Hot New (Gay) Hockey Series on CRAVE

[TonyDown]

7 hours ago, Gar1eth said:

I've just watched Episode 5 for about the third or fourth time.  Ilya's monologue, even in Russian, gets to me. And the last scene while Shane and his family are watching the game, as well as Ilya and his teammates-Shane and Ilya's emotions get to me too. I'm glad Scott has a chance to be happy too. 

 

I felt emotions well up.

Folks at a sports bar in WEHO got excited.

 

 

[d.anders]

7 hours ago, TonyDown said:

Folks at a sports bar in WEHO got excited.

This video went viral. So many people showing it on their podcasts. Who would have thought?

[TonyDown]

7 hours ago, d.anders said:

This video went viral. So many people showing it on their podcasts. Who would have thought?

Exactly!

By now I wonder if Netflix is regretting dropping Boots!   

No use crying over spilled milk.

At least we get Season 2 of Heated Rivalry.😃

 

 

Edited Tuesday at 10:11 PM by TonyDown

[riowanderer]

Both stars are signed for 3 seasons, but not sure how they'll be able to stretch the second book "The Long Game" about their relationship into another two full seasons?:) S2 filming is slated for sometime likely in July in Toronto, Montreal, Ottawa, and Muskoka cottage country a few hours north of Toronto. The scene in "Russia" where IIya expresses his love for Shane was actually filmed on a warm night last May in Hamilton, Ontario with falling snow flakes being generated by machine only on the right side of the tunnel if you watch carefully!:)

Edited 21 hours ago by riowanderer

[samhexum]

On 12/21/2025 at 8:36 AM, d.anders said:

This isn't Paddy Chayefsky. 

Who grew up in the same building as Neil Simon, Ralph Lauren, Calvin Klein, and Penny Marshall... directly across the Grand Concourse from Rob Reiner.

On 12/22/2025 at 7:27 PM, Gar1eth said:

Ilya's monologue, even in Russian, gets to me. 

It was a tremendous scene, but I watched it with a smile on my face thinking about how they ripped off my favorite scene from Grey's Anatomy.  Meredith was stuck in an elevator with a hot young doctor who had been pursuing her who we had recently found out was born in Italy and spoke fluent Italian.  While they were in there, they discussed both being the children of famous surgeons and Dr. Deluca alluded to trouble his father had gotten into. When Meredith suggested he tell her about it he told her the whole story in Italian. Later on in the episode, the conversation was getting heavy and she told him to just go back to speaking Italian and he said "I'm going to kiss you and you're going to let me and I'm never going to stop."

At that point she replied in Italian that was obviously learned phonetically for the scene, "did I ever tell you that I took Italian for three years in college?" and he said wow and she said yeah, and just as they were about to kiss the elevator doors opened, and they were rescued by a repairman played by Mandy's father from Georgie and Mandy's first marriage.

So in my head I was thinking that Dr. Grey would have answered in badly accented Russian.

 

Edited 16 hours ago by samhexum
for absolutely NO @%!*ING reason at all!

[dutchal]

8 hours ago, samhexum said:

It was a tremendous scene, but I watched it with a smile on my face thinking about how they ripped off my favorite scene from Grey's Anatomy.  Meredith was stuck in an elevator with a hot young doctor who had been pursuing her who we had recently found out was born in Italy and spoke fluent Italian.  While they were in there, they discussed both being the children of famous surgeons and Dr. Deluca alluded to trouble his father had gotten into. When Meredith suggested he tell her about it he told her the whole story in Italian. Later on in the episode, the conversation was getting heavy and she told him to just go back to speaking Italian and he said "I'm going to kiss you and you're going to let me and I'm never going to stop."

At that point she replied in Italian that was obviously learned phonetically for the scene, "did I ever tell you that I took Italian for three years in college?" and he said wow and she said yeah, and just as they were about to kiss the elevator doors opened, and they were rescued by a repairman played by Mandy's father from Georgie and Mandy's first marriage.

So in my head I was thinking that Dr. Grey would have answered in badly accented Russian.

If the Ilya monologue in Russian came from the book, it was unlikely to be a rip-off.  The Grey's Anatomy episode to which you refer first aired on January 17, 2019, and Heated Rivalry was first published on March 25, 2019, which means the scene was written months before that.

Edited 9 hours ago by dutchal

[+ Gar1eth]

12 hours ago, samhexum said:

So in my head I was thinking that Dr. Grey would have answered in badly accented Russian

Why would Meredith reply back to a guy speaking Italian in Russian-badly accented or not? Did you by chance mean Shane answering back?

[+ SirBillybob]

The Russian monologue as spoken in the series is not in the book directly or modified as verbalized dialogue from the book but is cobbled together from Ilya’s thoughts about his discontent as if that would be the spoken content. The only line referenced is his key admission, which he muses afterwards about having verbalized, but the setup suggestion made that he best unburden in Russian is replicated. He also later processes in his mind what he had said and its implications. 

Some scenes’ dialogue is lifted from the book text but much of the books’ narrative is, as would be expected, characters’ interior content. There is a lot more emotional attachment thinking and associated mixture of elation and associated anxiety than can get realistically translated to film.

