Leaked 'Empty Netters' Texts Show Dan Powers's Initial Reactions to 'Heated Rivalry'

Brothers and former hockey players Dan and Chris Powers already hosted their podcast and YouTube show Empty Netters before the steamy same-sex hockey drama Heated Rivalry came out on HBO Max. But once the brothers started talking about it, they received praise from fans. Now, in leaked text messages from one of the Empty Netters hosts, it looks like those reactions aren't as legitimate as listeners and viewers once thought they were.

On Empty Netters, Dan once detailed a scene between the main characters who are also men and love interests as "cute as h--l." The text messages that were sent to news sources and then addressed on the podcast tell a different story. Afterward, Dan went on Empty Netters to share his side of things, and he didn't deny that the texts are real.

After the news broke about the text messages between Dan and a friend who is also a podcast host, he shared the actual text messages on Empty Netters. The narrative that fans believed to be true after the leak was that Dan and Chris were disingenuous about their positive feelings regarding Heated Rivalry. At first glance, the text messages show that.

In one text, Dan told a friend of the pod that the show is "absolutely insane." When his friend spoke highly of the hockey romance drama, Dan joked, "How much is Heated Rivalry paying you guys for this stroke-off session?" After the friend continued to talk up the show, Dan said that his friend was "making blue-haired Twitter happy."

This could be a reference to certain users on X (formerly Twitter) being more open-minded about the content of the series, but Dan didn't elaborate on that on Empty Netters when he read the texts out loud.

Later, Dan told his friend that the show "enrages him" and he elaborated on that.

"I think these losers who made this show are cowards," he wrote in a text. "They're Canadian for crying out loud, and in a space that has hockey fans dying for a good, quality, well-written show. This is the trash they make because it panders, it's provocative, and it checks inclusivity boxes."

Dan also texted that "out of principle" he would not watch Heated Rivalry. However, later, he and Chris did end up watching the show, because they have talked about it on Empty Netters. That's where the controversy comes in, because if the texts are legitimate, which Dan said they are on the podcast, does that mean he and Chris were lying in their praise for it?

It turns out, they might not be lying. When Dan shared the screenshots of the texts on Empty Netters, he pointed out the time stamps and said that the texts he sent to the friend were sent before he watched the show and before he and Chris began to talk about it publicly. His comments still aren't great, according to fans on social media. However, Dan came with the receipts.