r/HeatedRivalryTVShow

Hi my loons. I know I’m late to the game. I finished watching the show 3 weeks ago. It touched me so deeply and I absolutely cannot stop thinking about it (and subsequently about Connor storrie 🫠). It really brought forth a lot of emotions and how much I MISS a passionate relationship, how much I miss my life before kids, and how I wish I didn’t give up on my dreams. Is anyone else feeling similar, wild emotions? I know the answer is yes for a lot of you…. but would love specifics. Background on me: age 34, married, 2.5 year old and 15 week old.

Realised after watching it this past week that the majority of Heated Rivalry fans must just be straight women who fetishize gay men cuz oh my god that show was NOTHING like what TikTok and Twitter made it out to be. It was so gut wrenching and powerful and beautiful. I sobbed multiple times. Like going into it based soley off what I saw people online saying I was expecting a show that was lowkey ao3's porn without plot tag come to life. But instead I was met with intensely deep characters with so much heart. I found myself crying more often than not and smiling and clapping and rooting for these characters. I put off watching the show for so long because of the way everyone was talking about it. I didn't want to watch a queer show made for straight women but wow it was so much more than that. As a queer person I was so so moved by it. I hope the fanbase doesn't keep people like me away forever because I was definitely missing out.

Hey hey! Unexpected circumstances tonight. I’ll be posting the next letter tomorrow instead of today. See you at the cottage 🏠

I watched the show last week for the first time and I have rewatched it 4 times since(today will be number 5). I also brought The Long Game and I’m almost finished reading it. I’m obsessed with the edits on tik tok and watch them multiple times a day. Nobody in my personal life watches it, so I have nobody to talk to about it and it kills me. It’s just one of the best shows I have ever watched and has instantly become a comfort show to me. Please tell me I’m not alone!

I’m sure there are fanfics about this, but I’m curious what wild antics you wonderful loons can come up with had Yuna come back to the hotel early and tried to check in on Shane in room 1410 before going to bed.

So many hilarious possibilities, from Yuna finding Shane in a suit, to him trying to get rid of her quickly, to hiding Ilya in the bathroom.

Wacky romcom hijinks only.

Edited to add my first attempt:

Yuna (knocking on Room 1410): "Shane, it's Mom - I brought you some ice cream."

Shane (still in bed while Ilya is dressing, panicking): "Uh..uh.. I'm good, thanks Mom. I'll have it tomorrow."

Ilya (whispering but pausing putting on his pants): "Ask her what kind."

Shane: "Shhh!"

Yuna: "Shane, is everything all right? Are you talking to someone?"

Shane: "Uh, yeah Mom, sorry, I'm just on the phone." (glances at Ilya.) "What kind?"

Yuna: "Cookies and cream. A pint. Just crack open the door, and I'll hand it to you."

Ilya (nodding furiously and gesturing to the door)

Shane opens the door 4 inches, slips his hand out, grabs the paper bag like its contraband, and peeks through the gap: "Thanks Mom."

Yuna (through the gap): "You sure you're okay, Shane?"

Shane: "Yes, all good, thanks for the ice cream Mom. Yum. See you tomorrow." (shuts the door and glares at Ilya)

I know I’m not the only one. I have real life friends who have either watched it and somehow weren’t as affected as I am, or they refuse to watch it because they don’t like hockey and can’t understand MM romance. I feel like irl I have to keep my obsession secret because no one understands.

It’s not about the sex or whatever. There’s just something about the blossoming relationship and all the deeper feelings that go along with it. I know you guys get it. There’s no fetishizing or weirdness, just pure love for these guys.

I’m 49. I have never read or watched porn or anything. I’m actually pretty boring. I’m also in a pretty boring marriage with a pretty boring guy. I have 3 pretty boring kids. I live in a boring little town and I drive a boring car. I was more or less content with being boring. But now I’m kind of wondering what kind of excitement I have been missing all these years.

So, this HR obsession is an escape to a world I never knew existed and it has thrown some excitement back into my life. I would love to connect with other HR fans entering their golden years. What is it about the show/books that you think has you gripped in this seemingly endless vortex of pure joy?

