[SPEAKER_00]: Hello, everyone, and welcome back to room for us.
[SPEAKER_00]: A space where career voices thrive.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm your host, Pete, and every single week, I like to sit down, get vulnerable, and talk about all things queer with all of you.
[SPEAKER_00]: I hope you've all been having such a good week so far.
[SPEAKER_00]: I know this is being released on a Sunday.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was honestly just such a busy week in terms of work and prepping for the holidays, and I actually
[SPEAKER_00]: Friends, like longtime friends, Danielle, she was flying back from Australia and had a stop over in Vancouver and she was with her partner Matt.
[SPEAKER_00]: And we just had such a nice time catching up and grabbing drinks.
[SPEAKER_00]: It always reminds me of how beautiful it is to connect with your loved ones.
[SPEAKER_00]: After it has been so long and
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, she has her whole life when Australia and I've been here in Vancouver and just to come together and meet up every so often and just get that quality time is so, so precious to me, so I was really, really happy to see the two of them and I feel like the holidays can always make me feel very nostalgic because
[SPEAKER_00]: Crystal and I, we are actually going to be traveling home for a few days in January, which will be really nice to get that quality family time.
[SPEAKER_00]: But for the holidays, we're going to be like just the two of us, and we're going to take our cats to a little like farm house, Airbnb, situation, and check out some wineries.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it's just,
[SPEAKER_00]: reminds me of like how nostalgic and cozy the holidays can be.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I'm just really, really looking forward to that time, you know, to just relax and get like a new perspective, get a change of scenery, all of that is so, so important.
[SPEAKER_00]: So yeah, I think this weekend overall, like I know this is being released on Sunday, but the past a couple of days have been so nice for that connection.
[SPEAKER_00]: We celebrated a friend's birthday, we met up with some new people at a queer center, good scenes like neighborhood, which is Mount Pleasant.
[SPEAKER_00]: I feel like that's really good for that.
[SPEAKER_00]: And we went to vintage and provisions, which is one of our favorite spots.
[SPEAKER_00]: And yeah, overall it's been a very community forward weekend, which I
[SPEAKER_00]: I've been really aspiring for, especially since moving here.
[SPEAKER_00]: So all of that really, really warmed my heart.
[SPEAKER_00]: So feeling really good, especially going into this episode.
[SPEAKER_00]: But this episode is gonna be, honestly, it might be a little all over the place but I hope you can understand as I talk about it because I've been so excited about this new series.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I'm going to be talking about heated rivalry and what the queer community is saying and why it matters.
[SPEAKER_00]: So spoiler warning, I'm going to be talking about the plot, characters, some fan reactions and like what people are really discussing in general about the show.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I highly recommend if you haven't seen heated rivalry yet.
[SPEAKER_00]: Please pause this episode, binge watch the show, the first five episodes at this point are out.
[SPEAKER_00]: Watch it and please let me know what you think because I'm going to be basically talking about the whole thing and putting some spoilers in.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I recommend coming back to this episode.
[SPEAKER_00]: But I, as a viewer of the show, have been so locked in.
[SPEAKER_00]: I've honestly been locked in since the first episode.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm going to set the stage.
[SPEAKER_00]: of what heated rivalry is.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, heated rivalry is a hockey drama adapted from Rachel Reed's game-changer series that has honestly exploded in popularity on HBO Max and Crave, and it follows star hockey players, Shane Hollander, and Elia Rosenoff, two of the most elite talents in major
[SPEAKER_00]: whose intense on-ice rivalry masks are very, very complicated and years-long personal relationship.
[SPEAKER_00]: Overall, I would even say as I'm watching the series, this feels less like a sports trauma and it's more of a character study in disguise.
[SPEAKER_00]: So while guests like hockey is the backdrop, more of the series is about the emotional battles, like between the two of them and what they're going through in their personal lives and also their romantic relationship.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's really important to also recognize that Shane and Elia, these two characters, are two stars in very different worlds.
[SPEAKER_00]: So Shane Hollander, the first hockey player, is defined by success, but also restraint.
[SPEAKER_00]: So on the ice, he's controlled, maybe more predictable, like he's at the top of his game.
[SPEAKER_00]: So the kind of player that the league would really love because he's very disciplined
[SPEAKER_00]: But off ice, when it comes to his sexuality, he's very, very cautious and timid.
[SPEAKER_00]: And he knows the stakes of being visible in the cost that come with it in this like hyper-masculine sport.
[SPEAKER_00]: And Ilya, Rosanov, from Russia, in contrast, is equally capable, but he's far more expressive.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think he moves through the hockey world with a kind of openness, but he's not naive, but less afraid to be seen.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's not that he's reckless, but he's kind of already been living with a lot of complications of his own world, you know, like being in Russia and also with his family dynamic.
