Heated Rivalry: life-changing storytelling for creators, cast, and fans

Six months ago I wrote about the Heated Rivalry effect after seeing crowds of people spilling out of bars onto the pavement during watch parties. This weekend, Heated Rivalry will be celebrated at the Peabody Awards, as one of the most captivating and inspiring stories of the year; and at the Canadian Screen Awards, where it is nominated in 18 categories.

Over the past month, Heated Rivalry was awarded one of six Television Academy Honors; its stars Hudson Williams and Connor Storrie, who were both unknown before the show aired in December, grabbed the headlines at the Met Gala; the show’s director and creator Jacob Tierney won the Creative Impact Award at Departure Festival in Toronto; and the books’ author Rachel Reid received the Changemaker Award at The Hollywood Reporter Women in Entertainment Canada Summit. Meanwhile there have been stories about the show’s cultural impact in Variety, Deadline, and Rolling Stone.

At the same time as coverage about how the show was made, its musical influence, and representation, Storrie and Williams have made a series of high profile deals and appearances over the past six months.

Storrie presented Saturday Night Live in February; appeared in an ad for Verizon directed by Nia DaCosta; and had his one episode appearance in Criminal Minds: Evolution expanded into a four episode storyline. His new movie April X premieres in the UK this month.

Williams appeared in the music video for Laufey’s single Madwoman; shot an ad for Peloton which is being shown on repeat on video billboards; and won Best First-Time Director at the Hollywood ShortsFest for short film Rancid.

Both actors have a number of short films to their name and Storrie said he used the money from filming season one of Heated Rivalry to fund his directorial debut Transaction Planet. Storrie and Williams are both filming multiple projects over the coming months.

As well as their acting and directing careers, both have found success with brands. Storrie is a global brand ambassador for Yves Saint Laurent and House Ambassador for Tiffany & Co. Williams is a Friend of the House for Balenciaga and an ambassador for Bulgari. Their looks have also raised their teams’ profiles with fans following their stylists.

Heated Rivalry has had a massive impact on its fans. There are watch parties and raves. Fans have created podcasts, video edits (one led to someone landing an editing job with HBO) and currently more than 36,000 works of fiction. People have been inspired to get fit after seeing how the actors prepared for their roles. And there have been stories about couples getting together after taking part in look-alike competitions.

I am in a WhatsApp group and a Substack community, have been to two club nights and am going to a sold-out watch party in London. I’ve also bought a hoodie similar to one worn in the show (it’s incredibly comfortable). I’d love to own some Tiffany jewellery but there are limits.

Williams revealed his Goodreads list last week, leading to bookstores creating displays of the titles he recommended. Goodreads now has a Hudson Williams book club and his book list has been profiled in various media outlets. BookNet Canada’s podcast episode this week is about how the casting of Williams in Yaga has led to a surge in sales for Playwrights Canada Press, its busiest period since its launch in 1984.

Fans are even working on academic research papers based around the show and its impact.

All pretty impressive for a programme created on a small budget, with two lead actors who were earning a living waiting tables before they were cast. Even more impressive for a queer show.

It wasn’t that long ago that queer characters were either victims or villains. I saw an interview this week where someone said ‘nothing happens’ during the show. What they mean is, no disaster befalls any of the characters because they are queer. I’ve seen people saying they were waiting for one of them to get hit by a car at the end because we are conditioned to expect that from queer stories.

Viewers have said how nice it is to have a show without drama around being queer. The stakes are high for all the characters because of their sexuality and high profile as sportsmen. Rozanov also risks politically-motivated repercussions if he comes out because he is Russian.

But they are not being attacked in the street.

It’s interesting to see it in the context of other shows and the political landscape. The media discourse around Heated Rivalry, where people focused on the sex despite not being able to see much at all, compared to new Amazon Prime series Off Campus, which has full frontal nudity, is telling. The inference is that what people wanted was ice hockey romance, rather than gay feel-good drama. It will be interesting to see if Off Campus can garner the awards and fan impact of Heated Rivalry.

Meanwhile, Russell T Davies’ new drama Tip Toe begins on Channel 4 this weekend. It is a timely show about how after visibility and rights for LGBTQ+ people has progressively improved since the 1990s, we are now facing an increase in negative public opinion. More than 30,000 hate crimes were recorded against LGBTQ+ people in England and Wales between March 2024 and 2025. Amnesty International recently released a report which found three gender critical groups spent £3.6 million between 2019 and 2024 and four British newspapers published 17,000 articles on ‘trans issues’ most of which were anti-trans.

Another popular romance, Disney Plus’s adaptation of Rivals, has seen a gay storyline added in. While characters Charles and Gerald are canonically gay, they are not together in the book. Executive producer Dominic Treadwell-Collins told Radio Times he wanted “a big, swooping gay love story”. Rivals was published in 1988 when the Government introduced Section 28. Watching Charles and Gerald conducting a secret love affair, similar to Hollander and Rozanov in Heated Rivalry almost 40 years earlier, is heartbreaking.

At the same time that we are getting these three queer stories, the American Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is considering putting a warning on TV shows with LGBTQ+ storylines. If this goes ahead there a fears even fewer queer stories will get made because companies will not put money behind a show with a warning label. There are also questions about what will happen about news coverage of LGBTQ+ issues.

Tierney pitched Heated Rivalry to Crave because the Canadian broadcaster would not have a problem with making a queer story, unlike American networks.

While Heated Rivalry has won widespread acclaim within the entertainment industry; seen Rachel Reid’s books top bestseller lists for months; made international stars of Storrie and Williams; and created a very active fandom where something happens most days; it has not so far had an impact on the one thing Reid wanted to draw attention to: homophobic attitudes in men’s ice hockey.

In January, USA hockey declared teams in all leagues must take players based on their sex assigned at birth. At the same time they have said trans men cannot play on women’s teams if they have had hormone therapy, leaving them with nowhere to go.

It has also been reported that anti-LGBTQ bullying on high school hockey teams has increased since Heated Rivalry was broadcast.

While fans of the show have seen it bring joy in lots of different ways, ice hockey players are yet to see the benefits.

And if we want to make progress, we need to keep championing our stories and fighting censorship.