MONTRÉAL — The popular TV series “Heated Rivalry” is putting the spotlight on Montreal and among those reaping the benefits is one of the city’s iconic bagel shops.

In the opening moments of the fifth episode, Rose Landry, a character played by Quebec actress Sophie Nélisse, appears wearing a T-shirt bearing the St-Viateur Bagel logo.

The scene lasts less than a minute but was a boon for the famous Montreal institution, which has been producing its famous bagels since 1957.

Online orders “exploded” in the weeks following the episode’s release on Dec. 12, according to the company’s marketing director, Benjamin Choquette.

“Merchandise sales, especially the logo T-shirt, have almost tripled,” he said in an interview. Bagel orders have also increased, to a lesser extent, he added.

Sales were mainly concentrated in Quebec and Ontario, but there was also interest in other provinces such as British Columbia and Saskatchewan. The Montreal bakery even shipped a few packages to Europe. And there was a bit of a boom in the United States, where the series has also proven very successful.

The Mont-Royal Avenue branch, where Choquette works, saw orders go from about 100 to around 200 to 300 in the two weeks after the episode aired.

Choquette noted that many customers in the store no longer limit their purchases to bagels.

“Since we display the logo on T-shirts in all our stores, they recognize it right away and tell us they saw it in the series, so they leave with one more souvenir,” Choquette said.

The enthusiasm for the promotional item took the St-Viateur Bagel team by surprise. The company knew that the production of “Heated Rivalry” would use its famous T-shirt. However, the bakery had no idea that it would benefit from such exposure.

“It’s really a scene where there’s no one else on screen except the actress with our logo. It took us a little by surprise,” Choquette said.

“Looking at online sales, that’s when we realized that even in our stores, we would also have more traffic because our online orders were coming in really fast,” he said.

Choquette said the buzz is starting to subside and there’s a return to normal merchandise sales. During an interview this week, St-Viateur management said they were hoping for a visit from Nélisse to conclude “this chapter.”

But Montreal as a whole is seeing an uptick in interest among tourists, and Tourisme Montréal notes social media buzz abound as fans express their desire to visit thanks to the immensely popular gay hockey drama.