‘Heated Rivalry’ Creator Teases Season 2 Plans & Everything Else We Know

Shane Hollander (Hudson Williams) and Ilya Rozanov’s (Connor Storrie) future is becoming clearer by the minute. After Heated Rivalry was renewed for Season 2, fans immediately started theorizing how it would adapt author Rachel Reid’s The Long Game. Shane and Ilya’s sequel story doesn’t unfold over nearly as many years as Heated Rivalry does, but it’s far longer in length. The book packs in a hefty amount of angst, romance, and heat, so many have wondered if creator Jacob Tierney would split it into two parts.

The creator has revealed a fair amount of details about Heated Rivalry Season 2, though he hadn’t spoken about the possibility of extending The Long Game into a potential Season 3 until April 2026. Swooon has everything Tierney said about that and more below. We even asked Tierney ourselves about his plans for the adaptation. Keep reading for all the major Season 2 developments, including plot details, returning cast members, and more.

When is Heated Rivalry Season 2’s release date?

Heated Rivalry will return to HBO Max and Crave in spring 2027. It may seem like a ways off, but Tierney addressed the Season 2 production timeline in an interview with Variety. “It can’t be same time next year, because this time last year I’d written five of these, and this time this year I’ve written zero of them,” Tierney said. “So it’s going to be a little bit later, but it’s still going to be soon.”

He continued, “We understand that everybody’s goal is to not do two years between seasons. And at the same time, I don’t want to put out a rushed sh*tty second season just because the show is very popular. But we’re very aware that our creative partners are enthusiastic and don’t want to wait too long. We’re getting back to work!”

That development came after the official Heated Rivalry Instagram account announced Season 2 on December 12, 2025, with Williams and Storrie reading a passage from The Long Game. “We’re so excited by the reception our characters have received,” Williams began. Storrie chimed in, “And we cannot wait to get back into production and explore where Shane and Ilya go in Season 2.”

 

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An additional video of Tierney breaking the exciting news to the leads was also released.

Jacob and Brendan telling Hudson and Connor about the shows renewal via heatedrivalrytv on Instagram ❤️‍🔥🏒 #heatedrivalry pic.twitter.com/oGX15GsSMC

— Heated Rivalry Updates (@H_R_Updates) December 12, 2025

Crave is set to produce the series again, while HBO Max will continue to serve as a distributor. According to Deadline, the streamer is “now striking deals with program distributor Sphere Abacus for more territories.”

Executive producer Brendan Brady is telling fans to channel Shane and Ilya’s yearning while they wait for Season 2. “There will be more Heated Rivalry on your TVs truly as soon as humanly possible,” added Tierney during a joint February 26 appearance on CBS Mornings.

When does Heated Rivalry Season 2 start filming?

By the end of the CBS Mornings interview, Gayle King had Tierney and Brady confirm that shooting would begin in mere months. The cast will head back to Canada to shoot their Season 2 scenes in August 2026. We’re manifesting behind-the-scenes content to tide us over!

Who is in the Heated Rivalry Season 2 cast?

Williams and Storrie will once again appear as Shane and Ilya, which they confirmed themselves in the renewal announcement. Months later, another actor confirmed that they’ll return: Sophie Nélisse. On February 1, she told Awards Radar that she’ll once again play Shane’s actress ex, Rose Landry, in Season 2. It’s not a surprise for readers of The Long Game, in which Rose plays a small role.

Tierney confirmed that The Long Game will be “the basis of Season 2 and potentially moving forward,” so Reid’s book gives us some idea about which characters will show up again and which new ones will be added to the mix. In fact, he hinted at the new additions during his chat with Swooon and again in conversation with the Los Angeles Times.

“Just like you can’t tell the story without Scott Hunter, you can’t really tell the story without Troy Barrett,” Tierney said, referring to a main character from Reid’s book series. He also added in regards to casting, “We need Canadian talent, and we love Canadian talent. It’s not a burden, but it’s also something we literally have to do to get our financing.”

Beyond Nélisse and the two leads, no other familiar faces have been announced officially. Only time will tell if Ksenia Daniela Kharlamova will reprise her role as Ilya’s best friend, Svetlana. The same goes for the actors who play Shane’s parents, Dylan Walsh and Christina Chang, and Callan Potter, who plays Shane’s best friend and teammate. However, it’s highly likely all will return, since they all play a part in the sequel book.

When Swooon spoke to Scott and Kip actors François Arnaud and Robbie G.K., ahead of the show’s renewal, they said they didn’t yet know if their characters would come back. Scott, it’s worth mentioning, appears briefly in the book, while Kip doesn’t.

