With over 10.6 million viewers per episode, Heated Rivalry has turned out to be the sleeper TV hit of 2025. Its popularity even brought its two main actors into the spotlight as torchbearers for the 2026 Milano Cortina Olympics.
The steamy Canadian show is based on a niche hockey romance novel by Rachel Reid, which follows protagonists Ilya Rozanov and Shane Hollander as star players on fictional hockey teams Montreal Voyageurs and Boston Bears.
Fierce rivals on ice, they fall in love and maintain a secret relationship over ten years, navigating the challenge of coming out in the hypermasculine world of professional hockey.
While there are no openly gay hockey players in the NHL, there are a number of queer hockey couples in the PWHL (Professional Women’s Hockey League) and former CWHL (Canadian Women’s Hockey League) who met as rivals and are now in romantic relationships. Read about some of these real-life heated rivalries — including the one that partially inspired Ilya and Shane’s story.
The duelling Gretzky successors
Rivals: Sidney Crosby vs. Alex Ovechkin
Competing teams: Pittsburgh Penguins vs. Washington Capitals
League: NHL
Active rivalry years: 2005 to present
Status: respectful rivals
| Stats and accolades | Sidney Crosby | Alexander Ovechkin |
|---|---|---|
| Teams | Pittsburgh Penguins | Washington Capitals |
| Stanley Cups | 3 | 1 |
| Olympic golds | 2 | 0 |
| Hart Trophies (MVP) | 2 | 3 |
| Rocket Richard (goals) | 2 | 9 |
| Art Ross (points) | 2 | 1 |
| Career points | 1,704+ | 1,600+ |
| Career goals | 634+ | 900+ (NHL record) |
| Playoff H2H series | 3 wins | 1 win |
| Head-to-head points | 95 | 68 |
Sidney Crosby and Alex Ovechkin’s two-decade rivalry is partially the basis for the plot of Heated Rivalry, though for the record, Crosby and Ovechkin have no romantic affiliation in real life.
It’s easy to see the similarities between Crosby, the “good boy” Canadian captain, and Shane Hollander, while Reid lists Ovechkin as one of the “flashy European players” who inspired Ilya Rozanov.
Crosby (Penguins) and Ovechkin (Capitals) were each the #1 overall pick and debuted on the same night in 2005. They were quickly pitted head to head in the media. One of their most famous showdowns was a tense physical altercation in 2009. That preshadowed a legendary Stanley Cup semi-finals game where the players scored dueling hat tricks.
Crosby would go on to win three Stanley Cups in 2009, 2016, and 2017, while Ovechkin wouldn’t win his first until 2018. Canada also crushed Russia in the 2010 Olympic hockey quarter-finals, with Crosby going on to score the “Golden Goal” that brought Canada the gold medal.
Ovechkin hasn’t won an Olympic gold yet, but in terms of career goals, he has surpassed Crosby, and any other NHL player, as the NHL’s all-time leading goal-scorer. As of November 2025, he has 900 career goals.
In later years, the heated rivalry between Crosby and Ovechkin has cooled to a mutually respectful, but still driving force between the two star players. Ovechkin has referred to the rivalry as something that gave him “more motivation, more energy”, while Crosby’s take is even more relatable: “It’s fun to compete and still be doing it”. Here’s to many more years of that.
The fiancée foes
Rivalry: Anna Kjellbin (Sweden) vs. Ronja Savolainen (Finland)
Competing teams: Toronto Sceptres vs. Ottawa Charge, Team Sweden vs. Team Finland
League: Professional Women’s Hockey League (PWHL)
Active rivalry years: 2024 to present
Status: Engaged
| Stats and accolades | Ronja Savolainen | Anna Kjellbin |
|---|---|---|
| Teams | Ottawa Charge, Team Finland | Toronto Sceptres, Team Sweden |
| Olympic experience | 3x Olympian (2018, 2022, 2026) | 2x Olympian (2022, 2026) |
| Olympic medals | 2 Bronze (2018, 2022) | 0 |
Anna Kjellbin and Ronja Savolainen met while playing on the same side in the Swedish Women’s Hockey League. In 2024, they were drafted to competing teams in the Professional Women’s Hockey League. Kjellbin now plays in the Toronto Sceptres and Savolainen for the Ottawa Charge, mirroring the traditional rivalry between Toronto and Ottawa as capital cities.
Kjellbin and Savolainen dated for five years and are currently engaged, but on ice, they don’t let personal relations stop them from doing what’s needed to win. Savolainen has even said she’s not afraid to body-check her fiancée if she gets in her way: “On the ice, she’s my enemy.”
