“Heated Rivalry” season 2 reveals hotly anticipated Troy and Harris casting: Meet the new hockey lovers
“Heated Rivalry” season 2 reveals hotly anticipated Troy and Harris casting: Meet the new hockey lovers
Nick RomanoFri, August 7, 2026 at 5:00 PM UTC
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Charlie Gillespie and Justice Smith join ‘Heated Rivalry’ season 2 as Tory and HarrisCredit: Ben Hider/Tubi via Getty; Mat Hayward/GettyKey Points -
Heated Rivalry season 2 casts its first newcomers joining Connor Storrie and Hudson Williams.
Charlie Gillespie and Justice Smith will play Troy and Harris, the lead characters from Rachel Reid’s Role Model.
Showrunner Jacob Tierney called season 2 “much more serious territory.”
Casting for Heated Rivalry season 2 is, well, heating up. The Canadian romance series found two new leading men to join stars Connor Storrie and Hudson Williams.
Charlie Gillespie, the 27-year-old Canadian actor and singer from Netflix’s Julie and the Phantoms, will play Troy Barrett, a troubled hockey player traded from the Toronto Guardians to the Ottawa Centaurs.
Justice Smith, from blockbusters like Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves and more indie releases like I Saw the TV Glow, will play Harris Drover, the social media manager of the Centaurs.
The two characters are prominent figures in the next phase of the love story between Russian stud Ilya Rozanov (Storrie) and Canadian wunderkind Shane Hollander (Williams), which is based on the romance world from author Rachel Reid’s Game Changers book series. Gillespie and Smith will feature in leading roles opposite Storrie and Williams.
Justice Smith in ‘I Saw the TV Glow’Credit: Courtesy of A24
“Rachel Reid has given us two beautifully layered characters in Harris and Troy who you can’t help but root for,” showrunner Jacob Tierney said in a statement. “From the start of the casting process, we knew we were looking for actors who could create something truly special together and bring that same depth and heart to the screen. 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.”
Both actors were already suspected as rumors began circulating online in the past weeks. Once Tierney followed Gillespie on Instagram, the talk about his potential role began. Gossip brand Deuxmoi then reported Smith for the role of Harris.
Gillespie is also known for episodes of Degrassi: Next Class and the most recent Charmed reboot, and he appeared in movies like Totally Killer and Splitsville.
Smith has more public recognition across titles like Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom, Pokémon: Detective Pikachu, and Now You See Me: Now You Don’t.
Entertainment Weekly previously reported that Adults and Big Mistakes star Jack Innanen, who long campaigned on social media for a part (namely for Troy), was offered a starring role in season 2 but couldn’t accept due to production conflicts.
Troy and Harris on the cover of Rachel Reid’s ‘Role Model’ bookCredit: Carina Press
The Troy and Harris relationship was at the forefront of the book Role Model (2021), set during the same timeline as Reid’s 2022 Ilya and Shane installment, The Long Game. Both titles will now serve as inspiration for Heated Rivalry season 2.
The main events of The Long Game pick up 10 years after the events of Reid’s Heated Rivalry (2019). Ilya relocates from the Boston Raiders to play for the Ottawa Centaurs in Canada to be closer to his lover, all-star hockey player Shane Hollander (Williams), while they navigate their public rivalry as closeted boyfriends.
This puts the couple, but particularly Ilya, in close proximity to Troy and Harris.
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Tierney spoke at BookCon 2026 about adapting the events of The Long Game and introducing Troy to the show.
“The challenge, from an adaptation standpoint, is you’re in much more serious territory,” he said at the April event. “There’s still lots of flirting, and there’s lots of sex, but it’s this kind of danger. This kind of ‘hotel room, adolescent sex’ stuff is largely gone.”
Charlie Gillespie in ‘Sidelined 2: Intercepted’Credit: Tubi
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Teasing the arrival of Troy, Tierney called the character “a really damaged guy. And Troy is quite damaged on the show. I would say we’re digging into that even harder.”
Gillespie’s Troy and Smith’s Harris will likely serve a similar function to the Scott Hunter (François Arnaud) and Kip Grady (Robbie G.K.) of Heated Rivalry season 1. While those initial six episodes largely adapted Ilya and Shane’s story from 2019’s Heated Rivalry book, Scott and Kip, two characters from a different novel, Game Changer (2019), took the spotlight for one episode before popping back up later in the season.
Heated Rivalry fever continues to this day, months after taking the world by storm with a late-2025 premiere for season 1. The show itself wasn’t eligible for the Emmys as an entirely Canadian production, but Storrie, who became an overnight superstar with Williams, received a nomination for his Saturday Night Live hosting stint.
Numerous other accolades, including from the GLAAD Media Awards and Peabody Awards, came the show’s way.
Connor Storrie as Ilya Rozanov and Hudson Williams as Shane Hollander on ‘Heated Rivalry’ season 1Credit: Sabrina Lantos/HBO
While accepting his statuette for Best Lead Performer in a Drama at the Canadian Screen Awards — for which the show won 16 awards out of 18 nominations — Williams playfully said on stage, “If I could cut this award down the middle, I would, because if these gay yearning little bottom eyes didn’t have a big, sexy Russian to feast upon, my performance wouldn’t be as good. So to the honorary Canadian, Connor Storrie, I share this award with you.”
Given all the hype in the fandom for all things Heated Rivalry, the folks at production company Accent Aigu Entertainment released a statement ahead of filming in Toronto urging everyone to “give our cast and crew the space they need to do what they do best.”
“As we gear up for more Heated Rivalry, please help us in making it the best it can be,” the statement read.
Heated Rivalry season 2 will premiere sometime in spring 2027 on Crave in Canada, as well as HBO Max in the U.S. and other international territories.
on Entertainment Weekly
Source: “AOL Entertainment”
