Editor’s note: The following piece talks about TV shows rated TV-MA, indicating content considered unsuitable for people under the age of 17. It also contains light spoilers.
When it comes to TV, I’ve got a sweet tooth. Not for real candy, like chocolate bars or gummy bears, but for eye candy. So when I got to see Garret Graham’s deliciously muscled back, abs and much more within the first five minutes of “Off Campus,” I knew the show was for me.
What can I say? I’m easy, I guess, because the same thing happened to me earlier this year with “Heated Rivalry.” One edit featuring Ilya Rozanov’s and Shane Hollander’s lethal face cards, and I was sat.
These two hockey shows are the latest set of series to have a chokehold on popular culture and young people especially, and should be at the top of your summer watch list if you haven’t seen them. “Heated Rivalry”, an enemies-to-lovers story of two closeted pro hockey players, has averaged 10.6 million views per episode in the U.S. “Off Campus,” the hetero answer to “Heated Rivalry” set on a college campus, became the third most-watched debut on Prime Video ever when the first season dropped in May, and hit 36 million views within two weeks of its release. Both shows have ended up on late-night television, and seem to have boosted the actual sport of hockey, which might be why this year’s Western Conference Final was the most watched since 2015. Among Gen Z, the shows are so prevalent that you could ask almost anyone — especially young women — if they’ve watched them, and they would say, “Oh my god, yes, and…”
Their massive success among our generation raises the question: Why and how have these two hockey shows become so popular with people our age?
Compelling plots and smuttiness certainly help. “Heated Rivalry” tells the story of two closeted hockey players, Ilya Rozanov (Connor Storrie) and Shane Hollander (Hudson Williams), whose flirting bubbles into a rivals-with-benefits agreement they keep secret because of homophobia in Major League Hockey and in Russia, plus worries about acceptance and image. Eventually, it all comes to a head.
“Off Campus” follows Hannah Wells (Ella Bright), a down-on-her-luck music comp major, and Garrett Graham (Belmont Cameli), the star athlete and captain of Briar University’s hockey team, who start a fake relationship — watch to find out why, if you haven’t! — whose boundaries over time begin to crumble as they become real friends who catch real feelings.
The smut in these shows is high — both boast TV-MA ratings, unlike the tamer recent hit, “The Summer I Turned Pretty” — and seems to follow a recent pattern in popular media — think about the spice levels in “Bridgerton,” “Euphoria,” or Emerald Fennell’s “Wuthering Heights.” Some argue “Heated Rivalry” differs from this trend because, while alluring, its sex scenes don’t feel quite as exploitative or overly gratuitous.
The substance of these shows is no slouch, either: There’s real character development, particularly male character development, like Garrett’s apology to an ex-situationship whom he hurt at the beginning of the series. Plus, “Heated Rivalry” was a hot commodity because it portrayed queer love in a historically heteromasculine sport. It was so successful in all these ways — the raunchiness, the bravery, the combined gracefulness and aggression of the sport that works well as a backdrop for a homoerotic romance — that it may have primed audiences for another racy hockey show.
But these shows’ recipes for success have to do with more than nailing the sex appeal and storyline — BookTok and online fan communities also deserve some of the credit. Both shows are adaptations of romance novels: “Heated Rivalry” is based on Rachel Reid’s 2019 “Game Changers” series and “Off Campus” is based on Elle Kennedy’s 2015 series. Before they hit the screen, the books had loyal fan bases, particularly due to the rise of online reading and romance communities, like BookTok and Bookstagram.
In 2015, thousands of loyal fans voted for “The Deal” — the first book of the “Off Campus” series — to win Best Romance in the Goodreads Choice Awards, and although it didn’t win, the fandom continued to grow from that point onward. In 2023, when Kennedy revealed that the “Off Campus” series’ cover art would switch to the now-popular illustrated style (“Game Changers” also underwent this switch), her TikTok video received 100,000 likes and 1,000 comments, revealing just how loyal and curious old and new fans were.
In the case of the “Game Changers” community, the fandom actually began forming before the books were even published: Reid first shared her story on a fanfiction website before sending her manuscript to publishers. Additionally, “Heated Rivalry” got a boost after the books came out because of its popularity on the M/M (shorthand for Male/Male or Man/Man) romance subreddit.
Both shows are part of a larger trend to adapt books that are popular with online communities: Rebecca Yarros’ “Fourth Wing” novel, Ali Hazelwood’s “The Love Hypothesis” and “TSITP” — fangirl shorthand for “The Summer I Turned Pretty” — also fit this mold.
Another reason these shows made it big is simply that participating in the shared ritual of watching creates a sense of community and belonging. What I’m really talking about is our desire to have a monoculture, subconscious as that desire may be. We saw it at the peak of “Game of Thrones,” with “Love Island USA,” and are now seeing it with a shared vocabulary around “yellow haze,” JLO/Maverick couples costumes, and “the cottage.” These instances of common cultural literacy continue to pop up because we like to have shared knowledge and experiences, despite — or maybe because of — our differences.
That’s especially true for our generation, since the era of TV having only three channels is over, and we have to actively engage if we want a shared cultural connection. But once built, that cultural connection is so powerful. By watching one show or movie, you can suddenly feel level with millions of other people. And now, when you start conversations, people don’t feel like strangers. They’re just other fans who squealed at the “Heated Rivalry” water bottle scene.
Book adaptations, gripping plots, and our need for connection are such a successful combination that the only logical question is: What novel-turned-show might sweep us off our feet next? Some likely contenders might be Every Year After or Rivals. Or, of course, the next season of “Heated Rivalry,” set to drop April 2027.
Until then, more people are tuning in to hockey, especially more women and queer folks. And I certainly don’t blame them. What else are we supposed to do while waiting for Dean and Allie’s season?
