There’s a real life ‘Heated Rivalry’ at the Milan Cortina Winter Olympics

(CNN) — On the ice, they’re sworn enemies. At the 2026 Winter Olympics, they’re on opposing sides of a historic and storied rivalry between two proud nations and both will be fighting tooth and nail throughout the competition to emerge victorious.

Off the ice, though, they’re a very happy couple and are engaged to be married.

You would be forgiven for mistaking all of this for a plot from “Heated Rivalry,” the global TV phenomenon about gay hockey players. But this isn’t TV – this is the real life story of Anna Kjellbin and Ronja Savolainen. Kjellbin will captain the Sweden women’s national ice hockey team at the Milan Cortina Games for the first time, while Savolainen will represent Finland.

Savolainen played a huge role in Finland’s historic run in the 2019 hockey women’s world championship, in which the country made it to the final against the United States who, along with Canada, had previously dominated the competition and its gold medal matches. Just 21 years old at the time, Savolainen made a name for herself with her defending as Finland upturned the usual order of things in the women’s hockey world.

Kjellbin is also a defender and was part of the Sweden team that made it to the quarterfinals at the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics, eventually being defeated by hockey heavyweight Canada. Now, at her second Olympic Games, she’s preparing to don the famous yellow and blue jersey as captain to try and lead her nation to gold medal glory.

While Finland and Sweden may not have enjoyed quite the same level of Olympic success in women’s hockey as the US and Canada, the rivalry between the two Nordic countries is nonetheless a fiery one.

The neighbors have history: From the Middle Ages until the early 19th century, Finland was under Swedish rule. Swedish remains the second official language of Finland.

In the women’s game, Finland boasts more medals across the Olympics, European championships and world championships but Sweden is not to be underestimated. Both countries will be looking to return home from the 2026 Winter Games as the pride of northern Europe.

Savolainen and Kjellbin may be partners in life but, in Milan, they will be on opposite sides of a rivalry that carries plenty of historic weight.

The two have spoken publicly before about facing each other in the rink. In 2024 – the year the couple announced their engagement – Savolainen told the Ottawa Citizen: “When you play, you just play. You don’t really think about who’s there. You’re friends after. On the ice, she’s my enemy. That’s how it goes.”

Long before Savolainen or Kjellbin began to prepare for this year’s Winter Olympics, there was another couple in women’s ice hockey that battled it out on opposing sides of a bitter rivalry.

Julie Chu and Caroline Ouellette captained the US and Canada, respectively, and faced off against each other in two Olympic finals. They became friends when they connected at a summer hockey camp in Ontario in 2005 and later went on to become romantic partners.

While they were out to their family and friends, they went many years without publicly disclosing their relationship to the press and general public.

Despite women’s hockey having a storied queer history, they were concerned about what the response may have been at the time if they had gone public with their relationship. The peak of their playing career was in the early and mid 2000s – a time in which LGBTQ+ visibility was growing and rights were being recognized more widely but before the nationwide legalization of same-sex marriage in the US in 2015.

Chu and Ouellette, as well as both serving as captains of their countries, each wore the number 13 on their jerseys. They are now married and have two children, Liv and Tessa, together.

The huge success of “Heated Rivalry” has sparked widespread interest in hockey from passionate and casual sports fans alike and followers of the show are no doubt eager to tune into these Winter Olympics.

According to OutSports, at least 48 out LGBTQ+ athletes are set to compete at the Milan Cortina Games, a new record for the Winter Olympics. Women’s ice hockey will see 22 out players taking part, according to the outlet – meaning that it will be the sport at these games with the highest number of out LGBTQ+ athletes.

LGBTQ+ representation is on the rise in the Olympics, in both the Summer and Winter Games. There were 35 out athletes at the last edition of the Winter Olympics, which took place in Beijing in 2022. At the 2024 Paris Summer Olympics, there were 199 out LGBTQ+ athletes – the second consecutive Summer Games that featured more than 100 LGBTQ+ competitors.

The 22 out hockey players at these Games are, as aforementioned, all women – a detail which speaks to the striking contrast between LGBTQ+ visibility in women’s hockey compared to men’s. In the Professional Women’s Hockey League (PWHL), which is made up of teams from both the US and Canada just like the NHL, there are more than 30 out players. But in the NHL, there are none.

Women’s hockey, akin to women’s soccer, is beloved by LGBTQ+ people and the PWHL appears to have a good relationship with its queer fanbase.

But the NHL has previously been mired in controversy over LGBTQ+ issues, perhaps most visibly when the NHL Board of Governors banned players making demonstrations of initiatives and social causes, including using “Pride tape” – rainbow-colored tape for hockey sticks – in the summer of 2023.

In June of that year, NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman told Sportsnet that thematic uniforms had become a “distraction” after the attention given to some players who elected to not participate in specialty night warmups, such as Pride Night, but he did “absolutely” assure that they would continue.

“32 of our clubs did Pride nights, some do Heritage nights, everybody does Hockey Fights Cancer, some do military nights. All of those nights will continue,” he told Sportsnet.

While the NHL did eventually reverse its decision following backlash, the damage had already been done for some queer hockey fans.

“Heated Rivalry” may revolve around two men’s hockey players but, in reality, it is women’s hockey that is making strides in LGBTQ+ visibility on the ice.

The-CNN-Wire
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