Hudson Williams and Connor Storrie are going to the Olympics
And their publicists are going for gold
Hudson Williams and Connor Storrie have been keeping their characters’ flame lit since the release of Heated Rivalry late last year. The series has become the most-streamed original series ever on Crave, and on HBO Max it now ranks as the most-watched acquired series and top scripted debut of 2025.
Related:“This was a fictional world, but it still felt healing”—Heated Rivalry star Harrison Browne on blazing a trail for trans athletes
Williams and Storrie have appeared on late-night television and even at the Golden Globes. And now, in a chef’s kiss of public relations synergy, the actors best known for playing Shane Hollander and Ilya Rozanov will be among the torchbearers carrying the Olympic flame at next month’s Milan Cortina Games, which coincide with Heated Rivalry’s release in Italy—two cultural events of equal importance, quite honestly.
Does Connor Storrie love pasta as much as his character in the season one finale? Will Hudson Williams forget about the smoking ban in Milan (again) and have to quickly extinguish his fashionable cig so he doesn’t get a ticket? Should they just jump in and play with Canada’s men’s hockey team?
We have great ideas often, but that last one may be our best yet.
Related: NHL commissioner Gary Bettman binged all of Heated Rivalry in one night
Carly Lewis is a journalist whose work has appeared in the New York Times and the New York Times Magazine, Vanity Fair, Wired, Interview Magazine, Pitchfork, Elle, and Maclean’s, where she is a contributing editor. Her work has been recognized by the National Magazine Awards and the Digital Publishing Awards. She reports on city life, culture—including what people do online—politics, art and crime. She received the Dave Greber Freelance Writers Award for “The Murder of Ashley Wadsworth,” an investigative feature about a Canadian teenager who was killed by a man she met on social media, published by Maclean’s.
