{"id":46114,"date":"2026-02-23T15:31:31","date_gmt":"2026-02-23T15:31:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/usa\/15-details-you-mightve-missed-in-heated-rivalry\/"},"modified":"2026-02-23T15:31:31","modified_gmt":"2026-02-23T15:31:31","slug":"15-details-you-mightve-missed-in-heated-rivalry","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/usa\/15-details-you-mightve-missed-in-heated-rivalry\/","title":{"rendered":"15 details you might&#8217;ve missed in &#8216;Heated Rivalry&#8217;"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i.insider.com\/6967e96064858d02d2185b36?format=jpeg\" alt=\"characters from hheated rivalry press image in tuxes\"\/><figcaption>Hudson Williams and Connor Storrie play hockey rivals who fall in love on HBO&#039;s &quot;Heated Rivalry&quot;.<\/p>\n<p>Sabrina Lantos\/HBO Max<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<ul>\n<li>&quot;Heated Rivalry&quot; has concluded its first season, but that doesn&#039;t mean fans have stopped obsessing.<\/li>\n<li>While we wait for season two, here are some Easter eggs and fun details you might&#039;ve missed.<\/li>\n<li>There are nods to at least two other leads in the &quot;Game Changers&quot; book series in the show.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Just when you thought you were out, we&#039;re pulling you back in. <\/p>\n<p>&quot;Heated Rivalry&quot; may have completed its six-episode run in December, but it&#039;s never a bad time to, well, &quot;reheat.&quot;<\/p>\n<p>If you&#039;ve somehow missed out on &quot;Heated Rivalry&quot; mania, here&#039;s a crash course. The Canadian series stars Hudson Williams and Connor Storrie as Shane Hollander and Ilya Rozanov, two rival hockey players with a big secret: They&#039;ve been hooking up on the down-low for their entire careers.<\/p>\n<p>It&#039;s based on a series of hockey romance novels by Rachel Reid called &quot;Game Changers,&quot; named for the first book (&quot;Game Changer&quot;), which focuses on the love story between New York hockey star Scott Hunter (Fran\u00e7ois Arnaud) and Kip Grady (Robbie G.K.), a smoothie shop worker with dreams of attending grad school.<\/p>\n<p>After &quot;Game Changer&quot; came &quot;Heated Rivalry&quot; \u2014 the main source material for the show \u2014 then &quot;Tough Guy,&quot; &quot;Common Goal,&quot; &quot;Role Model,&quot; &quot;The Long Game,&quot; and the upcoming &quot;Unrivaled,&quot; which will be released in the fall.<\/p>\n<p>In the agonizingly long wait for season two, we&#039;ve combed through the first season&#039;s six episodes to find Easter eggs, fun details, and more that were scattered throughout the show.<\/p>\n<p>Here are 15 details you might&#039;ve missed in season one of &quot;Heated Rivalry.&quot;<\/p>\n<p>Creator Jacob Tierney has a cameo in the first episode as the director of a commercial starring Shane and Ilya.<\/p>\n<figure><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i.insider.com\/699c71f7efb52c8bd0dea905?format=jpeg\" alt=\"jacob tierney in heated rivalry\"\/><figcaption>Jacob Tierney is also known for his role in the Canadian series &quot;Letterkenny.&quot;<\/p>\n<p>Crave<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>He&#039;s the guy wearing the beanie behind the monitor.<\/p>\n<p>This isn&#039;t the first hockey series Tierney has been involved with \u2014 he co-created &quot;Letterkenny&quot; (which he also sporadically appeared in) and was a director and executive producer on its spinoff &quot;Shoresy.&quot;<\/p>\n<p>The fictional hockey podcast heard throughout the season, &quot;Man in the Crease,&quot; is hosted by two real Canadian radio personalities.<\/p>\n<figure><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i.insider.com\/699c71ea156648bc16a8b2de?format=jpeg\" alt=\"scott hunter running\"\/><figcaption>Episode three is aptly titled &quot;Hunter.