Here’s my “Heated Rivalry” take, and seriously this may be the hockiest talk I have even engaged in since my five-year-old self asked my dad if the Leaf’s would ever get the cup. Answer: not in your lifetime (hope abandoned so young…).
Heated Rivalry and the Glove Drop Moment. Permission is hot. Period.
I dropped the puck on Heated Rivalry because I heard creator director Jacob Tierney describing how being queer isn’t an automatic trip to the penalty box, it might just be a way to win the cup…
“When we’re placed at the front and center, we rarely get happiness. And if we do, we don’t get it with sex… We get this version that there’s a lot of pain growing up queer… but to endlessly tell one story like that, I don’t think it’s good for the psyche. And what is so wonderful about Heated Rivalry is that… there’s a happy ending. It’s about two people figuring out that they’re allowed to be in love.”— Jacob Tierney, Q with Tom Power, The Joy of Gay Smutty TV (Nov. 27, 2025) (Apple Podcasts)
And yes—if you’ve been anywhere online lately, you already know the show is lighting the lamp because it’s also about queer sex with with puddle producing heat that requires a Zamboni STAT.
It’s a cultural phenomenon that dares to put softness, desire, and vulnerability right in the middle of a sport that trains men not to check in about feelings, but to check out of them and even better to body check each other (Kurzius, 2025; Fetters Maloy et al., 2026).
But what really pulled me into the play wasn’t the headline stuff. It was the in-between moments—when Shane Hollander and Ilya Rozanov don’t have a script, so they just talk and try. They’re not just doing each other; they’re figuring something out together. That time out and talk, rather than assume actions really spoke to my experience as a queer. The hottest part for me was authentic moments showing that Shane Hollander (the Canadian star) and Ilya Rozanov (his rival) didn’t have a neat, pre-written map for how sex was supposed to go.
The part people don’t say out loud: queer desire can be shy
A lot of queer people carry a particular kind of uncertainty into intimacy:
• What do we do?
• What do you like?
• What if I ask and I sound awkward?
• What if I want something and I don’t know how to name it?
• What if I freeze because shame shows up at the worst time?That uncertainty can feel nerve-wracking. It can also feel exhilarating—because it means intimacy isn’t an act but a conversation. It’s two people building something live.
I hear this repeatedly in my community: the not just “I’m anxious,” but the “I’m anxious because I don’t have a playbook, I don’t have a coach”
There’s a recognisable queer authenticity to the uncertainty we all know when we are navigating unscripted sexualities outside of the cis/het norm. A checking-in “what are you into?” energy.
And I think this is where straight people (often) don’t realize the advantage of skating around a default sexual script their whole lives.
Heterosexuality can feel “intuitive” because the script is everywhere.
Hockey movies never show the boring parts: sharpening blades, fixing a loose rivet, re-taping a stick, unlacing skates. They cut straight to the highlight reel. Pop culture does the same with straight intimacy—so we learn a fantasy of effortlessness and that becomes a performance expectation. So, when we have to pause and communicate, it gets framed as awkward—when it’s actually just real life, happening in real time.
Scripts make sex look smooth. They don’t make it consensual.
The more a sexual playbook is treated as universal — the more people assume “same script, different jerseys “—— the easier it is for consent to get replaced by assumption. Not because people are malicious. Because the script does the talking and creates a structure and protection away from what can be a very awkward and vulnerable act. Following this script can slide from familiarity to entitlement as was recently seen in London, Ontario courts. It is dangerous when people treat scripts as assumed consent. (Reuters)
Queer intimacy disrupts that slide because in queer relationships, when rules are uncertain, especially when there’s different genders other than the cisgender binary, you have to negotiate sex and get consent all along the way.
Queer intimacy is often co-written in real time—and that’s part of the thrill
In straight scripts, consent can get treated like a formality — assumed because “we all know what comes next.” Research on sexual scripting and consent shows how dominant scripts can crowd out explicit negotiation and turn ambiguous cues into “permission.” (PubMed)
Heated Rivalry keeps interrupting that autopilot. Shane and Ilya don’t pretend the next step is obvious; they ask. “So… what do you want to do?” “I don’t know.” “Is this okay?” — and then: “Is this okay? Still okay?”
When there’s less default scripting from popular culture, there’s less performing intimacy—and more creating it together. That requires:
• communication skills
• emotional regulation (especially with shame or anxiety)
• courage to ask for what you want
• willingness to repair small awkward moments instead of panicking
And paradoxically that can be exciting. Because being desired isn’t the only spark—being known is.
