I usually set a word of intention for each new year, but by the second week of January, I still hadn’t quite gotten around to it yet for 2026.
That’s probably because I was too busy being infatuated, mesmerized and obsessed with the TV show known as Heated Rivalry, available on Crave in Canada and HBO in the U.S.
Like so many others, I’m besotted not just with the show itself – the distance between each weekly episode drop felt like a literal eternity – but also on its cast, creators, the books upon which it is based and every new social media post about the show, its cast, creators and books.
I’m far from the only one. Tens of thousands of otherwise sane and functional humans have been intensely wrapped up in Heated Rivalry, the beloved characters of Shane and Ilya, and the magical rising stars known as Hudson Williams and Connor Storrie since the show’s premiere at the end of November.
The LA Times clip above does a great job describing how 2025 ended for those of us in this club (cult?). Our passionate fandom, known affectionately as Loons, is a pop culture phenomenon the likes of which hasn’t been seen in years.
I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about WHY Jacob Tierney’s little low-budget, six-season, queer Canadian show has diverse, international audiences in such a chokehold. It’s not just the undeniably attractive and talented cast, great storytelling and writing, or the deliciously spicy sex scenes. Those are terrific, but not enough to have catapulted this show, and its stars, into the stratosphere of global popularity so quickly.
Rather, I think it’s the emotion so beautifully conveyed throughout the show: the emotion of yearning. I don’t think any of us have nearly enough yearning in our lives.
Since making this revelatory realization, it’s all I can think about. Yearning is one of the purest, most tender of all human emotions. Defined by Merriam-Webster as “a feeling of intense longing for something, typically something that one been separated from or that is unattainable,” yearning has never been sweeter or more heartfelt than in the Heated Rivalry TV show, as well as in Rachel Reid’s wonderful Game Changers books that inspired it.
Part of the reason the yearning on HR is so irresistible to see and experience is that it is being done by hot, fit, male professional athletes at the top of their game: professional hockey players, to be precise. You see, yearning and hyper-masculinity go together like chocolate and peanut butter, an utterly bewitching formula that basically has a catnip-esque effect on women and queer people.
Actually, one of my favorite things about the HR phenomenon is that even so-called “manly” straight men are falling in love with this show – the on-screen yearning and love is so pure and tender, it defies all stereotypes and genres.
Heated Rivalry may be billed as a gay hockey show or gay hockey romance, but the real magic lies in its yearning, and that emotion appeals to all genders and sexualities. Just as I found myself head over heels with The Summer I Turned Pretty last summer, another peak yearning show, the yearning in HR called to my soul all throughout December.
And that’s how I came up with my word of the year for 2026: yearning. I want and need more of this incredible feeling in my life. It’s like a drug. Maybe we get too much of what we want given to us right away, rather than having to wait, wish and want for it. With everything under the sun accessible right here in our phones, we hardly ever have to pine or long for something. I miss that!
I plan to delay gratification in 2026. I am DTY: down to yearn. I will give myself things to pine and long for… and to wait for. My love of travel has always had an element of yearning to it, and perhaps that’s why it’s one of my favorite things to do.
How else can I incorporate yearning into my 2026? I’m not sure yet, but I’ll be thinking and writing about yearning in the months to come. I want more of this feeling in my life – and not just from books or TV shows. I want to imbue yearning into the very marrow of my real, lived experiences.
And if I need inspiration, I can always go right back to the source: yearning for season 2 of Heated Rivalry the TV show, promised to us sometime in 2027 by creator Jacob Tierney and the cast, and for the third book installment of Shane and Ilya’s story, coming this fall from writer Rachel Reid.
Yearn away, friends. It feels so good, it almost hurts.