&quot;<\/p>\n<p>Crave<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>If you&#039;re a fan of Montreal hockey, you might recognize the hosts of &quot;The Morning Show with Conor McKenna and Shaun Starr&quot; as the two voices behind the fictional &quot;Man in the Crease&quot; podcast, a pretty consistent provider of hockey exposition throughout the season.<\/p>\n<p>In episode three, Kip and his friends thank The Kingfisher&#039;s bartender, Kyle. He&#039;s one of the main characters in &quot;Common Goal,&quot; the fourth book in the series.<\/p>\n<figure><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i.insider.com\/699c6fdb156648bc16a8b27f?format=jpeg\" alt=\"kyle and co at the kingfisher in heated rivalry\"\/><figcaption>Kyle is played by Matthew Finlan.<\/p>\n<p>Crave<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>The Kingfisher is an important location throughout the &quot;Game Changers&quot; book series, as the favored hangout of Kip and his friends, including its bartender, Kyle, who is named in episode three.<\/p>\n<p>Kyle is one of the two protagonists of &quot;Common Goal,&quot; which is about his relationship with New York Admirals goalie Eric Bennett.<\/p>\n<p>There&#039;s a piece of art that resembles the set for Dropout&#039;s &quot;Game Changer&quot; in the smoothie shop, perhaps a nod to the novel &quot;Game Changer,&quot; Scott and Kip&#039;s story.<\/p>\n<figure><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i.insider.com\/6998c1f3156648bc16a8a085?format=jpeg\" alt=\"the art in heated rivalry and game changer\"\/><figcaption>&quot;Heated Rivalry&quot; and &quot;Game Changer.&quot;<\/p>\n<p>Crave; Dropout<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>This could be a reach, a happy accident, or a really subtle Easter egg, so walk with us here.<\/p>\n<p>The spiral print, seen hanging in the smoothie shop, is the exact same shape as some of the set decoration of a game show on Dropout.<\/p>\n<p>Why is this significant? Because the name of the show is &quot;Game Changer&quot; \u2014 <em>also <\/em>the name of the novel focused on Scott and Kip that the third episode is based on, and the inspiration for &quot;Game Changers,&quot; the title of the overarching book series.<\/p>\n<p>A poster for Rose Landry&#039;s film &quot;Under Dark&quot; can be spotted at a bodega.<\/p>\n<figure><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i.insider.com\/699c71db156648bc16a8b2d6?format=jpeg\" alt=\"the bodega in heated rivalry\"\/><figcaption>&quot;Under Dark&quot; gets a namecheck in the next episode.<\/p>\n<p>Crave<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>To the left of Kip&#039;s head, you can see a poster for &quot;Under Dark,&quot; an apparently bad film starring Rose Landry, the movie star whom Shane briefly dates in the next episode.<\/p>\n<p>Rose herself calls it a &quot;horrible FBI movie.&quot;<\/p>\n<p>Producer Brendan Brady has a cameo as the director of a different commercial in episode four.<\/p>\n<figure><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i.insider.com\/699c71ce2237a6a8f0cda3ac?format=jpeg\" alt=\"brendan brady in heated rivlary\"\/><figcaption>Brendan Brady has a blink-and-you-miss-it cameo.<\/p>\n<p>Crave<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>At the beginning of episode four, we see a montage of Shane and Ilya&#039;s relationship over a couple of years, as they stay in contact during the offseason.<\/p>\n<p>Brady, one of three credited executive producers on &quot;Heated Rivalry,&quot; plays a director of one of the commercials Shane shoots \u2014 he does one for an underwear brand, and another for cologne.<\/p>\n<p>Ilya and Shane have a brief conversation about another player, Ryan Price, while watching TV. He&#039;s the main character of book No. 3, &quot;Tough Guy.&quot;<\/p>\n<figure><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i.insider.com\/6998c9f82237a6a8f0cd9352?format=jpeg\" alt=\"heated rivalry\"\/><figcaption>They discuss Ryan Price while watching highlights on TV.