Hockey romance was a small, devoted corner of sports romance for years. Then Hannah Grace's Icebreaker exploded on BookTok in 2022, and suddenly every romance reader wanted a book with a grumpy hockey captain and a bright, sunny woman who didn't know a slapshot from a power play. The subgenre went commercial fast. Here are the books worth your time — from the one that started the craze to the ones that are actually better than the ones that blew up.
The BookTok Gateway
Icebreaker: A Novel — Hannah Grace
Heat: Spicy. Tropes: Grumpy-sunshine, forced proximity, college hockey, figure-skater meets hockey-player. Series: Maple Hills #1.
The book that made hockey romance mainstream. Anastasia "Stassie" Allen is a figure skater chasing an Olympic shot; Nathan "Nate" Hawkins is the captain of the UC Maple Hills Titans hockey team. When the figure skaters' ice time gets disrupted and they're forced to share the rink with the hockey team, Nate and Stassie end up grudgingly working together — and then sharing a hotel room on a trip, and then falling for each other. Is it the best-written hockey romance? Honestly, no. Is it the right gateway because it's accessible, low-stakes, and leans hard into the trope? Absolutely. Start here, then read everything else.
Wildfire — Hannah Grace
Heat: Spicy. Tropes: Forced proximity, one-night-stand-turned-real, summer camp, forbidden (no-fraternization rule). Series: Maple Hills #2.
Russ Callaghan plays hockey at Maple Hills with Nate. Aurora Roberts has a reckless streak and a complicated father. They have a one-night stand at an end-of-year hockey-house party — then bump into each other on day one of the same summer camp where they've both signed up to escape their families. They can't fraternize without losing the job. They fraternize anyway. Heads-up: Wildfire is set almost entirely at summer camp, so despite Russ being a Maple Hills player, the hockey content is minimal. Read it for the chemistry and the daddy-issues healing arc, not for rink scenes.
The Actually-Better Recommendations
The Deal — Elle Kennedy
Heat: Spicy. Tropes: Fake-dating-to-real, tutor-student, college hockey. Series: Off-Campus #1.
Elle Kennedy was writing hockey romance a decade before BookTok discovered it. Hannah Wells is a music major at Briar University; Garrett Graham is the captain of the hockey team whose GPA is in trouble after he fails the Philosophical Ethics midterm Hannah aced. Garrett needs her to tutor him so he can stay on the team. The deal: he'll fake-date her to make her crush — a transfer football player named Justin — jealous, and in exchange she'll get him through Ethics. They fall for each other; he has to convince her the guy she actually wants is him. Content note: Hannah is a sexual-assault survivor and her backstory is handled with care but is not background flavor. Bonus: Amazon Prime's TV adaptation is set to release in 2026.
Pucked — Helena Hunting
Heat: Spicy. Tropes: Manwhore-meets-good-girl, pro hockey, opposites attract. Series: Pucked #1.
The hockey romance series that's been quietly building a massive backlist since 2015 — fifteen-plus books across the Pucked universe, including spinoffs Pucked Off, Pucked Up, Pucked Over, Forever Pucked, and the Shacking Up offshoots. Pro NHL star Alex Waters has a reputation for being a tongue-tied disaster around women. Violet Hall doesn't filter anything she thinks. Their meet-cute is a wedding. Helena Hunting writes the funniest dialogue in the subgenre and her hockey series has the most "completed" feel of any list here — start with Pucked and you have a year of reading ahead.
Pucking Around — Emily Rath
Heat: Very spicy. Tropes: Why-choose, polyamorous, pro hockey, workplace. Series: Jacksonville Rays #1.
The why-choose hockey romance that exploded on TikTok in 2023. Rachel Price is a sports medicine fellow newly assigned to the Jacksonville Rays, the NHL's hottest new expansion team. She had a one-night stand with a stranger named "Jake" two months earlier — turns out he's Jake Compton, the team's playboy grinder, who doesn't recognize her. She also gets tangled up with the team's surly equipment manager, Caleb, and Ilya Rasmussen, the superstitious goalie who decides she's his good-luck charm. Rachel doesn't have to choose. She doesn't choose. Rath's polyamorous structure is genuine — the book ends as an MMFM relationship, not a reverse harem with an obvious endgame. (Read the prequel novella That One Night first.)
Pipe Dreams — Sarina Bowen
Heat: Steamy. Tropes: Second chance, single dad, widower, pro hockey, workplace. Series: Brooklyn Bruisers #3.
Sarina Bowen writes the emotionally richest hockey romances being published. Less spicy than Elle Kennedy, less viral than Hannah Grace, but the best character work. Lauren Williams is the assistant to Nate Kattenberger, the billionaire owner of the Brooklyn Bruisers — she's office staff, not press. She and Mike Beacon, the Bruisers' goalie, were briefly together years ago when he separated from his wife, and then he ghosted her without explanation. Now Mike is a widower with a teenage daughter, Lauren has been pulled back to the Bruisers' Brooklyn office during the play-offs to cover for an injured colleague, and Mike sees one last chance to make things right. It's a quieter, more grown-up hockey romance than most.
