If you recently binged Off Campus after its premiere on May 13th, or got completely pulled into the Heated Rivalry craze last fall, chances are that may have been the first time you willingly sat through anything sports-related. And after you got hooked on the characters, the intense chemistry, and fan edits popping up all over your “for you” page, you knew you had to do a little research on this show, and it became the only thing on your mind. And soon enough, you found out that this phenomenon was actually based on a book. Who knew?
Hockey, Hockey, Hockey
As a young adult romance reader myself, I soon fell victim to the fandom behind these adaptations. Surprisingly though, I had never come across a hockey romance before this. So when I first learned about these series and later found out they were based on novels, I was pretty shocked. Yet, it also made sense. The plot, tropes, banter- it was like seeing the stories imprinted in my mind laid out onscreen. After I watched Off Campus and Heated Rivalry, I couldn’t help but think about how popular sports romance is becoming, especially hockey romances. There are so many other sports to choose from. So why do these successful young adult romance authors gravitate toward writing about hockey? The brooding hockey player meets the straight-A college student. Opposites attract. And why are readers so obsessed with this trope that we’re starting to see TV adaptations?
What Is Sports Romance, And Why Has Hockey Become The Standout?
There might not be a fixed answer to all of these questions, but a few perspectives might explain why hockey sports romance has become so popular. But before we get into that, what is sports romance? Sports romance is a specific genre including an athlete as the male main character (MMC). These stories typically center on the athlete, their team, and finding love amid the competition. Common tropes in these books include rivals to lovers, fake dating, teammates or found family, forced proximity, and more. While these tropes are typical of any young adult romance novel, the inclusion of an athlete and a sports team is what makes these books their own genre.
When thinking about why hockey specifically, it really comes down to what hockey represents and how the masculine nature of sports can contrast with emotional vulnerability. While every sport involves a team setting, Penguin Readers notes that hockey teams, in particular, spend a lot of time together, creating closer relationships among the characters. Various team members become multiple side characters, ultimately forming a series of romance stories about each player on that team. Moreover, the sport’s aggression can be juxtaposed with the emotions and tenderness of romance.
The theory is that hockey romance creates an image of the tough guy who is ultimately transformed by love. Since hockey can be physically brutal with fights permitted on the rink, it emphasizes the tension between an aggressive hockey player and the emotional vulnerability he experiences when he meets “the one.” These are just some of the dynamics in a hockey romance that attract readers. There are many more reasons, but it ultimately depends on readers’ preferences.
The BookTok Obsession
As sports romance novels take over bookshelves, readers have found one way to connect over their love of the genre: social media. Platforms including Instagram and TikTok have created spaces for book lovers to collectively obsess over characters, tropes, theories, and even edits. This has created a community of people who share one thing in common: their love of reading and their shared obsession with the worlds each story creates.
“BookTok” is a huge sub-community formed on TikTok relating to books, where users can discuss their favorite reads, authors, and characters, giving recommendations to other readers. According to the Los Angeles Times, book sales have increased thanks to BookTok. For instance, romance novels saw a 52% increase in sales from 2022 to 2023. The more people viewed content about book recommendations or ratings, the more popular these novels became among the book-reader TikTok community.
TV Adaptations Boom
Pages like these also exist on Instagram, where Bookstagrammers post content similar to TikTok. As a heavy Instagram user myself, I’m quick to save any book recs that come across my “explore” page, or I get stuck in a constant loop of watching edits of my favorite book characters. This brings me back to the whole hockey romance “obsession,” not just in books anymore, but also online, eventually creating our favorite TV shows. When I first watched Off Campus, I will admit, I was hooked. The hockey team feels like a big family, and the romance arcs among different pairs of characters made it feel like I was reading a book, which was comforting. This season follows Hannah and Garret as they find each other through a classic fake-dating trope, with its own trials as Garret navigates his relationship with hockey and his father, and Hannah tries to move on from her past. For me, the plot wasn’t the only standout part of the story; the character dynamics, friendships, and family dynamics really got me invested.
After watching the series, I knew I had to add Elle Kennedy’s first book to her Off Campus series to my TBR (To Be Read) list. This is the opposite for me, as I tend to read the book and then watch the adaptation. But, like many viewers, I wasn’t aware of the book series. Similarly, I had never read Heated Rivalry by Racheal Reid, but binged the show and got to see for myself why everyone was talking about it. The crossover between book fans and new viewers really happened here, as it was the first hockey romance novel to be adapted for the screen. The main characters, Ilya and Shane, are two MMC’s, making it a gay romance. The story highlights the masculinity of a sport like hockey and the emotional tribulations of two athletes figuring out how to navigate their love in a world where rivals can’t exactly be lovers, and if they’re gay, it’s even more complicated.
The point is, these adaptations prove sports romance isn’t only a BookTok or Bookstagram phenomenon anymore. It’s reaching mainstream TV audiences, who might find it easier to watch their favorite tropes than to read them. The sports romance genre adapts so well because of its built-in fan base across social media, which transfers fandom culture from books to the screen. This includes viewers who watch and then read the book, or readers who watch what they once imagined come to life. These adaptations are creating a two-way pipeline, connecting readers to shows and viewers to books, and I, like many others, am here for it.