Facing off against your partner in an Olympic final: 'Heated rivalry' becomes a reality at the Games
In a Games where more than 45 athletes have explained that they are part of the LGBTI+ community, especially in women's hockey
BarcelonaIt's one of the television phenomena of the year. The series Heated Rivalry It tells the love story between two ice hockey starsCanadian Shane Hollander and Russian Ilya Rozanov face off on the ice and desire each other off it. The series tackles the issue of homosexuality in elite men's sports, still taboo in sports like soccer. It premiered just before the Winter Olympics, where ice hockey is a major event, allowing viewers to see the two lead actors carrying the Olympic torch. This coincided with a record-breaking 48 athletes competing as part of the LGBTQ+ community. Winter Olympic sports are often a tolerant space where everyone can live and love as they choose, as is the case in figure skating.
But in these Games of Milan and Cortina d'Ampezzo, the plot of the series Heated Rivalry It has, in a way, come true. It happened in the women's ice hockey tournament, and twice over. This Thursday, the final of the women's tournament between Canada and the United States, both powerhouses, will be played. And in the hours leading up to the game, social media was flooded with messages speculating about the possible end of the relationship between American Caroline Harvey and Canadian Daryl Watts. This information, without official confirmation from either player, is based on Harvey allegedly deleting photos of herself with Watts from social media. And this comes just before the final between the two teams that have won every gold medal since 1998, when the women's competition began. Canada has won five times and the United States only twice. In fact, the final has always been between Canada and the United States, except in 2006, when Sweden surprised the United States in the semifinals before losing to Canada.
The story of Harvey and Watts has served to bring back the series that everyone is talking about these days in Milan, partly to remind everyone that of all the Olympic sports, hockey has the most players who have come out as LGBTQ+: a total of 22. But all of them are women. Not a single male player has taken that step. The second case is that of the captain of the Swedish team, Anna Kjellbin, and the Finnish player, Ronja Savolainen. In this case, the two teams have not faced each other on the Milanese ice. Sweden will play the bronze medal match today, while the Finnish team fell in the quarterfinals against Switzerland. Unlike the men's tournament, the women's tournament hasn't seen a match of maximum rivalry: whenever Sweden and Finland face off, sparks fly, given that for centuries Sweden controlled Finland. The two players met while competing against each other in the US women's league, and began their relationship openly in 2024. Savolainen joked about how she'll now have to hope Sweden wins a medal, something that wouldn't have happened if she hadn't met Anna Kjellbin.
The two captains who faced each other and wanted
But years ago, there was another relationship that could also be the subject of a TV series. For years, Julie Chu and Caroline Ouellette were the captains of the United States and Canada, the teams that embody the greatest rivalry in hockey. In 2005, they met at a summer camp in Ontario, Canada, and shortly afterward began dating, albeit secretly. They chose to go public after 2015, when same-sex marriage was legalized nationwide in the United States. They married and, after retiring from professional sports, had two daughters. Two daughters who will grow up hearing stories of the three Olympic finals in which Ouellette and Chu faced each other. And in all three cases, Canada won, so they have three gold and three silver medals at home.