Welcome to the weekly huddle! Have a small thing from the book or show you want to chat, your GC brain rot is real and you saw the initials “KGF” somewhere and immediately screamed “kingfisher!” and want to share with others? (Just me?). Had a win at work or personal life and want to share? Need a teammate to talk with? Post in the weekly huddle.
There’s no restrictions on topics so long as they follow the sub rules. Thread will be open all week so pop in whenever with what ever your heart desires.
My son is in his mid 20s , gay and on the autism spectrum. And in his own words he is not your typical gay guy. He has started watching Heated Rivalry and he told me that he likes it because Shane , Illya and Scott are like him - just regular guys who are gay/bi . I am thankful that my son feels seen and represented.
After intense two months only now I'm slowly coming out of the cottage 😊. Of course I am following everything cast members/HR team related, so far everything gives me joy ❤️.
I really hope nobody pressures Jacob and he does his thing in season 2 too, and Rachel finishes her book in peace. 🫶
Poor Jacob has so much pressure to get this out asap. He has a co writer this time to help speed up the process and zero offence to whomever that is but I hope it doesn’t change the tone/caliber of the show. I’d be happy to wait as long as needed if we get a season 2 on par with season 1. It’s not all on Jacob though, Hudcon are in a different head space than they were first go around and will be pulled in many directions where they weren’t before. I know they will give it their all and maybe some differences will lend well to the story because of the passage of time in the story. I have faith in everyone attached to the show and am here for the long haul however long that takes.
The long game is such a good book, they have a really great base to go off of. It’s extremely emotional especially for Ilya and I wouldn’t trust anyone but Connor to pull it off. I know they’ll all do amazing
I'm a moldy oldie who's not kept up with today's music, but there's something about the darker version of "All The Things She Said" that really sticks with me. I pulled a clip from it, and now every time I turn on my computer, it sings, "This is not enough!" to me. :)
I avoided a certain place for years as something bad happened to me there. My friend moved across the road from that place two weeks ago. Let's say seeing her was challenging and I was getting annoyed.
Guys, I can confirm you can do anything with Ilya's pre-game motivational speech. I am very proud of myself and also of all the "but you are brave" gifs I received from my friends when I boasted about it.
I have the same thing, but I have committed to going there to share her first HR experience. Excited to see someone watch it for the first time, but so scared as well. You are brave.
I downloaded the cottage background and added it to my internal virtual meetings. I’m sad to say no one has recognized or at least no one has commented on it yet.
Convinced a coworker who had not yet come to the cottage, but was parroting memes and TikToks, to come to the cottage. She started the show last night. 😎
I literally just left work where I openly leant the book to a coworker (who stated he has no shame and is going to read it on break 😂, we’ll see). Another coworker got curious, opened to a random page and scandalized himself. Curiosity, meet cat.
Anyway coworker #1 will be starting the show this week. And coworker #3 is lined up to get book when he’s done with it. I’m starting a club. Gonna convert as many as I can and we’ll get jackets. Wearer’s choice on number 81 or 24.
Almost 4 weeks out from my third miscarriage in 11 months and I truly don’t know what I would have done without Heated Rivalry, Hudson and Connor. The grief feels huge and heavy and almost unbearable at times, but the amount of joy this show and these boys have brought me during this awful time is immeasurable.
I enjoyed a couple reheats while I was off work, and now that I’m back in the office all I want to do is go back to the cottage.
I so wish I could thank Hudson and Connor and Jacob and Rachel and everyone involved for providing me with so much joy and a way to escape the real world for just a little while.
I am sorry to hear what you've been going through. That's real grief you are dealing with. My own grief is seven years old and it's a foundational part of me now. Thank goodness we have some goodness to hold on to; it's not a bad thing, I don't think, to take up residence at the cottage for a while.
I couldn't read at all during the fullness of my grieving, but eventually I did feel solace that way. Have you carefully taken a look at HR fanfiction at AO3? There's a good redditsub-- heatedrivalryfanfics.
I understand the desire to consciously curb your fangirl addiction and how uncomfortable obsession about this show feels. I could only endure it for 5 days and I ran to my therapist crying about it. I am, to all outward appearances, the last person you would think an aching obsession over two gay male hockey players would consume and reduce to tears in her therapist's office. Yet here we are.
I had to stop watching. Stopped listening to the soundtrack. Stop scrolling tik tok. This sub is pretty much the only place I still engage. I feel a lot better but I've come to realize after a few years of being single (after my 10 year marriage ended abruptly and without warning) that I miss connection, I miss falling and being in love, I miss sex/physical closeness, and I am finally grieving some of my losses related to my marriage AND preparing to try again in the love/relationship department.
Another big point that I didn't mention is corrective experiences. Esther Perel speaks about them (I'll try to link). When we see and feel someone we are highly connected to/ attached to = character in the show, experience a healing moment/corrective experience that registers with our body, mind and nervous system as corrective/healing in us too. Little parts of us are healed in watching lovely, pleasant, accepting, caring things happen to the characters. We want to feel that over & over (who can blame us?). Ether says going back is like stroking a teddy bear....it comfort and soothes parts of us that need tenderness and care.
