“Heated Rivalry” Season 2 premieres in spring 2027, according to Crave’s latest casting announcement. Hudson Williams and Connor Storrie are back as Shane Hollander and Ilya Rozanov. In the U.S., you’ll find them on HBO Max. Neither streamer has announced a premiere date.
The cast now includes 11 returning actors and 18 newcomers. Two new couples come straight from Rachel Reid’s novels. Justice Smith and Charlie Gillespie play Harris and Troy from “Role Model.” Daniel Diemer and Shaheen Jafargholi play Ryan and Fabian from “Tough Guy.”
Skip to the release window, returning cast, 18 new cast members, books behind the couples or trailer and streaming details.
When Does ‘Heated Rivalry’ Season 2 Come Out?
The April 2027 date in some coverage traces to a February “CBS Mornings” interview, where host Gayle King gave that timetable, TVLine reported. Tierney promised more episodes “as soon as humanly possible” on that broadcast, CBS News reported.
A Crave representative told TVLine the target is spring 2027 but didn’t confirm April, and the site said it wasn’t yet known whether both services would release Season 2 the same day.
Cameras were still rolling in Canada in late October, when new cast member Shaheen Jafargholi talked to TV Insider for an Oct. 23 story. “There’s just nothing bad I can say about the whole experience. It’s been incredible,” he said. Production had been underway in the Greater Toronto Area and Montréal since August, Rolling Stone Canada reported.
In October, Tierney took a break from shooting to promote his annotated Season 1 scripts. Just Jared’s account of his appearance on SiriusXM’s “Andy Cohen Live” puts the episode count at six and the end of filming around year’s end. Tierney had an answer for anyone worried about losing Shane and Ilya in that much bigger cast: “They are the North Star of the show.”
Which 11 Cast Members Return for ‘Heated Rivalry’ Season 2?
Crave confirmed nine returning cast members alongside Williams and Storrie. Here’s where all 11 fit in Shane and Ilya’s world.
Hudson Williams as Shane Hollander
Williams plays the Canadian star of the Montréal Metros. Shane knows how to face Ilya across a rink with thousands watching. Introducing him to his parents proves harder. In Season 1, Shane invites Ilya to his cottage. His father walks in on a kiss. That small family scene was the ending he had in mind, creator Jacob Tierney told Entertainment Weekly.
Connor Storrie as Ilya Rozanov
Storrie plays the Russian forward who lands in Boston while Shane goes to Montréal. For years, the two make do with hotel rooms and whatever time their schedules allow. In “The Long Game,” Ilya plays in Ottawa. He wants to build a home with Shane and be able to tell people whose home it is. That conflict is central to Reid’s official synopsis.
Gayety covered Scott and Kip’s return when the September announcement landed.
François Arnaud as Scott Hunter
Scott captains New York. In the first season, he can kiss Kip at home but can barely acknowledge him in public. When Scott finally calls Kip onto the ice, Shane and Ilya get to see a hockey player make a choice neither has dared to make.
Robbie G.K. as Kip Grady
Kip meets Scott across a smoothie counter. It’s his workday and Scott’s pregame routine, until the two start seeing each other. Their first-season episode borrows from “Game Changer,” the novel that opened Reid’s hockey series.
Sophie Nélisse as Rose Landry
Rose is an actress whose dates with Shane draw exactly the kind of attention his relationship with Ilya can’t survive. Privately, she gives Shane room to talk honestly about who he wants. “Yellowjackets” viewers will recognize Nélisse as young Shauna.
Ksenia Daniela Kharlamova as Svetlana Vetrova
In the series, Svetlana grew up with Ilya in Russia. That’s a change for readers, who meet her without that shared childhood. Sometimes the two sleep together. She also knows when he is hurting. Kharlamova told TV Insider she appreciated how the show let the women in these men’s lives respond with understanding.
Christina Chang as Yuna Hollander
Shane’s mother helps manage his career. She knows what a sponsor, reporter or fan might make of almost anything he does. The cottage revelation puts her in a different position. Now her son needs to know where his family stands. Chang played Dr. Audrey Lim on “The Good Doctor.”
Dylan Walsh as David Hollander
David is the one who opens the door at the cottage and sees his son kissing Ilya. The surprise for Shane comes afterward, when he can actually sit down with his dad and talk. If Walsh looks familiar, he spent six seasons playing surgeon Sean McNamara on “Nip/Tuck.”
