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- [00:02]
A
This is a Headgum podcast.
- [00:06]
B
Craig.
- [00:06]
A
This episode of Overdue is brought to you by Marley Spoon. When I am left to my own devices, I fall into a meal rut. The same half dozen, easy to make things just in a continuous loop forever. There are stretches where I get to dinner time and I think to myself, I cannot believe I have to eat again. But I recently tried the Marley Spoon meal delivery box for the first time, and it was like my eyes had been opened in a very real way. Marley Spoon helped to save my household from the curse of I guess we'll do taco night. And I thank them for that. Craig, I know you've tried Marley Spoon too. Can you tell me some. Tell them some stuff that you like about it?
- [00:42]
B
Well, let me first remind you that our relationship to food changes constantly. We are all evolving, Andrew, and Marley Spoon is evolving with you. Like a little pocket monster. A pocket monster hungry to help you enjoy food and be efficient with your time. I started taking cooking more seriously a few years ago, and Marley Spoon was a huge part of that. They've got a wide range of recipes and prepared meals that help you evolve into a more adventurous foodie and chef. I recently made a delicious caprese chicken and Farro bowl for me and my wife a couple of years ago. I'm not sure I knew what Farro was, and here I am making a tasty bowl full of it. Thanks, Marley Spoon.
- [01:22]
A
If any of this sounds good to you at home, you you hungry listeners at home, go to marley spoon.com offer/overdue for up to 25 free meals. That's right. Up to 25 free meals with Marley Spoon. That's marley spoon.com offer overdue for up to 25 free meals.
- [01:41]
B
This episode is brought to you by Mint Mobile. Every group has someone who insists on doing things the hard way. They're still paying for subscriptions that they forgot about. They are refusing to update their phones. And Andrew used to be that person too when it came to overpaying for wireless. But I heard that you switched to Mint Mobile and I'm so glad that you did.
- [01:59]
A
Yeah, I used to love overpaying for wireless service, but I did switch to Mint Mobile years and years ago. And I would recommend them to anyone who wants good service at better than good prices. So you could stop paying too much for wireless, because that's how it's always been. Mint exists to fix that. Same coverage, same speed, just without the inflated price tag. The price premium wireless. You expect unlimited talk, text and data, but at a fraction of what others charge. And for a limited time, you can get 50% off 3, 6 or 12 month plans of unlimited premium wireless. You can bring your own phone, a number, activate with ESIM in minutes and start saving immediately. With seven day money back guarantee and customer satisfaction ratings in the mid-90s, Mint makes it easy to try it and see why people don't go back.
- [02:42]
B
Ready to stop paying more than you have to, New customers can make the switch today. And for a limited time, get unlimited premium wireless for just $15 per month. Switch now@mint mobile.com overdue that's mintmobile.com overdue upfront payment of $45 for three months, $90 for six months or $180 for 12 month plan required $15 a month equivalent taxes and fees extra initial plan term only over 50 gigabytes may slow when network is busy. Capable device required availability, speed and coverage varies. Additional terms Apply C mint mobile.com While Andrew and Craig believe the joy of.
- [03:15]
A
Discovery is crucial to enjoying any well.
- [03:17]
B
Told tale, they from spoiling specific story beats when necessary. Plus, these are books you should have read by now. Hey everybody. Welcome to Overdue. It's a podcast about the books you've been meaning to read. My name is Craig.
- [03:58]
A
My name is Andrew.
- [04:00]
B
Slap that shot, cross that blue line. It is time to play hockey. Score a hat trick. Throw an octopus.
- [04:09]
A
What we do is. Okay, so every week one of us reads a book that we've never read before, right? You know this.
- [04:17]
B
You know this, right?
- [04:19]
A
And we tell you at home about it and we tell each other about it. This week we broke the rules a little bit because we both read the book that we read. What was the book that we read?
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B
We read Heated Rivalry by Rachel Reed.
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A
Heated Rivalry.
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B
You are my rival, Andrew.
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A
The book I'm. I feel like there are enough people.
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B
Who do weird shipping game changers number.
- [04:40]
A
Two who do weird shipping of us that we cannot do. A. Oh, look at us. We're heated rivals. I don't want to encourage anybody.
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B
Fair enough. I don't think I've ever had a rival. Do you think you've ever had a rival?
- [04:54]
A
No, I've never had a rival or a nemesis. Like none of the. Not that I know of. Anyway, if we're out, I mean, if you're out there, let me know.
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B
Continue with your thoughts.
- [05:03]
A
No, just that, you know, this is, this is a book that spawned a show that was the talk of social media like I don't know, a month ago.
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B
The book itself was talk of much social Media prior to the show as well. Sure, it's very popular.
- [05:18]
A
Yeah, it's a popular series. I'm just saying that we are, unfortunately, skating to where the puck was. But we are. We can't. At least. We can at least see the puck, which I. We're on the same. We're on the same rink as the.
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B
We're on the ice. Yes.
- [05:32]
A
Yeah.
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B
Our skates there. I'm not a great ice skater, Andrew.
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A
I like to think I'm not a good ice. I'm gonna. I'm. If I get on any kind of, like, wheels or blades, I'm gonna break my butt.
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B
Okay.
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A
I need. I need something flat to stand on. Well, the ice is flat independently. Yeah, but then I'm standing on top of knives on top of the ice. It just doesn't. I can't do it.
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B
Yeah. I've never been good at it. I don't dislike it, but I've never. And I've never played ice hockey. I've played street hockey before, but I just wore shoes and ran around.
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A
Yeah, I've played air hockey. I'm a good air hockey player.
- [06:14]
B
I think I've played, like, kind of the equivalent of foosball, but for hockey. Foos, puck, whatever that is called.
- [06:21]
A
Really? Isn't that just air hockey? Why do we have two table hockey?
- [06:24]
B
Well, no, air hockey is the one where it's floating on the air. Yeah, but then there's, like, foosball, but it's hockey in the little, like, dome.
- [06:33]
A
Oh, and you twist like. No. Okay, I know what you're talking about now because there's that table at that weird bar with a big wooden boat inside it that we go to.
- [06:42]
B
Yes. And they have the hockey table.
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A
Yeah, they have the hockey table. Okay. It just feels like it's. It's not. I want to play one or the other. I don't want to play this weird combination of both of them.
- [06:52]
B
Okay, that's fair. Whatever. Well, this is our book podcast where we're talking about the romance novel Heated Rivalry, Game Changers Number Two by Rachel Reed.
- [07:01]
A
Is this our first MM romance that.
- [07:04]
B
We have read that we have done on the show? Yes. I believe Margaret read a book by K.J. charles. I think. I can't remember the name of it.
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A
Oh, maybe.
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B
And some folks in our discord pointed out that there was some MM elements in Song for Achilles, of course.
- [07:20]
A
Oh, there was that one about that guy. You know, the one about. The one about the guy.
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B
The one about the guy.
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A
There's definitely books that we've Done with gay characters in them.
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B
Yeah. Well, we've read. But I think plenty of gay fiction that is true.
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A
But I think. I think this is the first, like, mm. Romance that gets. That gets spicy.
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B
Yes.
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A
I think we might. We might get a little spicy on this episode because there is. This book does have a lot of sex in it. It's not like the show. It does not cut people off, like, just above the. The genitals.
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B
We will probably put the explicit tag on this episode just so in case we need to read a passage. We can do so without, you know, needing to bleep anything. So just, you know, pause. If you need to park the car, don't.
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A
Oh, whatever. Less. You know, the book. The book. Less. Starring the character Arthur Less.
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B
Okay.
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A
That was the gay. That was the guy I was thinking of.
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B
I'm all. There's another book I'm thinking of.
- [08:26]
A
Let's just think of all the books that we can think of that have gay characters. What's the deal? Can you tell me anything about Rachel Reed? Yeah.
- [08:36]
B
Rachel Reed. Rochelle Goguet, born in Halifax. I'm probably pronouncing that incorrectly, and I feel fine about that because she said that she started going by Rachel Reed because it is easier to spell and pronounce. Yeah. As an author, Canadian author, who says she played a lot of hockey as a kid, would play in any league that she was allowed to be in. There were not many girls leagues where she was growing up, so she played in many boy leagues. Said if they would let her put on gear and hold a stick, she would play. She was working at a Canadian paper called the coast when she started writing the Game Changers series.
- [09:13]
A
I have all the books in that series pulled.
- [09:15]
B
The first one is just called Game Changer. Right.
- [09:17]
A
First one is called game changer in 2018. It's about a character named Scott Hunter who is mentioned in this book as, like, a partial catalyst for the ending. I'm not sure if we're meant to be, like, seeing the events of Game Changer.
- [09:30]
B
I believe it is, like, an MCU situation, I think.
- [09:33]
A
Yeah, those are the vibes I got. Then there's heated rivalry. This book, which comes out in 2019, and there's a book. Speaking of the MCU, there's a book called Tough Guy, which comes out in 2020, which is about Ryan Price, who is a character in this book. You spend a suspicious amount of time with him, given that you never see him again after that first scene that he's in. So, yeah, of course he is seeding a future book in this. And then there's common goal in 2020, role model in 2021, the long game in 2022, which is a direct sequel to Heated Rivalry. And then there is the third book in the Shane and Ilya series, Unrivaled, which is scheduled to come out September of this year. And then there are a couple other one offs that are not in technically in like the Game Changer series, but yes. Yeah, there we go.
- [10:25]
B
I have a number of different, like, interviews that I read or articles that I read that kind of pull on where this book came from and what her different inspirations were. So I might skip around in my notes a little bit. I do apologize, folks. Can't see my notes at home, so why does it matter? Yeah.
- [10:44]
A
You apologizing to me?
- [10:45]
B
Who are you apologizing? Apologizing to you because I might be a little scattered.
- [10:48]
A
You know, live your life. I mean, I've done that a bunch of times.
- [10:53]
B
From her website, Reed says that one of my inspirations for Heated Rivalry was obviously the extremely entertaining rivalry between Sidney Crosby and Alexander Ovechkin, obviously. But she was also inspired by other sports rivalries, by other fictional stories, and by my love of the enemies to lovers and forbidden romance tropes. My characters are original and I work hard on creating them. She also has talked a lot about. She loves hockey and she thinks it is this fascinating sport, but it is also a sport that has a lot of very ingrained homophobia in it.
