While I wasn’t a huge fan of Game Misconduct, I was hopeful that Delay of Game would be different, but I had pretty similar feelings. It was fine but I felt disconnected from the romance.

Nate Singer is the captain of the Philly Constitution - he’s still trying to figure out how to be the captain of the hockey team while also struggling with his self-confidence and feeling worthy of his position. His best friend Zach Reed is one of the alternate captains on the team - he was traded to Philly after his less than stellar behavior but has turned it around in the past 2 years, focusing on hockey and spending time with Nate.

These two are really good friends and all it takes is one night of liquid courage to bring them together the way they’ve both been thinking about. Their relationship turns into a superstition and more than that, but they never really have a conversation about it. I liked how Zach helped Nate see himself in a different light and how Nate didn’t let Zach talk poorly about himself, but just didn’t feel the romantic connection between them as much as I wanted, or really at all.

What I didn’t like? The book starts out with a time skip where Zach and Nate become best friends and establish their relationship and we didn’t get to see any of that. I read the whole rest of the book (from chapter 1 on) feeling like I missed a chapter or two even though it just wasn’t there. Also the miscommunication between Nate and Zach that pulls them apart. It was so dragged out and felt out of character for them, even if they were both feeling things they hadn’t felt before.

Honestly I was happier to see Mike and Danny from Game Misconduct making it work and Bee and Makala doing cute couple things together than I was most of the book. The Cup celebrations at the end made me smile so I’m glad it ended on a high note.

Let me start by saying nothing I type in this review will express how good this book is.

I read @aribaranwrites first book Game Misconduct completely by accident. I needed an audiobook and it was MM Hockey so sign me up. It was so good I immediately searched for other books by this extremely talented writer. Delay of Game was on NetGalley. I requested an ARC and waited and it felt like agony. He is that good of a writer.

I got the ARC the same weekend I got the ARC for Time to Shine. In all honesty I read Delay of Game first. That should say everything.

Nate and Zach. Best friends, teammates, eventually more. I’ve read this book 3 times in 2 months. I connect with the character of Nate who suffers from anxiety in a deeply personal way. I love how Zach wants to give him everything. Did I hate that an honest conversation could have solved them and me a bunch of pain? Yes, yes I did. I skipped the painful part the last time I read it.

Also the ending of this book is a joy for every hockey fan.

Who should read this book? Everyone!!!!
What you will find
🏒 hockey (this is a true hockey book)
🏒 friends to lovers
🏒 Jewish rep
🏒 anxiety rep
🏒 bi-awakening (but I really see Demi)
🏒 angst and pining because that’s my thing

Thanks to @netgalley and @aribaranwrites for the ARC. Also for listening to me become obsessed with your book.

#mm #mmbooklovers #mmhockeyromance #mmfriendstolovers ##mmsportsromance #mmbookstagram #hockeyromance #romancebooks #booklover

Two years ago when Zach Reed was traded to the Philadelphia Cons after some very public excess of drugs and alcohol,,,and a sold nude pic, Zach assumed his life was over. Moving to the worst team in the league; his plan was to keep his head down and just play hockey,,,,and avoid the condescending “welcome” text he received from soon-to-be captain Nate Singer,
Little did he know that two years later he and Nate would be inseperable best friends and Zach would be absolutely determined to win a cup FOR Nate, He would do anything for his best friend.

When I was approved for the ARC of this book I finally cracked into the first book in the series, Game Misconduct,,.,and it was very much a mixed bag. I was really worried about how much I would enjoy this one and was SO pleasantly surprised by Delay of Game. Where I felt a bit uncomfortable with the relationship’s start in Game Misconduct, I spent the entirety of this book being really swoony about these two hockey himbos as they navigated their feelings for each other, I love a good best friends to lovers, bi awakening vibe FOR SURE,

Zach and Nate have their struggles and, while it stems from my least favorite place (a lack of adult communication) it is entirely believable so I wasn’t irked nearly as much as I normally would be. I love Baran’s knowledge of hockey; nothing is worse in a hockey romance than it just being a romance with the fact that they play hockey off-page sprinkled on top. I love a hockey heavy romance.

