The NHLs Heated Rivalry Offseason Dilemma: How to Capitalize on Hockeys Pop Culture Moment

Hockey, well, hockey romance, is booming.

Canadian streamer Crave's breakout hit Heated Rivalry — one of the most talked about shows of the last year — became a pop culture phenomena. The queer hockey romance drama not only took social media by storm in late 2025, it made certified stars out of its at-the-time unknown leading actors, Hudson Williams and Connor Storrie and the source material, a string of novels by Rachel Reid, bestsellers years after release. The Jacob Tierney-created show became appointment television, a rarity in the streaming age.

Romance readers were likely not surprised — this thought-to-be niche sub-genre is actually a booming sector of the genre. Many months after it broke out, Heated Rivalry is adding to the bottom line of its parent company, as News Corp CEO Robert Thomson told analysts on May 7, “We continue to see feverish interest in Rachel Reid's Heated Rivalry in print and digital, and even in countries in which ice hockey is not a mainstream sport.â€

Meanwhile, Off Campus, the latest hockey-centric show to hit streaming, has also become a hit for Prime Video in the month since its release. The show, based on Elle Kennedy's book series, had been in development for years, and much like Reid's novels, had a loyal fanbase pre-show. It quickly became the streamer's third biggest debut ever.

The rise of hockey romance has given the sport something that the likes football and basketball have long had — a real pop culture moment. That's not to say hockey's never been in pop culture — The Mighty Ducks, of course, cannot be ignored. But Heated Rivalry's release came at the perfect moment for the sport of hockey, and Off Campus went on to cement its place. Now the question is how the National Hockey League, and the Professional Women's Hockey League, plan to capitalize on the moment. NHL execs, however, should take note that Heated Rivalry will be much less kind to its fictional league in season two. But more on that later.

Social media, particularly TikTok, had already started homing in on professional hockey players in both the NHL and the PWHL when Heated Rivalry premiered. There was, and are even more so now, a slew of fandom style TikTok edits the NHL's young talents — San Jose Sharks players Macklin Celebrini and Will Smith each boast considerable fanbases of young women on social media — making the words “boy aquarium†nearly unavoidable on the app. The Olympics were on the horizon and would be fruitful for the U.S. men's and women's hockey teams, as they both took home gold.

“Sometimes the stars just need to align,†NHL chief communications officer and senior EVP Jon Weinstein tells The Hollywood Reporter on a recent Zoom. “Right now, the stars are aligned.â€

The executive speaks from Raleigh, North Carolina, in town for the 2026 Stanley Cups Finals between the Carolina Hurricanes and the Vegas Golden Knights. The Hurricanes would go on to win the series 4-2 in game six this past Sunday.

For those working in hockey, there's never been a doubt that it would breakthrough; it was always about finding the right vehicle. “We know hockey has the ability to transcend its traditional audience and attract people. It just takes storytelling and personalities and the connection to culture in order to do that,†a representative for the PWHL tells THR.

“These shows are really helping make the sport feel more familiar and accessible and giving people permission to engage with hockey even if they don't know every rule or have decades of history with the game,†add the rep.

For some fans, the PWHL felt like an easier entry point new to the sport. Unlike the NHL, the women's professional league is only three seasons old and still expanding. The league has added teams in Detroit, Hamilton, Las Vegas and San Jose ahead of the upcoming 2026-2027 season. New fans can get up to speed on all things PWHL through a YouTube series dubbed “PWHL 101†to get new fans up to speed. The PHWL has seen immense growth recently, but it's hard to pin that down to a television show given its nascent phase.

Women's sports viewing has been on the rise, and the 2026 Olympics women's hockey gold medal game between the U.S. and Canada set a viewership record to become the most-watched women's hockey game ever, according to Nielsen. It averaged 5.3 million viewers across USA Network and Peacock, peaking at 7.7 million viewers during the game's final minutes.

The NHL has several things it points to for its own recent growth — the 2026 Olympics and its Four Nations Face-Off. The league touts record attendance and ratings in the U.S. Game six of the 2026 Stanley Cup Finals, where the Hurricanes claimed victory, drew 5.9 million viewers. It was the most viewers for any game six since 2019.

TNT Sports noted that its viewing among women, who make up a large part of both Heated Rivalry's and Off Campus' fanbases, grew 63 percent year to year for its NHL playoff games. The league seems confident that new fans are coming from these avenues. “Heated Rivalry brought a new fan base to hockey,†NHL president of content and events Steve Mayer says.

