Viewers around the world have been drawn to Heated Rivalry like moths to a flame. Now, the Milan Cortina 2026 Winter Olympics are keeping it burning by choosing the show’s stars, Hudson Williams and Connor Storrie, as official torchbearers.
The news was announced on Thursday by HBO Max, which owns the streaming rights to Heated Rivalry and will broadcast the Winter Olympics live.
The torch relay, which started in Greece on 26 November 2025, is due to conclude on the 6 February, when the opening ceremony begins at Milan’s San Siro Stadium.
Details of the exact time and date of Williams and Storrie’s appearance are yet to be confirmed.
Since premiering late last year in the United States, Heated Rivalry has become one of the most-talked about shows of 2026.
Based on a popular series of LGBTQ+ novels by Rachel Reid, it follows a passionate romance that develops between two rivalling hockey players, IIya (Storrie) and Shane (Williams).
It’s been especially popular with female audiences, who have praised the six-part series’ focus on emotional connection over sexual explicitness. It also continues an upward trend in romance fiction, with sales of romance books more than doubling in the US last year, according to a report by Circana BookScan.
Alongside Storrie and Williams, attendees can expect to see a fantastical, sun-like structure inspired by Leonardo da Vinci‘s complex knot patterns – known as fantasia dei vinci. Two of these will be simultaneously lit and extinguished in Milan and Cortina d’Ampezzo.
Who else will perform at the opening ceremony?
They might be the buzziest, but Storrie and Williams certainly aren’t the biggest names to inaugurate the upcoming Winter Olympics.
It was announced last week that Italian tenor Andrea Bocelli will headline the opening ceremony show, while American pop star and five-time Grammy Award-winner Mariah Carey will also perform.
Alongside the main stadium show, events will take place all across Northern Italy as part of the Games’ drive to encourage widespread participation and accessibility.
Of the 116 scheduled events, six will be debut categories, including Ski Mountaineering and Women’ Large Hill Ski Jumping.
The closing ceremony is on 22 February at the historic Verona Arena_._
Additional sources • AP