“Heated Rivalry” breakout stars Hudson Williams and Connor Storrie were selected for the Olympic torch relay, ahead of next month’s games of Milano Cortina 2026, the show’s streaming platform announced on Thursday.
Williams and Storrie play the characters of Shane Hollander and Ilya Rozanov — closeted ice hockey stars carrying on a torrid, secret romance — on the hit HBO Max show.
“HBO Max today announced that Hudson Williams and Connor Storrie, stars of the Crave Original series HEATED RIVALRY, have been selected to take part in the Olympic Torch Relay as official torchbearers for the Olympic Winter Games Milano Cortina 2026,” according to an HBO Max statement.
“Heated Rivalry,” based on books penned by romance writer Rachel Reid, has been one of the 2025-26 television season’s most surprising hits.
The network did not disclose what day or location Williams and Storrie would be carrying the torch. The torch was in Trieste on Thursday and set to go through Udine on Friday.
The actors will hoist the torch at some point between Thursday and opening ceremonies, which are set for Feb. 6, though a handful of competitions — curling, luge and skiing — get started two days earlier.
The first men’s ice hockey games are set for Feb. 11. The following day, Team USA opens against Latvia, the following day.
Latvia, a nation of less than 2 million residents, consistently punches over its hockey weight, with a No. 10 world ranking and five skaters and two goaltenders in today’s NHL.
Latvia’s reputation even earned the team admiration from “Heated Rivalry” writers who inked a Latvian upset over Rozanov’s Team Russia in the show’s alternate reality of 2014 Sochi Olympics.
HBO Max picked up U.S. rights to the hockey romance in late November, sending the previously little-known show, and it’s actors, into spaces no one could have never imagined.
“I knew it was going to be something. I did not know it was going to be HBO,” Storrie told NBC’s “TODAY” last week. “I think HBO was kind of like a pie-in-the-sky moment for all of us. HBO is so prestigious, and I think it’s a really good platform for this, but, you know, nothing’s promised.”
(Source: NBC News)
