Bonus! Why is HEATED RIVALRY such a hit? And is that a good thing?

Please please please I want this young royals like my life depends on it

Yes yes yes I need a video on young royals!!!!!!

So bizarre to me to see people complaining about this being too 'steamy'. Like gay media HASN'T been going through phases ever since we were allowed on screen. At first it was the sanitized, desexualized AIDS tragedy story, traumatized queer kid, or Gay Best Friend who was just "one of the girls", then Queer as Folk gave us messy, sexualized gay boys, and then we walked it ALL the way back for the sanitized "family friendly gays" of recent years, when we're allowed to show up at all, and now the pendulum is FINALLY swinging back to being less afraid of raw homoeroticism. There's room for both the squeaky clean gay and the messy horny gay, IMO. And I'm tired of having to see ONLY depictions of us that are so flawless and sexless they can't possibly exist IRL. ...dang, I have a lot of opinions for not having seen the show yet, LOL.

i tried to watch it. by episode two it just seemed like voyeurism with little character development. however BRAVO for effort. it does seem like live action Yaoi. which is a good thing I suppose. just too graphic for my taste.

As a Queer Canadian Hockey Fan, I was in the position to be on the ground floor of this particular enterprise. I’ve been a fan of gay hockey fiction for a while, and particularly of Rachel Reid’s series. I even got my hands on the now-out-of print first editions of the books released several years back, where the covers all looked like grindr profile pics. I was excited when the show was first announced two years ago and was at the Canadian premier of the first two episodes as part of the Image+Nation Queer film festival in Montreal. After I finished that screening, I remembered thinking that this show is going to draw in a lot of viewers for Crave, but I never seriously thought that this show would be seen beyond our borders. For one, the whole production is just so unabashedly Canadian. It’s shot in Canada, with a Canadian crew, writer and director and an abundance of Canadian actors, based on a book written by a Canadian with a story set mostly here and involving our national sport. While most of the world seems to like Canada as a country, they have usually been largely indifferent with regards to our stories. Also, Hockey isn’t a sport that’s hugely popular outside of Canada, some parts of the U.S., and Russia (the last of which would never, ever, allow this show to be officially aired). It’s also a show that centers a romance, which is a genre that doesn’t tend to bring along a wide swath of viewers. Finally, it’s very unabashedly and very proudly a Queer love story, which I thought would be the biggest strike of all. That’s not to say that there haven’t been series centring Queer stories that haven’t been wildly popular, but they tend to only do well among set demographics, while being completely ignored by others. Heartstopper, for instance, was mostly consumed by younger audiences, with a lot of that audience skewing female (as much as I told everyone I knew AT LENGTH that this show really could and should have been watched by everyone). So how is it that this show, which is so Queer, and so Canadian and so wrapped up in a sport that many across the world have never even seen played, managed to cut across all of that? Well, I do think that there was a spark of genius in how this show has been marketed. Many of the ads really pushed into the “rivalry” aspect of the story, and I think that a lot of viewers who normally would not have given this show a second though, got intrigued about a story that involved serious competition between two evenly matched rivals. I think that they fact that these people fell in love, but were still “battling”, may have made the story more transgressive, but maybe even more intriguing to an audience who would have initially balked at the idea of sitting down to watch a “gay” story. The fact that so many traditional straight venues have unabashedly embraced the show has helped too. It really did shock me when I saw viewing parties at sports bars, and ads for the show at NHL rinks. The second one in particular set me back, because the NHL has been a full court retreat from supporting Queerness in sports over the last few years. People may remember the “You Can Play” initiative, launched in 2012, began in the NHL. This was followed by several years of Pride Nights complete with rainbow jerseys and pride tape on hockey sticks. However, in the early 2020s a contingent of mostly Russian born played refused to participate. Instead of the weaselly NHL commissioner taking an actual stand for continued inclusion, he, in his infinite weaselly-wisdom, chose to phase out official pride nights, deep six the jerseys and ban the pride tape. You know, the things that a real leader with an actual backbone and moral sense would never do. That’s why the NHL administration is directly satirized later in the book series of which Heated Rivalry is a part. This is something which I very, very much hope forms a part of later seasons of the show – I would so much love the irony of the NHL directly promoting a show that tears them a new asshole. Even if that does come to pass, I think the NHL would continue to promote it, as they have been refreshingly upfront of why they’ve done it so far. The NHL has been hemorrhaging viewers over the last decade, and they desperately need to make new fans, they see this