- [11:34]
A
And yeah, you had, you had mentioned doing some research on, like, openly gay players in the NHL. And I, I mean, I didn't. I didn't do extensive research, but I just did like a basic Google to see how the timeline in this book stacked up. And like, the first one came out in like 2021. It was like, super recently.
- [11:54]
B
Well, Luke Prokop is the first player under an NHL contract to come out as gay, but he has yet to play an NHL game.
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A
Oh, okay. Okay.
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B
He is currently playing. He's the first openly gay player in the ahl, and so he's played with affiliate teams, but has never played in an NHL game.
- [12:12]
A
Got it.
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B
For reference in the other four major sports. So it is worth saying that in the women's sports leagues, there have been way more openly gay and lesbian players for much longer. Right. Men's sports, not so much. And so you have Jason Collins in 2014, who would play in the NBA and was openly gay on the Brooklyn Nets in 2021. Defensive end Carl Naseeb came out in the NFL first openly active player. And there have been no openly gay active players in the mlb. And Luke broke up is, you know, if he plays in the NHL, he'll be the first. That's just. There's. There's also like. I'll probably write about this in the dusty bookshelves letter. One of the guys who is credited with the invention of the high five, I think his name is Glenn Burke. Let me check that.
- [13:10]
A
It is. Not once in my life occurred to me to think of the high five as a thing that somebody had to invent.
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B
It's one of those things where I.
- [13:17]
A
Claiming to have invented laughter or something. What are you talking about?
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B
Did he help popularize it by doing it in a game? Glenn Burke was closeted during his career. It was a whole big thing. Billy Beane as well. So there have been, you know, players that have gone on to come out after their careers are over, but not while they are playing. So I think we just.
- [13:38]
A
I think it's just time to admit that there's just nothing gay about sports. There's nothing gay about men's sports. And it just doesn't attract that many gay people.
- [13:49]
B
Yeah, not at all. Never, never has a gay person attended a sports game.
- [13:53]
A
Well, no, no, I'm not talking. I'm not talking about the attendees. I'm talking about the players. Oh, it just doesn't. There's just not a lot of. It just doesn't attract a lot. There's nothing gay about being sweaty and in a room with a bunch of other dudes.
- [14:05]
B
You're right. You're right.
- [14:06]
A
The sooner we can all admit that, the sooner we can get past this. My favorite thing about. About heated rivalry that I learned while I was researching might be the NHL's extremely begrudging kudos to the book. Well, not kud there. This is. This is from an NHL rep talking to a Hollywood Reporter. Quote. There are so many ways to get hooked on hockey. And in the NHL's 108 year history, this might be the most unique driver for creating new fans. See you all at the rink. Just like the most. The most backhanded. Thank you for drawing attention to our sport that I couldn't imagine from anybody. So what are you going to say?
- [14:50]
B
Yeah, so there's. That there's a lot of. In the. In the soup that that quote emerges from. So in. There's a 2023 WaPo article, Rip and Peace. WaPo, that talks about the popularity specifically of hockey romance books. This article talks about the player Alex Wenberg. On the Kraken, the Seattle Kraken. And they found out that kind of book talk was in love with hockey romance books. And they were clipping, they were putting out clips of Alex Wenberg and like putting quotes from some of these books on top of the clips and like having a lot of fun with it. I think it got a little uncomfortable for him and his wife and they like asked people to stop because it was getting a little too heated. But the teams are aware. They're. They, they know that this is happening. This is from that piece by Rachel Curtius, who says hockey is the only team sport that still allows fighting. There's an entire etiquette about when to drop the gloves and throw down. Most of it is about defending teammates. The nuance set of rules resembles a chivalric code, positioning, positioning the players as modern day knights protecting their brethren. Then the books show their softer side as they fall head over heels. Plus, we're talking about wealthy, in shape, sexually desired people with a degree of fame that ratchets up the inherent pressure of any relationship. Talks about how just sports are a good. There's like hierarchy, there's external goals. I have a lot of thoughts about how the hockey thing functions in this book, but Reid says in that article, game Changer came from a place of me being angry at hockey culture and how clearly homophobic it was and is and. And all the other things that made me really ashamed to be a hockey fan. The whole series attacks the NHL and hockey culture quite a bit. And in another interview with the cbc, she talks about this being a more like a hopeful series where, you know, things could work out for folks. Yeah.
- [16:57]
A
Because pushed down, you know, knowing nothing about hockey, horror, hockey culture. The timeline of this book, it, it runs from like, what, 2009 to like 2017. Ish.
- [17:09]
B
2008, I think is the very first. But it's most.
- [17:12]
A
2009. Yeah. Yeah. And I do. Yeah. Like, like in 2008, 2009, I think there's still a lot of. I think we had not gotten to the place of like the default being acceptance for. I'm just thinking about being in high school and college during the 2000s and like people were gay and people were out, but it was not like always the most comfortable place to be.
- [17:39]
B
Mm.
- [17:41]
A
And so yeah, I was. When I saw the books are in like 2008, 2009, I'm like, okay, cool. It's, it's, it is using that timeframe to make it make sense that the like closeted gay characters in the book would not want to come out. And then. And then it kept going forward in time until it got to, like, 2016, 2017. I was like, it's a little, like, strange to be still preoccupied with, like, this being this big secret that can't get out. And it turns out that if you know anything about hockey culture, I guess they're just like, behind hockey society.
- [18:15]
B
Almost all sports are behind. There was a. I saw a graphic going around the last two weeks about which sports are just like, which sports are the most Republican. Like, and I think baseball is the most Republican by. Or more conservative. I suppose the poll probably was. I did double check to. Same sex marriage was legalized in Canada in 2005.
- [18:36]
A
Okay.
- [18:37]
B
Versus the 2015 decision in the United States. So, like, you know, I don't if they're 10 years ahead of us or whatever that might reflect, but I do still the league is largely American, even though the, you know, or originates in Canada for a lot of folks. The other thing I was thinking about is in 2023, I know there was a hole to do in hockey where, I don't know. You don't follow sports as closely as.
- [19:06]
A
I do, Andrew, but not as closely as you do. Now.
- [19:09]
B
Hockey and baseball in particular had a lot of dust ups over Pride nights. And whether or not teams can mandate that players wear, like, Pride gear during a Pride game. Or like, usually in June there will be like, Pride night at the ballpark or whatever, and there might be a special jersey you can get. And like, do the players have to wear a patch on their arm or not? Or can they have religious objections to it? And there was a whole dust up in 2023 with hockey and whether or not players could be required to wear warm up jerseys that were Pride themed. Players wanted to opt out. And then ultimately the NHL was like, we're banning all themed jerseys before any warmups. No themed jerseys.
- [19:57]
A
Yeah, this is one. This is one of those situations where it's like, we're not gonna do politics anymore unless they are. Unless they're conservative politics. Oops.
- [20:06]
B
And then some players were able to push back and be like, no, I want to put like, rainbow tape on my stick. This is all literally two and a half years ago. So, like, yeah, this is in. It's all in the soup. It's all here, and we're all dealing with it. But that 2023 WaPo piece also points out some things about romance that kind of align with why hockey got so popular. It's a very white sport, and there are issues with diversity in romance in the romance genre writ large, that's like, a lot. A lot of fans of romance will point that out, that it could be more diverse. More diverse authors and characters could be in more books.
- [20:47]
A
There was a lot. There was that piece that went around earlier this week or maybe last week. Time has dilated in. In ways that I'm fair enough dealing with, but about some romance author's relationship with generative AI.
- [21:02]
B
Oh, yeah, that one.
- [21:03]
A
Whether they want to use that. And it's. It's buried, you know, pretty far down in the piece. But eventually you get to a part that's like, you know, the authors who are trying to do anything around, like, body size diversity or like, racial diversity or like, anything that deviates from pretty strict.
- [21:22]
B
Yep.
- [21:24]
A
Genres. Like, AI is really bad at it because it has just not been trained on as much of it.
- [21:31]
B
Like, Interesting.
- [21:32]
A
So one. One author describes trying to write a sex scene between fat characters and the. The AI apparently was just, like, comical in how it was describing. Just like beds creaking and everything being really horrible.
- [21:48]
B
Terrible. So, yeah, that, like, I don't like.
- [21:52]
A
Any of it, but apparently it's uniquely bad at some of the same things that the industry writ large is kind of bad at.
- [22:02]
B
It's just. There is something particular about hockey that seems to have taken off in romance and romance book talk. I don't know exactly why. I think some of it. You can kind of read some of this WaPo reporting and others to kind of get at, like, just, you know, what about this sport makes it so that there are both individual players and teams that, like, get highlighted? Which is, like, you think about, like, baseball. Everybody's kind of doing their own thing in baseball, football. It's like mostly just 11 dudes running, like, however many dudes. I don't know.
- [22:36]
A
It's like, you know, like the quarterback and maybe like, one or two other guys, and then everybody else is just guys.
- [22:41]
B
There's something about hockey that does seem kind of fertile ground for this type of storytelling where you, like, have these star players that can pop out, but also they have these team dynamics. Yes, they. Oh, boy, they pop out, but they have these team dynamics as well. And yeah, I have a lot of notes about just the way that the sport kind of functions throughout the book. Is there anything you want to. One of the reasons, obviously we're reading this book is because it was so popular as a TV show recently. Andrew, you did some research on the TV show before we get.
- [23:16]
A
We've. I just. I have not. I Did not have time to watch the whole thing. I don't think you did either. I watched the first episode and you watched at least the last.
- [23:24]
B
I watched the first. I watched the last two episodes.
- [23:27]
A
The last two episodes. Okay. So I think we like, we know enough to say that it is by and large pretty faithful. There's a couple things that get moved around and a couple of things that get changed. Like there's a scene early on in the book where they're having like a treadmill race against each other that in the show becomes a stationary bike race for some reason.
- [23:46]
B
Well, and the. The decision to include a truncated version of the first book as episode three of the series Friend of the show. Katherine Van Arendonk has written about this@vulture.com.
