Heated Rivalry is in theaters, so you can watch The Cottage with 200 strangers until November 30

Heated Rivalry is the Canadian hockey romance Jacob Tierney made for Crave from Rachel Reid's Game Changers novels. Shane Hollander (Hudson Williams) and Ilya Rozanov (Connor Storrie) are rival stars who spend years hooking up in secret and pretending to hate each other on the ice. All six episodes premiered between November 28 and December 26, 2025, streaming day-and-date on HBO Max in the US. It became Crave's most-watched original series ever and HBO Max's top-rated non-animated acquired series since the platform launched in 2020.

A year later, it's on the big screen.

How the theatrical run works

Regal is leading the release with Sphere Abacus and Crave, and more than 650 theaters are taking part, AMC and Cinemark among them. The run started November 6 and ends November 30, with screenings in North America, the UK, Australia and New Zealand.

The season plays in order, as three double features at $9.99 each:

• Episodes 1 and 2 — "Rookies" and "Olympians"
• Episodes 3 and 4 — "Hunter" and "Rose"
• Episodes 5 and 6 — "I'll Believe in Anything" and "The Cottage"

Regal screenings open with welcome videos from the cast and directors, and participating theaters are pouring two themed cocktails: Summer in Montreal and Russians Don't Blush. Regal Rewards+ and AMC A-List members can book at no extra charge.

The pitch is less about the screen size than about the room.

Regal's Brooks LeBoeuf said the goal is to "give fans a reason to experience it together."

Fans have been experiencing it alone, repeatedly. About a third of the audience watched the whole season more than once, which is what turned a streaming hit into something a theater chain wanted to book.

Why the last ticket is the one everyone wants

The third double feature is the best deal in the run. Episode 5 is the season's most rewatched episode and holds a perfect 10 on IMDb. Episode 6 is the finale. One ticket gets you both, back to back.

Don't miss: Heated Rivalry has been streaming for a year. Fans still paid $1.4 million to see it in theaters

They're also built as opposites. Episode 5 covers years: the All-Star Game, a funeral in Moscow, a hospital visit, and Ilya finally saying how he feels in Russian. It ends with Shane inviting him to spend the summer at his parents' cottage. Episode 6 is just the summer. Tierney wrote and directed it, and it's the first episode of the series with no hockey at all.

"Episode 5 was so big and then 6 was so small and I realized, 'This is so bold,'" Tierney told TheWrap.

He cut it down to "almost one location and four actors." Two of those actors are Shane's parents. His father shows up at the cottage unannounced and finds the two of them together, and Shane comes out to his mom and dad with Ilya standing next to him. The quiet scene between Shane and his mother that follows isn't in Reid's novel; Tierney added it for the show.

The episode ends with Ilya calling himself Shane's boyfriend for the first time, and then it doesn't cut to black. The credits roll over one continuous shot, scored to Cailin Russo's "Bad Things," a song that saw a surge in US streams after the finale aired, according to Billboard. In a theater, that's a strong argument for staying in your seat.

The private option

If watching it with a room full of strangers sounds like too much, the cottage itself takes bookings. The finale was filmed at a private home in Muskoka Lakes, Ontario, designed by Toronto architect Trevor McIvor. It went up on Airbnb this year at CA$248.10 a night. It has three bedrooms, sleeps six and allows pets.

The theater run wraps November 30. Season 2 is filming in Toronto, adapts Reid's The Long Game, and is set to premiere in April 2027.

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