I’m a fantasy/thriller/horror reader mainly. I do dabble in romance occasionally but it’s not really the first genre I’ll pick up. I’ve noticed that a lot of booktubers/booktokers mention if a novel is a “hockey romance” or “baseball/football” romance. I didn’t realize that hockey players were so popular?? And that hockey is specifically the sport that so many people are into when it comes to romance? I’m genuinely curious as to how it got to that point. I could swear there was just a huge scandal about a booktoker and how she overstepped her bounds when it came to a real life hockey player.
by showertaker
3 Comments
My guess is because a hockey player is a good stand in for a typical alpha male. Big, tall, muscular, tough guy….throw in some sweat, good endurance, and a lot of good naughty puns and you’ve got yourself an excellent niche genre.
And yes, there was a recent scandal with a pro team encouraging booktok a little too much and things getting out of hand.
I’m not in booktok, but I have binge read five hockey (queer) romances this year, and they’re amazing. I’m not a huge romance girl myself but the hockay part was amazing. I agree with the first comment.
As a girl who player hockey, I can’t never enjoy these books. All the love interests are the captains of the team and are super skilled, and all the dudes I’ve played with like that don’t have the time to date, or when they do they’re certainly not giving their gf that much attention. Also, the whole thing with the entire team caring about this one gf, also very unrealistic. They’re busy with their own gfs. They might get to know them a little at parties or dinner or something, but the whole genre is very inaccurate and makes me cringe, especially when the parts about the actual sport of hockey are inaccurate.