Heated Rivalry Wins A Peabody Award
Connor Storrie as Ilya Rozanov (left) and Hudson Williams as Shane Hollander
Let’s hear it for the boys. Heated Rivalry, the steamy Crave series about two hockey players who are hiding a romantic secret from the world, has scored a prestigious win for the cultural impact of its storytelling.
The series, which debuted to massive acclaim last November, won a Peabody Award for making “the biggest cultural impact in television this year,” according to the prize jury.
The jury went on to further praise the show, starring Hudson Williams and Connor Storrie as hockey players Shane Hollander and Ilya Rozanov, for balancing “complex themes of sexuality and emotional connection” and “inspiring fans and promoting non-toxic masculinity.”
The Peabody Awards honour works that deal with meaningful social issues, and this year, Heated Rivalry—which is adapted from the novel series by Nova Scotia-based author Rachel Reid—was among a handful of other TV series’ honoured for that work. Those series' include the medical procedural The Pitt and the Apple drama Pluribus.
There was some more Can-Con in the Peabody mix this year, too: Vancouver-born comedian Nathan Felder won a Peabody for his HBO comedy-drama, The Rehearsal.
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Flannery Dean is a writer based in Hamilton, Ont. She’s written for The Narwhal, the Globe and Mail and The Guardian.
