As fans of both the Heated Rivalry book and TV show know, Season 1 is a blissfully accurate adaptation. It’s clear that show creator Jacob Tierney respects Rachel Reid’s hockey romance series (as he should), which he’ll continue to pull from for Heated Rivalry Season 2. Reid continues Shane (Hudson Williams) and Ilya’s (Connor Storrie) story in The Long Game, which Swooon considers the author’s magnum opus. We can only hope Tierney takes a similar adaptation approach the second time around.
That being said, there are plenty of changes in Season 1 that we think do a service to Shane and Ilya’s journey. And we understand that when translating a book to the screen, some adjustments have to be made simply because they’re different styles of storytelling. We don’t get insight into Shane and Ilya’s inner monologue, for example, so some scenes that are only mentioned in passing need to be shown in full.