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.

Other Hudson Williams & Jacob Tierney TV shows

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What is ‘Heated Rivalry’? Where and how to watch

For a time, which started on December 20, 2025, it tied with Breaking Bad’s “Ozymandias” (2013) as the only television episodes to receive a perfect rating on the platform, and ranked among the highest-rated episodes of all time. Tom Smyth of Vulture and Mads Misasi of Tell-Tale TV both gave the episode perfect five star ratings, while Cody Schultz of Show Snob described it as “a masterclass in storytelling” and one of the greatest television episodes of the year and of all time. David Caballero of Collider gave the series an 8 out of 10, noting the effective early development of their characters both individually and as a potential couple, and the prominent yet accessible use of hockey in the story.
Heated Rivalry is, almost exclusively, the story of Shane Hollander (Hudson Williams) and Ilya Rozanov (Connor Storrie), two high-level professional hockey prospects who fall in love. It doesn’t feel like hockey, and it doesn’t feel like anything else on TV right now; it feels a little bit like falling in love. While it isn’t ascending to Bluey levels of global streaming dominance, what’s unique about the show has been its growth. To really appreciate what’s going on on the ice, you have to be in that big refrigerator, shoulder to shoulder with the raucous crowd, bodies flying at you left and right.
However, ten days later, Tierney told Variety that the second season would not premiere at the same time the following year, citing slower progress on the episode scripts. Tierney’s creative executive at Crave, Rachel Goldstein, discouraged him from adapting Heated Rivalry’s epilogue into the series, as it could have been perceived as setting up a second season that had not been confirmed at the time. The first season then premiered online on Crave on November 28, 2025, and was picked up for streaming on HBO Max in selected territories; Neon in New Zealand; and Movistar Plus+ in Spain. A trailer for the series alludes to the covert nature of the hockey players’ tryst as a woman asks Shane if there are “any gay hockey players.” The first two episodes of “Heated Rivalry”premiered on HBO Max on Nov. 28.

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The story is told, largely, through the performance of Shane and Ilya’s physical chemistry, as well as the loaded moments when that chemistry disappears, freezes up, or transforms into something else. The degree to which they must “keep it quiet” in their lives is reflected in the show’s formal patience about saying anything out loud. Time-jumping and globe-trotting to show us every single time they hook up over the course of about a decade, the show’s immediate devotion to their affair starts to bleed out into the viewer’s perception and anticipation of it. In the first 11 minutes of the show’s pilot, for instance, there are four separate time jumps—“One Week Later,” “Six Months Later,” “Six Months Later,” “Six Months Later.” While the pace slows a bit after that opening hopscotch, the time jump remains the show’s signature structuring device. There are intra-team dynamics, friends and former lovers, complex family situations, international political imbroglios, and social lives outside of the succession of hotel rooms in which these lovers meet.

• 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.
• Tierney’s creative executive at Crave, Rachel Goldstein, discouraged him from adapting Heated Rivalry’s epilogue into the series, as it could have been perceived as setting up a second season that had not been confirmed at the time.
• 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.
• 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.
• HBO Max’s newest series has viewers buzzing.
• 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 – watch online: streaming, buy or rent

• Additional episodes of the series will premiere each week through Dec. 26, 2025, when the finale airs.
• The Las Vegas sex scene in the episode “Olympians” was filmed on the first day of production.
• The TV series follows two rival hockey players, Canadian Shane Hollander (Hudson Williams) and Russian Ilya Rozanov (Connor Storrie), as they navigate their professional lives and mix business with pleasure.
• Principal photography for the first season commenced in April 2025, with filming taking place across two Canadian provinces, Ontario and Quebec, for 36 days, according to Tierney.
• Shane and Ilya keep their secret fling alive while their growing connection is t…
• Starting today, Android, iOS, and Desktop users will be able to access the first phase of our product translation in German, French, Portuguese, Spanish, and Italian.

There aren’t any free streaming options for Heated Rivalry right now. Currently available on 2 streaming services. Additional terms apply. Select games available and blackouts may apply.
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 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.
However, in late September, Tierney and the executives decided to push the release forward to take advantage of increased audience interest in new series during the holiday season. HBO Max’s acquisition of the series, which was spearheaded by the company’s content chairman and CEO Casey Bloys and the SVP content planning and programming Jason Butler, was attributed in part to online social media buzz generated by the Game Changers fanbase who campaigned for global distribution. Miley Cyrus also expressed interest in contributing music for the second season, as did rapper Bbno$.better source needed He eventually disposed of those songs when he received footage from the episodes, and re-wrote the music to the images over about seven weeks. 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. The episode also features Storrie delivering a four-page monologue in Russian; after a particularly strong take, Tierney asked Storrie’s dialect coach, Kate Yablunovsky, how much of it could be used, to which she replied, “All of it. He humbles me”.
Download limits apply to certain content categories on HBO Max. The Pitt trains its focus on this one place and this one time (per season), but it cares about everyone who passes through. While the narrative eye returns to our titular heated rivalry, and things begin to loosen up with their own communication, it eventually becomes clear that the Scott Hunter episode is mostly there to set up later plot developments between Ilya and Shane. One of the most jarring features of the show, which becomes apparent quickly into the first episode, is its skimming-for-the-good-parts storytelling style.

Ads served on select live and linear content on Standard and Premium Plans. Ads served on select live & linear content in No Ads plan. I was catching up on Heated Rivalry this January, just as I was also beginning to blitz through new episodes of the second season of https://www.boombetonline.nl/ HBO Max’s other viral hit, The Pitt. There is a momentary break in this dynamic in the third episode, when we return to an earlier moment at the Sochi Olympics and follow Scott Hunter (François Arnaud), a fellow hockey player who’d mostly only appeared at All-Star games and award ceremonies to this point. I found myself laughing about it as the series began, but, as episodes unfolded, there started to be something almost hypnotic about the constant yada-yada’ing of everything that didn’t involve our two leads.
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. According to Billboard, the songs’ appearance in the series resulted in increased official on-demand streaming activity. He also told The Hollywood Reporter that, although he would direct all episodes of the second season, it is a possibility that “other writers will come in to help him out”.
In the terms of film theorist Linda Williams, they are both series within the realm of “body genres”—dramas built around showing the body in moments of distress and/or elation. The Pitt has nearly a dozen series regulars in the main cast, another dozen recurring characters, and many dozens more who filter in and out of the E.R. This is, I might guess, what good hockey is like. Though, for what it’s worth, the moment when that happens, when these two plotlines converge, is one of the most electrifying sequences I’ve seen on TV in the past couple of months. This episode is counterprogramming to the Ilya-Shane romance. In this stand-alone episode, we watch Scott come to terms with his own sexuality, begin secretly dating a barista named Kip, and see that relationship run up against the wall of Scott’s inability to come out.