Sens at Land’s End

Puck Lit Project Review #4: The Five Hole Stories by Dave Bidini

Plot Summary: This is a collection of five short stories about the off-ice activities of hockey players, with a focus on the bedroom, or the locker room, as the case may be. “One Hundred Bucks” is about the relationship between a … woman of loose morals and a hockey player. “Why I Love Wayne Bradley” deals with the love a goaltender feels for the star player on his team. “Joan” is again about the love between player and goalie, only this time the goalie is female. “I Am Bobby Wolf” sees a player seek out an unusual cure for a slump. “Cortina” tells the story of a career minor leaguer who plays in Italy. “The Five Hole” is all about the five hole.

Genre: Fiction, Short Stories, and I’m coining a new term here: Hockeyrotica. Look for it to be added to your dictionary within the next few years.

Hockey Content: All the stories are centered around hockey, so there’s plenty, though most of the action is off the ice, if you know what I mean, nudge nudge wink wink. There are references to real teams and players, and Wayne Bradley is quite obviously based on Wayne Gretzky.

Choice Quotation: “You know, Ronnie, once you’ve found a goalie’s five hole, they’re yours forever.”

My Thoughts: As I said in my last Puck Lit review, in which I mentioned my surprise that hockey has inspired its share of romance novels, hockey is not about love. It’s about the eternal conflict between man and his environment. It’s about life, and living on in harsh circumstances. It’s also about watching powerful, sweaty men hit each other, which, it must be said, can be pretty hot. If you had told me there was a huge market for hockey porn, it wouldn’t have surprised me as much as the romance novel thing did. And that is where The Five Hole Stories comes in.

Having said that, to call it “hockey porn” is a stretch. Each story does deal with hockey and sex, but if you’re looking for non-stop locker room action, then this is not the book for you. If you want to read a few entertaining and sometimes poignant stories about the secret love lives of hockey players (NOT the secret lives of hockey wives — that was something far less enjoyable), then you should pick it up. Some of the stories are better than others (my favourites would have to be ”Why I Love Wayne Bradley” and “One Hundred Bucks”), as is true of most short story collections, but overall it’s a good little (only 111 pages) book. Bidini, who is the guitarist for the Rheostatics, has also written a couple of non-fiction books about hockey (The Best Game You Can Name and Tropic of Hockey) and based on these stories I’d say they’re worth checking out.

Rating: 3.5 pucks out of 5. Quite good, but not outstanding.