While far from a perfect book for me I definitely think this was a great hockey romance with really swoony goobers that I couldn’t get enough of. I mean I read 75% of the thing in one sitting, Definitely recommend for hockey romance fans!

Thank you to NetGalley and Carina Press for providing me with an ARC of this book in exchange for my honest review,

Heat Factor: Orgasms are plentiful. Ferda, natch.

Character Chemistry: The pining, y’all. THE PINING.

Plot: Sometimes you just have to get wasted enough to kiss your best friend, only now you’re kind of in a situationship because all those big hearted besties feelings are still there, but also you’re having sex all the time, but also you’ve never tried to define the relationship, and things are definitely not going to get awkward, right?

Overall: These two dummies gave me a massive book hangover, and it was awesome.

I. Loved. This. Book.

I have read so much m/m hockey romance—something about it is just the world and escape I need, apparently—and I’m definitely at a point where I enjoy new books, but I’ve kind of seen it all, and the heart-stopping butterflies are just really thin on the ground. So I guess what I really needed was best friends falling in love but make one have overwhelming anxiety that tells him the other shoe is definitely going to drop, and this whole situationship is way too good to be true, and what’s the point of talking about his feelings; and make the other one assume they’re dating even though he told his bestie that they’re just hooking up as a good luck charm for the team, and he is definitely too chickenshit to actually talk about any of his feelings. Thank you, Ari Baran.

Nate is dealing with some undiagnosed anxiety that is a problem for him but that he manages by sheer force of will. He also has pretty serious body dysmorphia that stems from being a big, acne-riddled teen who feared not making the draft because people speculated his size (which he reads as his fatness) would outweigh (pun absolutely intended) his skill. He’s the captain of the team, but doesn’t really think he deserves to be (hi, anxiety!), even though he has made a concerted effort to be the guy his team can count on to see the bigger picture and take care of things. In fact, Nate has the best anxiety spiral I’ve ever read when, after he and Zach hook up for the first time, he goes from:

"He wasn’t entirely sure how he’d gotten through the entire morning without breaking, but he was getting better at controlling himself. That was a lie. He was getting better at controlling himself while sober. Drunk Nate was a complete and utter disaster."

To:

"He wasn’t freaking out about hooking up with a guy.

"He was freaking out about hooking up with a teammate.

"He was absolutely freaking out about hooking up with Zach."

To:

"It was one thing to be best friends with a guy, but…Nate didn’t even have a pair of glasses he could take off or hair he could let down. There was no magic wand to wave that could put him in Zach’s league."

And finally:

"Nate, on the floor, thought goddamn, I was a pity fuck."

It was just an absolutely perfect mental spiral from “That just happened. OMG. WTF” to “I’ve lost everything” that perfectly illustrates Nate’s mental health struggle—including his lack of addressing what is pretty clearly a problem for him—and also, at 33%, prepares us for exactly the reason that everything will fall apart for these guys at the dark moment. Because, even though Zach is clearly not just sleeping with Nate for some superstition, and even though Zach calls Nate “baby” all the time, and even though Zach tells Nate he’s sexy, and even though they love to spend all their time together, Nate can’t imagine that Zach actually wants him. And because he’s already told himself this story, he has no reason at all to try to do anything about Zach disappearing on him, because obviously he doesn’t get nice things.

Zach is in a sort of constant state of trying to redeem himself after self-absorption, drug use, and immaturity earned him a trade from Montreal to Philly. His partying and subsequent bender after learning about the trade is shown in the prologue, and I think without the prologue we wouldn’t have seen just how much he’s changed and just how much he’s trying to earn his spot in Philly. In addition, we wouldn’t have seen just how much his good looks and charm and getting what he wants all the time has stunted his emotional growth.

"So the thing about Zach, the thing he knew was nothing to be proud of but did nothing to change, was that he didn’t really think about things. Other people considered consequences and made plans. Zach went for it and dealt with the consequences later. Generally, because he was hot and could fool people into being charmed by either his smile, his dimples, or his abs, the consequences were never that bad.

"The worst thing that had ever happened to him was getting traded to Philadelphia, and that had also turned out to be the best thing that had ever happened to him, so major points to Before Zach for that particular fuckup."

