What happens in the sequel to the Heated Rivalry book (Spoilers)

This article contains spoilers for “Heated Rivalry” and “The Long Game”.

Unless you’ve been living under a huge hockey puck recently, you’ve probably at least heard of “Heated Rivalry,” the hit Crave series (on HBO Max in the US) that became one of the year’s biggest sensations in the final month of 2025. So, what can we expect from Season 2 of the series, which has already been greenlit and will continue to follow the original queer romance series “Game Changers” from the New York Times bestseller, Rachel Reid?

As creator and showrunner Jacob Tierney recently told The Hollywood Reporter in an interview, Reid’s book “The Long Game” will serve as the source material. After two rival hockey players, Shane Hollander and Ilya Rozanov (phenomenal newcomers Hudson Williams and Connor Storrie), strike up a secret relationship off the ice, they finally admit their love for each other and tell Shane’s family, something we saw play out in the stunning season 1 finale “The Cottage.” In that interview, Tierney said he had not yet started writing season 2 but knew the book’s themes were “heavier”, noting that he had promised Reid he would “take it seriously”.

“She takes them seriously in the second book. She says, ‘This is a real relationship and real relationships come with difficulties,'” Tierney continued. “It’s so compelling. I’m just excited to continue this journey with these characters, honestly.” Not only that, but Tierney weighed in on the shift in tone and balance of Season 2. “I think part of it is that there’s definitely an element of sadness in what’s coming, of loneliness and isolation,” he remarked. “Ilya is learning a lot about himself, and Shane is learning a lot about himself too. I’m excited, and I still think that deep down, these books and this show, they want to entertain.”

The answer is yes. There are six novels in Rachel Reid’s series, and two – “Heated Rivalry” and “The Long Game” – are central to the relationship between Shane and Ilya (we’ll get to the others in a moment). So what happens in “The Long Game?” » We will examine it in broad strokes, but this is your final warning: spoilers ahead!

“The Long Game” picks up as Shane and Ilya, who now both play for Canadian hockey teams – Shane for Montreal and Ilya for Ottawa, a move he makes to get closer to Shane – have been secretly together for a decade. They created a meaningful joint charity (something Shane proposes in the season 1 finale) that Also allows them to be seen together without arousing suspicion, but Ilya, struggling with mental health issues, still wants to have a public relationship with the man he loves. The two argue, but don’t worry, they’re not breaking up! When Ilya flies with the Centaurs and the plane is forced to make an emergency landing, Shane realizes how close he came to losing the man he loves and proposes marriage; Ilya agrees. Then, when they are caught in the back of a teammate’s photo kissing, the two finally reveal their relationship to the world.

In this THR interview, Jacob Tierney made it clear that Season 2 would be a bit more serious, but it would be rewarding. “It’s supposed to be a fantasy romance, and I still want to keep it there,” he said. “But I think part of the reason it works as entertainment is that we take it seriously and you’re on a journey with two people who you think have earned these moments.” So what about the other stars of “Heated Rivalry”?

Although Jacob Tierney told Entertainment Weekly that Season 2 would focus on the characters of Hudson Williams and Connor Storrie – “We’re following Shane and Ilya. It’s not going to be a shock” – fans are probably wondering if we’ll still see Christopher “Kip” Grady and Scott Hunter, the barista and hockey player who fall in love elsewhere in Season 1 of “Heated Rivalry” (played by Robbie GK and François Arnaud, respectively). The first book in Rachel Reid’s series, “Game Changer,” centers on Kip and Scott, and we watch their love story unfold in the third episode of the first season of “Heated Rivalry,” titled “Hunter.”

While Scott is playing for the New York Admirals, he meets Kip at a local coffee shop, and the two strike up an unexpected connection (with Kip understandably surprised to learn that this fairly famous hockey star is a closeted gay). Although the two, like Shane and Ilya, conduct their relationship in complete secrecy, Kip begins to feel reasonably rotten about being Scott’s secret, and Scott is afraid of coming out as gay at his job. The two seem to be in a tough situation at the end of “Hunter,” but then, in the season’s penultimate episode, “I’ll Believe Anything,” Scott finally understands that he can no longer hide his truth. After the Admirals win the cup, Scott signals Kip onto the ice and they kiss in front of the whole world.

Not only is this kiss a catalyst for Shane and Ilya’s relationship, but it’s also an incredibly romantic moment. Tierney didn’t speak directly about Kip and Scott, but I certainly hope we see more of them in Season 2.

So I have good news and bad news. The good news, once again, is that “Heated Rivalry” Season 2 is indeed happening and we have some A-grade source material for it. The bad news, according to an interview with Jacob Tierney in Variety, is that we may have to wait a bit.

“It can’t be this time next year, because this time last year I had written five, and this time this year I haven’t written any,” Tierney said of the first season debuting on Nov. 28, 2025. “So it’ll be a little later, but it’ll still be soon.” That’s not what any “Heated Rivalry” fan really wants to hear, especially in a streaming landscape where audiences endure painfully and inexplicably long windows between seasons.

Tierney addressed this problem head on. “We understand that everyone’s goal is to not go two years between seasons. And at the same time, I don’t want to rush out a second season just because the show is very popular,” he said. “But we are very aware that our creative partners are excited and don’t want to wait too long. We’re getting back to work!” At this rate, we probably won’t get new episodes of ‘Heated Rivalry’ until now – and this East guess on my part – 2027, but it will be worth the wait considering the excellent season 1 thanks to Tierney’s work as showrunner and all of the series’ central performances. So how exactly did “Heated Rivalry” become one of the year’s biggest success stories?

In this Variety profile of Jacob Tierney and the series in general, Casey Bloys — HBO’s president of content — said that as soon as he sat down and watched episodes of “Heated Rivalry,” he immediately wanted HBO Max to serve as the network and distributor of the series in the United States (if you’re a Canadian fan, you watch it on Crave, the show’s original network). After one of Bloys’ colleagues, Jason Butler, who focuses on global programming for the premium network, brought “Heated Rivalry” to his attention, Bloys was all for it. “He sent me the episodes on a Friday, and then on Monday we started negotiating,” Bloys said in the article. “It was an easy and very quick ‘yes’.” Furthermore, Bloys was amazed that he was able to do this: “To tell you the truth, I was surprised that it was even available, because it was about three weeks before it aired.”

As for Tierney himself, he told the Hollywood Reporter that “Heated Rivalry” becoming “appointment television” is “deeply surreal” — and while Tierney’s previous shows like “Letterkenny” and “Shoresy” attracted their own audiences, none of them are even close to the major success of “Heated Rivalry.” My esteemed film colleague BJ Colangelo has written at length about this series, but if I may echo his words, people are hungry for joy in 2025 for various reasons. When the world seems heavy, the big fading scenes between Shane and Ilya or Kip and Scott create sunshine. Personally, I’m grateful to Tierney for bringing this story to the small screen and can’t wait for season 2 to come out. For now, season 1 is streaming in its entirety on HBO Max.