{"id":134705,"date":"2026-01-15T14:29:23","date_gmt":"2026-01-15T14:29:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/134705\/"},"modified":"2026-01-15T14:29:23","modified_gmt":"2026-01-15T14:29:23","slug":"how-heated-rivalry-is-revving-up-a-san-francisco-hockey-team","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/134705\/","title":{"rendered":"How \u2018Heated Rivalry\u2019 is revving up a San Francisco hockey team"},"content":{"rendered":"

Want more ways to catch up on the latest in Bay Area sports? Sign up for the Section 415 email newsletter here<\/a> and subscribe to the Section 415 podcast wherever you listen<\/a>.<\/p>\n

When the San Francisco Earthquakes took the ice last week at Yerba Buena Ice Center, the LGBTQ+ hockey club played in front of its biggest audience in years. New fans even jockeyed for a view with some of the players, who were forced into the stands after the team\u2019s bench filled up.<\/p>\n

\u201cWas it everyone\u2019s new year\u2019s resolution to play more?\u201d asked Tim Beach, who joined the Quakes six months ago. \u201cOr was it \u2018Heated Rivalry\u2019?\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"\"Hockey<\/p>\n

Call it the Heated Rivalry Effect, an unexpected explosion in interest for the sport of hockey \u2014 and the typically shredded athletes who play it \u2014 sparked by the hit HBO series. The show centers around a sexually charged, long-running relationship between two hockey pros whose on-ice competition masks a private, budding love story.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThat one was for Shane and Ilya, and Scott and Kip,\u201d joked Dom Granato, 34, who has played with the Quakes since 2018, referring to two of the show\u2019s romantic pairings. Granato and his teammates had just hoisted their recreational league\u2019s championship trophy after a 6-5 victory over the Chieftains.\u00a0<\/p>\n

If you haven\u2019t seen \u201cHeated Rivalry\u201d (spoilers ahead), you\u2019ve definitely heard about it. Stimulated by its unfiltered sex scenes, fans are chattering about the show everywhere \u2014 in the media, in social feeds (opens in new tab)<\/a>, and now on the ice. For the Quakes, a local organization that has made an inclusive space for LGBTQ+ hockey since 1998, the show\u2019s overnight success hits differently.<\/p>\n

\u201cBeing out as a gay person and being maligned or rejected or feared in sports \u2014 that\u2019s the experience most of us had,\u201d said Quakes president and player Kieran \u201cKiki\u201d Flaherty, 60.<\/p>\n

The club, a nonprofit corporation, was formed ahead of the 1998 Gay Games in Amsterdam as the first-of-its-kind LGBTQ+ program in the Bay Area. One of the founders, John Heinie \u2014\u00a0who was inspired to form the club despite zero experience playing hockey \u2014\u00a0is still playing goalie for the Quakes in his 60s.<\/p>\n

After the club\u2019s inaugural trip to Amsterdam, Flaherty heard the buzz and wanted in. He grew up playing hockey on frozen lakes in northern Minnesota and remembers the sport as unwelcoming, hostile, and even dangerous. He walked away after eighth grade.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

When he first heard of \u201cHeated Rivalry,\u201d which debuted in late December, he was surprised. The series is revolutionary in how it frames hockey as a backdrop for queer joy, yearning, and complexity \u2014 not as conflict.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis could be a generational thing for me, but I laughed it off initially as being soft porn,\u201d Flaherty said. \u201cIt\u2019s very much in the realm of fantasy, but there\u2019s certain things that really resonate with a lot of us who, back in the day, couldn\u2019t have unprotected sex or did so at a big risk. And with meeting and falling in love with somebody at our job, we would\u2019ve lost our jobs, for sure, had that become known. Those parallels are in some ways even more meaningful than the hockey aspect.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

1 day ago<\/p>\n

\"A<\/a><\/p>\n

3 days ago<\/p>\n

\"A<\/a><\/p>\n

5 days ago<\/p>\n

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Granato, who came out to some teammates ahead of his senior hockey season at Tufts University, read all six of \u201cHeated Rivalry\u201d author Rachel Reid\u2019s books years ago \u2014 long before the HBO adaptation aired. The stories gave him a glimpse at a world he hadn\u2019t thought to imagine: a queer romance thriving in the complex, masculine hockey world.<\/p>\n

