What do you think?
Rate this book
Ice Time: A Tale of Fathers, Sons, and Hometown Heroes
As kids, we all had passions -- something we loved doing, experienced with our friends, dreamed about every spare moment. For Jay Atkinson, who grew up in a small Massachusetts town, it was hockey. When Bobby Orr scored the winning goal in the 1970 Stanley Cup Finals against the St. Louis Blues, Atkinson became a fan for life. In 1975, he played on the first Methuen Rangers varsity hockey team. Once and always a rink rat, Atkinson still plays hockey whenever and wherever he can.
Twenty-five years after he played for the Rangers, Atkinson returns to his high school team as a volunteer assistant. Ice Time tells the team's story as he follows the temperamental star, the fiery but troubled winger, the lovesick goalie, the rookie whose father is battling cancer, and the "old school" coach as the Rangers make a desperate charge into the state tournament. In emotionally vivid detail, Ice Time travels into the rinks, schools, and living rooms of small-town America, where friendships are forged, the rewards of loyalty and perseverance are earned, and boys and girls are transformed into young men and women. Along the way, we also meet his five-year-old son, Liam, who is just now learning the game his father loves.
Whether describing kids playing a moonlit game on a frozen swamp or the crucible of team tryouts and predawn bus rides that he endured himself, Atkinson carves out the drama of adolescence with precision and affection. He takes us onto the ice and into the heart of a town and a team as he explores the profound connection between fathers and sons, and what it means to go home again.
Twenty-five years after he played for the Rangers, Atkinson returns to his high school team as a volunteer assistant. Ice Time tells the team's story as he follows the temperamental star, the fiery but troubled winger, the lovesick goalie, the rookie whose father is battling cancer, and the "old school" coach as the Rangers make a desperate charge into the state tournament. In emotionally vivid detail, Ice Time travels into the rinks, schools, and living rooms of small-town America, where friendships are forged, the rewards of loyalty and perseverance are earned, and boys and girls are transformed into young men and women. Along the way, we also meet his five-year-old son, Liam, who is just now learning the game his father loves.
Whether describing kids playing a moonlit game on a frozen swamp or the crucible of team tryouts and predawn bus rides that he endured himself, Atkinson carves out the drama of adolescence with precision and affection. He takes us onto the ice and into the heart of a town and a team as he explores the profound connection between fathers and sons, and what it means to go home again.
321 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2001
5 people are currently reading
140 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews
January 15, 2019
It was an alright book. I am a fan of sports and all but it couldve focused more on the actual games and had a little more detail about them. I also found that during the book it would skip around a lot. For instance the players could be practicing and then they could be having lunch with their teammates. I would recommend this book to someone who enjoys hockey or sports but it may be hard to follow if you don't follow sports.
January 15, 2018
As a hockey player, Jay Atkinson’s ice time was a great book to read. The story of growing up in Massachusetts and playing hockey is very relatable to me and I can connect to the stories of being at the rink and the emotions in the sport. I also like the story of returning to his high school team and helping out. Over all, I enjoyed reading this book and hearing about his stories in the rink.
February 17, 2014
I'm a hockey guy...a pond hockey guy, a backyard rink guy, a youth and high school hockey guy.
And I didn't last 40 pages.
This should be one of my favorite books. It should speak to me in the way a book about high school hockey should speak to someone who played, lived, and loved high school hockey. But something about Mr Atkinson didn't feel right. There was an unspoken arrogance that I couldn't shake, cemented by this passage (which I'll shorten to reduce the clutter), in which he skates at the HS rink with two of the high school players (for the first time, days after meeting them):
------------------
"Gradzewicz is a solid kid, thick through the shoulders, and a good skater...he's a candidate for varsity. But his game looks soft. I'm nowhere near any of these kids as a skater or puckhandler, but whenever I approach Gradzewicz, the yellow-haired sophomore maintains a large gap between us and backs up until he nearly crashes into the net. 'Hey Dan,' I call out to him. 'Show a little aggression once in a while.'
When we're resting against the boards, I ask Soucy to demonstrate this nifty little drag move I've seen him use. Grinning proudly, he cradles the puck with the blade of his stick, dragging it behind him as he skates along. Just as the puck reaches a point almost directly behind him, Soucy slides the puck between his own skates and kicks it ahead to his forehand. Executed properly, the move will leave a defender clutching at thin air.
'Pretty nice,' I say. 'But if you're at center ice and it doesn't work, you're giving up a rush going the other way. Use it in their end of the rink.'
'Okay, Mr Atkinson,' Soucy says. He practices the move down low in the corner. When they think I'm not looking, Soucy and Gradzewicz glance at each other and smile."
------------------
That was page 38. I never saw page 39.
