this landing in the hockey world? Well, actually, it's not truly penetrated the hockey world. I know that there were ads on Hockey Night in Canada. And there's been some discussion on Hockey Podcasts that's been very respectful.

and, you know, oh, I think the Montreal Canadians actually played a little clip of it at one of their games, which is very unbranded for the Montreal Canadians. That's where I'm from. I love it. And in Boston, apparently, at one of the games this week, they played the tattoo song, All the Things She Said, which was like at a crucial moment in the fourth episode. We'll be right back. So how does a show deal with being gay in the world of hockey? Well, there's more contextual clues than that it's sort of like openly spoken about. Like obviously the reason why these two are having their affair sort of in private

and these sort of furtive meetings at their apartments or in hotel rooms or what have you and not talking about it to their teammates is because, you know, there's a belief in this world that there's, you know, that wouldn't be. be accepted that there's a homophobia in the sport and in the wider sporting world. And perhaps it would affect their careers, you know, and their gameplay. And so they keep it private. And so that's the context of the show. But it's interesting because the show doesn't really like show a lot of homophobia. In fact, even when you see the other players talking to these guys, they may sort of assume that they're meeting up with girlfriends when they notice that they're disappearing for

night. But in fact, the two guys do have female names for each other in their phone. So it's not like, you know, necessarily an assumption on their part. It's something that they pick up from the clues. They're disguising it. But yeah, there's not been any big moment of like someone saying something openly homophobic to them that they overhear or anything. In fact, there's been the opposite when there's a scene at the Sochi Olympics where some of, some of Shane's American teammates are talking about how brave the figure skaters are performing in Russia despite being openly, you know, gay and how they have balls of steel is like what one of the guys says, you know?

So, yeah, we haven't encountered an openly homophobic character yet. And it's not really the focus of the series. The focus is really on the relationship between these two men in this society rather than like, you know, it's not an issue drama, that's for sure. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I mean, of course, it's all about this gay romance, but it's really hidden, right?

It's like there's like two separate lives here. That's hockey. and then the romance part of it. So you're not showing the fact that you're gay in playing hockey, I guess. Yeah, and I'd say that's generally used in the plot to make it sort of hotter because it has to be furtive and secret

and, like, you know, you've got to meet in clandestine ways. And so so far in the series anyway, it's leaning into it being sort of, you know, something that sort of increases the steamingness of their encounters to a certain extent. Yeah.

So you mentioned that you interviewed the show's creator Jacob Tierney and the author of the books, Rachel Reed. What have they said about the response that the show has gotten? Well, you know, Rachel is aware that her books are extremely popular. So she's been interested in seeing the reaction online, but she was saying she's not looking online too much because it could be a bit overwhelming. And she sort of lives

a fairly anonymous life in Halifax. She was saying her mom went to Indigo and asked about her books and they didn't even have them, you know. They're sold out now, I guess, right? Maybe it's sold out, yeah, but they didn't seem to know who she was in the Indigo in Halifax. But I'm sure they know now. Jacob felt that this was sort of underappreciated IP, which is probably why a Canadian production company, like his ex-ante-guu was able to get the rights for it, right? Like people underestimate the appeal of this type of material, but he didn't because he got the rights for it and obviously pitched it to crave.

And then Bell obviously didn't underestimate it either because they put, you know, they've decided to create the show on their own and it's been a huge payoff. like they're selling it around the world like crazy their distributor. So it's, you know, I think for the people who were involved in it, they knew it would resonate. Yeah, yeah, that's interesting because you said, Tierney said that they underestimated the appeal of this show. But why? Because it seemed like there is a baked-in audience there, right? The books did really well.

So why was this underestimated? I'd say that's a mixture of sexism and homophobia in society. Like I remember what I first wrote about the series because I heard about the series before it was public. announced, so I arranged to have a semi-exclusive with that, with like the American media was already onto it as well. So we like announced the show is happening at the same time. I talked to Jacob at that time. And the comments on the global mail were like, well, who's going to watch this? Like five people are going to watch this, 11 people are going to watch this. Even now, like, we're writing articles about how popular it is. And there's always someone in the comment

being like, oh, yeah, the five people who care about this show. It's like, well, no, this. You know, so the only way I can explain that is that women and, you know, queer viewers are still viewed as, you know, somehow fringe or something rather than, you know, like collectively making up the bulk of the population. Right now in the United States, there's been like a real pushback against, quote unquote, like woke and quote unquote, you know, DEI in Hollywood by the Trump administration. And I think that's making the studios down there sort of in the networks. pull back from openly queer content in a way. Like there was a show on Netflix that did quite well, called Boots that was about, you know, a gay man in the military in the 90s

when Don't Ask Don't Tell was sort of coming to an end. And it did really well on Netflix, but they didn't renew it for a second season. And someone from the Pentagon was on, you know, X calling it woke garbage and stuff like that. So I can't help but think that that's influencing what people are producing the states right now and certainly will be for the next number of years.

So there's like a real great, opportunity for Canadian content creators to, like, you know, go into that market and, you know, dominate it with the type of shows that I think Americans are pulling back from. Yeah. So a lot of discussion around the show has been about the fact that at least in the source text, these are gay men as written by a woman. Do you think it matters who tells the story? Well, that's an interesting question always about art. And I think Jacob, when I talked to him, was very perceptive about that question, which is that what matters is the outcome. Like, you can always, someone can always write about something that's not their lived experience and exoticize it or, like, write it in a way that does feel like it's appropriation.