Callan Potter as Hayden Pike
Hayden plays for Montréal alongside Shane. Sharing a locker room is one thing. Learning that your best friend has spent years in love with the opponent you can barely stand is quite another. Reid wrote their first double date with Jackie and Ilya as a possible ending to “Heated Rivalry.”
Kamilla Kowal as Jackie Pike
Kowal plays Hayden’s wife, Jackie. Want to see how she handles a tense room? In Rachel Reid’s “My Dinner With Hayden.” Jackie brings wine to Shane’s house and introduces herself to Ilya while her husband struggles to say hello. The author published it as a free companion story.
Benjamin Roy as Jean-Jacques “J.J.” Dagenais
Jean-Jacques Dagenais goes by J.J. He’s a friend of Shane’s and another Montréal player who has watched him take on Ilya for years. The September casting announcement brings back both of Shane’s teammates, J.J. and Hayden. Roy returns to the part he played in Season 1.
Meet the 18 New ‘Heated Rivalry’ Season 2 Cast Members
Crave announced Smith and Gillespie together. Their characters lead Rachel Reid’s “Role Model.”
Justice Smith as Harris Drover
Ottawa pays Harris to get fans interested in its players. The latest assignment in “Role Model” is Troy Barrett, a man who has had quite enough publicity. Harris is out, has a crush on Troy and assumes the feeling runs only one way. Smith played Owen in “I Saw the TV Glow.”
Charlie Gillespie as Troy Barrett
A trade sends Troy to the league’s worst team. He’s just been through a breakup and a scandal, so landing in Ottawa sounds fine to him if everyone will kindly leave him alone. Harris has other plans. Gillespie, who played Luke in “Julie and the Phantoms,” joins as one of the new leads.
Crave paired Diemer with Jafargholi in its casting announcement. Their history comes from Reid’s “Tough Guy.”
Daniel Diemer as Ryan Price
At work Ryan is the defenseman paid to fight. Off the ice, he lives with anxiety. Reid sends him to the Toronto Guardians and gives him an apartment in the city’s gay village, where an old crush turns out to be a neighbor. In Reid’s reader Q&A, Ryan is her example of a veteran worn down by the enforcer’s job.
Shaheen Jafargholi as Fabian Salah
Fabian has two good reasons to remember Ryan. They nearly kissed as teenagers, and the man is now a hockey player, a profession Fabian can’t stand. Music is his world. In “Tough Guy,” it’s Fabian who knows Toronto and can show Ryan around. Jafargholi’s earlier roles include “EastEnders” and “Lost Boys & Fairies.”
Crave’s August casting release also named Vanessa, Tarek, Luca, Wyatt and Farah. Gayety covered those five additions as they happened.
Emily Hampshire as Vanessa
Vanessa is part of Fabian’s Toronto circle. In “Tough Guy,” she works in a sex shop in the city’s gay village and shares a home with Tarek. Hampshire spent six seasons behind a very different counter as motel clerk Stevie Budd on “Schitt’s Creek.”
Priyanka as Tarek
Tarek is Vanessa’s roommate and one of Fabian’s close friends. Their friendship fills out the Toronto side of “Tough Guy,” where music and queer nightlife matter as much as hockey. Priyanka won the first season of “Canada’s Drag Race.”
Edvin Ryding as Luca Haas
Luca is a young Swiss player finding his feet with Ottawa. In Reid’s books, Ilya takes an interest in the rookie. Their relationship gives readers a look at Ilya as a mentor. Ryding played Prince Wilhelm in “Young Royals.”
Robert Naylor as Wyatt Hayes
Wyatt tends goal for the Ottawa Centaurs. He and his wife, Lisa, give Ilya a way into the team’s life beyond the rink. Readers of “The Long Game” know Wyatt as one of the people Ilya learns to trust in his new city.
Sabrina Jalees as Farah Jalali
Farah represents both Shane and Ilya. In the books, that job gives her a stake in how the two players navigate their contracts, reputations and privacy. Jalees is a comedian and writer who also played a doctor on “Carol’s Second Act.”
Crave announced the Ottawa coach, league commissioner and psychologist together in September. Their book connections come from Reid’s novels. Episode-by-episode details are still under wraps.
Kevin Zegers as Coach Brandon Wiebe
Zegers joins as Brandon Wiebe, the former forward now coaching Ottawa. The Centaurs put him behind the bench with an inexperienced Swiss player, Luca, and an established leader in Ilya. Zegers played Toby in “Transamerica.”
Paul Gross as Commissioner Roger Crowell
The league commissioner has power that no coach or team captain can match. Crowell appears in both “Role Model” and “The Long Game,” where players facing prejudice must decide whether their league will back them. Gross played Benton Fraser, the Mountie working in Chicago, on “Due South.”