- [23:59]
A
We talking about departure episodes.
- [24:01]
B
It is a departure episode that gives in her argument that it gives it kind of emotional grounding for a show where you don't really have a lot of access to the interiority of the characters. So instead you get this little detour into a much more emotional store version of a. A parallel but different story that can kind of ground the audience moving forward. So go read that if you want to.
- [24:27]
A
Yeah, just. Just real quick on the show. It's released in November of 2025. It's created in Canada for the Canadian streaming service Crave.
- [24:35]
B
Crave.
- [24:36]
A
But it's a. Which also a candy bar. But it's distributed in the US By HBO Max. Not a candy bar as far created.
- [24:44]
B
By Jacob Tierney of Leonard.
- [24:45]
A
Yes, I was going. Created by Jacob Tierney who is best known for the sitcom Letterkenny. But he also was Eric in Are youe Afraid of the Dark? Which is One of those 80s 90s shows that we watched as kids. And every single live action show that we watched came from Canada for some. For whatever reason, whatever tax credit related reason made all this like kids entertainment come out of Canada. But yeah, he was. He was Eric, you know. Are you afraid of the dark?
- [25:11]
B
So silly.
- [25:13]
A
It was the most watched original series on Crave. It's the highest performing acquired non animated debut on HBO Max. Which is a specific. Well they really sort of accolade that. Yeah.
- [25:25]
B
That.
- [25:26]
A
That you as a baseball fan I think can get on.
- [25:28]
B
No. On a Tuesday. A left handed man with. With the temperature at 75 degrees. Yeah.
- [25:33]
A
It's starring Hudson Williams and Connor Story as Shane and Ilya respectively. Both were pretty much unknown before the show hit. I think they were both working as waiters or something similar. A lot of the casting was based on chemistry apparently. And the two leads had it even over zoom. And Story has said in interviews that he auditioned for the role without a shirt on, even though nobody asked him to do that. And the show's. Yeah, it's just like a huge word of mouth success. Reporting from Variety says that the finale had three times as many viewers as the premiere did. So it built a ton week to week. There's six episodes, and then twice as many people as watched the finale have found it in the weeks since it finished airing. So it's sitting at like 10.6 million viewers per episode as of February 9th. And yeah, people just. People just talking about it. People were. People were buzzing about this. There's a second season in the works based on the Long game.
- [26:37]
B
Okay. Yep.
- [26:39]
A
Tyranny is already kind of making noise about scripts taking a long time, which I think is code for, like, a severance situation where there's going to be like two years between seasons of the show. But it is. It is coming, and this has been enough of a success that I. That I doubt it gets derailed for, like, weird production reasons.
- [26:56]
B
Yeah. Tierney reached out to Reid directly to pitch the show. There's an interview on today.com it was.
- [27:03]
A
After that Washington Post piece, wasn't it? Or something similar, like a. Like a newspaper piece.
- [27:07]
B
Yeah. And Reed says that she got the inquiry only four days after she got her Parkinson's diagnosis. So it's like, kind of really wrapped up in, like, what her life is changing, like, and, you know, what she's dealing with. Tierney wrote all the scripts, but did send them to her for feedback. She said she was pleasantly surprised by how well they treated her at the process. Constant crediting in a lot of the press interviews that they were doing a very faithful adaptation. I was like, I watched those two episodes. Like, I came downstairs after bedtime and Laura was finishing the series, putting my toddler to bed. And not.
- [27:44]
A
Not Craig's bedtime.
- [27:45]
B
No knock after my bed. I sleepwalk downstairs.
- [27:48]
A
I just. That's how I describe getting up in the morning as getting. Because coming down after bedtime.
- [27:54]
B
And I was reading this book going, oh, yeah, I saw that scene four weeks ago. Like, literally word for word, like, saw that scene four weeks ago.
- [28:04]
A
There's a bunch of it in the premiere, too. And then Susanna and I were talking about it, and she asked me about a couple of lines, whether they were in the book or not. And the answer was yes. Though there is at least one thing in the book that according to Susanna, did not make it into the show.
- [28:21]
B
Okay. We'll talk about that.
- [28:22]
A
We talk about that later.
- [28:24]
B
One of the things I thought was an interesting note from Reid is that she liked that the TV portrayal nails that these. Wolf. Wolf that's in my. Really nails that these are young men that in romance fiction, especially in adaptation, we can often, like in her words, no matter how old a character is, we picture this rugged man. And it's very important to her that especially at the beginning of the story, that these are really young guys in their early 20s or not even 20. So, like, there's a lot of growing up that they have to do over the course of the story that might not often be covered. There were two other notes I wanted to mention. Oh. A lot of coverage about the show has mentioned that Shane Hollander, one of the two hockey players, is maybe not with a diagnosis, but is neurodivergent. And that's not something she realized until she started writing some of the later books.
- [29:26]
A
Okay.
- [29:26]
B
After working through some diagnoses for one, a diagnosis for one of her kids. And that the actor and showrunner kind of embraced this in the performance. And so that's something that the fans have been talking about a lot. And she like confirmed in a later interview as she was writing later books and things like that.
- [29:43]
A
So I can definitely. Yeah, there's. There's a lot of stuff in this book that that is described as being like boring behavior or Shane. Antisocial behavior for Shane. Yeah. Okay. That's interesting.
- [29:54]
B
That's like, it's an interesting thing that it's something she learned about the character through further writing. And then the actor and showrunner kind of really embraced it, which, you know, this is kind of interesting. And then when you were talking about how popular the show has been, Andrew seatgeek. Do you know what seatgeek is?
- [30:14]
A
I can guess what seatgeek is.
- [30:16]
B
A ticket reselling website.
- [30:18]
A
Okay, cool.
- [30:19]
B
You use largely for sporting events and concerts. And there they ran a whole article about using the data behind the buzz to determine if heated rivalry is driving NHL ticket sales sales.
- [30:35]
A
Okay.
- [30:36]
B
And they analyzed a few weeks in November, December and early January. And there was a, like growing, like ticket sales per game was increasing by double digit percentages over those weeks as well as a surge of single ticket sales. Just like people without any friends just going to go watch.
- [31:02]
A
Just solo perverts, huh?
- [31:03]
B
Yeah. And they compared it. They compared it to the same people period of the prior year. And there was no similar growth week, you know, week to week over the same time. So they're, you know, they're they they can't. While it's impossible to attribute all of this growth to a single show, the timing is hard to ignore.
- [31:22]
A
Yes.
- [31:22]
B
Seems like somebody had got their degree in SEO and decided they needed to write this article, but it is pretty funny to me. So yeah, there's a lot of other sports stuff that I think I want to talk about. A lot of other struck me funnies, Andrew and Mr. Sports. Yeah, we got to cover the plot of this steamy book and we got to talk about what our Discord community had to say. A lot of things to talk about.
- [31:48]
A
Okay. But we should, we can. I think the puck is going to be after the the ad break and so let's skate there and I'll meet you, I'll meet you over there.
- [32:00]
B
Sounds good, Craig.
- [32:13]
A
This week we're talking about a heated rivalry, but some things have no rival. And that's why I'd like to tell you about our sponsor this week, Squarespace, the website that helps you make websites. Nobody else does it like Squarespace.
- [32:27]
B
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- [32:32]
A
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- [33:23]
B
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- [33:25]
A
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- [34:10]
B
Andrew, the year is 2008. More like 2008.
- [34:15]
A
Yeah. Oh dang. You were 2000 late.
- [34:19]
B
Did you clock that thing where Ilya is watching the New Year's eve concert in 2009 and it says that he's watching the Black Eyed Peas? I did look that up to see if they performed in 2009. I. I struggled to find confirmation because the only Wikipedia directed me to was for 2008 New Year's Rockin Eve where they did lead a performance and. Or Fergie did anyway in la.
- [34:48]
A
Okay. It's plausible that they would have been there though.
- [34:51]
B
It is very plausible because I think.
- [34:53]
A
When the book is. It does not spend a ton of time in the past. Like it. Once it gets up to like 2016, 2017, things are. Yeah, it stays there. But the, the way that Reid denotes like what year it is is like. Yeah, he's watched. He's on his BlackBerry. He's watching Fast Five on his iPad.
- [35:17]
B
Yeah.
- [35:18]
A
I love 2013. Yeah.
- [35:20]
B
I was really. I don't think that we have read a romance novel for the show, Andrew. We've read many, but I don't think that we have read one that like spans time in this way. I was really struck by that as a device in the novel. I'm sure there are other romance books, contemporary romance books that are doing this.
- [35:40]
A
Well, obviously, if you're thinking about iPad forward romance, then 50 shades of gray is the. Is the reigning champion.
- [35:47]
B
But I was even thinking of stuff like the Love Hypothesis, the Ali Hazelwood book that we read.
- [35:53]
A
Yeah.
- [35:55]
B
We've not read too much contemporary romance aside from our silly Christmas and holiday novels, but most of those take place over the course of weeks. And so it was just really interesting to read something that took place over basically a decade.
- [36:10]
A
Yeah.
- [36:10]
B
For two guys. Which gave it a whole different like flavor to the relationship. Yeah. Tell me, what's the setup of this book, Andrew?
- [36:21]
A
The setup is there's two boys.
- [36:24]
B
Two boys.
- [36:25]
A
Get it? There's two. There's two boys. One is Shane Hollander and one is Ilya Rozanov.
- [36:32]
B
Uh huh. And Shane is Canadian and Ilya is Russian.
- [36:36]
A
Yes. But they are both, they're both NHL rookies.
- [36:40]
B
Yep.
- [36:41]
A
And they have been signed to teams and they are very, they're both very good at hockey. They're the best, the best rookies. That there is.
- [36:48]
B
Yes.
- [36:49]
A
And they are going to have a rivalry together. And that rivalry. That rivalry, it's going to get a little heated.
- [36:58]
B
Okay. Are you doing a trailer right now?
- [37:02]
A
I'm seeing. Not. Not.
- [37:04]
B
Yeah, that's fair. I was struck. The book gave us a. A prologue. Gave us a sexy prologue, right. To, like, let us know that these guys were gonna bang.