The NHL says they're aiming to get people to the rink because once they're there, the league feels confident they'll “hook them†and create new loyal fans. “You never know what it will take to get somebody to actually come and watch, and Heated Rivalry, no question, got a lot of people talking. [It] got a lot of people curious about hockey,†Mayer continues. “We truly believe that once they saw how great the game was that they stayed.â€

There's no misunderstanding at either of the leagues, however. Heated Rivalry started this wave on television due largely to the show, not just the sport. “So much has to do with the quality of the show, and Heated Rivalry is an amazing show. It's so well done,†says Mayer.

Heated Rivalry's popularity started to bleed into other facets of hockey culture early into its run. Hockey podcasters, of which there are plenty, began taking notice, but none before What Chaos! hosts Pete Blackburn and DJ Bean, along with their producer Shawn DePaz, took an early interest.

“I think I just caught it on my algorithm,†Bean says. This was before the Canadian series even had its international distribution in HBO, and it was set just to air on Bell Media's streamer Crave. They started a mantra on their show — just get them to November 28, Heated Rivalry's premiere date.

It's to be noted that Tierney himself has appeared on the podcast more than once, which should be a good indication of how they're approaching the show. Naturally, this engagement brought new fans to the Bostonians' show. “Forget whatever it's done for our audience. We love that it's improved the hockey scene,†says Bean.

“It so quickly escaped containment and became something that everyone was watching and everyone was talking about. It had an extreme gravitational pull,†Blackburn adds. “The show itself was one of the best shows that we've seen, and it felt like it just fully had a choke hold on the entire world for a month and a half.â€

Heated Rivalry's popularity brought the world of hockey romance front and center. Much like Tierney, who learned about Reid's books through a Washington Post article on niche subgenre, the NHL first came to know about its popularity through books. In the world of romance novels, hockey romance is a booming business, propelled mainly by BookTok, a section of TikTok dedicated to book influencing.

These hockey romance books get adapted for the screen, as Heated Rivalry and Off Campus did, and that leads many productions to engage with the professional leagues during the development process. The NHL knew about Off Campus, which uses its team names the Boston Bruins and the New York Rangers throughout the series. Heated Rivalry, however, opted to go another path.

Mayer says the team is now “really close†with Tierney, but noted that he and his producing partner Brendan Brady didn't approach the league before the show aired. “They wanted to make an authentic story to the book. Yes, there's NHL in the book, but they wanted to do their own thing. We respect that. We truly do,†the executive says. In Heated Rivalry, the television show, the men's professional league was rebranded the MLH.

The executive says they know of another project coming from Netflix, seemingly pointing to the recently announced adaptation of Hannah Grace's viral novel Icebreaker. “Everybody's trying to get into the hockey space,†says Mayer. “There's going to be many more. I'm telling you, we're getting pitched left and right.â€

The NHL knows that they're witnessing a phenomenon unfold in front of their eyes, and they're welcoming it. “Heated Rivalry started the wave, and the waves just keep going. Off Campus is incredible as well,†says Mayer. He believes this shows that the momentum is there.

But as new fans pour in, the spotlight moves away from how to get fans in and the reality of keeping those fans, particularly queer fans. In 2023, the NHL banned the use of pride tape, along with pride jerseys and other speciality jerseys worn during games and warmup. The league later reversed the pride tape decision.

Weinstein pushes back when asked about how the league plans to keep these fans that are coming from a queer series given the league's history, asserting the “perception and reality don't match†on the topic.

Fans of Reid's books know that season two could pose a tricky position for the NHL, who is ready to go “all in†on the new season. In The Long Game, Shane Hollander (Williams) and Ilya Rozanov (Storrie) have finally leapt from situationship to relationship, and the book's main tension shifts to the emotional tole of hiding a serious relationship and the fictional league's poor response to their relationship once they are out.

Reid, for all intents and purposes, casts the fictional league's commissioner as the rightful big bad villain of Shane and Ilya's story. The NHL is aware of what's to come, and Weinstein remains unconcerned for the real NHL and its commissioner. “The book is about a fictional character,†he says. “We want every person to feel like they belong in hockey.â€

Mayer does have a thought about that storyline. “There is one burning question that we all had,†he says. “Who will play the commissioner?â€