Netflix just proved streamers learned the wrong lesson from Heated Rivalry

Looking to continue building its roster of original series, Netflix gave the green light to a new show that just makes sense. The streaming service announced its forthcoming adaptation of the popular hockey romance novel Icebreaker by Hannah Grace, which is the first in a series of three novels known as the Maple Hills series.

In the series, which will also be titled Icebreaker, a competitive figure skater named Anastasia Allen works hard at her goal of making her way to the Olympics and winning a gold medal. However, she's suddenly thrown a wrench when she shares a rink with hockey player Nate Hawkins. Despite the initial frustration shared between the athletes, sparks soon begin to fly.

Netflix orders series based on Icebreaker by Hannah Grace

Icebreaker comes from producer Alex Cooper, the host of the Call Her Daddy podcast and chief of Unwell Productions. Amanda Lasher serves as the showrunner and writer on the series alongside fellow writer Jade Bartlett, who developed the series from page-to-screen with the pilot. Casting details and filming updates haven't been shared just yet, but they are surely coming soon.

The series order is a no-brainer for Netflix, which is also home to the figure skating drama Finding Her Edge and another upcoming hockey teen drama series. But it's further proof that streamers seemingly have a fundamental misunderstanding of Heated Rivalry's success and have instead leapfrogged right over to emulating what became a smash on Prime Video with Off Campus.

Once Heated Rivalry became the talk of the town with the release of its first season at the end of 2025, fans quickly began to hypothesize that the television industry would only look to capitalize on one half of what made the romance series unique: sports. To date, few new sports romance series have been ordered, so the sample size is fairly small, but so far, the hypothesis is proving true.

While Netflix giving Icebreaker the green light is exciting for fans of Grace's book series, and there could be more opportunities for other stories down the line, it's hard to ignore the fact that the wrong lesson might have been learned from Heated Rivalry. Audiences weren't tuning in for the hockey. We were excited to see queer representation and joy taken seriously.

As one user explained on social media, "It's actually really funny that all the jokes unironically became true and Hollywood's takeaway from Heated Rivalry's success is more straight sports romances rather than queer stories with queer directors at the helm." (The quote has been edited for clarity.)

Heated Rivalry's impact shouldn't be erased or reduced to hockey

Months after Heated Rivalry finished its debut run, Prime Video premiered its own hockey romance series Off Campus, based on the book series by Elle Kennedy. The show also found great success but differed greatly from the Canadian drama as it's set in college and centers on heterosexual relationships. In that regard, Icebreaker appears to be more in line with Off Campus.

Perhaps some streamers, Netflix included, are worried of being accused of trying to find their own Heated Rivalry, or they haven't found the right book series to adapt. But we also can't deny that Jacob Tierney set the standard impossibly high and anyone who attempts to emulate his show, whether it's hockey or another sport, would be unfairly compared to his global smash.

To be fair, Prime Video is developing a series adaptation of Meryl Wilsner's queer soccer novel Cleat Cute under the name Playing the Field, but developing a series isn't the same as an official green light. Queer stories still have an uphill battle to actually making it onto our screens, and you would think that Heated Rivalry paved the way to an easier path. Let's hope that's soon the case.

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