Bell Media’s Crave is set to stream Heated Rivalry, a steamy six-part series about a same-sex hockey romance created by one of the key figures behind previous hits Shoresy and Letterkenny.
Jacob Tierney, a filmmaker who was Jared Keeso’s right-hand man through season two of Shoresy, is writing and directing the show. Adapted from Canadian author Rachel Reid’s 2019 page-turner of the same name, it tells the story of major-league hockey stars Shane Hollander and Ilya Rozanov, who meet as teenagers and end up playing on rival teams.
The two are, per the show’s logline, “torn between the sport they live for and the love they can’t ignore.”
“I was drawn to the books because of how real and raw the characters felt, the way they loved, fought and held nothing back,” Tierney said in a statement to The Globe and Mail.
Heated Rivalry – produced by Accent Aigu Entertainment, founded by Tierney and Brendan Brady – will be officially announced at Bell Media’s upfront on Thursday. News of the series leaked online as the production began filming around Ontario in Toronto, Hamilton and Guelph.
The romance novel’s avid fans have lit up Reddit with excitement, sharing the Instagram pages of Hudson Williams and Connor Storrie, the actors who are playing the main characters.
“I can’t wait for everyone to meet Hudson and Connor, who bring Ilya and Shane to life in the most electric way,” Tierney said.
On her website, Nova Scotia author Reid describes herself in this way: “I like to write cute smut about hockey players and other people.”
The Crave adaptation of Heated Rivalry promises not to tone down those smutty elements.
In an interview, Justin Stockman, vice-president of content development and programming at Bell Media, said he has seen rushes from the shoot and that fans of what he called “popular IP” will not be disappointed: “There are folders you shouldn’t open at work.”
“It looks great. What we’ve seen is not even colour-corrected or edited yet and it looks like the money is on the screen,” Stockman said. “We put together a great cast.”
Heated Rivalry is still in production and a release date has not been finalized, but Bell Media will announce it as part of its 2025-2026 slate of programming.