The Playmaker

Zoey Findley is a hard-working hockey player from a small town in Ontario, and her making the cut for a competitive team in a neighbouring city is a dream come true. For the dream to become a reality, though, Zoey must overcome some challenges. Competitive hockey comes at a large financial cost—one that Zoey’s family can’t afford. Additionally, her teammates have been playing together for years and aren’t as welcoming to her as a newcomer. O’Brien’s novel, The Playmaker, follows Zoey from tryouts to tournaments as she learns to work through these challenges and become the best hockey player she can be.

O’Brien’s sports writing is detailed and informative; much of the novel takes place on the ice and reads as a play-by-play of the various games played by the Barrie Sharks. While the story also touches on the financial struggles of the Findley family, as well as the social dynamics of joining a new team, at the end of it all, the book is more about the sport than the player. With the majority of the book spent either on the ice or in the locker room, it could be a tough slog for any reader who does not play or at least watch hockey. All the technical terms and hockey jargon might prove too much for someone without at least a passing interest in the sport. However, The Playmaker will definitely meet the reading requirements for hockey lovers and is reminiscent in that way of David Skuy’s Rocket Blues.

A true positive about this novel is how O’Brien uses his platform to do two things: first of all, to support women’s hockey and second, to share information about the financial programs available to assist underprivileged youth who want to participate in team sports. This is done subtly, incorporated right into the text as Zoey reaches out to programs, such as JumpStart and KidsSport, and even contacts possible sponsors directly to receive funding. For many young athletes in the same situation as Zoey, this is valuable information and may help them to find their own sources of funding for sports.

One significant drawback to The Playmaker is the structure of some of the sentences. While it may not be a hard-and-fast rule that sentences should not begin with “but” or another coordinating conjunction, it should only be done sporadically and for dramatic effect. However, it happens often enough in this novel that it can be distracting and even jarring at times, which is something that should have been caught in the editing process. While I might pass this novel along to a hockey lover looking for a quick page-turner, I don’t know that I would add it to my library collection.