NEW YORK (AP) — “Hot Rivalry” is a hit Romantic hockey lovers. Since its debut over Thanksgiving weekend, the steamy TV adaptation of Rachel Reid’s 2019 novel has dominated social media feeds and inspired a growing fanbase devoted to the quirky romance at its center.
The story follows Canadian Shane Hollander and Russian Ilya Rozanov as they maintain a decade-long secret relationship, mixing slow-burning longing with explicit sex scenes. Jacob Tierney, who developed, wrote and directed the series, said he was drawn to the project because of its “pure weird joy.”
The audience met this joy with an emotional response, propelling the “hot rivalry” to success The #1 series on HBO Max With the first season coming to an end on Friday. Along the way, she sparked new interest in the “Game Changers” book series on which she is based and brought attention to sports romance fiction, especially stories with bizarre storylines.
Originally developed for Canadian streaming service Crave, the series has landed a distribution deal with HBO and has already been renewed for a second season.
“Unashamedly, when promoting, it was as if this was a harlequin romance. This was a happy ending,” Tierney said. “This is about two boys who fall in love and have a lot of sex.”
A “game changer” for romantic hockey fans
Hockey romance books have grown in popularity within the broader sports romance genre, driven by readers who are drawn as much to the intensity of the sport as to the relationships at its center. Mackenzie Walton, who edited Hot Rivalry, said the genre’s staying power comes from how deeply the stories immerse readers in the sport itself.
“It’s very common when I read a hockey romance novel to feel like hockey is important at the heart of the book, and I think readers really respond to that sense of authenticity,” Walton said.
According to the book’s publisher, Harlequin, Reid’s six “Game Changers” novel series has sold 650,000 copies since the first novel was published in 2018.
“Any time Hollywood pays attention to and respects romantic lovers, they notice and show their appreciation,” said Leah Koch, co-owner of romance Library The Ripped Bodice, he wrote in an email. She added that producing a high-quality version of the story that queer readers might not have expected would lead to increased recognition of their cultural interests and economic influence.
Creator Josh Banfield has been making Instagram videos about the show since its premiere in November. He believes part of the show’s popularity with gay fans is the slow-burn aspect of Shane and Elijah’s romance.
“There’s something beautiful about seeing the longing and seeing that they maintain the connection with each other and still have that connection,” Banfield said.
Find the perfect Shane and Elijah in ‘Hot Rivalry’
Fans and the creators behind the book and TV show also credit the lead actors, Connor Story and Hudson Williams, for the show’s success. Tierney said he knew it was Elijah and Shane almost immediately.
“The show was going to live and die by that choice,” Tierney said. “I think once they did the chemistry read together, everyone was like, ‘Okay, okay, I’m done.’
Rachel Reed, the books’ author, said she was thrilled with the adaptation and who was chosen to play the characters she wrote.
“If I built the perfect actors in the lab, I couldn’t build better people to play these characters,” Reed said.
It was also important to both Tierney and Reed that Shane be played by someone of Asian descent, as the character is in the books, to maintain a sense of diversity in a genre that tends to have mostly white characters.
Go beyond the typical “alpha jock” story
Hockey romance novels still tend to be mostly white and heterosexual. According to Koch, readers who come to Ripped Bodice sites are looking for more people like Shane — strange and diverse — to be in their stories.
Clients are often looking for quirky sports romances and those that “go beyond the typical alpha jock trope,” she wrote. But she’s skeptical that the success of “Hot Competition” will lead to more mainstream books or shows with queer stories.
“A distinct title sometimes allows other authors greater access, but not always,” Koch wrote. “But hey, maybe they’ll prove me wrong, wouldn’t that be nice?”
Romance blogger Laura Dusi-Showers said women in particular respond to male romance in hockey writers because of the fantasy aspect of seeing something different from their everyday lives. As for the reason for her success, she said that it is because hockey is a “manly and aggressive sport.” With no NHL players out. “I think this opens people’s eyes to what could happen,” Ducey Showers said.
This was the reason Reed wrote her books in the first place: the desire to tell a different story.
“The series came from a love of hockey, but also from my conflicted feelings about all the bad things about the culture surrounding the sport, especially homophobia,” Reed said.
Reed’s first book in her hockey series, “Game Changer,” is about Scott Hunter, the first fictional hockey player to come out publicly, and his friend Juice Café barista Kip Grady. Part of this story was told in the third episode of “Heated Rivalry” and appeared as a climactic moment in the fifth episode.
As for why fans responded so strongly to the show and the cast, Reid singled out the acting.
“They get really emotional or excited over a quiet little part or a one-line delivery, and that has nothing to do with the sex of the show,” she said, specifically pointing to Williams’ performance as the more awkward, less self-confident Sheen. “Maybe it’s the choice Hudson made as an actor that makes everyone lose their minds, and I’d love to see that.”