- [37:18]
A
They're gonna bang. Yeah.
- [37:20]
B
He bangs. But. But.
- [37:22]
A
But then it goes back. But then it goes back in time and it's like, you know, for the first, like, 15 minutes that they knew each other, they weren't banging.
- [37:29]
B
Yeah. Weird.
- [37:30]
A
It was only at minute 16 to each other.
- [37:36]
B
I find it interesting, the first of my hockey stuff notes that in the book, it is the NHL, but of course, for tv, they had to call it mlh, Major League Hockey or something. It is, obviously.
- [37:51]
A
What are the. What are the fakey teams?
- [37:53]
B
All the teams. Well, and they're the same fakey teams in the book. The Montreal Voyageurs, the Voyagers and the Boston Bears.
- [38:03]
A
Star Trek Voyager.
- [38:04]
B
It would be the Montreal Canadiens and the Boston Bruins, but, you know, she changes those for whatever reason.
- [38:13]
A
I would make fun of the Canadiens, but we do have a baseball team that's the Philadelphia. Philadelphia Philadelphians. So I can't. I can't. I live in a glass house over here. Yeah.
- [38:27]
B
And so it starts. It goes back to 2008. They are okay. Before we even do the plot. Andrew, you enjoy the book? What do you think?
- [38:36]
A
I had fun.
- [38:37]
B
I had fun, too. I think I liked this book overall.
- [38:40]
A
When we do one that's, like, really broken containment.
- [38:43]
B
Yeah.
- [38:46]
A
I rarely find myself reading it and being like, oh, yeah. There's a really obvious reason why this particular one got, like, bigger than all the other ones. I think for this one, it's like the uniqueness of the setting probably is what does it.
- [39:01]
B
Well, and what is interesting to think about is, like, hockey romance. This is a standout. I think this book is a, like, one of the top of the crop of hockey romances. But it is worth noting that, like, hockey romances is, like, a whole thing.
- [39:22]
A
Yeah, sure. And I do, you know, and I do also think, like, thinking about, like, the. The Colleen Hoover that we read or whatever, like, this does this. This does stand out for having an author who, like, not only knows what she's talking about, but is, like, interested in knowing what she's talking about instead of just, like, vibing out what she imagines life in Michigan to be.
- [39:44]
B
That's true. Well. And so, like, that's interesting. I Went down a whole rabbit hole where. Okay, these boys. Am I ready to talk about the All Star Game yet?
- [39:56]
A
Are you ready? I don't. The other thing I will say about the book in general is like I've never come out and there's nothing, I mean which is not to say that there's anything to come out about. It's just like I'm not, I'm not a gay man who has ever had the experience of coming out.
- [40:11]
B
Yeah.
- [40:11]
A
But based on the friends who we've mutually had for a long time who have come out over the course of many years, I do think Shane's experience, his experience of trying to hook up with women and it not really going great and then him thinking, well, it's just that I haven't met the right one yet and just sort of not really thinking about it or realizing it until it sort of hits him. And then the like hesitance to come out to like friends and family, you know, the need to get comfortable with that over time. It was, it was very true to the experience of some of the people that we have known.
- [40:57]
B
I would agree. And also it was as someone who has not read a lot of MM fiction like romance fiction, it made for an interesting first read because one of the characters is doing all of this for the first time. So like every sexual encounter in the book has Shane learning like they're both learning about each other in those scenes explicitly.
- [41:25]
A
Susanna's reaction to Shane mostly is that he's just, he's just very cute and his like complete inexperience is part of what makes him cute. And it is, I will, I will admit that it's very cute to be like, I really would like to give this man a blowjob. And I don't know how but I am going to give it my best.
- [41:43]
B
Yeah. Well. And I think there's something I was remarking upon a hockey pro, a like number two in the draft, Shane Hollander, because that's a whole thing that Ilya gets drafted first, that he is like one of the top hockey, young hockey players in the world and here he is learning a new skill. Like the vulnerability of learning a new skill in a, in the boudoir. Like that is something that I think is kind of fascinating about romance in the. That is I think why sports romances might work. Right. There's a vulnerability to what they're doing that is not part of their on the rink or on the field Persona. Right.
- [42:29]
A
I mean Shane, Shane is just so depicted as so like single mindedly focused on hockey is like. Yeah, Like.
- [42:36]
B
Yeah.
- [42:36]
A
My one hope for Shane is that he discovers other hobbies, like, before his hockey career ends, so that he has something to, like, swing to.
- [42:44]
B
Yeah. Whereas Ilya seems like he could at least just like, hang with people until he finds something else to do.
- [42:50]
A
He's had a little bit more experience doing things where Shane is like, I play hockey. My parents like hockey. The only book I'm reading is about hockey. Like, he's not reading books about dick sucking. I'll tell you what.
- [43:01]
B
Whoa.
- [43:02]
A
Not like us.
- [43:02]
B
No, he's not read a book, Shane.
- [43:09]
A
But yeah, I mean, I. I was charmed by it and I am becoming more charmed by it in the discussing of it already, I think.
- [43:16]
B
Yeah, I. I think some folks. It is interesting. I found the book more compelling for having access to the character's internality. Then I found some of what I watched in the show.
- [43:30]
A
And what. What part of the character's internality were you the most interested in exploring, do you think?
- [43:36]
B
Very funny.
- [43:37]
A
Thank you.
- [43:40]
B
The Overwhel, like, not overwhelming, but a lot of folks in the Overdue Discord were talking about liking the performances for, like, kind of elevating the written story. Sure. I have not. I did not watch all six episodes, so I, like, I can't really speak to it from what I did watch. I was like, I found Ilya very compelling.
- [44:02]
A
Yeah.
- [44:03]
B
I was, like, warming up to Shane, but was.
- [44:05]
A
You know, I have, like, I haven't. I haven't delved too deep into the social media response, but I think that that sort of. That read of the performances is pretty close to the most common one that I've seen.
- [44:21]
B
Well, I really liked being in their heads, which is a hard thing to do on camera. Right. Yeah. Obviously, you know, there's some good reporting out there, like talking with the cinematographer and stuff like that about what they were trying to convey because it can't be interior. But anyway, yeah, the. That's the thing with the.
- [44:44]
A
What. What's up?
- [44:45]
B
You said that she does know her stuff, which she does. And I. About hockey. And so, like, I had to go down.
- [44:54]
A
Yeah, I don't. I don't. I'm excited for you to tell me if you, like, notice anything weird that was, like, done that's, like, alighted over for, like, convenience's sake or whatever. Like. Yeah, hit me with that stuff.
- [45:07]
B
The. So, like, okay, they get. They play in the junior championship together, they're distracted by one another, they get drafted and they meet at the gym. They have their Treadmill race.
- [45:21]
A
A little treadmill race. Not the. Not the only contest between the two of them that happens in this book. I'll say.
- [45:27]
B
And then, like, Shane is, like, thinking of Ilya later while he's by himself.
- [45:32]
A
And I don't remember which exact game it is, but, like, eventually is it. Ilya comes to Shane's room because there is, like. There's like, just like a heat between them. The first to explore the thing that.
- [45:45]
B
Who initiates the thing that happens is. I really like this as a. In the sports world scenario. And that is something that people have latched onto in sports romance is that you can kind of, like, they're just very unique situations that you can pull on. Like, obviously. So they've got these world junior championships where they see each other on the ice. They've got the draft. But then in 2020, 2010, the summer before they are supposed to report to training camp, they have landed each endorsement deals from a leading Canadian sports equipment supplier.
- [46:19]
A
Okay.
- [46:20]
B
And they have, like, a commercial shoot together.
- [46:23]
A
Oh, right. Yes, Right. There's this.
- [46:24]
B
Yes. And they skate on the ice, and it's very fun. And then they go in the locker room and they're both in the shower, and it like the shared shower in the locker room. And it gets very heated and very rivalry.
- [46:37]
A
Yeah. Because I believe chain pops a boner, yo.
- [46:41]
B
Yeah. And they both.
- [46:43]
A
Ilya. And Ilya is like, hey, do you need someone to do something about that? Basically?
- [46:48]
B
And Ilya is like, come to my hotel room later. And so that is their first encounter.
- [46:53]
A
And through. I mean, through the entire. It's not until, like, what the last, like, third of the book that I think they both start internally to themselves, admitting that there's something more here. But, like, they. They spend the entire first few years, like, doing this pretty much every time they're in the same town together.
- [47:14]
B
Yes.
- [47:14]
A
For a game. But also every single time one of them is going to the other one's room. Like, he's thinking the whole time I'm gonna go in there, and this time I'm gonna end it.
- [47:25]
B
That is. And it.
- [47:26]
A
Because it. Because we. Because we can't be openly gay in hockey. Because the media has created this, like, big rivalry where we are these two people who came up at the same time who are on competing teams, who are just, like, are having this give and take with, like, sometimes one of us wins, sometimes the other one wins.
- [47:44]
B
Yep.
- [47:46]
A
There are a million reasons why we. Why this cannot be anything. And yet here I am again.
- [47:52]
B
Yep. It is fast. It is a structure that I have not encountered in a romance book before. So, like, probably, as you and I like to say, kind of boss baby effect here. I'm sure there are other books say.
- [48:05]
A
I am so excited for this to be our boss baby. Anytime we read an MM romance book from here on out, it's like, yeah, I'm getting real heated rivalry vibes from this.
- [48:18]
B
I do think. I think I read a piece from Maris Kreitzman about that. Like, publishers are going to rush to like a how can we do heated rivalry but it's straight. Or like, like, well, it's like, how.
- [48:30]
A
Can we do heated rivalry but it's straight. Is that. I mean, I gotta imagine there's a whole bunch of romance about, like figure skating or whatever.
- [48:39]
B
Well, and there's also probably hockey romance. That is like, I was reading in one of the articles that is like, oh, I am dating the trainer. Like, I'm good. Like, you can still do all of the on the ice, off the ice stuff, but like, it's not two guys. It's like the. The goal scorer and the sexy trainer or something.
