Now that I’ve talked about Rachel Reid’s novel, Heated Rivalry, it would only make sense to disect the Canadian show of the same name!
I believe I might have already mentioned that aside from the story, I was extremely interested to see what Jacob Tierney would do with this novel. I only know his work on Letterkenny and Shorsey, two unbelieveably funny, and wildly different shows. How was he going to adapt such a different genre? Well, if you are any good at your job, you’re going to do it well, and he did! It helps that he had such good source material to draw from. In fact, a lot of the dialogue was verbatem from the novel, so maybe Reid has a future in visual media! But still, it takes skill to adapt something from the page to the screen, so thankfully his career has prepared him to do so very well.
It was also cool to see two unknown actors take the lead roles here. I have never heard of American Conner Storrie or Canadian Hudson Williams until this series popped up on my social media feed just a couple of months before the air date. That’s neat! And it’s clear they have a bright future ahead of themselves, because not only did they expertly bring Ilya and Shane to life on the screen, respectively, but they both just genuinely seem like delightful human beings off camera. Sometimes getting unknown actors is a great way to create a show with no outside bias. It just lets their work do the talking – and they did!
As I said, the show manages to follow the novel very, very closely. Even details you wouldn’t normally get made their way in! The only thing they didn’t do was have the characters’ inner dialogue translate to the show. I feel like that decision was for the best. It gives the actors the chance to really flex their physical muscles to see what they can portray without words. And honestly, I think they did a great job with it! You can see the fear in Shane’s face, and the subtlties in Ilya’s when he’s looking tough but you catch the softness in his gaze towards Shane.
To add an even more impressive layer, we even get a bit of two other characters’ lives that are featured in Reid’s first novel of her series, Game Changers. Hockey player Scott Hunter and barista Kip get the whole third episode dedicated to their love story, though in an abridged version. But getting a glimpse into their love life is important, because later in the season, their very public display of affection for each other completely changes the trajectory of Shane and Ilya’s future. It gives them immense hope and it also seems to give them the push to give into the love that they both clearly harbor for each other.
At only six short episodes, I don’t want to take away any of the fun from watching this fun romance sports show for you, so I will leave it there. Just know that they did the book justice and that there is another season in the works already! I don’t think I’ll be waiting to read the second book, but I know it will be in good hands. It also sounds like Tierney bought the rights to all of the books in Reid’s series, so I’ll be interested to see what the future holds for those works. If the media is anything to go by, it seems a lot of people are feral for her words, so why not give us more?!