Before Heated Rivalry even reached its season finale, which hit HBO Max today, it had done what very few shows accomplish in real time: It split its audience into micro-fandoms. There are the casual viewers who tune in weekly. There are the hyper-online fans live-tweeting every glance between Shane and Ilya. And then there’s the corner of the fandom that has arguably helped propel the show’s explosion far beyond traditional TV discourse: the fan editors.
On TikTok, Heated Rivalry fans have turned moments from the Canadian hockey romance into extremely detailed montages set to pop hits, indie deep cuts, and emotionally devastating ballads. Some edits function like a character’s best moments, while others operate as inside jokes. Still others reimagine the show entirely, leaning into whatever their creators see fit. Heated Rivalry edits have kind of become unavoidable online. Requests for specific songs flood comment sections. Fans trade favorites. Others debate what counts as a good edit.
Hollywood has started paying attention to the power of fan edits as marketing tools, too, with studios borrowing the format for official campaigns, Variety reported.
“I think the fan edits just kind of highlight what people are looking for in the show or movie a little bit better than, like, movie trailers are now,” says TikTok creator Tressany Sawyers, who gravitated toward Heated Rivalry edits through algorithmic chance, as she once did another fandom. “I don’t think I’d ever noticed a 9-1-1 commercial before, but I kept getting 9-1-1 edits on TikTok, and that made me a lot more interested in watching the show than, like, any commercial did. So I just think the fan editors just have a different eye for the media and know how to attract other fans.”
That “different eye” comes from intimacy with the material, says Tai Ingram, another TikTok creator deeply embedded in the fandom.
“I think that people that are paid or working on the show during its production have a certain idea about a show that isn't the same as a consumer,” Ingram says. “What you feel might be very different from this person, and when you pair it with whatever song that [may evoke] whatever feeling within them, it, in turn, like, blows up because it’s also evoking feelings in everyone else. I think that what makes good edits is the song that they chose, the clips that they've used, whatever story that they're telling to their audience."
For longtime editor Mellie, known TikTok as @uhbucky, who’s been making fan edits since 2017, that emotional specificity is the point.
Her now-viral “Sweet Dreams” edit, soundtracked by the Eurythmics, has racked up over 380,000 likes by stitching together Shane and Ilya’s kisses, their trophy moments, the pair shit talking on the ice, stolen glances off the ice, and, of course, the yearning.
“The reception has been amazing,” Mellie says. “ I’ve never got a video to get this many likes, and it’s even made an impact on [X]. It's also just really validating, because this is something I'd love to do professionally one day.”
With the finale here, Heated Rivalry’s TikTok afterlife is only getting more creative. Long after episodes end and fans wait for season two, these videos keep the story in motion by reframing scenes, heightening tension, and sometimes rewriting the emotional weight of the show altogether.
These fan edits fall into a few categories, which we’ve broken down below.