show as an opportunity to do just that. Hard to know if it will be effective, and just as hard to swallow the cynicism. Unfortunately for me though, while I think NHL commissioner Gary Bettman is nothing more than a 5-foot-tall rodent clothed in a passible human costume, I do want hockey to survive despite him, because I do genuinely like the sport. So, swallow the cynicism I suppose I will… The other thing that I think has widely sold the show is the buzz from influencer and from show reactors online - all of whom have almost uniformly backed the show’s quality. There’s some cynicism here as well, because for all the talk of a backlash against “wokeness”, most professional internet commentators who want to appeal to the masses still know that it’s in their best interest to be somewhat accommodating to something that’s Queer and popular. I have to swallow this too though, because it really has been genuinely nice to see a lot of these young, straight, and male commentators actually seeming to enjoy a very Queer show. This has been especially true of straight-bro hockey commentators who have seen their stars rise exponentially on the base of their awestruck, gleeful, and endearing episode reviews. It was so wild that I got to see a bunch of straight guys actually getting involved in the story, rooting for the characters, and treating the sex not as something to shield themselves from, but seeing for what it was intended to be: a genuine connection between two characters that they were rooting to be together. That’s probably been the thing that has impacted me the most of this whole Heated Rivalry wave. The fact that I’ve seen so many straight audiences buy into this story of Queer sex, connection, and yes, Joy. I do get some of the criticisms from the Queer community that been made about this show. I mean, for one –Shane is never seen putting in the very important prep work to bottom safely or enjoyably, even long after he should have accumulated the experience to do so. I mean, there’s not even a single conversation about douching or even lube over the course of the entire show. I also do agree that the pacing in the first two episodes is a bit of an issue and could have been tightened up. It is also fundamentally a show predominantly about men in the closet, which is hopefully a type of story that is going to become anachronistic soon. However, it is clearly not yet, at least when you look at male professional sport– which is crazy when you compare it to women’s professional sports. There’s literally a set of married teammates on Canada’s women Olympic Hockey team – who currently also play on the same team at home and begun dating when they were on rival teams – which was all done totally out in the open. So, this is definitely a male sports culture issue. Also, I also think in general, that’s it’s hard to have a stable relationship when you play professional sports no matter what your sexuality. You’re living most of your life on the road, and you never really know whether you are going to be with a team long term. Adding being in a Queer relationship on top of that – and then being famous rival top players with your life constantly under a microscope – then I understand why Ilya and Shane’s characters try and keep things “simple” for so many years, until they literally can’t anymore. For me though, what’s great about the show absolutely dwarfs any minor quibbles. Connor Storrie and Hudson Williams absolutely killed their performances across the series, adding so much nuance and vulnerability to their characters. Episode 5, in particular was just one masterfully acted, directed and edited scene after another. The episode is bookended with two coming out scenes, the first quiet and beautiful, between two characters who really care about the other, and the second being huge, audacious, emotional, and witnessed by everyone, including the people who needed to see it the most. It was likely the very best coming out scene I’ve ever seen represented in any media. Ever. And I’ve seen an awful lot of them. In pulling this all together, Actor Hudson Williams and showrunner Jacob Tierney have said they’ve received many messages from professional players in a variety of sports, who see themselves reflected in this story. Maybe soon, we will see more athletes willing to come out, including our first who is actively playing in the NHL. I also think it’s absolutely amazing that this show is being streamed illegally to millions of viewers in Russia, and that there are a lot of Queer Russians who are seeing their stories reflected in Ilya’s. That kind of representation matters more than any of us could ever say, especially in that country at this time in history. More generally, maybe after this experience, a wider swath of straight audiences will find themselves more open to Queer stories and some will find themselves that much more open to Queer people in their everyday lives. Maybe, just maybe, more people will see that the so-call “war on wokeness” which swept much of the western world in the last few years has always been nothing more than a thinly veiled excuse to further marginalize people who are different, and they will choose to rebel hard against those who maintained that Queerness was something to fear and revile. Could a little Canadian Queer hockey show that shot across the world like a bullet truly help to do all that? I don’t know, but for anyone else hold that little flame of hope that just maybe it could, well… I look forward to seeing you at the cottage.

