From Heated Rivalry to the White House, hockey is having a strange American moment | Dave Schilling

Kash Patel's partying went viral and the US men's team came to Washington. Now it's all part of the culture war

Ah, hockey. The most impish of sports. A bunch of blissfully beefy individuals wearing colorful sweaters zoom around in skates chasing a wee little object called, of all things, a puck". It's adorable. It's like A Midsummer Night's Dream for people missing teeth. These days, if you're talking about hockey, you probably are thinking about HBO Max's gay sex-capade romance, Heated Rivalry. In the TV series, two hockey players on opposing teams fall in love, engaging in various erotic scenarios in between smashing each other into plexiglass. Actually, maybe that second part is connected to the first part.

Heated Rivalry has become an absolute phenomenon, enthralling American audiences despite all the factors that might prevent someone less than tolerant from connecting with the show - it's gay, it's about one of our least popular major team sports, and most damning of all, it's Canadian. It might as well be about talking beavers. And yet, it's a major hit that's done a lot of good for healthy representation of the LGBTQ+ community.