Gay drama on ice races to cult status - and is set to raise temperatures in UK

Based on a hit novel about ice hockey opponents, the explicit series Heated Rivalry is already inspiring Queer as Folk-type adulation in the US and on social media

- Phoebe Davis

Last Tuesday Francis Dominic, a 32-year-old content creator, watched his first live ice hockey game at the Crypto.com Arena in Los Angeles. He arrived dressed for the occasion, sporting not a jersey for his local team, the LA Kings, but a T-shirt featuring one of the stars of his favourite show, Heated Rivalry.

Based on a 2019 novel of the same name by Canadian author Rachel Reid, the new hit show follows a steamy will-they-won't-they romance between rival ice hockey players.

The show first aired on streaming platform Crave on 28 November in Canada but it caused enough buzz that HBO Max picked it up for weekly episodes in the US and Australia before it was released. Although not yet available to stream in the UK, it is already trending on social media, and the book is at No 8 on Amazon's list of bestselling fiction.