When the nominations for the 2026 Emmys are announced Wednesday at 8:30 a.m. PT, one of the year’s buzziest shows will not be mentioned. But don’t call it a snub. The only rivalry here is with the rulebook.
Heated Rivalry was financed solely in Canada by production company Bell Media and streaming service Crave, and no American studio pitched in. Thus, the Television Academy deemed the show ineligible for consideration at the Primetime Emmy Awards. Instead, the gay hockey drama can compete at the International Emmy Awards, which honor programming from outside the United States.
HBO Max, which functions solely as a U.S. distributor, signed on to stream Heated Rivalry after Season 1 was already in the can, and it appears that relationship will stay the same for Season 2. HBO Max only intends to be a streaming home in the U.S. and not provide any financing, ceding all creative control to Crave in the Great White North.
The show recently broke records at the Canadian Screen Awards with 16 wins, and it earned five nominations at the Television Critics Association Awards. All of that suggests it would have been a force to be reckoned with at the Emmys. (Breakout stars Hudson Williams and Connor Storrie are still free to present on the Emmy broadcast: hint-hint, TV Academy.)
Other Canadian programs have qualified at the American awards before, most notably Schitt’s Creek, a nine-time Emmy winner. However, that comedy was co-produced by the Los Angeles-based Not a Real Production Company and the New York City-based Pop Media Group, making it eligible at the Primetime Emmys.
Heated Rivalry, based on Rachel Reid’s bestselling Game Changers novels and showrun by Jacob Tierney, became a surprise TV phenomenon when it debuted in November. It peaked at No. 1 on HBO Max and became Crave’s biggest original series ever. The immense success even resulted in a pair of Funko Pop! figures.
Williams and Storrie play rival professional hockey players engaged in a decade-long secret love affair. Williams is Shane Hollander, a quietly intense Japanese-Canadian athlete. Storrie plays Ilya Rozanov, a brash yet complex Russian hockey player. Their relationship is outed in the season finale after a memorable trip to Shane’s family cottage.
Storrie may not be eligible for Heated Rivalry, but he does still appear on the Emmy ballot for his guest stint on Saturday Night Live. In fact, he’s in Gold Derby’s top six predictions to receive a nomination in Best Comedy Guest Actor.
During the SNL episode, he reunited with Williams on the ice-skating rink at Rockefeller Center. Some of Storrie’s memorable characters included an injured stripper at a bachelorette party, a slap-happy Victorian-era gentleman, a cool kid who ends up singing with his tutor’s odd family, and a man who receives leg shortening surgery.
Several other shows are not eligible at the 2026 Emmys because they aired after the May 31 cut-off date, and thus will contend next year. They include Dutton Ranch, The Vampire Lestat, Cape Fear, Elle, and Season 3 of House of the Dragon.