<\/p>\n<p>Crave<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Ryan, in both the books and the show, is what&#039;s known in hockey as an enforcer. Basically, his unofficial job is to protect his teammates by intimidating the other team (and sometimes by getting into fights) \u2014 but he doesn&#039;t enjoy it.<\/p>\n<p>In &quot;Heated Rivalry&quot; (the book), readers meet Ryan while he&#039;s on the Raiders with Ilya, and the two connect during a flight.<\/p>\n<p>That scene didn&#039;t make the show, but Ilya does tell Shane during a conversation that Ryan &quot;is not what you would think&quot; and calls him quiet but &quot;not [a] bad guy.&quot;<\/p>\n<p>It&#039;s unclear if Ryan will be introduced in season two (or three) of &quot;Heated Rivalry,&quot; but if you&#039;re interested, you can learn more about him by reading &quot;Tough Guy.&quot;<\/p>\n<p>A commenter shown during the social media montage is a nod to Rachel Reid, author of the &quot;Game Changers&quot; series.<\/p>\n<figure><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i.insider.com\/699c70ae156648bc16a8b2a2?format=jpeg\" alt=\"commenters on the shane rose relationship\"\/><figcaption>Specifically, it&#039;s @reidoftherachelle.<\/p>\n<p>Crave<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>The first commenter, who wrote &quot;You can feel the chemistry through the screen omg,&quot; has the username @reidoftherachelle, almost certainly a nod to &quot;Heated Rivalry&quot; author Rachel Reid, whose real name is Rachelle Goguen.<\/p>\n<p>Shane tells his parents he doesn&#039;t want to waste the two weeks he has off a year with some stranger; that&#039;s exactly how long he&#039;ll spend with Ilya at the cottage.<\/p>\n<figure><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i.insider.com\/699c70e4efb52c8bd0dea8ca?format=jpeg\" alt=\"shane and his parents\"\/><figcaption>Shane and his parents are close, but they don&#039;t know everything about their son.<\/p>\n<p>Crave<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Sensing that Shane is in a funk, his parents (Yuna and David) tell him that Rolex wants him to attend Wimbledon and sit in their box, and sit next to a &quot;Swedish princess.&quot;<\/p>\n<p>However, Shane rebuffs them, saying he &quot;only gets like, two weeks off a year&quot; and doesn&#039;t want to spend them &quot;next to someone he doesn&#039;t know.&quot;<\/p>\n<p>That&#039;s because, of course, he wants to spend them with someone he <em>does <\/em>know. In the next episode, Shane invites Ilya to his cottage and says that they &quot;could have a week or even two&quot; together.<\/p>\n<p>In Rose&#039;s newest movie, she seems to be playing a Mystique-esque character.<\/p>\n<figure><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i.insider.com\/699c71c02237a6a8f0cda3a6?format=jpeg\" alt=\"rose&#039;s dressing room\"\/><figcaption>She&#039;s even getting painted blue.<\/p>\n<p>Crave<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>It&#039;s mentioned in the previous episode that Rose is in Montreal filming the new &quot;X-Squad&quot; movie, a clear reference to the &quot;X-Men,&quot; but it doesn&#039;t click into place that she&#039;s basically the Jennifer Lawrence of this universe until we see her getting painted blue and fitted with a red wig, just like Lawrence did when she played Mystique in four &quot;X-Men&quot; movies.<\/p>\n<p>During the title card for episode six, you can hear the distinct sound of a loon, or, as Ilya would say, a &quot;stupid Canadian wolf-bird.&quot;<\/p>\n<figure><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i.insider.com\/699c71b5156648bc16a8b2cb?format=jpeg\" alt=\"the title card for episode 6\"\/><figcaption>The title card for the season finale.<\/p>\n<p>Crave<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>For fans of the book, the cottage episode was always going to be a big deal, and they could breathe a sigh of relief when they heard a bird call over the title card for episode six, &quot;The Cottage.&quot;<\/p>\n<p>It meant that Tierney and the rest of the producers knew how important every little detail was, including a loon call, which Ilya would later mistake for a wolf (much to Shane&#039;s amusement).