Things nobody had on their bingo cards for 2026: a sexually explicit Canadian ice hockey drama becoming the year’s first breakout TV hit. But so it has come to pass, with Heated Rivalry (Sky Atlantic/Now) burning up a storm in North America and now crossing the Atlantic to a receptive audience eager to binge on a tale of forbidden queer love against the backdrop of ice hockey, a sport that, to outsiders, seems to consist of 30 per cent action, 70 per cent punch-ups.
As the Jilly Cooper-esque title more or less declares outright, Heated Rivalry is a romp and a caper. It certainly should not be confused with a deep meditation on the often knuckle-dragging sexual politics of professional sport (just last week, Celta Vigo player Borja Iglesias was subjected to homophobic abuse by rival fans in Spain – having painted his nails).
The central and indeed extremely heated affair is between Canadian Shane (Hudson Williams) and Russian Ilya (Connor Storrie), who embark on a series of dalliances whenever they are in the same town for hockey tournaments. Part of the attraction, it is suggested, is that they are from opposing worlds. Shane is a bankable face of Canadian hockey – with a Rolodex endorsement and managers who want him to become a sort of David Beckham on ice skates.
That’s a very different trajectory from that of Ilya, who is bankrolling his grasping, ungrateful family back in Russia and whose girlfriend is oblivious to the fact that he is hooking up with another hockey player.
There are lots of sex scenes, and these are firmly in the category of “steamy chaste” – loads of bare bums and what have you, but nothing very shocking or X-rated. These sequences have apparently gone down a storm with viewers – who, according to the show’s producers, are overwhelmingly straight women.
That has made Heated Rivalry, adapted from the novel by Rachel Reid, controversial in some quarters – gay actor Jordan Firstman accused it of pandering to audiences who “want to see two straight hockey players pretending to be gay”. But the series’ creator, Jacob Tierney, has pushed back against claims that he has cynically repackaged gay identity for a straight female viewership.
“We as queer people need to check our messaging,” Tierney told the Hollywood Reporter. “The things that we decide women can or can’t do can be really exhausting. Women are allowed to write about men. They’re allowed to write about gay men. The question should be, how are they writing about us? Is it with empathy?”
In, truth, Heated Rivalry isn’t made to withstand that level of discourse. It’s erotic filler – capering, lightweight and, so say the ratings, hugely bingeable. Nobody would mistake it for quality drama – but in a world where every second new hit is a Harlan Coben bacchanalia of plot-holes and cardboard dialogue or a Ryan Murphy shock-fest, it at least dares to be different.