‘Heated Rivalry’ Season 2 Casts 2 New Leads

Smith most recently starred in 2025’s “Now You See Me: Now You Don’t” and saw public acclaim for his lead role in 2024’s “I Saw the TV Glow.” Gillespie is best known for his role as a lead singer of a teen boy band in Netflix’s “Julie and the Phantoms” and most recently featured in Will Gluck’s “One Night Only.”

In the casting announcement, Crave also confirmed that Season 2 of “Heated Rivalry” will air in spring 2027.

The casting of Troy and Harris also confirms long-running fan theories about where the “Heated Rivalry” story will go next. Season 1 was based on Rachel Reid’s “Game Changers” series, which consists of six — soon to be seven — novels.

Season 1 was based on Book 2 of the same name, “Heated Rivalry.” To continue the story of Shane and Ilya, played in the show by Hudson Williams and Connor Storrie, respectively, the sophomore outing is expected to follow the events of “The Long Game,” which is technically Book 6 in Reid’s series.

Two characters who feature prominently in “The Long Game” are Troy and Harris, who star in their own book, “Role Model” (the fifth “Game Changers” installment). In the book, Troy is a rough-and-tough hockey star who gets traded to one of the worst teams in the league (Ilya’s Ottawa Centaurs) and meets its peppy, out social media manager, Harris.

Filming for Season 2 is already underway. The official Instagram account for the show issued a statement Aug. 4 asking fans not to intrude on film sites.

“If you happen to come across one of our filming locations, please give our cast and crew the space they need to do what they do best,” they said.

As the onscreen story of “Heated Rivalry” continues, so, too, does the book series. Reid is currently at work on a seventh “Game Changers” novel — the third about Shane and Ilya — called “Unrivaled,” set to follow the couple as they play on the same professional hockey team for the first time. “Unrivaled” is set for release in June 2027.