The MM Hockey Romance
Heated Rivalry — Rachel Reid
Heat: Spicy. Tropes: Enemies-to-lovers, rivals, closeted athletes, secret relationship, pro hockey. Series: Game Misconduct #2 (reads as a standalone; sequel is The Long Game).
The MM hockey romance everyone is talking about — Rachel Reid is the undisputed queen of queer pro-hockey romance. Shane Hollander is the clean-cut captain of the Montréal franchise. Ilya Rozanov is the Russian-born star of their biggest rival. They hate each other in interviews and hook up in hotel rooms after every game they play against each other. The "rivals who can't stand each other on the ice but sleep together off it" tension is the whole book and it works. The sequel The Long Game picks up years later and is the emotional payoff. Apple TV+ is adapting Heated Rivalry as a series — making this the right time to read.
Him — Sarina Bowen & Elle Kennedy
Heat: Spicy. Tropes: Friends-to-lovers, bisexual awakening, college hockey. Series: Him #1 (sequel: Us).
If you want the college-hockey equivalent of Heated Rivalry, this is it. Wes and Jamie were best friends and hockey teammates at summer camp until something happened the last summer they were there and they never spoke again. Now they're meeting again at the Frozen Four. Co-written by two of the biggest names in hockey romance — Bowen and Kennedy — and a popular gateway for MF readers trying MM for the first time.
The Newer BookTok Favorites
Behind the Net — Stephanie Archer
Heat: Spicy. Tropes: Grumpy-sunshine, second-chance crush, live-in assistant, forced proximity, fake dating. Series: Vancouver Storm #1.
Pippa Hartley is a singer-songwriter rebuilding after her music-industry boyfriend dumped her and crushed her confidence. Through a chaotic series of events she becomes the live-in personal assistant to Jamie Streicher — the grouchy, intimidating new goalie of the Vancouver Storm, and the guy she had a massive crush on in high school (which he absolutely remembers). He pretends to be her boyfriend to make her ex regret everything. Trope-stacked, very steamy, and the gateway to Archer's Vancouver Storm series (continues with The Fake Out, The Wingman, and more).
What to Expect from the Subgenre
Most hockey romance shares a set of building blocks:
Grumpy athlete, bright love interest. The grumpy-sunshine trope was already popular; hockey just happened to be the perfect vehicle — players are intense, disciplined and emotionally closed-off, and the love interest's job is to crack that open.
College or pro setting. College hockey romance (Elle Kennedy, Hannah Grace, Bowen & Kennedy's Him) is the bigger corner by reader count. Pro hockey (Sarina Bowen's Bruisers, Emily Rath's Rays, Helena Hunting's Pucked, Rachel Reid's Game Misconduct, Stephanie Archer's Storm) is more plot-driven and tends to skew older.
Forced proximity. Roommates, tutoring, fake dating, live-in assistants, stuck in a cabin, stuck sharing a hotel room. Hockey romance leans on forced proximity more than almost any other subgenre.
Found family. Teams are families. Every hockey romance has a supporting cast of teammates who eventually get their own books — which is why the subgenre produces the longest series in romance.
Where to Start by Reader Type
For the BookTok phenomenon: Icebreaker by Hannah Grace.
For sharp writing and the genre's foundational text: The Deal by Elle Kennedy.
For emotional depth: Pipe Dreams by Sarina Bowen.
For a long backlist you can binge: Pucked by Helena Hunting (15+ books in the Pucked universe).
For why-choose / polyamory: Pucking Around by Emily Rath.
For MM hockey: Heated Rivalry by Rachel Reid (pro) or Him by Sarina Bowen & Elle Kennedy (college).
For trope-stacked steam: Behind the Net by Stephanie Archer.
Frequently Asked Questions
What makes Icebreaker different from older hockey romance?
Icebreaker isn't structurally different from earlier hockey romance — Elle Kennedy and Sarina Bowen were writing the same template years before. What Icebreaker had was timing. It dropped just as BookTok was building, the cover art was perfect for TikTok, and Hannah Grace leaned into the trope checklist (grumpy-sunshine, forced proximity, "he falls first") more shamelessly than older books did. The result was the subgenre's mainstream moment.
Is there a reading order for hockey romance series?
Each book in most hockey-romance series stands alone — the romantic leads change with every book, and the previous couple usually appears in a supporting role. You can start a series at book #1 or jump in wherever the trope you want lives. The exception is Rachel Reid's Heated Rivalry and its sequel The Long Game, which are the same couple's story across two books — read in order.
Are hockey romance books spicy?
Almost always. The subgenre skews "spicy" to "very spicy" — Pucking Around, the Pucked series, and Stephanie Archer's books are at the higher end; Sarina Bowen's Brooklyn Bruisers and Bowen & Kennedy's Him are mid-spice; Elle Kennedy's Off-Campus is consistently spicy without being over the top.
Do you have to know anything about hockey to read these?
No. None of these books expect any hockey knowledge. The sport is the texture and the schedule that drives the plot — practices, road trips, play-offs — but the romance is the engine. If you've never watched a game in your life, you'll be fine.