{"id":2264591,"date":"2026-02-03T12:24:20","date_gmt":"2026-02-03T12:24:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/?p=2264591"},"modified":"2026-02-03T12:24:20","modified_gmt":"2026-02-03T12:24:20","slug":"how-heated-rivalry-changed-the-game-for-canadian-tv","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/how-heated-rivalry-changed-the-game-for-canadian-tv\/","title":{"rendered":"How \u2018Heated Rivalry\u2019 changed the game for Canadian TV"},"content":{"rendered":"

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How did a gay hockey romance made by a little-known Canadian streamer become a global cultural phenomenon<\/a>?<\/p>\n

The answer, as it turns out, was by leaning into female and queer audiences. Since the debut last November of \u201cHeated Rivalry,\u201d<\/a> which chronicles the clandestine love story between two fierce hockey rivals, the drama series from Bell Media\u2019s Crave has emerged as an unlikely success story, defying a broader industry trend of media consolidation and waning commitments to diversity in Hollywood.<\/p>\n

The mastermind behind the show\u2019s success is Jacob Tierney, who read author Rachel Reid\u2019s \u201cGame Changers\u201d series during the COVID-19 pandemic and then optioned all of the books after reading a Washington Post story about the proliferation of romance novels. After writing a pilot on spec, he approached the executives at Crave \u2014 where he had previously produced \u201cLetterkenny,\u201d \u201cShoresy\u201d and \u201cCanada\u2019s Drag Race\u201d \u2014 about green-lighting a series. From the outset, the gay writer-producer had a clear idea of how he wanted to adapt the \u201csmutty\u201d story for TV, starting with casting relative newcomers Hudson Williams and Connor Storrie as Shane Hollander and Ilya Rozanov, respectively.<\/p>\n

\u201cJacob was very open to our feedback, but his common [refrain] back to us was, \u2018We need to be true to the source material because the built-in fan base will expect certain things from us, and that includes the appearances of these actors and their ages,\u2019\u201d says Justin Stockman, Bell Media\u2019s VP of content development and programming. \u201cHe\u2019s like, \u2018We found them. These are the people from the book.\u2019 And that\u2019s where we had to trust him.\u201d<\/p>\n

Brendan Brady, Tierney\u2019s producing partner through their Accent Aigu Entertainment banner, notes that the Canadian TV model diverges from the American one, in that the producer retains ownership of the IP while collecting a licensing fee from the broadcaster. To fund the series, Tierney and Brady reinvested their personal fees to cover about 10% of the budget, while another 30% was sourced from tax credits. This included the Canada Media Fund, a resource derived from government and industry contributions that national broadcasters can allocate at their discretion. The rest of the financing usually comes from third parties.<\/p>\n

But Tierney recalls that the notes from potential financiers did not align with his creative vision. Some wanted to delay the graphic depictions of gay sex and expand the world to include more characters. Someone even suggested introducing Rose Landry (Sophie N\u00e9lisse) earlier and putting her in a love triangle with Shane and Ilya, because they believed \u201cthis show won\u2019t work without a female entry point,\u201d Tierney recalls. Ultimately, Bell Media opted against a co-financier, instead covering the remaining costs through its new distribution branch, Sphere Abacus. But, Brady says, the budget was still \u201cfar south\u201d of CA$5 million (approximately $3.6 million) per episode. \u201cIt\u2019s so much less than that, it\u2019s almost silly,\u201d Tierney adds.<\/p>\n

Sean Cohan, an American executive who worked at A&E Network and Nielsen before being appointed president of Bell Media, does not think \u201cHeated Rivalry\u201d could have been made in the U.S. For starters, \u201cgreen-lighting\u201d stateside is a \u201cslower\u201d process; Tierney could have been stuck in development hell for years. The show also contains numerous Canadian references \u2014 cottage country, loons, McGill University \u2014 which would have not made sense outside of the Great White North.<\/p>\n

