Two geared-up players line up, hockey sticks at the ready, and in a second, the puck drops, one wins the face off and the brutal game of ice hockey begins. Between all the rough shoves into the boards, bloody broken teeth, head injuries and sledging, though, a romance blooms – between two rival NHL (National Hockey League) teams’ captains in Heated Rivalry and between a college player and his classmate in Off Campus, two hugely popular romances – with the former averaging at 10 million viewers for each of its six episodes and the latter getting 36 million viewers in the first 12 days of release.
Despite the sport itself being unfamiliar to most Indians, unlike in Canada and the US where these shows are set, youngsters here are being drawn to the intensity of the sport juxtaposed by the romance. As Veronica John Bosco, a systems engineer, explains, “Hockey is a rough game, people slam into each other. Getting into fights is common and allowed. We expect men in these sports to be closed off with their emotions. But when they still choose to communicate, it’s rewarding.” In Heated Rivalry, this communication and emotional vulnerability comes after five episodes and seven years of the characters knowing each other. “There’s build up, yearning and no immediate emotional gratification,” adds Ishita Sharma, an 18-year-old student.
A phrase that often comes up is ‘men written by women’. Apart from the obvious, that the Game Changers series was written by Rachel Reid and Off Campus by Elle Kennedy, these male characters have a softness, vulnerability and respectfulness that’s appealing, “They’re portrayed as macho and hyper masculine, but then they’re also softies – these big bad hockey guys in Off Campus change while talking to their girlfriends. There’s that intimacy to them. It’s also there between them as friends.”
this is especially true when things get steamy, with fans pointing out the way both shows tackle consent – Heated Rivalry’s Ilya rozanov constant, gentle, check-ins throughout his first sexual encounter with Shane Hollander and how Off Campus’ Garrett and Hannah navigate sex while the latter is working through past sexual trauma. “A lot of people have shame attached to themselves because of harassment, so they connect with Hannah’s character – going through a similar experience, having difficulty talking about it, being worried about how others would perceive her and also communicating with a partner,” says Sharma.
For most readers, being unfamiliar with the sport is not a hangup. But for others, like 22-year-old student Rohan, the romance has served as a gateway into learning more about the sport and in turn, understanding Heated Rivalry better and what being queer in this world, which still has no openly gay active players, means. “I only understood the gravity of why they could not come out after I did a deep dive on Canadian and American hockey culture – it’s not just hard to be gay, it’s another level, especially when you’re the captain of one of the oldest, legacy teams. It’s like if tomorrow, a cricketer decided to come out.”
With Heated Rivalry and Off Campus’ popularity this year, Kathleen Suzanne George hopes that it trickles down to her other favourite series too, pointing out that since she began reading them in 2021, finding physical copies of books has been difficult. “I’ve had to either import or just not buy some of my favourite books because you simply cannot find them in India. With the shows becoming popular, I hope more of the books also become available,” she says. For those who loved Kennedy and Reid’s breakout series, she shares, “LJ Shen, Stephanie Archer, Avery Keelan have some amazing hockey romances. I’d also recommend The AuPair Affair by Tessa Bailey.”