Cyd Zeigler, the reporter who exposed straight male hockey podcaster Dan Powers for praising Heated Rivalry on air and trashing the gay romance in private, is facing extreme backlash.
Dan and Chris Powers, brothers and co-hosts of the popular hockey podcast Empty Netters, went viral after they started reacting to episodes of Heated Rivalry on their show and became the face of straight hockey bros who were loving the queer love story.
Reporter and founder of Outsports, Zeigler, published leaked text messages in an exposé yesterday that show Dan Powers was highly critical of the show in private despite stating his emphatic love for the hit show on air, and selling Heated Rivalry merch.
Fans of the podcast questioned the validity of the text messages where Powers said the “losers who made this show are cowards” and that Heated Rivalry "is trash they make because it panders, it’s provocative, and it checks inclusivity boxes.”
Powers is also quoted by Outsports as complaining in texts that the show was “making blue haired twitter happy” and that he refused to give it “the time of day” simply “out of principle.”
But Zeigler had multiple anonymous sources confirm the facts in his article and told PRIDE, “I stand by my reporting.”
After the exposé went viral online, Zeigler started receiving messages from fans lashing out in their attempts to defend the Empty Netters host.
“As journalists, people question our work all the time,” he says. “It sucks when people include hate and venom in that, and that’s what I’m getting.”
Powers has since responded to the leaked text messages in a nearly 18-minute-long video where he said the timeline put forward by Outsports is “completely false and inaccurate,” explaining that the “messages were sent over a week before we had ever watched the show and before we had ever posted a review.”
Powers claimed the text messages were “totally taken out of context” and reminded fans that he was truthful about his love for the show. “Anyone who knows me or has interacted with me will show you that what you saw and what we experienced together was just the truth,” he said. “It was so honest and authentic, I loved every second of it.”
Many LGBTQ+ fans of Heated Rivalry were excited about straight hockey bros connecting with a show that put gay sex front and center, and showed moments of domesticity and tenderness between queer men. Experiencing straight jocks being open-minded enough to embrace the show was cathartic for many queer viewers.
The comment section for the Empty Netters response video is full of LGBTQ+ people who started watching the podcast for their Heated Rivalry reactions and are now worried their allyship was just a shallow cash grab — the podcast used to regularly get under 10,000 views, but their commentary videos on the show racked up over 500,000 views each.
One person commented that even if the text messages were meant to be private, they highlight “how people talk behind the backs of queer people and women all the time.”
Another fan explained that “watching three ‘hockey bros,’ three seemingly masculine individuals, who somewhat resemble the individuals that bullied me throughout my life for being gay, embrace a queer romance show with love, emotions, sensitivity and care was so healing to me,” and that it was disappointing to find out that Powers acted “one way in front of the LGBTQIA+ community and then silently bashing individuals of that community behind their back.”
Other people pointed out that it seemed like Powers’ love of the show grew over time, but that his language choices were still harmful. “I’m glad the timeline was clarified, it’s clear you guys genuinely grew to enjoy the show but idk, that one text feels like Dan’s first instinct was to essentially call it DEI trash, which is language always used specifically for queer media, and I hoped that would be addressed.”
PRIDE contacted Dan Powers, but he did not immediately respond to a request for comments.
