Heated Rivalry & me

how I emerged from under my rock to see & feel with the gay hockey series everyone's talking about

I’ll need to begin this piece with first a disclaimer, then a little bit of backstory. This is going to be a piece about a TV series I watched earlier this year.

I don’t watch much TV, and I watch even fewer movies. So I am oddly unfamiliar with not only what’s trendy and popular and hot when it comes to TV and movies, but also (even more strangely, I think) unfamiliar with movies and TV as a visual and artistic medium in general. I just don’t watch them enough for their tropes, tendencies, vibes, cadences to have become part of me. I know this sets me apart from a lot of other people today. I often describe myself as “living under a rock.” I love my rock. It’s dark and cool in the summer, warm and candlelit in the winter, and there’s green moss growing over my rock. You are welcome to come visit anytime.

My living under this rock also means, for this article and your reading of it, that I am not going to be writing this like someone who is at all impressive or expert when it comes to how to write about TV. I am sure that there are many writers here on Substack writing about movies and TV in elegant and moving and thoughtful and intelligent ways. I don’t read them, because I never know what they are talking about, but I am sure that they are there. I’m also sure that I am not one of them. So this article won’t be like that. Instead, I will simply be writing about how watching this TV series made me feel, and from the perspective of someone for whom the visual storytelling medium still feels really novel.

(I’m making space for being with my emotions this summer through my writing. If this is something you are interested in too, maybe you’ll consider joining me for our yearly online creative workshop. This year’s theme is writing to be with our emotions. We start tomorrow, Saturday 11 July. Get all the details here.)

And here’s a little bit of backstory.

It’s perhaps last winter, winter 2025. I am at a bookstore. Bookstores are my happy place. It’s not the main US bookstore chain that I most often visit, but another that has very few locations in the US; it’s originally a Canadian bookstore chain. This delights me because this store often carries books that I don’t find in locations of my usual bookstore. (Every bookstore in my usual chain is a little bit different from all the others, but still, they tend to carry a lot of the same books.) So I am excited.

Upon entering the store, I see a table full of books only by the gay MM romance author Rachel Reid. I am mystified, intrigued. I have read Rachel’s books before. I remember that she writes gay hockey romance. (I know nothing at all about hockey, have never watched a game in my life, but I’ll read pretty much any subgenre of queer literature at least once.) Why and how has she suddenly become popular enough to garner an entire table of her gay hockey novels displayed right at the front of the store? I have no idea. But I’m happy for her. I select one of the novels in her series that I haven’t read yet (plus a whole stack of other books from all around the store :) and go to the checkout to pay.

“Oh!” the bookseller says, scanning my Rachel Reid novel. “You’re watching the miniseries!”

Me: “What… miniseries?”

The bookseller looks at me, well, like I live under a rock (which I do). “Uh, the miniseries? You don’t know about the miniseries?”

Me: “Um… no. I, uh, don’t watch much TV. There’s a miniseries?”

The bookseller continues to look at me like I am a strange life-form from another planet. When I told this story to J, he found it funny that a bookseller found it so strange that I was buying a book just because I like this author and I like books, and not because, apparently, some of this author’s books have been made into a TV miniseries.

“Yeah,” the bookseller says slowly. “There is a miniseries. Heated Rivalry?”

“Heated Rivalry,” I say. “Okay. Is it on Netflix?”

“No,” they say, just as slowly. “It’s on HBO.”

“HBO. Okay.” I don’t have HBO, of course. I decide to also buy the book Heated Rivalry, in case I end up watching this miniseries someday.

Some months go by. It is a new year, it is spring. I decide I will get a month of HBO Max so that I can watch this Heated Rivalry; I’ve come to understand that it is, for some reason, a Very Big Deal. TV is usually not a very big deal to me. But this is special. It is rare that a series of gay MM hockey romances by a not very well known Canadian author becomes a Very Big Deal. It’s rare that any queer media at all becomes a very big deal. So for once there is a Venn diagram of overlapping interest here for me: gay book series + Very Big Deal TV miniseries = I will have to get HBO Max. And so I do.

And I watch.

***

Like I said earlier–I am not going to be writing about Heated Rivalry (the TV series) here like someone cultured and erudite. I know now truly what a VERY BIG DEAL this TV series is. It is rare that I am into something that has touched so many other people’s minds, hearts, imaginations. Usually, I live under a rock. But now I am part of a vast current of people who are writing, thinking, dreaming about Heated Rivalry. This is new for me.

I know now that there are people writing and speaking about WHY Heated Rivalry has become such a big deal, what it is about the series that has drawn people in. There’s stuff about, like, cinematography and acting skills: Connor Storrie’s microexpressions, his masterful Russian accent, the way his study of modern clowning (!) influenced his performance in the series. (I, predictably, had no idea that “modern clowning” was a thing before I started to read about Connor Storrie. You learn something new every day.) There’s also, like, psychological analyses, what about the series, the way it was written and the way it was shot, that appeals to folks, makes them feel a sense of emotional resolution or catharsis, or even a sense of hope. There has not traditionally been a lot of feelings of hope around queer visual media. That I can say.

