Justice Smith and Charlie Gillespie will join the cast of Crave and HBO Max’s queer hockey drama Heated Rivalry for its second season, portraying characters Harris Drover and Troy Barrett. Production started in Canada, with the sophomore outing confirmed to premiere in spring 2027.
As the international hit prepares for its sophomore run, creators have tapped two well-known young actors to anchor a brand-new narrative arc alongside returning leads Hudson Williams and Connor Storrie.
New Additions Cast as Harris and Troy
Justice Smith and Charlie Gillespie are stepping into the world of professional hockey for the upcoming season announced by Crave. Smith will star as Harris Drover, while Gillespie takes on the role of Troy Barrett.
Smith brings a prominent resume to the series, having recently starred in the 2025 feature Now You See Me: Now You Don’t alongside a celebrated lead turn in 2024’s I Saw the TV Glow
. Gillespie is widely recognized for his work as a teen boy band lead singer in Netflix’s Julie and the Phantoms
and most recently appeared in Variety.
Source Material and Plot Direction for Season 2
The casting choices directly confirm long-running fan theories regarding how the television adaptation will navigate Rachel Reid’s bestselling Game Changers book series.
Season 2 will continue the central romance between Shane Hollander and Ilya Rozanov by pulling from the sixth novel, The Long Game. Simultaneously, the series will introduce Troy and Harris, the central couple from the fifth novel in the series, Role Model.
In the source material, Troy Barrett is a rough-and-tough hockey player who gets traded to the Ottawa Centaurs—the low-ranking Canadian team where Ilya Rozanov moves at the end of Season 1. Harris Drover serves as Ottawa’s cheerful, out social media manager who works to bring Troy out of his shell.
“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.”
Jacob Tierney and Brendan Brady, executive producers
Production Underway Amid Fan Attention
Production on the second season began in Canada, shooting primarily across Toronto and Montreal. The series commands a massive international footprint, streaming on HBO Max in the United States and reaching audiences across more than 130 countries via international distributor Sphere Abacus.
The intense global fanbase has occasionally complicated local production. Following high-profile sightings of returning star Hudson Williams carrying a Canadian Tire reusable bag—which sent shoppers into a frenzy online—director Jacob Tierney and the show’s official Instagram account issued a polite public appeal asking supporters for privacy.
“if you happen to come across one of our filming locations, please give our cast and crew the space they need to do what they do best.”
Show production team, via official Instagram statement
The Expanding Game Changers Universe
The television adaptation’s expansion arrives as the underlying book universe continues to grow. Author Rachel Reid is actively writing the seventh installment of the Game Changers series, titled Unrivaled, which centers once again on Shane and Ilya as they play on the same professional team for the first time. Reid provided a writing update to fans featuring a stack of manuscript pages.
For viewers tracking the screen adaptations, the wait for new episodes has a definitive horizon. Crave has confirmed that Heated Rivalry Season 2 will debut in spring 2027.
Worth a look
