{"id":618011,"date":"2026-04-19T23:11:12","date_gmt":"2026-04-19T23:11:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/618011\/"},"modified":"2026-04-19T23:11:12","modified_gmt":"2026-04-19T23:11:12","slug":"heated-rivalry-creator-teases-season-2s-more-serious-territory","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/618011\/","title":{"rendered":"Heated Rivalry Creator Teases Season 2’s ‘More Serious Territory’"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tHeated Rivalry<\/a> showrunner\u00a0Jacob Tierney<\/a> is teasing the storylines and \u201cnew challenges\u201d that will be at the center of the queer hockey romance drama\u2019s second season.<\/p>\n

\n\tWhile speaking at a BookCon\u00a0panel on Saturday, alongside the book series\u2019 author\u00a0Rachel Reid, Tierney got candid about Shane Hollander (Hudson Williams<\/a>) and Ilya Rozanov (Connor Storrie<\/a>) being \u201cin much more serious territory\u201d in the second installment, set to be released next year.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cIt\u2019s different. It really is different,\u201d he said<\/a>. \u201cAnd the challenge of it, from an adaptation point of view, is that you\u2019re in much more serious territory. A lot of the initial \u2014 there\u2019s still lots of flirting and lots of sex \u2014 but this kind of danger, this kind of hotel-room-adolescent-sex stuff is largely gone. And so it presents really new challenges.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tAfter Shane and Ily confessed their love<\/a> for each other at the end of season one, season two \u2014 which will focus on The Long Game, the sequel to Heated Rivalry in Reid\u2019s Game Changer series \u2014 sees the couple navigate being in a secret relationship.<\/p>\n

\n\tBut Tierney revealed that the show\u2019s season installment, which is also being cowritten by Michael Goldbach, will include part of Role Model, the fifth book in the series. Role Model largely unfolds concurrently with the plot of The Long Game, focusing on Ilya\u2019s new Ottawa teammate, Troy, and the team\u2019s social media manager, Harris, making the Russian hockey player a major part of the story.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cPart of the reason you start off with Heated Rivalry, as far as adapting goes, is because you want to get to The Long Game,\u201d the showrunner explained to the panel\u2019s audience. \u201cBecause The Long Game is an emotionally sophisticated book that takes this couple seriously. What I\u2019ve always said about this show is there are a lot of books \u2014 Game Changer is in Heated Rivalry and obviously, as I think you guys all know by now \u2014 obviously parts of Role Model are going to be in [season two], to the great surprise of absolutely nobody. But Ilya and Shane are the heartbeat of this series, of my show. It\u2019s always going to be about Ilya and Shane; that is what is the trajectory that runs through it as their world expands.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe realities and challenges that come with romantic relationships are something Tierney is notably looking forward to unpacking in season two. He even recalled a major fight between Shane and Ilya being one of his favorite moments from The Long Game.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThere\u2019s a Bergman-y kind of, what do you do after the rush of danger is gone and now you have to live in a relationship where you still aren\u2019t communicating properly, much as you would like to?\u201d he said. \u201cYou can say you love each other, but as adults know, there\u2019s so much more to making a relationship a success.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tTierney noted that The Long Game isn\u2019t the only storyline that\u2019s \u201chere to ground this in something that feels very real,\u201d but that Role Model also gets quite deep.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThe same thing with Troy and Harris, right. I think there\u2019s an easy, facile way of looking at Role Model as it\u2019s very grumpy\/sunshine, it\u2019s very apple orchard. It can drift into things that you want,\u201d he explained. \u201cBut Troy is a really damaged guy. And Troy is quite damaged on the show. I would say we are digging into that even harder. Because that\u2019s what\u2019s interesting.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tHeated Rivalry season two<\/a>, from Canadian streamer Crave and airing on HBO Max in the U.S., is set to be released next year. Reid also previously announced that she\u2019ll be publishing<\/a> her seventh book, Unrivaled, in the Game Changers series in June 2027.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Heated Rivalry showrunner\u00a0Jacob Tierney is teasing the storylines and \u201cnew challenges\u201d that will be at the center of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":618012,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[64,63,190266,134,187023,190267,190653,427],"class_list":{"0":"post-618011","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tv","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-connor-storrie","11":"tag-entertainment","12":"tag-heated-rivalry","13":"tag-hudson-williams","14":"tag-jacob-tierney","15":"tag-tv"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/618011","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=618011"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/618011\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/618012"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=618011"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=618011"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=618011"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}