I don’t know enough about the medium of cinematography to write like that, to say those things, to make those analyses, to be self-aware of me as a viewer in that way. I can only write, earnestly, about how Heated Rivalry made me feel.

***

They’re acting the story out!!!!!! I kept thinking. They’re the characters! They’re saying the things and they’re acting the story out! (Yes, I know, you can laugh at me. I am self-aware enough to know how absurd it is to be so floored by book adaptation as a concept.) This is how infrequently I watch TV, that I felt enchantingly unsettled by the fact that these “real” people were being the characters onscreen and acting the story out. I have seen some movies that are book adaptations before, but I very rarely enjoyed them, believing, like most book lovers do I think, that the book was better. I LOVED Heated Rivalry (the series). I am fully onboard.

The music! It was sexy! It both matched and enhanced what was going on onscreen.

The actors! They were so hot. They were so hot together.

The forbidden love story! The obstacles! How would they overcome these obstacles! (I did know the story, from having read the book, but what would it look and sound and feel like!) The love story was both so physical (the hockey uniforms! the contrast of the heat on the ice! the sexting! the tension of the waiting!) and so sweet (the things they would say to each other! the unsaid things, the poetic pauses!). Some people who know more about movies and TV than me have basically said that the love story, though unmistakably very male and very hockey and gay, is also sapphic. (Maybe that word hasn’t been used, but I believe this is the essence of what some people are saying.) There is something sapphic, light, ethereal, tender, hopeful, and sweet about this love story. And there is something in there that the storyworld of queer literature really needs.

The sex scenes were often shot in a really dark way that made things hard to see. I think this might be common in explicit movies and TV? I get it. As a reader and writer of erotic romance I am not that used to this. I am used to seeing whatever it is that I came here to see. It is there, for me to drink in and to imagine, to dwell with. With this kind of coy visual technique there is a yearning, a craning of the neck, a longing. We want to see. There is only so much we can see. Those are the feelings we have to dwell with.

***

Then there was the scene where Scott Hunter… (wait, should I say here that there are spoilers? Is that a thing? Well, I am going to do spoilers here)... where Scott Hunter kisses his secret boyfriend out on the ice in front of literally absolutely everyone after his team wins the Stanley Cup. (This is the big tournament in hockey, in case you didn’t know.) The ice is teeming with players, their wives and girlfriends and kids, the media, the press. Thousands or maybe like millions of people are also watching live on TV. He kisses his boyfriend. Everyone is watching. In an instant, they go from secret, from no one knowing, to literally everyone knowing, knowing everything.

Heated Rivalry is an otherworld, like every imagined world is, no matter how “realistic.” There is also a hard undercurrent of reality to it. There are no gay hockey players! There are no gay sports guys! The sports world is so homophobic. It will be so hard to be the first. Who is going to be the first?

Scott Hunter is going to be the first. He kisses his secret, now fully revealed, boyfriend in front of everyone on the ice. He has just won his team the Stanley Cup, he is still in his hockey uniform, his big skates. He kisses his man. It is celebratory, jubilant. It is tears of joy. There are always tears of joy when a team wins the tournament. Now there are also the kind of tears of joy that I feel when I go to the pride march and people say, “Happy Pride!” Like pride is a holiday, like your birthday or Christmas. It is cathartic, hopeful. It is the end of a long and hard journey, and also a new and uncertain beginning, but one built on love. It is shocking, galvanizing. Shane and Ilya, whose relationship is still secret, are both watching at their homes. Ilya calls Shane on the phone. He says that he will come to Shane’s cottage, that they will spend the summer together. There is the sense that they have hope now that their love has forward momentum, their love has a possibility, their love has a chance, their love has a place. We need the hope of the first. It is so hard to be what you cannot see.

***

I, too, cried when Scott Hunter kissed his boyfriend on the ice in front of everyone. I cried a lot. The mood was joyful and celebratory, but I was feeling sadness and grief. I felt grief for younger me, who never saw anything like this, in media or elsewhere, who couldn’t have even imagined seeing something like this. I still very rarely see myself reflected in queer movies or TV. (None of the main lovers on Heated Rivalry look or behave or live anything like me.)

I felt a longing sadness for a whole other version or dimension or lived experience of me. What if I had kissed a secret lover somewhere where everyone could see me? What if I was seen and loved and celebrated for who I was? I knew that in no reality would everyone love and accept me. There are even people close to me who would not love or accept this part of me. But what if some people did see and love and accept me? What if not only that, but in seeing me, other people felt a sense of hope, for themselves and their own love stories? What if I, a person living a story, were also a seed of hope? That felt so magical, so beautiful, so tender–and also so different from the story I actually lived when I was younger–that I cried. The story was the same, and the story was so different, and that is why I was crying. This story gave me space I needed, at just the time I needed it and my life was open to it, to grieve that lost possibility for me.

***

What have you watched, heard, read lately that gave you the space you needed to dwell with your own emotions? I think stories are magic. I think they visit us just when we need them and are ready for them.

***

And here’s an offering.

Every year, I host a summer creative workshop. The last few years, I’ve held it online, in order to be able to welcome more of my creative circle from around the world.

