The Fictional Hockey League

Critiquing hockey romance novels, of which there are many. Overthinking it is the point.

Wednesday, January 28, 2015

Offside: Post 6



Chapter 9: Car Talk

As I’ve mentioned before, this town of New Waterford clearly has nothing of importance to talk about, and this is proven again as chapter nine opens with the news about Billie’s car having spread to everyone who lives there. I get that such vandalism would be of gossipy interest, but this goes beyond that. Everyone who sees Logan asks him about it, since the car is in his garage, and beyond that, a whole bunch of people made donations to cover the expense of fixing the car, including brand new tires, a new paint job, and an alarm system. Even a girls’ hockey league got involved.

This town has as girls’ hockey league.

This town has a girls’ hockey league.

So what the bloody hell is everyone up in arms about a woman playing hockey for? If there isn’t a women’s league—which is never mentioned—where the heck else are girls going to play when they grow up but in a beer league? Which would then be co-ed of necessity. I just can’t believe that a town that has a whole girls’ league, not just a team, doesn’t have some place for adult women to play and that people would be so upset about a woman playing on a men’s team that the whole town would be up in arms.

This book seriously makes no sense in this regard—which is problematic, what with it being the fundamental issue.

At any rate, you might be wondering why the heck Billie’s car was being fixed in Logan’s garage, since they’re a specialty custom shop—Logan was wondering this too, in fact. As it turns out, Shane (the ex-convict) offered to fix it for Billie since he didn’t trust the town’s actual mechanic as he’d been clear that he didn’t think Billie should be playing on the men’s league. Logan is displeased to learn that Shane made this offer as he still believes that Billie and Shane have spent the weekend having All The Sex. (In contrast, Logan spent the weekend drinking All The Beer and thinking about Billie and keeping track of the fact that Shane wasn’t home so he must have been with Billie.)

Shane tells Logan that he and Billie just spent time chatting, and at first Logan doesn’t believe him, since he’d interpreted Billie’s comment in her Driveway of Crazy Family as her having slept with Shane. (In fact, Logan had inferred this from her comments; Billie had implied it. I say this because the book says that Billie had inferred it, which doesn’t make any sense. This is the sort of thing that the editor mentioned in the front of the book ought to have caught.  Harrumph.)

Billie arrives at Logan’s shop to pick up her car, unaware that people had chipped in to help her out, and she flips out (not in a good way.) First she’s worried it will cost too much as she only asked for the most basic fixes and this brand-new-looking car must have cost more than the estimate. Then, when she learns that there’s no bill at all, she gets upset thinking that someone is giving her charity. But once Billie learns that all sorts of people chipped in, upset about the vandalism in the first place she accepts the car. (Duke-from-the-grill, the guy who was so vociferous about Billie not playing in the league that his wife stopped having sex with him, even brought over beer and wings for the techs to enjoy while working. Which is good, since his grill seems to be the only place to eat in this town and if he didn’t bring them food, who would have? Those poor techs would have starved.)

Once she accepts the car keys, though, Billie also apologizes for kissing Logan in the Driveway of Crazy Family and says that it won’t happen again. Logan, however, tells her that he thinks it will. (I assume he means the kiss, not necessarily with a full contingent of armed family members watching them next time.) The chapter closes with Logan convinced that Billie will be worth the wait.

2 comments:

  1. I can't believe you're back on schedule again. Congrats! My low productivity drags on for weeks.

    I look for logic in all my romances (I know, I know) and my personal take would be that someone like Billie would be revered in a small town. She went to the Olympics, twice if I recall rightly, and she's an amazing player. So why can't she play hockey with the boys? On 22 Minutes, there was a skit making comrades of striking NHL players and tortured South American union workers. Obviously, some dramas are real and some completely manufactured.

    But it's worth it when I get to read lines about "All The Sex" and "All The Beer."

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  2. Yes, to the Olympics twice. She should be the town's golden girl and anywhere I've lived, the boys would welcome (at least in public) a woman who plays so well onto their teams/into their league.

    Glad you're enjoying!! I didn't think today's post was as good as past ones because I rushed it. I'm hoping to get properly caught up/ahead this weekend, but who knows if I'll manage?

    I'm delighted, by the way, to see your blog appears to be visible again!! Huzzah! (I somehow hadn't seen your post that begins with a slow loris but having just read it, while in my office no less, I laughed out loud enough about the attempted homicide that I got a strange look from a passing student.)

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