The long-awaited series, Heated Rivalry, has finally found its home in the United Kingdom and Ireland. Sky and its streaming service, Now, have announced the upcoming release in January, following a successful run on Crave in Canada and HBO Max in the United States. The show, a gay hockey romance series, is also airing on Sky in New Zealand.
Created for television by Letterkenny veteran Jacob Tierney and adapted from Rachel Reid's novel of the same name, Heated Rivalry centers around a fictional hockey universe. The series focuses on two rival professional hockey players - Canada-born Shane Hollander (Hudson Williams) of the fictitious Montreal Metros and Russia-born Ilya Rozanov (Connor Storrie) of the fictitious Boston Raiders - as they navigate a years-long secret fling.
Tierney and Brendan Brady are showrunning the series from Accent Aigu Entertainment, and the show is produced in association with Bell Media's Crave and distributed internationally by Sphere Abacus. Lucy Criddle, director of acquisitions and strategic projects, and Alexander Wright, acquisitions manager, handled the acquisition for Sky.
Heated Rivalry is the second in a string of gay hockey romance novels by Reid, all set in the same universe. The producers' synopsis reads: "Shane Hollander and Ilya Rozanov are two of the biggest stars in Major League Hockey, bound by ambition, rivalry, and a magnetic pull neither of them fully understands. What begins as a secret fling between two confused teenagers at 17 evolves into a years-long journey of love, denial, and self-discovery. Over the next eight years, as they chase glory on the ice, they struggle to navigate their feelings off it. Torn between the sport they live for and the love they can't ignore, Shane and Ilya must decide if there's room in their fiercely competitive world for something as fragile - and powerful - as real love."
Heated Rivalry has already gained significant traction online ahead of its premiere, and it has become increasingly popular in the nearly four weeks since its debut. The show's fifth episode will air on Crave and HBO Max on Thursday, December 18th. It premieres on Sky in the U.K. and Ireland on January 10th.
