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Flyers star Trevor Zegras over a romance novel
The NHL is one of many leagues that are constantly dreaming up ways to expand their fan base. It recently attempted to court people who’ve been exposed to hockey through Heated Rivalry and similar works in the romance genre, but a campaign featuring short stories involving real players disappeared from the internet less than a week after it was launched.
The NFL is the only one of the “Big Four” sports leagues that can really claim any sort of parity when it comes to the gender divide of fans who watch and attend games. Around 47% of its audience is female, but men make up more than 60% of the core demographic of the other three members of that quartet.
That includes the NHL, which boasted an approximately 60/40 split between men and women in 2022. However, that gap has started to close in the past couple of years, and there was a significant surge in the number of female viewers who tuned into the Stanley Cup Playoffs last season.
You can’t talk about that increase without discussing the impact of Heated Rivalry, which began as a romance novel that revolves around a relationship between two pro hockey players loosely based on Sidney Crosby and Alex Ovechkin and was turned into a television series that became a smash hit when it was released in 2025.
That is one of many books in that genre featuring hockey (Off-Campus is another that inspired an adaptation that debuted on Amazon Prime Video earlier this year), and the NHL has done what it can to take advantage of a potentially untapped audience that’s become increasingly drawn to the game.
However, it seemingly admitted it missed the mark with a strange strategy it harnessed while ushering in the current season.
The NHL took down its “Hot For Hockey” audiobooks after announcing it would release more over the course of the season
Last week, the NHL unveiled a promotion dubbed “Hot For Hockey,” which revolved around short audio stories dreamed up by romance authors featuring real, actual players including Connor McDavid, Jack Eichel, and Trevor Zegras (along with Flyers mascot Gritty, because why not?).
i’m sorry who the hell asked for this and who is this convincing to watch the NHL 😭😭😭 https://t.co/IS7mnz19er
— 🍊 (@MCL_71) September 30, 2026
They may not have been as racy as your typical romance novel, but they were filled with a fair amount of innuendo that led to confused reactions from many fans who questioned whether the players at the center of the stories approved them before they were released (a spokesperson for the league asserted they did).
It was slated to be a season-long initiative, but according to Front Office Sports, that will not end up being the case. On Monday, all of the stories were taken down from Spotify, and the league entered the spin zone by asserting they were meant to be a “one-week-only campaign” (which contradicts what was initially reported when the first batch dropped).
Commissioner Gary Bettman gave the stories his seal of approval when they came out, but it sure seems there were some internal regrets when you consider the league is now trying to pretend they never existed. However, the internet never forgets.