Every Heated Rivalry Filming Location You Can Visit
Despite the many places that the show centers around, the viral HBO Max show Heated Rivalry was filmed mainly in Ontario.
The show, following rival hockey players, Canada's Shane Hollander (Hudson Williams) and Russia's Ilya Rozanov (Connor Storrie), streamed in Canada on Crave before becoming a global phenomenon.
The pilgrimage starts in Muskoka, aka Canada’s Cottage Country, where the finale’s lakeside cottage is now a rental, then heads south to the cities of Hamilton, Guelph, and Toronto. They stood in for Moscow, Montreal, New York, Tampa Bay, and Las Vegas.
I live in the town of Gravenhurst, just a few miles down Lake Muskoka from the cottage itself, so I know firsthand that a visit to this beautiful neck of the woods is time well spent.
The Cottage, Lake Muskoka
Barlochan Cottage is the real name of the place the Heated Rivalry script calls Shane Hollander’s Quebec retreat. It’s located on Walkers Point on the west shore of Lake Muskoka with 384 feet of private shoreline.
Completed in 2020, it’s relatively modest in size compared to many of the mega-cottages in this part of the world (it’s known as the “Hamptons of the North” for good reason). Its 2,500 square feet are spread across three bedrooms and three bathrooms, with charred-wood siding and floor-to-ceiling glass walls.
The finale, titled simply “The Cottage,” aired on December 26, 2025, and searches for the Muskoka region where it was filmed jumped almost immediately. Expedia alone recorded a 110 percent rise in searches after the finale aired.
From my place in Gravenhurst, it’s a 20-minute drive to Walkers Point, the quiet corner of Lake Muskoka where the cottage is located. By boat, it’s quicker… unless that boat’s the RMS Segwun.
Launched in 1887 and the oldest operating steamship in North America, she and Wenonah II sail out of Gravenhurst’s Muskoka Wharf and offer sightseeing cruises past places like the lake’s opulent Millionaire’s Row.
Given that Barlochan Cottage is private property, the best way to see the property is to rent it. Rentals are handled by Jayne’s Cottages, a Muskoka business that’s well known for the luxury properties on its roster.
She added Barlochan to that list in February 2026, and bookings opened on Airbnb soon after. The first four fan weekends in May were priced at C$248.10 a night, a mash-up of Shane’s number 24 and Ilya’s number 81, and they were gone almost as soon as they appeared. General summer dates followed on June 1, and Airbnb donated to the Children’s Foundation of Muskoka as part of the launch.
Hamilton: Moscow, Montreal, and New York
Hamilton, the port and steel city at the western end of Lake Ontario, is located less than an hour southwest of Toronto and featured heavily in season one of Heated Rivalry.
The grounds of Dundurn Castle, a magnificent 40-room neoclassical mansion built in 1835 for politician and businessman Sir Allan Napier MacNab, double as a Moscow park where Ilya runs in episodes two and four and a Montreal park where Shane runs in episode four.
Downtown, FirstOntario Concert Hall hosts the awards night of the show’s fictional Major League Hockey (MLH), where Shane and Ilya present together in episode two and veteran captain Scott Hunter gives his MVP speech in episode six.
The “wow, genetic” bathroom scene was shot here too. Mansion nightclub on King Street East becomes the Montreal club Ciel for the episode-four stare down, and LIUNA Station on James Street North, the neoclassical former Canadian National Railway station opened in 1931, hosts episode three’s black-tie fundraiser.
Le Tambour Tavern, also on James Street North, is where Shane dines with actress Rose Landry (Sophie Nélisse) in episode four, and parts with her in episode five. In a nod to the show, the bar now features cocktails called “Tall, Dark and Hollander” and “Meet Me at the Cottage.”
Ciao Bella on Augusta Street, the Italian restaurant where Shane lunches with his parents in episodes one and four, has added an espresso martini named “Rookie Season” to its cocktail menu.
Relay Coffee Roasters on King William Street plays Straw + Berry, the New York smoothie bar where Scott meets barista Kip Grady in episode three. In real life, it sells a Hollander Hot Chocolate in honor of its screen time. The rest of King William Street doubled for Manhattan during Scott’s game-day runs.
Other notable Hamilton locations include Trocadero Tavern on Barton Street East, a family-run Italian restaurant open since 1944 that doubled as the Russian dining room for the fraught family dinner after Ilya’s father’s funeral in episode five; and McMaster University’s Pulse Fitness Centre, where both characters’ training montages in episode four were shot.
In Dundas, a historic town that’s now part of Hamilton, the Winchester Arms pub is the Kingfisher, the sports bar where Kip and his friends watch Scott’s games in episodes three and six.
Guelph: Where the Hockey Actually Happened
Every hockey scene in season one, from MLH regular-season games to the All-Star weekend and the Olympics, was shot at the Sleeman Centre in downtown Guelph, 62 miles west of Toronto.
The arena, which opened in 2000, seats 4,715 hockey fans and is home to the Guelph Storm of the Ontario Hockey League, the major junior circuit that feeds the NHL. This is also where Scott Hunter kisses Kip on the ice in episode five. Fun fact: a University of Guelph student hockey player served as Hudson Williams’s on-ice double for Shane.
Even without its connection to Heated Rivalry, Guelph is worthy of a visit. Dubbed the Royal City, the city was founded in 1827 by John Galt, a Scottish novelist and the first superintendent of the Canada Company, a British land and colonization company.
He chose the name after the House of Guelph, the German dynasty from which Britain’s reigning Hanoverian royal family descended.
A short drive from the arena, McCrae House is a quaint limestone cottage dating from the 1850s and is the birthplace of Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae, the physician and soldier who wrote the First World War poem In Flanders Fields. It’s now a museum, with a memorial to McCrae in a garden planted with species from the 1850s to 1880s.
Up the hill, the Gothic Revival Basilica of Our Lady Immaculate, dedicated in 1888 and modeled on Cologne Cathedral, stands on the spot John Galt set aside for a church when he laid out the town.
Toronto: Vegas and Tampa
Toronto plays everywhere in the series except Toronto. Joni, the restaurant inside the Park Hyatt Toronto on Posh Avenue Road, is the scene of the Las Vegas after-party following the MLH Awards in episode one, and the hotel’s Presidential Suite stands in for Scott’s apartment.
Lavelle, the rooftop pool bar on King Street West, becomes a Tampa Bay hotel during All-Star weekend in episode five, where Shane and Ilya talk over Coronas. One of Toronto’s best bars, the views over the city from here are superb. The SoHo Hotel Toronto on Wellington Street West is Shane’s hotel room after the draft in episode one.
Toronto is also where the story continues. Season two of Heated Rivalry started shooting in the city on August 10, 2026, and wraps December 2, with a spring 2027 premiere expected.
In the meantime, Province of Canada, a Toronto apparel company, sells the red-and-white fleece Shane wears in episode two, and Destination Toronto has folded Lavelle and Joni into its set-jetting itineraries.
Come to the Cottage, Then Stay a While
Heated Rivalry hands Ontario a ready-made road trip: a cottage you can book through Jayne’s Cottages, on Lake Muskoka, a Hamilton castle, a Guelph skating rink, and a Toronto rooftop bar.
Season two is expected in spring 2027, and the fans are already visiting. My advice as a Gravenhurst local: tick off the filming sites, then come up to Cottage Country and stay a while. From where I live, the lake has never looked better on screen or off.
