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NHL packages game promos as short hockey romances on audiobook platforms
NHL's 'Hot for Hockey' campaign puts 60- to 90-second romance-style stories about its players on audiobook platforms. Romance readers saw within days that the league had borrowed the genre's packaging and left out the part they read it for.
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What happened
- According to Sports Business Journal, the league asked popular hockey romance writers to write and narrate the stories and plans to use BookTok creators to promote them.
- The first batch, released this week and written by Pucking Wrong author C.R. Jane, stars Trevor Zegras, Sebastian Aho and Jack Eichel.
- NHL spokesperson Jon Weinstein called the campaign a playful nod to something clearly going on in the cultural zeitgeist.
- Some romance readers call the stories cheap pandering that ignores female and LGBTQ fans' concerns about homophobia and toxic masculinity in hockey.
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Why it matters
- exposure Players who agreed to 'have a little fun' with the stories now carry the risk, since some readers argue the romance framing makes them targets for sexual harassment.
- contradiction The league says it was proud to partner with real hockey authors while two authors it approached explain in public why they said no, so the genre endorsement it is advertising is partial.
- constraint Neither the league nor the reporting so far has offered listen counts or game viewership tied to the stories to set against the criticism.
A listener who opens The Summer I Turned Gritty with Trevor Zegras gets the entire story in three sentences: "Trevor Zegras came to Philly looking for a fresh start. But after battling with Pittsburgh in the playoffs last year, he found out how gritty things could get. One heated summer later, Philly's pretty boy is looking a whole lot grittier." [7] It runs 41 words [1]. Wired said the batch looks more like a set of back-cover summaries than romance novels [4]. For all the nods to genre tropes, no player gets a romantic partner [5].
The campaign is pitched as hockey romance, and Wired assessed it as a bid to get people to watch the actual games [6]. The stories are written for the league's game audience, and romance readers are the people it hopes to recruit. The plot of the Zegras story is a move to Philadelphia and a playoff series against Pittsburgh [7].
In my view, readers of the genre are paying for the relationships. Emily Rath's Jacksonville Rays series recounts a myriad of sexual relationships involving a fictional NHL team [13]. The league appears to have assumed the packaging would be enough. Rath, a best-selling hockey romance novelist, described that assumption on Threads: "They're just encouraging the idea that women only care about hockey if it's packaged like a romance novel." [11]
The format is easy to copy. A 60- to 90-second story [2] has room for a title pun and a back-cover blurb.
Authors' names were harder for the league to get. Rath said the league approached her: "Yes, the NHL contacted me to participate. And I have never turned down an offer so fast." [8] She said its slide deck was full of jokes she took as mockery of the genre, along with what she alleged were AI cover renders. Chelsea Curto also spotted the AI graphics [10]. Rath described what the authors were there to do: "And they're using popular authors and our credibility to launder their tarnished brand and lure in our readers." [12]
The league's own record came up as well. Lacey Conine, founder of Double Hockey Stix, a clothing brand for underrepresented hockey fans, said she first took the news for satire [18]. "I think that they see dollar signs," she said. She described a league trying "to bring in Heated Rivalry fans" while "canceling Pride Nights" [19]. Commissioner Gary Bettman told reporters earlier this year that "every team does a Pride Night" [20].
A brand courting a fan subculture can sort the idea on two tests before it ships. The first is whether the piece gives that audience what it reads the genre for, as judged by someone who reads it. The second is whether the creators those readers follow will put their names on it. Passing both gets you a collaboration. If the piece delivers but the creators stay away, the content has to win on its own. If the creators sign on to a piece that does not deliver, the result is an advertisement carrying their names. The NHL's first batch has no couple [5] and one author writing it [3], while at least two others refused in public [8][9]. Many hockey romance fans applauded those refusals [21].
What to watch
- Whether later Hot for Hockey batches pair players with romantic partners or run longer than a back-cover blurb.
- Whether the NHL releases listen counts or ties any rise in game viewership to the stories.
- Whether the BookTok creators Sports Business Journal said the league would tap actually post the stories, and whether more genre authors join Rath and Curto in refusing.