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Top Shelf: A Hockey LitRPG
He was the best player on the ice—until the ice became a video game, and he had to earn it all over again.
Corey Mitchell is the best hockey player at Naperville North. Scouts from Michigan are in the stands. The playoffs are on the line. And in the final minutes of the biggest game of his life, a rival's illegal hit sends him headfirst into the boards.
He wakes up inside Top Shelf Hockey—a blocky, nostalgic video game he hasn't played since he was twelve. His stats have been reset to Level 1. His shot can barely reach the net. And the only way out is to win the championship tournament from scratch.
But this isn't just a game. The rival who shadowed him on real ice has followed him here. The move that almost killed him is the same move he'll need to win. And every level he climbs forces him to confront something harder than a boss the question of whether the dream he's chasing is his own, or the one his father never finished.
With his family gathered around a hospital bed and a priest standing at the foot of it, Corey has one tournament left to play—and everything to prove.
Top Shelf is a sports LitRPG about a high school hockey star trapped inside the game that raised him. Set in the Chicago suburbs and a Dreamcast-era video game world, it blends coma-dream mystery with retro gaming nostalgia, stat-driven progression, and a father-son story that hits harder than any check on the boards. Perfect for fans of Ready Player One by Ernest Cline, Dungeon Crawler Carl by Matt Dinniman, and The Art of Fielding by Chad Harbach, as well as readers who love LitRPG progression systems, underdog sports stories, and coming-of-age fiction with heart.
Corey Mitchell is the best hockey player at Naperville North. Scouts from Michigan are in the stands. The playoffs are on the line. And in the final minutes of the biggest game of his life, a rival's illegal hit sends him headfirst into the boards.
He wakes up inside Top Shelf Hockey—a blocky, nostalgic video game he hasn't played since he was twelve. His stats have been reset to Level 1. His shot can barely reach the net. And the only way out is to win the championship tournament from scratch.
But this isn't just a game. The rival who shadowed him on real ice has followed him here. The move that almost killed him is the same move he'll need to win. And every level he climbs forces him to confront something harder than a boss the question of whether the dream he's chasing is his own, or the one his father never finished.
With his family gathered around a hospital bed and a priest standing at the foot of it, Corey has one tournament left to play—and everything to prove.
Top Shelf is a sports LitRPG about a high school hockey star trapped inside the game that raised him. Set in the Chicago suburbs and a Dreamcast-era video game world, it blends coma-dream mystery with retro gaming nostalgia, stat-driven progression, and a father-son story that hits harder than any check on the boards. Perfect for fans of Ready Player One by Ernest Cline, Dungeon Crawler Carl by Matt Dinniman, and The Art of Fielding by Chad Harbach, as well as readers who love LitRPG progression systems, underdog sports stories, and coming-of-age fiction with heart.
78 pages, Kindle Edition
Published February 28, 2026
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