Heated Rivalry Season 2 Casts Shaheen Jafargholi and Daniel Diemer

Shaheen Jafargholi and Daniel Diemer have officially joined the cast for the second season of the sports romance television series Heated Rivalry, as reported by Variety. The upcoming season is scheduled to premiere in 2027.

Directed by Jacob Tierney, the show adapts Rachel Reid's Game Changers book series. Jafargholi and Diemer will portray Fabian Salah and Ryan Price, two central figures from the third novel in the franchise, Tough Guy.

In the adapted storyline, Ryan is depicted as an ambitious Canadian professional hockey player dealing with severe anxiety, body image issues, and frequent team trades. Fabian is portrayed as an openly queer Lebanese indie musician who becomes Ryan's primary love interest.

While Season 2 will draw heavily from Reid's novel The Long Game alongside elements from other installments, neither HBO Max nor Crave has released official character descriptions for the new cast additions.

Tierney and executive producer Brendan Brady praised the new additions to the adaptation.

"Fabian and Ryan each bring a distinctive energy to the world Rachel Reid has created. They are bold, complicated and deeply compelling characters, and finding actors who could really take on all of those different sides was so important to us," Tierney and Brady said.

The production team noted the specific qualities that the two performers bring to the production.

"Daniel and Shaheen bring such confidence and emotional honesty to the roles. We can't wait for audiences to see what they do with Fabian and Ryan and how they make these characters their own," Tierney and Brady added.

Jafargholi previously played Zak in Season 2 of Paramount+'s The Agency and stars in the film War. Diemer is recognized for his role as Tyson in Percy Jackson and the Olympians and appeared in the 2020 Netflix film The Half of It.

The duo joins returning leads Hudson Williams and Connor Storrie, alongside ensemble cast members Justice Smith, Charlie Gillespie, Emily Hampshire, Edvin Ryding, Robert Naylor, Sabrina Jalees, and Priyanka.