Canadian romance novelist Rachel Reid first met Conor Story and Hudson Williams in person on the set of Rivalry, Jacob Tierney’s TV adaptation of her queer hockey book series Game Changers.
“They were filming the very first sex scene, the first sex scene, and it was the longest sex scene on the show,” Reed told me. “It was a closed set, so I just sat on the couch for four hours while they were doing it. I had headphones on, so I could hear it, and I was reading the script, but I couldn’t see it. I was just listening. I was listening to them pretend to have sex for four hours, and I didn’t really know them. So it was weird.”
“I remember Hudson saying, ‘Should I keep my socks on?'” she continues. “I was nodding off, but no one looked at me. I was glad he did.”
“Heated Rivals” stars Story as Russian hockey player Ilya Rozanov and Williams as his biggest rival, Shane Hollander. The six-episode series follows two men who carry on a secret relationship that lasts for years and eventually fall in love.
The show became an instant hit when HBO Max, which acquired the series from Canadian streamer Crave for U.S. distribution, dropped the first two episodes over Thanksgiving weekend.
On set, Story tapped Reid on the shoulder and introduced himself. “He looked a lot like Ilya and spoke with a Russian accent all day on set,” Reed recalls. “He was asking thoughtful questions about the character. It was like he was explaining Ilya to Ilya, and he couldn’t even talk to him. It was very strange, but I could tell right away that he was really smart and funny and charming. He’s very talented and fearless. So I think it was a fearless choice to introduce himself to the author for the first time using a Russian accent.”
She watched as Williams filmed the moments before Shane and Elijah’s first tryst in a hotel room. “He would turn the lamp on and off, waiting for Elijah to come for first sex,” says Reed. “He didn’t have any lines, but I thought, ‘Oh, this is Shane.'”
In just over a month, Story and Williams were famous, the series was greenlit for a second season, and several of Reed’s novels became New York Times bestsellers.
“I was asked to give a talk at Cambridge University,” Reid says. “I write dirty hockey articles. I’m no Kurt Vonnegut. They said, ‘We had Robert De Niro and the Dalai Lama,’ and I thought, ‘Oh yeah, I fit right in there, too.’
I spoke to Reid via Zoom from his home in Nova Scotia. “I’ll warn you, I think I’m still in shock,” she says. “I don’t know if I can talk about this consistently, but I’ll try.”
When you first spoke to Jacob, was there any discussion of you having creative control or a say in what he was doing?
When I first spoke to him, I could tell he understood the characters and the story very well. He explained his entire vision for the show, and that’s exactly what everyone just saw. That’s how he explained it to me. He wanted an episode with Scott and Kip. We talked about what we had to do to do everything right, that sex needed to be an important part of the show, and that it needed to be explicit. If he couldn’t do that, he wouldn’t do it. The moment we had our first conversation, I thought, “You know what? He knows exactly what he’s doing. I’m not even worried about it.” It really wasn’t pushy at all. He just wanted me to read the script and I was really excited to do that. Obviously, he was able to do this without my help, but he still included me. They (Tierney, Williams, Storey) kept mentioning me and the book in every media and everything. I really appreciate that because I don’t think a lot of writers understand that.
Which cast member did you hear about first?
Connor was first. I didn’t even hear about other possibilities for Ilya. If there was, I didn’t know about it. I know Jacob was really excited about Connor. But that’s what we said: He actually has to be Russian, because if he wasn’t, it would be so distracting. People will be able to tell that. If he wasn’t incredibly Russian, everything would be ruined. So when he said to me, “He’s an American, he doesn’t have Russian heritage, but he’s very good,” I thought, “Well, if you ask me that, well.” I think it took a little longer to find Hudson, but as soon as we looked at the chemistry, Jacob got really excited. I can’t even imagine what it would have been like with another actor.
When you saw Connor and Hudson, did they resemble what you imagined when you were writing Elijah and Shane?
At first, it didn’t go so well because I was just looking at their still images (on Instagram). Hudson had plenty of photos where he looked like a bad guy, smoking cigarettes and showing off all his tattoos. I was like, “I can’t see it.” But the moment I met them on set, I thought, “Wow, they’re absolutely perfect.”
Writing is a very lonely profession. What has it been like going from writing alone to now having so many eyes and attention on you?
It’s overwhelming. The author doesn’t want to be seen. It’s not natural. I used to be in a rock band and it’s an art where you can get immediate feedback from the audience live and you can feed off of that. But writing, even if you know it’s big and popular and a lot of people are reading it, you don’t know about it. You don’t really get that feedback until something like this happens. And all of a sudden you’re like, “Oh, I get screwed sometimes.” People are very excited to see me in a way that I find confusing, but I try to get used to it.
Have you talked to Jacob about what you want to see in Season 2?
I think we think the same way about that. Obviously, the focus has to remain on Elijah and Shane. There won’t be a season 2, it will be a completely different couple. It won’t be very popular. I think everyone was surprised by how popular Scott and Kip were, although it wasn’t unexpected. Now, “OK, how do we get more Scott and Kip?” I think it’s mostly going to be “The Long Game.” Jacob has already talked about this in interviews, but there’s another book that overlaps with that, “Role Models.” So I hope both stories are told at the same time. I don’t think there is any other way. I hope there will be more episodes.
How many episodes do you want?
I’d like to get it up to 12, but maybe 8 or 10 would be fine.
Brendan Brady, Jacob Tierney, Ksenia Daniela Haramova, Dylan Walsh, Hudson Williams, Conor Story, Christina Chung, and Rachel Reid attend the premiere of Rivals at TIFF Lightbox on November 24, 2025 in Toronto, Ontario.
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Do you have a group of gay friends who ask you to read your writing, especially the sex scenes, to see if they are realistic?
I don’t send them letters. In fact, when this show came out, I realized that many of my gay male friends had never read my books. They couldn’t believe what was happening. I thought, “So you haven’t read the book?” I’m having discussions with them. I don’t like to show anyone what I’ve written until it’s finished. My husband is bisexual and knows what sex with men is like, so he’s the one I can send them to. So, that’s someone I can bounce things off of. But mostly I just talk to people and get information that way.
Will a Broadway musical about “heated rivalry” ever materialize?
I still have the stage rights, so I hope so. When I signed the contract, I thought, “Oh, that’s never going to happen.” But now I’m thinking, “Maybe.” We’re talking about all sorts of things now. A few weeks ago, I told Hudson that I feel like I can literally do anything. We seem to have so much power, but also the power to easily destroy ourselves. One bad post, one bad tweet can take it all down. It could destroy the entire show and everyone’s lives. “This is too powerful,” I thought.
At the same time that Jacob approached you about doing a TV drama, you were talking about being diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease. How is your health today?
I have little control over the mouse, which makes writing difficult. I can’t input too long. For me, it is difficult to sit in a chair for a long time. I need to think of new ways to write. I don’t know if it’s voice to text. I don’t know if I can write it like that. It feels unnatural, but it’s taking me so long to write that I need to figure something out. But the surprising thing we learned from this is that Jacob was on CNN a few weeks ago. For some reason, the interviewer asked him about my Parkinson’s diagnosis. I thought it was strange, but the next day one of the world’s top Parkinson’s experts contacted me and asked if I could help. I have never spoken to a Parkinson’s specialist. I have been on the waiting list here for 5 years because I live in a very small area. Now he has found me a neurologist who specializes in Parkinson’s disease and I am planning on making an appointment in the next few weeks. I haven’t gotten the treatment I deserve, so that might change things. He also taught me how to change my medication so that I could sleep even though I had never been able to sleep. That change helped me sleep through the night, which really helped my writing.
