This past spring, during the Seattle Kraken\u2019s first appearance in the Stanley Cup playoffs, the 2-year-old franchise found itself with an influx of new fans: readers pouring in from the BookTok community on TikTok. How did it happen? Months earlier, in February, a hockey romance book called Icebreaker<\/em>, by Hannah Grace, made the New York Times bestseller list, and it has been there since. Like Colleen Hoover\u2019s novels, Icebreaker<\/em> became a viral hit on TikTok, beloved by fans of the hockey romance subgenre that\u2019s popular on the platform.<\/p>\n

Then that fandom got into watching hockey, likely thanks to the timing quirk of Icebreaker<\/em>\u2019s popularity leading into the NHL playoffs. BookTok latched onto one team in particular: the Kraken.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s been a fun club to follow. The Kraken made a surprising playoff run in their second season, taking out last year\u2019s Stanley Cup champions, the Colorado Avalanche, in the first round. From there, the Kraken took the Dallas Stars to an exciting Game 7 before ultimately being defeated. Everyone loves an underdog, and the Kraken are a flashy new team that\u2019s fun to watch. That\u2019s part of the appeal, but BookTok also latched on to several conventionally attractive players \u2014 namely, forward Alex Wennberg \u2014 and their gyrating warmup stretches. When the Kraken\u2019s social media team realized that people were making fancams of Wennberg and other players, it started playing into the fandom, making its own fancam-esque videos of its players\u2019 arena entrances.<\/p>\n

BookTok\u2019s whirlwind hockey obsession did draw positive attention to hockey as a sport, inviting fans who otherwise might not have known they\u2019d be interested. But a handful of fans have taken things too far, treating players as if they are characters in the abstract, not actual humans. Here\u2019s how we arrived at the controversy that\u2019s gone viral in the past week.<\/p>\n

Where did things go wrong with the Seattle Kraken and BookTok?<\/strong><\/h2>\n
Arguably, the problems began when a small minority of BookTokers started sexualizing hockey players, and relating them to their favorite romance characters. And the Kraken\u2019s own social media team fanned the flames. It felt similar to other high-profile parasocial relationships, like when the internet thirsted for The Last of Us<\/em> actor Pedro Pascal \u2014 the fixation on Pascal as \u201cdaddy\u201d often veered into uncomfortable territory. <\/p>\n
As TikTokers became fans of the Seattle Kraken, some BookTokers \u201cface-claimed\u201d \u2014 which is similar to fancasting \u2014 Wennberg and other hockey players for the character Nate Hawkins in Icebreaker<\/em>, as well as characters in other hockey romances. <\/p>\n
This sort of behavior started to spiral when the Kraken\u2019s social media team posted a ton<\/em> of thirst content about the team\u2019s players. While other hockey clubs did post BookTok-specific content, the Kraken were, by far, the most aggressive one. Team social media administrators have an increased level of access to players and their likenesses, and there\u2019s an assumed level of trust between a player and their organization in using that to promote the team. When a team\u2019s social media manager posts even vaguely sexualized content about their players, it can be taken as a kind of consent \u2014 and can egg on that sort of behavior, and more, online.<\/p>\n
Emily Rath, author of the Jacksonville Rays hockey romance series, explained in a 10-minute TikTok video why this sort of abstraction of players, especially by social media teams, is a problem. \u201cYou should not treat your employees with the same level of abstraction as the fans do,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Over the past week, Alex Wennberg\u2019s wife, Felicia Weeren, posted Instagram stories about the sexualization of her husband and other players. Weeren said that while she herself has joked online about Wennberg\u2019s TikTok fandom, she feels that some people\u2019s comments and videos have crossed the line into \u201cpredatory and exploiting\u201d territory. \u201cWhat doesn\u2019t sit right with me is when your desires come with sexual harassment,\u201d she wrote. Wennberg later published his own statement regarding the backlash Weeren received for writing about her discomfort with the situation.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe aggressive language about real life players is too much,\u201d Wennberg wrote. \u201cIt has turned into daily and weekly comments on our personal social media. This is not something we support or want our child to grow up with. All we ask for is a little respect and common sense moving forward. We can all take a joke and funny comments but when it turns personal and into something bigger that effects our family, we need to tell you that we\u2019ve had enough. Enough of sexual harassment, and harassment of our character and our relationship. Thank you for your understanding.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Kraken have now deleted all references to BookTok from their TikTok page; it\u2019s unclear when this happened, but it appears to have been done in response to players\u2019 discomfort with the posts. The organization has not responded to Polygon\u2019s request for comment.<\/p>\n
How has BookTok responded?<\/strong><\/h2>\n
There is no representative for BookTok, nor is there one for its hockey romance subset. But it does seem like this behavior came from a loud minority of the overall fandom. Rath, in her 10-minute video, said she estimated that the sexual harassment encompassed 1% of hockey romance fans on the app, whereas 99% of fans are normal people who love hockey romance \u2014 many of whom were brought into loving hockey as a sport, too.<\/p>\n
One particular BookTok influencer, Kierra Lewis, has been outspoken about her part in the Seattle Kraken controversy. She was flown out to a Kraken playoff game and given a jersey emblazoned with \u201cBookTok,\u201d with her content seemingly endorsed by the club\u2019s social media team. In a TikTok posted after Weeren published her initial statement, Lewis accused the Kraken and others of using BookTok to promote themselves and \u201cget clout,\u201d only to later discard the community. She added that she was upset to discover that the Kraken\u2019s social media team has distanced itself from her, seemingly for her overtly sexual content about hockey players. (Lewis was photographed at the game holding a sign that read \u201cKrack my back,\u201d for instance.) Lewis also said that everything she\u2019s posted is a joke.<\/p>\n
There\u2019s a subset of BookTok that\u2019s defending Lewis\u2019 role in everything \u2014 claiming that the Kraken owe BookTok for their success \u2014 while some people say they\u2019ve been uncomfortable with her content, as well as others\u2019 sexualization of athletes. The debate is reminiscent of that around the ethics of fanfiction featuring real people. Hockey players don\u2019t have the same celebrity as, say, top basketball players, but they are accustomed to some fame. This fame makes it easy for people to form parasocial relationships \u2014 and the perceived consent of organizations like the Kraken only adds to this.<\/p>\n
Whatever your feelings are, the Kraken BookTok controversy has proved that at least some professional athletes are uncomfortable with the sexualization of their likenesses, and that some of the fandom has crossed a line. Any consent, perceived or not, has been revoked, at least by some players. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n