Justice Smith is joining the cast of Heated Rivalry Season 2 as lead alongisde fellow newcomer Charlie Gillespie and returning stars Hudson Williams and Connor Storrie. The second season of the globally popular queer hockey romance series is confirmed to premiere in spring 2027, with production now underway in Canada.
Smith will play Harris Drover, the Ottawa team’s cheerful social media manager, while Gillespie will play Troy Barrett, a hockey player on Ilya Rozanov’s team with a history of bullying. Their characters are the couple at the center of Role Model, the fifth book in Rachel Reid’s bestselling Game Changers series, which serves as source material alongside the sixth novel The Long Game for the upcoming season.
“Rachel Reid has given us two beautifully layered characters in Harris and Troy who you can’t help but root for,” said executive producers Jacob Tierney and Brendan Brady. “Justice and Charlie do exactly that. They immediately connected with the vulnerability and resilience at the core of these characters, bringing an instinctive understanding of who Harris and Troy are.”
Season 2 will continue Shane and Ilya’s story from The Long Game, which finds the hockey players now in a committed relationship and learning how to build a life together while hiding their true feelings in public. Season 1 concluded with Shane, played by Williams, and Ilya, played by Storrie, choosing happiness over secrecy and driving off together into the sunset from their cottage refuge.
Smith is known for I Saw the TV Glow and Now You See Me: Now You Don’t. Gillespie is known for One Night Only and Splitsville.
Heated Rivalry became an instant global phenomenon when Season 1 premiered in late 2025, making near-instant stars of Williams and Storrie, both of whom were working as waiters when they booked their roles. Williams went on to win a Canadian Screen Award for his performance.
Tierney serves as creator, writer, director and executive producer. Brady and Jayme Alter Wilson also executive produce. The series is a Crave Original produced by Accent Aigu Entertainment in association with Bell Media’s Crave, available in more than 130 countries and streaming on HBO Max in the U.S.