Few shows have taken the world by storm in the way that Heated Rivalry (which you can watch with an HBO Max subscription) has. The series, which is based on author Rachel Reid’s Game Changers novels, has kept people talking since its November arrival, to the point where many who watched are even spending the early days of the 2026 TV schedule still thinking about the show’s horny nature, all those NSFW scenes, and the romantic yet smutty LGBTQ+ stories.
If you’re included in that number, then I’ve got great news for you, because it was confirmed in December that the Hudson Williams and Connor Storrie-starring series was renewed and Heated Rivalry Season 2 is on the way! Even better, we do already know some things about the upcoming season, so let’s get into the details!
What Is The Heated Rivalry Season 2 Premiere Date
Unfortunately, we don’t know when Heated Rivalry Season 2 will premiere right now. Though the show had runaway and basically immediate success upon its debut in the US, Canada (where this book-to-screen adaptation originated), and across the world, and was largely popular not just with fans but also critics, the show’s creator, Jacob Tierney, has noted that we’re in for more than a year-long wait. When speaking about the renewal to Entertainment Weekly, he said:
It will not be the same time [in 2026], but it'll be pretty soon after that. It's not gonna be two years. It's not even gonna be 18 months, I don't think. So we're gonna go as fast as we can, while ensuring that we're doing as good a job as we possibly can.
The romantic drama hit streaming on November 28, 2025, so if Tierney is correct, it sounds like we could be in for an early 2027 debut for the second season. Tierney (who will continue to direct all the episodes, as he did in Season 1, but will have a co-writer to help with Season 2, as opposed to writing everything by himself) added that he was going to begin writing the new episodes as soon as possible. Hopefully, his timeline holds and we’ll be talking about all the goodness in Season 2 by February 2027!
The Heated Rivalry Season 2 Cast
Heated Rivalry’s second season will once again star Hudson Williams and Connor Storrie, who play Shane Hollander and Ilya Rozanov, respectively. The actors have seen their profiles skyrocket over the past few months, with Williams noting how fans’ obsession with the stars quickly became “a little overwhelming.”
Viewers have even gone so far as to speculate about their real sexual orientation and get upset over rumors that Storrie is dating François Arnaud (who portrays Scott Hunter on the series) IRL. Meanwhile, Storrie and Williams have been getting other opportunities, like carrying the Olympic torch for the 2026 games, so it’s great to know that they’ll continue their roles. As far as whether or not other actors who appeared will return, we don’t know yet, but my bet is that most who are asked to return will find a way to do so.
Heated Rivalry Will Continue To Follow Shane And Ilya's Romance
As you can probably guess after learning that Williams and Storrie will continue to star as Shane and Ilya, the good news is that their story isn’t over yet, as Heated Rivalry Season 2 will continue to follow the newly minted, full-on couple.
The first season, of course, followed the rival professional hockey players across about eight years and three countries after meeting right before their rookie season in the league and then quickly developed an enemies-to-lovers situationship that involved lots of, um, adult hotel room fun. The duo gradually fell in love through their hookups and texts, but all while keeping their status as non-enemies and members of the LGBTQ+ community a fierce secret from their fans, families, and friends on their respective teams.
Tierney is lucky that he has a roadmap to continue their love story, as Rachel Reid has already written a sequel to Shane and Ilya’s story, The Long Game, and the new season will focus on the events of that book. In it, the duo (who’ve been revealed to and welcomed by Shane’s parents, as seen in the Season 1 finale) has been official for a couple of years, but now have to work out whether or not going public with their romance is worth the potential risk to their careers. Storrie already has high hopes for the season, and told EW:
I'm interested to play at the dynamic that develops in The Long Game, which is, now that we've established we're together and we're choosing this, what does that look like to consistently choose through new obstacles, new self-realizations? We're in the real leagues now, and it's cool to watch these people that have been in this heightened reality for so long. The other shoe drops that deepens the love, but that also tests some of their personal limits.
I cannot wait!
New Characters From The Game Changers Book Series Could Appear
Remember how I mentioned actor François Arnaud’s Scott Hunter, another pro hockey star who begins a romance with smoothie shop worker Kip, above? Well, we might not know if either of those characters (or bartender Kyle) will be involved with the upcoming season, but we do know that the show’s creator owns the rights to all of Reid’s books, and he intends to make sure that new characters from the novels appear. Tierney told the LA Times when talking about Season 2 that audiences could “absolutely” expect “diversions” to other popular characters in the books, adding:
Just like you can't tell the story without Scott Hunter, you can't really tell the story without Troy Barrett.
That’s not complete confirmation that Troy (who’s the focus of Book 5, Role Model) will be featured in Season 2, but at least it seems likely that some other fan favorites will show up!
Season 2 Will Likely Have Six Episodes
Tierney also opened up about the number of episodes he hopes to have in each season going forward. While fans are greedy and want everything they can get, and the popularity of the series would probably make it pretty easy for Heated Rivalry to get more than the six episodes it got in Season 1 going forward, Tierney is adamant that the count should stay the same. As he noted in the same interview where he talked about other book characters:
I don’t need to do 10. I would always rather tighten the belt than get loosey-goosey. I would rather be like, ‘Let’s see how much story we can pack into these episodes.’
Brendan Brady, Tierney’s producing partner, added that they want to leave folks “yearning,” and that doesn’t sound like such a bad thing when thinking about how well it worked for Shane and Ilya! Now, all we have to do is wait for the finished product.
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