When Heated Rivalry premiered late this fall, few could have predicted what would happen next, not the sudden streaming success, not the bestseller revival of its source material, and certainly not the way its two leads would be thrust into the center of the pop culture conversation.
Based on a novel by Rachel Reid, Heated Rivalry follows the secret relationship between two rival professional hockey players: Ilya Rozanov (Connor Storrie), a cocky Russian star for the fictional Boston Raiders, and Shane Hollander (Hudson Williams), an Asian Canadian team captain for the Montreal Metros. The book, first published seven years ago, recently landed on The New York Times bestseller list for the first time, an achievement Reid never expected this far removed from its original release.
“I kind of love that this is what people are into this Hallmark season,” Reid said from her home in Nova Scotia to GQ.
The show’s success came against steep odds. Heated Rivalry was originally produced for Crave, a Canadian streaming service with just over 4 million subscribers. Filmed in roughly 36 days, it was never designed to be a breakout international hit. But after the trailer went viral, fans of Reid’s six-book Game Changer series began sharing tips online for how to access Canadian television.
Days before the show’s late-November premiere, HBO Max stepped in, acquiring the series and making it available to tens of millions of additional viewers. HBO and HBO Max CEO Casey Bloys says the decision was easy.
“It was a very easy yes,” Bloys told the publication. “I watched all six episodes in one weekend. When somebody says there’s a gay hockey show with explicit sex scenes, you go, ‘Great, I want to look at that.’”
The response was immediate and loud. Williams admits he initially thought social media was misleading him.
“I thought my algorithm had convinced me it was a hit,” he says.
As the show climbed the HBO Max charts, its stars found themselves navigating a new level of attention. A few hours before attending a Screen Actors Guild party in West Hollywood, Storrie and Williams met at Hi Tops, a gay sports bar, where fans approached them for photos.
“We’re definitely objectified,” Storrie told GQ for their shoot. “I signed up knowing that would be a part of it. I really did not think my butt would be such a topic of conversation.”
He adds that friends frequently send him screenshots from social media. “It’s usually GIFs of my butt from the shower,” he added.
Storrie, 25, grew up in Odessa, Texas, and knew early that acting was his goal. “I wanted to be an actor as long as I can remember,” he says. “My mom says it’s one of the first coherent sentences I said. I was like, ‘I’m going to be in movies.’”
After moving to California and studying abroad in France as a teenager, Storrie dropped out of high school shortly after turning 18 to pursue acting full time. His parents supported the decision. “They were like, ‘Yeah, do it,’” he says. “They’re nontraditional.”
Like many actors, he spent years waiting tables while auditioning. His biggest pre-Heated Rivalry break came in Joker: Folie à Deux, where he played an unnamed inmate opposite Joaquin Phoenix.
“By the way, at the end of the movie, you’re going to stab Joaquin to death,” Storrie recalls director Todd Phillips telling him. “And it’s going to be revealed that you’re the Joker.”
Phillips later praised Storrie’s commitment, saying, “What stood out most was his nuanced physicality and his wonderful intensity.”
Despite the high-profile role, steady work didn’t immediately follow. “Honestly, I have had so many identities in this 25 years of life,” Storrie says.
Williams’ path was more conventional. Raised in Kamloops, British Columbia, he studied acting from a young age and later graduated from Langara College’s film arts program. Like Storrie, he supported himself by waiting tables before landing Heated Rivalry.
Both actors quit their service jobs days before filming began.
“You never know what works,” Storrie says. “A gay hockey show made for almost no money somehow turned two complete unknowns into stars.”
The show’s intimacy was carefully choreographed, with an intimacy coordinator working closely with the actors. Storrie says he was upfront about his boundaries. “I told her I was okay with the least amount of clothing,” he says. “I’m okay with doing anything outside of having actual sex.”
Williams echoed the same sentiment.
While the show’s sex scenes have fueled online debate, creator Jacob Tierney insists the heart of Heated Rivalry is emotional intimacy, not shock value.
“You can watch two guys have sex anywhere,” Tierney says. “What you’re getting here is intimacy.”
