The Tamesis
Fashion belongs to you fierce competition is accelerating. Show star Connor Storrie, who plays hockey star Ilya Rozanov, sat front row at the Saint Laurent fall/winter 2026 men’s show on Tuesday night, wearing a beige suit and mustard shirt. On Friday, Hudson Williams (who plays Story’s nemesis-turned-lover Sean Holland) hit the slopes of Milan’s DSquared2 in a distressed denim jacket and snow boots (and crashed the brand’s website). Luxury fashion brands are locked in a talent showdown that mirrors the intense on-field strategy of the TV show itself.
The popular drama, adapted from Rachel Reed’s 2019 gay romance novel, tells the story of two stick-wielding foes who compete with each other on an ice rink and secretly hook up. In the US alone, the show has been watched for 600 million minutes – but that number was last week raised by new york timesThe show may have been overshadowed as the show continues to be popular in Europe following its release on the evening of January 10th. Fans are hosting fierce competition rave on campus, attracting a large number of crazy college students obsessed with the show. While the show’s hockey players and teams are fictional, its success could have real-life implications for fashion crossovers in the sports world.
Poaching Williams was a masterpiece of pop culture timing by DSquared2’s Dean and Dan Caten (who appeared in the finals wearing a DSquared2 hockey jersey). “It’s a cameo that works for a number of reasons,” said Q Style editor Mahalia Chang. “DSquared2 is a Canadian brand— fierce competition Williams is also Canadian – it was a winter theme, and Milan, where they were hosting the show, was about to host the Winter Olympics, and ice hockey was going to be a big feature. I think Dan and Dean were right on the money. “
Dishin is a Buffalo-based streetwear brand founded by Matthew Keeler, who designed the prototype for the viral Air Jordan 1 Chicago hockey skate. The brand partners with NHL teams including the Chicago Blackhawks, Detroit Red Wings and Buffalo Sabers to create custom apparel. Elsewhere, Drake’s Ovo and Lululemon have also partnered with the NHL. “Hockey is having a moment because the visuals are so intense and the game has such a cinematic nature in every aspect,” Keeler said.
Hockey’s tepid style history
For those who love the sport, this fashion potential may seem incongruous. Hockey has never been considered a fashion world. “Fashion doesn’t exactly ‘surround’ hockey, I would say it exists in a separate galaxy. Hockey has always been a silent sport in the fashion world,” Keeler said. This is partly due to the NHL’s strict dress code. “For nearly a century, hockey has had a mandatory suit-and-tie dress code that has dominated the aesthetics of arrivals, while the NHL remains rooted in a traditional team-first mentality that often limits players’ creative expression,” he explained. “If you really pay attention to hockey, you know that real hockey players have a boring style at best and a terrible style at worst,” Zhang added.
This is reflected in fierce competition The wardrobe, especially for normcore aficionado Sean Holland (played by Williams), isn’t entirely enviable. “There’s a certain void in the style of a lot of professional hockey players. What we see on the show is a lot of press conference suits, tracksuits and hoodies. I wanted it to feel authentic,” said Hanna Puley, the show’s costume designer. It’s no wonder Holland hired a stylist in episode five, desperate to impress (after Story’s character Lozanov may have felt threatened after wearing a leopard-print Jean Paul Gaultier FW98 shirt in the previous episode).
