This is a really great story about a hockey player who is past his prime but still has a lot left to give his friends and his community. It is well-paced, well-written, and gripping. I really enjoyed the artwork and the storyboarding in this graphic novel.

LOL! I just realize that I hadn't review this book and...that's bad... i read it a lot time ago and I just remember that I enjoyed...which doesn't say much abou the book. Doesn't matter, the other ones were great and this one too so go and read it, especially if you enjoy the first two.

I think I could have done without the middle of this trilogy, and been perfectly happy with 1 & 3. This one did a lot better job tying back to the first one - especially with the reunion of the band! - so it was nice to see where everyone is ten years later. But, the rest of the plot is exactly the same as #2: Tom is still struggling to find meaning in life and make his parents proud (at least now he succeeds!) and Jake is still struggling with an abuse (alcohol in #2, pain pills in #2). I did think this one went a lot more in depth with how Jake's actions were effecting everyone around him, and did a better job of showing his struggles on and off the ice. I'm still not big into hockey, but for hockey fans, this one definitely delivered more on that aspect than the last two installments.

Book Review
Title: Hockey Karma (Forever Friends Trilogy #3)
Author: Howard Shapiro
Genre: Graphic Novel
Rating: *****
Review: The opening to Hockey Karma was great, we re-join Jake and Tom who seems a lot older than he did in Hockey Saint and Felicity even mentions kids, but Jake isn’t himself at all and might be coming to the end of his career. Tom, on the other hand, has finally got a chance at his dream girl Jaelithe after getting her number after his parent’s death.
As we approach the ¼ mark in the story, the people and times around Jake are changing rapidly and he isn’t ready for these changes. Despite being a father of two beautiful children he doesn’t seem content with his life and is fighting to be the superstar he once was but after being bumped down to third line it is clear that isn’t happening, and he is moving closer and closer to retirement and he is having some major issues. Meanwhile, Tom is still trying to change the world with the help of some old friends and decades after high school he finally gets the chance to go on a date with the girl of his dreams.
As we cross the ¼ mark in the story, Tom’s seems to be on the up with his relationship with Jaelithe going well and he is heading back to his home town for a reunion where he will be able to see all his old friends again, so I couldn’t wait to see them again. Jake, on the other hand isn’t fairing so well, his feud with a rival player is getting worse and after being injured in practice Jake is too stubborn to accept that one wrong move could not only end his career but his life as well. Despite seeing a nice side to Jake in Hockey Saint, here he comes off as a self-centred ass with no concern or consideration for his health and what would be best for his family, he only thinks of himself.
As we approach the halfway mark in the story, Tom finally confronts Jake about what is going on, but he just brushes it off as usually despite the fact he is developing quite a high dependency on painkillers just to be able to make it through the day because he has refused surgery until the end of the season but given the state of things I don’t think Jake is going to make it that far. However, Tom can’t dwell on it as he is flying to his home town the next day for his reunion.
As we cross into the second half of the story, both Jake and Tom are having to make some really big decisions. Jake must decide what is more important to him; hockey or his family, and Tom is contemplating moving back to his home town as he really likes Jaelithe and wants to be with her but as the mother of an eight-year-old son a long-distance relationship wouldn’t work. Tom also realises during the reunion that he has moulded himself around Jake and doesn’t really have any idea of who he is as a person and wants to learn but to do that he needs to distance himself from his best friend of many years.
As we approach the ¾ mark in the story, everything is coming together Jake finally decides to pull himself together and focus on family. Getting off the drugs and setting this straight worked out well for him and he also decides that he will play one last game and then retire but I don’t have a good feeling about this last game. Tom also realises that a relationship with Jaelithe isn’t going to work out at this point in his life and he makes peace with that and throws all his energy into his other projects.
In the final section of the story, I was really happy to see both Jake and Tom manage to not only stay friends but support each other when they need it most and find a way to move forward together despite everything they have gone through. I highly recommend the forever friends trilogy, they are quick reads but filled with social and sometimes political commentary and really focuses on issues that the everyday person faces in their lives like poverty, death, illness and more.

I enjoyed this a lot and the art was amazing. I’ll definitely be following this series in the future

If you’re a hockey fan, you’ll enjoy this story about playing the game and dealing with fame and success.

I think it is a lovely ending to a lovely graphic novel series. I really enjoyed reading it. I love every character and their developments. Friendship in this graphic novel is amazing. I love the song recommendations parts too.

