Booktok and Australian Ice Hockey League in unlikely romance
They may seem like an odd pairing – but Australia’s romance book fans and its semi-professional ice hockey league have formed an alliance which has seen crowds triple. Here’s how this unlikely love story unfolded.
Hills Shire
Don't miss out on the headlines from Hills Shire. Followed categories will be added to My News.
An unlikely love story is unfolding between Australia’s semi-professional ice hockey league and the country’s steamy romance readers – which is seeing women flocking to the under-the-radar sport and blowing up their crowds.
Once upon a time, romance novels were derided as mum porn – unserious works that you couldn’t read in public on a train or at a cafe because Fabio had his shirt off on the cover.
But a new generation of romance authors and their fans have turned the tables and created Booktok – a powerhouse community on TikTok where independent authors can become superstars and steamy, spicy books are celebrated out in the open.
And in the most unexpected way, this passionate, highly active online community has boosted ice hockey – a lesser known sport in Australia – so much that some crowds have more than tripled.
Among the many tropes and subgenres is sports romance – and hockey romance is the highest selling subcategory.
Eventually, North America’s National Hockey League started to see the opportunities presented by engaging with their avid Booktok fans and started doing videos directly geared to the spicy novel enthusiasts.
It started out as shirtless hockey players in the locker room – suave hockey players walking in slow motion past the camera in their suits – hockey players stretching their hip flexors on their hands and knees – but author Emily Rath said the Booktokers eventually wanted more.
Rath is among the queens of the hockey romance genre, with her “why choose” spicy novels – a sub, subgenre featuring non-monogamy.
For Booktokers, Rath said the hype is as much about the actual sport as it is about the handsome hockey stars they imagine as their favourite characters.
“There is this misconception with Booktok and Hockey Romancetok, that every reader is just there for the eye candy, all we care about is attractive men,” Rath said.
“People were like, we like the hockey, show us the hockey – the teams said we’d love to show you the hockey.”
Rath – an international bestseller – found particular acclaim among her Australian audience, where one of her books shot to number one for several weeks on Amazon.
Her Australian fans had been bemoaning the lack of ice hockey down under – and the Sydney Ice Dogs media manager Liam Watson saw an opportunity.
The Ice Dogs are one of 10 teams in the semi-professional Australian Ice Hockey League – alongside hometown rivals Sydney Bears, the Brisbane Lightning, Melbourne Ice, Melbourne Mustangs, Newcastle Northstars, Central Coast Rhinos, Canberra Brave, Adelaide Adrenaline and Perth Thunder.
“The Ice Dogs approached me directly, they sent me a jersey,” Rath recalled.
“Every day, I was having Australian readers being like, ‘we don’t have ice hockey, I wish we had it, if only, if only, I would go – and I had the Ice Dogs saying if only more people knew we were here.”
In her words, Rath said she “hounded the AIHL” and sent her avid readers after them on TikTok.
Some teams had a paltry following on TikTok, while other teams weren’t on the platform at all – but now each has thousands of highly engaged followers.
Rath said the Brisbane Lightning went from having 100 followers and two videos on their profile to having more than 6300 fans.
“From there, book clubs started going to the games, bringing their favourite books, and because the AIHL is so great about engagement they stayed and met the fans, meeting my readers and romance readers,” Rath said.
“They have been so welcoming, that has spurred these readers on who had never been to a game before.”
Watson said audiences had increased since the Booktok wave from roughly 150 people per game in 2022 to up to 500 spectators in the stands in 2023.
The semi-professional league has been blown away by the sudden influx of warm-hearted, enthusiastic support from Australia’s romance readers.
The Ice Dogs’ president Paul Kelly could not hide his smile as he talked about the impact the book community has had on Australian ice hockey.
“It’s unbelievable, it’s been really good for the sport and great for our club,” Kelly said.
“When we mic up our guys, the authors share those videos, they say this is how this character would be, it’s creating this reality out of fiction – the women come and get their books signed – it’s changed our outlook, it’s changed a lot of things.”
Aside from Rath’s books, Booktokers have also brought along other best-selling titles – including Hannah Grace’s Icebreaker, Elle Kennedy’s The Deal and Becka Mack’s Consider Me – for the Australian hockey players to sign.
Ice Dogs captain Dan Pataky was recently the inadvertent star of a moderately viral video in which he signed a Booktoker’s copy of Icebreaker – a steamy figure skater and hockey player romance – and asked what all the sticker tabs were for.
“All her friends started pissing themselves, and she said ‘that’s all the good stuff’,” Pataky recalled, referring to the practice of “annotating” spicy scenes and memorable quotes in a book.
“It’s not something you ordinarily talk about with complete strangers but it’s breaking down barriers between people.”
In his last eight years with the Ice Dogs, and 16 years playing ice hockey, Pataky says he has never seen anything like what he has experienced since the Booktokers hopped aboard.
“The romance novel scene has been blowing us up, for a sport that isn’t that well known in Australia,” Pataky said.
“It’s been very interesting – a totally different ball game to what I’ve grown up with in ice hockey.”
Ice Dogs head coach Jason Kvisle – who also coaches the Australian U20s who recently won a gold medal in Turkiye, serves on the Ice Hockey NSW board and sponsors the league himself with his own businesses – described the fan influx as “awesome”.
“Regardless of the influx, it’s been good to have different fans,” Kvisle said.
Kvisle said he hoped the new-found attention would attract future support from governments to boost ice hockey’s potential across the nation.
He also highlighted the AIHL’s potential to produce stars, noting the only Australian player in the NHL – Sydney’s Nathan Walker, who plays for the St Louis Blues – is currently training with the Ice Dogs in the NHL off-season.
The Melbourne Mustangs’ events and media manager Sarah Bricknall said they have had groups of 15 to 30 Booktokers at every single home game since the team joined TikTok in mid-May.
“We are really happy to have found the Booktok community and are so pleased and excited that they have adopted us,” Bricknall said.
“Through Booktok in just over two months we have just over 7000 followers – 93 per cent of whom are female, and we have racked up more than 223,000 likes with one of our Tiktoks being viewed more than 500,000 times.
“It is hard to exactly quantify the extent but we are proud to see it grow at each game and are so excited to see more people fall in love with this wonderful sport.”
Rath said the AIHL’s hospitality to its new fans had made all the difference.
“You can get a bit of judgment – people all the time being like you write or you read mommy porn – I’m an international bestseller, and my books are about all kinds of things like queerness, acceptance and politics,” Rath said.
“It’s so important for sports to understand the power women have – you get one woman and treat her well, you show her you’re open and welcoming and hospitable, she will bring everyone she knows with her.”
‘White pride’: Man learns fate for bearing Nazi symbols on chest
A drunk man who displayed Nazi swastikas and white pride messages on his body outside a war memorial in Sydney’s northwest has been sentenced. Find out what happened in court.
Read more
One key election plan will change everything
One key election promise is expected to change everything about the housing market. Here’s what you need to know.
Read more