Every year, our creative workshop has a theme. This year, it will be writing to get closer to our emotions. I’ve needed more time and space lately to dwell in my emotional landscape, and space to share what emerges for me there. I think that our writing is such a beautiful space to let our emotions breathe, and that creative circle is a place to share them in both openness and an environment of safety. I hope you’ll be able to join us.

This year’s workshop begins TOMORROW! It will take place Saturday, July 11, 2026 & Sunday, July 12, 2026, 12 PM-3 PM ET / 11 AM-2 PM CT / 9 AM-12 PM PT / 5 PM-8 PM London time each day. I’ll be beaming it live via Zoom from under my rock here in Newark, New Jersey. :)

The investment for the workshop is $122 USD. Payment due & sign-up closes TODAY!, July 10, 2026.

This Substack, Dear creative dreamers, is free. I am glad to offer it to the community for free. If you’d like a way to support me and my work, and also spend just a few hours this summer fully focused on your writing and your own inner landscape, well, here is a beautiful way. :)

If you’ve never attended one of my workshops before, here are a few of the things we always do together in the circle…

• creative games

• time & space to connect with your beloved creative circle

• writing, reflecting & creative prompts

• a sacred container & loving safety to get to know yourself, and your creative circle, better

• time & space to share your works in progress and be witnessed, supported, and seen by your creative community

• tarot card pulls for the circle… come practice a little writers’ divination with us :D

• lots of laughter and lightness, and also space for tears, memories, stories, and sacred rage… we always laugh until we cry at the summer creative workshop

• before the workshop, you’ll receive some pre-workshop play to get you started, and there will be “love work” offered overnight between the 2 days of the workshop. After the workshop, all participants will receive some love letters & reflections & guideposts for moving forward, channeled especially for you by Mistress M. (M is my creative domme persona. :)

I would love to see you there.

Love always,

Nikki

• - -

Hey. I’m Mistress M / Nikki Ali. I’m a writer, writing guide, teacher, dancer, and creative activist based in Newark, New Jersey.

I am a person whose ancestors were enslaved people who helped build the structures of this country where I live. I stand with the lightworkers + those seeking the liberation of all peoples from oppression. I live + create most humbly on Mohican + Lenape territory, and I lovingly acknowledge the ancestors + elders, past and present, of the land on which we live.

• Do YOU know the ancestral elders of the land on which you live? Check out this tool, Native Land, to learn more. Educate thyself. ♥️

My creative works, outlook, and spiritual practice are all delightfully queer. If you, too, support the beautiful rainbow of all human experience, then I’ve got a table here with plenty of open seats, and you can totally sit with me. 🏳️‍🌈

I am a creative dominatrix who believes that everyone is creative and that everyone can find the creative rhythm that works for them, and that supports them in reaching their creative dreams.

I am the founder and editor-in-chief of Mistress M’s Community Publishing House, a full-service, boutique book incubator where we hold the values that no matter what our hearts desire to create, there is an audience seeking it; that, by putting our work out into the world, our audience will find us; and that there IS space in the marketplace for the offerings of our hearts.

• - -

If you wanna support this small black-woman-owned creative business, :D, I have SO many offerings cooking in the chamber.

Find all my good things at my new home on the web, mistressm.podia.com.

Write with me in our 2026 writing pathways here.

Work with me in a private 1:1, year-long writing container to write the book of your heart: Into The Chamber: The Intimate Author’s Container.

Make your writing your activism. Celebrate the rainbow of humanness over in Writing Gender Magic-a 7-day self-guided journaling course for exploring + celebrating your gender identity.

Sign up for my online writing course, Goddess Curious, an 8-day email writing course for the skeptic, the spiritual, and the curious, right here.

If you like writing with the energy of tarot, symbol, numerology, the Wheel of the Year, the seasons, the ancestors, manifestation, and anything else that brings us home to the magic of spelling is a spell, check out my book Writing Magic: 44 ways to cast spells, enchant your life, get intimate with your senses, and change your narrative through the power of writing. Ebook here. And paperback here.

Write through the tarot with me (if you like mystical + esoteric writing too, and questions without answers)! Our self-guided online tarot writing course is right here. <3

For all my published works, from my own queer erotic romance novels penned under my author avatar Nikki Ali, to books on writing guidance from your creative domme, to my popular community anthology Heart Art, check out my Amazon author page here.

And for Heart Art volume 3, get the paperback here.

Or the ebook here.

To order Mira’s Story, my novel published by Cinnamon Press in April 2025, find all the links here:

Find Mira’s Story @ the Cinnamon Press website

Find Mira’s Story @ Barnes & Noble

Find Mira’s Story @ Indigo

And, yes, you can also find Mira’s Story on Amazon.

To join my creative circle, in which I host monthly writing salons where we create together + practice our craft, support me on Patreon.

I work with writers 1:1 to create the writing rhythm that works for them, to unearth & polish the gems of their stories, and to help them reach their creative dreams. Interested in 1:1 work? Contact me at mistressmwriter@gmail.com.

For all things Mistress M, follow me on Instagram @mistressmwriter. Be sure to hit up the link in my bio to check out ALL my offerings.🙏🏾