Tovic Salvador

Hit TV show 'Heated Rivalry' a welcome surprise for gay hockey community

Article (news)

Agence France-Presse

<div><span class="fr-img-caption fr-fic fr-dib" style="width:960px;display:block" width="960"><span class="fr-img-wrap"><img src="https://od2-image-api.abs-cbn.com/prod/editorImage/1768448488841photo_2026-01-15_11-41-13.jpg" style="width:960px" class="fr-fic fr-dib" width="960"/><span class="fr-inner" style="text-align:left">Connor Storrie (left) and Hudson Williams in &#x27;Heated Rivalry.&#x27; <em>Screenshot from HBO Max on YouTube</em></span></span></span></div><p>TORONTO, Canada — Growing up in a rural, religious community in western Canada, Kyle McCarthy loved hockey, but once he came out at 19, he quit, convinced being openly gay and an active player was untenable.</p><p>So the 32-year-old says he is &quot;very surprised&quot; by the runaway success of &quot;Heated Rivalry,&quot; a Canadian-made series about the romance between two closeted gay players in a sport that has historically made gay men feel unwelcome.</p><p>Ben Baby, the 43-year-old commissioner of the Toronto Gay Hockey Association (TGHA), calls the success of the show — which has catapulted its young lead actors to stardom — &quot;shocking,&quot; and says viewers have bought into its authentic portrait of a relationship.</p><p>McCarthy and Baby are not alone — &quot;Heated Rivalry&quot; is a veritable cultural phenomenon.</p><p>The show, an adaptation of a series of hockey-themed queer romance novels by Rachel Reid, charts the budding careers and secret relationship of two young hockey stars — one Canadian, one Russian — over a series of years.</p><p>After premiering on the Canadian streaming platform Crave in late November, the series hit HBO Max and took off, becoming one of its most popular shows by Christmas.</p><p>Variety called it &quot;the biggest TV surprise&quot; of 2025, and the show has even reportedly drawn a massive audience in China, where fans are watching pirated episodes.</p><div><a href="https://www.abs-cbn.com/entertainment/showbiz/movies-series/2025/12/29/review-heated-rivalry-is-breakout-queer-romance-with-steam-heart-1303"><strong>REVIEW: &#x27;Heated Rivalry&#x27; is breakout queer romance with steam, heart<br/></strong></a></div><p>The stars, Connor Storrie and Hudson Williams, were unknown, struggling actors before being cast. Now, they are being mobbed by fans, joining A-listers on red carpets like at the Golden Globes, and have made their late night talk show debuts.</p><p>&quot;Our expectations were kind of nonexistent,&quot; Storrie said on the Globes red carpet. &quot;For it to turn out so good and also go on HBO and be involved in this level is unreal.&quot;</p><div><br/></div><div><strong>&#x27;Toxic, homophobic&#x27;</strong></div><p>Writing in Maclean&#x27;s magazine in December, Reid — who is Canadian — said the novels were inspired by her &quot;lifelong love of hockey, but also an awareness of the problems with the sport&#x27;s culture more broadly.&quot;</p><p>&quot;I thought a lot about how difficult it would be to be a closeted pro player.&quot;</p><p>For McCarthy, hockey was his first love — until it wasn&#x27;t.</p><p>&quot;My brother played, my sister played, my dad coached us all,&quot; he told AFP. &quot;Hockey was 100 percent of my life.&quot;</p><p>But by age 12, as he began to realize he was gay, McCarthy became uncomfortable in a sport he said had a &quot;toxic, homophobic&quot; culture.</p><p>Quitting hockey at 19 &quot;was awful,&quot; he said.</p><p>&quot;I love the game and didn&#x27;t want to walk away from it,&quot; he said. But his gear sat unused in his garage &quot;for eight, nine years.&quot;</p><p>Then he reconnected with the sport through a Vancouver-based LGBTQ+ hockey association now called The Cutting Edges, where he is president.</p><div><a href="https://www.abs-cbn.com/lifestyle/2026/1/5/ph-animal-rescue-gets-donation-named-after-heated-rivalry-characters-1430"><strong>READ: PH animal rescue gets donation named after &#x27;Heated Rivalry&#x27; characters<br/></strong></a></div><div><br/></div><div><strong>&#x27;Safe space&#x27;</strong></div><p>Baby grew up in the northern Ontario city of Timmins, which, like many small Canadian communities, has a deeply rooted hockey culture.</p><p>He told AFP he feared playing as a child, because he &quot;instinctively&quot; knew it &quot;wouldn&#x27;t have been a safe space.&quot;</p><p>After moving to Toronto as a teenager in the late 90s and discovering the TGHA, Baby took up the sport.</p><p>Hockey has made advances toward being more inclusive over the last 20 years, he said, but noted progress has been uneven.</p><p>He said the NHL&#x27;s decision in 2023 to ban the use of rainbow-colored Pride tape on sticks was a &quot;fiasco.&quot;</p><p>The league ultimately rescinded the ban due to player and public outrage.</p><div><br/></div><div><strong>Broader impact?</strong></div><p>The NHL is alone among the so-called Big Four male professional sports leagues with no active or retired players who have come out as gay.</p><p>Luke Prokop, a prospect drafted in 2020 who is gay, has not yet appeared in an NHL game.</p><p>For McCarthy, the absence of an openly gay NHL player is &quot;100 percent&quot; due to persistent issues with hockey culture.</p><p>Baby nevertheless credited the NHL with quieter efforts to make LGBT fans feel welcome and applauded the league&#x27;s apparent embrace of &quot;Heated Rivalry.&quot;</p><p>&quot;There are so many ways to get hooked on hockey and, in the NHL&#x27;s 108-year history, this might be the most unique driver for creating new fans,&quot; the league said last month.</p><p>Baby noted that popular podcasts hosted by &quot;straight hockey bros&quot; are offering commentary on each episode.</p><p>&quot;Queer characters are often flat, one-sided and stereotypical,&quot; but the leads in &quot;Heated Rivalry&quot; are &quot;complex,&quot; he said. &quot;They&#x27;re rich, they&#x27;re interesting. They&#x27;re the antidote to stereotypes.&quot;</p><p>Asked whether he believed &quot;Heated Rivalry&quot; could make hockey more welcoming for the LGBTQ community, McCarthy said: &quot;I hope it can, I don&#x27;t know that it will.&quot;</p>

<p>After premiering on a Canadian streaming platform, 'Heated Rivalry' hit HBO Max and took off, becoming one of its most popular shows by Christmas in 2025.</p>

After premiering on a Canadian streaming platform, 'Heated Rivalry' hit HBO Max and took off, becoming one of its most popular shows by Christmas in 2025.