You want bonus stars from me? Start each chapter with a song title.

Thanks to NetGalley / Edelweiss and the publisher for providing me with an eARC of this book in exchange for a review.

Didn't realize that this was the second book in a trilogy. Whoops. But it was still really good! I would just advise that you read the first one first and THEN read this one. I promise it will make way more sense. Overall, a good sports graphic novel!

This is a good read even if you aren't a hockey fan. It explores friendship, identity, hockey and so much more ain an easy to digest and relatable manner that almost any reader can appreciate.

I actually am giving this a no rating because I can't read the format of the e-book, I do plan to buy a finished copy and hopefully it reads better.

Sorry I don't really have a review for this yet but I'll have to update you when I do purchase and read the final copy.

But thank you for giving me a chance to read it.

The Hockey Saint is a great example of a graphic novel and would be a great introduction for future fans of the genre. I'm personally just getting into graphic novels and am encouraging my students to enjoy the genre for appreciation of both art and storytelling.
I think my students, some of whom are learning English as a second language, would really enjoy this story and it would be a hit with kids who think they don't like reading!! Sports lovers in particularly will enjoy this heartwarming tale.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publishers for the chance to read an advance copy of the book in exchange for my honest review.

I admit I requested this book because I wanted to read about hockey, and this wasn't really about hockey. It was about finding out who you are and dealing with some hard topics. It was ok at those things, and would probably be an ok read for younger teens. I'm not in love with the art, I will say.

I loved The Stereotypical Freaks by Howard Shapiro but this is not quite as engaging. The story is good but did not hit me on that emotional level as much as his other graphic novel.

The illustrations are nice and not too cluttered like some graphic novels.

Thanks to NetGalley for providing me a copy of The Hockey Saint by Howard Shapiro in exchange of an honest review.

The Hockey Saint is the story of a university student whose name is Tom, who is part of the Hockey team and is living with his grandma after the loss of his parents. Tom lost his parents to a car accident; he blames himself for what happened that night. He thinks if he would have gone himself to get his hockey gloves, they would still, be alive.

Tom’s life quickly changes when his best friend gives out the directions to the house of his favorite professional hockey player. He, absent mildly, goes his way out to drive out there and sit in front of the house to think. That's how he meets Jacobson. Both embark on a series of moments that changes their perspective.

A friendship starts — hockey talks. But decisions are always going to be hard to make.

The Hockey Saint is a story about hope, friendship, and trust.

Content Warning: Talk about the loss of parents, alcohol abuse, and the denial of being alcoholic or needing help.

3.5/5

Friendship. Sports and media. Nice story, a tiny bit preachy.

Tom Leonard is a 19 y.o. sophomore living with his grandmother after the death of his parents. He is a bit lost and still suffering nighmares. As a hockey player his idol is the famous Jeremiah Jacobson. A random decision causes an encounter between them.

Although it is about hockey players, in reality we see very little of the game itself in these pages, of course there are mentions of games, practices and things like that, but this is rather 'the other side of the coin' of the life of these athletes. Like saying: they are also human.


5

And Jeremiah is living prove of that. Not a sinner, nor a saint. Has problems, love the game, but he cannot stand the scrutiny of his private life, speculation, inventions and opinions about his life. Tom will have to make decisions too, although many of them are not very accurate.

A nice tale, with a slap on the wrist to the commentators and media.

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Tom es un chico como cualquiera, no demasiado bueno en el hockey, en su segundo año de la universidad, esta pasando un mal momento sin haber superado la muerte de sus padres. En un momento decide ir a conocer a su idolo deportivo de quien se dice es el mejor jugador del mundo.

Sin embargo. ni siquiera para una super estrella de los deportes como Jeremiah Jacobson la vida es fácil, sufirendo de la persecución de la prensa y de los comentaristas deportivos juzgando cada aspecto de su vidam desde su compromiso con el hockey, hasta su vida amorosa. Como no hace el juego con los publicistas, y no tiene pelos en la lengua, defiende su vida privada o más bien se oculta de todo el mundo aislandose . Como todos , tiene vicios y problemas.

Tom y Jeremiah terminaran haciendose amigos, aunque esta amistad se pone a prueba pronto.

No me gusto que Tom dejara todo de lado como sus estudios por pasarla de pinta con Jeremiah. Pero el final es más nada un bue tiron de emchas a la prensa y a la vieja guardia del mundo del hockey.

ARC provided by NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Second volume in the “Forever Friends Trilogy”, The Hockey Saint explores Tom Leonard, a college sophomore hockey player, and the hockey superstar Jeremiah Jacobson’s unexpected friendship. Tom is the typical boy next door with latent potential and Jeremiah is the over-achiever big name in hockey with an unjustified bad reputation and a concealed thoughtfulness.

The cornerstone of this graphic novel is the incredible new friendship that blossoms between Tom and Jeremiah. It taps important and delicate topics, which are met with remarkable insight.

As well-written and thought-provoking as this story was, I couldn’t fully dive in: I couldn’t include hockey in the spectrum of my interests, or all things sport for that matter, and I thought Tom and Jeremiah’s bond was somewhat rushed in the beginning.

