'Heated Rivalry' Season 2 Adds Five Cast Members
Photo Credit: Priyanka/Instagram / WOW / RPDR Canada
The second season of Heated Rivalry has added five cast members: Emily Hampshire, Edvin Ryding, Robert Naylor, Sabrina Jalees and Priyanka.
Hampshire will play Vanessa, Ryding will portray Luca Haas, Naylor will play Wyatt Hayes, Jalees will appear as Farah Jalali, and Priyanka will play Tarek.
The five actors will join returning stars Hudson Williams and Connor Storrie, who play professional hockey rivals Shane Hollander and Ilya Rozanov.
Smith and Gillespie are set to play Harris Drover and Troy Barrett, respectively, characters who form the central couple in the season’s additional storyline.
The surprising past
Naylor’s casting has attracted attention because of an earlier voice-acting role that contrasts sharply with the adult hockey drama. Before joining Heated Rivalry, Naylor voiced Dora Winifred “D.W.” Read, Arthur Read’s younger sister, in the long-running animated children’s series Arthur.
PinkNews reported that Naylor voiced D.W. from 2007 to 2012. Reference listings also identify Naylor as D.W.’s voice in Arthur, including episodes from the late 2000s and early 2010s.
In Heated Rivalry, Naylor’s character is Wyatt Hayes, a starting goaltender for the Ottawa Centaurs. The Hollywood Reporter described Wyatt and Luca as Ottawa teammates of Storrie’s Ilya Rozanov and Gillespie’s Troy Barrett.
The casting connects Naylor’s childhood voice work with a series centered on adult relationships, professional sport and queer identity. Heated Rivalry follows LGBTQ+ characters navigating romance and public visibility within the world of professional hockey.
Who the new characters are
Ryding’s Luca Haas is described as a rookie player for the Ottawa Centaurs. The Swedish actor is known for playing Prince Wilhelm in Netflix’s Young Royals and appears in the film 28 Years Later.
Jalees will play Farah Jalali, an agent who represents Shane and Ilya in Rachel Reid’s Game Changers book series, the source material for the television adaptation. Jalees is known for work including I Used to Be Funny and Black Mirror.
Hampshire, recognized for her role as Stevie Budd in Schitt’s Creek, will portray Vanessa. Vanessa is described as a close and supportive friend of Fabian Salah, a musician whose story is part of Reid’s third Game Changers novel, Tough Guy. Priyanka will play Tarek, another friend in Fabian’s circle.
Priyanka is a Canadian drag performer and actor known for winning the first season of Canada’s Drag Race. Her casting adds another LGBTQ+ performer to a series whose audience and subject matter are closely tied to queer representation in mainstream entertainment.
Season-two story and timing
The first season was based primarily on Reid’s Heated Rivalry, the second novel in the Game Changers series, and focused on Shane and Ilya’s concealed relationship alongside their competition on the ice.
Season two will draw from The Long Game, Reid’s sixth novel, which continues Shane and Ilya’s story after they enter a committed relationship. Series creator Jacob Tierney has also said that Role Model, which takes place during the same period in the books, will provide source material for the new season.
The additions of Vanessa and Tarek indicate that Fabian and hockey player Ryan Price’s storyline may appear in the television adaptation, although casting for Fabian and Ryan had not been announced in the reports reviewed.
Production is scheduled to begin in August, with the second season targeting a spring 2027 release. Crave commissioned the series with participation from the Canada Media Fund, while HBO Max is set to continue carrying it internationally.
The season-two announcement broadens the ensemble around the returning leads and introduces characters from several books in Reid’s series. For Naylor, the role marks a move from the familiar voice of an animated child character to a live-action part in a queer hockey drama aimed at an adult audience.
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