“Heated Rivalry” showrunner calls season 2 &x27;much more serious territory,&x27; teases Troy&x27;s arrival as &x27;quite damaged&x27; Nick RomanoSat, April 18, 2026 at 7:35 PM UTC 0 Connor Storrie as Ilya Rozanov and Hudson Williams as Shane Hollander on 'Heated Rivalry' season 1Credit: Sabrina Lantos/HBO MaxKey Points Heated Rivalry showrunner Jacob Tierney teases season 2 at a BookCon panel with author Rachel Reid. "You're in much more serious territory," he said of adapting Reid's The Long Game.
“Heated Rivalry” showrunner calls season 2 'much more serious territory,' teases Troy's arrival as 'quite damaged'
Nick RomanoSat, April 18, 2026 at 7:35 PM UTC
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Connor Storrie as Ilya Rozanov and Hudson Williams as Shane Hollander on 'Heated Rivalry' season 1Credit: Sabrina Lantos/HBO MaxKey Points -
Heated Rivalry showrunner Jacob Tierney teases season 2 at a BookCon panel with author Rachel Reid.
"You're in much more serious territory," he said of adapting Reid's The Long Game.
Teasing the arrival of Troy Barrett, Tierney says that character is "quite damaged on the show," which is "digging into that even harder."
As he continues work on Heated Rivalry season 2, showrunner Jacob Tierney touched down in New York City for BookCon 2026 with Rachel Reid, the author of the books and creators of the Shane Hollander and Ilya Rozanov romance saga.
During a moderated panel with host Versha Sharma, Tierney teased a little bit about how he's adapting Reid's 2022 book The Long Game, the sequel story to her Heated Rivalry (2019).
"Long Game is so, um...It's so long and it's so gamey, like eating venison," Tierney joked before digging in more earnestly. "It really is different," he continued, "and the challenge, from an adaptation standpoint, is you're in much more serious territory. There's still lots of flirting and there's lots of sex, but it's this kind of danger. This kind of hotel room, adolescent sex stuff is largely gone, and so it presents really new challenges."
Hudson Williams and Connor Storrie will return as Shane and Ilya on Heated Rivalry season 2, which the team signaled will start filming this summer ahead of a projected spring 2027 premiere on Crave in Canada and HBO Max in the U.S. and other international territories.
Ilya (Connor Storrie) and Shane (Hudson Williams) on 'Heated Rivalry'Credit: Courtesy Bell Media
The story of The Long Game picks up 10 years into the relationship. Shane and Ilya's love remains a secret, but Ilya parted ways from his Boston team to play for the Ottawa Centaurs so he can be closer to Shane. The pair also launched their charity organization they spoke about at the famous cottage.
While they are seeing much more of each than ever, the price of going public weighs heavily on the couple, especially as Ilya wants them to come out of hiding much sooner than originally planned.
As Tierney put it at the Saturday afternoon panel, part of the reason you start adapting Heated Rivalry, as opposed to Reid's other books in the series, is so you can get to The Long Game, which he calls "an emotionally sophisticated book that takes this couple seriously."
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One of his favorite scenes is — without giving away spoilers for non-book readers — an intense moment that happens between Shane and Ilya over Christmas. "I can't wait to see that [on the show]," Reid remarked.
"What do you do after the rush of danger is gone and yet now you have to live in a relationship where you still aren't communicating properly, much as you would like to?" Tierney posits. "You can say you love each other, but as adults know, there's so much more than that to make a relationship successful. And that is what they're learning."
Hudson Williams and Connor Storrie on 'Heated Rivalry'Credit: Sabrina Lantos/HBO Max
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"To the great surprise of absolutely nobody," the TV creator also confirmed that "obviously parts of Role Model are gonna be in Long Game" — meaning we'll see the arrival of Troy Barrett, a forward who's traded to play for the Centaurs with Ilya, and Harris Drover, the Centaurs' social media manager. The pair front Reid's novel Role Model (2021), which focuses on their love story, set during the events of The Long Game.
"There is an easy, facile way of looking at Role Model," Tierney says. "It's very 'grumpy-sunshine,' it's very 'apple orchard,' it can drift into things that you want, but Troy is a really damaged guy. And Troy is quite damaged on the show. I would say we're digging into that even harder."
Tierney already hinted that he and his new writing partner Michael Goldbach could be splitting their adaptation of The Long Game across a second and third season of Heated Rivalry. He echoed his previous statement when asked by Sharma to comment further.
"It's a lot of book," he teased, acknowledging he'll get into "a lot of trouble" if he confirms anything at this point.
on Entertainment Weekly
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Source: Entertainment
Published: April 18, 2026 at 10:45PM on Source: MANUEL MAG
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