turning the ice into something warm and nice
by Douglas Messerli
Jacob Tierney (screenwriter and director, based on
the novel Game Changers by Rachel Reid) Heated
Rivalry / 2025 [TV series]
Episode 1, Season 1 “Rookies”
After repeated suggestions for changes from the
American producers to whom he attempted to sell the series, screenwriter and
director Jacob Tierney took his TV series to the Canadian online producer
Crave, with the American company HBO Max picking it up afterwards in the US and
selected territories, Neon in New Zealand, and Movistar Plus+ in Spain.
Although
the creators had imagined, at best, a minor success in Canada the series
eventually resulted in such positive review attention and audience support that
it became a phenomenally successful series, transforming its central actors—Hudson
Williams as Shane Hollander, Connor Storrie as Ilya Grigoryevich Rozanov, François
Arnaud as Scott Hunter and Robbie G.K. as Christoper “Kip” Grady—into top stars
and gay sex symbols, popular equally in the heterosexual world, particularly
among its large female audiences.
The
success of this series might be said to rest upon the fact that, despite some
American producers’ warnings that there should be no sex until at least the
fifth episode, Tierney wrote in three steamy sex scenes and a rooftop love
moment into the very fist episode, “Rookies,” and didn’t stop there! Right away
he made clear what so many filmmakers of gay films have never been able to
comprehend, that sex is the original binder of many gay relationships, even in
the case of two closeted males playing at the top layers of their sports. Deeper
love, even relationships, and coming out may follow, but it is the simple lure
of the two lean hockey player’s bodies that bring Shane Holland, an
Ottawa-born, Japanese-Canadian ice hockey player who soon becomes captain of
the Montreal Metros and Ilya Grigoryevich Rozanov, a Moscow-born Russian hockey
player who is selected to become the captain of the Boston Raiders.
From the
beginning these two top layer players have been pitted by the press as fierce
competitors. The two, in fact, are truly competitive as they have to be to get
to their positions on their respective teams. But the more they are staged as
rivals, asked to repeat a quick skate into the position of standing head-against-head
over a hockey puck, the more they begin to perceive their own opposition as a
staged role, in one case resulting in open laughter for the absurdity of
repeating the scene over and over.
In fact, even
perhaps unknowingly, they have a great deal in common. Ilya is a true outsider,
a Russian who speaks with a heavy accent (Storrie just happened to be a student
of Russian language and literature, perfect for the role) as well as facing constant
pressure from his brother Alexei Grigoryevich (Slavic Rogozine) to pay for his
family expenses, and Shane feeling some ostracization despite the Canadian
culture that has embraced him because of his own bi-cultural heritage.
They are
also just beautiful human beings and, at first without even knowing it, are gay-oriented,
although Ilya has a former girlfriend, Svetlana Sergeevna Vetrova (Ksenia
Daniel Kharlamova) who visits him, particularly after a planned meet-up in
Montreal with Shane falls through due to weather, when he engages with her in
sex.
Yet, in
this first episode, all other figures remain deep in the shadows as the two men
face off on the ice, get hot and steamy in the shower, and finally fellate each
other in bed. With regard to their sexual encounters, it is Ilya who makes the
first move, characterizing it, strangely, almost as a normative sports jock
activity, hinting that it is not at all unusual for jocks to be attracted to
other well-built, ass-obsessed sports companions.
Shane, perhaps because he actually senses
that he may be homosexual, is far more terrified of being found out, and even
backs out of that first shower scene which consists mostly of Ilya getting an
unseen hard-on and initiating what he hopes might be a mutual masturbation. But
the scene quickly progresses to a seduction, as Ilya suggests that he might knock
on Shane’s hotel door later that night, with Shane responding that he might
answer.
In this
first episode we do not yet know that Ilya has had other gay relationships, at
that he perceives himself as bisexual despite the fact that he comes from a
culture that criminalizes such activity and that his own father Polkovnik
Girgori Ozanov (Yaroslave Poverlo) is a well-connected Russian police officer.
Shane,
meanwhile, while appearing resistant, dresses up and then dresses down for the
occasion, carefully determines whether or not to have the TV on in the
background, and arranges the lighting as he awaits for the inevitable knock on
the door.
The first time, he eagerly sucks off Ilya, while coming far too quickly when Ilya reciprocates.
After
the All-Star Game in February 2011, Ilya provides Shane with his hotel room
number, and, despite the fact that his room is next to Shane’s fellow player, the
Montrealer shows up for another tryst, this time almost willing to let Ilya
fuck him, but frightened not only for his
response—he is evidently still a virgin despite
having employed dildos—plans for the sexual upgrade in their next meeting in
Montreal.
As I mention above, that match is cancelled, and their next encounter does not occur until four months later, at a time when Shane is named Rookie of the Year over Ilya, not the most felicitous moment for the two to engage in sex.
Indeed, Shane is angry with the fact that Ilya has remained mostly absent from the event, pouting, as he eventually finds him, on the hotel rooftop. But even here Ilya kisses him, Shane terrified that although they appear to be alone, someone might see them, and the public gesture is not yet something he can allow given the career and pressures put upon him by his mother and father.
The
episode ends with a challenge that serves also as a sexual promise to see one
another in the next season.
There’s not much time on the ice in this first
episode or a great deal of fraternizing with other players or characters. Here the
two central figures get to know one another primarily in bed.
Los Angeles, January 14, 2026
Reprinted from My Queer Cinema blog (January
2026).
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