Most of my hockey romance catalog — more than 40 books across nine series — is co-written with V.L. Locey, and people still ask us why we keep coming back to the same sport. Here's the honest answer.
Proximity does the work for you
Hockey teams are forced closeness, built in. Locker rooms, road trips, billet houses, practice ice at six in the morning — the sport hands you reasons for two men to be in the same room, under pressure, again and again, without the plot having to manufacture excuses. Romance lives or dies on proximity, and hockey hands it to you on a plate.
The stakes are already external
A hockey season has its own built-in tension — standings, trades, injuries, the playoff push — which means the romance doesn't have to carry every ounce of conflict by itself. The external pressure of the sport gives characters something to push against while the relationship quietly becomes the thing that actually matters.
It's a found-family machine
A team is a cast of characters who didn't choose each other and have to become a family anyway. That's most of what found family is built from, and it's a big part of why hockey romance and found-family tropes show up together so often in my catalog — something I go into more in Found Family Tropes in Hockey Romance.
Nine series, one throughline
Every one of my hockey series — Harrisburg Railers, Owatonna U, Arizona Raptors, Chesterford Coyotes, Boston Rebels, LA Storm, Railers Legacy, Rochester Copperheads, and Carlisle — stands completely independent of the others, which I've confirmed directly in the FAQ: are the hockey series connected to each other? Harrisburg Railers, written with V.L. Locey, is the one I've spent the most time in — thirteen numbered books deep, plus novellas and box sets, which I talk about in which series has the most books.
If you're hockey-curious and don't know where to dive in, the Hockey Romance Hub is built to let you filter by series and find your way in, and the full hockey reading order guide walks through every series book by book.