Spoilers ahead for Heated Rivalry & Game Changers book series
Who would’ve thought a week ago that terms like “Shane Hollander’s arch” and “Rozanov’s bubble butt” would be so common online? What simple people we were, merely seven days ago, before Heated Rivalry occupied all of our waking (and sleeping) thoughts.
If you either threw your phone in a well 10 days ago or are straight, you may have missed the release of Canada’s newest and hottest show, Heated Rivalry. The show has been adapted from the second book in Rachel Reid’s Game Changers series that chronicles the love lives and coming outs of many of the best players in a fictional NHL league throughout the 2010-2020s. The book was a juggernaut, and due to the fervour surrounding it, Canada’s own Crave made the wise choice to adapt it for the screen, with the first three episodes airing over the past 10 days.
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Since the premiere, we have been privy to many different discourses, including the never-ending debate about whether it is necessary for (out) queer actors to play queer roles (and while I understand both sides of this debate, I think it is important to remember what happened to Kit Connor). I have also seen many online speculating about which real-life players could be living their own version of Heated Rivalry off the ice (don’t get me started on the invasive nature of IRL shipping because I will find a way to bring Dan and Phil into it).
In September, author Darcy Green offered Australian readers a local lens on the intersection of queerness and sport with their romance novel, After the Siren. It focuses on two AFL players embarking on a romantic relationship and the pressure that comes with being the first AFL players to come out publicly.
And just a few months ago, local icon Mitch Brown made history as the first player in the AFL’s 129-year history to come out as bisexual. Until this point, there had only ever been one other openly queer AFL player, Danielle Laidley, who was outed as transgender in 2020 after the police leaked photographs of her in police custody. In the few months since Mitch’s coming out, no other players have come out publicly.
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Heated Rivalry has everyone on X in a tizzy. Mitch was met with immense praise and adoration for his public display of bravery (not universally because, sadly, homophobic dickheads still exist, even at Lady Gaga concerts). After the Siren has received rave reviews.
So… how come there are still so few openly queer male athletes? And what needs to change to make it safe for players to come out?
I spoke with the aforementioned trailblazer, Mitch Brown, about what change he would like to see to make the sports space safer and more inclusive, from an insider’s perspective.
When asked what measures need to be taken to make it safer for queer male athletes to come out, Mitch had this to say: “We need environments where inclusion isn’t just about ticking a box, but something that’s embedded in everything we do. That means clear policies and education, visible leadership support, and everyday behaviours that show players will be backed, not isolated, if they come out.”
The fact of the matter is that society still has not progressed as much as it likes to think it has. Queer people are still penalised for being out, not just in sports but in every field. Studies in Australia show that gay men experience a negative wage gap, earning between 8% to 18% less than heterosexual men, with the numbers worsening for queer people from intersectional backgrounds.
@user5200045685092 Gay people hidden in Hollywood #podcast #caleb ♬ original sound – user5200045685092
Comedian and actor Caleb Hearon (the guy who apparently looks like he “broke into a bakery and ate all the pies”) had a really insightful quote on his podcast, So True with Caleb Hearon, about how it is still really difficult for openly gay/trans/queer actors to get roles in Hollywood. He revealed that many of our favourite male heartthrobs are in the closet and won’t come out because they believe it will negatively impact their careers.
What in the Rock Hudson is going on in Hollywood right now?
If the industry that is generally viewed as being the most queer friendly is suffering from these issues, then what hope is there for the traditionally homophobic ones?
For Mitch, there seemed to be an unspoken pressure not to break the mould; “The men’s AFL competition is steeped in tradition and masculinity, and that can make players feel like coming out might disrupt the status quo. Even without explicit pressure, the unspoken expectation to ‘just fit in’ can be really powerful. I also feel the traditional footy media landscape has a long way to go when it comes to inclusive and safe storytelling – the way they report shapes public perception, and I believe that would weigh on a queer player’s mind a lot.”
For all of the pride matches and pride merch leagues do, the NHL is banning pride tape from hockey players’ sticks in the year of our lord 2023 (a decision they soon reversed, but it is still a baffling choice to have made only two years ago). The NHL almost had its first openly queer player in 2021 with Luke Prokop, but despite being under an NHL contract, he has not yet competed in the league.
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I think a massive reason why the success of shows like Heated Rivalry don’t have much of a real-world impact is that shows like that exist primarily in an echochamber. The people seeing edits of Ilya and Shane to House Tour by Sabrina Carpenter are the very same people who have fine line tattoos, Clairo-inspired wolfcuts, and green velvet couches (bisexuals).
Promoting tolerance and preaching acceptance can only go so far when the audience on the receiving end are the same people who are fighting for these very things in their daily lives.
Additionally, there are plenty of valid criticisms that can be levied at gay hockey romance as a genre (or hockey romance more generally). In particular, we must acknowledge the conversations about how the success of this sub-genre has been shaped by race given that hockey is one of the whitest sports, with studies from 2022 showing that 84% of players identify as white. It does feel a bit uncomfortable that the most popular sporting romance subgenre consists almost entirely of white men, especially when you consider how few romance books there are about predominantly Black sports like basketball (with a 70.4% Black player base). I think it is important to acknowledge that while the representation of queer men in sports is great (even in fiction), there should be a lot more diverse perspectives being platformed (let’s give some more love to Loving the Legend by Kit Grey).
So, where do we go from here?
I hope that if life is imitating art (Heated Rivalry), that Mitch Brown is the AFL universe’s Scott Hunter, the game changer who bucked the status quo and came out on their own terms, and remains an inspiration for many to come. With any luck, in the coming years, we will get a slew of coming outs from other AFL and sports players in general who feel empowered, emboldened, and safe enough to do so. Who knows, perhaps Heated Rivalry will inspire a real-life wave of openly queer hockey players?
It’s nice to dream, isn’t it?