The series has been described as a slow-burn story that’s emotional and filled with sexual tension. “Heated Rivalry” follows the story of two competitive hockey players, Ilya Rozanov and Shane Hollander — played by Connor Storrie and Hudson Williams. If you want know when it is streaming for free, click ‘Free’ in the filters above and hit the notification bell.
- Miley Cyrus also expressed interest in contributing music for the second season, as did rapper Bbno$.better source needed
- On December 12, 2025, it was announced that the series has been renewed for a second season by Crave, with HBO Max returning as a key distribution partner.
- The series debuted on Crave with a two-episode premiere on November 28, 2025, followed by weekly episodes, with the finale airing on December 26.
- This is, I might guess, what good hockey is like.
- For their performances in the first season finale, TVLine named both Williams and Storrie as “Performers of the Week”, while /Film described them as the strongest break-out performances of the year.
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The renewal follows strong viewer interest and streaming performance during the first season’s rollout. On December 12, 2025, it was announced that the series has been renewed for a second season by Crave, with HBO Max returning as a key distribution partner. Based on the Game Changers novel series by Rachel Reid, it follows two rival professional hockey players, Canadian Shane Hollander (Hudson Williams) and Russian Ilya Rozanov (Connor Storrie), whose on-ice animosity conceals a passionate, secret romance. 🔥🔥A place to share Interesting content that is extraordinary and fascinating!
- Whitney Evans of TV Fanatic praised the episode’s structure and pacing, as well as Storrie’s performance, highlighting his Russian accent work and screen presence.
- Select games available and blackouts may apply.
- It is set to adapt The Long Game (2022), the sixth book of the Game Changers series, which serves as a sequel to Heated Rivalry.
- The former serves as the series’ theme song, while the latter accompanies the scene in the episode “Olympians” depicting Shane and Ilya’s first instance of anal intercourse.
- According to data shared by Crave’s social media accounts, the show exhibited unusually high “stickiness”, with a rewatch rate where approximately one-third (33%) of the total audience watched the entire season more than once.
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Streams is a new feature that carefully curates content from within the Disney+ app or provides access to live linear streams, such as ABC News, to give you a continuous streaming experience. “Heated Rivalry,” a romantic drama inspired by Rachel Reid’s book series “Game Changers,” dropped its first two episodes on the streaming service on Nov. 28 and left viewers wanting more. All six episodes of the romance series’ first season are available to stream on HBO Max. Canadian actor, director and screenwriter, Jacob Tierney wrote and directed all six episodes of the series’ first season.
Audience viewership
The six-episode series tells the story of the forbidden queer love affair of two professional hockey players, and it does so by documenting each of its lovers’ dalliances at length and in languorous detail. It was arguably one of the greatest places and times to be alive as a hockey fan in the United States. By January 21, 2026, episodes were averaging 8 million viewers and the show hit a series high for weekly viewership the week prior. Alongside the announcement of its second season renewal, Deadline Hollywood reported that the series had become Crave’s most-watched original series to date, with viewership increasing by nearly 400% in its initial seven-day streaming window following its debut on November 28.
The series has been described by media outlets as a global sensation and a break-out critical hit. It also achieved strong audience viewership, becoming Crave’s most-watched original series to date and HBO Max’s top debut for an acquired, non-animated title since the platform’s launch in 2019. The series had its preview screening at the Image+Nation LGBTQ+ Film Festival in Montreal, Canada on November 23, 2025. Heated Rivalry is a Canadian sports romance television series created, written, and directed by Jacob Tierney for Crave.
Episodes:
By the end of the year, the series ranked among the best TV shows of 2025 on the lists by Cosmopolitan, the New York Post, Refinery29, The Seattle Times, and the Toronto Star. Kaiya Shunyata of RogerEbert.com described the series as “revolutionary” and called it “one of the most entertaining shows of the year” as well as “the most significant queer show of the year”. For their performances in the first season finale, TVLine named both Williams and Storrie as “Performers of the Week”, while /Film described them as the strongest break-out performances of the year. On December 10, 2025, the trailer for the series was aired at the Pride Night game between the Montreal Canadiens and the Tampa Bay Lightning. In advance of the program’s television premiere, the first episode received a preview screening in Montreal at the 2025 Image+Nation festival on November 23, 2025. On November 19, 2025, nine days before the series premiere on Crave, it was announced that HBO Max had acquired US and Australian rights to the show for a day-and-date global release.
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In its brisk, bustling six episodes, the outlines of a wider world beyond Shane and Ilya are blurry. Between the week of its debut and the week of its season finale, on December 27, viewership grew tenfold—from 30 million to 324 million streaming minutes logged—with a growing and notable majority of viewers being women. This November, though, a little Canadian series called Heated Rivalry figured out how to make hockey work on television.
You can use the Hulu hub on the Disney+ homepage to jump right into streaming some of your favorite Hulu Originals, series, and more. The Hulu + Live TV plans include 95+ live TV channels and additional on-demand content from your favorite sports, entertainment, and news channels you can watch at home or on-the-go. Access to ESPN content in the Disney+ app Tierney is also behind “Letterkenney,” the hugely popular hockey-adjacent TV series. The Canadian sports and romance series was produced on a limited budget for a Canadian streaming service. Download limits apply to certain content categories.
The series became a significant word-of-mouth success, characterized by an “unusual” growth pattern in its viewership. HBO Max also revealed the show is the No. 2 driver of first-time viewers on the platform since its release. The series also debuted at number two in Australia, and consistently ranks as the number one show each week. In addition to its critical reception, the episode achieved notable audience recognition. BJ Colangelo of /Film also praised the performances, specifically Williams, Storrie, and Sophie Nélisse, and remarked that the series and Storrie are deserving of Emmy recognitions. Whitney Evans of TV Fanatic praised the episode’s structure and pacing, as well as Storrie’s performance, highlighting his Russian accent work and screen presence.
Although HBO Max later acquired the series, it became involved only after the first season had been completed, meaning the show was not developed as a U.S. co-production from the outset. Despite a minimal marketing campaign and a low-cost licensing fee of approximately $600,000 per episode, it experienced a rapid surge in popularity following its late-November premiere. According to data shared by Crave’s social media accounts, the show exhibited unusually high “stickiness”, with a rewatch rate where approximately one-third (33%) of the total audience watched the entire season more than once. According to JustWatch, Heated Rivalry ranked fourth on its television streaming chart during the week of December 7, 2025, while Whip Media, based on data from its TV Time viewership tracking platform of more than 25 million users, reported the series placed sixth during the weeks of December 7 and 14. Following the episode’s reception, the series itself also entered IMDb Top 250 TV shows chart.
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According to Storrie and Chang, filming of the second season is presumed to begin in the summer or fall of 2026. The conversation between Shane and Ilya in a Tampa hotel in the episode “I’ll Believe in Anything” was also filmed on the first day of production; the scene served as one of Williams and Storrie’s audition scenes. The Las Vegas sex scene in the episode “Olympians” was filmed on the first day of production. The series’ numerous sex scenes, which contributed to its notoriety and critical attention, were overseen by intimacy coordinator Chala Hunter, and the absence of frontal nudity was a https://www.boombetonline.nl/ decision made entirely by Tierney. De Simone says he suggested the groin stretch that Hollander does in one episode and that Williams would later demonstrated on Jimmy Fallon’s talk show.
