'Heated Rivalry' star Franco Lo Presti teases Cliff Marleau’s season 2 return

“All I can say is you’re just going to have to watch the show and see,” Lo Presti said

Heated Rivalry star Franco Lo Presti has addressed whether he will return as Cliff Marleau in Season 2, but the actor is keeping fans guessing.

Lo Presti, who played Boston Raiders hockey player Cliff Marleau in the first season of the hit romance drama, was not included among the returning cast members announced for Season 2. However, his character does briefly appear in Rachel Reid’s sequel novel The Long Game, which serves as the basis for the upcoming season.

When asked about Cliff’s future in the series, Lo Presti did not rule out a return. Ahead of his Days of Our Lives debut on September 14, the actor gave a cryptic response when asked whether he would reprise the role.

“All I can say is you’re just going to have to watch the show and see,” Lo Presti told TV Insider.

His response leaves the door open for Cliff to make an appearance when Heated Rivalry returns, particularly given that the character has a small role in the book on which Season 2 is based.

Season 2 will follow Shane Hollander, played by Hudson Williams, and Ilya Rozanov, played by Connor Storrie, as their relationship continues to develop. The new season is based on The Long Game, which moves Ilya from Boston to Canada after he joins the Ottawa Centaurs in an effort to be closer to Shane.

Cliff could potentially appear during a sequence involving Shane and Ilya at an All-Star Game. In The Long Game, Cliff knocks on Ilya’s hotel room door while looking to go clubbing. Unaware that Ilya is inside having an intimate moment with Shane, Cliff eventually leaves the pair alone.

Whether that particular scene makes it into the television adaptation, and whether Lo Presti returns to play it, remains unclear.

While the actor is not confirming his involvement, he has spoken warmly about his experience on Heated Rivalry and the response to the series. Lo Presti said there was something special about the production from the moment he began filming, recalling an energy that made him feel the project could become something significant.

When the show subsequently became a major hit, Lo Presti said its success was “extremely deserved”, praising the story, cast and crew behind it.

The actor also found it relatively easy to connect with Cliff because of his own familiarity with hockey culture. Lo Presti comes from a hockey-focused Canadian town and said he grew up around “a lot of hockey guys”, giving him an understanding of the locker-room environment depicted in the series.

He described himself as having experience in locker rooms and said he recognised situations that his character would encounter, making him feel that being cast as Cliff was meant to be.

Lo Presti also expressed pride in contributing to Ilya’s journey, describing Heated Rivalry as an “incredible and beautiful story that needed to be told”. He praised the vulnerability shown by the actors and the people working behind the scenes, calling the result “art”.

“Being able to be a piece of Ilya’s journey was just an absolute privilege,” he said.

For now, fans will have to wait for Season 2 to find out whether Cliff Marleau returns to the ice. Lo Presti’s refusal to completely rule out an appearance has only added another layer of mystery around the upcoming season, which is currently filming and is expected to premiere in 2027 on Crave and HBO Max.