Twelve thousand fans packed Fenway Park on Monday night wearing randomized Ilya Rozanov and Shane Hollander jerseys, turning what began as a baseball promotion into what the Red Sox are calling the most popular theme night in franchise history. Amid the crowd was Rachel Reid, the author whose gay hockey romance novels inspired the streaming sensation being celebrated, watching her fictional rivals-turned-lovers colonize the same ballpark she grew up visiting with her father.
The event tied into the television adaptation of Reid's Heated Rivalry, the second book in her Game Changers series about a fictional romance between rival hockey players Shane Hollander and Ilya Rozanov. As reported by The Boston Globe, Reid told the outlet the night was wild and touching, a description that tracks with a crowd size the team says outpaced every other theme night it has run. Fenway's Sam Deck was transformed into a recreation of the show's cottage setting, and the pregame featured a dance party recasting the series' club scene, according to MLB.com.
Reid's own history with the ballpark predates the show by decades. Per the Globe's reporting, she first visited Fenway Park as an 11-year-old with her father and grew up a Red Sox fan, and she has since returned to the park with her own children. The Boston Globe's Sarah Rodman reported that Reid's father threw out a ceremonial first pitch during the night's pregame ceremonies, a detail also circulated among fans on Reddit.
Jerseys, Hats, and a Buzzcut Fans Had to Accept
VIP ticket holders received hats reading “I'm coming to the cottage,” with Fenway substituted into the show's signature line, the Globe reported. Fans in the stands picked sides visibly: Wally, the Red Sox mascot, wore a Rozanov jersey, while another mascot named Tessie favored a Hollander jersey. On screen, Hollander is played by actor Hudson Williams and Rozanov by Connor Storrie, and Reid addressed one point of fan anxiety directly, telling the crowd that fans should bear with Storrie's recent buzzcut heading into the next season.
The pregame set was deejayed by Harrison, a UK artist-producer whose cover of All the Things She Said scores a pivotal moment in the series, according to the Globe's account of the night. The Maritimes region near Halifax, which the paper noted has many Red Sox and Boston sports fans, factors into the show's fictional world as well, with Rozanov's character written as playing for the fictional Boston Raiders in the series.
The Charity Tie-In and a Season That's Already Filming
Proceeds from Heated Rivalry Night ticket sales benefited OUT MetroWest, a Framingham-based nonprofit that delivers free, year-round support programs for LGBTQ+ youth up to age 29, according to the organization's own materials. The tie-in builds on an existing relationship: in May 2025, the Red Sox selected OUT MetroWest as one of six New England youth-focused nonprofits for the team's season-long Change Up the Conversation initiative addressing mental health stigma and suicide prevention, according to The Jed Foundation.
On the field, the night delivered its own drama. The Red Sox beat the Seattle Mariners 9-8, with Roman Anthony hitting a walk-off single in the 10th inning, per the Globe's account of the game.
Reid has visited the Heated Rivalry set in Toronto, where the show is now shooting its second season, and per the Globe's reporting, that season is expected to premiere in spring 2027, streaming on HBO Max in the United States and on Crave in Canada. The original show first premiered on Crave in November 2025 before HBO Max picked up U.S. streaming rights, according to Wikipedia, and it went on to surpass 600 million minutes of U.S. streaming time by early 2026, ranking among the platform's top-10 series during the holiday season, per The New York Times.
What's Coming in the Books and On Screen
Reid has finished writing Unrivaled, the final book in the Hollander-Rozanov story, even as the show's second season adapts material from her 2022 novel The Long Game and expands its cast with actors Emily Hampshire and Edvin Ryding, according to ScreenRant. The original novel was published in March 2019 by Carina Press, a Harlequin imprint, as the second book in Reid's Game Changers series.
The show's sudden popularity has also rippled well beyond Fenway. Hoodline previously reported that Bay Area adult and youth queer hockey leagues have surged in registrations since the series began streaming, even as USA Hockey has tightened related policies. Before landing the roles that turned them into overnight fixtures of the fandom, Williams was working at an Old Spaghetti Factory in British Columbia and Storrie was working as a server and clown in Los Angeles, according to The Ankler, which reported that casting directors spent six to eight weeks searching North America for the leads.
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