‘Women’s hockey is a very queer space’ A Lexington author is writing the lesbian hockey romances she always wanted to read

“Heated Rivalry” —  a romance featuring two gay hockey players — became an unlikely sensation when it was released on HBO Max last year. Sales of the book the series is based on skyrocketed; a second season and a musical are in the works. And it’s not the only hit hockey romance — “Off Campus,” also a TV show based on a book series, follows a music student and hockey star who fall in love. Sports romance has established itself as a popular romance subgenre, with hockey love stories overrepresented. 

But Lexington resident and author Kate Cochrane noticed that lesbian hockey romance was underrepresented, especially given that “women’s hockey is a very queer space.” She cited Team USA Hockey Captain Hillary Knight’s public engagement at the 2026 Winter Olympics, and wives and teammates Marie-Philip Poulin and Laura Stacey, who play alongside one another on the Women’s Canadian Hockey Team, as high profile examples.

Aiming to increase LGBTQ+ representation in literature and to write stories she would enjoy reading herself, Cochrane has authored two romance novels featuring lesbian hockey players. “My books reflect something that is actually going on,” she said. 

Her debut novel, “Wake Up, Nat and Darcy,” is a hockey-related enemies-to-lovers story, while “Yours for the Season,” her second novel, is centered around a hockey player who falls in love with a woman from her hometown. Cochrane has a third book, “Pulling the Goalie,” set to release in the winter of 2027, also a romance involving two lesbian hockey players. All three books exist in the same “universe,” with recurring characters, but there is no particular order in which the books are intended to be read. 

Cochrane played Division I hockey at Dartmouth College. She subsequently earned a law degree and worked as an attorney for several years before settling down as a stay-at-home parent to her two young children.

“I started writing as a hobby around the time that I had kids. When my second kid was born, every day was kind of the same. Little kids wake up, eat, sleep, and you do laundry. It’s a little like Groundhog Day,” she said. “I started writing so that at the end of the day, I [felt a sense of accomplishment], even though I might have only written a few hundred words. From that, I discovered that I really enjoyed writing stories.”

Cochrane admitted that, initially, the stories she crafted were “truly terrible.” She struggled to find an agent willing to advocate for her. At the time, Cochrane had been reading predominantly romance novels, which inspired her to create one of her own. After finding an agent, Cochrane published “Wake Up, Nat and Darcy,” which took off.

Cochrane says that portraying queer relationships in media “helps to normalize them.” “Readers get to experience these relationships in a book or TV show in a way that feels really safe, and allows people to see that these relationships are not scary,” she said.

When Cochrane was in college, she experienced homophobia up close on her hockey team. “A player who was a year above me had a girlfriend and came out, and the team just dealt with it. I came out after, and it went okay, but some people were like, ‘This is too much. If anyone else comes out, I’m quitting.’ Thankfully, my coach said, ‘We’re not having this; everyone is welcome on our team.’ The homophobia was dealt with to some degree by people realizing that we were all teammates, and that it’s not scary for someone to bring a girlfriend to a team function,” Cochrane said.

In the future, Cochrane intends to stay within the realm of queer romance, bringing to life more relationships between characters with a background in sports. “I am considering the possibility of trying to bring in another sport. For example, I’ve considered doing a relationship between a hockey player and a WNBA player, like across two sports,” Cochrane said. 

“I hope my books make you laugh, because they’re light-hearted for the most part. There’s a lot of trash-talking between rivals.”