{"id":32730,"date":"2022-02-28T16:50:56","date_gmt":"2022-02-28T21:50:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.bu.edu\/com\/?post_type=bu-article&#038;p=32730"},"modified":"2022-03-08T17:45:09","modified_gmt":"2022-03-08T22:45:09","slug":"hometown-hockey","status":"publish","type":"bu-article","link":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/com\/articles\/hometown-hockey\/","title":{"rendered":"Hometown Hockey"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>While reliving high school experiences only happens to most of us in our dreams &#8212; or nightmares &#8212; COM Lecturer Jay Atkinson is going in for the third time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In 1999, Atkinson returned to his high school as a volunteer assistant coach for his old hockey team, the Methuen (Massachusetts) Rangers. There, he spent a year observing the lives of the players for his book <a href=\"https:\/\/www.barnesandnoble.com\/w\/ice-time-jay-atkinson\/1103275564?ean=9780578327211\"><em>Ice Time<\/em><\/a>, a deep-dive investigation into youth hockey culture in small towns.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Ice Time<\/em> was named by Publisher\u2019s Weekly as a Notable Book of the Year for 2001, and landed on the bestseller list with the New England Independent Booksellers Association. Now, the book is finding new audiences with the release of a new, 20<sup>th<\/sup> anniversary edition.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cA lot of these kids are now young parents, and many have sent me messages that they\u2019ve bought the [new] book,\u201d Atkinson says. \u201cIt\u2019s like a supercharged version of the high school yearbook. It couldn\u2019t have been written by someone outside the town.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>For Atkinson, the inspiration for the project came after he left the area in which he grew up. \u201cI spent ages 18 to 25 away from here,\u201d he says. \u201cWhen I came back, I started exploring as a writer all the things I took for granted as a kid. For example, I thought everybody skated over the road when it got icy on their way to skate at the local pond.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Here, Atkinson answers some questions about the project:&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<section class=\"wp-block-editorial-q-and-a test-block-editorial-q-and-a\"><div class=\"wp-block-editorial-q-and-a-title\"><h2 class=\"wp-block-editorial-q-and-a-title-heading\">Q<span>&amp;<\/span>A<\/h2><h4 class=\"wp-block-editorial-q-and-a-title-subheading\">With Jay Atkinson<\/h4><\/div>\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-editorial-q-and-a-question\"><span class=\"wp-block-editorial-q-and-a-name\">COMtalk:<\/span> <span class=\"wp-block-editorial-q-and-a-content\"><strong>What is it about your book that has resonated with audiences for such a long period of time?<\/strong><\/span><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-editorial-q-and-a-answer\"><span class=\"wp-block-editorial-q-and-a-name\">Atkinson:<\/span> <span class=\"wp-block-editorial-q-and-a-content\">There\u2019s a whole network of small towns, from Connecticut to Nova Scotia, from Boston to Maine, to Minnesota, and across Canada, that have the same relationship to hockey as people in Texas do to football. Buried within the hockey culture, like an insect buried in amber, there\u2019s a small-town resonance that goes back to [writers] Tom Wolfe and Sinclair Lewis. There\u2019s something that hasn\u2019t changed about hockey in these small towns, so it\u2019s like a time capsule.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-editorial-q-and-a-question\"><span class=\"wp-block-editorial-q-and-a-name\">COMtalk:<\/span> <span class=\"wp-block-editorial-q-and-a-content\"><strong>And what is that culture like?&nbsp;<\/strong><\/span><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-editorial-q-and-a-answer\"><span class=\"wp-block-editorial-q-and-a-name\">Atkinson:<\/span> <span class=\"wp-block-editorial-q-and-a-content\">The kids start very early. They have to go to hockey practice at 5 a.m. Hockey parents in Vermont would relate to hockey parents in Ontario. They\u2019d say, \u201chere we go again in the freezing cold rain with a cup of coffee.\u201d It\u2019s a very Irish Catholic sport, especially in Boston and Massachusetts, where there\u2019s a large Irish contingent. It\u2019s not an unfamiliar sight in New England to see someone who\u2019s getting ready to play pull the crucifix out of their collar, kiss it, and put it back under their jersey. A lot of the Catholic prep schools were powerhouses in hockey before anyone else. The church and school and sport have a connection. A lot of kids I coach I see at Mass, as well as a lot of guys I grew up playing with. Over Christmas I\u2019ll go to Mass to see people and whisper about the good old days.