There’s absolutely no denying that, over the past year, HBO’s TV adaptation of Heated Rivalry has taken the media industry by storm. For those of you who haven’t gotten swept into the phenomenon yet, Heated Rivalry—which was adapted from a book by Canadian author Rachel Reid— follows the story of two young hockey players, Shane Hollander and Ilya Rozanov, as they overcome their rivalry on the ice, only to fall in love. The show received massive attention online and reached an average of 10.6 million viewers per episode in the U.S due to its racy sex scenes and heartwarming moments that are sure to make you believe in love again. So it’s no question that Heated Rivalry has dominated media and changed the way the TV industry is promoting new content (I’m looking at you, Off Campus), but the infinitely more interesting part of this story has been the incredible social impact the release of this show has set off.
On September 29, 2026, showrunner Jacob Tierney and Accent Aigu Entertainment CEO Brendan Brady announced the creation of the Irina Foundation. For fans of the show, you’ll recognize this name as the foundation Shane and Ilya form together at the end of season one to raise money for mental health causes in honor of Ilya’s mother, Irina. As listed on their website, the real-world Irina Foundation “was created from a desire to turn the unexpected power of storytelling into lasting change” and, even just in two days, it has absolutely accomplished that. Within its first 48 hours, the Irina Foundation raised over $28,000 in Canada and over $47,000 from around the world to support LGBTQIA2S+ individuals and create safe spaces for them in sports and the arts. Every minute, more and more people are donating and joining the cause, including hundreds of fans of the show who are choosing to donate $24.81 in honor of Shane and Ilya’s jersey numbers (24 & 81). With all of the horrors we are currently experiencing and ingesting through the news, I implore you to visit the Irina Foundation website and scroll through the notes strangers have left on their donations as a reminder of our humanity and the goodness in the world.Â
A few of my favorite donation notes include:
- “Everyone deserves sunshine!” – Becca
- “Heated Rivalry has brought me so much joy over the past year, and I continue to find its global impact profoundly moving. Every queer person deserves safety and community and wide, wide horizons. I know this fund will be a gateway to all of those things. Thank you endlessly.” – Anonymous
- “Lots of things are terrible today. Thank you to everyone involved in this charity for the opportunity to do something positive in the face of all of the terrible. It matters.” – Halima McLaughlin
- “I found Heated Rivalry during a really bad depressive episode and it helped me find joy. This foundation is so important and mental health awareness is so so necessary. ❤️” – Anonymous
And these notes don’t even come close to representing every single donor who has left their story in the comments of this foundation.
The day after the launch of the foundation, the cast of the show reunited alongside author Rachel Reid and founders Jacob Tierney and Brendan Brady in New York City for Kate Spade NY’s 2026 Global Summit on Women’s Mental Health where they announced Kate Spade NY as the foundation’s inaugural donor through their Global Fund for Women’s Mental Health initiative. Founded in 2024, the Global Fund is a nonprofit run through Kate Spade NY that aims to grant access to mental health resources to 250,000 women and girls by 2030. Their support of the Irina Foundation has provided not only a huge step in the right direction for their initiative, but has also bolstered the Irina Foundation’s cause and encouraged people to donate what they are able.Â
However, as impactful as the real-world creation of the Irina Foundation has been, the social impact of Heated Rivalry doesn’t stop there. Rachel Reid—the author of the Game Changers series which includes Heated Rivalry and its sequel The Long Game—was diagnosed in the summer of 2023 with Parkinson’s disease. In many situations, Reid attempts to take the optimistic side of her condition like with the blurb on her website: “I shake a lot, yes. I have Parkinson’s Disease. I don’t mind talking about it and I love to joke about it. It’s objectively a very silly disease.” However, she has often spoken publicly about the effects of the disease and particularly how it has made writing very difficult for her due to how much her hands shake. But after the release of the TV show, things started to look up in some respects. In an interview with Variety, Reid revealed that after an interview that Jacob Tierney did with CNN wherein he mentioned her Parkinson’s, “one of the top Parkinson’s experts in the world reached out to [her] and asked if he could help [her].” This was a life-changing opportunity for the author who had been stuck on a waitlist for an expert for five years and wasn’t getting the care she needed. While this resource hasn’t been a miracle worker—Reid has had to delay the release of highly anticipated sequel novel Unrivaled due to worsening Parkinson’s symptoms—the new access to treatment is invaluable and wouldn’t have been able to come about in this way without the release of Heated Rivalry.Â
So much of the discourse around Heated Rivalry has centered around its explicitness, which is absolutely something to be brought into conversation, especially when it comes to normalizing queer intimacy in an industry that is consistently heteronormative. However, it has become increasingly clear that there is importance in expanding the conversation around this TV show. It is undoubtedly a sensation for pushing the boundaries of what people are comfortable seeing on their screens, but it has also shattered the boundaries for the social impact a piece of media can have. Between life-saving medical care for its creator and a foundation for the LGBTQIA2S+ community that has already raised $75,000, Heated Rivalry is no longer just a TV show: it is a social and cultural phenomenon.