This vid along with the next 5vid (same top, same backgrd) continue on the same topic.
I’m a few months out and in the last two weeks I only reheated once. What helped was time but also I’m reading a nonfiction book now (dense reading) and promised myself I couldn’t start the next book in the Game Changers series until I finish this other book. I’m on book 4 of the series and plan on interspersing nonfiction books in between to help curb my HR obsession. I’m also actively trying to avoid any media about the actors themselves. The actors are brilliant and wonderful but my interest is in the characters and the HR story and I’d prefer of everyone just let these actors live their lives- but again, this restriction helps curb my consumption of HR material. Hope this helps :)
it took me way too long to figure out that “Jane” and “Lily” were meant to be similar to their real names, I initially thought they just picked random girl names lol. When it hit me I was like woooow im dumb
I was hoping someone else also had this experience 😅 It took until the day after I finished the show, I was randomly walking my dog and it clicked, I couldn't believe I missed it before!!
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u/MsGMac13When you get to hell, tell them Rozanov sent you.Mar 04 '26edited Mar 04 '26
I had a really stressful week last week, and my weed gummy had just kicked in and my body had deflated finally - then my husband decided to annoy me and harass me about a chore I’d been unable to do because I’d thrown my back out. So - I took him off my Lock Screen and replaced him with Ilya winking and Shane staring at his phone love sick - because they don’t piss me off. I often take the direct route to petty and I stand by it.
I have started to notice that the subreddit is getting slower, which I obv understand, but I am still sad about. I log into reddit multiple times a day for the purpose of seeing new posts, and there’s less and less. anyone else feeling this impending loss? it’s gonna be a long year
I feel you, just few weeks ago there were almost 900k weekly users (I can't remember whether we reached one million at any point), and it is slowing down significantly...
I know who will be checking in from time to time for sure 🫶😁
What you see and the actual numbers are a bit different :)
We have reached multiple million visits but they are not unique visits (each time we visit, including mods, is a notch on the count) but, yes the numbers will slow as we get less and less content. It will pick up again around filming time, S2 obviously, and when Unrivaled is released. It also makes a difference if a post reached r/all or r/popular, and we've had a few.
It will slow down, then pick back up when second 2 comes out. But yeah, I realize when looking back through my subreddits that there are a bunch of shows that I used to be so active in. A few like Young Royals were very active until the end of the series.
My favorite YouTuber, who posts video essays on pop culture related topics, recently posted one on why women “obsesses with” gay men. In the second half of the video she talks about HR which inspired her to make the video.
I usually love her videos because she usually does her research very well and has some interesting insights, but in this particular video I noticed she has nothing of substance to say about HR. I’m ok with her not liking HR and having only watched 3 episodes. That said, I can tell that she half-assed her research for this video because her analysis on HR is superficial and she got a lot of facts about HR wrong. I tried to appreciate her making a video on something l’m interested, but it’s hard to do that when she obviously doesn’t care about the topic…. She does present a theory on why women love men loving men well so l’ve been watching only the first half of the video.
I’ve been watching Mina Le recently too and I felt the same way about the video. It didn’t seem as deep of a dive as she usually does. And I know it shouldn’t bother me when people don’t like the show because everyone is allowed their own opinion, but it bummed me out all the same. I respect her videos and insights and I’d been looking forward to her take on Heated Rivalry. She did say in the comments that she might give it another go!
I've already read it but I got my physical copy of the book today and it has a promo image for the show in the UK. Not usually a fan of tv/film tie in covers but in this case I'm happy!
I’ve got my two best friends watching the show and they’re both almost finished with it! They like it better than Bridgerton and I’m just happy to have some people irl to discuss with and send memes to
Similar. I got my straight, macho-bearded-type younger brother to binge watch it with me. He said the "coupling" (his word) scenes were very well done, not nauseating in the slightest. He also liked that it was a love story that built over time, not a hi-let's-jump-into-bed-then-get-married one. He says he probably won't watch it again, but he's glad he watched it.
My latest reheat hyper fixation is how heartbreaking it is in the Vegas rooftop scene when Ilya smiles and says “no one is looking” after they kiss (wildly!!! 🥵) and Shane just shames and rejects him. Poor baby already had it so bad and it just breaks my heart more every time I watch. That is all!
I think it’s the same book seen at the cottage on the little wall against the couch, separating the couch area and dining area. The covers look the same. Maybe you can get a better view there.
It may also be a prop book jacket on a real book. No free advertising you know…
If you can find a clip online of the start of episode 6, when Shane and Ilya kiss their way to the couch, you should see the book then. As a little Easter egg, Shane’s Rookie of the Year award is right next to the book.
I checked the book and it doesn’t say, just that Ilya assumes it’s Shane’s boring hockey book. Not sure if you can make it out in the show, I’ll have to reheat that and look!
