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Big news for fans of steamy, queer drama Heated Rivalry, the story of the sexually charged connection between two (male) hockey players.
After a smash success in the US, episodes from season 1 dropped for UK audiences earlier this month, a second instalment has been confirmed. The show stars Connor Storrie and Hudson Williams, who play rival professional hockey players who harbour a secret romance. It's taken the queer entertainment world by storm, with its sensitive storytelling about the complexities of coming out in the public eye as well as some seriously brilliant sex scenes, bringing out a new kind of horniness in women in particular.
Glamour pulled the Celebrity SAS star for a chat.
“I’ve always loved queer cinema,” Heated Rivalry star Williams said of his love of the genre in an interview with GQ. “I love queer stories. There’s something about them that I feel are very universal. Moonlight was a movie that shattered me. Brokeback was a movie that shattered me. It’s the inability to express yourself—that something is so intrinsic in who you are, yet you feel it’s inappropriate. You feel it’s not celebrated, you feel societally less worthy. It’s something very deep that you can’t control.”
Here's what we know about Heated Rivalry season 2.
Yes. There will be indeed, it's all been confirmed. The first season of Heated Rivalry predominantly followed the second book in author Rachel Reid's Game Changers series, while the second season is set to be based on the sixth book in the series, The Long Game.
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According to Heated Rivalry's creator Jacob Tierney, we might be waiting a while for the second instalment.
“It will not be the same time next year, but it’ll be pretty soon after that,” Tierney told Entertainment Weekly of the expected release date. “It’s not gonna be two years. It’s not even gonna be 18 months, I don’t think. So we’re gonna go as fast as we can, while ensuring that we’re doing as good a job as we possibly can.”
"It can’t be the same time next year, because this time last year I’d written five of these, and this time this year I’ve written zero of them," he told Variety. “So it’s going to be a little bit later, but it’s still going to be soon.
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"We understand that everybody’s goal is to not do two years between seasons," he continued. "And at the same time, I don’t want to put out a rushed shitty second season just because the show is very popular. But we’re very aware that our creative partners are enthusiastic and don’t want to wait too long. We’re getting back to work!"
Hudson Williams also told Variety that he was under the impression that filming would commence for season 2 in summer 2026. So we're predicting an early to mid 2027 release date for Heated Rivalry season 2. We also know that both Connor Storrie and Hudson Williams signed on for three seasons of the show, so a season 3 seems pretty much guaranteed.
We can only be guided so far by the plot description of The Long Game, which reads as follows:
“Ten years. That’s how long Shane Hollander and Ilya Rozanov have been seeing each other. How long have they been keeping their relationship a secret? From friends, from family…from the league. If Shane wants to stay at the top of his game, what he and Ilya share has to remain secret. He loves Ilya, but what if going public ruins everything? Ilya is sick of secrets. Shane has gotten so good at hiding his feelings that sometimes Ilya questions if they even exist. The closeness, the intimacy, even the risk that would come with being open about their relationship… Ilya wants it all. It’s time for them to decide what’s most important — hockey or love. It’s time to make a call.”
“There’s something freeing about engaging with sexual content that isn’t directly projecting expectations onto women’s bodies or behaviour.”
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