Ottawa’s annual Prime Time conference is usually where Canadian screen industry peeps talk shop, like what’s getting made and how to keep Canadian stories visible in an increasingly global streaming world. But on Thursday night, the conference took a rather heated detour into a full-on pop culture moment. Prime Minister Mark Carney showed up on the red carpet with Heated Rivalry stars Hudson Williams (a.k.a. Shane Hollander) and Sophie Nélisse, plus series creators Jacob Tierney and Brendan Brady!
After posing for photos, Williams handed Carney the white fleece his character wears in the series, and the Prime Minister fully committed to the bit, holding it up for the crowd like he’d just been presented with a Stanley Cup! He even joked that the sweater was “true soft power.”
The biggest laugh of the night came from one super wholesome exchange. Carney, standing beside Williams, urged the actor to “do the leg thing.” Williams obliged. Both men hugged and grinned for the cameras, and the clip promptly made the rounds on socials.
Later, Carney even referred to Williams as his “new best friend.”
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If you’ve watched the series (or, honestly, if you’ve simply existed on the internet lately), you’ve probably seen just how big Heated Rivalry has become. The hockey romance has built a serious global following, in part because it pushes back against traditional portrayals of masculinity in the sport.
For Carney, his appearance wasn’t just a photo op. After the red carpet, the Prime Minister spoke about the show more seriously, pointing to how its story reflects Canadian values at a time when LGBTQ rights are under threat in many places and referring to it as “a true made-in-Canada phenomenon.”
“The world knows that Shane and Ilya are rising hockey stars who fall for each other as they face off in one of the greatest rivalries the game has ever known,” Carney said in a speech at an industry conference in Ottawa. “But they’re also two young men who are terrified of being their fullest self. And we live in an increasingly dangerous, divided and intolerant world. And the hard-fought rights of the 2SLGBTQI + community are under threat, including in many of the countries where the show has record-setting audiences.”
Carney also used the speech to stir up a little America vs. Canada drama, noting that Heated Rivalry wouldn’t have been what it became if Tierney took the show to a U.S. producer. “This is a story that almost didn’t get told. We heard how studios south of the border were interested in Jacob’s vision, but wanted to, shall we say, tone in down,” he said. “So Jacob did the right thing, he did the smart thing: he came home to Canada. He came home to a nation that celebrates what makes us different. He came home to a country that values teamwork over going it alone.”
Thursday night also featured a surprise “In Conversation With Heated Rivalry,” moderated by etalk’s Lainey Lui, with clips and behind-the-scenes discussions from Williams, Nélisse, Tierney and Brady, giving the Prime Time crowd a rare peek into the creative energy behind one of Canada’s most talked-about TV series.
Heated Rivalry was created by award-winning Canadian writer-director Jacob Tierney and is based on the best-selling book series Game Changers by Nova Scotia author Rachel Reid. The six-episode drama follows two fresh-faced NHL rookies as their secret fling evolves into a powerful, years-long love story.
In Canada, Crave renewed the series for Season 2 after it delivered its biggest original-series debut on record, but the series’ HBO Max rollout has helped turn the leads into mainstream pop-culture fixtures in the U.S. and across the globe.
