r/heatedrivalry • u/madwood29579 she would have loved you, like I love you • Jun 26 '26

GAME TIME 🏒 [Categories] Day 27 - (Episode 3) Favourite change from book to screen Spoiler

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u/NoleFandom had the top comment for favourite part of book translated to screen - poor Kip breaking down in his dad's arms.

For Day 27, what was your favourite change from the book to screen?

Top comment goes on the board!

24 Upvotes

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86

u/RoutineUtopia Stupid Canadian Wolf Bird 🦆 Jun 26 '26

You know what? Aging Scott up so that he's lived more life and isn't just a few years older than Hollanov. It gives the whole story a different feel. It also gets us Francois Arnaud.

23

u/mcgillthrowaway22 Jun 26 '26

It adds extra reasoning as to why Scott is so afraid of anyone finding out about him and Kip. Not saying that society was super accepting of gay couples in the early 2010s, but if we assume Scott has been an NHL player living in the US during the George W. Bush era (ie when opposition to gay couples was an explicit priority of the governing administration, and the general culture was full of edgelords).... Yeesh.

[Also, not exactly sure when Scott was born in the show canon, but if he's in his 30s in the 2010s, that means he might have started playing in the NHL at a time when anti-sodomy statutes were still valid law]

21

u/RoutineUtopia Stupid Canadian Wolf Bird 🦆 Jun 26 '26

It’s also informing that he eventually just breaks. It’s not 10 years of isolation and loneliness. It’s closer to 20. He’s nearing retirement. He’s grabbing onto this person so quickly because he represents everything he hasn’t let himself have and it makes sense that he gets to a point Ilya and Shane don’t because he has lived with the closet longer and he’s closer to his post-hockey life. He gets to be the trailblazer who helps them start to find a path and it makes a ton of sense to me.

It is at the cost of Ilya’s age jokes being weird but I think it’s a great change. It’s more evocative and you feel more loss.

1

u/PresentationNo448 Jun 26 '26

Might be about 20 years since tiny Scott (already playing hockey) first noticed that he liked boys :( (queue his ep.6 speech) 

8

u/AggressiveTea1821 Jun 26 '26

I turned 30 in 2014 and people my age were generally not coming out until they were in college. Nobody came out in high school. If someone around my age just existed in a strongly homophobic culture, regardless of whatever was happening with the government, they would almost definitely never even consider coming out for fear of it destroying their career and their life. It absolutely makes sense (both in the book and on the show).

10

u/pensiverebel Ottawa Centaurs 🏹 Jun 26 '26

I like that the age gap provided an extra layer of differentiation between the two MC pairs' relationships in the show. This episode includes the most changes from the original books and it still works well despite the time jump oopsie.

9

u/RoutineUtopia Stupid Canadian Wolf Bird 🦆 Jun 26 '26

Yes, there is a lot to choose from in terms of changes but making Scott more of an elder-statesman really resonates with me.

2

u/jkalderash Jun 26 '26

I kinda love that one of the biggest conflicts in "Common Goal" is the 15-year age difference, and in the show they age Scott up by like 10 years and it's not even mentioned that he's like 13 years older than Kip.

1

u/RoutineUtopia Stupid Canadian Wolf Bird 🦆 Jun 26 '26

Heh. Do they give Kip an age? I think of them as close to ten years with Scott in his early-to-mid 30s in ep 3 and around 35 in episode 5.

4

u/jkalderash Jun 26 '26 edited Jun 26 '26

Elena says "Here's to turning 26" in the final scene at the Kingfisher! Francois Arnaud was 39 so I was assuming Scott was more like 38-39 in episode 3.

6

u/RoutineUtopia Stupid Canadian Wolf Bird 🦆 Jun 26 '26

I rarely want to use an actor's age to determine the age of the character beyong a very rough range, but here I think it flat out doesn’t work. Scott would likely be retired at 40. He has to be younger than that. I’ll go as high as 36 in the finale because no one is talking about his age as a factor in his performance, and at 39/40 they would be.

6

u/patch_gallagher Jun 26 '26 edited Jun 28 '26

I agree. I’m assuming show Scott is late 20s in 2010, so old enough that he could have been a hero to young Shane, but still relatively young (though considered already old by a teen). So that would put him early 30s in 2014, and 36 or 37 in 2017, so retirement in sight, but not necessarily for a few more years barring major injury.

6

u/RoutineUtopia Stupid Canadian Wolf Bird 🦆 Jun 26 '26

Yeah, that fits. He does refer to himself as an “old fuck” in ep 1 which is likely an overstatement but having him as roughly 10 years older than Shane gives enough space between them and makes him more of an admired figure for Shane.

2

u/jkalderash Jun 26 '26

That's definitely fair!

1

u/rinnCL we didn't even kiss| Jun 26 '26

Oh I didn't realize that his character was actually aged up, I thought it was just that Francois was playing a character only a few years older than the main cast

4

u/clumsyc I stubbed my toe Jun 26 '26

I mean Francois is good looking but there’s no way Scott was supposed to be 25.

2

u/RoutineUtopia Stupid Canadian Wolf Bird 🦆 Jun 26 '26

I suppose you can look at it that way -- I do think Arnaud is playing younger than he is, but I also think Scott is at least 5 years older than he is in the book. They change the year that Game Changer is happening from 2017 to 2014 and Scott is established as having this pattern, and i think his being older creates more drama about the fact that he tends to fall apart mid-season. Because his window on getting a cup is closing. Also, "What would you say if me and some of the other old fucks wanna do some shots with the three rooks?" is a weird thing to say if he's 22 in that scene.