I’m seeing so many bad takes about Skip > Hollanov and I just need to get this out of my system.
Listen, I don’t care if you like Scott/Kip more than Ilya/Shane. I’m just annoyed when people fundamentally misunderstand the characters and their relationship.
[Minor spoilers for episodes 1-3 of Heated Rivalry]
I didn’t love Game Changer; I thought it was a bit boring. I actually liked the Scott/Kip episode a lot more than their book. I thought it did a good job of distilling the best parts of the book and François Arnaud (my bi king) and Robbie G.K. were great in it.
Most importantly, I think episode 3 is important context especially for people who haven’t read Game Changer and Heated Rivalry. Getting to know Scott and Kip makes something that happens later more impactful not just for them but also for Ilya and Shane. And it also helps you understand Ilya and Shane more now that you have a different queer relationship and a gay hockey player (and a gay regular person) to compare them to.
1. Even when two people like each other and are able to communicate openly about what they want (as opposed to Ilya and Shane who can’t for various reasons), the fact that one of them is a hockey player is still a huge obstacle. Scott’s life is hockey and he’s scared he’ll lose it if he comes out. In 2025 it’s still rough for pro athletes who come out. In the show we’re currently in 2014. The NHL is the only professional league that doesn’t have any out players. There’s 600+ guys who play in the NHL statistically speaking there’s at least what 5-10% who are queer? But the environment being what it is no one has ever been brave enough to come out.
2. It’s one thing to be a queer hockey player in that deeply homophobic environment. It’s another thing to be two queer hockey players on rival teams. Boston and Montreal have been rivals for 100 years. The narrative the league has built around Shane and Ilya is huge. Yeah the league, people on their teams, a bunch of the fans, will react badly to their star players being queer. But the bigger drama is the fact that they’ll feel betrayed, like Shane and Ilya were lying to them the entire time. Loyalty is a huge thing in hockey culture and some fans might be like, whatever, I don’t care that you’re queer but you absolutely cannot be hooking up with someone on the rival team.
3. The personal stakes are different. Scott is a white dude.
Shane is Asian-Canadian in a sport that is very, very white. The fact that he’s half-Asian comes up several times in the show so far—when he’s drafted, when his mom talked about what it means for him to be visible, because lots of kids don’t get to see guys like him in the NHL. When the reporter compares him to Tiger Woods and Serena Williams. There’s no depictions of outright racism but they’re hinting that in the background shane is dealing with being a minority and at the very least deals with microaggresions on the daily.
Ilya is an immigrant. His family is toxic, Russia is not safe for queer people, and if he’s outted and kicked out of the NHL, he’ll have to go back to Russia and that’s his greatest fear.
4. Scott is also older than Ilya and Shane, and has had more time to figure his shit out. He knows himself and what he wants, he just hasn’t figured out how to make it work with hockey.
When Shane and Ilya first meet at the World Juniors, they’re only 17! Shane is still figuring out his sexuality. Ilya is the first man he’s slept with.
Ilya is more sexually experienced but is more emotionally closed off. He’s not struggling with his sexuality but struggling with how to be more vulnerable and communicate what he’s feeling. He didn’t grow up in an environment where he was emotionally supported, and has been dealing with a lot of trauma alone.
And then there’s Kip who has a supportive dad and a queer friend group and is living a normal life as an out gay man without the kind of public pressure bearing down on Scott, Ilya, and Shane.
5. On the flip side, I think some people like Scott and Kip more because their relationship is more “traditional”. Like it’s easier to understand what’s going on there. They have a meetcute. They fall in love and are in a committed relationship.
In comparison, Shane and Ilya seem “toxic” to some people. I don’t think that’s true, I just think Shane and Ilya are two confused young people on separate personal journeys trying to figure out their own shit as well as trying to figure out their much more complicated situation.
I think there’s a lot of misunderstanding especially with regard to Ilya’s character—people seem to think he’s being abusive or manipulative towards Shane or whatever. But he’s never intentionally hurtful or cruel to Shane and I think it’s obvious that he’s so smitten, he just scared to acknowledge his feelings and also even talking about them is hard because of the language barrier. At the end of the first sex scene in episode 2 Ilya clearly has a moment of panic when Shane kisses his forehead because he’s like, oh shit this is turning into something more than a casual hookup and that’s even more dangerous for both of them. So he gets the fuck out of there and tries to stay away.
It’s wild to me that people think that Skip is “real romance” and Hollanov is “just sex”. Just sex?!? The pining, the yearning, the flirting, the banter, the mutual concern and care—how is this lost on y’all???
Heated Rivalry is doing some great visual storytelling and it is completely wasted on people with zero media literacy. Connor Storrie and Hudson Williams are acting the shit out of those roles—their microexpressions in every scene are telling you so much in lieu of the internal monologues you get in the book.
Anyway episode 4 is about to drop in a few hours and non-book readers are about to get a taste of what a down bad lover boy Ilya Rozanov actually is, literally just the most romantic motherfucker underneath that asshole facade.
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