The rivalry carries over on a national level too. For the Milan-Cortina 2026 Winter Olympics, Kjellbin played for Team Sweden while Savolainen played for Team Finland. Although the two countries were placed in different preliminary groups, they would have faced off in the quarterfinals had Finland not been defeated by Switzerland 1-0.
At least that created the opportunity for a novel-worthy “aww” moment. With Finland out of the running, Savolainen could fully throw her support behind Sweden in the spectator stands — wearing the Swedish jersey and all — in the semi-finals against their shared enemy, Team Switzerland.
The best-on-best team captains
Rivalry: Caroline Ouellette (Canada) vs. Julie Chu (US)
Competing teams: Team Canada vs. Team USA
League: the former Canadian Women’s Hockey League (CWHL)
Active rivalry years: 2001 to 2014
Status: Married
| Stats and accolades | Caroline Ouellette | Julie Chu |
|---|---|---|
| Teams | Team Canada, Les Canadiennes | Team USA, Les Canadiennes |
| Olympic medals | 4 gold | 3 silver, 1 bronze |
| World Championship medals | 6 gold, 6 silver | 5 gold, 4 silver |
| NCAA legacy | 3x champion (UMD) | All-time leading scorer (at retirement) |
| College award | Patty Kazmaier Finalist | Patty Kazmaier Winner (2007) |
Caroline Ouellette and Julie Chu are the poster couple for the enemies-to-lovers hockey trope. The two have faced off in no fewer than six World Championships and three Olympic finals: 2001 Salt Lake City, 2010 Vancouver, and 2014 Sochi. (Team Canada won in all three.)
The Canadian and US women’s teams are far and away the most dominant teams in hockey. Historically, the two teams have been the last women standing in the Olympics, competing in seven of the last eight Olympic gold medal games.
Ouellette and Chu were both team captains for Canada and the US, respectively, and to top it off, even sported the same jersey number, 13. This rivalry was as hot as it gets.
It all began in 2002 in Salt Lake City, where a well-circulated image of Ouellette knocking down Chu and blocking her from the puck captures the fierceness of their competitive spirit.
Current Team USA captain Hilary Knight has spoken about how Team Canada brings out an aggressiveness reserved for their cross-border archrivals: “It’s heated, your blood boils and you just want to put the other girls through the boards and put the puck in the back of the net and win.”
The two captains remained adversaries throughout the 2010 and 2014 Olympics but found common ground when they teamed up as coaches for the women’s hockey team at University of Minnesota Duluth in 2007. Later they became teammates for the CWHL team Les Canadiennes.
The relationship blossomed while the two hockey stars continued to juggle their competing commitments as professional Olympic rivals, teammates, and lovers, eventually fully coming out.
After retiring from international competition, today the couple work as professional hockey coaches. They share two daughters and live together in Montreal.
The golden girls
Rivalry: Gillian Apps (Canada) vs. Meghan Duggan (USA)
Competing teams: Team Canada vs. Team USA
League: CWHL
Active rivalry years: 2007 to 2014
Status: Married
| Stats and accolades | Gillian Apps | Meghan Duggan |
|---|---|---|
| Teams | Team Canada | Team USA |
| Olympic medals | 3 gold | 1 gold, 2 silver |
| World Championship medals | 3 gold, 5 silver | 7 gold, 1 silver |
Gillian Apps and Meghan Duggan are another iconic rivals-to-wives couple born out of the Canada-US hockey rivalry. They had been competing against each other for seven years before mutual friends introduced them at a personal level in 2013. When the 2014 Sochi Olympics rolled around, they were secretly dating while preparing to face off in the Olympic gold final.
They had previously also competed in the 2010 Vancouver gold medal game between the US and Canada. Canada won then. The two women competed again in the World Championships in 2011, where the US took gold, and in 2012, where Canada regained the championship.
So the stakes were high at Sochi in 2014. Canada seized gold with a 3-2 game in overtime. For Apps, this was her third straight Olympic gold, but the triumph came at the cost of a huge emotional strain on her relationship. “I didn’t know what it felt like to lose at the Olympics, and she’d never experienced what it felt like to win,” reflected Apps.
Apps retired in 2015 and Duggan finally got her moment in 2018 at Pyeongchang, when the US beat Team Canada 3-2 for Olympic gold. Apps had flown to South Korea to support her partner, though it must have been a bittersweet feeling to watch her former team lose to their biggest on-ice nemesis.
Today, the couple are married with three children. Duggan works as Director of Player Development in the NHL, while Apps is a high-level portfolio strategist at a consulting firm. They might not be hockey enemies anymore, but the drive behind their seven-year rivalry has clearly put them in good stead for their current executive careers.