Subreddit	Weekly Visitors	Weekly Contributors	Description
heatedrivalry	128K	4K	Welcome to your unofficial zone for all things Heated Rivalry, from Rachel Reid’s beloved Game Changers book series and the TV show it inspired. Whether you’re here for the pining, the power plays, or the very personal penalties, this is the space to cheer, swoon, and scream (lovingly) about all things Shane and Ilya. Before posting, please review our Community Rules to understand how we keep the space safe and collaborative. Use the "search" feature to find answers to FAQs. Enjoy! 🔥 🏒
HeatedRivalryTVShow	60K	3K	A fan subreddit for news, discussions, and updates on Heated Rivalry, a Canadian TV series starring Hudson Williams and Connor Storrie, based on the Game Changers book series by Rachel Reid. Join the community to talk episodes, characters, and all things Ilya x Shane & Co.
HeatedRivalrySeries	31K	1.9k	A subreddit dedicated to the 2025 Canadian TV series Heated Rivalry. Two rival hockey stars at the top of their game face an unexpected challenge when they develop feelings for each other, complicating their careers and the sport's expectations.
HeatedRivalryShow	9.5K	56	A lightly moderated place to discuss the show Heated Rivalry. I created this sub so that we would have a place to talk about our favorite show without excessive (or zero) moderation. Be civil, make good choices, and enjoy!
heatedrivalryfanfics	59K	7.7K	Heated Rivalry Fan Fiction Sub Unofficial Subreddit for all Heated Rivalry, Game Changer, and Rachel Reid Expanded Universe Fan Fictions! Please remember while we talk about fics here always leave love directly for the authors!
GameChangersBooks	17K	1K	Rachel Reids Game Changers book series. Game Changer, Heated Rivalry, Tough Guy, Common Goal, Role Model, The Long Game. Time to Shine & The Shots You Take

Wow, the juxtaposition between the first physical contact between Shane and Ilya in E1 vs E6 is so beautifully illustrated in this gif set by sheisraging (on tumblr). 😍

Reheating again and also being an Hayden Pike apologist. Sorry Okay Sorry
But my favorite part of episode 5 besides the whole hollanov part (even more than Skip - don’t shoot me) is Hayden dropping his stick (is that what it’s called?) and immediately going after Marlowe. Like “Marlowe you Mother\*\*\*\*\*\*” is my favorite HR quote( maybe not my favorite but top 5 and it’s not 5) and I would tattoo it on my heart if I could.
I also truly want to understand why people hate Hayden so much. Show Hayden thankfully gets more love but I think boom Hayden gives Ilya back the same energy Ilya gives him.
Shane was mad at BOTH of them in Dinner at Hayden’s. So????
Also I love his TV reporter voice thing in ep 2. I just love his sense of humor. And JACKIE, obviously JACKIE.

In episode 4, when they are at Ilya’s house on the couch, Ilya comes back from taking a call from his dad. As he is sitting down he asks Shane, “Are you still hungry?” Now is it just me, or does Connor forget to use the Russian accent during that part and when he says “good”? Cause that sounds like his normal voice.

Sorry in advance if this has been brought up before. I am now to this Reddit.

One thing that I keep seeing come up in a variety of discussions about the way Shane and Ilya do not communicate well is how Ilya seems cold, or cruel, or distant, or mean, or closed off, or whatever with Shane, especially whenever the topic of Russia comes up.

So this might get a little long, but as a queer person, sometimes I get the impression that people are equating Ilya with a straight man in USA who has commitment issues, and not realizing the kind of fear that gay or bisexual men have had to live with in so many places for so long.

So here's a summary focusing on Russia.

1991: Ilya was born in the USSR. Gay consensual sex was still criminalized. His father is an abusive policeman with a much, much younger wife who he effectively bullies into suicide over the next 12 years.

1993: Gay consensual sex is decriminalized shortly after the fall of the USSR. This does not change the general attitudes around it, with it having been a component of Article 121 which was used to blackmail LGBTQ persons, or to rob or beat them with impunity, knowing that if they went to police for help they would be the ones imprisoned. So while technically the law was removed, it did not do much to actually change the cultural feelings around it.

2003: Only 22% of Russians polled believe that homosexuality should be accepted by society. So a 12 year old Ilya (who's mother had recently committed suicide and therefore had no adult in his corner) would know and hear from 4 out of 5 people that loving other men was wrong and unacceptable.

2004: A leader of a major political party in Russia called for the death penalty for homosexual activities.

2006: Various Russian states re-criminalize LGBTQ expression. Ilya would be 15, and at that time would have been playing hockey for a decade in a highly competitive, highly masculine, highly homophobic space.

2007: A handful of people attempted to have a peaceful pride parade in Moscow. The mayor called them Satanic publicly, and was supported by the Russian president. The LGBTQ persons were pelted with eggs and rocks. There were approximately 300 nationalist counter demonstrators to the approximately 30 LGBTQ demonstrators, many of whom were punched, kicked, or otherwise assaulted by the nationalist group members - the police actively ignored the aggressors and instead arrested the LGBTQ demonstrators, holding them for hours without medical attention. This would have been the year before Ilya met Shane.

