Meet The Texas Breakout Star Bringing Hockey To Life

I regret to inform you that I am a fan of Heated Rivalry. The steamy show that (most) people are talking about; yes, the HBO Max gay hockey show.

It shouldn't come as a surprise, I'm a woman and that show is clearly geared to me. What is kind of a surprise is that one of the major stars is from Texas! Not Russia, not Canada, he belongs to the Lone Star state.

Connor Storrie Reveals His West Texas Roots

Connor Storrie, who plays Ilya Rozanov in the show, is a Russian hockey star and you would swear that he really is Russian; his accent is so spot on and his actual Russian is so good that it even fooled actual Russians.

But in a new Variety profile, Storrie reveals that his hometown growing up was much more Friday Night Lights than it was Degrassi because he's from Odessa, Texas. However, he didn't play football and instead his interest was always in the world of acting saying:

I was this artist, sissy boy in West Texas that didn’t want to play football. I wanted to play pretend and play dress up and disappear into weird worlds and entertain and try to connect with people that way, and that was just not the norm out there.

A West Texas Childhood Far From the Ice

As someone from West Texas myself, I can attest that hockey isn't as big a deal here as high school football is! But he always knew he wanted to act.

But, Storrie always had the support of his parents, and even fondly remembers his hometown telling GQ about Odessa:

high desert, super flat, super dry, kind of white trash, which I love.

Storrie ended up moving to California as he got older, and spent a semester abroad in France. All that determination led to his breakout role in Heated Rivalry and I think that's what makes the West Texas reveal even more satisfying. In a genre where hockey almost always means Canada or Russia, Storrie brings something completely unexpected to the ice- West Texas grit.

So the next time Heated Rivalry cranks up the heat on screen, just remember: behind that flawless accent and icy stare is a Texas actor who traded football fields for film sets- and carried a little bit of the high desert with him the whole way.