“Heated Rivalry” just got a little hotter.
After Crave last week named Justice Smith and Charlie Gillespie as actors joining the second season, the streaming service has revealed a whole team unit’s worth of performers filling the ensemble of TV’s gay hockey sensation.
“Schitt’s Creek” co-star Emily Hampshire, “Canada’s Drag Race” winner Priyanka and “Mile End Kicks” actor Robert Naylor are among the latest additions to the cast.
Others include “The Young Royals” actor Edvin Ryding and “I Used to Be Funny” comic Sabrina Jalees.
The casting announcement doesn’t offer more than the names of the characters, but it does give “Heated Rivalry” fans a better sense of what to expect from the upcoming episodes, which appear to be drawing on various storylines in Rachel Reid’s Game Changers book series.
Hampshire plays Vanessa, a lesbian from Reid’s “Tough Guy” book who works at a sex shop in Toronto’s Gay Village. She’s friends with aspiring musician Fabian Salah, a character that hasn’t been announced for the show yet. Fans have speculated for weeks that Lebanese-Canadian actor Abdalla Amour might be filling the role.
Priyanka will play Tarek, one of the close friends of Salah, who is in a gay relationship with hockey player Ryan Price, another uncast role.
The additional announcements fill out some of the roles in the “Heated Rivalry” universe.
Ryding and Naylor play Luca Haas and Wyatt Hayes, two players on the fictional Ottawa Centaurs. Jalees is Farah Jalali, a sports agent for Shane Hollander and Illya Rozanov, the main characters in the “Heated Rivalry” story, played by breakout stars Hudson Williams and Connor Storrie.
While the new cast members answer a few questions, they raise many more about who else is joining the show. Crave has chosen to trickle out details on the “Heated Rivalry” production, which begins filming in Toronto this month and has sparked a fan frenzy. Williams and Storrie have be spotted around the city, inspiring a run on Canadian Tire shopping bags and creating a photo opp out of a Sankofa Square garbage bin.
Dylan Walsh, who plays Shane’s father, David Hollander, in Season 1, found himself in hot water this week after seemingly dishing too many details about the secretive production plan for “Heated Rivalry.”
The 62-year-old actor paused his Cameo account after he let slip details about the shooting schedule on the celebrity video app.
“Getting ready to go back up to Canada and shoot some more episodes … I think we’re doing 12 this time,” he said in a video he recorded for a fan.
That’s double the amount of Season 1 episodes, which seems to confirm fan speculation that “Heated Rivalry” is shooting its final two seasons back-to-back starting this month.
Walsh’s Cameo account was paused after the video leaked, with reports circulating that a note briefly appeared on his account saying he would be unavailable to record personal videos until August 2027. The actor issued an apology for his comments.
“I was speaking off the cuff in a Cameo and should not have speculated about the production schedule or episode count,” he said in a statement provided on Thursday to the Star by his publicist.
“I don’t have any official information to announce, and I’m sorry for creating confusion for the production and the fans. My Cameo account is paused for now. I’m incredibly grateful for the enthusiasm surrounding Heated Rivalry and proud to be part of the series.”
The casting for Season 2 has also been a hot topic of conversation, with some fans criticizing the choice of Smith to fill the role of Harris Drover. In the books, the character is described as “stocky” and “pudgy.” Smith is thin-framed, which has led to calls to boycott a non-plus-sized actor in the role.
Smith posted a message to fans on Instagram after the announcement, saying: “I am honored to play a character you all care about deeply and I promise I will take good care of him if you give me the chance.”
