‘No one can know’: Heated Rivalry’s gay love story exposes ice hockey’s culture of silence

The surprise hit series has reopened a familiar debate: why, in the National Hockey League, visibility is still treated as a problem rather than a possibility

At around the midpoint of the first episode of Heated Rivalry, just after Shane Hollander and Ilya Rozanov - one Canadian, the other Russian, both hockey's top prospects - have had their first tryst, Hollander sits at the side of his hotel bed and says: So. You're not going to tell anyone about this, are you?" Rozanov, lying naked beside him, replies sarcastically: Me? Yes, Hollander, I'm going to tell everyone." Hollander reinforces the point: Because no one can know," he says. Rozanov utters something under his breath in Russian, then: Hollander. Look, I'm not going to tell anyone, OK?" Hollander replies: OK."

No one can know. If hockey were to have an unofficial slogan, this might be it. Heated Rivalry, the surprise 2025 hit series from Crave and HBO, is layered drama, prompting timely questions about the barriers to acceptance that persist within sport even as they are lowered elsewhere across society. But it may be that hockey's existential battle with its culture of silence is the show's deepest target.