A second season of “Heated Rivalry” is underway, expected for release in April 2027.
“We are writing it now,” show creator and director Jacob Tierney said on “CBS Mornings” Thursday. “We’re getting ready to start shooting this summer. And there will be more ‘Heated Rivalry’ on your TVs as — like, truly — as soon as humanly possible.”
Shooting for Season 2 will begin in August, Tierney said.
“Like the best parts of this show, just enjoy the yearn,” executive producer Brendan Brady said about the wait for the second season.
The romance on HBO Max about hockey players Shane Hollander and Ilya Rozanov begins with a secret fling between two rivals and eventually turns into a yearslong journey of love, denial and self-discovery. It is based on the “Game Changers” book series by Rachel Reid and has been so popular it has averaged more than 10.5 million viewers per episode in the U.S. alone, according to Warner Bros. Discovery.
Tierney believes it resonates because it is “very romantic.”
“It has the hallmarks and trappings of a real classic romance, years of longing and yearning and trying to get together and do the right thing for each other and not being able to, and then eventually a happy ending,” he said.
“It is laser-focused on that love story. There’s not a lot of diversion from it. And I think that’s what the audience responds to, is kind of the intensity and the focus of the storytelling,” he said.