2013: The "gay propaganda law" goes into effect in Russia, criminalizing positive or neutral expression involving LGBTQ topics - everything from posting on social media a still from a movie that has gay characters (not even main characters) to wearing rainbow socks (yes, socks). Ilya would be 22, having been half in love with Shane for the last 5 years, but not only has he had cultural pressure to *never* say that sort of thing out loud, now he has explicit legal prohibition against it every time he goes home to his father and brother (both policemen! both of whom could easily turn him in if he didn't do what they wanted - his brother calls him a "rich faggot" and Ilya says he knows why his brother hates him. It seems quite likely that at the least, his brother knows.)

2014: A prominent politician clarifies that despite the text of the law claiming it is intended to protect minors from harm, its true purpose is to "indicate an understanding of the deviant nature of this type of behavior". As if that wasn't already clear.

2013 - 2016: Premeditated hate crimes against LGBTQ persons that actually make it to court (note that the vast majority of them do not) tripled due to the gay propaganda law having a chilling effect on any sense of safety LGBTQ persons might have had previous to it.

2013 - 2022: Hate crimes in general against LGBTQ persons (again, these are only the ones that actually made it to court) remain at a significant high. Under the gay propaganda law, any expression whatsoever could be construed as gay propaganda - even simply a post of shirtless men with no caption, or discussion of LGBTQ topics in private messages. Regarding Ilya, this is the time period in which he would have been in Russia every summer, and encompasses the Sochi Olympics. There is zero chance he had any reasonable expectation of privacy in texts or in person in Russia, ESPECIALLY after losing high profile games in a high profile sport. It is likely Ilya would not have even been selected for the Olympics or allowed to play for the NHL if there was any knowledge in Russia of his being bisexual. He HAS to cover it with maintaining the playboy image of fucking every available beautiful woman in reach, with keeping Shane as "Jane" and not interacting with him in person at the Olympics where it's obvious that Shane is a man. I think it's very likely that his radio silence for six months after the Olympics is intended to try to keep Shane safe, and for Ilya to try to force some distance between them because being too close to dismiss it as just sex is *terrifying*.

2017 - current: Chechnya (part of the Russian Federation) detains men suspected of gay activity after which they might be blackmailed, held in prison camps, tortured, or returned to their families and outed (with the expectation and sometimes express intent that the families would then commit honor killings). Some well known arrests happened when someone visited briefly, for example one who returned to the country only for his father's funeral. Note that Ilya attends his father's funeral in 2017, though luckily for him, not in Chechnya, and also his brother is less interested in killing him than he is in continuing to take Ilya's money. Still a terrifying thing to have heard even whispers of it happening. Here, Ilya even daring to voice his feelings to Shane, out loud, in the country that criminalizes them, in the language of that country - it's incredibly trusting of Shane that he won't record or keep it somehow, and it also shows just how strong his feelings are that he can't hold them back even though it's an objectively terrible idea to put it in words. The police car driving by in the middle of the monologue underscores this.

2022: the "gay propaganda law" is reworked to even more explicitly ban all LGBTQ expressions in any media, public or private, *including* in private conversations on dating apps. So if Ilya were to go to Russia again, it's likely he would not be able to communicate with Shane at all while he was there.

And all of this is just Russia. USA and Canada are a lot better, but they have a long way to go before it's truly safe to be gay or bisexual everywhere.

Sources:

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/15564886.2023.2167142#d1e542

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/10758216.2025.2487577#d1e534

https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2003/06/03/chapter-6-social-and-economic-values/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-gay_purges_in_Chechnya

https://www.hrw.org/legacy/backgrounder/lgbt/moscow0607/moscow0607web.pdf

https://petertatchellfoundation.org/sochi-will-be-remembered-as-the-anti-gay-olympics/

https://community.middlebury.edu/~moss/RGC2.html

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_violence_against_LGBTQ_people_in_the_United_States

https://www.ohchr.org/sites/default/files/documents/cfi-subm/sogi-education/subm-human-education-protection-cso-14-coming-out-lgbtq-group.pdf

So we know Ilya went for “months” without sex after he and Shane got back together. Anyone hazard a guess what he did to pass the time? In the books it said random hookups and parties were his way of stress relief.

The book is so empty from Ilya’s pov in those weird months. Did he and Shane just obsessively Skype sex? Did he work on crossroad puzzles? Listen to All Too Well on repeat while making his ginger ale shrine?

His poor right hand …