The popularity of hockey romance in not only this country, but North America at large, even parts of Europe, it’s unmistakable,” said Sean Eggert, the National Hockey League’s chief marketing officer. Capitalizing on a booming literary subculture that has introduced millions of new, predominantly female readers to the sport, the NHL has rolled out an unconventional marketing campaign for the 2026–27 season titled “Hot for Hockey.”
Driven by the mainstream crossover success of romance novels and on-screen adaptations like Heated Rivalry and Off Campus over the past year, the league is leaning directly into the demographic shift. Following limited merchandise and content tests by select franchises last season, the NHL’s central marketing arm has deployed a multi-platform strategy designed to engage fans of sports romance through tailored storytelling and influencer partnerships.
At the center of the campaign are short-form audio stories distributed across major audiobook platforms throughout the regular season. Rather than depicting romantic entanglements between actual players, these 60-to-90-second vignettes present real-life NHL storylines utilizing the stylistic tone and dramatic flair of the romance genre. The league contracted established hockey romance authors to write and narrate the pieces, which conclude by directing listeners toward upcoming matchups to watch the real athletic narratives unfold on the ice.
Audiobook Short Stories Feature Eichel and Aho
The initial phase of the rollout kicked off with two spotlight installments. “Jack of Hearts” centers on Vegas Golden Knights center Jack Eichel, while “The Storm Between Us” focuses on Carolina Hurricanes center Sebastian Aho. While the narrative framing playfully nods to romance tropes, the league maintains strict adherence to real-world athlete profiles without fabricating personal relationships.
“This is an audience that picks up this tonality in a really meaningful way and is going to have a younger cohort lean in and start to share and hopefully take action,” Eggert said regarding the linguistic and stylistic choices of the campaign. “I think everything that we’re trying to do is to evoke an emotion and a reaction from a consumer in a positive way to attend and watch.”
BookTok Creators and Market Demographics
To amplify the audio releases, the NHL is enlisting prominent creators from the literary-focused corner of TikTok, commonly known as BookTok, to distribute the content to established reading communities. Market research underpins the strategic pivot: data from Circana indicated that 51 million print romance books were sold during the 12 months leading up to June 2025, cementing sports romance as one of the publishing sector’s most aggressive growth areas.
According to figures provided by league leadership, hockey stands out as the single most popular sport within the broader sports romance category by a wide margin. That literary sub-genre pulls in approximately 16 million downloads annually across audiobook and digital channels, creating a massive pipeline of engaged consumers that the league hopes to convert into live game viewers and merchandise buyers.
Expansion of Romance-Themed Club Marketing Across North America
The league-wide effort follows a trail blazed by individual franchises that tested romance-themed retail and digital content during previous hockey calendars. By formalizing the approach with professional authors and high-profile players, the NHL aims to institutionalize the crossover between fiction fandom and live sports consumption on a continental scale.
As the 2026–27 campaign progresses, additional audio installments written by contracted genre authors are scheduled for release on audiobook platforms, backed by ongoing promotional pushes across BookTok and league broadcasts designed to measure audience conversion rates heading deeper into the schedule.
