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. The agreement also includes expanded distribution deals, with rights for season two secured across multiple international markets via Warner Bros. In June https://www.boombetonline.nl/ 2025, it was officially announced at the Bell Media Upfront that the series would be streamed on Crave. Tierney initially had doubts about whether the story could be adapted while retaining the books’ sexually explicit content.
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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.
A cast of real-life hockey players were used to fill out the team, while body doubles were cast for close-up shots of the lead actors in action on the ice. All hockey sequences, including locker rooms, ice surface, and stands were filmed at the Sleeman Centre in Guelph. The first day of shooting included Shane and Ilya’s Las Vegas hotel room encounter, while the hockey rink scenes were completed over a stretch of just over a week of filming near the end of the shoot. 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. He also wanted to find them together since “the show lives and dies on their relationship”. Tierney said it was essential to him that he found two actors who had the “physicality of hockey players” who were also comfortable with nudity and intimacy.
Release
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.
The six-episode series tells the story of the forbidden queer love affair of two professional hockey players, and it does so by documenting each of its lovers’ dalliances at length and in languorous detail. It was arguably one of the greatest places and times to be alive as a hockey fan in the United States. By January 21, 2026, episodes were averaging 8 million viewers and the show hit a series high for weekly viewership the week prior. Alongside the announcement of its second season renewal, Deadline Hollywood reported that the series had become Crave’s most-watched original series to date, with viewership increasing by nearly 400% in its initial seven-day streaming window following its debut on November 28.
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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.
- The first two episodes of “Heated Rivalry”premiered on HBO Max on Nov. 28.
- On November 19, 2025, nine days before the series premiere on Crave, it was announced that HBO Max had acquired US and Australian rights to the show for a day-and-date global release.
- In June 2025, it was officially announced at the Bell Media Upfront that the series would be streamed on Crave.
- The Hollywood Reporter reported that the Spotify streams for the t.A.T.u. track more than doubled following the release of the fourth episode.
- Between the week of its debut and the week of its season finale, on December 27, viewership grew tenfold—from 30 million to 324 million streaming minutes logged—with a growing and notable majority of viewers being women.
- 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.
- 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.
Disney+ is the streaming home for entertainment from Disney, Pixar, Marvel, Star Wars, National Geographic, Hulu, ESPN Select and more. Titles without ratings like live sports, news, and more, and the advertisements included therein, may feature mature themes, products, and services. There are two available bundle plans – ESPN Select and ESPN Unlimited. With ESPN Unlimited you can stream over 47,000 live events from the best leagues and tournaments in the world, making it your home for the most and best live sports. Cancel anytime, effective at the end of your billing period. Yes, the show was renewed for a second season.
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”.
Production country
Although HBO Max later acquired the series, it became involved only after the first season had been completed, meaning the show was not developed as a U.S. co-production from the outset. Despite a minimal marketing campaign and a low-cost licensing fee of approximately $600,000 per episode, it experienced a rapid surge in popularity following its late-November premiere. 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. According to JustWatch, Heated Rivalry ranked fourth on its television streaming chart during the week of December 7, 2025, while Whip Media, based on data from its TV Time viewership tracking platform of more than 25 million users, reported the series placed sixth during the weeks of December 7 and 14. Following the episode’s reception, the series itself also entered IMDb Top 250 TV shows chart.
Each new episode drops on HBO Max at 12 a.m. Here’s everything you need to know about “Heated Rivalry” and how to watch the rest of the season. HBO Max’s newest series has viewers buzzing. Learn more about what content you can watch with Streams at the Disney+ Help Center.
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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,” a romantic drama inspired by Rachel Reid’s book series “Game Changers,” dropped its first two episodes on the streaming service on Nov. 28 and left viewers wanting more. All six episodes of the romance series’ first season are available to stream on HBO Max. Canadian actor, director and screenwriter, Jacob Tierney wrote and directed all six episodes of the series’ first season.
Furthermore, 15% of viewers were reported to have completed the series five or more times and episode 5 was the most rewatch among the six episodes. After only two episodes had aired, Harper’s Bazaar listed it among the best queer television series of all time. Classical music also makes a number of appearances in the series, including Sergei Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 2 and Ludwig van Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata which feature during the episodes “Olympians” and “I’ll Believe in Anything”, respectively. Additional episodes of the series will premiere each week through Dec. 26, 2025, when the finale airs. 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- HBO Max’s newest series has viewers buzzing.
- 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.
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”.