Heated Rivarly actually brought some similarities to a real-life hockey love story, according to Hilary Knight…her own.
The U.S. Women's Hockey Team captain is comparing her love story with Olympic speed skater, Brittany Bowe. In a conversation with Ilona Maher on her House of Maher podcast, she shared that while she and her fiancée don't play the same sport as Ilya Rozanov (Connor Storrie) and Shane Hollander (Hudson Williams) in the HBO series based on the best seller by Rachel Reid, there are similarities.
“This is real,” Knight told Maher, adding that stuff portrayed in the TV show happens in real life in women's hockey.
“It was kind of wild for me to watch that,” she added.
Knight and Bowe met at the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing, where they were able to connect in the “bubble” with no outside distractions. The gold medal hockey player shared that they felt safe enough to interact and not spread COVID, they formed their relationship.
“As soon as we got to that point in the village where it's like, okay it's contained, we can't actually get it or spread it in theory,” Knight said. “It was like sneaking down in the stairwell to go to the speed skater level, like where they were. And kind of like sneaking around the village.”
In the TV show, there were times that Hollander and Rozanov would sneak into each other's hotel rooms during games. In the series, neither of the hockey players were out as gay and bisexual so they had to keep their sexualities hidden in fear of retaliation and loss in sponsorships.
Well, Bowe and Knight no longer have to be in the bubble of the Olympics and they haven't been for quite sometime. The two ended up moving to Salt Lake City, UT together and have been dating since 2022. The couple met another milestone in the relationship during the 2026 Winter Olympics as Knight got down on one knee and proposed to Bowe.
“Olympics brought us together. This one made us forever,” Knight captioned the video of the proposal on Instagram.
