The steamy hockey romance series Heated Rivalry caught the attention of Ottawa viewers in particular last week when a beverage by local company City Seltzer made a surprise appearance.
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The steamy hockey romance series Heated Rivalry caught the attention of Ottawa viewers in particular last week when a beverage by local company City Seltzer made a surprise appearance.
The show — which is made by Canadian streaming service Crave and has gone viral since being picked up for international distribution by HBO — follows a years-long secret romance between two rival hockey stars. In the most recent episode, one of the protagonists is sprayed with water while shooting an ad for City Seltzer’s popular beverage Orange Cream.
It’s a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it moment that City Seltzer co-founder Josh McJannett said Ottawa viewers did not miss.
“We’re hearing from fans — people in Ottawa, Toronto and other places — who know our product and our brand and were happily surprised to see it there,” McJannett told OBJ on Tuesday. “I’ve seen some comments back and forth (from people) saying, ‘I’m from Ottawa, these are the best flavours in order,’ and asking where they can find it.”
City Seltzer partnered with the company behind the series, Accent Aigu Entertainment, before shooting began, said McJannett. Throughout production, he said City Seltzer beverages were keeping the cast and crew hydrated.
“The showrunner, Jacob Tierney, who’s the guy behind (TV series) Letterkenny and Shoresy, he liked our products,” said McJannett. “He liked it enough that he was buying cases of it for the office and they were disappearing faster and faster. They were about to undertake this new project last spring and he asked, would we consider some kind of product sponsorship?”
In exchange for sending four pallets of seltzer to the set over the course of the shoot, City Seltzer would be featured on-screen as a product placement. But the in-universe ad was an unexpected surprise.
“We didn’t really press (on) what it might be,” he said. “I had the sense that it might be an ad on the (ice rink) board or something, which we thought was fun and cool. We didn’t know (the ad) was happening, but that was super-cool. We heard from quite a few people about that.”
In fact, McJannett said the City Seltzer website saw a 400 per cent boost in traffic and he’s heard that some stores have run out of stock.
But the partnership didn’t stop there.
Ahead of the show’s launch in November, McJannett said the production company reached out again to stock up for its premier in Toronto. But he said his company had another idea.
“We floated the idea of making a collaboration flavour to mark the launch of the show,” he said. “We came up with this idea for making basically non-alcoholic Smirnoff Ice. It just worked with the vibe of the show.”
The custom seltzer is called City Ice and it's co-branded with the Heated Rivalry logo. It’s a lemon, lime and grapefruit flavour meant to evoke the citrusy vodka-based coolers.
It’s not the first time the company has collaborated with another brand to create a new custom flavour.
Earlier this fall, it partnered with fitness facility Altea Ottawa to create a calamansi and lemongrass seltzer called Fitness Citrus. Over the summer, it launched Cucumber Mint alongside fashion and lifestyle boutique Stomping Ground.
When it comes to these types of collaborations, McJannett said the process is “a mix of art and science. I don’t really sit down and dream up a list. These are often driven by relationships, people we admire, who are doing cool things. Ideally, I think with any partnership you want one-plus-one to equal more than two. You want it to be a mutual win that resonates with both audiences."
That was the case, he said, with the Heated Rivalry partnership.
“We very much think of City Seltzer as being a brand for everyone,” he said. “We make a City Seltzer every summer for pride in Ottawa called Pride City and we team up with Capital Rainbow Refuge to share the proceeds. So I think, what a cool way to be part of the show, which obviously struck a chord with the LGBTQ community and beyond. To have our brand associated with something that’s making people feel included, I think it’s really cool.”
The City Seltzer brand spun-off from McJannett’s other company, Dominion City Brewing, in 2020. Since then, it has expanded across the country, appearing on shelves in Bulk Barn, Whole Foods and Sobeys.
He said the process of growing a non-alcoholic brand has been completely different from expanding within the beer industry.
“We work with a number of major grocery stores and a couple of distributors, so we’ve been learning a totally different business,” he said. “With beer, everyone’s like, oh, it’s such a heavily regulated business, it must be so complicated. But at least we know it. Grocery, I’ve learned, has a lot of different moving pieces and players.”
But with several years of experience now under his belt, McJannett said he hopes 2026 will be a growth year for the company. For now, he plans to stay within Canadian borders.
“There’s a lot of room to grow regionally within Canada,” he said. “I think about the Lower Mainland (in B.C.). We get questions from Alberta. We just started working with a boutique distributor in Montreal and it’s had some success this year. So I think maybe south of the border just doesn’t look as appealing.”
