“We wanted to create a modern heroine complete with flaws and coping mechanisms.”
If you devoured Rachel Reid’s Game Changers series and then held your breath through every stage of the Heated Rivalry adaptation, a new behind-the-scenes revelation will confirm something you probably suspected: getting Shane and Ilya’s story to screen with its full romantic intensity intact was a fight.
And it’s one the creative team almost lost.
At the Series Mania Forum panel on Global Audiovisual Alliances, Julie Roy, executive director & CEO at Téléfilm Canada, pulled back the curtain on how Heated Rivalry navigated a rocky path from page to screen — and why it ultimately landed on Canada’s Crave instead of a U.S.-based platform (per Variety).
Roy explained that the show was originally developed with a U.S. platform in mind, but creator Jacob Tierney ran into significant creative resistance.
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“At first, it was supposed to be made with a U.S. platform. But he didn’t have the freedom he wanted,” Roy said, referring to Tierney.
The specific sticking point? The intimacy that sits at the very heart of Reid’s books.
“For example, [they wanted] to have the first explicit scene only in episode five to tone down the romance,” Roy added.
For anyone who has read the source material, that detail speaks volumes. Pushing the first explicit scene to episode five of a six-episode season would have fundamentally altered the structure of the story — reshaping the relationship progression from rivals to friends-with-benefits to something deeper that Reid so carefully built across the book.
Rather than compromise the adaptation’s core, Tierney made the decision to bring the project home.
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“He decided to go back to Canada, and kudos to Crave who had the courage to welcome the full project,” Roy said. “For me, that’s a great example of not being Hollywood and being authentic. Authenticity is something that really works.”
That word — authenticity — matters enormously here. The series, which premiered in November 2025 on Crave and HBO Max, follows hockey players Shane Hollander (Hudson Williams) and Ilya Rozanov (Connor Storrie), rivals who play for Montreal and Boston and develop a secret relationship over time. Across the six-episode first season, their dynamic evolves from rivalry to friends-with-benefits to a full romantic relationship — a progression that mirrors Reid’s original vision in the Game Changers series.
Crave’s willingness to support the project as intended allowed that arc to unfold without artificial restraint.
Roy also shared a data point during the panel that will surprise absolutely no one in the fandom — but is still remarkable to hear confirmed by an executive.
“This example is also interesting in terms of audience engagement. A high number of people just watched this series for the fifth time! It’s insane,” Roy said.
Five times. That level of audience devotion doesn’t happen with a watered-down adaptation. It happens when viewers feel the story they loved on the page has been honored on screen.
For readers already anticipating the next chapter, here’s what we know: Season 2 has been confirmed and is expected to begin filming in the summer, based on The Long Game. A premiere is anticipated sometime in spring 2027.
The book’s synopsis teases the emotional stakes ahead: “Shane has gotten so good at hiding his feelings, 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.”
