On Heated Rivalry, Sex Scenes Do the Talking

[Warning: The following contains spoilers for Episode 4 of Heated Rivalry.]

Structured around clandestine hookups between a pair of professional hockey players, Heated Rivalry provides a welcome counterpoint to all the complaints about modern TV being riddled with gratuitous sex scenes. In truth, the volume of sex and nudity is actually declining at a noticeable degree across TV and film, but in this raunchy Canadian series, you can barely go 10 minutes without seeing someone's butt. And every one of those scenes is crucial, a fact that seems curiously misunderstood in some coverage of the first few episodes.

Co-protagonists Shane Hollander (Hudson Wiliams) and Ilya Rozanov (Connor Storrie) meet as teenagers, drafted to opposing teams in Heated Rivalry's fictional version of the NHL. Following a flirty encounter at the gym, they make plans to meet in Shane's hotel room, setting the tone for a years-long affair. Sexting each other under assumed names to cover their tracks, they hook up whenever their teams are in the same city, caught up in an erotic feedback loop of sexual tension and professional competition.

Focusing almost exclusively on Shane and Ilya's relationship, Heated Rivalry is a rare TV drama that reflects the emotional intensity and storytelling conventions of a romance novel. Actual hockey scenes are few and far between, and the supporting characters don't really receive their own subplots — a pair of traits that may confuse viewers who aren't familiar with the romance genre. The central relationship develops through sex, thoughtfully choreographed from the characters' first clumsy blow job, where Shane is nervous about Doing His Best, and Ilya teasingly creates an easygoing environment for Shane to experiment. 

As a pair of athletic rivals, these guys are a marketer's dream: the charismatic Russian rebel versus the wholesome Canadian role model, echoing the heyday of NHL stars Alexander Ovechkin and Sidney Crosby. In private, there's still some truth to those personality types. Shane is bashful and awkward, while Ilya is more dominant and overtly sexual. But they're both equally into each other, and those early sex scenes are very clear about consent, with Ilya repeatedly checking in to make sure Shane is enjoying himself. Showrunner Jacob Tierney consciously wanted to portray Ilya as "sensitive and empathetic" in bed, suggesting that his bad-boy persona is just a veneer.

Sex is really the only time when these young men feel able to show vulnerability toward each other. Between their in-person encounters, their horny text messages provide plausible deniability, framing their relationship as purely physical. Yet when they're actually in bed together, they have unspoken permission to be sweet and affectionate — something that feels forbidden for two jocks who can't verbally admit to a queer identity, and otherwise mostly communicate through trash talking.

So yes, horniness is key to Heated Rivalry's success (the lead actors literally got matching tattoos reading "Sex sells"!), but a lot of thought has gone into the meaning behind the horniness, and how these characters navigate their feelings through sex.

For Shane, their time together also represents a rare expression of hedonistic bodily autonomy. In Episode 4, he admits that although he loves his career, hockey stopped being purely fun when he was a child. Since then he's been under constant pressure, not just as a star player but as the most prominent Asian athlete in a very white sport. By the time he was drafted, his mother had already crafted a squeaky-clean image for him, arranging endorsement deals and photoshoots that he clearly doesn't enjoy. He's been trained to see his body as a commercial product, avoiding alcohol and following a macrobiotic diet that borders on disordered eating. The only time he feels free is when he's alone with Ilya. 

Misunderstandings and miscommunication are a staple of the romance genre, and in Heated Rivalry we have two leads who are completely obsessed with each other but can't acknowledge that obsession aloud. One factor is the relatable fear of showing vulnerability to a supposedly casual hookup. But let's be real here: The main roadblock to Shane and Ilya's happiness is the relentless homophobia of hockey culture. There's a dark undercurrent to this story, with the author of the original Heated Rivalry novel, Rachel Reid, saying that she was partly inspired by "being angry at hockey culture and how clearly homophobic it was and is." 

In real life there are no openly queer players in the NHL, and despite various inclusivity initiatives and statements of support from popular players, the league is backsliding in terms of queer allyship. Over the past couple of years, teams have scaled back their official Pride Night events, and the NHL has banned players from wearing their teams' Pride-themed merchandise on the ice.

