Hockey With Dad

Hockey With Dad, a joyful celebration of playing hockey and having fun, tells a story of the narrator and his family preparing for a championship hockey game, and, at the same time, it weaves in the importance of family and culture. The narrator is a young boy who is a backup goalie who finally gets his moment to shine on the ice. His big sister is the team’s star forward and helps him prepare for his big game and ease his nerves. Their whole family has a love for the game, including their dad and grandpa. The family is Indigenous, and the text and illustrations do a beautiful job of incorporating this fact into the story.

Hockey is important to the family, and, throughout the story, the narrator includes how both his dad and grandpa tell great stories about how much the sport has meant to them. The illustration style by Kevin Easthope is vivid and colourful and incorporates symbolic images of animals commonly seen in Indigenous imagery. The illustrator includes an image of an eagle to depict the power of gliding across the ice and coyotes to show the swift movement of the players. Sellars is the Chief of the Williams Lake First Nation, and this book feels like a glimpse into how hockey plays an important role in his own life and in his Secwépemc community. He also includes a glossary of Secwepemctsin terms and their English meanings in the end matter as an educational tool.

This picture book is a charming story of a community’s love of hockey and the joy the people find in the sport. Hockey With Dad is perfect for any child who feels connected to the sport and the ways it can bring people together.