Romance is not a genre I typically gravitate towards but in Winter 2025, I – like so many others – found myself enamored with the Crave series 'Heated Rivalry,' a slow-burn love story between two rival NHL players who navigate the challenges of their secret relationship over the course of a decade. The series left me inspired and motivated because unlike so many others, I was in a position where I could potentially elevate the show’s – and its source material’s – underlying messages, the most critical of which is the visibility and treatment of queer people in hockey. To date, the NHL is the only professional North American men’s league to have never had a player – past or present – come out (as opposed to the PWHL, which currently has three-dozen openly queer players on its roster). So I created this proposal, working in my own time, because I saw an opportunity for BAUER, a leader in the industry, to partner with the production in a manner that could help change the narrative and culture within hockey. A copy of the proposal is available upon request.