[SPEAKER_00]: The rivalry itself is rooted in how both of these two characters measure themselves against each other's emotional freedom and self presentation.
[SPEAKER_00]: You would think it would be a little bit like enemies to lovers, but I wouldn't even see it as that, because I never really saw the two of them as being enemies, especially within the first episode.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's kind of like how they're trying to balance their two world views like colliding, and what the pressure of fame and expectation is.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's definitely not like so much of a sports plot.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's really interesting to see that point of view, but like that hockey setting isn't like the drive.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's more like trying to see what the cultural groundwork of hockey is.
[SPEAKER_00]: So there's like the locker room talk, media expectations, and of course,
[SPEAKER_00]: team rivalry and I would say that is where those identities are tested at most.
[SPEAKER_00]: And one thing I think a lot of fans have noticed in this show is that there is a quick pace towards like Ilya and Shane's relationship.
[SPEAKER_00]: The explicitness is very, very intentional.
[SPEAKER_00]: So
[SPEAKER_00]: You'll know, like this show does not shy away from any intimacy, both emotional and physical.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I think that's also why this show has sparked so much buzz.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I would say it's like,
[SPEAKER_00]: not showing it to be like, oh, this is racely or this is like trying to show off some heat.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like I think that this is actually showing these two characters in such a vulnerable space where they're not allowed to just be open.
[SPEAKER_00]: publicly.
[SPEAKER_00]: So like the scenes you see of them being so intimate like you can feel like that is such a vulnerable space for the two of them and like the show can really really transform you into that space and like I feel like that's how I felt when I was watching these two characters like is felt very, very real to me.
[SPEAKER_00]: and community also really matters in this case like I've been searching online and it seems like when you look into the different characters so we have Shane and Elia who are both very closeted like they're not openly out and the roles around them are very hetero.
[SPEAKER_00]: 100%.
[SPEAKER_00]: Especially when you're seeing Shane's world, he's like the star athlete, his parents are very involved in his life.
[SPEAKER_00]: He's a little bit controlled and he himself, as a character, controls.
[SPEAKER_00]: Everything around him, he's very disciplined.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like for a big portions of the show, like when he is playing and he's like,
[SPEAKER_00]: on season and all that.
[SPEAKER_00]: He doesn't train.
[SPEAKER_00]: He's like always openly ordering like ginger ale.
[SPEAKER_00]: He like very rarely, like let's loose.
[SPEAKER_00]: And Ilya has this whole world in Russia where it is so constrained and okay, funny story quick is that
[SPEAKER_00]: This show is available on Crave, but I think you need like a certain subscription to actually see everything post episode one.
[SPEAKER_00]: So my subscription does not allow me to watch like episodes two onwards.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I had to find a stream and the funny thing is is like I cannot see some of the subtitles when the character Ilya is speaking Russian to his family.
[SPEAKER_00]: So there have been some portions that I missed fully, but what I was able to find out later on through the episodes is that Ilya definitely doesn't have a very close relationship with his dad and his brother.
[SPEAKER_00]: I know his brother and him are very distant.
[SPEAKER_00]: And
[SPEAKER_00]: he eventually tells Shane that his dad suffers from dementia and his mother passed away.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I found that out later because like all the scenes that were in Russian, unfortunately my subtitles weren't coming up, so that was me just trying to...
[SPEAKER_00]: put pieces together just by the seams.
[SPEAKER_00]: But basically you can kind of see that these two characters do not have the support in a way like you would hope they would, especially as they're coming to terms with their sexuality.
[SPEAKER_00]: But there is another character who we meet in heated rival
[SPEAKER_00]: who works out like a, it's like a type of cafe.
[SPEAKER_00]: Might be like more like a smoothie bar, and he is very, very supported by his friends and his family.
[SPEAKER_00]: And you don't see that like for Shane and Ilia.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I think that visibility is so important to see, especially for a character like Kip, because we've seen this trope in a lot of theories, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: We're like relationships.
[SPEAKER_00]: for gay characters are often kept secret and like they need to keep everything hidden because they don't want their circles to change and the whole plot is basically how characters grapple with their identity.
[SPEAKER_00]: But what was refreshing to see is that there is a character who is fully open
[SPEAKER_00]: And you really see that in one episode where Kip is actually dating another hockey player named Scott.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that is like one whole episode where we see this.
[SPEAKER_00]: And Scott is actually grappling with his identity because he doesn't want to be out in the hockey world.
[SPEAKER_00]: He doesn't want to be ridiculed all of that.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I think like it actually did show though another way to
[SPEAKER_00]: Bequeer and hockey like seeing Scott and Kip's relationship and how that unfolded.