Regardless,  the actors did have some ideas about what they wanted to see next for the couple. “I think that there could be a world in which, after all this dies down, real life sets in and things are difficult,” G.K. told Swooon. “I think that there’s a lot of bridges to cross where it’s, like, the reality. It’s one thing for to Scott to have this one moment of, ‘You know what? I’m going to do this,’ but there’s so much more that I’m sure happens in his life, happens in Kip’s life, all these things that will essentially explode after this one particular moment.”

Arnaud also told Glamour, “I heard, like, months ago, before the show even came out, that the producers were interested in a potential spinoff [about Scott and Kip], so who knows? I don’t know if it’s now. I don’t know if it’s Season 2. I don’t know if it’s Season 3.”

What will Heated Rivalry Season 2 be about?

There were no plot details revealed with the renewal announcement, but in an announcement video, Storrie did say to “start reading The Long Game if you want to spoil it for yourself.” Read on for a breakdown of the sequel story, without delving too far into spoiler territory.

The games not over.

Season 2 of #HeatedRivalry is coming to HBO Max. pic.twitter.com/CwoTu9LuTl

— HBO Max (@hbomax) December 12, 2025

What is The Long Game about?

[Warning: The below contains spoilers for Heated Rivalry by Rachel Reid.]

Bell Media

Tierney confirmed he’ll adapt The Long Game in an interview with Swooon. He’s optioned all of the books in Reid’s Game Changers series, per c21 Media.

Season 1 doesn’t include the epilogue from Reid’s Heated Rivalry, so beware of spoilers for the first book. Heated Rivalry ends with Shane and Ilya confessing their love, committing to being together, and making a long-term plan. It comes to fruition in the epilogue’s year-and-some-change time jump. They’re keeping their relationship a secret until they retire, but Ilya switches teams to be closer to Shane. He becomes the captain of the Ottawa Centaurs and starts a charity with Shane, revealing their “friendship” to the world in the process.

Heated Rivalry gives Shane and Ilya a semi-happy ending, but the angst doesn’t disappear entirely in The Long Game. The second book takes place a decade after they first meet, and their relationship still isn’t public. The hockey-obsessed Shane doesn’t feel any desire to make their relationship known, lest it affect his career. Ilya, on the other hand, finds that the secrets are taking a toll on him. The two have to decide what’s more important: hockey or love.

“We’re going through time so quickly in this story, but The Long Game is so much more focused on the Centaurs and is a bit more settled into, I think, a two-year period, so I think that it will give us time to explore a bit more of the universe,” Tierney told Swooon. “And also to get to know more people that we know a bit: Hayden and Jackie and J.J. and the people that are on Shane’s team.”

He continued, “But certainly, I’m excited to meet all of the fond members of the Ottawa Centaurs, including any new players that happen to show up there and maybe their social media manager…and who knows, all kinds of stuff.”

In February 2026, the writer-director told CBC, “The second season will continue in the spirit of the first. This is about queer people not being punished for their queerness. They all have journeys, there are ups and downs. There is no unhappy ending coming anybody’s way. There might be a bit more suspense, maybe a few more cliffhangers, but that’s also just a function of television.” (Plane scene, anyone?)

On the steamy side of things, we know one book moment is guaranteed to make it into the adaptation. On March 8, Reid shared new details about Season 2 at a Barnes & Noble and Waterstones event in London, confirming the trophy room scene will be filmed. In fact, Reid said she didn’t have to fight for it to be included in the second season, since the show’s team is so looking forward to it. (The Long Game fans everywhere breathed a sigh of relief.) Read Swooon‘s full breakdown of the scene here.

Will Heated Rivalry Season 2 split The Long Game into two seasons?

In his Los Angeles Times interview in February 2026, Tierney wouldn’t confirm or deny if The Long Game would play out across one or two seasons, but the confirmation of the trophy room scene could mean the entirety of the book will play out in Season 2. It arrives in the final few chapters.

However, the showrunner hinted at the possibility of splitting The Long Game across more than one season in April. “Who said I’m doing it all? There’s a lot of material,” Tierney told Deadline.

Since the Troy Barrett character has been teased, it could also add more material for Season 2. Reid’s book about Troy, Role Model, has an overlapping timeline with The Long Game.

How many episodes will be in Heated Rivalry Season 2?

Tierney also told the Los Angeles Times that he’ll likely stick to six episodes per season. “I don’t need to do 10. I would always rather tighten the belt than get loosey-goosey,” he said. “I would rather be like, ‘Let’s see how much story we can pack into these episodes.’”

Related

‘Heated Rivalry': Everything to Know About the Plane Scene

There have also been discussions of a special episode before Season 2’s release. “We’re going to see what’s feasible. If [creator Jacob Tierney] can find a way to make the source material work in a way that gets us something sooner or something special, I’m sure he will,” Justin Stockman, the VP of content development and programming at Bell Media, told The Star.

What are your Season 2 predictions? Let us know in the comments below!

Heated Rivalry, Season 2, TBA 2027, Crave & HBO Max