This context goes largely unspoken in Heated Rivalry, but we don't need any displays of overt bigotry to understand that Shane and Ilya exist in a deeply repressive environment. At one point Shane expresses concern about Ilya's safety when visiting Russia, but the truth is that Shane feels equally unable to come out in Canada. Both men hide their sexuality from their families and friends, cut off from having the same kind of support system as their straight teammates.

Episode 3 offers a grim glimpse of Shane and Ilya's potential future, exploring a separate love story about another closeted hockey player, the New York Admirals captain Scott Hunter (François Arnaud). After a whirlwind romance, Scott settles into domestic bliss with a barista named Kip (Robbie G.K.). They're wildly in love, but after a while the secrets begin to chafe. Scott is so terrified of being outed that he panics about the mere possibility of being recognized in public with his boyfriend.

It's not clear how old Scott is in this episode (François Arnaud is 40, positively geriatric in hockey years), but by this point he's an established captain, and he admits that until he met Kip, he'd never taken the risk of dating another man. His original plan was to put his love life on hold until retirement.

In itself that's already a depressing situation, and by the end of the episode we have a full portrait of why Scott felt the need to sacrifice his happiness for his career. Both of his parents were junior hockey coaches, and after they died in a car crash, he was essentially raised by the hockey training system. Not unlike a person who grew up in an insular religious community, his life revolves around a very restrictive set of social guidelines. So when his relationship with Kip begins to fracture, he has nowhere to turn — whereas Kip, who is openly gay, has a safety net of friends and family to comfort him.

In Episode 4, Shane and Ilya face up to similar problems. Their sexual chemistry is off the charts and they're still counting the days until their next meeting, but their relationship can't progress beyond hookups. When Ilya invites Shane to his house to share a full day together, things come to a head.

Not for the first time, there's a contrast between what Ilya says aloud and what he really seems to mean. Offering Shane a scandalously un-macrobiotic tuna melt (which Shane accepts!), he tries to start a conversation about girls. On the surface, this comes across like a no-homo provocation, framed as two bros sitting on a couch with a very heterosexual six feet of space between them. However, it's really Ilya's roundabout way of introducing a define-the-relationship chat. He wants to clarify that while he still sleeps with women, he also values Shane in (implicitly) a more serious way. He's hoping for some form of reassurance that they're on equal footing, but neither man can voice the idea of deeper commitment. Soon, Ilya returns to the familiar territory of teasing Shane about his dorky personality, having long since blurred the line between on-ice chirping and flirty banter.  

Interrupted by a difficult phone call from Ilya's father in Russia, this scene continues with the two men cuddling tenderly on the couch, segueing into one of the most intimate sex scenes we've seen so far. Immediately after, however, Shane descends into post-coital panic. "I should go," he says unsteadily, just seconds after he and Ilya were staring into each other's eyes and kissing. "I can't do this," he adds, and walks out. He can't handle the realization that their ambiguous situationship is actually love.

A few scenes later, Shane meets Rose Landry (Sophie Nélisse), an actress who seems like a perfect match for him. As a former child star whose brothers play hockey, she understands the pressures of his lifestyle. Soon enough they're Canada's new celebrity power couple, with Ilya watching jealously from afar — at one point literally, when Shane and Ilya lock eyes across a nightclub dance floor. In the background, we hear an exquisitely well-chosen remix of t.A.T.u.'s "All The Things She Said," a queer anthem with a complicated political legacy, whose lyrics evoke Shane and Ilya's tumultuous relationship. When Shane and Rose return home for some workmanlike missionary-position sex, Ilya leaves the club alone and furiously jerks off in the shower, clearly thinking of Shane. Even when they're apart, their sex lives do the talking. 

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My theory for why some people don't get Heated Rivalry is that they're not used to seeing sex scenes as narratively meaningful. If you find these sequences uncomfortable to watch, or just start looking at your phone whenever Shane and Ilya get it on, then you're going to miss out on some essential material. These moments, and their surrounding pillow talk, are where the meat (sorry) of the show's character development plays out.

Episode 4's pivotal breakup scene unfolds thanks to a silent freakout Shane experiences in the seconds after orgasm. This reaction builds upon years of context about his sexual identity, his anxiety about his public image, and his flawed understanding of what Ilya wants from their relationship. It's an agonizing turning point for both characters, but if you haven't been paying close attention to their sex life, then you certainly won't see the full picture.

New episodes of Heated Rivalry stream Fridays on HBO Max.