[SPEAKER_00]: So it was like very soft and I actually really appreciated seeing that storyline and it was probably one of my favorites within the show and that was more of like Scott and Kip.
[SPEAKER_00]: I want to talk about quickly like why Scott and Kip story really mattered.
[SPEAKER_00]: So it kind of showed another dimension of like what the hockey world can be.
[SPEAKER_00]: So Scott, as a hockey player, is an older captain and he tries to navigate coming out while balancing his career and the fear of backlash.
[SPEAKER_00]: And Kip by contrast lives very openly and he's totally outside the hockey bubble and their relationship kind of shows a different kind of struggle.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's not really one based on secrecy between lovers, but more unlike the tension between personal identity and public image.
[SPEAKER_00]: So this is, once again, spoiler, their public kiss after the cup in episode 5 becomes a catalyst for Shane and Iliya to actually confront their own fear of visibility and repressed longing.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it shows that queer presence in sports, it should be showcased, like there are so many ways for people to arrive and like be out there publicly.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I just finished watching the last episode and honestly, I had goosebumps when I saw Scott and Kip kiss so openly in front of everybody because it's very, very groundbreaking.
[SPEAKER_00]: I was even having a conversation with my friends about how rare it is to see gay hockey players, gay football players, basketball players like
[SPEAKER_00]: it's so rare to see it in sport.
[SPEAKER_00]: And for this show, I just think it's very, very beautiful to display it.
[SPEAKER_00]: And the show basically, like after we see Scott and Kip kiss so openly on television,
[SPEAKER_00]: Ilya actually calls Shane and says I'm interested in coming to your cottage because throughout the series, you can kind of see that while Shane is very cautious and timid about his sexuality, he's very scared, you can clearly see it like he likes Ilya so much, but he is so scared of his feelings that he almost finds it easier to kind of run away from them.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then, there comes a point where he gets injured in a hockey game, and when he's at the hospital when Ilya visits him, Shane basically says, like, I want you to spend some time with me at my cottage.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, don't go back to Russia, spend some time at my family's cottage.
[SPEAKER_00]: We'll have to play store ourselves, like, let's just be together.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, he's clearly showing Ilya, like, this isn't just a friends with benefits.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, we're not just having sex, like, I like you.
[SPEAKER_00]: I want to be with you and I think I'm gay.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like I very much feel like I'm gay.
[SPEAKER_00]: And there's a plot line in the story where Shane ends up dating a pretty famous actress named Rose.
[SPEAKER_00]: And Iliya actually sees it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like because they have like a year's long relationship but they're also, they barely could just spend time together because they're both like playing at different times or on different teams.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like it's very spread out the amount of interactions they can have.
[SPEAKER_00]: So a lot of the times they do spend together,
[SPEAKER_00]: It's rare and then when Shane started dating this actress, they kind of went like they had a him and I had a bit of a follow between that.
[SPEAKER_00]: So when I was watching Shane like date this actress from what he was seeing on like the news, you could see it angered him.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like he was probably a bit jealous.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like he didn't love that.
[SPEAKER_00]: So
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm curious to see where the storyline with the Rose and Shane will go because Rose essentially finds out.
[SPEAKER_00]: Shane is gay, but she's so supportive.
[SPEAKER_00]: She's so okay with it.
[SPEAKER_00]: She's like, listen, I'm here for you.
[SPEAKER_00]: I could kind of send something and I genuinely want to be your restaurant.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, I want to be there for you.
[SPEAKER_00]: So that kind of happens with their dynamic.
[SPEAKER_00]: Um, so I think post that when Shane really realizes, yes, like, I think I'm gay.
[SPEAKER_00]: He really wants to go for it with Ilya because he's like, you're not just someone.
[SPEAKER_00]: I feel attracted to like, I, yes, that is a factor.
[SPEAKER_00]: But I also really, really like you.
[SPEAKER_00]: So it's kind of beautiful to see that and I'm curious to see where this is going to go in the show.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I think like seeing that with Scott and Kip is so important because Scott, as scared as he was, to be coming to terms of this sexuality, he was never playing
[SPEAKER_00]: about his feelings for Kip if that makes sense.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like he did not play about those feelings.
[SPEAKER_00]: Even though he was fearful, he told Kip right away, I want to be with you.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like I really like you.
[SPEAKER_00]: I am just scared of what this reception is going to be from the hockey community, but he made his feelings very, very known.
[SPEAKER_00]: So that felt very much like I'm not just hiding my relationship because of anything.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's like I want to show this, but I'm nervous about what the reception is
[SPEAKER_00]: Whereas with Shane and Iliya, it almost felt like Iliya also had a huge guard up one because of his family dynamics and also Russia as well, like not being accepting of gay people.
