Peak Hockey Romance, Brought to You by Canadian Taxpayers

Somewhere between the warm, toasty indulgence of holiday dinners and the drunken amnesia of New Year's Eve, Canada got hot.

Heated Rivalry quietly became our country's newest cultural export. It jumped from TikTok edits to hockey bro podcasts to legacy late-night TV, then carried that momentum straight into awards season at the Golden Globes. The show's previously unknown stars were amongst the most talked-about people in the room, despite not even being eligible for nomination (due to being fully Canadian)—cementing their place and the series' in the mainstream zeitgeist. Truly, no one expected a queer Canadian hockey romance to be the trending topic heading into 2026, but amidst the chaos of a new year, it prevailed.

“Thank you Canadian taxpayers for your service” is a comment made so frequently on social platforms that it's almost as viral as the show itself. Half joking, half sincere, “loons”—as the fandom calls itself—are openly thanking Canadians and their tax dollars for funding a show with great writing, great acting, and great yearning.

It's a rare sight: public cultural funding that's visible, respected, and genuinely appreciated. Instead of taxes being framed as a burden, they were suddenly tied to Canadian pride.

However, that success isn't accidental. Heated Rivalry is Canadian-owned intellectual property, produced by Bell Media for streaming service Crave, filmed across Ontario and Quebec, and sold internationally. Its success sits at the intersection of government fiscal policy and popular culture. We're witnessing a moment when Canada's long-standing approach to funding and prioritizing Canadian culture and entertainment bubbles up and receives its own applause.

It's been a decade since Drake rolled through the halls of Degrassi: The Next Generation (another CanCon triumph). Heated Rivalry is the latest example of Canada pushing through the blazing dominance of American pop culture and making itself impossible to ignore.

Why the Canadian government gets involved in film and TV

The Canadian government has historically funded TV production primarily to create a strong domestic industry that reflects Canadian stories, in hopes of building national identity, sovereignty, and cultural unity, especially against overwhelming US media influence.

American television operates at a completely different financial scale. According to PwC's Global Entertainment & Media Outlook, many high-profile U.S scripted series report production budgets exceeding USD$10 million per episode.

However, domestic scripted television is typically produced on budgets closer to CAD$1-$3 million per episode, according to Canadian Media Producers Association's (CMPA) Profile data. Even at the top end of the domestic market, production budgets are only a fraction of what major US studios regularly spend on a single episode of premium television. The gap in available capital shapes everything.

Canada's entire television production sector generated approximately CAD$3.25 billion, according to the CMPA report. That's roughly comparable to the revenue of a single top-grossing US blockbuster film.

Without government intervention, the most financially rational choice for Canadian broadcasters would be to rely almost entirely on US imports. Here's why:

• It's cheaper to license US shows than to produce Canadian shows domestically.
• US shows arrive with proven audience demand.
• They carry built-in brand recognition.
• Advertisers already trust them.

The reasons are compelling from a spreadsheet point of view. But from a country that has its own entertainment industry and wants to differentiate itself and its culture from its southern neighbour? Not great.

What's at stake?

Canada's screen sector supports:

• About 240,000 jobs nationwide (directly and indirectly)
• $12 billion in annual economic activity

Those jobs include:

• Writers and actors
• Editors, sound engineers, post-production teams
• Crew, production staff, and freelancers who keep sets running

But the economic impact doesn't stop at the set. Large-scale television production also drives peripheral economic activity, supporting:

• Marketing and PR agencies promoting releases domestically and abroad
• Catering companies feeding cast and crew during long shoots
• Hotels, short-term rentals, and local housing for visiting productions
• Transportation and travel services, from flights to equipment trucking
• Local businesses near filming locations, from coffee shops to hardware suppliers

When domestic production slows down, jobs vanish, and industries suffer—so the government intervenes. Not to guarantee success, but to make it possible.

The Broadcasting Act, the CRTC, the Canada Media Fund, and federal tax credit programs, is designed to:

• Tell Canadian stories that accurately represent what Canada looks like
• Keep creative decision-making in Canada
• Build intellectual property that Canadians own
• Support long-term employment
• Create stories that can travel globally

Heated Rivalry is what that looks like when the system works to its fullest potential.

The funding stack

Canadian television funding is a layered process. Most scripted shows rely on a mix of broadcaster contributions, public funding through the Canada Media Fund and Telefilm, and a combination of federal and provincial tax credits that reimburse producers partially for hiring Canadian labour.

None of these funding sources covers everything. Remove one, and the entire project becomes harder to fund.

Below is a simplified hypothetical budget for a mid-scale Canadian scripted series similar in scope to Heated Rivalry.

Category	Typical Share	What It Covers
Creative development, production, and direction (above-the-line)	~20%	Writers, directors, lead cast, story rights
Production (below-the-line)	~40%	Crew, locations, equipment, travel, on-set costs
Post-production	~20%	Editing, sound, colour, music licensing
Marketing and administration	~15%	Legal, accounting, insurance, publicity
Contingency	~5%	Required reserve for cost overruns

Total budget: ~CAD$11 million for a six-episode series (≈ CAD$1-$3 million per episode)

Why Heated Rivalry is a winner

By almost every metric, Heated Rivalry is a best-case outcome. It's become Crave's most-watched original series, been sold internationally across multiple regions, boosted interest in Canadian music and tourism, and given Canadian talent global visibility.

Because ownership stayed Canadian, so did the upside (despite the series missing out on some US awards eligibility).

Cultural funding is a small slice of total tax spending, but its impact is outsized. Heated Rivalry made that impact impossible to ignore. Taxpayers could point to something specific and say, “Oh, that's where some of our tax dollars went.”

Taxes don't just fund services. Sometimes they fund stories. And occasionally, one of those stories gets popular enough that people actually start thanking Canadian taxpayers.

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