Milla Jovovich as Dr. Galina Molchalina
Galina is an Ottawa psychologist. In “The Long Game,” her conversations with Ilya give him a place to discuss his mental health in Russian. That relationship opens a part of his life that even Shane struggles to reach. Jovovich starred in the “Resident Evil” films.
HBO Max announced six more cast members on Sept. 16. TV Insider’s guide traces their characters through Reid’s books.
Brendan Morgan as Zane Boodram
Ottawa gives Zane an A on his jersey. He’s the Centaurs’ alternate captain, one of the veterans a newcomer like Troy encounters after his trade. Morgan comes to the series from Hallmark’s “Hearts Around the Table” films and appeared on “Bachelor in Paradise Canada.”
David Tomlinson as Cody Kent
Readers know the Toronto player as Dallas Kent. In “Role Model,” Troy challenges his former friend after women accuse Kent of sexual assault. That rupture helps explain the hostility following Troy to Ottawa. The television production renamed the character Cody.
Gerry Dee as Coach Cooper
Cooper coaches Toronto, where both Ryan and Troy have played. In the books, his response to the allegations against Kent matters to the players who share that locker room. Dee starred in “Mr. D” and hosts “Family Feud Canada.”
Michelle Mylett as Lisa Hayes
Lisa is Wyatt’s wife and a doctor. In Reid’s books, visits to her hospital bring the Ottawa players face to face with the community beyond their arena. Mylett previously played Katy on “Letterkenny,” another Crave series Tierney helped make.
Lauren Chan as Gen
Gen works as the Centaurs’ photographer and knows Harris, the man behind their social accounts. Chan, a model who appeared on “The Traitors Canada,” had a personal reason for wanting this part. Seeing Shane tell his parents the truth, she told Marie Claire, “healed a part of me.”
Nick Stahl as Curtis Barrett
Curtis is Troy’s estranged father. Their relationship matters in “Role Model,” where the son who learned to hide his sexuality at home suddenly finds himself drawn to an openly gay man at work. Stahl played John Connor in “Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines.”
Which Rachel Reid Books Should You Read Before Season 2?
At BookCon in New York on April 18, with Reid beside him, Tierney said he calls her second Shane and Ilya book “Sex Scenes From a Marriage.” One of his favorite scenes between them is a fight. Variety covered their BookCon conversation, where the showrunner confirmed he’s also bringing parts of “Role Model” to television.
Shane and Ilya. In “The Long Game” (book six), they’ve spent a decade finding ways to see each other in secret. Shane can imagine what coming out might cost him in hockey. Ilya is starting to count what staying quiet has already cost them at home. Knowing they love each other was the easy part.
Troy and Harris. When Troy gets traded in “Role Model” (book five), bad press follows him to his new team. The last man he wants in his face is Harris, the team’s cheerfully out social media manager. Naturally, working on Troy’s public image means spending rather a lot of time together.
Ryan and Fabian. In “Tough Guy” (book three), Ryan makes his living fighting on the ice. A move to Toronto brings him back into the orbit of Fabian, a musician he remembers from high school. Crave has cast both men. How much of their own novel makes it to the screen remains an open question.
There’s another Shane and Ilya date floating around: June 1, 2027. That’s the on-sale date for Reid’s next novel, “Unrivaled.” The author announced the delay in February. It will be their third book together and the seventh in her hockey series.
Is There a Season 2 Trailer, and Where Can You Watch?
Crave and HBO Max hadn’t released a Season 2 teaser as of Nov. 4, though Tierney shared a first-look image from the set when filming began in August, Screen Rant reported. Before then, he asked fans in an Instagram letter to “please give our cast and crew the space they need to do what they do best,” the site reported.
The Instagram video below is HBO Max’s renewal announcement from December 2025. Williams summed up his hopes for the second season in three words: “Hotter, wetter, longer,” CinemaBlend reported.
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All six Season 1 episodes stream on Crave in Canada and on HBO Max in the U.S., where the show premiered Nov. 28, 2025, according to HBO Max. In the U.K. and Ireland, Sky and NOW have the second season for spring 2027. Here’s the original HBO Max trailer for Season 1.
For anyone seeing “Heated Rivalry” on a marquee this November, those are the original six episodes. TheWrap reported that Regal booked Season 1 in pairs at more than 650 U.S. theaters. The screenings begin Nov. 6. Gayety’s November movie and TV guide has the theatrical details.
