My bedside table is piled high with books I want to read, some of which have been there for months, so…why do I find myself letting my fifth gay hockey romance so far this year jump the queue? Sports have been taking over the romance world for a few years, and the same is true when it comes to queer romance, with recent hits tackling everything from soccer to track to rowing to NASCAR. None has been as popular as hockey, though, even before Crave’s televised take on Rachel Reid’s Heated Rivalry became the biggest pop culture story of Winter 2026. It’s hard not to wonder why this particular milieu has become such a phenomenon, especially given how exclusionary these spaces have traditionally been to queer people. What keeps drawing us back in? And why hockey, of all sports? Well, I have some thoughts…

First of all, I think the exclusion is a feature, not a bug. There’s something deeply transgressive about queering a professional sports locker room, much less a hockey locker room, seen as such a bastion of (usually white) hypermasculinity. It creates the ultimate triumphant coming out narrative: gay love overcoming the team, the fans, the press, and the owners, forcing them to accept us. It’s no coincidence then that in most of these books, the hockey player (or players – more on that in a minute) are superstars, players whose talent cannot be denied despite their sexuality, because the team needs them: in Game Changer, the first book in Reid’s Game Changers series that also spawned Heated Rivalry, Scott Hunter is the superstar captain of the New York Admirals; in Heated Rivalry, Shane Hollander and Ilya Rozanov are two of the biggest players (and rivals) in the league; in Reid’s standalone book Time to Shine, Casey Hicks is the biggest player in Calgary; and in Tal Bauer’s Gravity, Bryce Michel is widely considered the league’s top player. This isn’t unique to books about professional hockey, either – Sarina Bowen and Elle Kennedy’s Him features Jamie Canning and Ryan Wesley, two former friends and college superstars on opposing teams, and even Ngozi Ukazu’s webcomic Check, Please! is about Bitty, the petite, anxiety-baking unlikely star of the national champion Samwell Falcons (Go Falcs!) and team captain/future NHL star Jack. Even the retired players, like Adam in Reid’s recent The Shots You Take, are kind of a big deal. To me, some of the most interesting narratives in this subgenre actually come from the players that aren’t “good enough” to get away with coming out while playing, like Riley in The Shots You Take or Ryan in Tough Guy, the third Game Changers book. Is love or living a life that is true to yourself worth sacrificing a very lucrative career, which for many of these gents is the only source of family, friends, and income they’ve ever known? 

All of the pressures of fame and fortune are compounded by the stress of hiding who you are, leading to a lot of another running theme in not only gay hockey romances, but gay romance as a whole: anxiety disorders. Often there’s a mysterious incident (read: public breakdown) in one of our gent’s pasts that’s hinted at for two-thirds of the book, like with Ryan in Tough Guy, Riley in The Shots You Take, or Jack in Check, Please! It might feel unusual for a breezy romance novel to devote pages on end to describing panic attacks or compulsions or SSRI-induced erectile dysfunction, but by and large I’ve found that these authors treat their characters’ mental health with remarkable sensitivity. In turn, mental health adds an earned if unfortunate layer of realism to what could easily come off as wish fulfillment fantasies. 

And there of course is an aspect of wish fulfillment to all of these books. They idolize a certain type of stereotypically masculine body, the tall, muscled, often furry and rugged, testosterone-fueled manly man, who also happens to be passionate, talented, and usually rich. For the love interests in these books, the greatest stressor is often impostor syndrome, wondering if they’re worthy of someone so hot and beloved and rich. They aren’t really allowed to have flaws, otherwise the reader might start to agree that they aren’t worthy of the perfect Adonis on the rink. This runs the risk of the love interest feeling like a bit of a cipher, which is why I think so many authors pursue the extra transgression of romance between two hockey players. With the exception of Heated Rivalry (and her standalone books Time to Shine and The Shots You Take), Rachel Reid has navigated “non-famous” love interests deftly, often giving these guys an academic interest or more introspective talent of their own to serve as a reflection of the stereotype of the brainless meathead. Game Changer’s Kip is a twunk with dreams of an M.A. in history; Tough Guy’s Fabian is a singer and multi-instrumentalist, whose music leaves his audiences and Ryan stunned; Common Goal’s Kyle is pursuing an M.A. in art history, with a passion for ancient art that piques goalie and art collector Eric’s interest. Even in Heated Rivalry, Shane is the quiet and bookish flip side of Ilya’s loud extrovert. Reid also uses these men to explore fetishes and different ways of being gay, like Ryan in Tough Guy, who loves Fabian’s femininity, makeup, and genderfluid clothing; or Kyle in Common Goal, who is initially attracted to Eric due to his age and more seasoned appearance. Bauer’s Gravity takes a similar tack to the romance between two hockey players, with Bryce the longtime superstar whose poster Hunter had on his wall as a teenager, before becoming an NHL player in his own right.

There is also wish fulfillment aplenty in the form of a utopianism that shows up in almost all of these books. Coming out may be a huge source of stress and conflict, but when push comes to shove these are romance novels. Usually the team is on board, and any players or family members that aren’t are dealt with quickly. The team is a found family, and the found family always supports their own. In the instances where the team doesn’t form this support structure – Tough Guy and The Shots You Take come to mind immediately – a more traditional family structure or a tight queer friend group are always there to pick up the pieces. Because yes, these books are lighthearted and full of romance tropes and at their heart are about beefcakes falling in love and having very (sometimes very, very, very) spicy times, no matter how much time they devote to anxiety and coming out, and these authors know that corporate Pride is fickle but found family is forever. 

Books discussed:
Check, Please! by Ngozi Ukazu, 2013-2017 (returning in 2026) 
The Him series by Sarina Bowen and Elle Kennedy, 2015-2020
The Game Changers series by Rachel Reid, 2018-2022 (returning in 2027) 
Gravity by Tal Bauer, 2022
Time to Shine by Rachel Reid, 2023
The Shots You Take by Rachel Reid, 2025

What are your favorite gay sports romances, hockey or otherwise? Are there any other tropes and themes that stand out to you?

You can find more of my reviews and musings on the Oscars here on The Avocado, and on Letterboxd.