‘Heated Rivalry’ Script Changes: Every Major Deleted Scene Cut From Season 1

It’s time to reheat Heated Rivalry yet again. Jacob Tierney, the creator of Crave’s hockey romance adaptation, has released the annotated Season 1 scripts, breaking down Shane (Hudson Williams) and Ilya’s (Connor Storrie) TV romance in a book called I’ll Believe in Anything. There are numerous behind-the-scenes insights and reveals throughout, including several deleted moments and lines.

Naturally, we knew we had to rewatch Heated Rivalry Season 1 — twist our arm — with the scripts in front of us. We’ve pinpointed all the little details that didn’t make it into the final cut or looked a little different in the finished production than they did on the page. Some scenes were a lot longer originally, including Shane and Ilya’s first meeting. Some were cut entirely, like Ilya crossing paths with Shane’s parents earlier than Episode 6.

Swooon has all the deleted moments from the script below organized by episode. Once you reach the end, let us know in the comments which moment you wish made it into Season 1!

Episode 1

The opening scene might be the one that looks most different on the page than on the screen. Tierney originally had the show start at The Kingfisher, aka Kip’s (Robbie G.K.) spot in Episode 3. The opening shot showed the TV screen, revealing 25-year-old Shane in a watch commercial. Then, it switches channels to an MLH game between Montreal and Boston in 2016. The scene cuts to black and shows Shane in the middle of the action.

In an annotation, Tierney says he ultimately eliminated the Kingfisher because it “raised too many questions about where we were and who was watching.” He still wanted to find another way to show watching hockey on TV. “There’s a sense of being watched and in the public eye throughout the show that I wanted to convey,” he wrote.

In Montreal 2016, Shane looks miserable as Montreal is losing to Boston 1 to 3. Ilya skates into the frame to face off against Shane, teasing him by asking if he’s having a good night. “Still time for a hat trick, I think? Should I do it now or wait til last minute? Last minute is more fun, but…” he says to a silent Shane. The puck drops, Ilya winks, and Shane freezes.

The scene cuts back to The Kingfisher’s TV, and Ilya’s just scored another goal. Two MLH analysts speak via voiceover, remarking that Shane and Ilya “both still play like it’s the International Prospect Cup in Regina in 2008” before fading to black.

Tierney wrote in a note that he originally wanted to start the show like Rachel Reid begins her Heated Rivalry book: years into Shane and Ilya’s hookups before flashing back to the beginning. “But what we discovered was that the focus of the show was on the evolution of the boys and their love story, and it wanted to move in chronological order,” he wrote.

There’s also a small difference in the script just ahead of their International Prospect Cup matchup. Before we get to Shane and Ilya’s first meeting, the script would have shown stock news footage of Regina with that familiar analyst voiceover about the “Canada-Russia final.” Then, Shane practices with his team before it switches to Ilya doing the same, with both watching each other from the stands. In the final version of the show, all of that comes after Shane and Ilya’s first conversation outside the building.

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In the script, after Ilya spots Shane, another deleted scene shows Shane walking through the arena lobby with his mom and dad, Yuna (Christina Chang) and David (Dylan Walsh). Yuna says that Ilya’s only an “OK” player. When Shane counters that Ilya is good, Yuna says, “He is, but you’re —”

Shane interrupts her again. “He’s very good, mom.” She replies, “I know. But so are you. And I may be biased, but I think you’re better. And so does Montreal.”

David admonishes her for saying that last part out loud. Shane tells her it’s a secret. He spots Ilya walking outside and follows him. Then the next scene is the one that ended up starting the show. Even that is different and extended in the script. Shane asks if Ilya’s parents are there, and when he answers in the negative, Shane muses that “must suck. With Christmas and all.”

After Ilya tells him Christmas is later in Russia, Shane tries to keep the conversation going by commenting on the cold weather. Shane nervously rambles about the Cup being in his hometown, Ottawa, next year. Smirking, Ilya asks if Ottawa is more exciting than Regina and if Shane’s parents are attending the tournament. Once Shane rambles a bit more about his mom being his manager, he exits. Ilya’s parting quip — “You will not be so nice when we beat you” — remains the same.

After the MLH draft, viewers will remember Shane and Ilya’s encounter at the hotel gym: racing on stationary bikes, then sharing Ilya’s water bottle. The scripts reveal that the aftermath of that encounter was originally supposed to show Shane leaning against his hotel room door, out of breath afterward. He starts the shower and the camera pushes in on the bathroom door, and you can hear Shane getting off. That entire sequence was cut from Episode 1.

