The ice rink has long been a popular setting in the rapidly growing genre of romance novels—but the hockey-romance subgenre has officially been sent into the stratosphere, thanks to Heated Rivalry becoming an indisputable cultural phenomenon. Now, an even wider audience can’t get enough of love stories that blend ice and spice (like, a lot of spice).
Luckily for hockey romance fans, new and old, entries in the category abound, spanning nearly every other romance trope. In addition to the Rachel Reid-penned book series that serves as source material for Heated Rivalry—which you really must read if you’re a fan of the show—another rinkside series has now hit TV screens, as Prime Video released the first season of an adaptation of Elle Kennedy’s Off Campus series in May 2026. Kennedy's books hit shelves before Reid's Game Changer series and have since sparked a series of spinoffs and standalone sequels, so it's safe to say the hype and proliferation of the subgenre are very real—and have been for years.
