What started as Hollander v. Rosanov quickly became Hollander & Rosanov.
As a closeted high school male athlete at the turn of the Century (1999-2002), I vividly remember scouring the public library for a book like Heated Rivalry by Rachel Reid. I needed to know that I could be gay and welcomed in sport.
Sadly, for young me, it didn’t exist.
Thankfully, I was only a tennis player and I didn’t have to endure homophobic jokes and locker-room jock-talk. But the fear was still there.
Something Happened
Something happened at the end of 2025 when the television series adapted from Reid’s book dropped on HBO. Literally everyone … and I mean everyone was watching. My Instagram feed was nothing by memes from the show.
And yeah, the show was steamy. The book was even steamier (this is your warning).
But it was gay people, bi people, trans people, and yeah, straight people watching these two hockey stars quietly and secretly falling in love.
And it all started with the book by the same title, Heated Rivalry.
Reid weaves two worlds: Hollander’s traditional Canadian hockey family and Rosanov’s uber-Vodka drinking Russian into two stories that can only end up together. Despite a world not ready and two men really not ready, over the years, they keep coming back to each other.
They both want to end it.
They both want to keep it.
But they are both afraid. Afraid of their careers. Afraid of their families. Afraid of love.
I imagine what I would have done had I found this book as a teenager:
I would have been using the new computer card catalog and searching for things like “young adult gay sports stories”, or “youth gay coming of age”, and I would have looked over my shoulder to see if anyone was watching me. I would see the title, Heated Rivalry and I would click on it to read the synopsis.
Yes! I need to go find this, I would say to myself.
I would quickly, and with a shaking hand, scribble 813.6 REI onto a small piece of paper before logging off and sneaking to the stacks.
The smell of old books would hang in the air and I slowly ran my fingers over the spines of the books looking for 813.6 REI.
There! It’s here. Quietly I would pull it from the shelf and begin reading. But I wouldn’t check it out. I couldn’t. But I would sit there as long as I could and read it. Finally, two men in love.
I hope that’s what happens now in the year 2026.
I hope people see that men can be in tough sports and fall in love. I hope people see that love is universal. I hope people can finally embrace gay men in the big four sports.
My friends at OutSports.com have been writing about gay athletes for more than 20 years. They wrote about the late Jason Collins and Michael Sam and it’s time they can welcome more current players to the world of out athletes.
Reid is the first to capture this potential; that two men in the toughest of sports could fall in love.
The book is at 813.6 REI and I hope young adults like me venture to the stacks this summer and find hope in these two hockey stars.
Want to read it for yourself? Pick up your copy of Heated Rivalry by Rachel Reid. Prefer to purchase from Amazon?
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