HBO Max’s new hit show “Heated Rivalry” is turning heads; it is the most-watched original series in the history of Canada’s streaming service Crave, and is now the top-rated non-animated series acquired by HBO Max since the platform launched. It is also lining the pockets of NHL teams.
StubHub recently announced that interest in hockey tickets increased by 40% during Heated Rivalry’s debut, suggesting that the show is at least partially responsible for growing interest in the sport. SeatGeek also stated that, following the show’s release, average ticket prices rose by as much as 36%.
Ticket searches for a recent game between the Montreal Canadiens and Boston Bruins were six times higher than average, and first-time buyers purchased 82% of tickets. The official Bruins posted pictures on X showing scrums from previous games with the caption “Heated Rivalry.” Though the Canadiens-Bruins rivalry is one of the longest and most intense in the league, it is also the one depicted in the HBO series, which likely explains the spike in first-time buyers purchasing tickets.
This boost comes at a time when NHL viewership among Americans is staggeringly low; last year’s Stanley Cup finals had an audience of only 2.5 million, a drop from 4.17 million viewers in 2024.
At first, reactions within the league were relatively muted. The Canadiens were the first team to acknowledge the show’s popularity when they aired a trailer on the jumbotron during their Dec. 9 Pride Night game against Tampa Bay. However, it wasn’t until mid-January that NHL commissioner Gary Bettman addressed the show, telling reporters that he binge-watched the show in one night.
As someone who has rewatched it a handful of times, this claim feels spurious at best—as much as I love both hockey and queer storytelling, I can’t make it through more than three episodes at a time, so it is difficult to imagine 73-year-old Bettman doing so. If you’re going to lie to fans, you should try to make it a little more plausible.
Part of the reason Bettman’s comments feel performative is because of the league’s rather disappointing track record regarding social issues, not to mention the fact that they came mere hours after the Panthers, back-to-back Stanley Cup champions, visited the White House to bring gifts to President Trump. Panthers star winger and alternate captain Matthew Tkachuk gave a rather obsequious speech thanking the president, stating, “Well, I mean the two cups was pretty good, but that walk with you might have trumped it all there. That was pretty amazing.” Though the timing may have been coincidental, it is impossible to view Bettman’s press conference as distinct from one earlier that day in which one of his most famous players is seen shaking hands with a man whose immigration policies amount to state terrorism. There is not enough lipstick in the world to make that pig look pretty.
Furthermore, in August of last year, Bettman, alongside NHL legend Wayne Gretzky and Tkachuk, was named to Donald Trump’s sports council. Part of the official purpose of this council is “keeping men out of women’s sports,” i.e. banning trans women from participating.
USA Hockey recently updated its Participant Eligibility Policy to effectively ban transgender women from competing on the side that aligns with their identity. This policy extends to all levels of competition, including recreational adult leagues, commonly known as beer leagues. It is a reversal of the 2019 policy that allowed trans women to participate in the sport, with specific guidelines outlined for each level of competition. This shift occurred despite no real evidence that transgender women have a substantial athletic advantage over cisgender women.
Moreover, many NHL teams have done away with Pride Nights, sometimes choosing to include them as part of other targeted community events instead, with some teams now having “Hockey Is For Everyone Night.” Why queer people cannot have their own game in a sport where most teams play three times a week for several months straight is a mystery to me.
In the past, franchises have banned Pride jerseys under the guise of “protecting” their Russian players or to support players whose religious beliefs are anti-LGBTQ+. To reiterate, they banned all players from wearing optional jerseys during warm-ups, deciding that the option to put rainbow tape on your hockey stick is too much for some people to bear. After receiving substantial backlash, the league overturned the ban on Pride tape, but the damage had been done, and the message to queer fans and closeted players was clear: it is not safe to be gay in the NHL.
To date, the NHL has only released one diversity and inclusion report, back in 2022. This was also the year that we found out Hockey Canada was using player fees to settle sexual assault claims against their players.
Bettman stated that the league has no plans to bring back Pride jerseys, though he tried to spin it as being about broader “political causes” that might cause controversy. “It’s a misrepresentation of what we did to suggest that it was about Pride jerseys; it was about the whole issue of what you put on the ice and how, when players don’t embrace the cause, whatever it is, then you create distraction, and it doesn’t fulfill the purpose in terms of embracing Pride nights.”
Here is where I think Bettman is wrong: true, you cannot force players to wear Pride jerseys, and yes, it might be upsetting to some queer fans to discover that a player they like is homophobic. But that doesn’t mean we should cater to those players who choose not to engage — if anything, we should make the decision not to support queer people an unpopular and visible choice.
If the norm is that the majority of players wear their Pride jerseys during warmups, those who choose not to must explain themselves, must take the risk of making their bigotry known, and therefore, fewer players would refuse to participate. This would make acceptance the rule, rather than the exception.
We also know that many players would support the cause: Scott Laughton declared in 2023 that he would continue to use Pride tape, even if doing so incurred fines, while Oilers legend Connor McDavid registered his disappointment with the decision to ban Pride jerseys. When asked about “Heated Rivalry”, Bruins defenseman and soon-to-be Olympian Charlie McAvoy told reporters, “I’ve heard so much support from people within those communities that it means a lot to them. So, it’s the least that we can do to show our support and show that we’re all on the same team.”
Canadiens coach Martin St. Louis recently commented at a press conference, “I think forget sports… I think we’re in a society now that people do come out.”
The idea that sports franchises are apolitical entities with no social or moral obligations is an absurd fallacy to cling to in 2026. If you still consider yourself uninterested in politics, you are not apolitical; you are privileged, and you are complicit.
In my view, every single Panthers player who shook hands with Trump as if they could do so in a vacuum, separate from his violence and his rhetoric, made themselves complicit. And the fact that the NHL, after silencing LGBTQ+ voices and sidelining advocacy because it got messy or difficult, is now paying lip service to queer and female fans who are making them money is nothing short of exploitative and crass.
Right now, hockey is at a crossroads. It can choose the financially and morally savvy route: bring back Pride jerseys, raise funds for LGBTQ+ organizations and keep hold of its new audience. Or, it can continue to make nice with an increasingly unpopular and authoritarian administration, keep promoting a dangerous and exclusive version of masculinity and alienate the millions of female and queer fans who are currently falling in love with the sport. I know which route I would take, but alas, I have neither Bettman’s authority nor his stamina for watching all six episodes of “Heated Rivalry” in one night.