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17 hours ago
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I was surprised to learn that ice hockey romance is a genre, a popular one. Surprising, but it makes sense. Love in a cold setting has a fairytale quality. It’s why the great Russian romances endure, though they aren’t relatable. Most of us don’t sit by windows, waiting for a horse to bring word that our cousin has survived the winter in Smolensk. Perhaps it’s time for a modern Doctor Zhivago? Enter Heated Rivalry (Saturday 10 January, 9pm, Sky Atlantic), a Canadian queer romp so hot it threatens to scorch the ice it skates upon.
Shane Hollander and Ilya Rozanov are star players from Montreal and Moscow respectively, mysteriously drawn to each other on the rink, in the full glare of the media. Well, not that mysteriously. The co-leads get down to business almost immediately, with a not-quite meet cute in a shower room. Every episode thereafter features charged glances, sweaty necks and muscular pumping. Even the camera feels as if it’s in lust, gliding over 8%-fat sports star bodies and the glass walls of luxury flats. It’s an audacious feat, making ice hockey sexy. Those padded uniforms usually make wearers resemble the Thing from The Fantastic Four.
It helps that the actors are ravishing. Regardless of which team you play for, Hudson Williams and Connor Storrie draw the eye. The latter (who does a good job with the accent) looks like Michelangelo’s David, with a derriere like a brace of pneumatic hams. Together, they’re uncannily reminiscent of Keanu Reeves and Patrick Swayze in Point Break. No wonder the show, created for Canadian streamer, ah, Crave, has become a runaway success in the US, with clips popping up all over a perma-thirsty social media.
Heated Rivalry is not just a porny hockey bodice-ripper; it’s an interesting premise. Sport is a repressively macho arena, and Rozanov’s home country, Russia, hardly heaven for queer people. He’s a libertarian, who loves the club and hotties, but has family struggles he can’t share. Squeaky clean Asian-Canadian Hollander, meanwhile, is a study in self-sacrifice. Eating “bird food” and protecting sponsorship deals, he’s cripplingly aware of how a rumour mill can grind down a personal brand. We’re reminded of the cost of fame, and why young stars might sacrifice love for ambition.
Like the arrogant Rozanov, the show knows why you came. It’s serving fan-fic, incognito browser, stag party-experimentation raunch. It’s not explicit, though, and while the sex scenes are bold, they aren’t gratuitous. It’s refreshing. Risk-averse studios have in recent years responded to changing audience tastes by taking sex out of shows and films altogether, even romances. That’s just silly. What people want is better sex: more diverse scenes, which serve storytelling, reveal character and illustrate a specific connection.
Heated Rivalry (like its BBC stablemate Industry) gets it. Rozanov and Hollander’s intimate acts are power plays that track their attitudes to experience, aggression and risk. They reflect or complicate the couple’s standing on the public stage, in ways that can be wounding or tender. They’re bold, complex, unsteadily evolving. Everything you want from a good situationship.
The public enemies, separated by country, can only meet around matches, shoots and award ceremonies. There’s a sweetness to the way they sext between locker rooms, against Hollander’s better judgment. “See you next season” becomes their bittersweet refrain. This distance gives their story the shape of a classic romance, trembling in hockey pads.
Will there be a fairytale ending, or is this another onscreen gay story that ends in trauma and heartbreak? You’ll have to watch. As the story progresses over years, it reveals unexpected depth and humour, though. It should be a star vehicle for Storrie, enjoying his Slavic deadpan to the utmost. “Never in my life have I blushed. Russians do not do this” is a great line. It’s bested only by the impassioned moment in which he declares “I’m coming to the cottage!” which sounds bananas.
Heated Rivalry may not be Doctor Zhivago, but it has shades of Challengers, Brokeback Mountain, even Rocky IV. I’m not sure a higher compliment exists. There was one downside to watching perfect bodies engaged in athletic coupling: a withering analysis of my own erotic performance, internalised as the voice of Roy Keane. If January’s cold weather and comfort eating have given you low self-esteem, beware. Baby, it’s cold outside, but it’s no picnic inside, either.
