NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman Shares His Thoughts on ‘Heated Rivalry’

Here’s what hockey’s most powerful man had to say about the acclaimed show.

Connor Storrie (left) and Hudson Williams (right) have made Heated Rivalry one of hockey’s biggest-ever pop-culture hits. | Rich Polk/2026GG/Penske Media via Getty Images

The biggest thing to happen to hockey this year has nothing to do with the Avalanche or Lightning or any NHL contender. The biggest thing to happen to hockey this year is a fictional TV show—a small Canadian production that suddenly finds itself one of the biggest shows on Earth.

Heated Rivalry, an HBO Max import created by Letterkenny executive producer Jacob Tierney based on author Rachel Reid’s 2019 novel, works from a simple premise: What if two of hockey’s biggest stars were passionately in love? The series has resonated far beyond the LGBTQ and hockey communities to become a pop-culture sensation, and has now caught the notice of NHL commissioner Gary Bettman.

"It's a wonderful story," Bettman told reporters in Washington Thursday via Sammi Silber of The Hockey News. “The content—particularly for young people—may be a little spicy, so you have to balance that out... I thought the storyline was very compelling.”

Bettman added that he finished the six-episode series in one night. Though it fictionalizes much about the professional hockey world—the two protagonists play for the “Boston Raiders” and “Montreal Metros,” for instance—the show takes obvious cues from the NHL that Bettman singled out.

“(It was) a lot of fun, because I could see where they were picking at things we (as a league) had done in the past, whether or not it was being in Sochi or the All-Star Game in Tampa. It was very well done,” Bettman said.

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