HOCKEY KARMA by Howard Shapiro is the third book in a trilogy of young adult graphic novels, and follow up to “THE HOCKEY SAINT continuing the story of a young former college hockey player named Tom Leonard, and Jeremiah Jacobson, a legendary pro hockey player who was a young star at 21 years old in the previous book, but is now a seasoned veteran at age 32 and is in denial as the end of his career is drawing near and younger players are taking his place in the limelight.

Tom is focused on the plans for the charity he and Jeremiah have been involved with, but as Jeremiah deals with pain and injuries along with fears of being washed up, he leaves Tom to handle things alone, and his family life suffers as well.

Jake hits bottom when he’s demoted to the third line from the first, and is forced to admit he’s become addicted to the pain killers he’s relied on to prolong his career.

Tom has a big decision to make; does he leave his new home in to be with his high school sweetheart back home, or stay to continue the charitable work he and Jeremiah have committed to?

Will Jeremiah successfully conquer his demons and be the man he needs to be at this stage of his life?

Interesting story that at times gets bogged down, but somewhat understandable given the author’s experience and focus on charitable organizations. Several timely subjects such as substance abuse, athletes as role models, and family priorities are well covered, but at times this makes it difficult to gauge who the target audience is for a graphic novel involving the sport of ice hockey.

Worth reading, and enjoyable much in the way a family TV movie would be.

3 stars.

A great graphic novel with awesome accompanying sound track for each chapter that makes the story richer and adds a layer of understanding to what the story characters are thinking or doing. This book is about more than just a fading hockey legend. The story touches on family, competition, substance abuse, community, friendship, gender equity and love. The characters are diverse and I believe this book would be appealing to all readers, even those that don't play hockey. The content is school appropriate!

Thanks to Animal Media Group for letting me read this copy.

Hockey Karma is the sequel to The Hockey Saint, and also the third and final book in Howard Shapiro's Forever Friends Trilogy. Immediately starting this comic I noticed a huge difference in the art from this one to the last one. The characters in this book are older, more adult and the art felt that way. I'm not 100% sure if that was why the art was so different, because I checked and it looks like a different artist did this book. I think because the characters looked so different in this one that I had a hard time reconciling that this was the same naive Tom we met in the last story. Although, I think that was maybe the point.

There were parts about this book that I liked better than the previous one. I felt like this one showed more about actually playing hockey and less about the talking sports heads. That's what I look for in a sports book, so that interested me. I also really liked that we saw a female head coach for a team! That was awesome!

What I didn't like was the character of Jeremiah Jacobson. He straight up sucks. He acts like such a petulant man-child the entire story. He's mad that he is getting close to retirement and his body can't handle playing hockey anymore that he takes it out on the new rookie on his team who has done nothing wrong. His family also suffers a lot. I didn't get a feel from this story that him and Felicity actually ever wanted children, and it feels like they have a pretty unhappy marriage. I felt really bad for Felicity, because it seems like over the course of what we have seen of their marriage she has to take care of him all the time. Honestly I felt like she would have been better of without him. I understand that Jacobson clearly has an issue with addiction, and I'm glad we see him get help, but it felt like we went over all that stuff in the previous book.

There is a subplot of Tom finding love, and of him trying to make a plan to revitalize the city. I found this stuff interesting and it was cool to see Tom actually taking what he learned in the last book and trying to do go in the community.

The book ends on a high note, and I think this a good place to end with the story about the friendship between Jacobson and Tom. I enjoyed this one, but I don't think I need to read more about these two at this point.

*I received a free egalley copy of this book in exchange for my honest review

Thank you Netgalley for a copy in exchange for my honest review.

When I first saw this book and got interested I didn't realize it's a third in the series. That at times felt a bit strange not knowing what was in the first two books. But I loved the artwork so much that actually for me story played a kind of a minor role.

This was my first sports graphic novel and I can honestly say that now I'm hooked.

Hockey Karma is about an aging hockey star and how he eventually comes to grips with the end of his career. He deals with injury and drug addiction as he struggles to raise his family. It's also about his best friend Tom who runs the local food pantry as Tom starts up a new relationship. The two of them are also trying to put together a economic recovery plan for a depressed area of town where the food pantry is located. Each chapter is something of a snapshot into their lives as opposed to a full flowing story. Even though the book is about a hockey player, the majority of the book is 2 people sitting down talking. It does get a little old at times. There is some hockey scenes but the art doesn't do a good job of portraying the action. It's just static hockey shots that don't get the story of what's happening in the game across at all. You don't really get the point of what happened until the interactions after the hockey scenes.

