When Dylan MarcAurele finally made time to watch the hit hockey romance Heated Rivalry last fall, it only took him five minutes to fall “totally in love” with the show. It is almost impossible to think of another television series that has become such an instantaneous phenomenon. Released by the Canadian streaming service Crave, the NSFW series about rival hockey players Shane Hollander and Ilya Rozanov not only became one of the biggest shows of 2025 but also catapulted its leads into international stardom. By the time the final episode aired, fans were already re-watching the entire season, and MarcAurele was inspired to write an entire musical.
Heated Rivalry: The Unauthorized Musical Parody is the result of that love-at-first-sight experience. Much like its source material, the off-Broadway production currently playing at the Culture Club in Manhattan has experienced an outsized response from theatergoers. MarcAurele collaborated with former Second City director Alan Kliffer to transform three frenzied weeks of writing and composing into a one-night-only concert. That sold out, as did the next. Now, what began as a small passion project has evolved into a hit off-Broadway experience, complete with multiple extensions and international interest.
A Parody Rooted in Sincerity
The musical retells the story of Heated Rivalry from the perspective of the straight, female fans who turned the series into a cultural hit. It is a framing that, if handled poorly, could have veered into cruel territory. Instead, the production delivers something precious, side-splitting, and undeniably sexy. “I wrote the thing over the course of three weeks,” MarcAurele tells Rolling Stone. “We got a Broadway cast of heavy hitters that are just amazing and eventually started joking about off-Broadway. Turns out that wasn’t a joke either.”
The show features standout performances from Jimin Moon as the wide-eyed hockey star Shane Hollander and Jay Armstrong Johnson as the Russian athlete Ilya Rozanov. The chemistry between the two is palpable, with the creative team emphasizing that the goal was never to let the parody aspect diminish the earnestness of the performances. “In their own way, they’re in love,” Kliffer says. “They really fall in love with each other over and over again every single night.”
The ‘Susan’ Perspective
Perhaps the sharpest framing choice in the production is the inclusion of the narrators—a group of exhausted, wine-drunk moms known as the “Susans.” According to the show’s lore, these women discovered the series while on a girls’ trip to Montreal and are now speed-running the show’s appeal to a rapt audience. Their inclusion provides a meta-commentary on the fandom itself, grounding the absurdity in a relatable, albeit hilarious, reality.
“It’s this idea of three wine-drunk moms telling you the version they remember in their sauvignon blanc-induced fever,” Moon explains. “The audience feels comfortable laughing at things in the show because they’re like, ‘Oh, it’s done with love.’”
As the show continues its successful run, with dates scheduled through November, the creators remain focused on the future. While the pace has been relentless, MarcAurele and Kliffer are savoring the experience. “There’s so many possibilities,” Kliffer says. “Because this has been going so fast, it’s almost hard to take everything in. So we’re just letting it go one piece at a time, and hoping it runs for as long as it possibly can.”