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Heated Rivalry show creator, writer, and director Jacob Tierney revealed new details for Season 2 of the queer hockey drama series, adapted from author Rachel Reid’s Game Changers book series.
Tierney and Reid were on a panel over the weekend at BookCon in NYC, discussing everything from what fans can expect from the upcoming Heated Rivalry season to Reid’s seventh Game Changers book in the works, titled Unrivaled, which continues to focus on the star hockey players, Shane Hollander (played by Hudson Williams in the series) and Ilya Rozanov (Connor Storrie) as they navigate the next stage in their relationship.
Tierney is deep into writing the script for Season 2, which has already been confirmed to focus on book 6, The Long Game – the sequel to Heated Rivalry (book 2).
On the panel, Tierney confirmed parts of Role Model (book 3) are going to be in Season 2, similarly to how the storyline of Game Changers (book 1) was in Season 1 – which was essential in really grounding the story of Shane and Ilya.
Role Model focuses on other fan-favorite characters, Troy Barrett and Harris Drover, with Tierney saying, “Troy’s a really damaged guy, and he’s quite damaged on the show. We’re digging into that even harder.”
In terms of what fans can expect to be different for this next season with Shane and Ilya, Tierney said that “the challenge of it from an adaptation point of view is you’re in much more serious territory.”
Tierney explained that even though the “danger” side with Shane and Ilya sneaking around hotel rooms to have sex is gone, “there’s still lots of flirting and lots of sex” but “the long game is an emotionally sophisticated book that takes this couple seriously.”
“What do you do after the rush of danger is gone? You have to live in a relationship, where you still aren’t communicating properly,” Tierney said.
Tierney previously hinted that The Long Game might be stretched over both Season 2 and Season 3 – the latter of which has not been greenlit, but GQ previously confirmed Williams and Storrie are signed on for three seasons. When asked if he can tease anything about that, Tierney responded, “No. I’ll get into a lot of trouble,” which was met with laughter from the audience.
Just days before BookCon, Tierney announced a new book based on annotated scripts on the making of Heated Rivalry with executive producer Brendan Brady titled I’ll Believe in Anything, which releases on October 13, 2026 and will give a behind-the-scenes look at the first season.
Heated Rivalry Season 2 is expected to shoot this summer, with a spring 2027 release window on HBO Max. Reid’s Unrivaled book has a release date of June 1, 2027. So for all the loons out there, get ready for a Heated Rivalry Summer back at the cottage.
Jessie Wade is Associate Director of Editorial Programming at IGN. You can find her watching the latest rom-com and drama shows, and getting lost in way too many fantasy romance books – and her new addiction to Heated Rivalry fan fiction.
