Ice hockey crowds are surging — and romance novels might be why

Sunday, 5 July 2026

Ice hockey romance shows are getting people hot under the collar – and interested in the sport. Elsie Williams meets fans of the racy series who are now sitting in the bleachers.

Four girls in puffer jackets are still looking for a seat when the first buzzer sounds.

They squeeze into a spot near the front of the old wooden bleachers at Alpine Ice Sports Centre — Christchurch’s only rink, a well-loved community facility in Opawa.

Their view is occasionally interrupted by families shuffling past with hot chips or a child being urgently redirected to the bathroom. The group behind them had the foresight to bring blankets. The four girls hadn’t.

“Then no one steals your seat,” explains one of the blanket-owners, from the row behind.

Plenty of others have given up on finding a seat altogether, taking up standing spots behind the boards lining the ice.

It’s the final Sunday in June and the Canterbury Red Devils, the region’s men’s ice hockey team, are hosting the Dunedin Thunder. The weekend is almost sold out — and not just with the usual crowd.

Seasoned fans yell at the ref and know every chant, while newer faces aren’t quite sure when to react — except when two players smash into the boards in front of them, at which point most people flinch.

But not University of Canterbury student Grace Sorensen.

“If they rip their gloves off, that’s when you know they’re going to scrap,” she said to her first-timer friend Jessica Beker. “It’s epic.”

She pulls out her phone and shows a photo from earlier this season — she and her friends with their “favourite” Red Devils international import. Before the season started, she’d never been to a game.

Then she watched Heated Rivalry, the queer hockey romance series that became a global streaming hit when it premiered late last year.

Now she goes to every game, or streams them from home if she can’t make it.

Beker has read all six books in the original series and watched the show numerous times, so she “had to see the real deal.”

“I only know my knowledge from the show and books, but these girls hyped it up so much,” Beker said. “It’s pretty cool.”

The Red Devils drew 1127 people across their two games over the weekend — their biggest crowds ever, up more than 70% on their average of 650 last year.

“We’ve seen a big jump in both social media engagement and home game ticket sales,” said team manager Michael Atkinson. “This trend appears to be across the league too.”

Throughout the New Zealand Ice Hockey League’s five teams — two in Auckland, one each in Christchurch, Dunedin and Queenstown — the story is similar.

The catalyst, at least in part, is streaming.

Heated Rivalry was followed by Off Campus, a romantic drama about college hockey players that attracted 36 million viewers on Amazon Prime in its first 12 days, breaking the platform’s viewership records in the 18 to 34 female demographic.

Both were adapted from ice hockey romance novels, a subgenre that has developed a devoted following through TikTok and social media.

ABC News reported that more than 67% of tickets to Canberra Brave games this year were bought by women — a striking shift for a sport that has historically skewed male.

Red Devils director Graham Tappin was quick to credit broader marketing efforts too — better social media presence, in particular — rather than attribute the surge entirely to the shows. But Atkinson was candid: the timing was hard to ignore.

The NZIHL season kicked off in early May, a week before Off Campus hit streaming platforms.

Sorensen remembers the first game, and the small crowd. She guessed she was one of 50 spectators, a far cry from the hundreds last Sunday night.

“It started in May right as Off Campus came out and off the back of Heated Rivalry,” Atkinson said. “It’s a dream scenario. But it’s also the best sport you’ll ever watch live.”

The Red Devils have experience ad similar surge in interest to that experienced in Australia. “It’s pretty incredible for amateur sport,” he said.

New Zealand’s league has also tapped into the sport suddenly gaining a much wider interest.

Book publisher Hachette NZ partnered with the NZIHL on a national giveaway offering tickets and complete sets of Elle Kennedy’s Off Campus books.

But not everyone in the stands needed the shows as an introduction. In the back row, three young women had settled in with blankets after fist-bumping players as they skated on to the ice pre-game.

Jacinta Hoglund, Kaci Jonker and her sister Mya aren’t just fans. All three play — Kaci for the Canterbury Inferno women’s team, also based at Alpine Ice, and Jacinta for the Dunedin Thunder women’s side.

They have noticed the shift in the stands. Getting a good seat used to be easy. These days, it’s not.

“It’s definitely getting bigger, and it’s cool that it’s getting bigger,” Kaci said. But when people find out they play ice hockey, the first thing they ask is whether they’ve seen Heated Rivalry or Off Campus.

“People presume you play because of the shows,” she said.

It was said with a laugh. But there was something underneath it — the quiet pride of someone who has been here all along, watching her sport find its moment.

“It’s pretty cool to see it grow. Hopefully it sticks.”

The Red Devils’ next home games are on July 18 and 19 against the SkyCity Stampede at Alpine Ice, while Canterbury Inferno’s are against Wakatipu Wild are on July 11 and 12.