‘Heated Rivalry’: Shane and Ilya’s Love Story to Continue in New ‘Game Changers’ Book

There’s good news in store for fans who are awaiting the second season of the hit HBO series “Heated Rivalry”: a seventh book from author Rachel Reid will be released September 29.

“Unrivaled” will see Ilya and Shane out and playing together on the same pro team. The book’s synopsis reads, “A line has been drawn — and the hockey world is divided. For the first time in their professional hockey careers, Ilya Rozanov and Shane Hollander have nothing to hide. For more than a decade, they kept their love a secret, but now they’re out, married, and even playing on the same team. The support is incredible. Most of the time.”

“They’ve gotten a lot of love from fans who are thrilled for them,” the synopsis continues. “But some people in the hockey world are still reeling from their relationship reveal, and the backlash — led by popular hockey podcast Top Shelf and the #TakeBackHockey movement — is getting louder.”

“Unrivaled” is the sequel to “The Long Game.” The popular series was based on the second book, also titled “Heated Rivalry.”

“The Long Game” is the only other book by Reid that focuses on the story of Ilya and Shane.

The series was renewed for a second season in December. Director Jacob Tierney told TheWrap fans won’t have to wait too long for new episodes, but the exact timeline isn’t easy to share.

“This is not up to us entirely. This is all subject to negotiation,” he explained. “Listen, we are as enthusiastic as everybody else is, in the sense that we want to get the show back out there as soon as possible. We also want to make sure that we’re providing the fans with a good second season of television.”

“So you know, it won’t be way longer. It’s not going to be two years, but it does need a minute,” he added. “We literally just finished the show. This time last year I had written five episodes of TV, and this time this year I’ve written zero. I’m about to start writing more episodes of TV. So it’s all going to happen. But we want to make sure that we’re safeguarding the quality of the show, because that’s all we have right now. We made a show that we’re really proud of and we want to get people more of it.”

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