NHL’s ‘Heated Rivalry’ Offseason Dilemma: How to Seize Hockey’s Pop Culture Moment
Hockey, yes, the love of hockey, is booming.
Top song by Canadian broadcaster Crave Hot Competition – one of the most talked about shows last year – became a pop culture phenomenon. The love game of queer hockey not only took off the social media in late 2025, it made confirmed stars out of the then unknown players, Hudson Williams and Connor Storrie and the source, a series of novels by Rachel Reid, which became best sellers years after its release. The show created by Jacob Tierney became nomination television, a rarity in the age of broadcasting.
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Romance readers are probably not surprised – this small niche genre is thought to be a thriving industry of its kind. Many months after the breakup, Hot Competition adds to its parent company’s bottom line, as News Corp CEO Robert Thomson told analysts on May 7, “We continue to see growing interest in Rachel Reid’s. Hot Competition in print and digital, even in countries where ice hockey is not a common sport.”
Currently, Off campusthe latest hockey show to air, has also become a favorite on Prime Video in the month since its release. The show, based on a series of books by Elle Kennedy, had been in development for years, and like Reid’s novels, had a pre-show following of loyal fans. It quickly became the broadcaster’s third largest debut.
The growing love of hockey has given the sport something that football and basketball have long had – a true pop culture moment. That’s not to say hockey has never been pop culture – The Mighty Ducks, of course, can’t be ignored. But Hot Competitionthe release came at the right time for the hockey game, too Off campus he continued to cement its place. Now the question is how the National Hockey League, and the Professional Women’s Hockey League, plan to make money right now. The NHL, however, should be aware of that Hot Competition will be very mild in its fictional league in the second season. But more on that later.
Social media, especially TikTok, had already begun to infiltrate professional hockey players in the NHL and PWHL there. Hot Competition started. There was, and still is, a lot of fandom-style TikTok targeting young NHL talent — San Jose Sharks players Macklin Celebrini and Will Smith each boast a large following of young women on social media — making the words “boy aquarium” almost unavoidable on the app. The Olympics were just around the corner and they paid off for the US men’s and women’s hockey teams, as both took home the gold.
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“Sometimes the stars need to align,” NHL chief communications officer and senior EVP Jon Weinstein said. The Hollywood Reporter in the latest Zoom. “Right now, the stars are aligned.”
The official is speaking from Raleigh, North Carolina, in town for the 2026 Stanley Cups Finals between the Carolina Hurricanes and Vegas Golden Knights. The Hurricanes will go on to win the series 4-2 in the sixth game last Sunday.
For those working in hockey, there was never any doubt that it would succeed; it was always about finding the right car. “We know that hockey has the potential to reach beyond its traditional audience and attract people. It just takes storytelling and personality and connecting with culture to do that,” said a PWHL representative. THR.
“These games really help make the game feel familiar and accessible and give people permission to get involved with hockey even if they don’t know all the rules or have decades of history with the game,” added the spokesperson.
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For some fans, the PWHL sounded like an easy entry point for a newcomer to the sport. Unlike the NHL, the women’s league is only three years old and still growing. The league added teams in Detroit, Hamilton, Las Vegas and San Jose ahead of the upcoming 2026-2027 season. New fans can get up to speed on all things PWHL with a YouTube series called “PWHL 101” to bring new fans up to speed. PHWL has seen a lot of growth lately, but it’s hard to pin that on a television show given its nascent stage.
Viewership of women’s sports has increased, and the Olympic gold medal game between the US and Canada set a viewership record for the most-watched women’s hockey game ever, according to Nielsen. It reached 5.3 million viewers across the USA Network and Peacock, peaking at 7.7 million viewers during the game’s final minutes.
The NHL has a few things to point to for its recent growth – the 2026 Olympics and its Four Nations Face-Off. The league’s record attendance and ratings for the US Game six of the 2026 Stanley Cup Finals, in which the Hurricanes claimed victory, drew 5.9 million viewers. It was more viewers than any sixth game since 2019.
TNT Sports noted that its viewership among women, who make up the majority of the two Hot Competition‘s and Off campus‘ fans, grew 63 percent year-over-year for their NHL playoffs. The league seems confident that new fans are coming from these directions. “Hot Competition brought new fans to hockey,” said NHL president of content and events Steve Mayer.