That passage alone told me all I needed to know about Mr Atkinson. That he thinks he should be correcting behaviors a day after meeting kids he was supposed to be writing about (not coaching). That he thinks that he can judge (and comment on) a defenseman's aggression after 5 minutes of stick-and-puck with an old man in sweatpants. That he thinks two teenage kids tooling around with a writer would even care what he thinks. I just couldn't continue on with this book, despite my relationship to the game mimicking Mr Atkinson's, knowing that it would likely be filled with misplaced judgment of high school kids and far too many flashbacks to the awesomeness of his youth.
I wanted to love this book, and twice I tried, separated by more than a year. But Mr Atkinson pushed me aside both times.
That smile that the two players shared, Mr Atkinson? That was those two kids calling you a douchebag.
And I didn't last 40 pages.
This should be one of my favorite books. It should speak to me in the way a book about high school hockey should speak to someone who played, lived, and loved high school hockey. But something about Mr Atkinson didn't feel right. There was an unspoken arrogance that I couldn't shake, cemented by this passage (which I'll shorten to reduce the clutter), in which he skates at the HS rink with two of the high school players (for the first time, days after meeting them):
------------------
"Gradzewicz is a solid kid, thick through the shoulders, and a good skater...he's a candidate for varsity. But his game looks soft. I'm nowhere near any of these kids as a skater or puckhandler, but whenever I approach Gradzewicz, the yellow-haired sophomore maintains a large gap between us and backs up until he nearly crashes into the net. 'Hey Dan,' I call out to him. 'Show a little aggression once in a while.'
When we're resting against the boards, I ask Soucy to demonstrate this nifty little drag move I've seen him use. Grinning proudly, he cradles the puck with the blade of his stick, dragging it behind him as he skates along. Just as the puck reaches a point almost directly behind him, Soucy slides the puck between his own skates and kicks it ahead to his forehand. Executed properly, the move will leave a defender clutching at thin air.
'Pretty nice,' I say. 'But if you're at center ice and it doesn't work, you're giving up a rush going the other way. Use it in their end of the rink.'
'Okay, Mr Atkinson,' Soucy says. He practices the move down low in the corner. When they think I'm not looking, Soucy and Gradzewicz glance at each other and smile."
------------------
That was page 38. I never saw page 39.
That passage alone told me all I needed to know about Mr Atkinson. That he thinks he should be correcting behaviors a day after meeting kids he was supposed to be writing about (not coaching). That he thinks that he can judge (and comment on) a defenseman's aggression after 5 minutes of stick-and-puck with an old man in sweatpants. That he thinks two teenage kids tooling around with a writer would even care what he thinks. I just couldn't continue on with this book, despite my relationship to the game mimicking Mr Atkinson's, knowing that it would likely be filled with misplaced judgment of high school kids and far too many flashbacks to the awesomeness of his youth.
I wanted to love this book, and twice I tried, separated by more than a year. But Mr Atkinson pushed me aside both times.
That smile that the two players shared, Mr Atkinson? That was those two kids calling you a douchebag.
June 3, 2016
I read the book Ice time by Jay Atkinson. It's a tale of fathers, sons, and hometown heroes as stated on the cover of the book. It's about the love he has for the game and a varsity high school team, he shows it through the times he goes out on the pond and spends hours on hours by himself skating. In the winter he goes out and drives around just to find a pond kids are playing on, and will try to get in on the game. Being a hockey boy I can relate very much the passion he has for the game is very contagious. He also would go to play games with the local hockey team even though he was an older guy just for he love of the game. He also shows his passion from his love of the game and his varsity team. I love this book because it is based on a true story that I can relate to It is about a varsity high school team that is underdog till the new coach comes along and they just enjoy playing hockey and play for the guy next to them become a family and just play the game to have fun. I can really relate to it because this season for Algonquin hockey we played and just became a family playing for the guy next to each other, in some ways we were like one heart beat we played together. Not because we wanted to win not for the fame or glory, we played so hard and worked as hard as we did just because we loved the group of guys we were playing with it was something truly special. We played for he love of the game and always had fun joking and laughing and always working hard. It was very much a story like ours because we were the underdog and were never thought to get as far as we did in the playoff, all the way to the state finals... This story really related to me and can relate to the average hockey player with just a passion for the game. I would recommend this to every hockey player because I genially loved the book for its story and I think they would too. Overall a great and very well written book.
May 10, 2021
Riveting tale of a hockey team in Massachusetts--a season in the life of a high school squad, the Methuen Rangers. It's about much more than hockey--a town battling between its working class roots and arriviste influx, a guy clinging to his schoolboy sports memories while making a few new ones, and fatherhood. (Atkinson writes frequently about young son Liam. Notably absent is Liam's mother.)
Atkinson embeds himself with the team and shares a lot of tasty details--the banter between the boys, the players' psychological ups and downs, the death of one player's father and how it affects the team.
