Heated Rivalry introduced Scott and Kip's love story — but here's what you missed from the book

What is Game Changer?

Heated Rivalry is based on the second book in Reid’s gay hockey romance series, but episode 3 goes off on a tangent and manages to fit almost all of the plot of Gamer Changer, the first book in the series, into a single episode.

The episode, much like the book, focuses on veteran New York hockey star Scott Hunter (François Arnaud), who falls for smoothie barista Kip Grady (Robbie G.K.) after repeatedly coming into his store when he becomes convinced the smoothies are his lucky charm (but really just wants to spend time with the hot server).

In both the book and episode 3, Scott and Kip start a secret relationship since Scott is still living his life in the closet, terrified for what coming out would mean for his career and his teammates who he considers to be his family. Kip, an out gay man, is happy to dive back into the closet for Scott for a while, but eventually, lying to his friends and family, and the isolation and loneliness that comes with living this way, starts to eat away at Kip until he breaks things off.

This is where episode 3 ends, but the book eventually has a happy ending for these two characters, and it’s this plot point that becomes a catalyst for what happens later in Ilya and Shane’s love story.

Who are the actors who play Scott and Kip?

Out bisexual actor François Arnaud, who plays Scott Hunter, is probably best known for his starring role in The Borgias, but he has also been in Schitt’s Creek, Blindspot, and Yellowjackets. Though the gays might recognize him from Twinless and the music video for Orville Peck’s “How Far Will We Take It?”

Robbie G.K., on the other hand, has acted in TV shows like The Next Step, Utopia Falls, and Overcompensating before stepping into the role of Kip Grady.

The book was much spicier — and the episode was supposed to be too

While Scott and Kip are only shown to have sex a few times in the show and the scenes are shorter and less explicit than the ones featured in the first two episodes, in Game Changer, the two main characters are hot and heavy throughout.

After their first date, we’re treated to their first sex scene in both the book and the show, but after that, the book continues to get spicier. The book has sweet moments too — like Scott’s secret phone call to Kip while he’s staying at a hotel for an away game — but it’s their all-night sexcapades, passionate moments, and explorations of each other’s bodies that fans were hoping to also see.

Unfortunately for fans of the show, many of these steamy scenes were apparently left on the cutting room floor. In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, Arnaud admitted that they filmed more sex scenes than viewers saw, which has fans demanding to see the uncut version of the episode.

"There isn't that much sex in our episode," Arnaud said. "We shot a lot more than there is. I don't know, maybe they're saving it for later, but we shot a lot, like two days of sex scenes. We knew we wanted it to be sweet, sometimes clumsy, joyful, and easy, and not for an audience. Just for them to have that moment.”

But the sex scenes that we did get had fans who haven’t read the book asking one question: Is Scott a bottom?

Is Scott Hunter a bottom?

In the show, we not only get Scott and Kip each asking each other, “Can I f*ck you?” at different points within the episode, but we also see a couple of extremely hot, but extremely short sex scenes. Likely because of gay stereotypes around what type of sexual position a buff, masculine athlete would take, fans were shocked to find out that Scott bottoms for Kip.

But this wasn’t a surprise to fans of the novel, who know that not only does Scott bottom, but so does Kip because both men in the adorable couple are vers.

When they have sex for the first time, Scott asks Kip to top him, and this continues until one night when Kip asks Scott, “don’t suppose you’d wanna switch things up?” This leads to one of the hottest sex scenes in the book (it’s in Chapter 7, you know, just in case) where Scott gives Kip a rim job, is afraid he’ll hurt Kip, so Kip has to assure him that he likes a little pain with his pleasure, all before Scott tells Kip, “Don’t come.”

It’s incredibly hot, just like many of the scenes in the book, but toning down the sex scenes isn’t the only change the show made for the sake of time.

Major changes from page to screen

Not only was the book full of sex scenes that didn’t make it into the show, but other things were changed too.

Their first time

In the show, Scott and Kip sleep together of the first time after a charity event where they end up going back to Scott’s apartment. Kip thinks they’re going to order in but turns away from the impressive view of the New York City skyline to see that Scott has already taken his shirt off. The next morning, Scott admits he’s smitten and asks Kip to stay — indefinitely.

But in the book, they end up sleeping together for the first time after going to a diner for burgers — that they end up throwing out — because they’re both horny. Scott asks Kip to spend the night, but then Kip goes home and then they continue their relationship and bedroom romps for a while before Kip moves in.

Ilya and Shane's role

Episode 3 also includes short cameos from Ilya and Shane, with Ilya making fun of Scott losing a hockey game, and Shane and Scott getting into a brawl on the ice when Scott insinuates Shane and Ilya are getting it on (they totally are). But in the book, it’s Ilya who ends up getting decked by Scott for running his mouth, something Ilya will continue to do in every book in the series whenever he pops up.

Scott's parents

In the show, we learn that Scott’s parent died in a drunk driving accident when he was 12 years old, but in the book, Scott tells Kip that he grew up poor and was a latchkey kid and only child who was raised by a single mother, and that she died of an undisclosed illness when Scott was 15.

Kip's struggles

The book also spends more time showing how lonely and isolated Kip becomes and how much he struggles with his own identity and sense of self-worth. Kip is 25 in the books, and before moving in with Scott, he is living at home with his parents and working a job he doesn’t like while he applies for jobs and tries to decide if he should go to grad school. All of this makes him feel less than his peers and Scott, but this is largely glossed over in the show due to time constraints, as are other plot points, but the show actually manages to pack in almost an entire novel’s worth of plot into a single episode.

MAJOR SPOILERS FOR THE HEATED RIVALRY BOOK AHEAD AND POTENTIALLY THE SERIES …PROCEED WITH CAUTION

How does it tie into Shane and Ilya’s story?

All of the books in the Game Changer series are interconnected standalones, so characters repeatedly pop up in other books — Ilya manages to trash-talk characters throughout the series — and influence each other.

The Game Changer book ends with Scott pulling Kip onto the ice after he wins the Stanley Cup and kissing him in front of everyone. After the surprising moment where he finally throws caution to the wind, he officially comes out at a press conference and then dances openly with Kip and their friends at a gay club — including Ilya, who shows up and tells Scott, “Is good. What you did. It will be good for…others.”

In the show, Scott repeatedly clocks the chemistry between Shane and Ilya, and gets into fights with both of them in episode 3, but in the Heated Rivalry book, Scott is only a background character until late in the book when his very public kiss becomes the catalyst for Shane and Ilya finally admitting their feelings for one another. Ilya and Shane are both shocked when they watch Scott and Kip kiss on national television and this act inspires Ilya to finally agree to stay with Shane at his cottage, which eventually leads to them admitting they love each other, coming out to Shane’s parents, and devising a plan for how they can be together.