FEELING THE "HEAT"

I’m three episodes into Crave TV’s Heated Rivalry (now airing as well on HBO) and, yes, there are moments I needed to slide open the balcony door to cool things off. The hockey romance series is aptly described by The Advocate as a “very horny gay TV show.” In just the first episode, there was plenty of footage of shirtless jocks as well as lots of butt shots and simulated gay sex. Such scenes continue in the next two episodes though perhaps with slightly less frequency. (Or maybe the surprise of the flash factor was no longer so great.)

 

Based on the Game Changers hockey romance book series by Canadian Rachel Reid, it's nice to have a story to go along with all that skin and sex. Admittedly, the storylines are on the stale side. Hockey remains a closeted sport—like virtually every team sport—so plotlines focus on men in the closet, hoping not to be caught with another guy and, in one case, struggling with the possibility of coming out. Gayness is still taboo. It wasn’t long ago that the National Hockey League walked back its participation in team Pride Nights by no longer wearing special jerseys with rainbow stripes. This was on account of the fact that a few players refused to wear the jerseys and NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman’s conclusion that the wearing of jerseys became “a distraction.”

 

So, yes, Heated Rivalry begins with closeted characters. It feels so 1990s. 

 

Men used to joke that they read Playboy for the articles. It’s not a joke, however, that I’m continuing to watch this series for the hockey. As a kid growing up in Canada, I played a couple of seasons of hockey. I skated well but I sucked at everything else—body checking, stick handling, shooting the puck. I’ve watched hockey during the Olympics. About fifteen years ago, I avidly watched a few seasons of Vancouver Canucks hockey, in part, because I lived on the relatively remote Sunshine Coast of British Columbia and, frankly, there was little else to do. (I stopped watching because of the prominence of fighting in the sport which I’d say, if I had a conversation with Gary Bettman, is the true “distraction” in the game.)

 

Because of my background, hockey is a more interesting milieu for me than, say, the military setting for the Netflix series Boots. Rookie all-stars Shane Hollander and Ilya Rozanov are personal rivals playing on rival teams, the Montreal Metros and the Boston Raiders. I like that these teams are referred to as among the original six in a fictitious league, just as the Montreal Canadiens and the Boston Bruins are part of the original six in the NHL. I love all the talk about goal scoring, slumps and player superstitions. I love that the comments in the press room are actually more interesting than the banal, clichéd responses real NHL players give in post-game or between-period interviews. Yes, while others may be freaking out about the hot gay sex, I’m geeking out over an authentic portrayal of the professional sport.

 

It's only a six-part season so I’m bound to finish watching Heated Rivalry. Even though the storylines feel passé in dealing with coming out, it’s significant that the series has been renewed for a second season, something that did not happen for Boots and was not followed through upon by Showtime when it initially sought to pick up the Neil Patrick Harris series Uncoupled. Mainstream streaming channels have not been particularly warm  to continuing to breathe life into gay shows. Let the steam and the story of Heated Rivalryplay on.