Move over, Regency ballrooms and vampire love triangles. The new frontier of televised romance is a frost-covered rink somewhere in the frozen north of Canada. Ice hockey romance, a subgenre that barely registered a few years ago, is now the fastest-growing category in romance publishing, and British publishers are leading the charge.
The trend is unmistakable. Novelists like Lucy Score, Liz Tomforde, and Helena Hunting have turned tales of gruff enforcers, quick-skating forwards, and the women who warm their hearts into bestsellers. Last year, sales of hockey romance novels in the UK rose by 45 per cent, outpacing the overall romance market growth of 18 per cent, according to Nielsen BookScan. Publishers are scrambling to sign new authors and adapt existing titles for the screen.
The shift from page to screen is accelerating. in January, the US streaming service Peacock launched a competing adaptation of Score’s Blocked series, following an earlier success with Tomforde’s Mile High. Now, UK-based publishers are racing to position British writers at the centre of this trend.
“The ice hockey romance was always there, but it was an underground thing. Now it’s exploded,” says Alice Carter, editorial director at Headline Eternal, which has three hockey romance series coming next year. “There is something about the controlled violence, the cold arena, and the vulnerability of these characters that feels fresh.”
What is driving this demand? For readers, it is a combination of wish fulfillment and relatability. The hero is often a blue-collar athlete, not a billionaire or a duke. He works hard, gets injured, and struggles with real problems. The heroine is often a student, a journalist, or a nursing assistant, someone plugged into the real economy. The stakes are not life or death but the cost of rent, the fear of being trapped in a small town, the difficulty of keeping a relationship alive amid a gruelling schedule.
“It is not a coincidence that hockey romance took off during a cost-of-living crisis,” says Dr. Fiona Black, a professor of popular culture at the University of Sheffield. “These stories are about ordinary people trying to make ends meet, about love as a comfort in a tough world. That is a very British sentiment, even if the setting is Canada.”
The British connection goes deeper than the plots. UK publishers are now commissioning British-based hockey romance, moving the action from northern Canada to northern England. Avon Books, a HarperCollins imprint, recently acquired a four-book series set in the fictitious Sheffield Sharks of the Elite Ice Hockey League. Headline is developing a series set in a team in the Scottish Highlands. The hero of the first Avon book, a player from Glasgow, works part-time as a mechanic because his hockey salary is not enough.
“We have this idea that hockey is this big-money sport in America, but the reality for most players is that it’s a precarious job,” says Sean Radford, a former professional ice hockey player who now works as a consultant for publishers. “The average salary in the UK League is around £20,000. Guys have to work in the off-season. That is a very relatable story, especially in the regions.”
The trend is also being driven by the perception that hockey players make better romantic leads than footballers. “Footballers are seen as celebrity brats, but hockey players are harder workers, more humble,” says one editor, who declined to be named. “They have the grit and the physicality, but they also have the underdog quality. It is no wonder readers are eating it up.”
The implications for the industry are significant. Romance titles now account for one in every four books sold in the UK, and hockey is the fastest-growing niche. Small presses are springing up just to publish the subgenre. The Romantic Novelists’ Association reported a 60 per cent increase in hockey romance submissions in the past two years.
But the trend is not without its critics. Some readers worry that the genre relies on stereotypes: the hyper-masculine hero with a secret soft side, the strong woman who tames him. Others argue that hockey romance, like any genre, can be formulaic. Yet, for the legions of fans, the appeal is in the certainty. “I know what I am getting,” says Lorraine Taylor, a 32-year-old nurse from Manchester, who runs a hockey romance book club. “A big guy with a heart. A woman who works for a living. A happy ending. That is what I need right now.”
With several major TV adaptations in development and new series hitting the shelves each week, the romance with hockey shows no signs of cooling. British publishers are betting that the trend will stick, turning frozen rinks into the backdrop for the hottest stories on the page and the screen.
