Heated Rivalry Fans Can Relax: Season 2 Is On The Way

If the hot face emoji were a TV show, it would 100% be HBO Max’s viral sensation Heated Rivalry. Since the series premiered in November 2025, fans have been living in a near-feral state of hockey-romance limbo, which has (not surprisingly) sparked nonstop conversation about the spicy sports romance’s future. But will we be getting more Team Hollanov face-offs in the form of a second season? It’s good news, fans: Heated Rivalry Season 2 is in the works!

But with so much talk about the show swirling online, it’s hard to parse what we actually know and what’s still TBD. So, here’s a realistic rundown of everything that’s been said — or hinted at — so far.

Is Season 2 officially happening?

If you’re in the mood to celebrate, go ahead and put the champagne on ice… because we will *definitely* see our hockey heroes Shane Hollander (Hudson Williams) and Ilya Rozanov (Connor Storrie) back on ice as well.

Crave, the Canadian streaming service responsible for Heated Rivalry, confirmed a second season back in December. HBO Max also confirmed the series will return for U.S. streaming. And, even more exciting, there’s a very strong possibility that the show will stretch well beyond a second season.

For starters, Williams and Storrie have both reportedly signed on for three seasons, according to GQ Hype. There’s also the fact that the show is based on Canadian writer Rachel Reid’s bestselling, soon-to-be-seven-book series Game Changers. Heated Rivalry is based on and takes its name from the second novel in the series, which was published in 2019. This, of course, means that there’s plenty more source material (more on that in a minute!).

Finally, the show has the kind of wildly passionate fanbase and online engagement that typically bodes well for future renewals.

When will Season 2 premiere?

We now have a much clearer (though still distant) timeline to go on.

While speaking with Variety in December, Williams suggested that production on Season 2 could kick off in the summer of 2026. If cameras do start rolling in mid-2026, that would naturally push the premiere into 2027... which has now effectively been confirmed by show creator Jacob Tierney.

In February 2026, Tierney told the Los Angeles Times that fans can expect Season 2 to arrive in spring 2027.

So, yes, we’re officially playing the long game.

What could Season 2 be about?

OK, time to circle back to Reid’s book series. Heated Rivalry draws its material from Reid’s second novel by the same name, which obviously focuses on the start of Shane and Ilya’s rivals-to-secret-lovers relationship. Tierney told Collider that Season 2 will look to the sixth book in Reid’s series, The Long Game, as its “foundational document.”

What does that mean, exactly? While we likely won’t get any solid details for a while, the book itself gives us at least an idea of what we’re working with — and The Long Game expands Shane and Ilya’s relationship beyond secret hookups to explore what sustained intimacy looks like, especially under the spotlight of public scrutiny. Can their love survive the pressure that comes with pursuing big-time hockey careers? What sort of professional sacrifices will they have to make? What are the rewards, but also the costs, of choosing each other openly?

Suffice it to say, there will be some heavier stuff coming for Team Hollanov.

“I think part of that is there's definitely an element of sadness to what's coming, of loneliness and of isolation,” Tierney told the Shut Up Evan podcast. “Of Ilya learning a lot about himself, and Shane learning a lot about himself too."

What about the next book in the series?

There has been one major development in the Game Changers universe.

On February 24, Reid announced that Unrivaled, the seventh installment in the book franchise (and the third chapter of Shane and Ilya’s story), is being pushed back. Originally, the book was set for a Sept. 29 release this year; now it will tentatively hit shelves on June 1, 2027.

Reid shared the news in an Instagram video, explaining that the whirlwind success of Heated Rivalry — though very exciting — came with a worsening of her Parkinson’s symptoms, which has slowed her writing pace.

However, Reid reassured fans that the book is still progressing. Plus, the delay does not affect Season 2’s current production timeline, which is already headed for a 2027 premiere. Depending on how closely the show continues to track Reid’s source material, though, the shifted book release could influence the timing of a third season.

But let’s reframe all of this as a big win for Team Hollanov: Reid is taking care of herself (so important!), and both Season 2 of Heated Rivalry and Unrivaled could drop in the same calendar year.

Who would return for Season 2?

Casting details remain unannounced, but it’s pretty clear based on Tierney’s comments that any continuation would include Shane and Ilya, aka real-life Williams and Storrie. Any other casting speculation remains just that for now: speculation.

And although the prospect of not seeing any of the cast in new episodes for another year (or more) feels unfortunate, at least we live in the era of streaming, where we can watch every episode of Season 1 on repeat until Shane and Ilya’s hockey romance skates back onto our screens.