I left my husband because of Heated Rivalry
The spicy TV series Heated Rivalry has been a global phenomenon. Based on the Game Changers book series by Rachel Reid, the first season, directed by Jacob Tierney has broken records and broken (and mended) hearts.
The series stars Hudson Williams as Shane Hollander and Connor Storrie as Ilya Rozanov, two professional hockey players who are rivals and secret lovers. Their ten-year love affair is both beautiful and extremely horny.
This weekend I'm getting a Heated Rivalry tattoo so it felt fitting to celebrate the series with stories sent to me from readers about the impact of the show. As one of Aotearoa's most obsessive Heated Rivalry fans I felt so privileged to be contacted with these stories. And I'm grateful to everyone who answered the (wolf bird) call I put out!
I've also published: 5000 words of serious analysis about Heated Rivalry because WHY NOT! It was fun and I think it's funny.
Emily Writes
Names have been changed, obviously.
Feel free to skip to the comments if you read this already in your email!
Heated Rivalry made me leave my husband
Jane: I’ve been married 17 years. I started watching Heated Rivalry, and it just woke something up in me. At 46, I think I just accepted that my sex life was dead, and I was just lucky to be with someone - anyone - in my older age.
I had not felt excited by life, or anything, if I’m honest, for a long time. Watching the show, it wasn’t even that I was attracted to Shane and Ilya. It was their passion for each other.
I realised I haven’t felt that passion for my husband, and I know he doesn’t feel that passion for me… I kept rewatching episodes, and I kept thinking if I was ready to never feel that again.
I think we are conditioned to think we don’t deserve passion or excitement as older women. I have been considering that a lot. I had been thinking, 'Am I too old to have first times again?'
Then one day I woke up, and I just decided I would not accept being too old. I loved my husband, but we have not been in love for a long time. Heated Rivalry reminded me of what love feels like. When it consumes your life, and I don’t want to go through life not feeling that again. Even if I never feel it, I want to try.
I wonder too if the show just made me remember what it feels like to be young. I don’t want to let that feeling go just yet. I think there is still so much life in me. A second life sounds appealing to me. Even if there's no new love, I want to live again.
Heated Rivalry saved my life
Hayden: It sounds over the top, but it’s true. Heated Rivalry saved my life. I was closeted last year and feeling so isolated. I was definitely considering suicide. I just felt like I was never going to be happy. When I saw everything online about Heated Rivalry, I decided to watch it and ended up bingeing it. And then I watched it again.
It made me realise I’m only 26. I have life to live. And if Scott Hunter and Shane and Ilya can step out of the closet, then I can step out of the closet. I joined some Heated Rivalry fandom groups online and started to make friends, and then met them at a Heated Rivalry club night, which was my first time going to a club night. I felt like I was home for the first time.
I also got a tattoo with some other loons (Heated Rivalry slang for the fandom). It is Ilya’s words from The Cottage, “It's scary, but you're brave”.
Every time I look at it, I realise I am brave. Like Shane, I can take control of my life and wake up. I am excited for the first time in my life, and it’s because of Heated Rivalry, Rachel Reid and the fans of the show.
Heated Rivalry made me realise I need to embrace my sexuality
Lily: I was so surprised by how much I enjoyed Heated Rivalry. I don’t think I have ever watched a television show repeatedly like I have with this one and I did read all of Game Changers (by Rachel Reid). It made me want to live authentically. Which, of course, for me and I think for a lot of women in their 60s, means it was time for me to really consider for the first time my sexuality. I was most moved by episode 3. Scott Hunter’s bravery spoke to me very deeply. It is about choosing love, of course, but it is also about choosing your own happiness. Now my children have grown, I know it is time to live for myself. I have always been a dutiful wife and I believe a good mother. I have never felt the powerful love or excitement that Shane and Ilya have for each other.
Even though they are young professional athletes, their story feels universal. It is about choosing love, of course, but it is also about choosing your own happiness. I think it is time for me to do that.
Heated Rivalry saved my marriage and made me realise I'm non-binary
Rose 48: Heated rivalry saved my 20-year relationship and marriage and made me realise that I'm actually non binary and not a dysfunctional lesbian!
I found it back in November, and it's been living in my head every day since. There was something about the intense dopamine hit that it gave me that made me realise I'm allowed to feel joy. The last ten years of our relationship has been pretty horrible and lonely for me. The huge dopamine hit I get from watching or reading or thinking about Heated Rivalry helps me to let go of that. It made me want to start again and think about what made us be together in the first place and just focus on the now. And guess what, we have a sex life again!
Heated Rivalry also made me realise I’m non-binary. I had this overwhelming sense of "fuck this shit". Fuck all the stigma. I wanted to give myself permission to actually try to figure myself out, even if I left it late.
When you are in a newly happy again lesbian perceived relationship for 20 years and think about hot gay men every day, it makes you think.
Hudson (Williams who plays Shane Hollander) said in an early interview something about embracing your freak, even if it doesn't have a name yet. It was very sound advice!
So I sat with it for these past months and thought about it honestly for the first time ever.
I was always unhappy with gender and how to label my attraction to (practically all) women and (some) queer men. So, with Heated Rivalry, lots of reading, podcasts, and Olivia Coleman later: I'm non binary pansexual.
I still don't know if that particular freak of being equally enamoured with Rachel Reid as with Jacob Thierny has a name, but I'm done beating myself up about it.
Heated Rivalry transformed me
Gabby: Heated Rivalry started as a slow burn for me. One of my closest friends came over one evening in December 2025 and said they saw there was this new, apparently queer, hockey show on Neon. We pressed play and immediately I was transported.
What started as a background watch quickly became the main activity because I could not tear my eyes away from the screen. I had always known I was overtly, proudly, violently queer. In a way that always felt subversive and rebellious, and I revelled in that. It was like an armour. When I watched the final three episodes of season one alone in my living room, my life was well and truly changed. I had never had this type of reaction to a piece of media before, but through Heated Rivalry I was transformed.
There were many things that stuck with me. Yes I wanted to fuck Shane and Ilya, but I also wanted to be them. To experience love through a lens that had less to do with the patriarchy (interpersonally, externally, the patriarchy is alive and well in the NHL and Russia) and more to do with meeting a partner on equal social and physical footing - and being hot as fuck. It felt revolutionary to watch queer love be so purposefully, lovingly and openly depicted, and it made me feel revolutionary, too.
I became inspired. I started drawing more for myself and not just for work. I found community and had beautiful conversations with friends and lovers about the world and the joy we can find within it, even amid oppressive forces all around us. I joined my local YMCA, and now my biceps are 3 cm larger in circumference, which is pretty sick. Connor Storrie butt in the works.
I feel Heated Rivalry in my gut, in my bones, my heart and soul. The way this show has shown me that we author our own stories even in the face of immense strife is nothing short of miraculous. May this feeling never end.
Follow Gabby on Instagram here! She does amazing work!
Thank you to everyone who shared their stories with me. I'm sorry I couldn't include them all. Heated Rivalry still for me feels like a lovely gift that just dropped out of nowhere. It makes me very happy and I love to see how happy it makes others.
I also think it's just very important to lean into joy at a time when there just isn't much joy around. I have been to two Club Hollonov parties, and I've read all the books and a heap of fan fiction, and I think this escapism is exactly what many people need.
Just remember that not everyone can escape so make sure if you're consuming and loving queer media you're fighting for the rights of queer people world-wide.
Arohanui Emily x
If you're in Aotearoa you can watch it on Neon. (Not an ad! Not sponsored!)
And if you haven't had enough Heated Rivalry here is 5000 words more!
Emily Writes
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