How Saturday Night Live tapped into the “Heated Rivalry” phenomenon was on full display when Saturday Night Live returned on January 17 with its first episode of 2026. Fresh off its winter break, the long-running sketch show wasted no time diving into the pop culture moments it had missed—one of the biggest being the runaway TV obsession, Heated Rivalry.
The buzzy Canadian series didn’t just get a passing mention. Instead, it inspired an entire pre-recorded sketch starring first-time host Finn Wolfhard. The segment cleverly mashed together Heated Rivalry and Harry Potter to create a parody series titled Heated Wizardry. In the sketch, Wolfhard played Harry Potter, who finds himself romantically entangled with Ron Weasley, portrayed by Ben Marshall—a clear send-up of the passionate on-screen relationship between Shane and Ilya from Heated Rivalry.
Leaning into meta humor, the sketch’s narrator described Heated Wizardry as a show “hastily written after the success of a certain other HBO series” and jokingly credited its creation to “girls who wear tails.” Packed with cheeky innuendo and rapid-fire wordplay, the parody escalated further with a surprise cameo from Jason Momoa as Hagrid, delivering one of the sketch’s most quoted lines.
Heated Rivalry, which premiered in November, centers on the intense romance between two rival hockey players played by Hudson Williams and Connor Storrie. Since its debut, the show has exploded beyond its sports-drama roots, evolving into a full-blown pop culture talking point—making it ripe material for SNL’s satire.
The show’s influence extended beyond the sketch itself. During “Weekend Update,” Colin Jost referenced Heated Rivalry in a joke imagining a flirtatious, over-the-top exchange between President Donald Trump and the CEO of ExxonMobil. Jost framed the entire imagined encounter as if it were unfolding in a hypothetical second season of Heated Rivalry, drawing laughs by blending political satire with the show’s trademark romantic tension.
Wolfhard’s hosting debut was packed with additional surprises. His former Stranger Things co-stars Caleb McLaughlin and Gaten Matarazzo appeared during his monologue and in a pre-recorded sketch poking fun at potential spinoffs of the Netflix hit. Sabrina Carpenter also made an appearance, starring in a follow-up sketch about young boy podcasters, revisiting a character she introduced during her October hosting gig.
Altogether, the episode showed how deeply Heated Rivalry has seeped into the cultural conversation—and how Saturday Night Live continues to capitalize on viral TV moments by remixing them with its signature brand of irreverent humor.