[SPEAKER_00]: So for them Iliya was also like, yeah, this is just friends with benefits, like a very defensive kind of feeling.
[SPEAKER_00]: But I think as I continue to watch the show, I was like, no Iliya,
[SPEAKER_00]: You can tell he's very close to off, but there are feelings there for shame, because once Iliya saw shame was dating somebody else in the media, he could not stand that, like something in his tune definitely changed.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I'm so curious to see where this goes and also like what this means for
[SPEAKER_00]: future shows where the story stands and also the hockey world and I was doing some like deep diving and I found some Reddit threads and there was something that I found on Reddit where there was like a thread going on about how people were saying like what does heated rivalry mean for
[SPEAKER_00]: hockey storytelling and people were saying that this isn't just a show, it's actually quite important and it's a very cultural moment.
[SPEAKER_00]: While like some critics within hockey culture argue that the show will not change locker room attitudes for closeted real-life players, others actually do see it as a step toward broader visibility in a space that is historically been silent about queer identities.
[SPEAKER_00]: So fans on reddit see those same structural pressures, which mirrors the push and pull we see in Shane and Ilias journey and We are following that journey for a year.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's like you see these two characters like so and wrapped in each other like
[SPEAKER_00]: Always seeing each other.
[SPEAKER_00]: They text each other as these code names, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: And they're in their phones as Jane and Lily.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it's like a whole secret.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I would say I love this type of representation.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think it's so important.
[SPEAKER_00]: I I feel like it's very raw and vulnerable and while people
[SPEAKER_00]: could feel uncomfortable with how much intimacy is displayed, because a lot of it shows that, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: But I also think it's very real.
[SPEAKER_00]: It shows this like urinating the two of them have for each other.
[SPEAKER_00]: And most importantly, I think, I
[SPEAKER_00]: me watching Shane as a character you can see his like how much desire he has for Ilya and like you'd never really seen that in his character before you know like I said he's a very by the book straight forward kind of guy like very very disciplined rarely let's loose but then when he meets somebody who he is ultimately like very crazy for it's
[SPEAKER_00]: a side of him that you're like, wow, he is fully in this and I think it's beautiful to see like when I was watching it, I was locked into the show and I have been week after week.
[SPEAKER_00]: And as I mentioned, I just finished episode five and cannot wait to see what continues with this story.
[SPEAKER_00]: I also want to read the book because I feel like that will give me such a different perspective and I kind of want to compare the two.
[SPEAKER_00]: I love seeing like book-to-screen adaptations and
[SPEAKER_00]: To be honest, he did rivalry with something I never knew was even based off of a book.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I'm excited to see where the show goes, and for all of you who are watching, please let me know what you think, especially if you're very involved in the sports world, and this is something you're interested in.
[SPEAKER_00]: I want to know what you think about the show, and if you feel like this is a good step to showing that queer representation, because
[SPEAKER_00]: As I mentioned, even like chatting with my friends at the bar, you don't see that representation at all in sports.
[SPEAKER_00]: It is still so taboo in 2025.
[SPEAKER_00]: And to me, like, I know that feels shocking, but that just is how it is.
[SPEAKER_00]: So,
[SPEAKER_00]: I am a huge fan, I feel like the soundtrack alone to that show is so, so good.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like there are certain songs now I hear that I'm like, I can't not think of Shane and Ilya and like their whole dynamic and the actors are incredible.
[SPEAKER_00]: I feel like you can tell they're also very close in real life and they're open and it's it's a very, very important show and I'm so happy to have started watching it.
[SPEAKER_00]: to see what happens in episodes six.
[SPEAKER_00]: But yeah, this was just me.
[SPEAKER_00]: I openly chatting about my thoughts and like why I feel like this show is so important and I cannot wait to see how it unfolds.
[SPEAKER_00]: But if you guys have been watching, he'd a rivalry, shoot me a DM.
[SPEAKER_00]: Let me know what you think.
[SPEAKER_00]: And we will have some very, very open chats about it because, yeah, I do think it's important.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's always important to see this kind of representation.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I think especially seeing this specific gay male representation, you know?
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, these two men are sports guys.
[SPEAKER_00]: Both of them, like very, very quote unquote, like masculine, heavy in the sports world.
[SPEAKER_00]: men who are so infatuated with each other and there's so much love there, you know, when you can really really see that and seeing Scott's character and how open he is with, like, how into Kip he is who's also a very openly like a mask man, you know, who's out with his friends and they know and they support him.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's, it's really, really great to see.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I hope you enjoyed this episode.
[SPEAKER_00]: Get my thoughts out there about heated rivalry and yeah, let's let's continue to tune in every single week.
[SPEAKER_00]: But I hope you enjoyed this episode and I will see you all next week.