I avoided watching this show initially because of the hype. But once I learned that Jacob Tierney created the show, I immediately started watching as I am a fan of both Letterkenny and Shoresy. Here are some of my thoughts of the show : The only reason why Scott comes out is because he is retiring after ending it on a high note with a championship. It’s much easier to risk everything when have nothing to lose. Shane and Ilya are still in their prime and have more years to play in hockey league. Not to mention Shane’s neurodivergence may also play a part of his reason she chooses not to be out.

So when I first watched the show I found the time jumps in the first two episodes frustrating and I was left asking similar questions as to what was happening in between the hook ups cause it was as if they had no impact on their lives outside of them event though it seems like Shane's discovering his sexuality. Episode 4 felt so out of place and I didn't like the gay panic to trying straight out thing, like shouldn't that have happened years earlier for Shane considering it's been like what 7 or 8 years at that point. On a second watch I did enjoy these episode more although I do wish Scott and Kip's story was more integrated then just shoved into one episode and two additional scenes.

I keep hearing about this show and hopefully i 'll get around to watching it, even if i don't care anything about hockey. But to me it sounds like a second rate Yuri on Ice. One of the best queer shows I've seen in some time. Also, being queer, black, and transgender i have never spent a single minute in any closet, i was also in the navy. My believe is you either live your life or you let other people tell you have to live it. Also I'm kinda tired of shows that's how horrific it is to be queer. I'm not trying to put on a show, i don't go around telling people I'm queer or transgender because it's simply no one's business but mine and whoever I'm dating, but I'm not going to lie about it either. That's another reason I like Yuri on Ice, it doesn't make being queer this huge thing that drives the story, it's a sport story and a love story that just happens to be based around two men who fall in love. Also they're not the only queer people in the story. Sorry for the rant.. if the show makes it easier for some people to be openly queer then more power to it. Now let's see someone do the same thing for transgender people. Looking forward to seeing your next video. Now I'm going to watch the other show people are talking about, knight of the seven kingdoms. BTW. I still think that the best queer shows to come out in years are still Hazbin Hotel 🏨 and Helluva Boss. Angel Dust and Blitzo are the MVP of queer tv characters ✨️ bar none

I was excited to hear what you had to say about the show, but a little disappointed that you seemed to discuss this show in particular (despite liking it) in a slightly dismissive and rushed away that I feel like I haven’t seen you use much to talk about other shows before. I think Shane’s feeling pressured to stay in the closet because of money family concerns would have been a downgrade. I appreciate that they highlighted how awful being in the closet is just by itself, how powerful immersion in a toxic masculinity subculture is without traumatizing us too much with over-depicting on screen, and how many reviewers resonated with Shane’s 2nd gen Asian immigrant experience depiction and it’s intense pressures.

Season 2 (based on Book 6) will continue to explore how the closet negatively impacts the characters - think of Season 1 ending with HFN (happy for now) versus HEA (happily ever after). I trust Jacob Tierney with handling Season 2 sensitively, while still emphasizing queer joy 💜

I haven’t seen Heated Rivalry, but in a real world scenario, I’d assume Shane not coming out is primarily driven by 1) the absolute macho hell that the hockey world can be, and 2) the very real fear that his lifelong passion - his hockey career - will be negatively impacted by it. It’s not about the money, it’s about hockey culture and obsession

As one of those straights (but never call me a bro) - a compelling story and ridiculously attractive people with bodies that should be illegal. Plus at some point the zeitgeist just takes over