BookCon 2026 turned into a crush of jerseys, T-shirts and patient fans on Friday as about 3,000 people waited to hear Rachel Reid and Jacob Tierney speak together publicly for the first time. The session, “Game Changing TV: Heated Rivalry,” was moderated by former Teen Vogue editor-in-chief Versha Sharma.
The line began forming an hour before the first panel started, and the crowd outside already told the story. Fans wore shirts with the faces of Hudson Williams and Connor Storie, while others showed up in Boston Raiders, Montreal Metros and New York Admirals jerseys, a visible sign that Heated Rivalry had moved well beyond a niche adaptation.
That response matters because the series arrived at BookCon after a fast rise. The adaptation kicked off in August 2023, and its first episode aired on November 28, 2025. By then, the show had already been sold to HBO before it was even finished, a pace that matched the intensity of the audience now lining up to see its creators in person.
Reid, who has written six novels in the Game Changers series, said she first met Tierney over Zoom and felt respected and involved throughout the process, including reading script drafts and audition tapes. She said that as she wrote the kiss between Scott and Kip in episode 5, she already had the cinematic version in mind. Tierney said their visions have felt instinctively aligned, a point underscored by the show’s breakout leads, with Hudson Williams as Shane Hollander and Connor Storie as Ilya Rozanov.
Tierney said he wanted to make a show centered on queer joy and “a horny show at that,” and described sex as a vehicle for the characters to be honest and vulnerable with each other. He also said the songs in the series should serve a “specific task,” a detail that fits a production that has leaned hard into style without losing sight of the emotional beats driving the relationship at its center.
There is also a sharper turn ahead. Tierney said he is in the midst of writing season two, which will take on Reid’s sequel Long Game and also draw from Role Model. He called Long Game “an emotionally sophisticated book” and said parts of Role Model will find their way into the new season. Reid added that a new Game Changers book, Unrivaled, is due for release in 2027.
For BookCon, the turnout was the point. For the show, the crowd was proof that a story about hockey, desire and restraint has found an audience large enough to fill an early line an hour before the room even opened.