There was also dialogue deleted from Shane and Ilya’s post-commercial locker room shower. The scene is largely silent in the show, while in the script, Shane tries to claim he’s “thinking about something else” when it’s obvious he’s aroused by Ilya. “Your girlfriend?” Ilya asks. Shane says they broke up. “Sad. So what were you thinking about?” Ilya challenges.

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We all know what happens next… Shane and Ilya meet in Shane’s hotel room and get off together for the first time. After is another deleted scene set in October 2010 in Montreal. The Metros joke with each other in the locker room while Shane is alone, lacing his skates with headphones on.

It cuts to Shane practicing a face-off drill. Hayden (Callan Potter) and some teammates are on the bench, looking at a phone before they all look over at Shane. Kolya approaches and asks whether Shane has seen the video of Ilya talking about him during an interview yet. Shane reacts like the phone is kryptonite, and Kolya retreats. Hayden approaches Shane next and takes over the drill, making Shane happy. It’s the beginning of their friendship.

The next few Episode 1 script differences occur during the Las Vegas MLH Awards. In a small offhand comment, Scott (François Arnaud) refers to himself as “Captain America” (IYKYK) when chatting with Shane at the bar. A much bigger bombshell? Tierney originally had a moment during the reception, just before Shane meets Ilya on the roof, where Yuna speaks to Eric Bennett, the New York Admirals goalie who goes on to lead Reid’s Common Goal.

Episode 2

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Episode 1 has the most significant amount of changes, but there are a few in Episode 2, which largely explores Shane and Ilya’s experience at the 2014 Olympics in Sochi, Russia. After Carter (Kolton Stewart) and Scott sit down with Shane at the ice cream shop, there’s another cut to The Kingfisher TV screen, showing Ilya and Team Russia’s loss to Latvia. After showing the final moments of the game, Ilya is as “broken as we’ve ever seen him” during a post-game interview, per the action beats.

In the script, Shane approaches Ilya in the stands during the figure skating competition — and Ilya completely shuts him down, just like he does in the finished episode — instead of ending there, Shane goes back to the stands to Scott and Carter. He tells them they should go to the locker room to see Joe. “We ended up cutting this scene for pace even though I liked it,” Tierney notes.

There’s also more dialogue in the script when Shane goes to Hayden’s house and, alongside many other Metros, watches Ilya win his first Stanley Cup. As they watch, Hayden’s wife Jackie (Kamilla Kowal) remarks that she thought it was Scott Hunter’s year, and the group has some banter about him. “He’s an emotional player,” Shane says in a deleted line.

Episode 3

There are very, very few differences between the Episode 3 script and final product. Tierney got rid of some of the voiceover by his fictional podcasters during that stretch where Scott is sprinting outside Kip’s smoothie shop. Some of the hockey language about Scott’s poor stats got too technical. “You don’t have to understand the intricacies of the game to understand what is going on in the show,” Tierney explained in a note.

Later, during the gala that both Scott and Kip attend, there’s a piece of deleted dialogue. When meeting Kip’s bestie, Elena (Nadine Bhabha), Scott says both Kip and Elena are beautiful. He originally got flustered afterward, saying, “Sorry. I’m not used to talking to girls. Women.” Tierney cut it because he didn’t believe it. Scott can talk to anyone.

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Episode 4

During Episode 4’s montage, there were originally glimpses of Shane’s cottage, rather than it first being introduced when Ilya watches Shane’s ESPN special. First, Shane and his parents look at a plot of land by a lake with an architect, who unfurls the construction plans. In another script beat, Shane is on his dock watching the house get built, and it’s nearly done. In the final montage cottage clip that would’ve been, Shane and his parents walk through it fully furnished. Shane takes pictures and starts to send them to Ilya, but stops himself and texts Hayden instead.

“We couldn’t afford to show the cottage in mid-construction, but I still wanted to tease it. It was always a pipe dream of mine that he was building the cottage the whole time. I wanted to show it existed and was peaceful and serene,” Tierney explained.

In another montage moment that isn’t in the final cut, Yuna is included in that sequence where Shane films an underwear commercial. Shane looks uncomfortable during the shoot, and Yuna walks over to him to show him something on her phone. Shane whispers something in her ear, and then Yuna apologizes for trying to help and walks away.

Next, the tuna melt scene. In both the script and finished episode, Ilya gives Shane sweatpants to wear after their hookup. In the script, there’s a deleted line afterward where Shane says, “I took a T-shirt, too.” “Good,” Ilya replies, while looking at him “wolfishly.”

In the next line that didn’t make it in, Ilya directly points out the ginger ale he bought. “Is what you like, right? Ginger ale?” he asks after tossing one to Shane.

