NHL's Paul Bissonnette Shades ‘Off Campus': ‘Women Just Love Smut'

Former NHL player Paul Bissonnette threw some shade at the popularity of Off Campus, the Prime Video hockey romance that has become a smash streaming success.

"Let me guess what it is. It's just like Heated Rivalry. It's smut," Bissonnette, 41, said on Up & Adams on Wednesday, June 3. "All these women right now just love smut. They want to see people going at it on camera."

Off Campus, which premiered last month, is based on the book series of the same name by Elle Kennedy and tells the story of college student Hannah, played by Ella Bright, who develops an unexpected love story with Garrett, the school's standout hockey player, played by Belmont Cameli.

Jokes aside, Bissonnette marveled at the attention that Off Campus and Heated Rivalry - which tells the fictional love story of pro hockey players Ilya and Shane, played by Connor Storrie and Hudson Williams, respectively - have brought to the game.

"I just think that hockey is having a moment right now," he said. "It's obviously well-deserved because it is such a special sport. It's all kind of coming to fruition."

Bissonnette, who now works as a TV analyst for TNT, explained that Heated Rivalry led to "a decent spike in viewership."

"You can't deny the success of that show," he said.

With that being said, Bissonnette did push back at the accuracy of the actual hockey scenes on the show.

"I remember seeing clips of the hockey part of it, someone was posting it to their [Instagram] Story. And it just obviously is not realistic to what I know of hockey," he argued.

Bissonnette added, "But it's such a casual sport for most. They're just like, ‘Oh yeah, this is what it's like when hockey's going on.'"

Despite the small quibbles, Bissonnette lauded the impact of Heated Rivalry when he spoke exclusively to Us Weekly earlier this year.

"The fact that it's had the social relevance that it's had, obviously a huge thank you to them for putting hockey even more on the map and opening it up as far as eyeballs to a lot more people," he gushed.

Bissonnette suggested that Heated Rivalry will help "current athletes who haven't come out because they're nervous about it, or even just people in the general public."

"It's hard, man, you probably feel like you're living a double life in some instances," he continued. "I think people are feeling comfortable coming out after seeing this show."

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This story was originally published June 4, 2026 at 12:00 PM.