Decidedly recommended to sport-inclined people that enjoy deep and interesting plots.

I haven't read the first book in this series so this is my first Forever Friends book. I can't say I liked this graphic novel very much, but I can't say I hate it either.

In the first half of it, the characters didn't really strike me as likeable and I found myself really confused as to what the point was to all of it. There was also A LOT of trauma surrounding the main characters that I kind of wanted to DNF, but I really liked the parts where Jacobson wasn't an awful guy, he's pretty decent actually, so I stuck to it. And I kind of got that this would be a journey to betterment for Tom and I wanted to see how it would go.

In the second half, things gladly picked up. The stakes were higher and Tom was really forming into a really well-rounded character. I appreciated the plot twist with Tom's ingenuity but I hoped there was more of a hint earlier for it to not be just a sudden thing when it finally happened. I thought the resolution was great in the sense that people fixed their own problems like they're supposed to, and I liked that the story did not turn into an exploitation of trauma, which I must admit I feared at the beginning of the story.

The art style is good, though it isn't for me, but the paneling and the dialogue worked well with the plot and the themes it wished to convey. I get that this may be portraying white America to some extent, but it didn't sit well with me that most of the people were white and blond, and the few PoC in there was an underwhelming best friend and a villain figure. Also, for a book with 'hockey' in the title, we get very little hockey in it.

I'm giving it a flat-middle line 3 stars, but there are people who liked it so much so I wouldn't object it you try it out. Still, I am piqued enough to check out the first book in the series and I am looking forward to reading the next book.

*The eARC was provided by the publisher via NetGalley for free in exchange for an honest review. Thank you.

This one was very difficult to read on my kindle or maybe I didn't know how to read it. Since I'm missing the hockey season I was really intrested in picking this one up, but this didn't work for me.

I had a difficult time getting into this story and I think it started with the artwork, which simply wasn't quite my taste. From there I only found this story more of a challenge, as I didn't connect with any of the characters and lost focus on the plot so often that I'm not sure I could give a complete summary. I'm disappointed, I like hockey stories generally but this one just wasn't for me I suppose.

I don't usually read graphic novels, but I liked this one. The friendship between Tom and Jeremiah was cute, I liked that Jeremiah showed his true self to Tom, the good and the bad. He gives to charity and volunteers with cancer patients, but he also drinks too much and is self destructive. I felt like Tom improved from the relationship, he started giving back to the community and he also encouraged Jeremiah to get help. The drama of the PI trying to get dirt on Jeremiah was intriguing and I liked how that played out. I wish this were longer and had more to it!

Since I love hockey I went into this thinking I would get a graphic novel about hockey. Surprisingly even though the title is hockey saint, this novel is more about unlikely friendship and meeting your heroes. Everyone knows you shouldn't because you might get the complete opposite of what you expected but in this story Tom gets to meet hockey superstar Jake and although he is completely different from what he expected, Jake is both a giving caring guy but also dealing with secrets and his own demons. Overall, I found it an interesting, quick read and even though it wasnt about hockey, it was a more human, people-focused story on the game.

2.5 stars.
Copy provided by Net Galley in exchange of an honest review.
I must say, this isn’t one of the best comic books I have ever read. I didn’t care for the many character and I found many of the characters reactions annoying.
In that being said I enjoyed the first half of this comic, but started to lose interest when the “villain” was introduced. I finished it but im not sure I’ll be reading any more works of this author.

For a comic called hockey saint there was a lot less hockey than I expected. Which was a little disappointing. I did enjoy the storyline and the art style even if it was a little amateur at times

This is a sequel to "The Stereotypical Freaks" but can be read as a standalone story. Like the first book, this too focuses on an unlikely friendship between a world famous hockey star and a college hockey player. It covers topics such as addiction, unwanted media attention and the idolization we subject celebrities to endure without stopping to realize that what we see in media isn't necessarily the full picture. I personally enjoyed the first book more but this was a pleasant read too!

In general, books about sports fill a particular niche among young readers and especially among young male readers who are the demographic most commonly diagnosed as "reluctant". The Hockey Saint is special in that it marries content (a story about sport) with form (the graphic novel) to better reach this reluctant reader.

The biggest challenge in recommending The Hockey Saint is that, based on the actual content of the book, the audience who would most enjoy a Sport Graphic Novel is somewhat younger than what I would expect the "intended" audience to be. (In other words, the content is perhaps too mature for those who would otherwise consider this a perfect blend of interests.)

When I started reading this book, I didn't realise it was the second in a series, to be honest I don't think that mattered much, as I didn't feel like I was missing anything. Well, any thing other than the point of this story. Sure there were some interesting statements made, but they felt out of the blue and not integrated into the story that much.

The issues were really short and didn't contain any story basically. I was often surprised that another issue was done as I didn't feel like I read anything yet. After finishing The Hockey Saint I had a feeling of 'what the h*ll did I just read?' It was pretty boring, the 'friendship' started off super weird and didn't make any sense. What did a hockey superstar see in this college kid that he wanted to be friends with him? I honestly don't see it. I also didn't like the art style, especially the portrayal of the main characters. I really wished I enjoyed it more, but this just wasn't for me.