Things are heating up in the world of hockey romance again. Five new faces are joining the cast of Crave’s Heated Rivalry.
Canadian actress Emily Hampshire will play Vanessa, a sex shop worker, Canadian comedian and actress Sabrina Jalees as sports agent Farah Jalali and drag queen Priyanka as Tarek, an office assistant.
Hampshire is best known for her work in the sitcom Schitt’s Creek and the TV series 12 Monkeys. Jalees is the former host of the radio and web show Laugh Out Loud and a writer for Canada’s Got Talent.
Priyanka won the first season of the reality TV show Canada’s Drag Race.
Other cast members announced were Canadian actor and musician Robert Naylor as goaltender Wyatt Hayes and Swedish actor Edvin Ryding as rookie hockey player Lucas Haas.
Naylor is known for voicing D.W. Read in the animated series Arthur and Ryding starred as Prince Wilhelm in Netflix’s Young Royals.
The new casting announcement was posted to Instagram on Thursday.
Crave has said season two of Heated Rivalry will continue to follow the story of hockey rivals-turned-lovers Shane Hollander and Ilya Rozanov from the sixth novel of Rachel Reid’s Game Changer series, The Long Game. Game Changers is a series of hockey romance novels that take place in the same universe with characters stories’ overlapping.
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Hudson Williams and Connor Storrie are to reprise their starring roles in the TV adaptation.
Season one of the show adapted books one and two of Reid’s series, Game Changer and Heated Rivalry.
Now with this new casting announcement it is likely the third novel in the series, Tough Guy will be adapted as well. Vanessa and Tarek are friends of Fabian Salah, the love interest of hockey player Ryan Price in Tough Guy.
The show will also incorporate the stories of Troy Barrett, a hockey player traded to Ilya’s new team, and Harris Dover, a social media manager, from the fifth novel of the series, Role Model, in the upcoming second season.
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Crave announced Justice Smith was cast as Harris and the Julie and the Phantoms star Charlie Gillespie as Troy on Aug. 7.
Season 2 of Heated Rivalry will premiere in spring 2027.
