It’s true. I—like 90% of the human species at this point—am spellbound and captivated by the gay hockey show. It has me in a chokehold and begging for my life back. I have two eyes, two ears, and a heart, I’m not immune. 

Heated Rivalry is a TV show based on the Harlequin romance series Game Changers by Rachel Reid. The story traverses a secret romance between two professional hockey rivals—Canada’s Shane Hollander and Russia’s Ilya Rozanov—and the trials and tribulations they go through while trying to keep their relationship under wraps for a decade. The show premiered on the Canadian streaming service Crave and HBO Max over the holidays, and went on to draw 9 million viewers per episode and over 600 million minutes of watch time in the US, increasing viewership on HBO by 300%. 

I don’t have to tell you that Heated Rivalry is a viral global phenomenon—everyone and their mother has binged it—Oprah and Helen Hunt watched it. But I’m also self-aware enough to know that I have nothing new to add to the discussion. The discourse around the series is a bottomless pit with laundry lists of every topic under the sun for people to overanalyze, just a few of them being: 

• How a small Canadian queer production miraculously broke containment and only kept growing larger as time passed, when most queer media struggles to circulate at all.
• A writer/director who trusted their gut enough to make good television with a small budget and unknown leads.
• Getting intimacy-as-a-plot-device right by giving the sex scenes the same consideration and attention-to-detail as any dialogue-heavy scene or fight scene.
• The excellent filmmaking techniques and subtext-driven storytelling guided by micro-expressions and dialogue as masking and obfuscation, proving that Netflix’s “casual viewing” rulebook—which insists that every character must announce what they’re doing every five minutes, because viewers are too busy scrolling their phones—isn’t necessary if you’re actually telling a compelling story.

But what I find most interesting is the way Heated Rivalry uses music as a plot device to drive the story forward. My favorite example is the club scene in episode 4. “All The Things She Said” by t.A.T.u soundtracks the two leading men dancing with women across the room from one another, trying their best (and failing) to mask that they only have eyes for each other. Pairing that scene with one of the most agonizing pop songs about queer yearning ever written, was the perfect way to encapsulate the pain, desperation, and loneliness that the main characters grapple with while living under circumstances that will not make it easy for them if they ever decide to go public with their relationship.

One other example of the music driving the character development is when the captain of the New York Admirals (the show’s fictional insert for the Rangers) Scott Hunter sprints through the streets of New York with Wolf Parade’s “I’ll Believe In Anything” blasting in his eardrums. Two episodes later, the song makes a triumphant return when he wins the cup and kisses his boyfriend at center ice. The wheezing synths and limb-snapping percussion create a tornado of bombastic noise and romantic catharsis, the thunderous climax of the song mirroring the emotional climax of the scene at hand.

Heated Rivalry showrunner Jacob Tierney told the What Chaos! podcast that he built two whole episodes around “I’ll Believe In Anything,” even structuring most of the dialogue around the lyrics so that Scott and Kip would get the payoff they deserved with their “big emotional rom-com kind of glorious celebratory moment” in episode 5.

I always love when directors use music as a medium for storytelling to its max potential. Instead of passively using the soundtrack as window dressing, Tierney actively wove the music of Heated Rivalry into the story, a method that was perfected by early 2000s media like The O.C. and Garden State—a phenomenon that music journalist Chris DeVille called the “2000s Hollywood indie rock cottage industry.”

“Filmmakers had always used cool music in their soundtracks, but that era stood out for the way indie rock so often became part of the plot. These shows and movies, in turn, became distribution systems, connecting the music with people outside the indie rock bubble (and often contributing to the music’s gentrification in the process).” – Chris DeVille, Such Great Heights

Shows like Heated Rivalry and The Bear mark a return to that specific era of music-as-storytelling, while also establishing new audiences for artists on the soundtracks like Wolf Parade, Wilco, Feist, The Replacements, Wet Leg, and more. 

With Season 2 just a year-and-a-half away, I’m bristling with anticipation to see what songs Tierney chooses to soundtrack the continuation of Heated Rivalry—which will be an adaptation of Shane and Ilya’s follow-up book, The Long Game. Below you will find a list of my ten dream needle drops for Season 2, along with the scenes I would like to see each song paired with.

WARNING: THE FOLLOWING CONTAINS HEAVY SPOILERS FOR THE LONG GAME.

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1. “I Feel It All” by Feist

Dream Scene: Chapter 1 of The Long Game opens with Shane and Ilya racing each other. If Mr. Tierney decides to also make this the opening scene of Season 2, it would genuinely blow some minds—taking every scene in Season 1 where the duo went on solitary runs while oceans apart, and bringing it full circle.

Feist is basically the unofficial patron saint of the show with “Sealion” and “My Moon My Man” soundtracking Shane and Ilya’s most pivotal moments in Season 1. Plus, “I love you more / I don’t know what I knew before / But now I know I wanna win the war” is the most Shane-and-Ilya coded lyric I’ve ever heard.

2. “Raised by Wolves” by Voxtrot

Dream Scene: A montage of Shane and Ilya coaching the kids at their foundation’s hockey school during their first summer together as a real couple.

3. “Anthems For a Seventeen Year Old Girl” by Broken Social Scene

Dream Scene: Broken Social Scene are my comfort Canadians, and it would bring me immense joy to hear this song in the background of the “play wedding,” officiated by Hayden’s kids.

4. “Группа крови” by Kino

Dream Scene: Ilya’s transition period during his first year living in Ottawa. I would love to see a montage of the adorable interactions with his neighbor’s kids, his drive-thru runs on daily commutes to the arena, and his regular dinners with Shane’s parents.

5. “Wolf Like Me” by TV On The Radio

Dream Scene: An angsty, high-octane montage of the Ottawa Centaurs going from game to game and progressively improving and clicking as a team until they eventually hit their winning streak.

I will also note that Tierney explicitly told Rolling Stone that he’s been listening to loads of TV On The Radio in his writing sessions, so it’s more than likely that a “Wolf Like Me” renaissance is on the horizon.

6. “Challengers” by The New Pornographers

Dream Scene: Since The Long Game closely overlaps with Troy and Harris’s story Role Model, it’s highly likely they will get their own standalone episode, like Scott and Kip did in Season 1. And I cannot think of a better song choice to soundtrack their first kiss than “Challengers.” The New Pornographers is another group that Tierney name-dropped as a part of his playlist for the Season 2 writing sessions, so my hopes are not far fetched.

7. “The Rat” by The Walkmen

Dream Scene: Shane’s emotionally turbulent drive home after he and Ilya have their first real fight as a couple.

8. “Mountain’r Lower” by Jessica Pratt

Dream Scene: The Centaurs regrouping after the almost-plane crash in Florida. The song is just quiet enough but also holds just the right amount of tension to soundtrack a pensive, post-traumatic debrief after a near death experience.

9. “Picture of Success” by Rilo Kiley

Dream Scene: Ilya and Svetlana’s reunion after not speaking for 3 years. I would specifically love to see Ilya take a lengthy, contemplative walk through Beacon Hill while “Picture Of Success” plays after sending Svetlana off in her cab.

10. A Carly Rae Jepsen Original (TBD)

Dream Scene: Shane and Ilya’s wedding. Tierney has repeatedly expressed a desire to collaborate with Jepsen on Season 2, and I trust him to deliver on his word. Plus, what better way to round out the season’s happy ending than with an original song from Canada’s sweetheart?

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