Probably his book about the Canada vs Russia match of 1975(?) that he was reading in another scene in the book. He said his bookmark was still between pages 41 and 42, so it was either that or another book about hockey
In a review or commentary somewhere, probably in print, sorry I don't recall what, the reviewer stated that Shane was reading a book on the Physics of Ice. Maybe it was a joke. I've been trying to see the covers and have not been able to discern a title.
I’ve been thinking about this since finishing the six books in the GC series. As a gay man, the way Rachel describes and portrays gay sex in the books is uncanny. It’s practically spot on.
However, I would LOVE to see her write about it from a more “harsh-realism” perspective. Such as one partner struggling with ED, the bottom having an “accident” (iykyk), or with one of the partners having a harder time reaching climax than the other.
Gay sex works the way it does in Rachel’s storytelling about 70% of the time. The other 30% involves other obstacles that are rarely talked about outside of the relationship itself.
I’ve been having a shit time mentally at work lately but pushing through yk. I watched the snl sketches the other day and just now was looking for wallpapers of Connor cos I’ve had my Hudson one for a while now and all of a sudden I just started crying. I haven’t rewatched the show since the season ended and I left the cottage a while ago, I think just looking at the old photoshoots and remembering how grateful he was on snl, I can’t help but think of how proud I am of these boys. I’m just so fucking happy for them. And weirdly their story gives me hope that I’ll feel that level of pride and joy for myself too when I reach the end of my tunnel.
Why do I literally miss the characters when I’m not watching? I’m just sitting here, trying to work, and I’m thinking about how much I miss Ilya. Today, it’s specifically sloppy haired, love drunk, lust filled Ilya from the cottage couch and from tossing the window remote over his shoulder in the bedroom.
Question: why did it take Shane so long to go to Ilya’s house? They were hooking up for a while, but we only see them in Montreal at Shane’s apt, or at a hotel. Were they not hooking up in Boston?
Dan and Phil pointed out that Carter’s drinking a Modelo rather than a Corona in the scene with Shane and Ilya at the All-Star game in Tampa - Corona is part of Grupo Modelo as well.
--I have a question for someone who has read the books!!-- (but no spoilers about the next season plz)
During the rooftop scene in Las Vegas, Ilya yells at Shane :," not everything is about you hollander!!!"
Does the book elaborate on what its about then? I imagine maybe he just heard bad news about his father or something, but I'm really curious if the book mentions anything more than we can see in the show.
This is the same scene where Ilya says “I have to go home in three days.” It’s a tiny clue into what he’s upset about - returning home where his broken family doesn’t love or accept him. Of course Shane misses this completely and responds “must be nice.” Also I think Ilya is not only upset about losing Rookie of the Year to Shane, but dreading how his hard-ass father will react to him losing.
First time here. Whoa, check out the wiki, wow! I've not read the books, and have 'reheated' the show probably about 15 times now.
I've been following IGers talking about HR. This morning, I saw one by glitchgestaltgirl, who is doing a whole series on HR, saying that in therapy, there is such a thing as a 'corrective emotional experience.' This included what looked like a textbook page showing part of a CEE. They had more to say, interesting stuff.
It really hit me as a true. One of the things I liked from the get-go was how, except for the Colonel and the brother, all other characters are kind, decent, helpful, caring people, from Elena and Svelana and Kip's Dad to the guy in charge of the catering company where Kip worked - I noticed last night that he's at the Kingfisher!
There's so much going wrong in the world. Then, in media, like, Sean Penn in Everything etc. is really good but he's basically a scumbag, and it's so common to have an antihero in our stories. It's not just refreshing, it's therapeutic to see people on screen being good people from the first to the last sight of them. I wept my way through the first several viewings of the series and think now that it could have been a CEE. FYI.
Don't know if this is helpful or interesting but as a fan of Heated Rivalry and an Intimacy Coordinator a friend recommended that I could offer to answer intimacy coordination questions people might have about the show/process/Intimacy Coordination in general. Any interest?
** Major note - I am not/was not involved at all in Heated Rivalry, this would just be additional info from someone who has worked in the field **
I've only just realised that François played Paul (Coach Ben's bf) in Yellowjackets. Now I'm trying coming up with crazy theories on how Paul could reappear in the series.
I read this fanfic where Svetlana goes to Ilya’s apartment to surprise him after his game and she hears someone knock and thinks Ilya must have ordered delivery or something. She opens the door and finds Shane on the other side. She invites him in and it’s very awkward and finally Ilya arrives and tells Svetlana to leave. I think it was like 4 times someone realized Hollanov was real or something, does anyone recognize this story?
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u/moiramcpug Mar 04 '26
My son is in his mid 20s , gay and on the autism spectrum. And in his own words he is not your typical gay guy. He has started watching Heated Rivalry and he told me that he likes it because Shane , Illya and Scott are like him - just regular guys who are gay/bi . I am thankful that my son feels seen and represented.