\n\tSidney Crosby and Alexander Ovechkin entered the NHL in 2005. Over 20 years, the Canadian star and his Russian counterpart have engaged in one of the great rivalries in all of sports. They\u2019ve won titles and medals and scoring crowns, and they\u2019re both still playing (with the same franchises that drafted them), having claimed positions among hockey\u2019s all-time elite.<\/p>\n
\n\tBut what if they were also having an intense, sweaty love affair?\u00a0<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\tHeated Rivary\t\t<\/p>\n
\n\t\t\t\t\tThe Bottom Line<\/p>\n
\tQueer as Puck.<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\t\tAirdate: Friday, November 28 (HBO Max)
Cast: Hudson Williams, Connor Storrie, Francois Arnaud, Dylan Walsh. Christina Chang
Creator: Jacob Tierney\t\t\t<\/p>\n
\n\tThat\u2019s the veiled hypothetical at the heart of HBO Max<\/a> and Crave<\/a>\u2018s new six-part romantic drama, Heated Rivalry<\/a>, based on the book by Rachel Reid and written and directed by Letterkenny<\/a> co-creator Jacob Tierney<\/a> \u2014 though don\u2019t go in expecting all that many direct similarities to Letterkenny. Heated 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<\/a>, without the pesky \u201cZendaya\u201d point of the triangle.\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\tThink Queer as Puck.\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\tCritics have only been sent the season\u2019s first two episodes, which makes it hard to tell how some of my reservations with the storytelling will play out. But so far Heated Rivalry is swoony, raunchy, very Canadian<\/a> and will satisfying viewers looking for seasonal flirtation (and more) without a trace of Christmas content. And while it isn\u2019t quite Crosby\/Ovechkin slash fiction, it absolutely could be interpreted that way.<\/p>\n \n\tOur young protagonists \u2014 introduced at semi-regular intervals as they hop from amateur hockey showdowns to the fictional MLH (Major League Hockey) draft and competitive calendar \u2014 are up-and-coming prospects Shane Hollander (Hudson Williams<\/a>) and Ilya Rozanov (Connor Storrie<\/a>).<\/p>\n \n\tShane, a wholesome Canadian, anchors his national team and is drafted by the Montreal Metros, while Russian team anchor Ilya is a seemingly sullen bad boy drafted by the Boston Raiders.<\/p>\n \n\tIn addition to being the two biggest up-and-coming stars in the sport, both Shane and Ilya face ample outside pressures.\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\tShane has an ultra hands-on mother (Christina Chang), who is eager to help market and monetize his boundary-breaking biracial celebrity, as well as a less aggressively intrusive father (Dylan Walsh<\/a>).<\/p>\n \n\tMeanwhile, back in Russia, Ilya\u2019s family has various nebulous financial difficulties and high expectations tied to celebrating the Motherland and whatnot.<\/p>\n \n\tThe league wants to build a rivalry between them, as the young faces of the game. They\u2019re expected to hate each other, but they very quickly discover that the chemistry between them isn\u2019t based on animosity.<\/p>\n \n\tVery quickly.<\/p>\n \n\tThere\u2019s a way of spacing out the storytelling here that could have pushed Heated Rivalry forward as a will-they-or-won\u2019t-they relationship drama stretching at least through the first season, building up to perhaps a chaste kiss in the first season finale.<\/p>\n \n\tThat is NOT the approach taken by Tierney. Within 10 minutes, Ilya and Shane are sharing late-night workout sessions \u2014 exercise bikes, etc., at least in the beginning \u2014 that leave them sitting across from each other sweaty and breathless, sharing a water bottle with initially tentative hand-touching as they size each other up with their words and eyes. Very little time passes before they\u2019re engaging in sweaty, breathless clandestine meet-ups.<\/p>\n \n\tYes, Heated Rivalry is a sweaty show.<\/p>\n \n\tThe relationship is able to accelerate because the show jumps aggressively through time, occasionally by months and sometimes by calendar seasons, as they exchange dirty texts \u2014 the names \u201cJane\u201d and \u201cLily\u201d are utilized as subterfuge \u2014 and await the next time the schedule will put them in the same location for an All-Star Game or the Olympics or an on-ice showdown between the Metros and Raiders. We don\u2019t spend enough time with the characters separately for us to necessarily hunger to have them together. But we know that they both think this is a budding relationship \u2014 not that either of them has yet to use the word \u201crelationship\u201d in the episodes I\u2019ve seen. The time-jumping also allows for comparisons to Love & Basketball<\/a>, which thus far Heated Rivalry hasn\u2019t quite earned, but that\u2019s pretty good as upside goes.<\/p>\n \n\tHockey, in the world of Heated Rivalry, is just foreplay. It\u2019s the forum in which Shane and Ilya face off for annual awards, medals and in the quest for The Cup, but the series spends very little time on the ice. More time is spent with the characters in locker rooms and on benches with players bantering in a vernacular that Tierney is determined to emphasize blurs the line between homosocial and homosexual. Everything is couched in jokes about sucking and penetrating, mostly delivered by men confident that theirs is a wholly heterosexual world.<\/p>\n \n\tOn Letterkenny and Shoresy, Tierney and Jared Keeso used the profanities of locker room talk as a proxy for sex, an escalating verbal game of oneupmanship without actual consummation.\u00a0<\/p>\n