- [48:59]
A
You know, I mean, as a sexy trainer. Pokemon. Pokemon. I do, I do that. Like, there is a lot of interest, but they have that centered around how good my Pokemon are.
- [49:15]
B
They have that first hotel encounter and then they do play each other in hockey for the first time.
- [49:23]
A
Yeah.
- [49:24]
B
And then they really.
- [49:24]
A
They actually, they really enjoy playing both against and with each other as. As it. As these opportunities present themselves just because they are. Shane is nicer about it than Ilya is, but you get the impression that they both understand that they are never. They are almost never playing against people who are playing, playing against or with people who are on their level.
- [49:46]
B
That is true. Yeah.
- [49:48]
A
That's how good they are at hockey.
- [49:49]
B
How good they are at hockey. There's like a whole thing where Ilya in the press says that he's going to score like over 50 goals in his rookie season. They both wind up scoring 67, which, first of all, coward, you should have gone for 69. Rachel, what were you doing for this book? Come on. Jesus.
- [50:14]
A
Are we still doing that?
- [50:15]
B
I did look up the.
- [50:17]
A
Can we. Can we get Kamala Harris on the line? Are we still doing six, seven?
- [50:21]
B
I did look up the records for most goals in a rookie season. And in 1979, Team U Salon scored 76, which is a lot.
- [50:30]
A
That's a lot of goals.
- [50:31]
B
A guy named Mike Bossy scored 53. He should be in the next game changers. He's Bossy and Alex.
- [50:40]
A
That would be a good. That would be a good, like, walking out music for him.
- [50:43]
B
Alex Ovechkin scored 52 in his rookie season, so they each wind up scoring 67 in this rookie season, which is a lot.
- [50:50]
A
Is a lot. I remember. I remember reading the part where he said he was going to score 50 goals, and I was like, that sounds like a lot. I don't. I don't know if it is, but he wouldn't be saying it like that if it wasn't a lot.
- [51:00]
B
I don't watch a lot of hockey. I do play fantasy hockey, so I have, like, a sense of the numbers. And I was. I had to go look it up and be like, really? That's a lot. That is a lot. But no, the big thing is that they. They. When you ask me, like, what is the hockey stuff? They do play against each other in the all star game in 2011.
- [51:20]
A
Hey, now.
- [51:21]
B
They have a little press conference together. And of course, that book. That game ends with them going to the hotel room together. But Shane doesn't want to have penetrative sex. But they do give each other their numbers so they could text and call each other.
- [51:38]
A
And then what are the. The pseudonyms? Shane becomes Jane.
- [51:42]
B
And I think, yeah, I went down a Wikipedia rabbit hole about the NHL All Star Game because I thought it was weird that the NHL was like, well, this year we're going to do North Americans versus Europeans or whatever. And apparently the NHL has been doing all sorts of weird stuff with the All Star Game the entire time. Like.
- [52:10]
A
Like what kind of. What kind of stuff?
- [52:12]
B
Well, like, as a baseball fan, I am just used to National League, American League. That's the All Star Game. Right? But apparently in the original All Star Games, it was like Americans versus Canadians. And then they had a few years where it was like, well, whoever won the last season would play everyone else in the All Star Game, which is kind of fun.
- [52:37]
A
That is funny.
- [52:38]
B
And then in 2020, 2015, they created, like an All Star tournament, and they in. They created a. A captain's draft, which I had forgotten about, where, like, the best. The best players get to pick other players for their All Star team, which is just a whole other type of All Star Game. But so when I first read this passage where she's like, oh, they played North Americans versus Russians, I was like, that's a convenient, weird riff on All Star Games. And I was like, no, silly Craig. You didn't know how silly the NHL was. Whoopsie doodle. But so I thought that was fun. But they do have sex in Montreal.
- [53:21]
A
They do have sex. This is, this is the first of a couple of struck me funnies for this. And they are, they're having one of their sexual encounters. And I believe this is Shane who thinks to himself, fuck, this was really gay.
- [53:39]
B
Yeah. There is like him struggling with internalized homophobia during the first half of this.
- [53:45]
A
And I'm not, I think, I think that the book is. Is deploying it so that we have this exact reaction to it.
- [53:51]
B
But you're right.
- [53:52]
A
The reason it struck me funny is because we've never read an MF romance book where somebody's like, whoa, this is so straight.
- [54:03]
B
Yeah, you're right. No one ever says that.
- [54:06]
A
Nobody says that.
- [54:07]
B
No one talks about when they came out as straight. When did you come out as straight, Andrew?
- [54:11]
A
Yeah, I know, right?
- [54:13]
B
Probably.
- [54:16]
A
When did I come out as straight?
- [54:19]
B
When I started listening to Fiona Apple. Okay, sure, that's what I'll say.
- [54:25]
A
I don't know. I don't have a story.
- [54:27]
B
Maybe it's.
- [54:27]
A
Maybe, maybe I'm. Maybe I'm still not. I guess sometime between when I was born and when I got married publicly.
- [54:34]
B
Woman. I know. It is an unfortunate, unfair thing where nobody makes us come out as straight. They should come out as straight.
- [54:44]
A
You should just have to like, even if everybody knows, you just still have to say it.
- [54:48]
B
You should have to say it. You're right.
- [54:50]
A
You should have to come out. This is all kinds of fraud and I would like to move on from it.
- [54:56]
B
The book is divided into four parts and the first part ends with them at the NHL Awards at the end of their rookie year. Shane wins the rookie of the year award, which is upsetting to Ilya. They do have a little meeting on the hotel roof.
- [55:11]
A
This was the one thing, this is the one thing that seemed a little generic to me is the they're in the rooftop thing. And they're on the. And they're on the rooftop. And it just describes like the city below them or whatever. And that's not what looking out at Vegas from the rooftop of a hotel would look like. Like, it's just so weird out there because everything like there, there is a residential city where people live and then there are these like 9,000 foot high hotels everywhere.
- [55:40]
B
Yeah, fair enough.
- [55:41]
A
And everything is so flat and clear that it's impossible to tell how far apart anything is. It's just, it's weird. It's like being on the moon a little bit. Okay, so I don't know, like, maybe this is, you know, Maybe. Maybe I'm just hoping for the realistic portrayal of Las Vegas that we got in Paul Park Mall Cop too. But I just. I was underwhelmed by the description of Las Vegas.
- [56:01]
B
That's fair. Part two opens with. I think there's a bit of a time jump now. They've been kind of meeting each other for almost two years. The plane is like a plane scene.
- [56:14]
A
Is this fast five iPad. I think the plane scene is fast five iPad.
- [56:19]
B
Fast five iPad who lives in a.
- [56:22]
A
Pineapple under the seat. And this is. Yeah, this is where we meet that. That character is going to be the focus of a future book. Yeah. And he's just getting trade. He's getting traded every year. He's like, oh, he's a big guy. But I bet he. But I think he's misunderstood.
- [56:37]
B
He's misunderstood. And Ilya is like kind to him. It's a. It's a moment for us to see Ilia outside of the Shane relationship and how he might have a little like a little bit of ability to understand people. And by somebody who has his guard up, a lot can see that in somebody else, you know. But they do have their secret condo sex where Shane has rented. He's like, boss.
- [57:05]
A
He has bought a building.
- [57:07]
B
He's probably.
- [57:08]
A
Because it's an investment opportunity.
- [57:10]
B
Well, because you can do commercial on the ground floor in residential above. He's a multi use.
- [57:15]
A
He's thought all about like the zoning and all of that.
- [57:17]
B
It.
- [57:17]
A
Yeah.
- [57:19]
B
And so he has Ilia over for that. Then they go to the Olympics. I did research the Sochi Olympics in 2014 to make sure that Russia, of course, did not win, which is sad for Ilia and that Canada did win both the men and women's hockey tournaments in that year. Shane's wins are not covered. If Shane was on the winning Canadian hockey team, which according to this book, I think he was. It's not talked about at all.
- [57:50]
A
We don't talk about it. It's. Yeah. And I think this is the entire book is them gradually realizing that they have more feelings for each other than strictly physical ones. But I think realizing that Shane has bought a building for them to have their clandestine encounters in is like a moment for Ilya where he's like, huh, that seems pretty. Pretty invested, doesn't it?
- [58:15]
B
Yep. Yep. There is a whole thing. I can't remember where in the book. It is just like talking about what hockey she does and just. And does not decide to cover. Where it makes a reference to both of them having won multiple Stanley Cups. Like early on in the book they talk about how neither of their teams have been to the point despite a long standing like franchise rivalry, neither Montreal nor stand standard.
- [58:48]
A
Non heated, non heated.
- [58:52]
B
The that neither team has been to the playoffs in a long time. And that because of these two exciting new players, both of their teams make it into the playoffs during their rookie year. And a little later in the book there's a reference to like we do see a scene.
- [59:06]
A
Are you talking about the thing where chain is like I'm going to win like a pretty good number of Stanley Cups.
- [59:11]
B
Yeah.
- [59:12]
A
Not the, not the most number of Stanley Cups because winning the most you'd have to like go back in time to a, to a time when there were just fewer teams in the league.
- [59:20]
B
Yeah, sort sort of that we do get a scene of Ilia winning his first and from like Shane watching it and like that's kind of exciting. But there is a bit, a little bit later where Shane's like, yeah, I mean like I've won two or three. Ilya's one, two or three. And that to me was like the. Okay, well you're. I guess you're yada yada, Stanley freaking Cops seems a little silly. And they're just so good.
- [59:47]
A
They're just so good at hockey, Craig. Nobody else is. Even like the Stanley cup is just kind of assumed. Yeah.
- [59:52]
B
And I guess like that's kind of an interesting choice for this novel where like it doesn't because of the time scale it's operating on. It is not. I could envision another hockey romance with the same two characters that is building towards the two of them in a. It is like a one season story building towards us. A Stanley cup playoff like between the two of them. And like that is the thing that like causes everything to. It's just I. When I think about what she does and doesn't do with the hockey elements and what she has chosen to do with the time structure. It is just interesting to me. Like I don't, I don't have a judgment on. I think the book largely works. It is just different from what I would have expected both with my sports experience and my romance reading experience.
