TV Watch: Heated Rivalry

Well.  I've now seen all of the 2026 hockey/ romance sensation folks are watching over on HBO, Heated Rivalry.

The six-episode series charts years and years of a pair of hockey players who enter the pros at the same time, one a nice boy from Canada, and one a Russian who is such a bad boy, he smokes.  The two have an immediate attraction, and embark on what is initially a sexual relationship, but eventually becomes romantic.  Both are tortured by the expectations put upon them by their macho sport and all that surrounds that as closeted men.

I'm oversimplifying because, gang, this was 6 episodes, each running 45 minutes.  

I don't know that the show really held a ton of surprises, but it's not that kind of show.  It's more about taking you on the journey as best they can as the two move from casual and sexy secretive hook-ups to developing real feelings.  

Chabert Watch: High Hopes (2006)

the actual two leads aren't on the poster?

Watched:  02/21/2026

Format:  Disc

Viewing:  First (and last)

Director:  Joe Eckardt

Blogger's Note:  Well, pals, here we hit a major milestone of ChabertQuest.  As far as I know, this movie is the last live-action Chabert movie on the list that seems to be available on disc and/ or streaming.  Of the 90 films on my list, only five remain, and I am not sure two of them ever saw the light of day.  And the others may just disappear into the fog of time, never having had a physical or streaming media release.  That said, I'd love to finish off the list.  

As near as I can guess, this movie was a money laundering scheme.  Like, bring in money saying you have name people but spend none of it on the actual movie as you shoot in your house.

There's no obvious script to High Hopes (2006), it genuinely feels like they had a rough idea of what they wanted to do, but then they just kind of shot a movie - sometimes with lines, sometimes not - when they had enough actors in the room.  Or, they had rewrites and more rewrites on a movie that is 99.99% set up for a punchline that is telegraphed well in advance, bigoted and was never going to be funny.