Zach has never had to directly address anything that he particularly wanted, because things either come easily to him (his good looks and talent get him everything) or have been out of his control (he plays in Philly or he doesn’t play), and so directly addressing, like, anything with Nate is so far outside Zach’s wheelhouse that he completely mucks it up. Zach admits to his Montreal bestie that he doesn’t actually know if he and Nate are dating, but he’s getting these vibes, and things are going fine, so he never actually addresses their relationship, and when Nate simply says what he believes to be true based on his own understanding of their relationship (because Zach was too scared to simply be straightforward with Nate in the first place), Zach is completely crushed and just can’t even deal, because frankly he’s still pretty immature.

Because a lot of the story is focused on the developing relationship between Zach and Nate, which in turn jumpstarts some (to varying degrees) personal growth for both men, the characterization and character development is foremost in the narrative. Sometimes this means a lot of internal processing and not a ton of dialogue, which could cause telling rather than showing problems in books, but I would argue that because the mental headspaces and hangups of these characters is so fundamental to the characterization, and because the focus on that internal processing is often suggestive rather that explicit (please see above quotes, which do not, in fact, explicitly state what I have interpreted for you), I really enjoyed the story’s structure. And beyond that, I didn’t happen to pull any quotes with Baran’s style of punctuating colloquial language, but it is also different and fun (but, as with all things, not for everyone!).

This book is very hockey heavy. Nate wears the C, and Zach is one of the A’s, and the whole reason that this season is different from the other seasons they’ve played together is that Zach has decided that he needs to make sure Nate gets his Cup. But of course there’s the mental component of the sport in addition to simply the skill, and so the presentation of how the team is doing is also reflecting how Zach and Nate are doing. When they’re good together, the team is on fire. When they’re struggling with each other, the team is limping along. And of course the trials of the rookies demonstrate how they’ve been so wrapped up in each other and in their hot streak that maybe they’ve been missing some important observations about the people around them. That said, the degree of focus on the hockey and the team may be viewed as a distraction for some readers. I was glued to the story, but I could also see how some of those moments not focused on Zach and Nate might feel slower if the reader isn’t invested in the team.

Delay of Game was not nearly as gritty as Game Misconduct, but that’s because these characters are dealing with different issues and handle their struggles in much different ways. Some readers who read a lot of hockey romance might find this book more accessible, but readers who really enjoyed the intensity of Game Misconduct might feel that this one is much like other available hockey romance. I would personally argue that the characterizations and the way that Nate and Zach come together (and fall apart) make this book stand out in an increasingly crowded field, and I would totally recommend it.

Note on rep: Nate is Jewish. His parents get “goyische” food for his goyim teammates at their Hanukkah party, and it’s amusing.

I voluntarily read and reviewed a complimentary copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own. We disclose this in accordance with 16 CFR §255.

This review is also available at The Smut Report.

This book was very spicy! I love a good m/m romance and this gave me everything I wanted. It had good banter, and just the right amount of endearment. I think the friends to lover trope was so good and I’m looking forward to reading more from this series!

DELAY OF GAME is the second in Ari Baran’s Penalty Box m/m hockey series.

Nate Singer and Zach Reed are teammates and have fallen into being best friends during the three years they’ve been part of the league’s worst team. Over the course of the next season, they also fall into more.

On the surface, Zach and Nate might not seem to have much in common. Nate is the solid player who has worked his way up to team captain, never quite believing his success or his place. Zach seems to have been born to be a superstar, except for his massive tumble after a Cup win, when his off ice behavior resulted in his being traded. In reality, they fit together beautifully, and they find their friendship and connection improves them both.

I loved watching these two bumble their way into the relationship of their dreams, where neither of them really knows the way but are innocently finding how truly magical life can be together with someone who understands and someone who inspires trust and comfort. While they definitely struggle with communicating clearly at times, that also was written in a way that felt so realistic and relatable, almost painfully so. Ari Baran lets us into these guys’ heads and hearts beautifully.

I really enjoyed DELAY OF GAME and see rereading it again soon.

Zachary Reed is living the high life. He was drafted in one of the first rounds to one of the most successful hockey teams in the league. After winning the cup in his rookie year he feels invincible, he parties just a little too hard and it gets captured by the press. So long Montreal and hello Philly.

