{"id":317332,"date":"2025-11-30T23:40:08","date_gmt":"2025-11-30T23:40:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/317332\/"},"modified":"2025-11-30T23:40:08","modified_gmt":"2025-11-30T23:40:08","slug":"heated-rivalry-reviews-are-in-find-out-what-people-are-saying-about-gay-hockey-romance-hbo-max-tv-show-hbo-max-heated-rivalry-reviews-television-celebrity-news-and-gossip","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/317332\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Heated Rivalry\u2019 Reviews Are In: Find Out What People Are Saying About Gay Hockey Romance HBO Max TV Show! | HBO Max, Heated Rivalry, Reviews, Television | Celebrity News and Gossip | Entertainment, Photos and Videos"},"content":{"rendered":"

Critics are buzzing about Heated Rivalry<\/a>!<\/p>\n

The newly debuted gay romance TV series, available on HBO Max<\/a> and Crave, features leads Connor Storrie<\/a> and Hudson Williams<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Based on the \u201cGame Changers\u201d book series, the show chronicles the story of rival hockey players Shane and Ilya. Shane Hollander (Williams) and Ilya Rozanov (Storrie) are two of the biggest stars in Major League Hockey, bound by ambition, rivalry, and a magnetic pull neither of them fully understands. What begins as a secret fling between two fresh-faced rookies evolves into a years-long journey of love, denial, and self-discovery.<\/p>\n

But what do critics think of the steamy series so far? <\/p>\n

Keep reading to find out more\u2026<\/p>\n

The show currently commands an 94% audience score on Rotten Tomatoes<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Collider<\/a> gives it an 8 out of 10, writing: \u201cHeated Rivalry is definitely recommended for those who love romance stories featuring handsome leads with instant, palpable chemistry.\u201d<\/p>\n

Queer.Horror.Movies<\/a> gives it a 3.5 out of 5, writing: \u201cHeated Rivalry is entertaining, but the decision to retain author Rachel Reid\u2018s hyper accelerated timeline hurts the non-sexy bits. Thankfully the sex is pretty darn hot.\u201d<\/p>\n

THR<\/a> says: \u201cHeated Rivalry may have some comic elements, because blustery male bonding is often funny, but it\u2019s a sincere, steamy love story for grown-ups \u2014 less The Cutting Edge and more Challengers, without the pesky Zendaya<\/a> point of the triangle.\u201d<\/p>\n

Fangirlish<\/a> says: \u201cHeated Rivalry is a nuanced, at times messy, but very real love story between two men who have to figure out who they are and who they want to be as much as they have to figure out what they feel and how to love each other out loud.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Globe & Mail<\/a> says: \u201cTierney\u2019s adaptation will definitely please the book\u2019s fans \u2013 women are its primary audience but it has a gay readership, too \u2013 who enjoyed it for its abundance of explicit sex scenes. It takes only 17 minutes and 55 seconds for viewers to get one.\u201d<\/p>\n

Decider<\/a> says: \u201cWhile the subject matter of Heated Rivalry is somewhat daring, the first episode plays out like something that used to be shown late nights on Cinemax instead of story with well-drawn characters and romantic chemistry between its leads.\u201d<\/p>\n

See the full episode guide<\/a>, every photo released thus far<\/a>, and find out what NSFW thing the stars said about their audition chemistry!<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Critics are buzzing about Heated Rivalry! The newly debuted gay romance TV series, available on HBO Max and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":317333,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[49,48,75,348],"class_list":["post-317332","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tv","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-entertainment","tag-tv"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/317332","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=317332"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/317332\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/317333"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=317332"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=317332"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=317332"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}