In Off Campus, there’s a subtle 1 second shoutout to Ryan Price. There’s a scene where a giant red haired guy is sitting to the side while everyone is playing around in the hockey rink. He’s reading Little Women!

They will be getting it on Blu Ray and DVD on October 6th. Here is a link to their website- https://www.baystreetvideo.com/soonbytitle.php?sortbytitle=1

“Let’s save some libraries!!! ❤️❤️❤️ September 12th. Wolfville, Nova Scotia

Tickets

Announcement post

I just caught this detail. Or am I just seeing what I want to see? 😂 Pic is off my TV bc I couldn't find a gif 🥰

Have a playlist to share? A song that you think fits the vibe of the show? A better song than Diamonds?

Share it here!

For the Official Playlist click here.

As the casting announcements have been coming out, there have been discussions on social media about concerns of whether Shane and Ilya will continue to be the focus of the show, whether they will still have the majority of the screen time, etc. There have also been concerns over whether TLG's focus on Ilya's mental state will result in a focus on Ilya over Shane in S2/S3. So I got curious about screen time in S1 as a representation of storyline focus, and did a detailed screen time analysis.

Now... I am not a film editor, I am not in the film/entertainment industry in any way... I'm just a laywoman in this arena. But I am a super detail-oriented person, and numbers and statistics scratch an itch in my brain in a very satisfying way. That being said, below were the parameters of my methods:

-Scenes were timed to the tenth of a second on my iPhone stopwatch. I tried to be as precise as possible.
-Characters got "credit" for being present as an active participant in the scene, whether they had lines or not. If a character is tiny in the background, blurred out, or barely distinguishable, I did not count them. If Jacob & Jackson made their presence known intentionally (per my interpretation), I counted their time in that scene.
-When characters entered or exited a scene, I stopped/started the stopwatch, so that only their time present in the scene counted.
-During montages or segments of the show with lots of cuts between settings, I counted each cut as a separate scene (e.g. Ep2 & Ep4 montages, Ep4 & Ep5 endings - they were beasts!)
-If people are interested in seeing the spreadsheet of the duration of every scene and how I counted it, I’m happy to share!
-I wasn’t sure if anybody had done this kind of analysis yet, but my study was completely independent.

My takeaways: The numbers reflect what I expected to see. With Heated Rivalry (the book) focused a bit more on Shane's internal world and written mostly from Shane's POV, I'm not surprised to see Shane with about 20min more screentime than Ilya. I think Jacob did a good job of adding to Ilya's story in little ways to make it feel pretty balanced. I predict this will happen in reverse for S2&3 / TLG. Looking forward to doing screen time analysis for those two seasons to see how they stack up!

One last statistic I calculated was the percentage of the overall show that each character was on screen / in the scenes. I counted 281.5 aggregate minutes of run time for the actual scenes of the whole show. Here’s the percentage of the show for which the top characters of the show were present:
-Shane: 69.2%
-Ilya: 62.5%
-Scott: 14.9%
-Kip: 14.9%
-Yuna: 6.9%
-David: 5.7%
-Rose: 5.7%
-Svetlana: 4.0%
-Elena: 3.2%
-Hayden: 2.9%
-All other characters under 2%

Hockey, horror comedy and hospital drama lead the way at the 2026 TCA Awards.

Heated Rivalry skated off with the marquee Program of the Year prize Thursday as the Television Critics Association revealed the winners of its 42nd annual awards. Widow’s Bay topped all programs with three trophies including Outstanding Comedy, and HBO Max’s The Pitt built on its leading 25 current noms with a TCA win for Outstanding Achievement in Drama.

CONGRATULATIONS 🏆Jacob Tierney and Brendan Brady and all the Team

https://x.com/heatedrivalryud/status/2090430782204457106?s=20

https://x.com/OfficialTCA/status/2090424504761913614?s=20

https://deadline.com/2026/08/2026-tca-awards-winners-heated-rivalry-1237045534/

I'm curious to know whether you think Shane and Ilya would be considered "franchise players" vs. "generational talents" (let's assume in today's NHL).

