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By Melissa Fleur Afshar
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The online frenzy around Canadian television series Heated Rivalry reached new heights this week after the show’s penultimate episode, titled "I'll Believe Anything," tied with Breaking Bad’s 60th episode, “Ozymandias,” for the highest-rated TV episode in IMDb history.
The queer Canadian sports romance drama has captivated audiences since its debut on Crave on November 28, but episode five catapulted the series further into the cultural zeitgeist. Now boasting a perfect 10/10 score on IMDb, it has become a rare standout, surpassing the 9.9 rating held by HBO's Game of Thrones’ episode “Battle of the Bastards.”
“I have been debating the success of Heated Rivalry. Why did it hit so big and yet shows like Fellow Travelers did not?” Charles Karel Bouley, a broadcaster and member of the Gay and Lesbian Entertainment Critics Association, told Newsweek. “Heated Rivalry has become very popular, not from hockey bros or gay men, although the latter certainly are flocking to the show, but the key demographic for the show is actually women.
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"The question becomes why are women flocking to it? Is it the hot male sex? Or is it the romance? And for most, it's the romance, unrequited love, secret love, and obsession. It has the elements of a classic romance novel with sex, intrigue, secrets, mystery, betrayal, everything, and women are loving it."
Created, written, and directed by Jacob Tierney, Heated Rivalry stars Hudson Williams and Connor Storrie as rival professional hockey players from different countries, Shane Hollander and Ilya Rozanov, respectively. The pair's adversarial on-ice personas mask a blossoming secret romance that the series explores over time jumps. A big part of the series is how the hockey players handle their relationship while in the public eye, in a competitive sport that does not have a reputation for welcoming gay players.
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The fifth episode’s perfect rating coincides with the show becoming an unexpected viral phenomenon, particularly among younger audiences.
A TikTok post from user @thestellabeanexperience showing their family’s shocked and amused reaction to the show’s explicit scenes has surpassed 1.4 million views and 100,000 likes. Another user, @misskristajuliane, posted a clip of characters Scott and Kip sharing an on-ice kiss that reveals their relationship publicly. Their post, overlaid with the text, “Best ******* episode of TV I have ever watched,” has been liked more than 113,000 times, while several viewers made clear in the comments that they agree.
Threads user @misschardotfur shared in a post to the platform on December 19: "I watch ALOT of television, I mean ALOT...I can confidently say that Ep 5 of Heated Rivalry is up there as one of the best pieces of [TV] I’ve seen this year. Outstanding performances from that cast but CRAVE/HBO better use that monologue for submission for every award possible!"
Another TikTok creator, @tiff.reads.and.rambles, called a scene in the series a "masterpiece" in a post from December 12.
Liz Duff (@ProducerLiz), a Canadian pop-culture expert, comedian, and host of the podcast Late Night Scrolling, has a few thoughts as to why the series has taken off online.
"Heated Rivalry is an anomaly in the era of adaptation television, where the jump from page to screen is so true to the source material that the fans have nothing to fight about," Duff told Newsweek. "In fact, the fans are celebrating the minor tweaks to the dialogue, arguing they are strengthening the performances.
"The inner world of Shane Hollander, which is so critical to the narration of the book, is being expertly translated to screen with every tweaked eyebrow and defeated sigh by Hudson Williams."
Adapted from Rachel Reid’s books, the show premiered in Canada and was picked up for streaming on HBO Max in the U.S. and Australia, Neon in New Zealand, and Movistar Plus+ in Spain.
In December, it was renewed for a second season.
Critics React
While online reactions have helped catapult the show to prominence, the series has also received acclaim from critics, now boasting a 96 percent Rotten Tomatoes score and a 94 percent audience rating, based on over 500 viewer ratings and 26 professional critic reviews.
Beyond individual performances and plotlines, Bouley said the show’s broader impact, by being centered around a gay love story, is now part of a larger conversation about representation.
Duff agreed: "Author Rachel Reid vividly painted the picture of two young men at opposite ends of the charismatic spectrum falling in love in extraordinary circumstances, and it’s created the kind of friction that defines cultural moments."
Still, it's not a given that the popularity of the show will actually do long-term good for the LGBTQ+ community. Brock McGillis, the first professional hockey player to come out as gay in 2016, recently told PinkNews that he didn't think the show would help others follow in his footsteps.
“It’s probably more likely to have an adverse effect on a player coming out. And I hate to be negative because I really enjoy the show. But I also don’t believe that many hockey bros are going to watch it. And I don’t think, if they are watching it, they’re talking about it positively," he said.
Bouley sees a reason to be optimistic, though. "Is it a win for LGBTQ people? Yes, because whether it's just camp soap opera or more, it is visibility. AND, it's actual love stories, not just seedy sex, it's connection, romance, passion."
Season one of Heated Rivalry has yet to air its finale, but the show’s cultural footprint is already being firmly established. With a season two now greenlit, fans have even more to be excited about.
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