The Cons might have the worse track record in the league but it also gave him the best friend he could ask for.

Nathaniel Singer, born and raised in Philly, worked extremely hard to get drafted, in later rounds, to his home town team. He suffers from anxiety so when he’s made Captain after three years on the team it places even more burden on his already stressed mind. So after a particular rough set of losses Zach takes Nate out to find someone to take his mind off things, he just doesn’t expect it to be him after his “straight” friend kisses him in a drunken stupor. When they pull off a win the next day- he proposes an idea-for the benefit for the team of course 😉


This is my first book by Ari and it certainly will not be my last. I loved Zach and Nate! If you’ve read any of my other book reviews you know I always have a favorite-poor sweet Nate I just wanted to take him home and protect this anxious bear. I loved the accurate depiction of his anxiety, the best friends to lovers, the bi awakening. This is book two of her Penalty Box series, I have already added book one to my list and can’t wait to see what what’s next!

✨ Side shoutout to Bee- your a rockstar, you go girl ✨

I love friends to lovers, angst, and hockey romance, making this book my trifecta! Ari has an infectious and engaging writing style and I absolutely fell in love with Zach & Nate and their connection. After a deliciously slow burn and a kind of “fake dating” esqu build up, the unfolding relationship was really well done, enough that I read it in one sitting! I really appreciated Nate’s struggle with self confidence and body dysmorphia (as well as *ahem*… Zach’s solution for it) and thought their emotional connection was extremely well developed. Overall, I loved this book and will happily read whatever the author may write next!

4.5

This was absolutely delightful! It’s by no means a perfect book and it will not be for everyone, but I needed a fluffy romance and Ari Baran gave me exactly what I needed.

This is a fairly low stakes, friends to lovers romance that does center around the miscommunication trope but in a way that made sense to me given these characters. Nate is the incredibly anxious captain of a team that has been at the bottom of the league, and Zach was a first round draft pick who partied too hard and got traded to Nate’s team. All of this happens in the prologue, and then we fast forward a couple of years and Nate and Zach are best friends and the team is trending upward. I think cutting out that friendship development does make the pacing a little awkward here because we go from Zach completely ignoring Nate in the prologue to basically being in love with him and not realizing it. That being said, I loved it anyway.

I liked Nate and Zach as main characters and I liked the side characters a lot as well. Though from reviews it looks like the first book has a much different vibe to this so while I loved the Mike and Danny cameos in this book, I’m not sure I’d go back and read their romance. I also appreciated the conversations this book was having about hockey culture and the negative impacts that trying to keep up can have, like how partying is always accepted until it goes too far but there’s not much support if it goes too far.

Basically read this if you want soft hockeybros who are friends with benefits to keep up the win streak but actually we’re in love and afraid of rejection despite having basically been dating for years.

I was so excited for this book after enjoying the first one. I did enjoy this one too but I didn't like the random time jumps. It made it hard to believe their relationship at first. I loved Nate though and how he began to realize a bunch of things about himself. And I like Zach's growth throughout the whole book. I definitely plan to read Ari's books in the future.

Having recently discovered the world of queer hock-roms, I enthusiastically read Ari Baran's first book in this series, Game Misconduct. I have been eagerly awaiting Delay of Game and was thrilled to be approved for this ARC, thank you Carina Press! Delay of Game is a friends-to-lovers story with Zach having been traded to Nate's team, the Cons (as seen in Game Misconduct), after spinning out with his former team in Montreal. We do get glimpses of some Game Misconduct characters, which is fun, but mostly we get to follow Nate and Zach's story of coming together through Zach's seasons with the Cons.

If you enjoyed the first books in the series, you'll for sure want to snag this one when it comes out.

It always makes me smile that we have managed to have a genre that's 'hockey romances', and goodness knows I've read my fair share of them!

This one doesn't really vary outside of the normal pattern of M/M hockey romances, although the extremely wide and diverse cast does make this one stand out a little. From an NHL team with a female player, through to a collection of hockey bros hooking up and not seeming to be afraid of people knowing. It's more of a progressive world and less of how the world is at the moment.

