The Hockey Tree

Gregory Bryan is a member of the Faculty of Education at the University of Manitoba in Winnipeg.

In the author’s note at the end of The Hockey Tree, David Ward writes:
“wherever there is a puck and an expanse of ice, there is hockey.”
The young protagonist in this story has an “expanse of ice,” but no
puck.

Owen is excited to spend the day playing hockey with his father,
sister, and friends. However, no sooner does the game begin than the
puck disappears down a fisherman’s hole in the ice. Fortunately for
the enthusiastic skaters, Owen’s father comes up with an idea for a
replacement puck.

Ward writes in a manner both descriptive and evocative, detailed, yet
concise: “Thread and pull. Thread and pull”; “The fisherman’s
frown changed to a smile.” One gets the sense the fisherman might like
to trade in his fishing pole for a hockey stick.

I must confess to a weakness for picture-book illustrations done in oil
on canvas. Such an approach lends to a work an artistic element that is
difficult to resist, and Deines’s oil paintings do not disappoint. The
soft hues and muted light capture the essence of a prairie winter. One
can almost feel the cold Saskatchewan air reflected in the snow drifts
in Deines’s art. Highly recommended.