The NHL says it aims to bring people to the rink because once there, the league feels confident it will “connect” them and build new, loyal fans. “You never know what it will take to get someone to watch, too Hot Competitionno question, I got a lot of people talking. [It] it made a lot of people curious about hockey,” continued Mayer.
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There is no misunderstanding in either league, however. Hot Competition started this wave on television because of this game, not just sports. “It has a lot to do with the quality of the program, too Hot Competition amazing show. Very well done,” said Mayer.
Hot Competition’popularity began to spill over into other aspects of hockey culture in its early days. Hockey podcasters, of which there are plenty, are starting to take notice, but no one is ahead What Chaos! hosts Pete Blackburn and DJ Bean, along with their producer Shawn DePaz, are very interesting.
“I think I just caught it in my algorithm,” Bean said. This was before the Canadian series had global distribution on HBO, and was slated to air on Bell Media’s Crave. They started the mantra in their show – they just reached November 28, Hot Competitionstart date.
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It should be noted that Tierney himself has appeared on the podcast more than once, which should be a good indication of how they approach the show. Naturally, this collaboration brought new fans to the Bostonians show. “Forget about anything that’s done for our audience. We want to improve the hockey scene,” said Bean.
“It quickly escaped the ban and became something that everyone was watching and everyone was talking about. It had tremendous gravitas,” Blackburn added. “The show itself was one of the best shows we’ve ever seen, and it feels like it’s been taking place all over the world for a month and a half.”
Hot CompetitionPopularity brought the world of hockey romance front and center. Like Tierney, who learned about Reid’s books through a Washington Post A niche subgenre title, NHL first became known for its popularity through literature. In the world of romance novels, hockey romance is a booming business, fueled in particular by BookTok, the section of TikTok dedicated to book inspiration.
These romantic hockey books are adapted for the screen, as Hot Competition again Off campus he did, and that leads to many products having to collaborate with professional teams during the development process. The NHL knew it Off campus, using his team names the Boston Bruins and the New York Rangers throughout the series. Hot Competition, however, he chose to go another way.
Mayer says the team is now “very close” with Tierney, but noted that he and his producing partner Brendan Brady did not approach the league before the show was played. “They wanted to do a true story in the book. Yes, there is NHL in the book, but they wanted to do their own thing. We respect that. We really do,” said the manager. In Heated Rivalry, the television show, the men’s league was renamed MLH.
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The executive says they are aware of another project from Netflix, which seems to point to the recently announced adaptation of the Hannah Grace novel. Icebreaker. “Everybody’s trying to get into the hockey scene,” Mayer said. “There will be many more. I tell you, we will focus left and right.”
The NHL knows they’re seeing an event unfold before their eyes, and they’re embracing it. “Hot Competition he started a wave, and the waves continue. Off campus good again,” said Mayer.” He believes that this shows that the momentum is there.
But as new fans pour in in the middleThe focus is on how to get fans and the fact of keeping those fans, especially the delinquent fans. In 2023, the NHL banned the use of pride tape, as well as pride jerseys and other special jerseys worn during games and warmups. The league later reversed the decision on the pride tape.
Weinstein pushed back when asked how the league plans to keep these fans from the series in light of the league’s history, asserting that “opinion and reality don’t match” on the topic.
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Fans of Reid’s books know that the second season may have a tricky NHL situation, ready to go “all in” with the new season. In The Long GameShane Hollander (Williams) and Ilya Rozanov (Storrie) eventually move out of the situation into a relationship, and the main tension of the book turns to the emotional behavior of hiding a difficult relationship and the negative response of the fantasy league to their relationship once they are out.
Reid, for all intents and purposes, casts the fantasy league commissioner as the right evil villain for Shane and Ilya’s story. The NHL knows what’s coming, and Weinstein remains indifferent to the real NHL and its commissioner. “This book is about a fictional character,” he says. “We want everyone to feel like they belong in hockey.”
Mayer has an idea about that history. He says: “There was one burning question we all had. ‘Who will play the commissioner?’
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