Edited 5 hours ago by SirBillybob

[TonyDown]

For fans that want more...

This is a great article in GQ with so many interesting tidbits about the show and great photos.

'Heated Rivalry' Stars Connor Storrie and Hudson Williams Talk Hockey, Sex Scenes, and Overnight Success | GQ

WWW.GQ.COM

---

Connor Storrie and Hudson Williams were both virtual unknowns when they signed up to star as on-the-DL hockey players in a boldly...

 

[+ SirBillybob]

7 minutes ago, TonyDown said:

For fans that want more...

This is a great article in GQ with so many interesting tidbits about the show and great photos.

'Heated Rivalry' Stars Connor Storrie and Hudson Williams Talk Hockey, Sex Scenes, and Overnight Success | GQ

WWW.GQ.COM

---

Connor Storrie and Hudson Williams were both virtual unknowns when they signed up to star as on-the-DL hockey players in a boldly...

 

It tracks as they are hooking up gentlemanly about quarterly 

[samhexum]

1 hour ago, Gar1eth said:

Why would Meredith reply back to a guy speaking Italian in Russian-badly accented or not? Did you by chance mean Shane answering back?

No, I meant that, in Shane's situation, Meredith would have had a rudimentary understanding of Russian and would have surprised Ilya by showing that she understood exactly what he said.  

If the show follows Grey's lead, Ilya will be stabbed to death next season by a human trafficker he had discovered.  (I still mourn for Dr. DeLuca.)

[d.anders]

I guess I'm a little worried about oversaturation, and the too-fast, all-consuming publicity grab. I realize as actors you have to strike when the iron is hot, but these guys are everywhere, all-the-time, responding to the most inane interviewers, and being asked the most ridiculous questions. Enough already. Be careful what you wish for.

Apparently, backlash has already started because Connor Storrie refuses to answer questions about his private sexual preferences, and Kit Connor from Heartstopper has already spoken out about it, given what happened to him in social media.

From mad, obsessive love usually comes hate. America's infatuation with pop stuff can change on a dime. I wish these guy's handlers would cut back a bit on the social media shithole.

Maybe it's just me.

[dutchal]

1 hour ago, d.anders said:

I guess I'm a little worried about oversaturation, and the too-fast, all-consuming publicity grab. I realize as actors you have to strike when the iron is hot, but these guys are everywhere, all-the-time, responding to the most inane interviewers, and being asked the most ridiculous questions. Enough already. Be careful what you wish for.

Apparently, backlash has already started because Connor Storrie refuses to answer questions about his private sexual preferences, and Kit Connor from Heartstopper has already spoken out about it, given what happened to him in social media.

From mad, obsessive love usually comes hate. America's infatuation with pop stuff can change on a dime. I wish these guy's handlers would cut back a bit on the social media shithole.

Maybe it's just me.

Both Hudson and Connor were waiting tables until shooting for Heated Rivalry began.  Give the kids a break--they need to make hay while the sun shines.

Both Hudson and Connor have now signed with CAA, about the best in the business, so the current handlers supposedly know what they're doing.

This is definitely not going to die down until sometime after this week's finale.  Production realities being what they are, there's going to be a gap of at least a year before we see season two, so there will be plenty of time for it all to die down to a simmer from the current boil.

[d.anders]

31 minutes ago, dutchal said:

they need to make hay while the sun shines

I did not know S1 was only 6 episodes. Wow, that's not a lot of product. You are right, the time gap will be significant.

33 minutes ago, dutchal said:

so the current handlers supposedly know what they're doing.

Not much faith in the Hollywood machine. I hope the boys have something more reliable in their lives to deal with instant fame. Typically, it takes time for the money to catch up to the hype. Fame can fuck with a young mind. Too many ugly stories about that.

[TonyDown]

4 hours ago, d.anders said:

I guess I'm a little worried about oversaturation, and the too-fast, all-consuming publicity grab. I realize as actors you have to strike when the iron is hot, but these guys are everywhere, all-the-time, responding to the most inane interviewers, and being asked the most ridiculous questions. Enough already. Be careful what you wish for.

Apparently, backlash has already started because Connor Storrie refuses to answer questions about his private sexual preferences, and Kit Connor from Heartstopper has already spoken out about it, given what happened to him in social media.

From mad, obsessive love usually comes hate. America's infatuation with pop stuff can change on a dime. I wish these guy's handlers would cut back a bit on the social media shithole.

Maybe it's just me.

 

 

Yeah, some folks like to complain and nitpick.  Other fans are psychopaths.  Having social media handlers is a good idea.  I wonder if that is a thing. 🙂

The GQ article hinted that the boys aren't really raking in big money, that the Crave production was relatively small.  Kudos for their success and taking full advantage of the HBO exposure!!

Asking Hudson and Corrie personal questions about their life irritates me.  I don't want to know or need to know more than they are willing to portray in their vlogs.

We can put the complainers and psychopaths on ignore though, instead of engaging with them.

The last episode is coming up in a matter of hours, and then this will die down until Season 2, sometime in 2027.   

 

Edited 3 minutes ago by TonyDown