The ‘Heated Rivalry’ Fandom Is Tearing Itself Apart

When Heated Rivalry’s Connor Storrie and François Arnaud stepped out at a Grammys after-party together on February 2, X account Connor Storrie Updates waited to post about it.

Starring in a bona fide global phenomenon has catapulted the show’s cast into overnight superstardom and countless accounts on X and Instagram track every appearance, interview, and career move. Storrie and Arnaud’s rumored relationship has been the talk of social media and gossip rags for the past month, with thousands of tweets analyzing their recent outing at Paris fashion week.

When Gina and Anna woke up the morning after the Grammys, and saw that the photos of Storrie and Arnaud arriving at the party were from a paparazzi agency, they decided not to share until more official photos were uploaded. The two friends who run Connor Storrie Updates, Gina and Anna, have a rulebook for how they share content with their nearly 85,000 followers on X.

“We don't like to post anything without knowing where it came from,” read the guidelines, which aren’t public but were shared with me via DM. “If there are pictures/videos taken without consent/without Connor knowing he's being filmed/photographed, we don't post. This includes paparazzi pictures.”

Unlike most of the content that gets shared on their account, the two knew they needed to monitor the replies a bit more than usual.

“People are going to be mean in the comments,” Gina, 28, says on a video call. She and Anna, 26, are based in different Brazilian states and met online before the show aired. Both asked to use pseudonyms to protect their privacy. “We have to be careful. [François] is receiving a lot of hate, but at the same time, it's a tricky position. If we post something, some people are likely to leave hate comments. But if we don't post it, people are going to accuse us of being biased.”

Lately, the Heated Rivalry fandom has been a battleground.

Based on Rachel Reid’s Game Changers books, the series, which premiered on Crave in Canada and HBO Max in the US in late November, follows a star-crossed romance between pro hockey rivals Shane Hollander (Hudson Williams) and Ilya Rozanov (Storrie). The previously unknown lead actors now have fanbases that rival the world’s biggest pop stars. Arnaud plays a smaller role, of fellow gay hockey player Scott Hunter. (None of actors were available for comment.)

For some, admiration of the show has devolved into full-blown obsession. A month and a half since the finale aired, bars offering watch parties are still going strong, and according to Crave, of the people who’ve rewatched (a phenomenon dubbed a “reheat” by fans), 15 percent have seen an episode five times or more. One Reddit thread poses the question: “Anyone else get way too emotionally affected by this show?” Commenters admit to obsessing over scenes from the show so much they can’t do their jobs or live their lives. Many concluded they needed to take a break.

Others have gone the extra mile to mine Storrie’s and Williams’ pre-fame digital footprints for content. Storrie’s preteen YouTube videos quickly went viral. And when some stans claimed they had found Williams’ Letterboxd account, less-than-stellar reviews of performances by Rachel Zegler and Pedro Pascal crossed over into those actors’ own fanbases, leading to stan account warring and a “semi-cancellation” of Williams. He later revealed that most of those reviews weren’t even his.

Still, the screenshots were enough to make Williams the target of stan Twitter rage-baiters online, who appeared to be looking for a reason to end his career. His rumored relationship with a woman has led many to accuse him of queer-baiting. Anti-Asian slurs have been tossed at Williams by detractors with relative ease on X. While Williams has not spoken about the racism, during an appearance on SiriusXM’s Radio Andy, hosted by Andy Cohen, he stated he only respects the opinions of people who have a “developed frontal cortex.”