The NHL Needs a Cold Shower After Failed Romance Audiobooks

I live two blocks from an independent bookstore in Chicago, and its romance section keeps growing. Every few weeks, a new themed table pops up, and hockey romance has claimed serious shelf space. Heated Rivalry sits right there among the newcomers.

The NHL noticed, too. This fall, the league tried to cash in on the boom with a series of romance-style audiobooks. A week later, they were gone.

Hot for Hockey: The NHL's Brief Foray Into Romance

"Hot for Hockey" launched on Spotify the week the 2026-27 NHL season opened. The league hired hockey romance authors to turn real NHL news into 30- to 90-second audio stories told in the genre's style. Seven installments featured six real players, including Connor McDavid, Jack Eichel, and Trevor Zegras. Front Office Sports reported that the stories didn't depict any actual romance between players but leaned hard on breathy language and dramatic production.

The timing made sense. Heated Rivalry, the Crave and HBO Max series based on Rachel Reid's novels, pulled waves of new viewers toward hockey. Commissioner Gary Bettman called the genre a "cultural phenomenon" and said the data on new fans who found the sport through Heated Rivalry or Off Campus was "overwhelming."

The reaction was less overwhelming. Fans on social media voiced confusion and concern for player privacy, and the series averaged 2.4 stars on Spotify. Melissa Burgess of The IX Sports told The Associated Press that the league misunderstood its audience: "They're not looking for the hockey, they're looking for the romance."

Less than a week after launch, the episodes disappeared from Spotify. The NHL says that was always the plan, calling the stories a limited-time, "start-of-the-season concept" built for opening week. There's one wrinkle: Front Office Sports noted that the campaign's announcement promised stories "throughout the season." The league declined to explain why it pulled the episodes entirely. Planned sunset or quiet retreat, nobody is asking for Season 2.

The NHL Has Been Here Before

The league has a long history of trying almost anything to compete with the NFL, NBA, and MLB for American attention.

Exhibit A is the Guardian Project. In 2010, the NHL partnered with Stan Lee to create 30 superheroes, one for each team, aimed squarely at tween boys. The rollout plan included comics, games, mobile apps, merchandise, and broadcast tie-ins. The heroes debuted at the 2011 All-Star Game, then faded without becoming the franchise anyone promised. Good luck finding the comics today.

Exhibit B came from the league's TV partner. In 1996, Fox introduced FoxTrax, a puck stuffed with infrared emitters that glowed on screen and left a streak on hard shots. The idea was to help new viewers follow the puck. Plenty of longtime fans, especially in Canada, hated it. FoxTrax disappeared after the 1997-98 season, a year before Fox's NHL broadcasting deal expired.

When the NHL Got It Right: The Winter Classic

Give the league credit where it's due. The Winter Classic might be the best idea the NHL has ever had.

The first game, on Jan. 1, 2008, drew 71,217 fans to the Buffalo Bills' stadium, an NHL record at the time, and Sidney Crosby won it in a shootout. The 2009 edition brought the Blackhawks and Red Wings, two Original Six rivals, to Wrigley Field. By 2011, the game drew 4.5 million viewers on NBC, according to Sports Media Watch, the most for a regular-season NHL game since 1975.

The shine has faded. After moving to cable, the 2023 game at Fenway Park averaged 1.8 million viewers on TNT, a regular-season cable record. But the 2026 game in Miami drew about 978,000 viewers across TNT and truTV, according to Awful Announcing, the second straight year under 1 million.

Still, the event has lasted nearly two decades, and the formula is clear. The Winter Classic sells hockey itself: frozen breath, iconic stadiums, and the pond-hockey nostalgia baked into the sport. It doesn't ask fans to care about anything beyond the game.

Does the NHL Understand Its New Fans?

I'm not the best judge of romance's pull as a genre. When I'm reviewing books for The Quill to Live, I lean toward epic fantasy, where romance is a subplot, not the main event. But I don't need to be a romance devotee to see the gap Burgess described.

Readers love hockey romance for the slow burn, the banter, and the characters. Hot for Hockey stripped all of that out and kept the hockey, the one part the audience can already get by watching a game. The NHL confused interest in hockey-themed entertainment with interest in the sport.

That isn't the whole story, though. Bettman says the new fans are real, and last spring's playoff ratings suggest hockey is reaching a broader audience. At one point, female viewership was up 66% on TNT and 106% on ESPN, per the AP. The league is right to chase them. It's already moved on to other efforts, including its "Hockey Hits Different" celebrity campaign.

The NHL deserves credit for swinging. Some of its ideas sound better in a boardroom than on Spotify. When it sells what makes hockey special, as it did with the Winter Classic, it gives new fans a reason to stay.