If you’re anything like us, you are absolutely still at the cottage. Following its November premiere, Heated Rivalry emerged as one of the year’s most beloved shows — spawning a devoted and often feral fandom that transcends both age and gender.
Now, two Heated Rivalry fans are taking their fandom — and perpetual yearning — one step further in New York City, where they’ll be hosting a Shane Hollander and Ilya Rozanov look-alike contest.
Hosted by fans Katherine Gehring and Charlotte Steinblatt, the upcoming Heated Rivalry look-alike contest will take place on Sunday, Feb. 1, at 2 p.m. ET in Washington Square Park. The goal of the contest, according to Gehring and Steinblatt’s Partiful invite, is to “find the best nyc local knockoff of Shane Hollander and Ilya Rozanov to give the girls, the gays, and theys something to yearn for in 2026.”
A look-alike contest felt destined to happen, considering the internet’s newfound obsession with “gay hockey smut” and the show’s leading men, actors Hudson Williams and Connor Storrie. The two star in Heated Rivalry as rival hockey players Hollander and Rozanov, who become swept up in a whirlwind, years-long gay romance.
What starts off as casual, closeted meetups is soon complicated by real feelings — and the threat of losing everything because of them. Throughout the first season, Hollander and Rozanov assume alter egos — female names — to hide their identities while texting one another. Hollander goes by “Jane” and Rozanov goes by “Lily.”
When Gehring approached her to co-organize the Heated Rivalry look-alike contest, Steinblatt told Yahoo, she “physically could not say no.” Steinblatt had never been a “fangirl of traditional romance stories.” But Heated Rivalry hits different.
“This series awakened something in me. I have never been as affected as deeply by or felt so passionately about a love story as this one,” she said. “That is why I felt I needed to be a part of making this contest happen — to embrace community and hope. To show the fans and the people struggling with secret lives like ‘Jane’ and ‘Lily’s’ that there are literally thousands of people supporting them.”
So far, more than 2,000 New Yorkers have indicated that they’ll attend the look-alike contest, which Gehring and Steinblatt say will “pay homage to inarguably the best hockey player power couple of all time.” The winners will receive a $50 cash prize.
A lot of good has come from the Canadian-made television show, which is based on the Game Changer book series by romance author Rachel Reid. What Heated Rivalry does so well is depict an image of gay joy, while spotlighting the enduring reality of homophobia in professional sports associations like the National Hockey League. It’s a delicate balance to strike — yet creator Jacob Tierney seems to do so with such care.
“More than the turnout or exposure we get from this contest, we really just hope to show how stories and shows like these truly can bring people together,” Gehring told Yahoo. “I think the widespread love for this show is demonstrative of the relief we all feel being able to see queerness be represented in areas where it has historically been seen as taboo, especially in places in culture that have traditionally promoted the very same notions of hypermasculinity that have exacerbated our current cultural and political climate to where it is today.”
Look-alike contests have been having a moment since 2024, when several were held across the country in honor of A-listers like Timothée Chalamet, Pedro Pascal and Jeremy Allen White. The Marty Supreme star even surprised fans in October 2024 when he stopped by his own look-alike contest, which was also held at Washington Square Park.
Storrie and Williams in a scene from Heated Rivalry.
(Sabrina Lantos/HBO Max)
Only two months removed from Heated Rivalry’s debut on Crave in Canada and HBO Max in the U.S., Williams and Storrie are still coming to grips with their newfound superstardom and status as bona fide Hollywood heartthrobs. This isn’t the last we’ll be seeing of Hollander and Rozanov either: Heated Rivalry has already been renewed for a second season.
“Everything, all my expectations, have been f***ing put through the wringer and tested and just shat on from crazy heights,” Williams told Harper’s Bazaar last month of his skyrocket to fame. “So now I just take whatever this little zeitgeist, this little sensation gives me — and I try and just stay calm through it all.”
“Hudson is my best friend, and I literally can’t fathom doing this without him,” Storrie told W Magazine. “We were both in similar places in life before this. We quit our jobs within a day of each other. We booked this and flew out the same day. Now it’s turning into two people who are being seen internationally for the first time. This has been the highlight of my life, and meeting Hudson makes that 10 times sweeter.”