Netflix announces Icebreaker, the latest hockey romance based on a bestselling novel

If the come to streaming serial publication het up Rivalry didn’t replete your demand for steamy romances that develop on a hockey rink, Netflix has good news.

The streaming giant announced Monday that it’s adapting the best selling book Icebreaker by English author Hannah Grace into a "college romance drama series."

The young adult romance novel, published in 2022, is about an ambitious figure skater named Anastasia Allen and hunky hockey team captain Nate Hawkins, who fall in love after they’re forced to share the ice at the fictional University of California, Maple Hills campus.

Icebreaker became a No. 1 New York Times bestseller. It’s sold nearly five million copies and has been translated into 24 languages.

"She's the transfer gunning for Olympic gold. He’s the campus star chasing the NHL. But when an accident forces their teams to share one rink, Anastasia Allen and Nate Hawkins collide — and discipline gives way to obsession, because the only thing more dangerous than wanting to win is wanting each other," Netflix said in a press release.

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Jinny Howe, Netflix’s head of scripted series for the U.S. And Canada, announced the new series at the Banff World Media Festival.

"Netflix has a long history of turning beloved romance novels into massive global hits. We know our members can't get enough of these stories, which makes Icebreaker the perfect next chapter for us," Howe said in a news release; it did not say when the series would start streaming.

The new series follows the massive success of Crave's Heated Rivalry, which was based on series of novels by Canadian author Rachel Reid. Both tell the story of two male hockey players as they navigate an at-first frosty relationship on the ice combined with hot passion off of it.

The show won a Peabody Award and Culture Minister Marc Miller hailed it as a Canadian content triumph.

Both Icebreaker and Heated Rivalry are part of a broader rise in popularity of sports romance books, led by hockey, which includes titles such as Canadian Boyfriend, Body Check and Pucking Sweet. The genre-within-a-genre has benefited from posts on BookTok, a community of literary enthusiasts on the social media platform TikTok. 

Icebreaker's showrunner Amanda Lasher has previously worked on shows like Riverdale, Gossip Girl and Togetherness.

"I have been a fan of steamy YA since the seventh grade; reading Judy Blume stealthily hidden behind a text book. I love this genre," she said.

Icebreaker is the first book of three in Grace's Maple Hills series, which includes Wildfire (2023) and Daydream (2025). All are set at the eponymous University of California campus.

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