- [60:45]
A
Sure, sure, sure, sure. So let's.
- [60:49]
B
There's a lot of stuff in, In Part three that we can kind of hit quickly. Right? Yeah.
- [60:54]
A
So the big thing that happens in, in this I think or one of the big things is that Shane and Ilya like they, they don't stop hooking up, but they do have like a couple of like falling outs. Yeah, they Have a couple of, like, weird little bumps. And in their. In their relationship. Not, like, physically.
- [61:16]
B
No, they're perfect specimens. They have no weird bumps.
- [61:19]
A
Yes, they're perfect. But like a. An undercurrent that is happening is that we know that Ilya is bi and enjoys having sex with men and women. And Shane has tried having sex with women and does not, like, can usually make himself.
- [61:39]
B
What is it? It's referred to as leading the task.
- [61:42]
A
Yeah, Right. Like, he's not having a good time. And, like, physically, it's just. It's just tough.
- [61:47]
B
Yep.
- [61:48]
A
But Shane meets a movie starlet, Rose Landry. Rose Landry. I'm not sure what, like, early 2000 and tens.
- [61:59]
B
It's giving either Scarlett Johansson or, like.
- [62:05]
A
Something in, like, an Emma Stone.
- [62:06]
B
It could be a Jennifer Lawrence Emma Stone vibe. Yeah.
- [62:10]
A
Yeah. But they both meet at a. At a party and, like, hit it off and are briefly dating, you know, or at least seeing each other in public in a way that makes paparazzi think that they're dating when paparazzi is around and when they're just like, you know what? It's fair enough. We're going to leave these people alone.
- [62:28]
B
Yeah.
- [62:29]
A
For now. Like, that's, That's. It's just they appear and disappear as the book needs them. Needs them to, but they take pictures of Shane and Roselandry and Ilya sees them and gets really mad.
- [62:41]
B
Yeah. Yeah.
- [62:42]
A
Because he thinks that Shane is dating somebody.
- [62:44]
B
I think they have sex twice. He and Rose do at least, and it does not.
- [62:49]
A
And Shane's. Shane's description of it is just like, normally when I have sex with a woman, I'm having sex with a hockey fan who.
- [63:00]
B
Yeah.
- [63:01]
A
Is probably just so excited to be having sex with Shane Hollander that it doesn't matter that it was bad.
- [63:06]
B
Yeah.
- [63:07]
A
But with Roselandry, who actually, like, the. The. The fame imbalance goes the other way. Like, she is probably actually noticing that, like, things are not going great.
- [63:18]
B
Yeah.
- [63:19]
A
And they do have a. They do have a dinner meeting where she basically just, like, gives him. Gives him a launch pad, just gives him a springboard that he can use to come out to her because she knows that she suspects that something is up. And then they promise to remain friends and they text a couple times through the rest of the book, but we don't really see Roselandry again. I could. I do. I do kind of wish we saw them actually being friends a little bit more. And I think it does. I think that is. That does happen a little more in the show.
- [63:52]
B
Maybe.
- [63:52]
A
I'm not sure.
- [63:53]
B
And in parallel, Ilya has hooked up a few times with this woman, Svetlana, who is, like, a really big hockey fan, knows enough to talk hockey with.
- [64:01]
A
Him and who he would marry for citizenship if. If it came.
- [64:07]
B
And there were people in our. In our discord who liked that Svetlana got, like, more airtime and that while I think largely the. The read on the show is it does not overindulge in side plots, it keeps the same, like, level of focus on the main characters that a romance book does. Yeah.
- [64:33]
A
And something that Susanna really liked about it is that there is not, like. I mean, there are some fluctuations, but there is never a point in, like, at, like, the. The end of the second act or something where it looks like they're not going to get together. And, yeah, like, it's. It's pretty much a straight line without a lot of, like, diverting.
- [64:51]
B
And so, like, you can. You can see how in a television show or something with a different scope, these side characters might get more time and might get more development. And it sounds like there's, like, just a teeny bit more than the show, but not so much to derail, like, the main focus, which was put the story of Shane and Ilya on television.
- [65:14]
A
Yeah.
- [65:15]
B
But, yeah, they do recover from this. You know, they play together.
- [65:20]
A
Yeah.
- [65:20]
B
Yes, they do. They play together. In the All Star Game, they share. Ilia kisses Shane playfully after a goal that they both participated in. They sit on the beach and touch fingers, I think, sort of hold hands a little bit.
- [65:36]
A
And then Shane is like, ilya, I'm not dating Rosalandry and I'm gay.
- [65:41]
B
Yep.
- [65:42]
A
And they, like, from this point on, they are both in this. Because Ilya's had this. This moment where he realizes how jealous of Shane and Roselandry he was. And Shane has had this moment where he realizes, oh, actually, I'm gay. And in particular for this one guy.
- [65:58]
B
Yeah, very specifically for this guy. And.
- [66:04]
A
From. From here on, it's just like, we both want to be together. And the rest of the book is going to be about us admitting that to ourselves and then to each other and then, like, figuring out functionally how that works.
- [66:17]
B
Yeah, the, like, couple of big things that move them along are like, after that All Star Game, they start actually just having kind of relationship behavior where they are, like, lounging around in the living room and just talking about each other. And to.
- [66:31]
A
Yeah, there's that. That scene where Ilya makes Shane a tuna melt, and Shane is like, what.
- [66:35]
B
The tuna melt Scene looms large in the heated rivalry canon. I.
- [66:42]
A
It is hard for me to imagine a less romantic sandwich than a tuna melt. But I am glad that it is getting its time in the sun. I suppose.
- [66:59]
B
I've not thought very hard about tuna melts.
- [67:02]
A
I think you need to do an image search for tuna melt.
- [67:05]
B
Let me do a rageous.
- [67:06]
A
Oh yeah. Just, just like look at it and rate how romantic. Like, like how much some it would. Anybody making a sandwich for me is gonna get, is gonna get a lot of love appreciation from me. I'm not, I'm not saying that, you know, sexual favors are in the, in the offer, in the offing if you make me a sandwich. But like I will be grateful. But if you're, if you're trying to do boyfriend behavior at me and you make me a tuna melt to show me how much you want to be my boyfriend, it's going to have the opposite of the intended effect, I think.
- [67:42]
B
Okay. Okay. Okay. What?
- [67:44]
A
What?
- [67:45]
B
I think a couple. I. Not really.
- [67:48]
A
It's just a, it's a wet sandwich.
- [67:50]
B
I not really considered the tuna. The tuna melt I love. I grew up loving two sandwiches. Grilled cheese.
- [67:59]
A
Oh yeah.
- [68:00]
B
And tuna fish sandwiches. And honestly I don't think I've ever had a tuna melt. So I don't really know what is happening when you combine them. But in my brain until this very Google image search, I think I thought a tuna melt was more like a patty melt, which is an open faced sandwich.
- [68:20]
A
No.
- [68:22]
B
So I'm very confused looking at all these images and I don't like all of the ratios of tuna to cheese that I'm seeing.
- [68:29]
A
No, it's, it's too much.
- [68:30]
B
Some people have too much tuna in the sandwich. There's one here that I think is pretty good. Easy diner style tuna melt recipe.
- [68:40]
A
Is it the series? Yeah, the serious. Serious.
- [68:42]
B
That one looks okay.
- [68:43]
A
That one looks. That one looks the most appetizing.
- [68:45]
B
The one from Tornado Alley. That one. Not a fan. Too much.
- [68:52]
A
Chef Billy. Chef Billy Parisi.
- [68:54]
B
Oh, I don't like that one.
- [68:59]
A
My point being, boy, you're rolling the dice with it with a romantic tuna melt.
- [69:05]
B
That's a very gambly sandwich for two guys who have not talked about each other's like food preferences at all.
- [69:13]
A
It's a big swing though.
- [69:14]
B
They probably both like to prod up. So they probably do both like to prod up the thing.
- [69:20]
A
But this is the 2010, so we're not doing like, oh, your soda has protein in it now. Good luck, idiot. Like we haven't gotten to that yet.
- [69:29]
B
I do love that they just have a realization. I can't remember which one of them says it. Probably Shane, who's just like, oh, what if we texted each other about hockey? Like, what if we actually share?
- [69:40]
A
What if we had a conversation we.
- [69:41]
B
Love and care about with each other and then their relationship goes to a new level. When Ilya's father dies in Russia, he's got a brother who's been hitting him up for money the whole time. His mother took her life when he was younger.
- [69:57]
A
Yeah. And he's. He's not really been public about that with anybody, but he does. He does reveal it to Shane, but he. He is not. Ilya is not feeling anything that ties him down to Russia anymore. And he. Like, even if Shane weren't in the picture, I think he would have interest in being an American or Canadian citizen, and he would just, like, marry Svetlana and, like, and be done with it. Because she would be cool with it.
- [70:18]
B
Yep.
- [70:20]
A
But I think, like, part of. At this point, part of him is wondering, like, oh, what if? What if, Shane?
- [70:24]
B
Yeah. And then there's one.
- [70:26]
A
There's one single mention in this part of the book that happens in 2016 and 2017 where Elia is like, you know, America, not so great for Russians or anybody.
- [70:36]
B
A very bizarre little reference.
- [70:38]
A
Oblique, little, tiny reference. You can.
- [70:40]
B
When. Yeah. When the one chapter head was like, October 2016. And I was like, do these guys know about the comey letter? Like, that was like, all. Like, all I could think about.
- [70:51]
A
Shane just, like, tells Iliad, like, I'm gonna Pokemon Go to the polls. That Shane lives. Shane lives in Canada, so I guess they wouldn't be paying. Maybe they wouldn't be paying attention to.
- [70:59]
B
Pokemon Go to the polls, but they.
- [71:02]
A
Should have been playing Pokemon Go in 2016.
- [71:04]
B
Scene. Two big scenes happen.
- [71:05]
A
It's like, yeah, I will. I will go down on you, but I do have to catch the psyduck first.
- [71:12]
B
They start texting each other about hockey and Pokemon. Big Nian Tech fans. The two scenes that happen while Ilya is in Moscow that I think are pretty important. His dad passes and he calls Shane. Or, like, I think I can remember which one calls who.
