‘Heated Rivalry’ Says As Much About LGBTQ+ Clergy and Religious As It Does About Hockey

“But for all the attention that closeted queer athletes are getting right now,” writes Jim McDermott, “while watching Heated Rivalry I found myself thinking instead of the many queer priests, brothers, and sisters that I have known, and my own experiences as one.”

Writing for Sapienta, the blog of the Center on Religion and Culture at Fordham University, New York, McDermott describes his surprisingly poignant experience as a former clergy member who is queer as he watched the HBO sensation Heated Rivalry. The show details the secret relationship of two closeted gay hockey players, Ilya and Shane, and brings to light what McDermott calls “an aspect of professional athletics that most fans have never considered, other than perhaps to wonder why it is that there don’t seem to be many gay football, baseball, basketball, or hockey players in real life.” 

For McDermott (who is a regular contributor to Bondings 2.0), the connection between Ilya and Shane, and the comfort they find in each other despite the secret nature of their relationship, is familiar. He, too, has lived in a world where it can feel detrimental to be gay. Even for a priest—maybe especially for a priest—to encounter another queer person living your experience is “life-changing,” he says, just like it is for Ilya and Shane.

McDermott continues:

“No matter how comfortable a priest, bishop, or religious might be in their sexuality, living your life in a context which demands that you bury or keep silent about an entire part of yourself cannot help but make for a lonely and even painful existence at times. 

“Heated Rivalry has it exactly right: To feel as though you must live with part of you a secret is a weight that  warps your relationships. And to find yourself loved by someone else like you, someone who sees you and understands your experience is a revelation.”

When the two characters see an older hockey player kiss the man he loves on television, McDermott saw the impact of that life-changing power. “Suddenly their relationship,” he says, “opens up into something more honest and vulnerable. In seeing that they are not alone, they are able to let go and become so much more human and generous.” This was McDermott’s experience as well. “Being known and loved for who I was made me a better person and a better priest,” he says. “It helped me live easier in my own skin.”

Despite this, there are still plenty of people in the church who claim that Jesus would condemn such an identity. McDermott reminds us that Jesus never spoke definitively on anything like sexuality, or many issues which have only come to light in modern times. He writes:

“But I do know from the Scriptures that Jesus was intent on bringing freedom to the imprisoned and placing those whom others had cast out at the center of the Kingdom of God. And the only group he consistently denounced were the religious leaders who shamed and shunned members of their flock, usually by portraying them as sinners.”

McDermott believes, Jesus would not condemn or dismiss stories like Ilya’s and Shane’s, but rather would use them as an example of how love, tenderness, and honesty can make us stronger, not weaker. 

“And I have no doubt,” McDermott adds, “he would be welcoming as brothers, sisters, and friends beyond the binary the many, many queer people who are religious and clergy. After all, it was he who called them to that form of discipleship in the first place.”

In the path to modern queer equality, there have always been forks in the road. McDermott details a few of them: Stonewall, the landmark decision in the 70s that homosexuality is not a mental illness. He believes that it is “only a matter of time” before such a fork in the road appears for the church, and that there is no doubt as to which path Jesus would want us to take. 

McDermott ends by imagining the many religious leaders watching Heated Rivalry as he did, and experiencing “that selfsame sense of wonder, and also longing to be known. We’re practically sitting side by side, parishioners and pastors, teachers and colleagues. And yet paradoxically because of the church that brings us together, we’re not allowed to say so.”

A problem like that will ultimately divide us rather than bring us closer. As McDermott says, “that’s not right, and it doesn’t have to be that way, either.”

—Lynnzee Dick, New Ways Ministry, February 9, 2026

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