Bring in Zach, ex-hot mess, and current fun friend, and Nate, the anxious captain. Nate and Zach are a fascinating pair to watch.

The opening scene doesn't really set the tone for the book at all, which is strange. I'd be kinda into the book it started out as, and his journey to where they end up, but instead we straight away are jumping years. The tenderness and chemistry between Zach and Nate is a treat to read and watch, but the rest of the book feels a little... unfocused.

The cast of secondary characters is very big, and clearly have interesting stories, but it always leaves you thinking that you're missing something, and something is just out of reach. Like everyone knows something you don't, it reads like this is the last book in a rather long series of couples, but there's only one book and a short story to go before it.

Could I read pages and pages of Zach and Nate being together? Yes. Did the rest of the book feel as eloquently done and grip me as much? No.

Read this if you want some beautiful touching and hot scenes, and love following a sprawling set of secondary characters. Good mental health rep.

3.5* rounded down.

I loved Ari Baran's debut, "Game Misconduct" so much; I was soooo looking forward to their second book, and for Nate and Zach's story. I've recently come to love friends-to-lovers, so I was doubly excited for them!

I'm sorry to say, but unfortunately "Delay of Game" did not work for me. I'm not sure what went wrong, maybe it was a timing issue or a me issue, but after the first few chapters I had the sudden urge to start skimming, and that's always a warning sign for me that the book is definitely not for me.
I think I got lost at the beginning because there was such a weirdly placed time jump: Nate and Zach meet, Zach hates him on sight, and then there's a time jump and they're BFFs. I think I would have probably liked this book a whole lot more if their relationship was given time to develop in a less abrupt way.

In terms of characterization, main character arc, and relationship arc, there was something missing. I kept getting their POVs confused too, but maybe that was my brain being glitchy.
So yes, while I did like a few things (Zach's devotion to Nate, for one, the sexual discovery, the first times, Bee and Mike stealing the show, some very interesting side characters in the team), I unfortunately didn't like this enough to warrant a more positive review. I skimmed till the end because I wanted to know how they'd get their HEA nonetheless.
I wasn't feeling the characters, I wasn't feeling their relationship and dynamic, and I felt like I was missing a good chunk of their arc and growth, and the fact that that feeling made an appearance straight away, spoilt my enjoyment of the rest of the book.

Again, I think this was probably a me issue: I know lots of people have enjoyed this much more, so if you're looking for a hockey-packed story, a friends-to-lovers dynamic, a book that deals with a whole lot of mental health hurdles and issues, maybe you can give this novel a go! I hope it works better for any reader that will decide to give "Delay of Game" a chance. It definitely works as a standalone too, but I wholly "Game Misconduct".

I received an ARC from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

DNF at 20% I could just not get into this book. It was hard to tell when the perspectives change and it felt like one voice. I also was not a fan of the way that third person was used for this book.

Delay of Game is definitely a departure from the other hockey romances out there right now. There is a lot of grittiness and less focus on the romance . Bad boy Zach gets traded from Montreal to Philadelphia after he's gone on one too many benders. Tightly wound captain Nate takes him under his wing - and it's love at first sight, neither one of them realizes it though. Substance abuse and anxiety are addressed throughout the book, but other than "stopping the hard stuff" there really isn't anything addressed about drugs/addiction/getting clean. If you like your hockey romances to describe on the ice action, this is the book for you. So many sticks and lines and checks, I feel like I was right there on the ice with them. Delay of Game is enjoyable enough with some real laugh out loud moments and pull on your heart strings heartfelt moments. I plan on going back to read book 1 in the series.

2.5 stars

Well, this was not my cup of tea. I felt really frustrated almost the entire time I was reading this book. And the most frustrating aspect for me was that there were some things I really liked about it, I think it had so much potential, but the direction this story took was very much not for me.

I want to start with what I did like. I liked the MCs. I liked them a lot. I found them lovable. I found their dynamic as best friends incredibly sweet. I loved the all the small ways they knew and cared for one another. I liked that there's an eventual realization for one of them that they really need and deserve to seek out therapy. And I liked some of the sex scenes.

