‘More Than Rivals’, a ‘queer’ hockey romance that has become a global phenomenon

Ellos they are the protagonists More than rivals (Jacob Tierney, 2025), the title that brought into fashion the most pirate series, a variable that has been since the end of game of thrones (David Benioff & DB Weiss, 2011-2019).

Based on the novel saga by Rachel Reid Game changers and inspired by the rivalry between Sidney Crosby and Alexander Ovechkin, took advantage of social conversation, the series fed memes and became the most viewed original on Crave, the Canadian platform that connected the project with a 400% (!) viewership increase in the first week of airing.

But that’s what sparked this romance odd between hockey stars to reveal themselves as a global phenomenon? About the creator, director and guide Jacob Tierney (Montreal, 1979), you have demonstrated your ability to successfully mix genres in some of your previous works, viz. Good old people (2010).

En More than rivals, sports epic, romantic drama, el softcore and including romcom combined with naturelike this from the editor’s desk with a sense of anxiety. This syncopated narrative, based on numerous ellipses and continuous time jumps — preserving the image of one of the skies sharpening the sky — retraces the intermittent romantic relationship between Montreal Metros player Shane Hollander (Hudson Williams) and his greatest competitor, son Ilya Rozanov (Conor Storrie), an integral part of the Boston Riders.

My wish to die in shame before public opinion, loss of patrons, family relations and endemic homophobia In sports, these are the reasons that led Hollander and Rozanov to keep secret what at first seemed like an adventure.

His stories and observations, marked by his very different personalities and his different backgrounds, come from stormy romance that Tierney’s difficult writing pauses in Ecuador to introduce Scott Hunter (François Arnaud), a New York Admirals player, a repressed homosexual who opens the door to visibility.

The series can be seen as aspirational fiction designed to restore the “mainstream” from new perspectives

In a sharp pirouette, More than rivals signals the absence of referents as one of the obstacles preventing the free expression of the sexual orientation of the protagonists at the time, it consigns the characters of Williams and Stories to the league of icons. The series can be interpreted as aspirational fiction – privileged characters, uncompromising fathers and understanding women – designed to restore it. mainstream from new perspectives.

On the sidelines of his social contributions, Jacob Tierney returns to some of the styles of his compatriot Xavier Dolan, with whom he worked as a guide in Mi vida with John F. Donovan (2018): from expressive use soundtrack —exposure to the dynamics of the desire for rhythm All the things she said of which in the fourth episode – the use of colors with a dramatic effect, contrasting intimate moments with the outside world.

This world outside again presents itself as a great scenario (use of general plans, frontal views) in which Shane and Ilya have to represent the paper of immaculate idols. Seno, pues, sobrados motives para entender la fiber por More than rivals.