The biggest TV hit of the moment almost didn’t happen.
Heated Rivalry, a show about two ice hockey players on opposing teams having a decade-long steamy sexual affair, was made on a tiny budget for Canadian streaming service Crave. HBO Max struck a deal to air it in the US, starting on Thanksgiving Weekend. By the end of that first week, it had 30 million streaming minutes. By the end of December, that number was over 324 million.