- [71:29]
A
I think Shane calls him because he has heard that Ilya has. He's not with the team, and the paparazzi are not saying anything about it. And Shane's like, well, I can't do anything except continually have sex with this man for years and years and years without the press knowing about it.
- [71:49]
B
Yeah.
- [71:51]
A
And that Means they do know about it and they're trying to be respectful, which means that somebody died or something. Like something serious has happened.
- [71:58]
B
So they talk on this.
- [71:59]
A
Yeah, he calls Ilya to like check on him, basically.
- [72:02]
B
And then Ilia calls him a little bit later, a second time and is like, hey, I'm just going to say some stuff in Russian to you to like get it off my chest. And the, the most important thing is that he says that he loves Shane in Russian.
- [72:17]
A
But Shane doesn't know.
- [72:18]
B
No. And I think at that point Shane blurts out an invitation to come to his cottage in the summer. Yes. And then another call. They have Skype sex. I love that. It's Skype, Andrew.
- [72:31]
A
It is Skype. Which would have been appropriate to 2017, 2016, 2017. I love it. Zoom did not become ubiquitous until the pandemic. Microsoft famously paid like $8 billion for Skype and then just like threw it in a ditch in favor of Microsoft Teams or whatever.
- [72:51]
B
Yep. They're doing the same thing with the Xbox division right now. Don't you?
- [72:55]
A
Yeah, just whatever, Whatever, man. Let's just like have this thing and not announce any plans for it and then eventually it'll just die and nobody will have to make a decision at any point.
- [73:05]
B
Yep.
- [73:05]
A
Let's just do that.
- [73:06]
B
Yep.
- [73:07]
A
But yeah, they do have a cool iPad Skype jerk off contest where they race each other to, to see who can jerk off to completion first.
- [73:15]
B
And.
- [73:15]
A
Did you say which is not.
- [73:16]
B
Which is not in the show?
- [73:18]
A
Santa said that the jerk off contest is not in the show.
- [73:20]
B
The main. Aside from it being a fun contest, the main emotional beat of this scene is that like they are enjoying looking at it. Like they are seeing each other's faces. Yeah, they're.
- [73:32]
A
They're looking at other's faces and not their ding dongs while they're having the jerk off contest.
- [73:36]
B
Yeah. And it's a, it's an emotional growth moment for them while they're also growing some kind of growing, growing, growing.
- [73:42]
A
This, this. The sequence where Ilia is visiting Shane at his cottage has my other. Struck me funny.
- [73:48]
B
Okay.
- [73:48]
A
Which is like Shane is talking to his friend on the phone.
- [73:53]
B
Oh, my God. And Ilya, that's in the show. It's insane.
- [73:57]
A
Yeah. Ilya is, is gonna go down on him while he is talking on the phone and Shane is gonna like pretend not to be like, orgasm. Ilya smiled because sure enough, Shane's cock had twitched and was starting to plump up. I just object to it being described like a ballpark Frank. I Don't think like a different sport. You could describe. You could describe it that way if you wanted to. I just don't like thinking about it plumping up like a ballpark frank.
- [74:27]
B
Yeah, that's not typically the way I think about that type of growth. Plumping.
- [74:33]
A
Yeah, just plump up.
- [74:35]
B
Interesting. It is a very funny scene in the show. It is.
- [74:42]
A
But, yeah, no, my struck me funnies were. That's this. This gay sex is so gay.
- [74:46]
B
Yeah.
- [74:48]
A
Cock plumping up like a ballpark frank. And then the. The iPad jerk off contest. And a little bit fast five, iPad on the plane.
- [74:55]
B
Yeah.
- [74:56]
A
They don't talk about what iPad model Ilya is using for all this. If it's, you know, if it's 2013, we're probably talking like, iPad4, the original iPad Air. Maybe.
- [75:06]
B
Yeah.
- [75:06]
A
In 2017, we're talking about, I don't know, maybe they got iPad pros, but if they had iPad Pros, they probably would have said so.
- [75:12]
B
Well, these are all. These are all, you know, big guys. Nobody has an iPad mini.
- [75:16]
A
Nobody. No, nobody has an iPad mini. Are you kidding?
- [75:19]
B
No, it wouldn't. Wouldn't. It's not plump enough.
- [75:23]
A
It's not plump enough.
- [75:25]
B
So they go. They go to the cottage because Shane and Ilya are playing, and there's a.
- [75:31]
A
Word that you use to describe, like, cartoon mice or something. Like, it just seems out of place here. But anyway, go ahead.
- [75:38]
B
And Shane gets absolutely clobbered on the ice by one of Ilia's teammates.
- [75:46]
A
We're doing things a bit out of order because the cottage stuff all happens after the.
- [75:49]
B
No, no. Yeah, I'm gonna. I'm gonna try to catch us up. Like, he gets rocked on the ice. He gets a big concussion and his broken collarbone. Ilya uses his, like, cover as the captain of the opposing team to visit him in the hospital. But of course, he wants to make sure that Shane is okay. There is an interesting little beat where Ilya is, like, very concerned with him on the ice. And Shane, before he, like, passes out from pain, is like, we're not alone. Like, you can't, like, try to resuscitate me here. Like, everyone.
- [76:19]
A
Shane is, like, calling him Ilia and, like. And there was a lot of, like, Mr. Policeman. I gave you all the clues to their, like, public interactions in this. But I guess, like, if people are just so used to. It's impossible to think hockey not being gay at all.
- [76:36]
B
Yep.
- [76:37]
A
Then I guess you wouldn't, like. It wouldn't occur to you to think of two players having this relationship?
- [76:42]
B
Ilia the other thing I like about Ilia throughout the book, it's something that they talk about early is before he would ever admit to himself that he actually likes Shane. What he likes is the danger of the relationship.
- [76:56]
A
Yeah.
- [76:56]
B
It is like an interesting. Shane is learning about himself and learning that he's gay, and Ilya is the bad boy who is like, it's fun that it would be terrible for both of us if anyone knew this would hap was happening. It's just an interesting dynamic. But no. He goes to visit Shane in the hospital and Shane invites him to the cottage. But there's no conclusion to that until they watch what I can only presume is the final scene of Game Changer or whatever it is, where his name is not Scott Summers, that's Cyclops. That's a different Scott Hunter. Scott Hunter wins the Stanley cup and kisses a random barista that he met and fell in love with on the ice named Kip, I think his name is.
- [77:46]
A
And both of them are like, wait, you can be gay in public?
- [77:48]
B
And they're texting, like, while this is happening. And Ilya is like, I'm coming to the cottage. Like, we're gonna do that. So then all of Part 4 is at the cottage where they talk about their families. They eat too many burgers, they laugh about funny birds, they play hockey on PlayStation. They have sex while Haley is on.
- [78:09]
A
The COVID of this.
- [78:10]
B
Yeah, I kind of like that. That's kind of fun. And they make a podcasting video game.
- [78:15]
A
And we should be good. We should get to be on the.
- [78:17]
B
COVID Well, the problem. So I don't know if hockey has this, like, there is like, the Madden Curse where there is, like, if you're on the COVID you often either have a very terrible season or, like, suffer a season ending injury. And I wouldn't want that to happen to us if we were on the COVID of podcasting.
- [78:35]
A
Podcasting. 26.
- [78:36]
B
Yeah, podcasting. 2k 27 or whatever. Like, no, thanks. But they're like. They are. They're like entering boyfriend mode. And they're have. They're coming up with this plan where maybe Ilya won't marry Svetlana for citizenship, but maybe when his contract is up, he will play for Ottawa and he will become a Canadian citizen.
- [79:00]
A
As. As the book. As the second book is called. This is a very. This is a very long game that they come up with where they're like, okay, first you move to Canada to play a competing Canadian.
- [79:09]
B
They've been boating each other for, like, for eight years now. Yeah.
- [79:13]
A
And. And then after that let. We can, we can come out as people who respect each other.
- [79:21]
B
Yeah. It's not even like we're, it's not a relationship. It's just we don't hate each other.
- [79:27]
A
Yeah. And, and, and we're gonna start this.
- [79:29]
B
We.
- [79:29]
A
We can start a charity and that's an excuse for us to, to be together. And then in like 10 years, 10 to 15 years when we're both retired, then we can come out and be together in public.
- [79:41]
B
Like. Yep, yep. That's what they think.
- [79:43]
A
The two subsequent books do cover a lot of this, cover a lot of this process of like the coming out and like the public reaction to it and, and all that stuff. But yeah, they, they come up with this plan and they're just like messing around in, in the water and like smooching on the deck. And Shane's dad, who lives in an adjacent lake house.
- [80:07]
B
Yeah, Yep.
- [80:07]
A
Has come over to get laundry detergent or something and sees them hooking up.
- [80:12]
B
And just, and just leaves.
- [80:14]
A
We haven't talked about Shane's parents much. Like he, he. They're probably the other characters in the book. These closest with. He does have like, Rose and he has a male friend whose name escapes.
- [80:24]
B
Hayden. Hayden.
- [80:25]
A
Hayden. But his, you know, his parents come to games all the time. They're both big hockey fans. They're just very supportive. He almost comes out to them once and, and decides not to.
- [80:36]
B
Yep.
- [80:36]
A
And he does, he does intend to, but this like, really forces his hand. So they both go over to his parents lake house and there's a. About the scene you'd expect where they're like, wait, you are gay? And also you're in love with this person who I thought you hated.
- [80:53]
B
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [80:55]
A
But then immediately they're like, well, on the gay thing, this does not come as a huge surprise to us. And also I also. They are pretty into the Iliad thing.
- [81:07]
B
Yeah.
- [81:08]
A
Like, they're both pretty accepting and understanding pretty much immediately.
- [81:12]
B
Yeah. I, I don't remember the final episode so clearly that I can speak to this, but there was a few.
- [81:18]
A
You remember how Congo's Dylan Walsh responds to the reveal that Shane.
- [81:24]
B
Oh, that is who it is.
- [81:26]
A
You didn't know that. You didn't know that Shane's dad is Dylan Walsh from the movie Congo?
