P.S.A. | Real Love | "Tell the Youngins"

Let’s talk about HEATED RIVALRY. The wildly viral new series about closeted gay hockey players; with the story based in Montreal, Canada; aligning very well with Montreal's ongoing reputation as Canada's 'city of romance.'

I binged the entire first season (six episodes) during Snowmageddon USA in January 2026 and, to me, this show felt so good, so relevant and so compelling.

Here are my reasons why:

(1) It gives a lot of gay men something we rarely got growing up, which is intensity and strength in desire for another male, and;

(2) it depicts two men who mutually desire each other, and;

(3) they don't have to change who they are in order to choose one another or to be chosen.

I immediately connected with this show because for me, as a young gay man in the late 1980s trying to figure my way forward, this was how I was taught that gay love feels real.

Sylvia Rivera & Marsha P. Johnson | Under the umbrella of the Stonewall Movement in 1969 in New York City

That's how they hooked me into this show, and so many others, I'm sure.

But, in the 1980s, the AIDS epidemic was also very real and real scary. This, just after the riot on Stonewall, which happened in 1969 and resulted in more “hidden door” underground gay clubs, speakeasy’s, bookstores, etc. This was partly how I learned that love had to be hidden, earned and fought for. So, seeing this show now on the screen, depicted under the backdrop of an all-male sport, where’s there’s rivalry, secrecy, chemistry and intensity, it feels utterly electric to watch. Validating, in fact, because I’ve lived this world and I can relate.

Many of us can.

• The rivalry in the show makes the longing that they have for each other feel meaningful.

• The secrecy makes the desire feel special.

• The push and pull that they have fuels their chemistry.

If you grew up, like I did, associating love with tension and hiding, this kind of story doesn't just entertain you, it feels very familiar. It feels like what you went through at some point.

But I’m no longer a young 19-year-old man in 1989, in my sexual prime, with hormones revving me in every angle and direction of my life monopolizing my decisions. It’s 2026 now. I’m 56, married for almost 19 years, and as I think about this story, through a different lens in my current chapter of life, and also sprinkle in the current state of things in the world, along with my own experiences in marriage to my partner Jeff, I (silently) question that this show is not the best show for younger generations, if we don’t teach them to stay healthy with how they view and process this content.

Here’s what I mean:

I believe that this show is wildly successful because it is cross-generational and it tugs at a lot of hearts and heartstrings, but I do strongly feel that it is also risky for real-life young, gay relationships in this day and age. Sheesh, I sound like an old, gay, mentor Daddy, but I digress...

"I truly feel this because the show takes two young, attractive ‘hockey centers’ and then subsequently centers their love story around intensity over attunement." 

It centers longing over emotional or physical availability. This conflict is at the center of the story. The characters and the story work because we, as the audience, get that familiar Hollywood reassurance throughout the story. We know that this young love is mutual, we know where it's all going, we get to trust the arc of the Hollywood story map … but the male characters that real life gay men are watching and idolizing are just “hanging in there” waiting in that tension and it’s that “hanging in there” tension that messes with a person’s central nervous system.

In real life, rivalry plus secrecy plus emotional withholding does not usually turn into epic love. There I said it. It just doesn’t. There is a lot of work involved. Hurdles. Struggles. Bumps. Disagreements.

This is the recipe for anxious attachment that confuses nervous system activation for chemistry. It trains us to tolerate emotional distance and volatility as long as it's wrapped in this really intense passion when these young athletes get (often secretly) back together again.

Thinking about this as a fantasy story, it’s invigorating to me and it brings me back to my young love days and it's riveting and relevant enough for me to keep watching. But, thinking about this as a blueprint for a real-life, long-lasting gay relationship is an anxiety attack waiting to happen. (…and, in fact, one of the lead guys on the show, Shane Hollander, has one, at one point, and unexpectedly walks away from his love interest whereby they don’t see each other for months thereafter.)

Lastly, I’ll add this to the mix because this is vitally important to the communities where we (gay people) live. The people we love and those that love us, and the times we’re in today are also wildly relevant to consider when launching a show like this . . . and this is where my beautiful Eureka Springs enters into my gay, old-man rant.

These are very troubling times for all of us, and for the LGBTQIA+ community in particular, life is shifting rapidly as the government does all it can to eradicate us from existence. From the wider lens, I see that there's a community-level cost when a show like this goes viral and if we view this as a real-life, young gay love story blueprint.

Before I continue, I want to first thank creator Jacob Tierny for creating this and for his intention to bring visibility to this story and to these characters in a world trying to make gay people invisible ... again. My opinion here is well-intentioned and shouldn't discount all the work put into this show, nor does it take away from the art and heart of the writing, the cinematography, acting, directing and all that goes into creating and producing something like this. Our community needs stronger visibility and for that I am very grateful.

My intention by writing this blog-post is to educate our young gay citizens that are seeing this exciting show as a blueprint, when it's really a fantasy boy-meets-boy story with a lot of Hollywood complexity thrown in.

It's not real life.

I write this also because I strongly feel that if we don't take time to really educate our younger generations, these very stories may reinforce the dated idea that gay love has to still be quite difficult, and in some cases really difficult, in order to be real and long-lasting. It also potentially reinforces that calm is a really boring narrative and idea that “consistency in a real relationship" means settling.

In addition, I feel that these are the kinds of stories that further confuse the idea that mutual availability potentially leads to a lack of spark and passion.

It's mutual availability that fosters attunement and its attunement that creates long-lasting love.

Today, in 2026, when you add social media into the mix of those young gay lives, newly out of the closet and even those that got through their 20s and are now approaching their 30s still seeking, it worries me that a lot of gay men will keep chasing these high-intensity connections with other men that never actually support real intimacy, real stability, and mutual attunement. In other words, they’re in it for what Hollywood sells to them: the hot sex, the high-energy intensity and excitement, and of course the thrill of it all.

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My final take on this is that HEATED RIVALRY is exceptional as a Hollywood (fantasy) story for all of us from any walk of life and from any generation to enjoy, and that is the firm lens for which I see this story and show. It's very important to me to convey to our young people that this is not a wonderful blueprint of how real gay men find love, cherish the connection and build long-lasting mutual attunement for years. Please do not see this as something to strive for. It's a gay fantasy Hollywood story. That is it.

Note: Of course, it’s just been one season of this show, and this is my current take on it all. I would be really pleased to see that in season two, they shift the narrative more in the direction of real-life situations and how to foster mutual attunement. Then again, I can't see this happening. If they shifted in that direction, that's more like a PBS program and not an exciting, gay, hockey, drama, fantasy flick.

The moral: Know what you're watching and pay attention to what it does to you as a human being with a heart and mind.

HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY!

It’s February 2026, and with Valentine’s Day just around the corner, I want you all to know (you know who you are) ... that you do not need rivalry or intense competition to feel desire. You don't need emotional unavailability or push/pull to feel chemistry. You don't need secrecy to feel special. Those patterns don't come from romance; they come from survival and often from trauma.

Take it from someone who has found real, very visible love, and engages in a real, very visible community surrounded by acceptance, inclusion, belonging and more love: “The love that actually changes your life for the better will not feel like heated rivalry, it'll feel like calm, cool relief.”❤️

JM (is originally from Boston, MA) & Jeff (is originally from San Antonio, TX.) Two different lives, two different worlds came together in 2007. We work hard at symbiosis, mutual attunement and strengthening our connection in all the ways that we can in this complicated life. (as for Kirby, he just eats, sleeps and spreads lots and lots of joy.) In my next life, I'm a dog to two gay men who are madly in love. Now, that's real life.