Now what did not work for me, at all, was the unfolding of their romantic relationship in this book. The way these MCs are with one another at the start of the book is wonderful. And then the "romance" portion starts and it all goes to hell. This book would turn me away from ever wanting to move from best friends to lovers. All the trust between these two, all the safety and comfort they get from one another, all the assurance that they hold a special place in one another's lives, all that goes out the window almost right from the get go. Instead they can't talk to one another, can't trust one another, feel constantly on edge and unsure about where they stand with one another. And not just for a small portion of time but for pretty much the entire book. I was so infuriated and let down by how their relationship evolves, or rather devolves, throughout this book. I couldn't even enjoy most of the "sweet" or "sexy" parts because I was so stressed out about the level of misunderstanding and insecurity between them. They really do have this beautiful relationship at the start of the book and then page by page they slowly dismantle it. It was in many ways the exact opposite of the kind of relationship building I want when I read a romance. And I understand the reasons why these characters act the way that they do, but frankly, I did not want to read about it. I wanted these characters in a different story.

One of the most infuriating elements of the book is that we see these two first meet and then have a big jump ahead in time. We don't see how they go from strangers to best friends. We do get occasional glimpses of that time period as the MCs make references to how they grew close and came to trust one another, of the struggles they were both facing and the ways they supported one another through those struggles, of the ways in which they changed one another's lives. And baby, THAT'S WHAT THIS BOOK SHOULD HAVE BEEN ABOUT! Every time they mentioned this time period I'm like why am I reading about this nonsense between them now instead of when they were growing to love another? A story about that period of their relationship, even if it only ended in platonic love, would have been so much more engaging and enjoyable for me.

Even towards the end, the event that finally leads them to talk made me mad! I love protectiveness in MCs so much, but the way it played out here just didn't even make sense to me, and why would that would be the turning point? It did not fly for me. I did like when they finally talked to one another. But it's so brief! And maybe it's me, I know I see relationships differently because I'm ace, but grinding your relationship down to nothing over the course of an entire book, and then finally actually talking for like 5 minutes, I do not want to jump right into a sex scene after that. Not even a really great sex scene. I wanted them to be affectionate to one another and spend time together rebuilding, not just jump in the sack. I know that on this I am probably in the minority, but for me it just felt off.

And then the final chapter made me feel nothing because at no point did I care about the team or the hockey in this book. I can have strong feelings about teammates and teams and hockey. Other books have done it. This one did not.

So, yeah. I did a lot of skimming to get through this one, because some parts were making me so angry and others were just boring because I didn't care about the hockey stuff. And at the end I mostly just felt sad because I wanted more for these characters that were so lovable! I wanted a better story for them! And I think that it would have been so very possible to do that. Maybe someone will write some more emotionally satisfying fanfic for these two. Unfortunately, as it was written, this book was a miss for me.

Brilliant. Well written romance that balances the steaminess with good dialogue and intelligent, likeable characters. Perfect for a cold winter evening

Neither friends to lovers nor miscommunication are tropes I particularly care for, but somehow the combination of them actually works a lot for me? The sweet sweet angst of how much Zach and Nate love each other but don't talk about it? Fantastic. Also quality hockey content.

This is the second book in the Penalty Box series, having read the first and really enjoyed it, I was looking forward to this one. It turned out that Delay of Game was a another really good read.
The relationship between Zach and Nate was fantastic, I loved the way that they started out as friends and were in love with one another long before they realised it or it even turned into anything else. I also loved how Zach tried to make Nate happy all the time.
This was a great hockey romance and friends to lovers LGBTQ+ story.
I received a complimentary copy of this book through NetGalley. The opinions expressed in this review are completely my own and given voluntarily.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publishers for providing me with a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review!

Delay of Game by Ari Baran is a sweet and steamy M/M hockey romance, following Nate, a team captain struggling with anxiety, and his best friend Zach, a reformed wild child. I really enjoyed the best friends to lovers trope in this book. I also liked the anxiety representation and Nate’s journey to realize he needed healthier coping mechanisms. It was a fairly short book, so some things were introduced but not explored deeply, like each of their family relationships. I also think it relied a little too heavily on clichés, overall. It had a strong start and a weaker finish, in my opinion, but I still very much enjoyed Nate and Zach’s story.