{"id":440764,"date":"2026-02-02T01:44:32","date_gmt":"2026-02-02T01:44:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/440764\/"},"modified":"2026-02-02T01:44:32","modified_gmt":"2026-02-02T01:44:32","slug":"hockey-hunks-turn-out-for-nyc-heated-rivalry-lookalike-contest-very-provocative","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/440764\/","title":{"rendered":"Hockey hunks turn out for NYC ‘Heated Rivalry’ lookalike contest: ‘Very provocative’"},"content":{"rendered":"

A harem of hunks turned out for a \u201cHeated Rivalry\u201d lookalike contest in <\/a>New York City on Sunday \u2014 attracting a crowd of hot and bothered men and women who cheered and leered at the contestants vying to resemble the characters in HBO\u2019s homoerotic hockey drama.<\/p>\n

Over a dozen hopeful lookalikes clad in hockey jerseys took center stage by Mercer Playground in Greenwich Village, where they acted out scenes from the steamy Canadian series \u2014 stripping down and even making out \u2014 in the hopes of being crowned most carnal Canuck of the lot.<\/p>\n

Fifty-dollars was on the line for each of the two winners \u2014 with 25-year-old Ryan Heffernan taking home the crown for most resembling \u201cHeated Rivalry\u201d character Shane Hollander, and 28-year-old Tyler Gaul being named the Ilya Rozanov lookalike.<\/p>\n

The win wasn\u2019t surprising for either of them. <\/p>\n

Both Heffernan and Gaul told The Post they\u2019ve been stopped by strangers seeking to take photos with them and insisting they look like the show\u2019s studly stars \u2014 Hudson Williams and Connor Storrie \u2014 since it was released on HBO in November.<\/p>\n

Tyler Gaul, 28, was named Ilya Rozanov lookalike, while Ryan Heffernan, 25, took home won Shane Hollander. Michael Nagle<\/p>\n

\u201cRandom people were taking pictures of me,\u201d Heffernan said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was very confident,\u201d he added. \u201cI came here alone because I knew I was going to win.\u201d<\/p>\n

For Gaul, it was his girlfriend who first insisted<\/a> on his resemblance to Storrie, who plays a Russian ice hockey player\u00a0and the captain of the Boston Raiders \u2014 in a secret relationship with his rival, Hollander, played by Williams, the Ottawa-born captain of the Montreal Metros.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe told me I looked exactly like Ilya, and then most people in my life and her life started to say the same exact thing,\u201d Gaul said.<\/p>\n

Rapt crowds looked on and cheered as contestants played out lines from the show \u2014 and even kissed for the crown. Michael Nagle<\/p>\n

Well over 100 people braved the cold to watch the contest outside Mercer Playground in Greenwich Village Sunday. Michael Nagle<\/p>\n

Both winners watched the series \u2014 which originally aired on Canadian streaming service Crave \u2014 after being introduced to it by the girlfriends.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s obviously very provocative, but that\u2019s great,\u201d Gaul said. <\/p>\n

\u201cI was just impressed that a show kind of that provocative and intense is getting as popular as it is,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s great to have the representation and just being able to see, like love and sex portrayed on TV that\u2019s not normally shown.\u201d<\/p>\n

It wasn\u2019t immediately clear who organized the contest. But the real show on Sunday afternoon was the titillated crowd that braved the cold to catch a little heat from center stage \u2014 with well over a hundred people filling the sidewalk while baying ravenous eyes at the contestants.<\/p>\n

The watchers waved rainbow hockey sticks as hopefuls delivered lines from the show or shed their jerseys to show off six-packs \u2014 with some even planting passionate kisses on each other, sending the crowd wild.<\/p>\n

Over a dozen contestants took center stage at Mercer Playground on Sunday afternoon, but only two won the prize. Michael Nagle<\/p>\n

Actors Hudson Williams and Connor Storrie star in the homo-erotic Canadian drama \u201cHeated Rivalry.\u201d Getty Images<\/p>\n

Attendees said the hit show had clearly struck a cord with the public.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s these two people that are basically closeted, they\u2019re acting like straight men. And I think that the general public finds that attractive,\u201d said Benji Pearson, a 26-year-old student.<\/p>\n

\u201cMaybe this will open the door for like other gayer shows,\u201d he said. \u201cMore gay stuff.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A harem of hunks turned out for a \u201cHeated Rivalry\u201d lookalike contest in New York City on Sunday…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":440765,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[377],"tags":[12638,3853,53889,41285,5,43658,19193,48,999],"class_list":["post-440764","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-hockey","tag-actors","tag-contests","tag-greenwich-village","tag-hbo","tag-hockey","tag-manhattan","tag-metro","tag-television","tag-us-news"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/115998509074870158","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/440764","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=440764"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/440764\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/440765"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=440764"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=440764"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=440764"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}