Netflix has finished stacking the Icebreaker bench. The streamer’s Canadian account unveiled six new additions to the series adaptation of Hannah Grace’s hockey romance: Gabriel Tierney, Auliʻi Cravalho, Peter Berry, Chaneil Kular, Devin Craig and Aidan Shaw.
Cravalho is the marquee name of the batch, having voiced the title role in Disney’s Moana and its upcoming live-action remake, and starred in 2024’s Mean Girls musical. Kular is best known as Anwar in Netflix’s Sex Education. The other four arrive as relative discoveries, much like the show’s male lead.
The announcement rounds out a cast whose two leads were only locked in September, when Daisy Jelley and Connor Simos were set as Anastasia “Stassie” Allen and Nate Hawkins. Jelley came off How to Have Sex and the Netflix YA adaptation Geek Girl; Simos, an Australian NIDA graduate, is taking his first credited screen role opposite Chris Hemsworth in the unreleased thriller Subversion.
Netflix ordered the series in June at the Banff World Media Festival, where head of scripted Jinny Howe framed it as a natural extension of the streamer’s romance pipeline. The underlying property justifies the confidence. Grace’s novel, first published in November 2022 with a wider release the following year, has spent 70 consecutive weeks on the New York Times bestseller list and sold close to 5 million copies worldwide across 24 languages and 34 territories. The full Maple Hills trilogy, which continues with Wildfire and Daydream, has cleared 7.5 million copies globally.
The adaptation is run by showrunner Amanda Lasher (Gossip Girl, The Bold Type), with Jade Halley Bartlett (Miller’s Girl) as creator. Alex Cooper’s Unwell Productions is producing alongside Matt Kaplan and Mina Lefevre, with Grace herself executive producing.
Icebreaker lands in a suddenly crowded arena. Crave’s Heated Rivalry, based on Rachel Reid’s novels, won a Peabody Award, and Prime Video has its own hockey romance in Off Campus. Some readers have already accused Netflix of chasing that momentum rather than the book.
There’s no premiere date yet. In the meantime, the show’s first tease, a flirty FaceTime between Jelley and Simos over a borrowed jersey, drew comparisons to fan-cast favorites like Jacob Elordi and Madelyn Cline — neither of whom made the final roster.
