Sporty Romance

This is Confessions of a Closet Romantic, a podcast where I talk about my favorite romantic books, TV shows, movies, in detail, without embarrassment or shame–-mostly! This is Poppy and in this episode it's all about sporty romance...

Hup! Hup! Hup! This is fantasyland people! We can do this! Focus on the fight –  let's live vicariously out there...!

Oh, I would've made the worst coach! Growing up, I’d get stomach aches before gym class. I struggled with pretty much every organized team sport… I might have been an A student, but I was your basic Pvt. Benjamin fitness nightmare. I was too petrified about how I looked in gym shorts to be a princess though.

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So let's just say I have sat on the sidelines most of my life, in admiration. There’s something so appealing about that whole ancient Greece Olympics thing.

Right now I'm living vicariously through hockey and rugby romances. It's good I'm not out on the field playing a sport because I’d slip on my drool and twist something.

I don't like to objectify anybody and in the spirit of full disclosure, just do a Google image search for “rugby players or NHL hockey players.” But see what I mean? How can you help it?

When the All Blacks, New Zealand’s rugby team, start to perform a haka in front of their rivals before each game—a tribute to their history and heritage—it’s so masculine-intense. These massive, muscular men crouching and stomping and lunging while slapping their thighs and chests? It’s a mood, is all I can say.

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This team has topped worldwide rugby for years so it’s not just macho posturing—I'll post a link in the show notes because you have to see this. 

 I eventually dated a sports photographer—oh the universe can be such a joker. He lived for sports, especially hockey. The NHL hockey season is long, so I sat at the rink every week for months watching games while he shot pictures. And… I started to love it.

Enter the incredible hockey romances by Kate Meader. 

Her stories aren’t about dumb as rocks jocks getting action—in my favorite sport romances, the strong female challenges her partner and brings her own game.

This clip from the rom com Wimbledon with Paul Bettany and Kirsten Dunst is delightful because girlfriend didn't even mean to move in on his practice from the adjacent court, but she's so good she couldn't help knocking over his tennis ball cans with her amazing serve.

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Like Peter Colt at Wimbledon, the Kate Meader romance hockey heroes have hiccups or crisis of confidence and have gone through some heavy stuff that their charmed lives can't fix, something the casual fan would never know about—injury, loss, broken relationships, PTSD. 

They’re amazingly talented athletes but they're always juxtaposed with strong female lovers who have their own thing going on. It makes the stories so deep and compelling. And this is why I love them so.

One of her best is Man Down. It's about a widowed hockey player who loses his wife and family in a terrible accident and copes with his loss by leaving the game and hiding alone in a cabin in the woods. 

He texts his late wife Kelly on her old phone number, sending heartfelt messages out into the universe—until one day he gets a text back. 

It might sound sad, but it quickly shifts into hot and intoxicating. The beginning of this story isn't exactly a meet “cute” but it's one of the most memorable openings in a romance I think I've ever read.

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Don't you just want to reach out and hug this guy? Gunnar and the mystery woman keep texting and he starts coming out of his shell because she's funny and sexy and compassionate. He eventually goes back to his team and returns to hockey where he belongs. If you like redemption stories, don’t miss it.

Always Only You is part of the short Bergman Brothers series by Chloe Liese. She’s another don’t miss storyteller. 

This book is about Soren Bergman, Swedish American hockey God, perpetual sunshine-y optimist to the team’s social media manager —and grump — Francesca a.k.a. Frankie. She’s witty and smart and tall and gorgeous, respected and probably secretly lusted after by all of the guys on the team.

But she uses her cultivated gloomy mood as protection against the testosterone-fueled world she works in. 

She also lives with autism and rheumatoid arthritis – I can't say say enough about how refreshing and sexy and funny and real this romance is.

In this scene Frankie’s at a bar with her friend Willa when the team’s resident douchebag starts hitting on her. This scene has it all for me: a bright, funny female character, the quiet athlete who carries a torch for her, and a snapshot of how vulnerable disabilities can make you feel.

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I’ve been reading some good rugby romances lately too. I'll link to them in the show notes at confessionsofaclosetromantic.com

There's pretty much a romance about every sport—baseball, softball, basketball, football, soccer, track and field, tennis…. Book Riot and Goodreads have done some good roundups of sport-related romances, and I'll link to them in the show notes.

Okay back to living vicariously through romances about hot people who are coordinated enough to do sports for living. I'm not jealous… Oookay maybe a little bit.