Really enjoyed it.
Atkinson embeds himself with the team and shares a lot of tasty details--the banter between the boys, the players' psychological ups and downs, the death of one player's father and how it affects the team.
Really enjoyed it.
July 5, 2013
I don't normally read books about sports--I don't religiously follow any sports teams. I don't watch a lot of games. But, I did go to a university with Division 1 hockey and saw quite a few games there, so I have a rudimentary understanding of hockey and how it works. Having a basic understanding of how the game functions and how teams work makes the book understandable and exciting.
The book is nonfiction. In it, author Jay Atkinson spends a season with Methuen High School's hockey team. Interspersed with vignettes from the locker room and games are moments where hockey intersects with the rest of Atkinson's life--as he raises his young son Liam, as he plays in an adult league, as he reflects on his own childhood. The core of the book is Atkinson's passion for hockey.
There's a wide cast of characters in the book--the coaches, the players, the parents, and staff at MHS. Atkinson wisely refers to most of them by first and last name at all times--it's easier to remember who they are with both identifiers. He also provides refreshers in appositive phrases to remind us who is a parent, who is the principal of the high school, etc. Without these reminders, it would be easy to get lost in the sea of names. Additionally, Atkinson works to give key players personalities and distinguishing characteristics. Little details give each player more humanity on the page.
The book will certainly appeal to hockey fans. The descriptions of moments in games are fast-paced and vivid. If you follow hockey, it's easy to picture what's happening. The language is filled with jargon and turns of phrase that are eye-catching: "MacDonald's shot rises off the ice, accelerates at a fantastic rate, and on its way past the stiffening defenseman, nicks the underside of his stick. The infinitesimal deflection immediately puts a funny action on the puck: it dips, spins, turns sideways, and slows its course through the air. The Wildcats' goalie, heading in one direction, suddenly goes flatfooted and freezes like a statue. MacDonald's shot drops, sinks some more, and then rises a bit and flutters beneath the goalie's left arm and into the net. A fifty-foot butterfly of a goal."
The book with also be of interest to those who live in the towns near Methuen. References to the Merrimack Valley abound and will probably cause readers from the area to relate and mull over how they've been represented in the book.
Bottom line: fans of hockey and vivid action will like the book best. Those who enjoy the reflection and contemplation of memoir will find space to engage. Those who want to understand the passion behind hockey with find answers.
The book is nonfiction. In it, author Jay Atkinson spends a season with Methuen High School's hockey team. Interspersed with vignettes from the locker room and games are moments where hockey intersects with the rest of Atkinson's life--as he raises his young son Liam, as he plays in an adult league, as he reflects on his own childhood. The core of the book is Atkinson's passion for hockey.
There's a wide cast of characters in the book--the coaches, the players, the parents, and staff at MHS. Atkinson wisely refers to most of them by first and last name at all times--it's easier to remember who they are with both identifiers. He also provides refreshers in appositive phrases to remind us who is a parent, who is the principal of the high school, etc. Without these reminders, it would be easy to get lost in the sea of names. Additionally, Atkinson works to give key players personalities and distinguishing characteristics. Little details give each player more humanity on the page.
The book will certainly appeal to hockey fans. The descriptions of moments in games are fast-paced and vivid. If you follow hockey, it's easy to picture what's happening. The language is filled with jargon and turns of phrase that are eye-catching: "MacDonald's shot rises off the ice, accelerates at a fantastic rate, and on its way past the stiffening defenseman, nicks the underside of his stick. The infinitesimal deflection immediately puts a funny action on the puck: it dips, spins, turns sideways, and slows its course through the air. The Wildcats' goalie, heading in one direction, suddenly goes flatfooted and freezes like a statue. MacDonald's shot drops, sinks some more, and then rises a bit and flutters beneath the goalie's left arm and into the net. A fifty-foot butterfly of a goal."
The book with also be of interest to those who live in the towns near Methuen. References to the Merrimack Valley abound and will probably cause readers from the area to relate and mull over how they've been represented in the book.
Bottom line: fans of hockey and vivid action will like the book best. Those who enjoy the reflection and contemplation of memoir will find space to engage. Those who want to understand the passion behind hockey with find answers.
June 19, 2014
I found this book to be very well written by Jay Atkinson. I really liked it because I'm a true hockey player and hockey fan and when my father showed me the book when I need a reading book for class I saw it was a hockey book and decided to give it a try. It was a great choice for a book to read.