Last but not least, there was a little more to the club scene in the script. When Shane spots Ilya kissing a woman, Rose (Sophie Nélisse) plants one on him while they dance together. Rose’s friend, Miles, puts his mouth on the back of Shane’s neck before the latter makes his escape. Rose and Miles weren’t kissing Shane during that moment in the final edit.

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Episode 5

A detail was cut from Shane and Ilya’s hotel room conversation at the Tampa All-Stars game. Trying to have an honest conversation about his feelings with Ilya, Shane tells Ilya that he’s gay, and mid-conversation, Ilya hands Shane a ginger ale from his mini fridge. Tierney cut it because he didn’t want Ilya to have anything in his hand. “The scene was too cluttered when the focus should be on how they are behaving together,” he noted.

The next deleted piece of dialogue is from the hospital room scene, where a drugged-up Shane asks Ilya to come to his cottage. “Remember you said we should go away somewhere?” Shane asks, to which Ilya responds, “I remember. But it was stupid…”

“But it wasn’t stupid,” Shane counters before delivering the fan-favorite line that did make it in: “We can be completely alone. Together.”

Tierney got rid of that small exchange “because Hudson’s performance was so good and was doing so much heavy lifting that [his] dialogue ended up not being necessary.”

Next is the most significant deleted scene aside from the introduction. In the script, when Ilya walks out of the hospital room, he runs into David and Yuna in the hallway. After they greet each other, Ilya explains that he’s there out of a “professional courtesy.” Ilya asks them for reassurance that Shane is OK, and he starts to walk away. Before he gets too far, he asks Yuna and David to let him know if there’s anything he can do, confusing Yuna. Yuna and David glance at each other.

“We didn’t even end up shooting this deleted scene. We ran out of time. We didn’t have the spot or the money,” Tierney wrote.

Crave

Finally, some other small dialogue omissions. Fresh out of the hospital at his parents’ cottage, Shane says “love you back” to Rose after she ends their phone call with an “I love you.” In the show, the scene ends with Rose only saying “I love you.” Lastly, as the Hollanders watch Scott and Kip kiss on TV, Yuna asks, “Is that his boyfriend?” As Shane is getting up to answer Ilya’s phone call, he says, “I don’t know, Mom.”

Episode 6

Technically, this one isn’t deleted because the team couldn’t make it happen, but Rose was originally supposed to present Scott his MVP award. She was supposed to appear on stage, beaming as Scott approached. Still, they used her voiceover to announce him as the winner. “Had Sophie Nélisse been available on this day of filming, I would have loved to have had Rose there,” Tierney wrote.

Once Shane and Ilya are at the cottage, pretty much every beat and line in the script appears the same in the final cut. One small changed line occurs at the end of Ilya opening up about his mom’s death, laying his head on Shane’s lap while they watch the fire in the backyard. Ilya originally asked, “There is more wood?” He replied, “Good,” when Shane answered affirmatively. In the final cut, Shane instead asks, “Do you wanna go inside?” and Ilya says no.

“I had wanted to do a real fire with wood, but it was just too hard, so we used propane and cut this line,” Tierney said.

Another element Tierney couldn’t bring to life was Shane’s dock, which is mentioned throughout the Episode 6 script. “There was no dock at our cottage. Rock it is!” he joked.

Shane and Ilya’s dinner with David and Yuna had one small unscripted beat. Originally, when Ilya explains that he’s “only been in love with one person,” Ilya took Shane’s hand under the table. In the final edit, they touched feet, a callback to their press conference years ago.

Last but certainly not least, the actors left some lines in the script out during Shane and Yuna’s conversation post-coming out. On the page, Yuna says it’s her fault for making Shane feel like she couldn’t tell her about his sexuality. “No, Mom, you didn’t do anything wrong,” Shane reassures her in a deleted line.

Sabrina Lantos / HBO Max

“Yes, I did. I put too much on you, with the endorsements and —” Yuna interjects.

“That wasn’t you,” Shane says. “I love hockey. I wanted all this.”

“I know you love hockey. But somewhere along the way I decided you had to be perfect…” Shane says that he tried, but he couldn’t help it. Yuna continues, “Let me finish. I didn’t see that you already were. You’re perfect, Shane. Just the way you are. And I am so sorry if I ever made you feel like you weren’t.”

Whew! That should be all the most major changes between the script and the finished Season 1. Which change surprised you the most? Don’t forget to tell us in the comments!

Heated Rivalry, Season 1, Streaming Now, Crave & HBO Max

Heated Rivalry, Season 2, TBA 2027, Crave & HBO Max