‘Heated Rivalry’ Season 2 Casts Daniel Diemer and Shaheen Jafargholi as Ryan and Fabian

Daniel Diemer and Shaheen Jafargholi have joined the cast of “Heated Rivalry” Season 2. They will play Ryan Price and Fabian Salah, respectively. Though Crave and HBO Max did not provide official character descriptions, Ryan and Fabian are the main couple followed in the third book of Rachel Reid’s “Game Changers” series, titled “Tough Guy.” (“Heated Rivalry” Season 2, however, is based on the sixth book, 2022’s “The Long Game.”) In the books, Ryan is a frequently traded Canadian player in the National Hockey League who struggles with anxiety and body image issues, while Fabian is a Lebanese Canadian indie musician who is openly gay. Diemer is best known for Season 2 of “Percy Jackson and the Olympians,” which aired on Disney+ in 2025, and the 2020 Netflix film “The Half of It.” He is repped by Atlas Artists, Nuance Management, Gersh and Yorn, Levine, Barnes, Krintzman, Rubenstein, Kohner, Endlich, Goodell & Gellman. Popular on Variety Jafargholi’s credits include Season 2 of Paramount+ series “The Agency” earlier this year as well as “War,” which premieres on HBO and Sky in October. He is repped by Simon Grant Jones at JAG London. Diemer and Jafargholi join recently announced cast members Justice Smith, Charlie Gillespie, Emily Hampshire, Edvin Ryding, Robert Naylor, Sabrina Jalees and Priyanka as well as returning stars Connor Storrie and Hudson Williams. “Heated Rivalry” is written and directed by Jacob Tierney, who serves as executive producer alongside Brendan Brady and Jayme Alter Wilson. Lori Fischburg and Liane Cunje are producers, while Reid serves as consulting producer. Mike Goldbach is a co-writer on Season 2. Bell Media’s Crave commissioned the series with the participation of the Canada Media Fund and produces with Accent Augu Entertainment. Bell’s Sphere Abacus is the international distributor. Season 2 will premiere in the spring of 2027. “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 in a statement. “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.”