But they also can write about it in a very respectful or way that actually, like, animates the people that they're, you know, the demographic that they're representing in their work as well. So there's no hard and fast rules about art, you know. You know, some, so I think the proof is in the pudding here. But there has been like a debate about it in the gay community for sure. Like there was like some fascinating stuff from Jordan Firstman who's on I Love L.A., an English teacher. And he was like saying the gay sex was not really like a gay sex or whatever, you know, like. And then Francois Arnault, who's on the series, like clap back on him on Instagram. And it was like, you know, does all sex gay sex on screen have to look like,

sceney gay guys in L.A., you know. So anyway, there's been some fun online chatiness around the show. But actually, like, Hudson Williams, and maybe I'm getting too much into the gossip here, but Hudson Williams and Jordan Firstman, like, hugged the other day, and they did a little TikTok together. So everyone's made up between the two HBO shows. Good, good. So you mentioned also that one of the reasons this show is taking off in the U.S.

is because it's filling a niche that no one else is really addressing right now. What does the show's success tell us about the importance of representation in storytelling? Well, you know, more than 50% of the population is female. There are female characters in here, but in terms of the queer representation, I think a lot of people who are queer and allies

of queer people are interested in seeing those stories on screen. And this is just sort of an indication that that audience is quite avid. and are as ready to show up. One of the interesting things about the HBO numbers is that it's expanding their subscriber base, which is really interesting, I think. It's like people are signing up for HBO

because they want to watch this show. In fact, it's been like relentlessly illegally torrented since its debut in parts of the world where it can't be legally watched right now. So the UK in particular, like people were just scrambling to try and find no way to get it on a channel there because I think it's one of the most illegally downloaded shows there right now. Oh, my goodness, yeah.

So it's so popular. People are illegally downloading it. Yeah, yeah. So this show comes out of time when we know that the Canadian TV industry is struggling. So what do you think are the lessons from this show for the rest of Canadian TV? Well, I think that it's about investing in stuff that doesn't look like other stuff that's out there. about finding niches that are unexploited and if you want to have international success. I don't know.

Obviously, yeah, it's really tough time. The old ways of funding TV have fallen apart and we're still waiting for Bill C-11 to come along to hopefully inject some more money into the industry. But it might just be sacrificed at the altar of Trump's, you know, renegotiation of the free trade agreement. So it's kind of a dark time in Canadian TV. But I think that this is sort of a light that shows that Canadian TV can travel. But it's actually, it's a weird, I mean a weird year because Canadian TV has done really well, in part because we're more aware of it because it's penetrated to the United States more. And therefore, Canadians are like, oh, people are interested in these TV shows.

Same thing happened with Schitt's Creek on CBC, right? Like people were like, oh, I don't even know if the show's good. And then it was on Netflix. And then suddenly everyone's like, oh, this is the greatest show of all time, more open about it. So I'd love to see Canadians get a little less insecure. hear about their TV before American Sir to sign on board for it. Like two of my favorite shows of the year

were Canadian this year and it wasn't like some nationalistic shoehorning it into my top ten list. En patis on Crave was like incredible, very original thing that was watched by 11 million people in France as well on Canal Plus. So it's a very popular show internationally and then was watched by

like a quarter of the crave viewers were watching it with English subtitles. So it's like a rare French show that penetrated English Canada. And then North and North was like another big success. It's coming back for a second season. It ended up on a lot of top 10 lists. And I think there's going to be more momentum behind its second season. It was on my top down list. It was on the top 10 list of the LA Times critic, you know? So it sounds like we have to kind of support our Canadian TV shows, not just because the U.S. likes it, but because we like them

because they're Canadian. Yeah. Yeah. So before I let you go, Kelly, I mean, this show, heated rivalry has got heat. It's got steam. It's got a lot of hype. Yeah. Well, you're a TV critic, so I have to ask you. Is it actually worth watching? It's a particular type of show that will appeal to a particular type of audience. So I would say yes to anyone who's interested in hearing about this. The truth is, at the moment of recording this, there's two more episodes. So I think it's really for me about how they stick the landing. Okay. Like, I'm interested in seeing where this goes. That's a gymnastics term, isn't it? Sticking the landing? Yeah. Yeah. No, um, No pun intended.

But, yeah, so I'm waiting to see the last two episodes, but I'm enjoying the show. I'm enjoying watching it. I'm enjoying watching it with my wife. I think it's really engaging. Yeah, it knows what it is, right? So TV doesn't have to be everything, and not everything has to be a prestige drama. But it's got really high production quality for a relatively small budget compared to the HBO shows. And it looks good.

I think most of the acting is quite good. And then, you know, the chemistry is obviously there, which is the key. ingredient for this particular genre. Yes, absolutely. It's renewed for season two, and perhaps, you know, we might be lucky and get to have like a, maybe a, what am I trying to say here? I'm trying to make an elbows up joke, and I just messed it up. There's a lot of things up in this series, but elbows, not necessarily.

Kelly, it's been so great chatting to you about this show. Thank you so much. Thanks for having me out. That was Kelly Nestruck, the Globe's TV critic. That's it for today. I'm Cheryl Sutherland. Alyssa Wheeler is our Brooke Forbes fellow and associate producer. Our producers are Madeline White, Michal Stein, and Ali Graham. Our editor is David Crosby.

Adrian Chung is our senior producer, and Angela Pachenza is our executive editor. Thanks so much for listening. Thank you.