Sports are a huge part of how I connect with my dad. He likes Clive Cussler books, the original Hawaii Five-O, and playing golf. I prefer books that aren’t written by a man, the Hawaii Five-O reboot, and playing sports that aren’t a total snoozefest (no offense to my golf lovers out there!). From a young age, though, my dad took me to football, hockey, and baseball games as a way to spend time together. Nashville Predators hockey will always have a special place in my heart, even though I was originally only there for the snacks.
Because I learned to love hockey in particular through family bonding time, I tend to gravitate toward hockey romances more than other sports romances—and let me tell you, there are a lot out there. To help narrow it down for you, I’ve ranked five incredibly popular hockey romance series from from my absolute favorites to the ones I’d be less likely to recommend. As always, this is my personal opinion, so if you happen to love a low-ranked series, we just have different tastes!
For this ranking, I’m considering the romances themselves, how attached I got to the characters and team, the found-family vibes, and—perhaps most importantly—whether there’s enough actual hockey to justify calling it a hockey romance.
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1. The D.C. Stars series by Chelsea Curto. This is my top hockey romance series for a reason! Curto does a wonderful job of portraying women in sports and realistically showing how tough it can be for them to succeed in the male-dominated industry. You really grow to love the team as a found family. These books tackle tough topics like how to start again after a life-altering injury while keeping the banter light and the hockey talk comprehensible. All of the characters are easy to connect with, and the series doesn’t feel like a copy-paste of every other hockey romance series that came before, which I really appreciate. With the sixth book joining the series on August 26th, 2026, there’s even more D.C. Stars to binge!
Best for: Found-family lovers
2. The Vancouver Storm series by Stephanie Archer. I wasn’t crazy about the first book in this series, but the series has only gotten better from there! While a bit predictable (I mean, we read romance for the happily-ever-afters, right?), the female characters feel refreshingly real and the male characters are pretty dreamy. The couple from the second book (especially my girl Hazel) is probably my favorite, but you get to know and love every named member of the team. A big part of what draws readers to sports romances—in my opinion—is the found family aspect, and the Vancouver Storm series kills that.
Best for: Romance-first readers
3. The Off-Campus series by Elle Kennedy. This has absolutely blown up after the masterpiece that is the Off Campus TV series on Prime Video . I think the books are cheesy for sure, but the series is a must-read, simply because it’s one of the OG interconnected standalone sports romance series. If you’re in Off-Campus withdrawal waiting for the second season to come out already, like I am, read the books, especially The Score in preparation for Allie and Dean’s story in season 2.
Best for: College romance fans
4. The Campus Diaries series by Elle Kennedy. This is the sequel series to Off-Campus and follows the children of the original characters (if you read all of the Off-Campus books early on, this will make you feel old). I enjoyed these books, but the characters haven’t stuck with me quite as much as the original Briar U crew. It’s definitely a little freakier than the first series, so if you’re looking for something similar but different, you’ll probably like this spin-off series. It is nice getting to see Garrett Graham, Wellsy, and all of the other characters grown up.
Best for: spicier romance readers
5. The Maple Hills series by Hannah Grace. Icebreaker is arguably one of the books that helped launch the recent hockey romance boom into the mainstream.. I wasn’t crazy about it, honestly. It felt like a lot more lust than love, and even though I’ll always enjoy the vibes of a sports romance, I couldn’t really see past that. Out of principle, I read the second book, Wildfire, and I liked that one a lot more! I’ve heard that the third book, Daydream, is the best of the three, but I haven’t gotten around to reading it yet. Icebreaker is also being adapted into a Netflix series, with Alex Cooper’s Unwell Productions involved, so I’ll definitely be keeping an eye out for that!
Best for: a hockey romance series that doesn’t focus too much on hockey
Honorable mention: the Windy City series by Liz Tomforde. As much as I love this series, I can’t in good conscience call that a hockey-romance series because only two of the five books are about hockey players (and I didn’t like one of them very much). If you’re a baseball fan especially, I would highly recommend this! Book 4, Play Along, is one of my top sports romances of all time.
Clearly, I’m missing some other hockey romance series (most notably the Game Changers series of Heated Rivalry fame), but I didn’t want to include any I haven’t actually read yet. The Game Changers series is high on my TBR, though! Are there any hockey romances that you’ve enjoyed that I should read next?
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