It’s a sentence that hockey fans probably never thought that they’d read: The NHL is getting into the romance novel business.
With its new ‘Hot for Hockey’ campaign, the NHL appears to be chasing the craze over Heated Rivalry and Off Campus, two recent hit TV series which feature hockey players involved in unlikely romances.
The initiative is being led by Sean Eggert, who left Under Armour to become the league’s new Chief Marketing Officer in May.
Eggert recently told the Sports Business Journal that the league couldn’t hide from growing popularity of the “hockey romance” genre.
“The popularity of hockey romance in not only this country, but North America at large, even parts of Europe, it’s unmistakable,” Eggert said. “You can’t hide from it. And so it’s a great opportunity for us to extend and reflect that culture back in our storytelling.”
The campaign reportedly will feature several 60-to-90-second pieces, written and narrated by popular authors, all based on real-life NHL storylines in the style of romance novels.
Will there be any actual romance involving players?
But while some fans may crave the type of steamy action supplied by Heated Rivalry — both the books and the hit TV series — the Hot for Hockey campaign won’t feature any romance between real-life players.
The first two instalments in the series feature Vegas Golden Knights’ Jack Eichel and Hurricanes’ Sebastian Aho in stories titled Jack of Hearts and The Storm Between Us, respectively.
Is this a smart move by the NHL?
The league is aiming to draw in younger people with the series, hoping to “evoke an emotion” that could help create new fans.
“This is an audience that picks up this tonality in a really meaningful way and is going to have a younger cohort lean in and start to share and hopefully take action,” Eggert said. “I think everything that we’re trying to do is to evoke an emotion and a reaction from a consumer in a positive way to attend and watch.”
The numbers seemingly back this strange move by the NHL, with Eggert saying that hockey is the most popular sport among a growing niche which generates roughly 16 million annual downloads.
According to market research firm Circana, sports romance experienced a triple-digit growth in sales in 2025 while sales of romance books in general have doubled over the past four years.