- [81:31]
B
From the movie Congo. But that I can't remember. I did actually didn't take a note on this, but somebody in the discord was talking about how it's a little bit more drawn out that like, Shane's reaction to being caught by his dad in the. In the show and Ilia. And both in the book and the show, Ilia is like, I will go with you, and I will help. You know, I will be part of this conversation. It's not something you have to do alone. And that is something that is, like, you know, speaks to Ilia as a person and who they are as a couple. Even as you've, like, been with. In multiple scenes with Ilya being like, I don't know what I'm doing here. I don't know what this means for us. Like, his whole vibe is, can I make jokes about this to, like, keep myself emotionally distant from it so that I'm not scared?
- [82:28]
A
And then also, like, I should just go get green card married to Skylah and, like, not worry about this anymore. But no, but you, the reader, know that he's always. That's always like, just, like a denial thing that he's doing. It's not that he actually doesn't.
- [82:43]
B
Yes.
- [82:43]
A
Love Shane.
- [82:45]
B
And. Yeah. And they're like, okay, we will support you. This is strange, but, like, mostly because we didn't know about it already and we're gonna be on board.
- [82:56]
A
Yep.
- [82:57]
B
They go back to the cottage, and they're in. They're in it for the long game, is what they say to each other. Yep.
- [83:02]
A
And that's pretty much it. There's a little epilogue scene where they do initiate. Initiate the first part of their impossibly complicated plan.
- [83:11]
B
Yep.
- [83:13]
A
And they start the charity, and the charity is named for Ilya's mother. And so, like, they've come out as not hating each other. And he has talked publicly about his mother for the first time.
- [83:24]
B
Yep. And they're gonna run.
- [83:25]
A
Hayden knows that they're about there.
- [83:28]
B
Hayden knows that. That they are together. Yes. And they are going to run some hockey, like, summer camps that are inclusive or something, and that's all the proceeds from that are going to go to the foundation, and that's the book.
- [83:42]
A
And then there's like, another little epilogue scene at the end that I did not read because it was not part of the show. I think they. What are.
- [83:49]
B
Dinner with Hayden and his wife.
- [83:52]
A
Yeah. And the. What I read about the show is that they intentionally did not include that scene because they didn't want to imply the existence of a second season that they didn't know they were gonna get.
- [84:01]
B
Yes. Huh.
- [84:02]
A
So, yeah, I just. I didn't. I didn't ingest that one.
- [84:05]
B
And there. There's some interesting quotes, and there is a vulture piece with the cinematographer that I think I alluded to earlier that talks about the ending of the show and that they are, you know, not a lot of shows that adapt. Like, one of the things about romance books is like, when they have a happily ever after in them that is like a whole point of the book and that a lot of TV just does not function that way.
- [84:31]
A
And because you always leave the door open to doing, yeah like future conflict.
- [84:35]
B
And things like that. I do think it's interesting that the book and the show end with like, well, the larger version of like, like, can these characters be publicly out? Can they live their life, you know, unimpeded? That's still a question. But it's clear from both of the characters intent that they will be together in some way, shape or form, happily ever after. And so there's, you know, what is. I think the cinematographer says this is a happy love story and it can be yours. Like, it is important to them that they captured this vibe at the end of the show that for queer people you can have a happily ever after as well. Like, that is, you know, not a given necessarily. And I think we've read plenty of stories with gay characters that like, it is about a lot more strife than this book has. Even though I was. I did not know what type of. I don't know that I knew as much like, like coming out was going to be a part of Shane's story in this book, which was kind of like a. An interesting wrinkle to the, to the story.
- [85:44]
A
Yeah.
- [85:45]
B
Some thoughts from our discord, Andrew.
- [85:48]
A
Yeah, hit me. And then. Yeah, yeah.
- [85:50]
B
Kristen said it's spicy, but I like how it started hot and then transitioned to more of a storyline midway.
- [85:57]
A
I did, I did also like that I was like reading the first quarter of it is like, is this just going to be like hotel room after hotel room for the entire length of the book? But no, it gets more interested in doing other things as it goes.
- [86:11]
B
A lot of folks had mixed feelings about the Russian accents in the audiobook. And I did see some folks on Reid's website. She's like responding to broad questioning about whether or not she could ever get the actors from the show to do the audiobook. And she's like, well, there is already an audiobook out there and that would take a lot of. Of work. Okay, what else? Carolyn thinks the show is better than the book because the acting, directing, elevates material. Claire thinks the cottage scene is even better. Others think the rivalry is better in the book. I like the. I did Think that the. There's space to handle all the internal hockey thoughts.
- [86:52]
A
Right. You can, yeah, you can. You can have a character thinking, oh, he's really good hockey. And then. But because if you're trying to do that on TV show, I guess you can, you can cut it in a way that makes it clear that these are just like two boys who are good at hockey and they're having a good time playing with each other, but is like there are more chances to. To lose the audience on that, I think.
- [87:15]
B
Yeah. And Nora says, I feel like having a long time frame with flashbacks really helps with the balance between Insta Love and Too Slow Burn.
- [87:25]
A
Sure.
- [87:25]
B
You know, both hyphenated as kind of tropey ideas. They develop a believable relationship over a long time. But we don't have to wait forever to get to the fireworks factory. Yeah, yeah, I think that's. Again, I don't think I've read a romance novel that operates on this timescale. I found it kind of really interesting because it does allow you to, especially in the context of a sports career, it allows you to hit a lot of different things like the draft, the commercial, the matchups, the hotel flights, the award shows, the All Star games, the playoffs, the Olympics. If you try to put all of that into one year of these characters lives, it would feel really silly.
- [88:08]
A
Yeah. Like these characters live in an alternate reality where they have the Olympics, the Winter Olympics, three times a year.
- [88:15]
B
Yeah. So to zoom out a little bit time wise actually allows Reid the opportunity to do a lot of the. The sports stuff and have it feel a little more organic. Yeah, sure. It's kind of neat. Yeah. Yeah.
- [88:30]
A
I enjoyed myself.
- [88:31]
B
I think I get it.
- [88:34]
A
Yeah.
- [88:36]
B
And that's what I came here to do.
- [88:38]
A
I love to believe that I understand things.
- [88:41]
B
I would be interested to read more sports romance because I. I do think it is an interesting. I don't think I need more like corporate romance. Like I don't need like a lot of like high powered. You don't need.
- [88:57]
A
You don't need the 50 Shades thing.
- [88:59]
B
I don't know that I need that. Again, I think it. I think I'm interested in this, like what can. What types of guy or girl or whoever in a sport context.
- [89:12]
A
I mean, what about like, I don't know, like air bud romance? Like, okay, ain't no rule says a dog can't fall in love.
- [89:21]
B
That is true.
- [89:22]
A
I think that's a strong pitch.
- [89:24]
B
All right.
- [89:26]
A
And if it doesn't exist, we could write it. Probably.
- [89:29]
B
Probably. Andrew thanks for lacing up your skates with me today.
- [89:36]
A
Yeah, of course. Thank you. My partner and not rival.
- [89:40]
B
Correct.
- [89:41]
A
Who? I don't have a heated rivalry.
- [89:43]
B
Unheated partner.
- [89:45]
A
Yes, my business associate.
- [89:51]
B
We scored a hat trick with this one. Send us an email overdue podmail.com if you have other sports romances you'd like to recommend to us, we'd love to know about them. You can find us on social media@overdue pod. Thanks to Robert, Derek, Sam, John, Christie, Dirty Circle, Rebecca, Liesel, Amber and more for reaching out recently. Our theme song is composed by Nick Laurengis. Andrew. If folks want to know more about the show, where do they go?
- [90:22]
A
Overdue Podcast.com is the Internet website. We have the schedule for the show. We have old episodes, we have the current episode. All the links that Craig mentioned, they're all up there. We also have a Patreon page. Patreon.com overdue pod help help plump up our bank account and you can get some reward.
- [90:44]
B
You don't have to do that just because he said it. Don't do it. Think about it with a different word, please.
- [90:49]
A
You can get rewards including access to our Discord community where we do talk about heated rivalry sometimes and bonus episodes including both special collections where we just like do non book related things sometimes. And our current long read project which is based on the manga Akira. And you get our newsletter, dusty bookshelves, ad free version of the feed and some other stuff. Patreon.com overdue pod Craig, what are you I think reading next week?
- [91:20]
B
The Sellout by Paul Beatty.
- [91:22]
A
Can't wait to sell out.
- [91:23]
B
Finally sell out with me. Oh yeah.
- [91:27]
A
Oh yeah. Okay everybody, thank you so much for listening to our show. We hope that we didn't make any of you upset.
- [91:36]
B
We had a good time here.
- [91:37]
A
I feel like that's always implied, but I think particularly this week, like I just, I never want to get on the wrong side of any fandom, especially romance.
- [91:45]
B
Okay, There's a big fandom for this show in this book. Lots of just wow, new people are paying attention to this type of story, let alone this story. Also, I think hockey people just love when there's a hockey thing. Sorry to bury this take at the outro, but like you can't, you can't.
- [92:07]
A
Have many more takes. It's not legal.
- [92:09]
B
In 2017, there was an SNL skit starring Chance the rapper called Hockey Announcer or whatever and it's about a guy who doesn't know anything about hockey and he has fun like saying the names wrong and he says, let's do that hockey. Because he doesn't know what else to say.
- [92:26]
A
I remember your father in law, my.
- [92:29]
B
Father in law, my brother in law love this skit. Hockey. People love when people think about hockey that don't normally think about hockey. That's all that. I think that's part of the appeal here is what I'm saying. Yeah, let's do that hockey.
- [92:45]
A
Okay, let's do that. Going to bed, everybody. Thank you so much for listening. And until we talk to you next time, please try to be happy. Sam, That was a headgum podcast. At vrbo, we understand that even the best of plans sometimes need a little support. So we plan for the plot twists. Every booking is automatically backed by our VRBO Care guarantee, giving you confidence from the very start. Whenever you need help, it's ready before your stay, through the moments in between and after your trip. Because a great trip starts with peace of mind and maybe a good playlist, but we've got the peace of mind part covered.