Posted by Even if you haven’t seen it, there’s a good chance you’ve seen it: Crave/HBO’s sports romance series Heated Rivalry is currently permeating social media feeds, YouTube compilation channels, and awards show broadcasts everywhere. That must be good news to everybody involved with the Canadian show, which centers around the love story between two rival-team hockey players. Even the members of Wolf Parade are reaping the benefits of Heated Rivalry-mania, as their 2005 indie rock hit “I’ll Believe In Anything” is seeing a huge resurgence thanks to a well-executed needle-drop in the show. (I assume Big Hockey is profiting, too, but nobody reads Stereogum for sports metrics.)
Wolf Parade have long been acquaintances with Heated Rivalry creator/director/writer Jacob Tierney, so the band’s blessing to use “I’ll Believe In Anything” was pretty much already a given. Now that the show is recruiting a lot of new Wolf Parade fans, Sub Pop is reissuing the album that contains the song, Apologies To The Queen Mary, on cute hot pink vinyl. Very timely! On top of that, Wolf Parade’s Bandcamp store also boats a newly-added t-shirt that says “I’ll believe in anything” beside a hockey stick and puck. Subtle!
Wolf Parade aren’t the only Canadian indie rock band getting some extra love thanks to Heated Rivalry: Dilly Dally’s 2018 song “I Feel Free” was used in a trailer for the show. (Dilly Dally broke up in 2023, so I wouldn’t expect any new merch from them. Unless…)
Plus Canadian indie rock royalty Feist also has two songs in the season, “My Moon My Man” and “Sealion,” both from 2007’s The Reminder. “[The cast] made me feel really old,” Tierney recently told Rolling Stone. “They were like, ‘What is a wolf and why is it on parade?’ And I was like, ‘I hate both of you.’ And I was like, ‘Feist? 1,2,3,4?’ And they’re like, ‘Oh yeah, we watched that on Sesame Street.’ And I was like, ‘Again, I’d like to push you down a flight of stairs. Your youth enrages me.'”
Lastly, shoutout to Heated Rivalry stars Connor Storrie and Hudson Williams, who both seem to have pretty good taste.