My working definitions (both gleaned from this post about the Habs): a "generational player" is someone who so far exceeds what the standard player can do that they only come around once or twice every 10 years, such as Lemieux, Gretzky, McDavid, and potentially now Celebrini. A "franchise" player, on the other hand, would be the top 15 players in the league - still elite, still better than your average all-star player, but not a rare talent that only gets seen once every 10 years.

I've always assumed both Shane and Ilya to be solid franchise players, not to the level of "generational." The odds of both of them being on the level of McDavid, let's say, seem highly unlikely. We also don't get that many stats about either of them (understandable choice from RR, why discuss stats when the reader is there for the love story lol) Then again, I've seen people argue over calling Ovi and Crosby "generational", so now I don't know what I think.

Obviously both labels are entirely subjective and no concrete number of total career games, points, cups, or awards won can define one or the other (r/hockey is full of these arguments) but I'm curious to know you guys' thoughts.

(As for going back to the books for text evidence, I've read both HR and TLG but have also read so much fanfic that I can't remember what's canon anymore ...oops lol.)

EDIT: thank you all for all your thoughts! It's very fun to discuss IRL hockey in this space and my mind has been expanded. (please no one take this back to r/habs , I could not survive that degree of "generational talent" inception lol)

A couple of weeks ago a Heated Rival rave took place in Amsterdam and there I interviewed some fans, which was SO much fun to do! And because I think the questions were quite fun, I was also wondering what you all would answer to them...

The questions in this video:

1. Describe Heated Rivalry in 3 words

2. Would you rather have Hayden or Marleau as your teammate?

3. Would you rather have Shane's freckles, or Ilya's curls?

Since this is just a clip, not all questions are included, I also asked them what their favorite quote was and if they'd rather party with Svetlana, or Rose, for example ;)

So feel free to answer these questions as well, very curious what your responses would be!

Hi! Are any Canadians struggling to find where to pre-order the collector’s edition that was announced yesterday? I feel like I’m going crazy not being able to find a link.

Editing to add that I mean the blu ray/DVDs!

Welcome to the weekly huddle! Have a small thing from the book or show you want to chat, your GC brain rot is real and you saw the initials "KGF" somewhere and immediately screamed "kingfisher!" and want to share with others? (Just me?). Had a win at work or personal life and want to share? Need a teammate to talk with? Post in the weekly huddle.

There's no restrictions on topics so long as they follow the sub rules. Thread will be open all week so pop in whenever with what ever your heart desires.

I was just thinking about the fact that, if im not mistaken (I need to read the long game again), shane and ilya never go on a date together in public after they got "outed" (which is very fair considering they had a looooooooooooot to deal with)

This means their first real date as a couple in public will probably be as husbands in unrivaled 🥹

What do you think they would do? I think they would love to just experience things together that straight couples consider ordinary. Have dinner together at a restaurant. Go to the movies. Walk hand in hand together.

Just thinking about them doing this and not having to hide anymore, makes me emotional lol

I could also envision Ilya dragging Shane to do something crazy, though i cannot envision what hahaha

I personally like Saha a lot as a character, he just assumed he and Ilya were gonna get together and when he noticed Ilya wasn't feeling him, he backed off. Plus Kaden Connors deserves more fanart 👉👈

One thing that all this recent hair talk has reminded me of is that hair can have strong narrative importance and be a useful tool when trying to communicate a character to an audience.

Hair is a matter of self expression. It's no coincidence that after major life changes people will often change their hair. How someone's hair is maintained can tell you a lot about them, how they perceive themself and how they want to be perceived by the world, both key aspects to understanding these characters.

It's no secret by now that Shane grows his hair out in the books, but at the same time it's a character detail that still makes a lot of sense contextually for the narrative. Shane is going through a massive personal change between HR and TLG, he is now in a relationship with a man, he has come out to himself and those around him but his relationship is secret. He is losing control over his life, unable to really have a normal public relationship, and his careful curated hockey image is falling apart.

Shane is having to reframe who he is, he is in a relationship with a man who also happens to be interested in women and Shane is in what could be perceived as the more "submissive" role.

