Fans of the hockey romance Heated Rivalry may have a lot more to watch than they expected. According to an exclusive report from Deadline published November 7, the series is filming two six-episode seasons back-to-back, and a standalone holiday movie is planned to shoot right after. Here’s what has been reported, what’s officially confirmed and what is still unannounced.
What Deadline is reporting
Citing sources, Deadline says Seasons 2 and 3 are filming now and are expected to wrap at the end of November or the start of December. After that, a standalone Heated Rivalry film is said to shoot in December. It’s described as a Christmas special or holiday-themed story and is planned for a theatrical release next December.
The twist: according to the report, the film reportedly won’t center on the main couple, Shane Hollander and Ilya Rozanov, played by Hudson Williams and Connor Storrie. Instead, it is said to focus on the show’s other Season 1 couple, Scott and Kip, played by François Arnaud and Robbie G.K. That lines up with source material, too. Rachel Reid, author of the Game Changers books the series is based on, wrote a short story called Merry Christmas, Scott and Kip!, about the pair’s first holiday together.
What’s officially confirmed
Not everything is official. A representative for Canadian streamer Crave told Deadline there are “no projects to confirm.” Creator Jacob Tierney has said publicly that Season 2 will have six episodes, like Season 1, and that filming will be done by the end of the year, but neither he nor Crave has announced a Season 3.
What is confirmed is the timing of Season 2: it’s set to premiere in spring 2027, with an April launch considered likely. New cast members announced for Season 2 include Emily Hampshire, Brendan Morgan, David Tomlinson and Lauren Chan. Deadline also reports that Season 2 is expected to adapt The Long Game, continuing Shane and Ilya’s story, and introduce Harris Drover and Troy Barrett from Role Model, played by Justice Smith and Charlie Gillespie.
Why back-to-back filming makes sense
Shooting multiple seasons at once is becoming more common for streaming hits. It keeps the cast and crew together, reduces gaps between seasons and works around stars’ busy schedules. That matters here, because Heated Rivalry turned Storrie and Williams from unknowns into in-demand names almost overnight after the show premiered on November 28 last year.
The show is in theaters right now, too
Heated Rivalry streams on HBO Max in the U.S., but it has also been testing the big screen. Deadline reports that paired-episode screenings of Season 1 are running at Regal, AMC and Cinemark locations, with about 880 theaters reporting roughly $420,000 on Friday and a projected opening weekend of around $1.3 million. That kind of turnout helps explain why a theatrical holiday film is on the table.
How to get ready
If you haven’t watched yet, Season 1 is six episodes, so it’s an easy binge before Season 2 arrives. Fans of the books may also want to revisit the Scott and Kip storyline from Game Changer, since that couple could be getting their own spotlight.
Who is Scott and Kip, for new viewers?
In Season 1, Scott Hunter is a star hockey captain and Kip Grady is a smoothie-shop worker he meets in New York. Their storyline, drawn from the first Game Changers book, became a fan favorite and gave the show some of its most emotional moments, even though the main plot follows Shane and Ilya. A holiday film focused on them would let the series expand its world while the lead actors’ schedules fill up, a smart move for a franchise that has grown much faster than anyone predicted when it debuted on a Canadian streamer.
The bottom line
Season 2 is coming in spring 2027. Season 3 and a holiday movie are reported but not yet confirmed by Crave. If Deadline’s sources are right, though, the wait between seasons could be much shorter than fans feared, with an extra helping of Scott and Kip on the way.
Image: Hockey Rink Castren Sports Centre Oulu 20250309 by Estormiz via Wikimedia Commons, CC0 1.0
