Since premiering less than a year ago on Crave, hockey romance series Heated Rivalry has become one of the most viral subjects in pop culture. From unauothorized off-Broadway parodies to a sea lion at Pacific Marine Mammal Center being named after Shane Hollander, the series has become seemingly inescapable. Now, the NSFW show, and the book series it was based on, is getting its place in academia.
Starting this fall, students at the University of Victoria in British-Columbia will be able to take two different classe centered around the series, the Times Colonist reports.
Law professor Gillian Calder has taught her class ''Queering Law'' before, but will now use the series to push students to reflect how regulations affect queer lives, sports, gender, sexuality and masculinity in Canada. Guest speakers will be called upon to discuss different real-life events, such as the Hockey Canada sexual assault scandal that rocked the country. Her broader approach to legal education, she says, emphasizes creativity, empathy and the ability to understand experiences beyond one's own.
Across campus, English professor Janice Niemann is taking a different route into the phenomenon.
Her course, English 321: Authors on Screen: Rachel Reid's Heated Rivalry, will bring Reid's novels, the television adaptation and fan culture into the classroom. Students will read three books from the series, watch the show and examine fan fiction and fandom while considering what happens when a hugely popular romance moves from the page to the screen. Interest in the class is so strong, she says, that more seats needed to be added to accomodate students.
The course's aim, among other things, is to challenge the idea that media aimed toward women and queer people is not as valuable or culturally significant.
Production for the second season of the Crave series is currently underway, and is expected to release in April 2027.
