Obsession Is in Session:
Why Everyone Cares About Ice Hockey All of a Sudden

TW: this article discusses rape and sexual assault as part of the storyline of Off Campus.

Something is happening with ice hockey lately. First, Heated Rivalry turned the sport into the internet’s favorite setting for a queer love story, and now Amazon Prime is entering the chat with Off Campus. Somehow, the rink has quietly become one of the coolest cultural backdrops of the year.

Off Campus, which dropped all eight episodes on Prime Video on May 13th, is based on Elle Kennedy's bestselling book series of the same name, starting with the first novel “The Deal’’. Think college hockey, fake dating, emotionally unavailable athletes, chaotic campus energy and the kind of romance tension that basically built an entire corner of BookTok.

The premise is familiar in the best possible way: Hannah Wells, a music major with a sharp tongue and no interest in hockey whatsoever, strikes a fake dating deal with Garrett Graham, Briar University's star center. What follows is exactly what you would expect and somehow still completely gripping. And yet, that’s exactly why it works.The locker rooms, the dorm parties, the oversized jerseys, the almost embarrassing sincerity of wanting someone to choose you. It’s dramatic, a little unrealistic and weirdly comforting at the same time.

Kennedy's books have been a BookTok staple for years, and the adaptation carries that same quality of being deeply comforting while refusing to be boring. It was renewed for a second season before the first one even aired, which tells you everything about the producers’ confidence behind it. 

What stands out most, and what the conversation around the show keeps coming back to, is Garrett. He is attentive, communicative and genuinely interested in what Hannah wants. Consent is not an afterthought in this show. It is part of how the romance is built, woven into the dynamic between the two leads in a way that feels natural rather than performative. At a time when popular culture is still sorting through what it actually wants from male romantic leads, it is genuinely refreshing to watch a hockey player who is neither emotionally unavailable nor defined by his ego. 

And weirdly, that’s what makes Garrett feel more attractive than most fictional love interests right now. Not because he’s mysterious or emotionally unavailable, but because he pays attention. The bar for men has been so historically underground that simple communication suddenly reads as revolutionary television.

The male characters here are not perfect, but they are trying, and they are written with enough interiority to feel real.

It is also worth noting that Hannah's storyline carries significant weight. She is a survivor of rape, and the show handles that with care, allowing her experience to shape her character without making it the only thing she is. The show is not interested in turning her pain into shock value or a dramatic plot device. Instead, it focuses on what it actually means to slowly feel safe around someone again, to regain control over your own boundaries and to experience intimacy on your own terms.

Off Campus also arrives right in the middle of Amazon’s current obsession with turning internet-favorite romance books into streaming shows. Between adaptations like The Love Hypothesis, Every Summer After and the upcoming Elle prequel series, the entire rollout is starting to feel less like traditional television programming and more like someone opened a group chat full of romance readers and approved every single idea.

Romcoms are back, and streaming platforms have clearly done the math on who is watching and what they want. 

The genre spent years being treated as lesser, and now it is becoming one of the most reliably bankable categories on the market. Off Campus is a strong entry into that moment. At the end, it leaves you with the very specific urge to immediately start the next book, rewatch your favorite scenes and briefly consider whether maybe hockey players deserve rights after all.

Let’s just say: we’ll absolutely be tuning in for the next season and you probably should too.

by Lykke Rautenberg

Photo: Instagram / @ellabright__