Family, camaraderie, and a stolen ring
Rhapsody Smith, Ice Angel
by Lorna Schultz Nicholson
Winnipeg: Yellow Dog/Great Plains Press, 2025
$18.95 / 9781773371306
Reviewed by Alison Acheson
*
Gram hit a speed bump and not at the right speed. We all bounced in our seats.
“Um, Mrs. Powers,” squeaked Corny. “Eyes on the road, okay.”
“Yee haw,” said Pipes. “I love a good ride at the fair! Crank up the tunes.”
—from Rhapsody Smith, Ice Angel
There is a lovely sense of movement and flow to this story, between the camaraderie of the hockey teammates, the inter-team chirping fun, and the multi-generational openness and connections—as captured in the quotation above. And mostly, there is mystery!
A part-time Penticton resident, Lorna Schultz Nicholson has written about our national game for all ages of children and young people, from picture books (the Puckster series, for the youngest players) to YA novels like Denial, and even nonfiction. She’s written off-ice stories too, but The Game is her specialty.
Main character Rhapsody Queen Smith (you can guess about the genesis of that name) was orphaned as an infant and has grown up with loving grandparents. She’s always being part of a team, and her personal history has created a well of empathy in her. And her friends have the sorts of nicknames you’d expect from a story with hockey at its core. Her friends love Gram, too. The multi-generational theme is as much at the core of the story as the hockey. And even though this family of three is indeed loving—there’s hockey-infected Gramps, too—there’s the heart-warmingly normal push-and-pull over homework and such. Gram is a terrible driver—per the quote!—and the insides of her purse would make a librarian bawl. But she is also a generous volunteer and a model of community building. It’s clear her granddaughter will follow those footsteps, too, as her heart continues to grow.
Recently, Gram assisted a woman into housing, an elderly woman who may be fuzzy on details such as where she comes from and her last name, but she has a coach-sharp hockey mind, and is as likely to spout some useful power skating advice as to compliment a good backhand. This woman, Marion, loves to come to Rap—Rhapsody’s—hockey games, with the rink conveniently across the street from the seniors’ residence.
Throughout the story there are wonderful moments when this elderly woman instructs Rap on the finer points of hockey—moments of warmth and surprise.
There’s also the horrific time of Rap discovering that Marion has been assaulted and robbed of the hockey championship ring she wears! Rap handles the emergency well and also believably. It does affect her, and she wants to help. She wants to discover who would do this, and she wants to retrieve the woman’s jewelry; she comes to know just how significant is this ring for the old woman, and we’re with her as she discovers why.
The story takes a turn into “mystery” at that point, a couple dozen pages in—just as I’d begun to wonder what it was all about. The plotting of the mystery is perhaps a bit farfetched at points, with Rap overthinking and some repetitive bits and pieces. Rap feels to be out of character in some of her sleuthing missions, and there were a few times that I had to find a pulley for some disbelief. But I set that up and got over it—in my adult mind—and the characters kept me in the game with the lot of them. Lorna Schultz Nicholson knows how to work with a group ensemble—not an easy feat. Each hockey team character and friend is well-evoked. I can see and hear each clearly: Pipes with her arms; encyclopedic Corny (who brilliantly dispenses with Nicholson’s research); Mals, who snorts and laughs; and many more. In the end the mystery works, and it didn’t have to be so convoluted.
Alex, Rap’s close friend, is not a primary character but is also well drawn and part of Rhapsody’s beloved circle. He has an unhappy home life and a mother who turfs him out for the evening when a boyfriend shows up. Rap, who knows what’s important, has this to say: “If parents had coaches, she would be benched.”
Nicholson does admirably to gently point to some of the challenges that young boys experience—the biases towards them in our society—especially those with a skateboard in hand—and the assumptions that are leapt to. At one point, for instance, Rha observes,“No one turned around to yell at us. Maybe because we weren’t boys. Guaranteed, boys would get the evil eye. The skater-boys would probably get kicked off.”
It is exactly this clear-sighted compassion that is the motivating piece throughout the story in multiple layers, and very welcome. Rhapsody’s story is one that seeks out the nourishing of all young people alongside developing an understanding of the ageing, an expansive way to see our world.
*
Alison Acheson is the author of almost a dozen books for all ages, including a memoir of caregiving, Dance Me to the End: Ten Months and Ten Days with ALS (TouchWood, 2019). She writes a newsletter on Substack, The Unschool for Writers, and lives on the East Side of Vancouver. [Editor’s note: Alison has reviewed books by Pam Withers, Becky Citra, Paul Yee, Leslie Gentile, Caroline Lavoie, Janice Lynn Mather, Li Charmaine Anne, Linda Demeulemeester, Hanako Masutani, Julie Lawson, George M. Johnson, Janice Lynn Mather, Jacqueline Firkins, Barbara Nickel, and Caroline Adderson for BCR; Blue Hours, her recent novel, was reviewed by Trish Bowering.]
*
The British Columbia Review
Interim Editors, 2023-26: Trevor Marc Hughes (non-fiction), Brett Josef Grubisic (fiction and poetry)
Publisher: Richard Mackie
Formerly The Ormsby Review, The British Columbia Review is an online book review and journal service for BC writers and readers. The Advisory Board now consists of Jean Barman, Wade Davis, Robin Fisher, Barry Gough, Hugh Johnston, Kathy Mezei, Patricia Roy, and Graeme Wynn. Provincial Government Patron (since September 2018): Creative BC. Honorary Patron: Yosef Wosk. Scholarly Patron: SFU Graduate Liberal Studies. The British Columbia Review was founded in 2016 by Richard Mackie and Alan Twigg.
“Only connect.” –E.M. Forster