{"id":33792,"date":"2026-08-09T03:18:36","date_gmt":"2026-08-08T22:18:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/?p=33792"},"modified":"2026-08-09T03:18:36","modified_gmt":"2026-08-08T22:18:36","slug":"heated-rivalry-author-slams-negativity-surrounding-season-2-casting","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/?p=33792","title":{"rendered":"&#8216;Heated Rivalry&#8217; Author Slams Negativity Surrounding Season 2 Casting"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><script>\r\n  atOptions = {\r\n    'key' : '644b717812d811d6a1c1fc5b6ccd6fa6',\r\n    'format' : 'iframe',\r\n    'height' : 90,\r\n    'width' : 728,\r\n    'params' : {}\r\n  };\r\n<\/script>\r\n<script src=\"https:\/\/www.highperformanceformat.com\/644b717812d811d6a1c1fc5b6ccd6fa6\/invoke.js\"><\/script>\r\n<br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<!-- do not apply CSS styles to this element! --><\/p>\n<div class=\"pmc-paywall\">\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto  lrv-a-font-body-m   \">\n\t\u201cGame Changer\u201d author Rachel Reid is unbothered by the early critics of the \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/variety.com\/t\/heated-rivalry\/\" id=\"auto-tag_heated-rivalry\" data-tag=\"heated-rivalry\">Heated Rivalry<\/a>\u2018s\u201d upcoming second season.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto  lrv-a-font-body-m   \">\n\tOn Friday, it was revealed that <a href=\"https:\/\/variety.com\/2026\/tv\/news\/heated-rivalry-season-2-justice-smith-charlie-gillespie-1236830101\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Justice Smith and Charlie Gillespie are joining the Season 2 cast of \u201cHeated Rivalry.\u201d<\/a> Then, later that same day, Reid took to her Instagram story to seemingly dismiss the online chatter about the latest casting news.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto  lrv-a-font-body-m   \">\n\t\u201cThinking about all the people last summer who told me the casting for Ilya and Shane was wrong and bad\u2026\u201d Reid wrote on her Instagram Story with a side-eyed selfie.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto  lrv-a-font-body-m   \">\n\tSmith will play Harris Drover, and Gillespie will play Troy Barrett. Crave Media and HBO Max have not released official character descriptions for either role. However, in Reid\u2019s \u201cGame Changer\u201d book series, Troy is a hockey star who is traded away to an Ottawa team after severing relations with a former Toronto teammate who is accused of sexual assault. Harris is the social media manager for the Ottawa squad, who is determined to help Troy integrate into the team.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto  lrv-a-font-body-m   \">\n\tSmith and Gillespie will star in \u201cHeated Rivalry\u201d Season 2 alongside series frontman Connor Storrie and <a href=\"https:\/\/variety.com\/t\/hudson-williams\/\" id=\"auto-tag_hudson-williams\" data-tag=\"hudson-williams\">Hudson Williams<\/a>, who became overnight sensations in Season 1 as Ilya Rozanov and Shane Hollander, respectively. Season 1 followed the secret romance of Ilya and Shane, two upcoming hockey superstars and fierce on-ice rivals. <\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto  lrv-a-font-body-m   \">\n\tThis is not the first time someone from \u201cHeated Rivalry\u201d addressed online negativity from the fandom. Back in March, Williams and co-star Fran\u00e7ois Arnaud <a href=\"https:\/\/variety.com\/2026\/tv\/news\/heated-rivalry-hudson-williams-francois-arnaud-online-hate-1236683060\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">posted matching statements<\/a> to their Instagram stories, telling off viewers who post hate comments on their castmates\u2019 socials.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto  lrv-a-font-body-m   \">\n\t\u201cDon\u2019t call yourself a fan if you share racist\/homophobic\/biphobic\/misogynist\/ageist\/ableist\/parasocial\/bigoted comments of any kind,\u201d read the posts. \u201cNone of us need your hateful \u2018love.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n<script async=\"async\" data-cfasync=\"false\" src=\"https:\/\/pl30214220.effectivecpmnetwork.com\/9ab3d4df8a7e1a6171e16ddbf732cc19\/invoke.js\"><\/script>\r\n<div id=\"container-9ab3d4df8a7e1a6171e16ddbf732cc19\"><\/div>\r\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u201cGame Changer\u201d author Rachel Reid is unbothered by the early critics of the \u201cHeated Rivalry\u2018s\u201d upcoming second season. On Friday, it was revealed that Justice Smith and Charlie Gillespie are joining the Season 2 cast of \u201cHeated Rivalry.\u201d Then, later that same day, Reid took to her Instagram story to seemingly dismiss the online chatter&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":33793,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/variety.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/connor-storrie-Heated-Rivalry.jpg?crop=0px%2C97px%2C1500px%2C843px&resize=1000%2C563","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-33792","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-pics-news"],"brizy_media":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33792","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=33792"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33792\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/33793"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=33792"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=33792"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=33792"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}