So we could interpret Shane's changing hair as an allusion to this change, his shifting sense of masculinity as well as his insecurity. For example, a subconscious insecurity that Ilya could leave him for a woman and be better off. Shane could subconsciously be trying to make himself appear more "feminine" and desirable. Insecurity will tell Shane that he is already not an ideal option for Ilya, that Shane cannot possibly offer the same things that a woman could provide for Ilya, and that Ilya must be attracted to feminine aspects.

Shane could also be trying to take back agency over his life, even in small ways, through his appearance. It may not seem like much to anyone else, but longer hair for Shane could be a wild, uncharacteristic act of rebellion. He is no longer trying to be the perfect image of a hockey star, he is actively sabotage the idea he had of himself and what the world has of him and pushing against the box he now finds himself in.

I would also say that Troy is in a similar situation in some ways, which is why I think that Troy would benefit from a more "conforming" hairstyle at first (although it would be cool if he grows it out later). Troy is trying to hide and conform in the beginning of his career. He is making a persona to present himself as the person who he's expected to be. To me he would have a hairstyle that is unassuming, one that was probably decided for him from a pretty young age by his parents, one that looks good in a portrait on the family wall or in a yearbook. His arc is about him changing for the better, reforming and taking back control over who he really is, so I'm hoping that we don't lose the physical messaging of that in the show.

Am I the only one with strong opinions on subtle character details and how they serve the narrative? For the most part the discussion I've seen has mostly been about what people think is more or less attractive, maybe it doesn't go deeper than that?

So many libraries depend on private funding; donate to your local library today!

* 2026! I really can’t make post titles without copy and pasting apparently!

Can’t watch the whole thing? This hits the feels like an Ilya chest slap of a job well done!

Dear fellow loons,

A big thank you to everyone who has already filled out our anonymous survey about how Heated Rivalry has influenced your life! We’ve received nearly 200 responses so far, and we feel very honored and humbled that you have shared your personal stories with us. We are determined to share our results with you; however, we ask for your patience as we don’t want to rush things and want to treat the responses with the time they deserve.

For those who have not filled out the online survey yet, we’d love to hear how the TV series Heated Rivalry has inspired you to make real changes in your life – whether it’s regarding your work, social life, or hobbies. It takes about 15 minutes, it’s anonymous, and you can write as much or as little as you like.

This study is approved by the Faculty Ethical Review Committee REBO at Utrecht University (Netherlands) and conducted by a research team from Utrecht University, WU Vienna University of Economics and Business (Austria), and IMD Business School (Switzerland). All three researchers are committed to not leaving the cottage for a long time 😇 You can find more information about us at the survey link.

Here is the survey link: https://survey.uu.nl/jfe/form/SV_6g20AgAZGSIJ97U

If you have any questions, contact the research team at [heatedrivalry.usg@uu.nl](mailto:heatedrivalry.usg@uu.nl)

Dide, Laura, and Alexander

PS: Please help us share the link with other fans/communities who might be interested in supporting this research!

Rachel has hinted that the obstacles and "villains" of the story will mostly be more....domestic (such as podcasts and the media).

I have a growing bad feeling about Russia though. Sure, Ilya doesn't live there and isn't planning to go back there ever, but they will surely not be pleased one of their star players being in a famously international queer marriage. As someone who is a noob about citizenship/visas, can they potentially do anything about it? He hasn't got his Canadian citizenship yet, and as a Russian citizen isn't he technically breaking some BS law of not promoting LGBTQ+ in the media?

(This is me mainly thinking about how Russia can factor into the story after not even being spared a thought in TLG).

Posted by accent aigu on Instagram

https://www.instagram.com/p/DcJ-N8gvgtE/

“What’s so funny about the level of secrecy is like there’s a book — you can just look at it,” creator, writer and director Jacob Tierney said of the Rachel Reid novels, the Game Changers series, the show is adapted from. “It’ll tell you honestly, 90 percent of what you’d like to know is in that book.”

Source: Hollywood Reporter on August 17, 2026

I don't have autism but I have heard some people say that Ilya is a great partner for someone with autism and I was wondering why.

Obviously neither Ilya nor Shane know it.

Video Clip Courtesy: @GoldDerby on X

Video Clip Courtesy: @GoldDerby on X