In late 2025, Heated Rivalry hit our screens with tension filled scenes with characters Shane Hollander and Ilya Rozanov’s situationship of nearly 10 years in the top pro-Hockey league of Rachel Reid’s Game Changer series universe.
For fans that were familiar with Reid’s book series (with a total of six books, another one coming out soon), this was a highly anticipated TV series – despite the fears from some fans that it wouldn’t be as explicit as the books.
Never fear, the TV series was plenty explicit.
The TV series was a massive hit with HBO quickly picking up the Crave Original to put on its streaming services – and eventually Sky TV picking it up as well for the eager UK fans that wanted to watch as well.
Many fans expected the National Hockey League (NHL) to ignore the TV series due to the organisation’s history of homophobia – and the blatant criticism of NHL in the TV series and the books. Yet NHL started capitalising on Heated Rivalry with merch, showing Heated Rivalry on NHL jumbotrons on Pride Nights, and even a statement from the CEO (Gary Bettman) of NHL about the show.
Homophobia in the NHL
If you weren’t a fan of hockey before the show – like me – the fact that there are no out gay players in the NHL might be a shock.
However, the more you learn and watch hockey then the shock would fade, especially for a sport with so much violence – hell, I’ve seen a clip of an NHL player arguing with a ref about wanting to stay on the ice even though he was bleeding from a fight.
Heated Rivalry might be a show that is focused on a gay relationship, but it also shows how this relationship would work in the NHL.
Fake names to hide the gender of your partner, only seeing each other in private behind closed doors, etc.
Near the end of the show, it was clear that this hiding and lack of communication between Shane and Ilya was getting to them – the relationship would’ve ended if it wasn’t for Scott Hunter and Kip coming out, being the game changer for the in-universe hockey league and giving Ilya the confidence to go to Shane’s cottage during the off season.
Nothing like that has happened in the NHL and according to the actors of Heated Rivalry, many closeted players contacted them about the show – relating to the hidden nature of the relationships in the show.
Banning of Pride Tape
NHL’s “support” of Heated Rivalry should be taken with a pinch of salt, as back in 2023 the NHL banned Pride tape and Pride jerseys.
This was followed by controversy in the 2022-2023 season where seven players refused to wear the Pride jerseys.
The banning was revoked after the clear indication that players would continue using pride tape despite the ban – with one NHL team, at the time, to have been reported to have ordered pride tape during the ban.
In the EIHL (the pro-Hockey league in the UK), an out bisexual player Zach Sullivan spoke out against the decision in an exclusive with Mirror Sport:
“It’s for the fans, it’s for that teammate that might be struggling. So I was disappointed but not surprised, which is probably more damning.”
The Future of Hockey
Heated Rivalry being brought to the forefront of everyone’s minds recently might lead to improvement to the NHL.
However, that improvement would take a while to take action, what with the overwhelming conservatism in the NHL (players, fans, etc).
It wasn’t a shock seeing the previous Stanley Cup winners – Florida Panthers – accepting an invitation to the White House to meet with President Donald Trump (a President with a history of racism, homophobia, transphobia, xenophobia, etc) and to gift him with a custom-made hockey jersey.
This isn’t the actions allies of LGBTQ+ would’ve taken, so the NHL is a long way from improving.
Yet, people could hope that Heated Rivalry has opened the doors for hard conversations to be had about the homophobia that fills NHL locker rooms, stadiums, and sports bars filled with hockey fans watching another fight-filled ice hockey game.
Image Credit: Atlantic Ambience on Pexels.
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2nd year - History and Journalism student
