The reason people are so captivated by Heated Rivalry, the new Crave romance adapted from Rachel Reid’s popular novel, isn’t just because the storyline is unprecedented, but because the two main characters find queer joy in impossible circumstances. In doing so, the series creates new possibilities for imagining relationships, masculinity and society.

The show centres on a romance between two professional hockey players, Ilya Rozanov (Connor Storrie) and Shane Hollander (Hudson Williams), who are rivals in a fictitious professional hockey league.

Queer joy in Heated Rivalry unsettles hockey’s hypermasculine order and makes new ways of relating seem possible. As my research on queer joy articulates, this form of joy holds transformative, collective power for reimagining the world beyond oppressive norms.

It’s no wonder that far from being limited to the show’s large queer fan base, straight women are also hooked. Men who are emotionally attuned, show vulnerability and express care are rare in a world increasingly dominated by the manosphere and its violent misogyny.

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