The world of TV and sport romance novels has collided in the form of Heated Rivalry. If “sport romance” doesn’t tickle your fancy, maybe its more literal classification will; smut. The narrative follows two rival hockey stars who develop feelings for each other, simultaneously complicating their careers and love life.
Heated Rivalry is a series made for a very specific audience with little to no wiggle room when it comes to bringing in new viewers. The focus is on the turbulent romance between two queer hockey players and how they navigate that in a landscape that’s not quite ready for them to be out in the open. The narrative spends equal time on each character, giving us a snapshot of their mindset at every point in the series and ensuring every second is focused on exploring their ever-changing bond. There’s a lot of real-world commentary that’s explored alongside their relationship, and plenty of emotional throughlines to latch onto, but to me it all seems quite surface level. The themes and messages it conveys are great; with emotional subplots that pack quite a punch and character arcs that go through somewhat realistic (if not a little sensationalised) ups and downs. However those messages alone aren’t enough to drive locked-in engagement as I understood everything the series was exploring and would explore within the first episode or two.
As someone who is certainly not the target audience for the show, there wasn’t enough substance in the narrative for me to become invested in the characters and their journey. It’s not that I didn’t enjoy watching the series; it’s actually thoroughly enjoyable, it’s more that I didn’t feel like the drama, narrative progression and depth of emotion was enough to have me locked in. Perhaps it’s a matter of the genre not having the room for depth, or it’s just that this is quite a surface level narrative, which is totally fine. I just feel like I’ve seen queer storytelling done in a more engaging way, or at least in ways that I prefer.
You can’t talk about this series without talking about the sex, as there’s just a lot of sex. Sex is at the forefront of the series (hence smut) with the inability to go more than 10 minutes without some sort of intimate moment. It’s also not your cutesy Netflix-censored love-making, so put the kids to bed first. It rides this fine line in film and TV which comes down to “is this just there for the sake of it”. For instance, is the sex there because it serves a purpose or is it there to convey a feeling. To liken it to something else; you could ask is the gore and blood and gruesome nature of the action (in an action film) there because it serves a purpose or just because it looks cool. It’s a fine line, so fine that if this amount of sex were in literally any other film or series I would say it’s absolutely egregious. I didn’t need to see as many sex scenes as there are, but for the purpose of this series and the story it’s trying to tell, you almost can’t do it without it. Is it a lot? Yes. Will it turn off a number of people looking for a cute hockey romance? Yes. But in the same way this story needs sex like Finding Nemo needs fish.
The two areas in where I’d say this series excels most are in the performances and the pacing. Kicking off with the pacing; this narrative covers literal years in the span of six episodes, but it strangely never feels rushed. I do think it lacks the ability to explore the characters with greater depth by not focusing on a smaller timeframe, replacing it with a little bit of repetitiveness, but overall the fast pace makes it a very easy season of TV to consume.
Performance-wise, Hudson Williams and Connor Storrie are both exceptional as Shane and Ilya, respectively. Chemistry is integral when it comes to a narrative like this one; if your lead romantic interests don’t gel, you don’t have a series. This is one of those occasions where Williams and Storrie played their roles so convincingly that it would be hard to envision them in a contrasting role. At no point did I buy the romantic tension between these two. Especially considering the fact that you’re practically thrown into their relationship within a matter of minutes, I bought into their connection. The emotional beats of the story are enhanced by their performances, and they executed the more demanding emotional moments with a delicate touch that made them feel authentic. They have good back-and-forth banter that injects a bit of levity into the series, and overall are the show’s highlight.
In the end, Heated Rivalry is a niche type of series; one that isn’t necessarily made for me but is good enough to where I can still enjoy it and appreciate how it services the genre and its core audience. As far as queer stories go, it’s both tangible and sensational; in that it’s grounded enough to be believable but exaggerated enough to ramp up the fun aspect. There’s solid emotional moments and wonderful performances, but the lack of depth and intrigue in the story beyond just “male romance” meant I wasn’t as invested as I’d have liked to be. But if smut and sport romance is your thing, this is going to hit the spot.
6.4/10
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