Possibly it’s all of the helmets and protecting gear, or the truth that it takes place on a freezing-cold ice rink, however hockey doesn’t have fairly the identical “scorching issue” as the remainder of the extensive world of sports activities.
Although, belief us, most gamers look puck-ing good beneath these shin pads and mouth guards!
Fortunately, writer Rachel Reid understands that there’s a variety of untapped queer potential in tales about guys who work up a sweat whereas gliding throughout the ice, and she or he’s written a complete man-for-man fantasy sequence about it!
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“Sport Changers” is Reid’s assortment of books all concerning the steamy homosexual romances of hockey gamers, every centered on completely different characters, from a professional star who falls for a juice bar barista within the unique Sport Changer to an anxious athlete who woos a hockey-hating musician in Powerful Man.
Hilariously, it’s sort of exhausting to inform what sort of viewers these novels are literally for as a result of they every have two very completely different cowl variants—one which makes them seem like candy YA love tales a la Purple, White & Royal Blue, and one other that makes them seem like like lurid grownup smut within the grand custom of Fabio.
Anyway, this week, The Hollywood Reporter has announced that Heated Rivalry—the second e-book in Reid’s “Sport Changers” saga—is getting the tv remedy, courtesy of (the place else?) Canadian streamer Crave, a.ok.a. the house of Canada’s Drag Race.
As that title would possibly indicate, the story facilities round a years-long secret affair between two star gamers from rival groups: Shane Hollander of the Montreal Voyageurs and Boston Bears captain Ilya Rozanov, who’s initially from Russia.
In different phrases, it sounds a bit like Romeo & Juliet meets Disney’s Miracle meets, effectively, Purple, White & Royal Blue!
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Right here’s the official synopsis: “What begins as a secret fling between two confused youngsters at 17 evolves right into a years-long journey of affection, denial, and self-discovery. Over the subsequent eight years, as they chase glory on the ice, they battle to navigate their emotions off of it. Torn between the game they dwell for and the love they’ll’t ignore, Shane and Ilya should determine if there’s room of their fiercely aggressive world for one thing as fragile—and highly effective—as actual love.”
It’s not instantly clear if Crave’s six-episode TV adaptation will monitor the total eight years of their relationship, or simply meet up with them as adults at a crossroads of their lives, however both means it appears like a homosexual sports activities story we are able to root for.
The sequence will likely be directed by out actor-filmmaker Jacob Tierney, who’s maybe greatest often known as a creator and star of long-running Canadian sitcom Letterkenney, and—again within the day‚ was an unique member of The Midnight Society in young-adult horror anthology Are You Afraid Of The Darkish?
“Heated Rivalry had me hooked from the very first chapter,” Tierney tells The Hollywood Reporter. “At its core, it’s a phenomenal love story with characters who really feel actual and so deeply human.”
However to deliver that story to life, he needed to discover stars that would ship the “coronary heart, warmth, and chemistry that made the e-book such a fan obsession,” and it looks as if he’s executed simply that by casting two relative newcomers who’re destined to hitch the ranks of web crushes.
The primary is Vancouver-based actor Hudson Williams, who will play the Quebecois hockey star Shane Hollander. Beforehand, Williams has appeared within the hit CBS procedural Tracker, the Hallmark vacation film All I Want For Christmas, and quite a lot of quick movies, so it’ll be thrilling to see him step into his main man standing.
Enjoying Shane’s Russian paramour Ilya Rozanov is Connor Storie, whose previous credit embrace the indie soccer drama Riley—another story about a gay athlete!—and the infamous Joker: Folie à Deux. If his face seems to be acquainted, you would possibly acknowledge him from a small however pivotal position in that film’s stunning and controversial last minutes.
A fast glimpse on the guys’ Instagram pages tells us they’re in tip-top athlete form, and some of Williams submit appear to trace he’s been training his hockey recreation since not less than early April, so there’s likelihood filming is already roughly full on Heated Rivalry and it could possibly be coming earlier than we predict!
And although the Crave streaming service is barely accessible in Canada, The Hollywood Reporter notes that Bell Media is dealing with worldwide distribution rights for the sequence, so let’s hope we’ll be capable to see it right here within the States earlier than too lengthy, too! Fingers crossed!
Within the meantime, be happy to familiarize your self with Hudson Williams & Connor Storie by way of a number of extra of their Instagram posts:
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