<\/p>\n<p>This little moment is so important to Ilya that, in &quot;Role Model&quot; and &quot;The Long Game,&quot; it&#039;s revealed he&#039;s even gotten a little loon tattooed on his arm.<\/p>\n<p>As Shane and Ilya drive to Shane&#039;s cottage, the song they listen to on the radio is the theme song for a Qu\u00e9b\u00e9cois show called &quot;Le chalet,&quot; or &quot;The Cottage.&quot;<\/p>\n<figure><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i.insider.com\/699c7149efb52c8bd0dea8e4?format=jpeg\" alt=\"shane and ilya in the car\"\/><figcaption>Shane speaks fluent French in the show and the book.<\/p>\n<p>Crave<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>The song is called &quot;L&#039;anarchie des jours heureux,&quot; and is performed by La Bronze. It translates to &quot;the anarchy of happy days&quot; \u2014 a sentiment that Shane and Ilya can certainly relate to during their secret getaway to Shane&#039;s cottage.<\/p>\n<p>Shane&#039;s Rookie of the Year award is on display at his cottage.<\/p>\n<figure><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i.insider.com\/699c717f2237a6a8f0cda39a?format=jpeg\" alt=\"shane&#039;s rookie of the year award\"\/><figcaption>He won it in the second episode.<\/p>\n<p>Crave<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>It&#039;s right up there on the ledge, on top of the blue book.<\/p>\n<p>We saw Shane win the award in the second episode, and we saw him mistake Ilya&#039;s stress about returning to Russia for jealousy about losing the award to Shane.<\/p>\n<p>Clearly, they got past it.<\/p>\n<p>Shane and Ilya switch clothes while at the cottage.<\/p>\n<figure><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i.insider.com\/6998d368156648bc16a8a440?format=jpeg\" alt=\"shane and ilya switching clothes\"\/><figcaption>They&#039;re wearing the same flannel.<\/p>\n<p>Crave<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>We first see Shane wearing the brown flannel when he&#039;s grilling burgers for the two of them (and getting teased by Ilya for not halving the recipe).<\/p>\n<p>The next night, Ilya rocks the same flannel when he tells Shane that he&#039;s got &quot;a problem&quot;: He can&#039;t stop thinking about another hockey player with &quot;beautiful freckles.&quot;<\/p>\n<p>All of the MHL team logos might have you doing a double-take.<\/p>\n<figure><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i.insider.com\/6998d647efb52c8bd0de9ad1?format=jpeg\" alt=\"the jerseys in heated rivalry\"\/><figcaption>From left: The Montreal Metros, the New York Admirals, and the Boston Raiders.<\/p>\n<p>Crave<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>This one&#039;s confirmed by Jacob Tierney: Almost all of the MHL logos in the show are either, for lack of a better word, phallic \u2014 or look like a butt.<\/p>\n<p>&quot;I&#039;m not trying to be subtle,&quot; Tierney said on an episode of the hockey podcast &quot;What Chaos!&quot;<\/p>\n<p>Read the original article on Business Insider<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Hudson Williams and Connor Storrie play hockey rivals who fall in love on HBO&#039;s &quot;Heated Rivalry&quot;. Sabrina Lantos\/HBO Max &quot;Heated Rivalry&quot; has concluded its first season, but that doesn&#039;t mean fans have stopped obsessing. While we wait for season two, here are some Easter eggs and fun details you might&#039;ve missed. There are nods to [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-46114","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-usa"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46114","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=46114"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46114\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=46114"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=46114"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=46114"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}