If you’re a fan of “Heated Rivalry,” you might just have Ontario’s Guelph Storm ice hockey team to thank. Last year, the team missed the playoffs, leaving their facility, the Sleeman Centre, unusually vacant. 

“We normally don’t book anything into April and May,” said Ryan Giles, who manages the multi-purpose arena. “[But] once they missed the playoffs, I had all this availability. We get inquiries all the time from different shows and films or commercials that are like, ‘Hey, we need an arena for this,’ and we happened to be available. We actually had removed our ice for the season and then put it back in for the film shoot.” 

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While it may have been a bummer for the team, it worked out well for the facility — the “Heated Rivalry” cast and crew shot every hockey sequence at the facility’s rink over the course of just 10 days, transforming the 5,000-seat space into the fictional home of Shane Hollander’s Montreal Metros, Ilya Rozanov’s Boston Raiders and Scott Hunter’s New York Admirals. And while the MLH (the show’s version of the NHL) might be fictitious, that’s not stopping dedicated fans of the series from venturing to the Sleeman Centre to see the rink for themselves. 

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Created by Jacob Tierney, “Heated Rivalry” follows the relationship between closeted gay hockey players Shane and Ilya. To say it’s taken the world by storm would be an understatement; since the show’s premier on Nov. 28, 2025, the Crave original series has accumulated more than 600 million streaming minutes. It makes sense that fans are eager to see where the show was filmed: In the past six weeks, there’s definitely been an uptick in visitors who are “more quick to snap their camera” and a “little more wide eyed around the space” than the typical Guelph Storm spectator, said Giles. 

At this point, he estimated he’s seen hundreds of fans swing by to take selfies or purchase Sleeman Centre merchandise. However, since the hockey games tend to sell out (it is winter in Canada, after all), it’s impossible to know how many onlookers might be in attendance solely to get a glimpse at where the show was shot. “They could easily discreetly come in and we not notice with 5,000 people at a game,” said Giles. 

One way he does know fans are visiting is from the facility’s social media mentions, which are in the thousands, he said. “We’ve seen the TikToks,” said Giles. “There’s a lot of them, of people that are just showing up and wanting to take pictures around the building.” Luckily for them, the rink’s team is happy to provide a quick tour, though devotees to the show probably won’t need one: “Once you enter the space, you can see where they were,” said Giles. “If you’ve really watched the show, you’re like, ‘Oh, I know what this is and that is.’” 

The rink’s lower bowl is general admission, so anyone is able to purchase a ticket and enjoy a game if they’re interested in getting a closer look. The one spot that’s tricky to access is the suite level, which requires a VIP ticket (that’s where Shane and Ilya have their tense exchange at the Sochi Olympics). “We have had a couple of individuals who did approach us and say, ‘Hey, can I see the space?’ And with our staff, we were able to provide them with a quick tour and then take them back down to the general admission space,” said Giles.   

Giles had no idea how popular the show would become (the extent of his knowledge pre-shooting was that it was a “hockey based production”), but it’s been exciting for him to see how it’s sparking an interest in the sport from a new demographic. “There’s been so many individuals that generally don’t follow hockey, or aren’t interested in hockey, that this is exposing them to,” said Giles. The Sleeman Centre isn’t the only place this is happening — interest in hockey tickets on StubHub increased 40% during “Heated Rivalry’s” run, the company reported earlier this month. Plus, amongst the typical “boys club” culture of the sport, the show is “opening doors,” said Giles. “It’s pushing those boundaries to say, ‘It’s 2026, let’s all be inclusive’… We want to support it all we can.” 

The “Heated Rivalry” effect isn’t exclusive to the Sleeman Centre. Other filming locations like Relay Coffee Roasters, which stands in as the Straw+Berry smoothie shop in the third episode, have also seen a steady stream of fans coming to their cafe in Hamilton, Ont.. 

“The response has been really fun,” said Rachel Hofing, who co-founded Relay Coffee Roasters with her husband, Jason. “People have been kind of making a plan to come see it, whereas they may not have heard of my cafe otherwise… There’ve been quite a few people coming in and then posting about it, always with some little joke about the ‘Blue Moon Over Brooklyn’ smoothie.”  

And while Relay Coffee doesn’t actually offer smoothies, they are experimenting with ways to get a “Heated Rivalry” drink on the menu — right now, they’re working on a banana brulee syrup and are hoping to add a banana blueberry coffee to their offerings (both nods to Scott and Kips’ relationship in the episode). The cafe is even set to host a sold-out fan meet up later this month. 

Other filming locations in Ontario include Mansion Nightclub, the rooftop bar Lavelle, Le Tambour Tavern and Dundurn Castle, which acts as Moscow during Ilya’s jogging scenes, to name a few. 

Naturally, speculation around Season 2 has already begun. But Giles isn’t able to provide any insight into when that shooting might take place: “We haven’t heard from the production company for Season 2,” said Giles. “However, I could move a few things around if the opportunity came up.”