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-editorial-q-and-a-question\"><span class=\"wp-block-editorial-q-and-a-name\">COMtalk:<\/span> <span class=\"wp-block-editorial-q-and-a-content\"><strong>As a creative nonfiction author, how did you draw the line between being invasive and depicting an honest portrayal of your subjects?<\/strong><\/span><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-editorial-q-and-a-answer\"><span class=\"wp-block-editorial-q-and-a-name\">Atkinson:<\/span> <span class=\"wp-block-editorial-q-and-a-content\">In August of 1999, there was a meeting with all the players who were likely to make the varsity team, as well as the parents, teachers, and athletic staff. In fact, one of the main characters in <em>Ice Time<\/em> is Methuen High\u2019s hockey coach Joe Robillard, who still lives in Massachusetts. He was one of the goalies on BU\u2019s 1972 national championship hockey team. It was explained to the parents that I was an alum and a professor, and I was going to spend a year with the team, writing about their children. Everybody signed waivers. I tried to show some of the kids\u2019 trials and tribulations without revealing anything that would harm them in the future. For example, one of them was caught smoking marijuana twice during the season. This was 20 years ago, and marijuana was not as acceptable as it is today. Being older, and having the vision to look ahead, I thought, what\u2019s going to happen to him when he\u2019s 35 years old?&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-editorial-q-and-a-question\"><span class=\"wp-block-editorial-q-and-a-name\">COMtalk:<\/span> <span class=\"wp-block-editorial-q-and-a-content\"><strong>Are you still involved with young people and hockey today?<\/strong><\/span><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-editorial-q-and-a-answer\"><span class=\"wp-block-editorial-q-and-a-name\">Atkinson:<\/span> <span class=\"wp-block-editorial-q-and-a-content\">I\u2019ve run a hockey program for the last 20 years, Methuen Fun Hockey League Skate &amp; Read. It\u2019s all-inclusive, we don\u2019t turn any kids away. It combines recreational ice hockey and skating instruction with guided reading for children, so we have librarians bring books right to the rink. I\u2019m trying to re-create what happened when I was a kid. When I was 12 or 13, I played hockey on the pond after school. There wasn\u2019t much on TV back then, so we read books. I\u2019d come home, my mom would make me hot chocolate, and I\u2019d read a book about [hockey player] Bobby Orr. I wanted kids to have that old school feeling about that.&nbsp;<\/span><\/p>\n<\/section>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.barnesandnoble.com\/w\/ice-time-jay-atkinson\/1103275564?ean=9780578327211\"><em>Ice Time<\/em>\u2019s 20<sup>th<\/sup> anniversary edition is available now.<\/a> Atkinson\u2019s ninth book, <em>The Tree Stand<\/em>, a collection of short fiction, is to be published in October 2022.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>While reliving high school experiences only happens to most of us in our dreams &#8212; or nightmares &#8212; COM Lecturer&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1654,"featured_media":32733,"template":"","meta":{"bu_prepress_billboard":"","_bu_prepress_primary_term":"","_bu_prepress_primary_term_manual":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[1664,338],"bu-publication":[],"discipline-type":[],"bu_edition":[],"media_type":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/bu-article\/32730"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/bu-article"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/bu-article"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1654"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/bu-article\/32730\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":32732,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/bu-article\/32730\/revisions\/32732"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/32733"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32730"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32730"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32730"},{"taxonomy":"bu-publication","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/bu-publication?post=32730"},{"taxonomy":"discipline-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/discipline-type?post=32730"},{"taxonomy":"bu_edition","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/bu_edition?post=32730"},{"taxonomy":"media_type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media_type?post=32730"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}