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From left, stars Connor Storrie and Hudson Williams, creator Jacob Tierney and executive producer Brendan Brady on the set of \u201cHeated Rivalry.\u201d<\/p>\n

(Sabrina Lantos)<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/figure><\/div>\n

For his part, Tierney doesn\u2019t believe that \u201cHeated Rivalry\u201d would have even been made at another Canadian<\/i> network or streamer. \u201cThere\u2019s lots of ways to put your fingers in and get them sticky and screw things up, and these executives wanted the same show that we wanted to make and they supported us 100%,\u201d he says. Those executives were so confident in the show\u2019s success that they decided to move up the premiere date from February to late November to take advantage of the increase in viewership around the holidays. The accelerated release schedule meant that Tierney delivered his cut of the Season 1 finale a week and a half before it aired.<\/p>\n

At the time of our interview, Tierney was already trying to break the story for Season 2, which he and Brady say will not premiere until spring 2027. \u201cAs much as I appreciate how rabid and interested people are at this point, the first season worked because I trusted my gut with this, and I\u2019m going to do that again,\u201d Tierney says.<\/p>\n

Like the audience, Bell Media executives are waiting with bated breath for the next chapter of \u201cHeated Rivalry.\u201d And given that Accent Aigu has optioned all of the \u201cGame Changer\u201d novels (including Reid\u2019s forthcoming \u201cUnrivaled\u201d), everything is on the table \u2014 more episodes or seasons, one-off specials, maybe even a spin-off. \u201cWe\u2019re open to anything that keeps the quality where it was, but also brings our show back as quickly as we can,\u201d Stockman says. (HBO Max will not be involved financially and remains merely a distributor.)<\/p>\n

Tierney declines to reveal whether he will split \u201cThe Long Game\u201d into one or two seasons, but he volunteers that he does not see himself making more than six episodes per season. \u201cI don\u2019t need to do 10. I would always rather tighten the belt than get loosey-goosey,\u201d says Tierney, who will have a co-writer for Season 2 but continue to direct all the episodes himself. \u201cI would rather be like, \u2018Let\u2019s see how much story we can pack into these episodes.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe want everybody to be left yearning,\u201d Brady adds. \u201cThat\u2019s what everybody loves about this show. Less is more!\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHeated Rivalry\u201d may center on Shane and Ilya, but there will \u201cabsolutely\u201d be \u201cdiversions\u201d to other characters in the canon. \u201cJust like you can\u2019t tell the story without Scott Hunter, you can\u2019t really tell the story without Troy Barrett,\u201d Tierney says, alluding to a character from Reid\u2019s books who is yet to appear in the TV series. And while there may be a lot more incoming calls about higher-profile casting, he adds, \u201cWe need Canadian talent, and we love Canadian talent. It\u2019s not a burden, but it\u2019s also something we literally have to do to get our financing.\u201d<\/p>\n

For Cohan, \u201cHeated Rivalry\u201d is valuable proof of concept as he attempts to convince more Canadian creators to return to their roots, regardless of where they now live in the world. \u201cIt certainly helps to feel like we\u2019ve got a dramatic illustration, a data point \u2014 a pretty good one too \u2014 to say, \u2018Yeah, look, we Canadians, not just Bell, can make great, global and profitable [shows], and we can do it by being authentic,\u2019\u201d Cohan says.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

\u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n

\u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.latimes.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

How did a gay hockey romance made by a little-known Canadian streamer become a global cultural phenomenon? The answer, as it turns out, was by leaning into female and queer audiences. Since the debut last November of \u201cHeated Rivalry,\u201d which chronicles the clandestine love story between two fierce hockey rivals, the drama series from Bell […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2264592,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25172],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2264591","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-entertainment"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/How-\u2018Heated-Rivalry-changed-the-game-for-Canadian-TV.com2F512F6f2F86ab5c214a0b884f0a983f86.jpeg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2264591","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2264591"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2264591\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2264593,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2264591\/revisions\/2264593"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2264592"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2264591"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2264591"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2264591"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}