Hockey player credits ‘Heated Rivalry’ for inspiration to publicly come out

Posted On January 16, 2026January 16, 2026

Jesse Korteum, an ice hockey player from Minnesota, has credited the hit television show, Heated Rivalry, with inspiring him to come out publicly as gay.

The sportsman took to social media to share the news, writing on Instagram that after years of privacy, “I’m breaking my silence to share a journey that started in the rink in Minnesota and finally found peace in the mountains of BC.”

Then, he linked to a Facebook post in which Kortuem laid out his experience with sexuality on and off the ice rink.

“I am a private person,” he wrote, before adding, “But lately, something has sparked in me (okay – yes credit to Heated Rivalry.) I realised it is finally time to share a journey I have kept close to the vest for a long time.”

Looking back at his younger self, the star wrote, “I carried a weight that did not seem to fit into that world, and I lived in a constant state of dichotomy. I loved the game, but I lived with a persistent fear. I wondered how I could be gay and still play such a tough and masculine sport.”

As such, “Coming out in the 2000s did not feel like an option, especially with so little positive representation in the media at the time and it would have been a social disaster at such a large high school.”

Fast-forward to his adult career, and Korteum admitted that, while living in New York and Atlanta, he was “out to many people around me in my life at that point,” but not his teammates.

At that point, safety was his main concern: “I spent every week in a locker room with guys I respected, yet I still did not feel safe enough to tell them who I truly was.”

As well as Heated Rivalry, the player thanked Cutting Edges, a Vancouver-based LGBT+ hockey association, for reminding him “there is room for all of us on the ice.”

Heated Rivalry follows the fictional story of Shane Hollander, played by Hudson Williams, and Ilya Rozanov, played by Connor Storrie, two elite ice-hockey players and arch-nemeses, as they navigate the highly heteronormative social pressures of playing in a professional hockey league.

Watch the official trailer for Heated Rivalry below.

Related Topics