The main reason I enjoyed this book was because of how it was based on a true story and how realistic it was. Also how it was like real life situations in my life and how my hockey carrier has gone. This story is a bunch of teenagers who play for a varsity high school hockey team and are always know for being an underdog team. Until a coach comes along and teaches this kids to have fun and to play the game properly. Jay makes it seem real by puttting in real life emotions, problems, and achievements like a normal person has. Even brings in some disaplin to some of the players who have been doing bad. Jay Atkinson made the story so interesting because he showed the life of a hockey player and what they do before games and how they joke around and call each other names like " bobo " and " ape man ". Jay made the story line blend perfectly. They had the start and middle that were done pretty well, by how they were winning games and coach was bringing the team together. The ending of the story is where Jay really made the book so interesting. The team is making a play off run that no one expected to make and everyone is so excited about the teams work. I would reccomond this book to anyone who likes the game of hockey or sporty interning books.
The main reason I enjoyed this book was because of how it was based on a true story and how realistic it was. Also how it was like real life situations in my life and how my hockey carrier has gone. This story is a bunch of teenagers who play for a varsity high school hockey team and are always know for being an underdog team. Until a coach comes along and teaches this kids to have fun and to play the game properly. Jay makes it seem real by puttting in real life emotions, problems, and achievements like a normal person has. Even brings in some disaplin to some of the players who have been doing bad. Jay Atkinson made the story so interesting because he showed the life of a hockey player and what they do before games and how they joke around and call each other names like " bobo " and " ape man ". Jay made the story line blend perfectly. They had the start and middle that were done pretty well, by how they were winning games and coach was bringing the team together. The ending of the story is where Jay really made the book so interesting. The team is making a play off run that no one expected to make and everyone is so excited about the teams work. I would reccomond this book to anyone who likes the game of hockey or sporty interning books.
May 24, 2011
Ice Time by Jay Atkinson is about different high school hockey players. The author did a good job showing how much it means for the kids to play hockey and what they had to go through to get to where they wanted to be. This book reminded me of my football league i used to play in because the coaches in this book really try and teach the kids everything they know and they are there role models. They have so much dedication to the kids it’s amazing and it’s rare to find coaches like that but i know how the kids felt to have a coach like they did. Although Hockey and football are different a lot of things remain the same, this book illustrates the bond between players, coaches and parents. Even though you may not play sports for the rest of your life the moments you had will stay with you forever.
I would recommend this book to someone who has read a sports book or wants to read the experiences of a high school hockey team.
I would recommend this book to someone who has read a sports book or wants to read the experiences of a high school hockey team.
January 11, 2012
As many would say many childhoods revolves around one major thing sports. In the book ice time Jay Atkinson fell in love with hockey when Bobby Orr scored the winning goal in the 1970’s Stanley Cup finals. Living in a small Massachusetts town there wasn’t much to do during the winter and when the nearby lake froze during the winter everybody got out their skates and rushed down to play some hockey. But after 25 years playing for the Rangers Atkinson decides to go back to his old high school as an assistant. There he learns about true friend ship and why he loved the game of hockey so much.
The story ice time is a very good story that shows how much the author cared about the sport of hokey. Through out the story one thing was emphasized a lot and that was how fun and amazing playing the game of hockey was to all of the kids in the story. I could really connect to this story because of the love I have for the sport of basketball. I
The story ice time is a very good story that shows how much the author cared about the sport of hokey. Through out the story one thing was emphasized a lot and that was how fun and amazing playing the game of hockey was to all of the kids in the story. I could really connect to this story because of the love I have for the sport of basketball. I
December 28, 2007
This is a terrific memoir connecting three threads: the author's youth playing hockey, his work as a volunteer coach for his old high school hockey team, and his efforts to introduce his young son to hockey. The focus rarely leaves these three threads, making this one of the most well-structured memoirs I've read in years. In addition, the prose is lyrical and poetic, often in sharp contrast to the rough-and-tumble sport and the gritty neighborhood settings. (The reviewer who gave this book one star totally misses the point that a memoir *must* include the author as a major character. This is memoir, not journalism.) Highly recommended for everyone, not just hockey enthusiast, because of the great writing, sharp descriptions, connections between past/present/future, and wise reflections.
February 8, 2015
This guy loves hockey, and reading this book - part memoir, part chronicle of a Metheun High season in the late 90's- helped me appreciate the game much more. At times, though, how much Atkinson kept reliving his glory days through playing alongside high schoolers felt odd. Also, I think he mentioned his wife once. I found myself feeling bad for her because of his obsession with the true love of his life.
January 7, 2009
A little overly sentimental, a little overwrought. Atkinson's love for hockey, however, is pure, earnest and unmistakable. That, along with his movie-sharp evocations of the gritty on-ice action and the complex strategies of the game make this book a pleasure to read.
October 5, 2008
loved it because it was set in Methuen and I went to high school with guys like this
July 4, 2010
Fucking brilliant book - excellent.
--
This has to go down as one of the best books I've ever read.
--
This has to go down as one of the best books I've ever read.
Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews