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Home Ice

Reflections of a Reluctant Hockey Mom

ebook
1 of 1 copy available
1 of 1 copy available

The author of the Canada Reads–nominated The Bone Cage tackles the ups and downs of amateur hockey, from a mother's point of view

Over 570,000 people are registered in Hockey Canada and over 600,000 in Hockey USA. It's a national obsession. But what does that really mean when your child wants to play on a team? As a former varsity athlete and university instructor teaching sport literature, novelist Angie Abdou is no stranger to sport obsession, but she finds herself conflicted when faced with the reality of the struggles, joys, and strains of having a child in amateur hockey. In Home Ice, with equal parts humour and anguish, Abdou charts a full season of life as an Atom-level hockey mom, from summer hockey camp to the end-of-season tournament. Her revealing stories and careful research on issues such as cost, gender bias, concussion, and family pressures offer a compellingly honest and complex insider's view of parenting today's young athlete in a competitive and high-pressure culture.

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    • Publisher's Weekly

      September 24, 2018
      Novelist Abdou (Bone Cage) takes a deep dive into world of competitive youth hockey in a memoir that is at once witty and sincere. Abdou, married with two kids in British Columbia, tells of the dizzying expenses and time commitment that go into keeping her nine-year-old son, Ollie, playing travel hockey. She touches on many aspects of youth hockey: travel logistics that have to be worked out with one’s spouse; angry parents acting out during games (some clubs in Vancouver do not allow parents to watch the games); the fear of concussions (as of 2013, body checking is not allowed until players are 13 years old); and the camaraderie of hockey families, rivals or not. “Sometimes I am the kind of hockey parent I hate,” she admits, explaining away the passion that rises to the surface during games. Throughout she writes of her brother’s encounter with hockey coach Graham James (who molested a generation of NHL hockey players as teens), as well as her own story of an online flirtation and near romance she had with an American academic as an escape from her overly scheduled life. This is a lively, honestly written account of parenting that will resonate with readers who are fully involved in their children’s sports.

    • Booklist

      Starred review from September 1, 2018
      When her six-year-old son, Oliver, decided to play hockey, the author had only one firm rule: as long as he loved it, she would support him totally. But as soon as you only kind of like it, we're done. Right from the beginning, the British Columbia novelist made sure her son knew they were entering into an arrangement where both sides had to keep their promises. Abdou's book spans a full hockey season; Ollie is nine years old, still just a boy, but learning what it takes to be a man. But the book isn't just about her son's adventures in hockey; it's also about the toll being a hockey parent can take on someone's personal life (Abdou is candid about the problems in her marriage, about the way she sometimes resented being the parent who was making all the sacrifices to support their son). The author brings a novelist's eye to the story, telling it in first-person present tense; with its sharp characterizations and dialogue in place of autobiographical exposition, the book is a first-rate memoir and a fine example of narrative nonfiction. It's also a must-read for parents with youngsters who play organized sports.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2018, American Library Association.)

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  • English

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