How Heated Rivalry went from the page to the screen

Last week, the show Heated Rivalry skated onto streaming, and within hours, it became one of the most widely discussed television series on social media. Viewers were shocked by the electric chemistry between the show's main characters, Ilya Rozanov (Connor Storrie) and Shane Hollander (Hudson Williams), professional hockey players who play on rival national teams, and engage in a steamy romance.

The show, distributed by Crave in Canada and HBO Max in the United States, currently sits at number 5 on the latter's top U.S. series ranking — right under It: Welcome to Derry, Smiling Friends, and Mad Men. But before the show was brought to life on the small screen, the creators worked with the source material: the Game Changer series by Rachel Reid. (Heated Rivalry, published in 2019, is Book 2 of the series.) Her books were popular and caught the attention of the show's eventual creator, Jacob Tierney, who DMed Reid on Instagram in 2023, saying he loved her books and was interested in adapting them into a filmed production — the same week she was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease.

The author wrote a blog post on her website in September about the experience, recounting that shortly after they connected, she and Tierney hopped on a Zoom call to discuss their idea for the show. Reid mentioned how well Tierney demonstrated how he understood her characters and their world. "When I read an early draft of the first episode of Heated Rivalry (which Jacob was so excited for me to read) I felt a lot of things (all good), but the thing that made me the most emotional was the respect I saw for my work throughout that script," she wrote in the blog post. "It was touchingly faithful, but also so thoughtful about the characters and the story. My writing had been taken seriously. I can’t say this enough: I am so, so lucky to have Jacob at the helm of this project."

Reid said she was kept in the loop on the entire casting and production process, but left it to Tierney, the producers, and the rest of the team. "When I heard the glowing reviews of Connor and Hudson's chemistry test, I was excited. More actors were cast, and I was thrilled by every single one. Just the idea that an actual professional actor was going to play a character that I’d created felt unreal." She goes on to compliment the two actors on their commitment to playing the characters she created truthfully and accurately.

The author visited the set during filming and wrote about her first time meeting the show's stars. She recalls the first time she met Williams, writing that she doesn't even remember what she said to him but feels she made a great first impression. When she met Storrie, she admits that she was nervous. "It’s just…he’s playing Ilya, y’know? Fans have high expectations for that character, and so do I," she wrote. "While on set, Connor always spoke with a Russian accent. So I met Connor basically as Ilya. But not really because he was obviously speaking as himself, just with the accent. What I’m saying is it was a LOT for my brain to deal with in the moment, since I was barely holding onto reality anyway."

Reid continued, "I’m trying to chat like a normal person, but he’s wearing that orthodox cross necklace, and he looks and sounds like a character I’ve been carrying around in my imagination for years. It was a lot. But he was so nice and so enthusiastic with lots of thoughtful questions. I really liked him right away."

After the show wrapped its first season, she wrote about her excitement for fans to see the show. "The only thing that was hard for me was letting my characters go. I knew how well Jacob had written them, and I knew how well the actors had portrayed them, but still, the night before the show was officially announced, I was emotional," Reid wrote. "It was the last night the characters were just mine. But then, the next day, I saw the excitement from fans, and I saw the adorable TikToks that Connor and Hudson filmed for the official account, and I stopped worrying about anything."

Now that the show is out, it has quickly found fans thanks to the genius of Reid, Tierney, Williams, and Storrie, who created this world for fans to enjoy in a visual format. After the first two episodes premiered on Friday, fans of the show began clamoring for more and their patience will be rewarded every Friday until the season finale on December 26.