\u201cA lot of people have been asking me, \u2018Oh, is this like your dream? Is this what you\u2019ve wanted, your fantasy?\u2019\u201d Granato said. \u201cAnd I\u2019m like, I didn\u2019t let myself have that fantasy when I was playing, because it didn\u2019t seem possible. It wasn\u2019t in the realm of possibility.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hockey has been central to Granato\u2019s life for as long as he can remember. His father, Tony Granato, is a former NHL player and coach who led the U.S. men\u2019s national team at the 2018 Winter Olympics; his uncle, Don Granato, also played and coached in the NHL; and his aunt, Cammi Granato, associate general manager of the Vancouver Canucks, is an Olympic gold medalist and one of the first women to be inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Even with that family legacy, he found it difficult to navigate the sport as a queer player.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are some habits and behaviors that are typical of the culture. There\u2019s a lot of language and a mentality that is misogynistic and homophobic, because it\u2019s just been in the hockey game for a long time,\u201d Granato said. \u201cIt was discouraging in the way that I didn\u2019t think that I could be gay and play hockey. It didn\u2019t seem like those two worlds could exist together.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"AA 2004 team photo of the Earthquakes from a tournament in Vancouver. | Source: Courtesy of Kieran Flaherty<\/p>\n

He searched for proof that he was wrong. As a young adult, he googled \u201cgay hockey players\u201d just to see if there was anyone out there like him living openly in the sport. No NHL player has publicly come out as gay while active in the league. Still, he found figures of inspiration \u2014 in Dre Barone, an American Hockey League referee, and Brock McGillis, a former pro player who came out publicly in 2016.<\/p>\n

When Granato moved to San Francisco, his top priority was to find a queer hockey team. He got in touch with the Quakes, and the team has been his home ever since.<\/p>\n

With the success of \u201cHeated Rivalry,\u201d that community is growing in real time.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s putting a lot of positivity into the hockey world,\u201d Granato said. \u201cIt\u2019s showing a lot of queer hockey players, fans, coaches, and staff that there is a place, and even if it might feel hard, there are clearly a lot of people that will support you.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Quakes, one of the oldest U.S. LGBTQ+ hockey organizations, have received steadfast support and partnership from the San Jose Sharks that remained strong even after the NHL\u2019s 2023 decision to ban Pride tape and specialty jerseys among players. Despite controversy around the ban \u2014 and its subsequent reversal (opens in new tab)<\/a> \u2014 hockey participation has been steadily growing in the LGBTQ+ community, with teams and tournaments popping up all over the nation. Now, \u201cHeated Rivalry\u201d is an accelerator.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Flaherty said that in the last three weeks, he has received more than a dozen inquiries from people interested in joining the team, the majority referencing the show. He expects the organization to start up a second team in the near future.<\/p>\n

\"AThe San Francisco Earthquakes celebrate their recreational league championship at Yerba Buena Ice Skating on Thursday, Jan. 8, 2026.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor any gay man, it\u2019s everything that you ever wanted to see growing up. It\u2019s the type of romance, the type of story, that all of a sudden, even as an adult, you\u2019re watching, and that 13-year-old in you is like, \u2018I feel seen,\u2019\u201d said Hitesh Tolani, who came for the first time to see the Quakes play Thursday.<\/p>\n

Tolani had no previous interest in hockey. But for him, \u201cHeated Rivalry\u201d was an obsession for many other reasons.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe last scene, where the family is so supportive, is super important for the gay community,\u201d he said. \u201cTo have that featured in a show that has gone viral all around the world \u2014\u00a0art imitates life, and life imitates art. It\u2019s an example of what it is to be there for your child. A lot of gay men watch that and feel a sense of relief.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

At a moment when the LGBTQ+ community is feeling threatened and demeaned by the right, there is hope that the show\u2019s popularity can shift the culture back to a more tolerant track. \u201cHeated Rivalry\u201d challenges the toxic masculinity in hockey, yes. But it also captures the human side of queer relationships: the uncertainty, longing, and simple, private moments that narrate an unfolding journey, reminding straight audiences, once again, that the need for love and connection is universal.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cCulturally and socially, to see the acknowledgement of this is how it\u2019s done,\u201d Flaherty said. \u201cWhen people see those sorts of things, it creates this empathy that allows space for understanding. Understanding leads to respect. Respect leads to equality.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

And, in the case of the Quakes, to some great hockey.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Want more ways to catch up on the latest in Bay Area sports? Sign up for the Section…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":134706,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[101,103,102,104,106,105,127,4509],"class_list":{"0":"post-134705","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-san-francisco","8":"tag-san-francisco","9":"tag-san-francisco-headlines","10":"tag-san-francisco-news","11":"tag-sf","12":"tag-sf-headlines","13":"tag-sf-news","14":"tag-sports","15":"tag-television"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/134705","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=134705"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/134705\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/134706"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=134705"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=134705"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=134705"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}