(in Games Room as interested in IRL sports side not what happens in the show)
So there is lots of buzz around this Heated Rivalry, HBO show online. As I understand it, the premise is two star ice hockey players on opposing teams, fall in love and have lots of steamy gay sex.
My thought is won’t someone think of the sportsball!? Surely that’s gonna affect the outcome of games involving those two teams? I don’t follow ice hockey but in football/soccer, if the star center forward on one team and the left back on the other are romantically involved, that’s got to reduce the effectiveness of the defense a little. I imagine the effect would be more pronounced in hockey as the teams are smaller.
Has that ever happened IRL? Are there any contractual or sporting regulations governing romantic relationships between players on different teams in the same league? I’m guessing if it has happened (in mens sports) it would be kept very secret as openly gay players have only been accepted incredibly recently (if they have been accepted at all)
I can’t think of an example in a major North American professional men’s sports league, as there have only been a handful of out gay men who’ve played in those leagues. In the NFL, for example, there have only been two players who were out while on an NFL roster: Michael Sam and Carl Nassib. (And, no, they wouldn’t have qualified for your question, as Sam was drafted, but never played in an NFL regular-season game, and was out of football two years before Nassib joined the NFL.)
But, on the women’s side, it’s not uncommon in the WNBA and the NWSL, where there are a lot of out gay athletes. A couple of examples I could find:
- Gabby Williams plays on the WNBA’s Seattle Storm; her partner Marine Johannes plays on the New York Liberty.
- Courtney Vandersloot and Allie Quigley got married in 2018 while they were both playing for the WNBA’s Chicago Sky; they spent two seasons playing on opposing teams, when Vandersloot signed with the Liberty as a free agent. (They were reunited when Vandersloot moved back to the Sky in 2025.)
Alyson Annan was Australian womens (field) hockey captain, 228 caps, 166 goals winning gold in the 1996 & 2000 Summer Olympics and was voted Best Female Hockey Player in the World in 1999. Her partner is Carole Thate who played for Holland in both those Olympics, I think may have been the Dutch captain in 2000.
As to partners competing head-to-head, I would have thought professionals would be more likely to try and knock each others head off.
I am reminded of an anecdote about Indian batter Sunil Gavaskar and West Indian fast bowler Joel Garner who had been flat mates when playing in England. Gavaskar is 5’4" while Garner is 6’8".
When playing against each other in the 1983 World Cup Final Garner greeted Gavaskar with a fierce barrage of short pitched deliveries.
Gavaskar: “How about one off the mark for your old flatmate?”
Garner: “No man. No freebies for you.”
Siblings playing against each other is pretty common. I don’t imagine romantic partners would be all that different.
The siblings that immediately jump to mind for me are Tiki and Ronde Barber. They combined for eight pro bowls and Ronde was inducted into the Hall of Fame a couple years ago, so it’s not like they were backups or scrubs. Tiki on offense, Ronde on defense, they literally played head-to-head against each other. As for closeness, they are identical twins. I have to assume they were and are pretty close.
Somehow it’s striking that identical twins ended up playing different positions.