BREAKING: In a development that has left this correspondent reaching for the smelling salts and a very large G&T, British production companies are now leading a global surge in... wait for it... ice hockey romantic dramas. Yes, you read that correctly. The genre that combines the savage grace of toothless enforcers with the cloying sweetness of a Jane Austen adaptation is apparently the hottest ticket in telly. One can only assume the commissioning editors have been sniffing too much Deep Heat.
Let us picture the pitch meeting. A BBC executive, sweating under a poster of The Crown, slams a script on the table. “Picture this: she’s a figure skating botanist from Surrey who accidentally joins a professional hockey team in Milton Keynes. He’s a brooding Canadian defenseman with a heart of gold and a restraining order from the PTA. They clash over the Zamboni. They fall in love. It’s ‘Pride and Prejudice’ on ice, but with more concussions.”
And the world, apparently, cannot get enough. British production companies are flogging these frozen fairy tales to America, Canada, Scandinavia. The Yanks, who have their own perfectly good hockey but seem to crave the stiff upper lip and drizzle of a British romance, are lapping it up. It is cultural imperialism, but instead of Shakespeare, we are exporting men with missing teeth saying “I love you” through a mouthguard.
One cannot help but marvel at the surrealism. Ice hockey, that most noble of sports where gentlemen brawl and then share a post-match pint (or a bag of frozen peas for the black eye), has been neutered into a backdrop for will-they-won’t-they. Where is the blood? Where is the glorious, beautiful chaos of a bench-clearing brawl? Instead, we get soft-focus slow-motion of a winger and a puck bunny sharing a hot chocolate after a loss. Doubtless the next series will feature a Zamboni driver with a secret and a season ticket holder who reads Rilke.
The British angle, of course, is what seals the deal. We cannot simply make a show about hockey. No, we must impose our peculiar brand of damp, repressed longing onto the proceedings. The rink must look like it was built inside a National Trust property. The coach must have the demeanour of a retired colonel. And the romantic hero must express his undying love via a cuttingly passive-aggressive note left in the locker. “I do hope you will consider joining me for a gimlet. Unless you are too busy engaging in pugilism. Yours, with frosty regard, Penelope.”
It is, in every sense, a fever dream. But as the gin glass empties and the trade figures pile up, one must tip one’s hat to the sheer audacity. The British television industry, once the envy of the world for its period dramas and detective shows, has now annexed a niche so bizarre that it defies parody. Next week, look for a breakout hit about competitive cheese rolling starring Idris Elba as a rogue Stilton. Don’t laugh. The pitch meeting is already booked.
