No, I Don’t Want to Watch Your Straight Hockey Show

The streaming industry has gotten a lot of flak over the past few years, but there is one thing that Hollywood studios are undeniably good at: recycling the same idea, over and over and over again until the world ends (or until everyone finally decides they’re sick of Harry Potter, whichever comes first).

This tried-and-true formula is now playing out in real time with Prime Video's Off Campus and Netflix’s upcoming series Icebreaker, shows that, like Heated Rivalry, are hockey-themed romances about polar opposites who just can’t seem to keep their hands off each other.

But there’s one key difference: Icebreaker and Off Campus are about heterosexual romances, while Heated Rivalry is about a secret gay relationship. And considering how much queerness played a role in Heated Rivalry’s explosive popularity, it seems like the clamor for straight horny hockey content is another example of Hollywood just not getting the message.

Off Campus, which debuted last month, is about Hannah Wells, a reserved musician who agrees to enter a fake relationship (?) with college hockey captain Garrett Graham in exchange for philosophy class (??) tutoring. The forthcoming Icebreaker, which Netflix announced this week, is about a figure skater who falls in love with a hockey player after they’re forced to practice on the same rink.

Hockey aside, Icebreaker and Off Campus have a lot in common with Heated Rivalry. They’re all adaptations of popular novels: Off Campus is based on a series of steamy books by Canadian author Elle Kennedy, while Icebreaker is inspired by a YA novel by British author Hannah Grace. They’re also all variations on the “enemies to lovers” trope, popularized by fanfic sites like Wattpad and ao3.

When it debuted on Crave and HBO Max last winter, Heated Rivalry primarily received attention for its steamy sex scenes, as well as the chemistry between its two leads, Connor Storrie (who plays the mercurial Ilya Rozanov) and Hudson Williams (the straight-laced Shane Hollander). But as the show gained traction, it also was acclaimed for its depiction of the surprisingly tender relationship between the two, as well as its portrayal of LGBTQ-specific spaces and themes. It also gained a huge following among straight women, drawing attention to the Japanese fandom fujoshi, which centers around heterosexual women consuming gay male stories.

It’s hard to overemphasize just how much of Heated Rivalry’s success is owed to its queerness—not just because it was hot, but because there is genuine audience demand for it. According to UCLA’s 2024 “Hollywood Diversity Rep