Since the release of the Canadian-produced streaming TV show Heated Rivalry, the show and its actors have exploded across traditional and social media, prompting wide discussions about sexuality in sports and the female consumption of MM (male/male) romance. Based on the Game Changers novel series by Rachel Reid, Heated Rivalry follows the illicit romance between two male hockey players. In the months since, both NHL ticket and queer romance novel sales have skyrocketed; parodies of Heated Rivalry have popped up on SNL and off-Broadway stages. Its surprising popularity has been documented multiple times in The New York Times, NPR, BBC, and hundreds of other global media outlets (Dixon 2026; Figueroa and Maguire 2026). TikTok, Instagram, and other social media platforms are seeing a new boom of short-form video essay content around the ethics of MM romance media, as loved and potentially fetishized by an audience of primarily women, and attempts to define what is and is not proper fandom. Alongside this booming interest in the gay romance between two fictional hockey players, the US men’s gold medal winning Olympic hockey team stood in support of President Donald Trump at the White House, underlining the deep political tension in sports fandom and culture (Superville 2026).

In the Heated Rivalry fandom, the politics of sports are contested with the politics of queerness, gender, sexuality, and race, and it is doing so in the pop culture zeitgeist. It is transforming the popular understanding of hockey, but also potentially transforming the structure of fandom itself; Heated Rivalry has built fandom across networked platforms, in conversation with sports fans, and with potentially new aesthetics of fan production. While there are strong intellectual histories in both sports fandom and transformative media fandoms, they are rarely studied in conversation with one another (Crawford 2004; Johnson 2020; Popova 2017; Wann et al. 2025). This special issue encourages an investigation into the overlap of queer, feminine, transformative and romance-centric fan practice and the traditionally masculine sports fandom through the transmedia phenom of Heated Rivalry.

This special issue will explore the impact of Heated Rivalry in both subcultural fan spaces and mainstream pop culture. Suggested potential topics include but are not limited to:

• Sports fandom and sports romance

• Queerness in sports

• Politics of sports/NHL/PWHL

• Fandom studies and sports

• Celebrity and race

• Celebrity and “queerbaiting”

• (Transformation of) Platform dynamics of fandom

• Short-form video and fandom

• Gender, masculinity, and sexuality in MM romance

• Female consumption of MM romance

• Fandom and the mainstream

• Representations of queer sex and desire

• Genre aesthetics and transformation in romance and fanfiction

• Boundaries of fan practices and definitions

• Globalism and nationalism

• Transcultural and transnational media and fandom

• Global representations of queer men (yaoi, MM, slash, BL, etc.)

• Queer temporalities and yearning

• Global media industries and platformed TV

• “Rainbow capitalism” and monetization of identity

• Disability and romance 

• Anti-fandom and fan discourses

Submission Guidelines:

We are welcoming 500–700-word abstracts, alongside a short (100–200 word) biography.

Please send your abstract and biography in one document to yvonne.gonzales@usc.edu by 13 April 2026.

We will be looking for final articles between 6,000 and 9,000 words, references and all additional text included.

Timeline:

Abstracts due: 13 April 2026

Notification of acceptance/rejection: 20 April 2026

Drafts due: 21 August 2026

Publication: Early 2027

References 

Crawford, Gary (2004), Consuming Sport: Fans, sport and culture, New York: Routledge. 

Dixon, Louise (2026), ‘Gay ice hockey drama ‘Heated Rivalry’ becomes a surprise hit in Russia despite anti-LGBTQ+ laws’, AP News, https://apnews.com/article/heated-rivalry-tv-russia-gay-ice-hockey-f788b1dce58063e3797922402c9f7f3c. Accessed 26 February 2026. 

Figueroa, Fernanda and Maguire, Ken (2026), ‘How Heated Rivalry sparked book in ice hockey ticket sales’, The Independent, https://www.the-independent.com/arts-entertainment/tv/news/heated-rivalry-lgbt-ice-hockey-nhl-b2922011.html. Accessed 26 February 2026. 

Johnson, Poe (2020), ‘Playing with Lynching: Fandom Violence and the Black Athletic Body’, Television & New Media, 12:2, pp. 169-183.  

Popova, Milena (2017), ‘’When the RP gets in the way of the F’: Star Image and intertextuality in real person(a) fiction’, Transformative Works and Cultures, 25, https://doi.org/10.3983/twc.2017.01105. 

Superville, Darlene (2026), ‘US men’s hockey team feted at State of the Union; Trump says women’s team will be honored ‘soon’’, AP News, https://apnews.com/article/state-of-union-hockey-olympics-trump-89fff7bdec947251ff926e09ac24d4e4. Accessed 26 February 2026. 

Wann, Daniel, and James, Jeffrey and Harvard, Cody and Delia, Elizabeth (2025), Sports Fans: The Psychology and Social Impact of Fandom, New York: Routledge. 

Editor Bios

Yvonne Gonzales is a PhD candidate at the University of Southern California, Annenberg School for Communication. She is interested in historical constructions of race, gender, sexuality, and identity in both fandom and fandom studies. Her work can be found in the International Journal of Cultural Studies, Transformative Works and Cultures, Journal of Fandom Studies, and Emerging Media. She can be reached at yvonne.gonzales@usc.edu.

Kirsten Crowe is a PhD student at the University of Southern California, Annenberg School for Communication. Her research explores media fandom and internet culture with a focus on queer/trans identity. Her work can be found in the International Journal of Cultural Studies and International Journal of Communication. She can be reached at kcrowe@usc.edu.