There’s strong evidence (across couples) that sexual communication is linked with greater sexual and relationship satisfaction, especially when the communication is high-quality. So the “stop and talk” moments aren’t a buzzkill; they can be part of what makes intimacy feel safe enough to be bold. (PMC)
Freud’s reminder: sexuality was never as self-evident as we pretend it is.
This is where Freud skates into the frame. Bear with me—he might be useful here. Freud noticed something we forget now: we act like sex is instinctively obvious, yet it’s psychologically quite complicated. In Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality, Freud warns against assuming that desire naturally comes with a fixed, automatic “object” or script: “We are thus warned to loosen the bond that exists in our thoughts between instinct and object… the sexual instinct is in the first instance independent of its object.” (Archive.org)
Freud had a blunt point about this. Sex and bodily functions like deficating live closer together than our culture admits and this creates confusion and mixed feelings
In other words: sexuality isn’t just a simple set of instructions. There’s always been a psychological dimension—meaning, learning, fear, pride, curiosity, disgust, longing—woven through it. So historically straight people didn’t always have scripts either
We forget this because modern media makes heterosexuality look effortless and inevitable. But there were times (and places, and social classes) where people—especially cis women—were expected to remain ignorant about sex even into marriage.
That silence also meant that early heterosexual intimacy could also be filled with shyness, insecurity, and confusion—sometimes with pain and power imbalances, sometimes with awkwardness, sometimes with a slow learning curve. How much of twhat we’re calling “natural” today is actually “culturally rehearsed”?
Feel the fear and do me anyways.
Here’s the thing I wish more people said plainly: When there’s no script, you must be brave. Uncertainty can be terrifying and electric
You have to ask. You must pause. You have to tolerate not knowing. You have to risk being a little embarrassed. You must be emotionally present enough to notice your partner—not just perform. And that’s exactly why it can be so alive.
Because the conversation isn’t an interruption. It is the whole point of intimacy.
It’s not “unsexy” to ask what someone likes. It’s deeply human. It’s protective. It’s connective. And yes—sometimes it’s thrilling, because it means you’re not following a cardboard template. You’re co-creating something real.
The score
If you grew up without models for queer intimacy, the uncertainty you feel isn’t evidence that you’re “bad at this.” It might just mean you were never given the script—and now you’re learning a better skill: co-creating one..
Closing thoughts
Maybe one day queer relationships will be “boring” in the same way mainstream heterosexuality can become cardboard when it’s over-scripted. But right now, part of queer joy is that we’re still allowed—sometimes required—to be intentional.
And in Heated Rivalry, that intentionality isn’t portrayed as clinical or awkward. It’s portrayed as what it often is in real life: brave. connecting and hot.
Post Game analysis : this was shot in Hamilton—which makes me ridiculously happy
Fans have already been doing mini pilgrimages—like the Pink Tunnel near Corktown Park, and spots like Relay Coffee and Dundurn Castle showing up as central backdrops.
Tourism Hamilton even put together a full list of locations, because yes—we’re that city, and I love that for us. (Tourism Hamilton)
Postscript / Post-Game Analysis Part Two
I don’t really talk about hockey very much. I was a real fan when I was five until I asked my dad, “Do you think that the Leaf’s would ever get the cup?” And he looked at me sadly and said, “No, honey. Not in this lifetime.” I abandoned all hope there and haven’t gone back. So far, he’s been right.
Sources Cited
- Tierney interview episode listing : Apple Podcasts episode listing for Q with Tom Power including The joy of gay, smutty TV (Nov. 27, 2025). (Apple Podcasts)
- Sexual scripting + consent negotiations (dominant scripts affecting communication/consent): Rittenhour & Sauder, Identifying the Impact of Sexual Scripts on Consent Negotiations, Journal of Sex Research (2024). (PubMed)
- Sexual communication ↔ relationship & sexual satisfaction (meta-analysis; quality stronger): Mallory et al., Dimensions of couples’ sexual communication… A meta-analysis(2021). (PMC)
- London hockey trial reporting : Reuters coverage of the London, Ontario world juniors case. (Reuters)
- Freud quote source PDF of Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality translation (Strachey / archive PDF). (Archive.org)
- Hamilton filming locations list: Tourism Hamilton. Visit Hamilton’s Heated Rivalry filming locations… (Tourism Hamilton)
- Kurzius, R. (2025, December 6). What happens when your gay hockey smut becomes a global phenomenon? The Washington Post.
- Fetters Maloy, A., et al. (2026, January 15). 9 reasons everyone’s still talking about “Heated Rivalry” The Washington Post.