Hockey Romance 101 Yes, hockey romance novels exist. In fact, they’re huge.

Tonight is the Bruins home opener: Time to break out the hockey romance novels. Hockey romance, you ask, skeptically? That’s a thing? Of course it is. The romance novel industry has a sub-genre for everyone, including those who like to read about athletes.

But for romance newcomers, first things first:

What counts as a romance novel? The love story has to be the central part of the narrative. Happily-everafter (HEA) endings are part of the recipe.

Are romance novels ... silly? No. Like any other genre of fiction, some romance novels are great, some aren’t. Many are excellent. If you’re making fun of romance novels, ask yourself why.

How much does romance sell? A lot — and reliably. The research group WordsRated reported in 2022 that romance was the highest selling genre of fiction. Market research company Circana said the romance industry saw a 52-percent sales increase in print copies from May 2022 to May 2023.

Saying romance novels aren’t important is kind of like saying sports doesn’t matter because it’s only a game.

Now back to the hockey.

Veronica KovenMatasy, reader services supervisor at the Boston Public Library, who also writes the BPL’s romance newsletter, said hockey romance is having a moment, not because it’s new, but because of attention on TikTok.

There were 5 million views of TikTok vidoes with the hashtag #hockeyromance in the past week. Add another 3 million if you search #hockeyromancebooks. Amazon’s bestseller list in the “Sports & Outdoors” category earlier this week included hockey romances like “Bad Intentions: A Dark Hockey Bully Romance” by Mila Kane. Many hits are self-published.

New Hampshire writer Sarina Bowen, whose romances include “The Year We Fell Down” and “I’m Your Man,” which was released this week, said there’s a reason why hockey stories might hold more appeal than other sports narratives in the genre. She’s written books about downhill skiers, but her hockey heroes are the real stars. “If you look carefully at the landscape of romance, you often find successful series are built around a large family, and sports romance usually is just another extension of that,” she said. “The team itself becomes the large family.”

As in “Bridgerton,” the popular regency romance novel series-turned-Netflix-hit, each player on a team becomes a sibling. Readers dive into one player’s story, then the next.

Football has teams too, but Bowen believes hockey lends itself to more intense, gripping narratives.

“I mean, [more than 80] regularseason games a year is outrageous,” she said. “The fun thing about hockey, honestly, is how hard they work. Football season is short and they play once a week.”

What about baseball? Bowen said hockey might ask more of the body, which, in romance, can play a big role.

Writer Stephanie Queen, who lives in New Hampshire and writes the “Boston Brawlers” series, expands on this. She said hockey players, at least in fiction, have a steamy vibe: stoic, masculine, intense.

“Hockey has the reputation of being a tough, gritty sport played by men who don’t care about glamour,” she said via email. “There’s also the easygoing camaraderie that every hockey team seems to have off ice.”

Queen grew up following hockey, and has been a Bruins fan “since the Bobby Orr days.” But hockey romance writers are quick to say their readers aren’t necessarily hockey experts, nor do they demand an intricate story about the game itself.

Bowen, who has written more than 20 hockey books and has coauthored six with hockey romance star Elle Kennedy, added that books with too many specifics about the game can distract a reader from the motivation of the characters. Think “Ted Lasso”: The audience only wants so much soccer.

Romance writer Deanna Grey, of “Sunny Disposition” and “Team Players,” didn’t get too intense about her hockey education after realizing she wanted to try a book set on ice. She said she got the idea after moving to Tampa. “The Tampa Bay Lightning are super big here. I saw all their posters in the mall ... I was like, ‘Oh, this hockey thing ... people seem to be really into it.’” Grey watched YouTube videos to educate herself and went to a game to learn the nuances of the experience, realizing, for instance, that a player wouldn’t be able to hear much in the stands from the rink.

Asked about a favorite hockey player in one of her books, Grey answers “Samson” — from “Team Players,” about two college hockey players who fall for each other.

“He’s like the captain of the team. He’s a little bit of a playboy. His story with my leading lady — they have a friends-with-benefits relationship. And obviously, him going into it as a playboy, you think like he’s not going to fall for her, and he does. I like making them seem kind of rough around the edges, but they’re really soft.” Occasionally fiction bleeds into life — another reason why hockey romance received added attention this year. BookTok personalities — who can have a huge influence on the popularity of releases — sometimes dream-cast their favorite books with real-life celebrities. This past summer, after a romance-loving BookToker posted about Seattle Kraken player Alexander Wennberg, and the Kraken team joined in with their own posts, Wennberg became uncomfortable with the talk about his looks. Wennberg’s wife, Felicia, posted about disrespectful behavior.

The Kraken team eventually removed its Wennberg content. Hockey writers, Queen said, encourage fandoms to keep boundaries in mind.

“All my hockey romance heroes are strictly fictional [my girlhood crush on Derek Sanderson aside],” she said, adding, “There’s never been a question or discussions about drooling over real players in my fan group . ... They’re in it for the fantasy about a larger-than-life hero.” Koven-Matasy said she’d like more hockey tales about women players — and that there’s one reallife event that could inspire a great love story.

“Women’s hockey would seem like the most obvious place to stage a romance,” she said. “The captain of the Canadian team [Caroline Ouellette], and the captain of the US team [Julie Chu] literally got married and had a baby. Like, why isn’t that what we’re writing?” Of course, readers might see a rise in romance novels about other sports first — like football. Maybe a few books about pop stars who fall for a football player.

He’s a player, she’s cheering him on, the world follows the romance, etc. It writes itself.