[Note:  I received this book free of charge from Net Gallery/Animal Media Group.  All thoughts and opinions are my own.]

For those readers who come to this book from the author's previous work in the series, namely the graphic novel "The Hockey Saint," this book has a different feel altogether but there are definitely a lot of similarities.  Obviously, if you like hockey there is much to appreciate [1].  Whereas Saint had a young athlete whose moodiness and abrasiveness caused tension with his fellow athletes that was only partially overcome by his obvious athletic abilities, this graphic novel shows him feeling the effects of age and no longer quite the same world-conquering star that he used to be.  Instead of the idealistic rush of youth we get the troubles of trying to age gracefully in the merciless glare of the public eye while still struggling with personal demons and a tendency towards secrecy.  The characters here are still recognizably themselves, still struggling with the same large issues about trust and relationships and integrity and the desire to give back to the community but are older if not necessarily wiser people.

In terms of its plot, I will try not to give anything away, but there is the same emphasis on gorgeous graphics and thoughtful dialogue as well as the book being divided into chapters, each one including songs so one gets a sense of the soundtrack of the graphic novel if one imagines it to be a movie in one's head.  Despite the ten year time-gap, though, the book does pick up where it left off, with Jeremiah "Jake" Jacobson being an elite athlete with a mysterious personal life full of secrets, only from the beginning he makes some uncharacteristic lapses that show that his decade of being an elite athlete has taken its toll on him and he is faced with the rise of a young athlete ready to take his place.  Meanwhile, his agent and best friend Tom is faced with trying to keep together a community service project the two had planned while also facing the question of restarting a relationship from the past that he did not expect to return.  In both cases the question of confidence as well as dealing with the passage of time play heavily into the story and into the way we look at these characters and also, perhaps, ourselves as well.

Although this book is certainly an enjoyable read, especially for those who like graphic novels and sports fiction, I did not find it to be a perfect read.  On a technical level, the book had a hard time loading on my computer after I downloaded it, and this made it a difficult task for me to read the book even if I enjoyed it.  Also, I am not sure how fondly I think of the use of "karma" in the title.  On a strict religious level, I do not think that "Jake" Jacobson had incurred a karmic debt through being a talented young hockey player himself that had to be repaid through his suffering awkwardly and uncomfortably through aging as an elite athlete that has lost a step or two.  I understand that the author is probably using the term in the commonsense application of being a synonym for that overused word "ironic," and Hockey Karma sounds better than Hockey Irony, I suppose.  These are fairly minor quibbles, though, and in no way make this book a less enjoyable read, if somewhat melancholy given my own uncomfortable embrace of aging gracefully if not entirely happily.

[1] See, for example:

https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2017/07/02/o-canada-or-finding-identity-in-negative-spaces/

https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2017/05/23/if-there-is-still-some-fight-in-you/

https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2011/05/16/dont-let-it-go-to-your-head/

After reading 'The Stereotypical Freaks', I didn't feel like continuing on with the series. The first book in the series I didn't really like the art style, which is the main thing I am looking for when I am reading a graphic novel or comic. I believe that this story is more suited for a younger audience or someone interested in reading about characters in a high school setting.

A great follow-up to The Hockey Saint. It continues the really cool chapter starts of listing songs to be listened to whilst reading that chapter. It tooks at what happens when karma finally catches up with you both on and off the ice. A must have for all fans of sport fiction.

'Hockey Karma' by Howard Shapiro with art by Andres J. Mossa is the third book in the Forever Friends Trilogy. A dramatic series featuring hockey is a bit different, but I've enjoyed all three of these graphic novels.

Ten years have passed. Jeremiah "Jake' Jacobson has had a great career in hockey, but he's getting to the end of that career. When a hot, young player joins the team, Jake is reluctant to mentor him, and he's also got a medical problem that he is hiding from his team and friends.

His friend Tom is trying to put together a plan to help people in Bay City, but he needs Jake's input. Jake is so absorbed with his career and the prospect of losing it that he leaves Tom hanging.

Tom also finds an old flame in his home city, and meets up with some of the guys from their old high school band.

You will need to at least have read 'Hockey Saint' before this one, but there are references to both prior books.

The art isn't bad, but the real star here is the writing. Time has passed and these characters act older. Also, events happen off page and these transitions are done really well. I've really enjoyed this series. There is a lot of heart and a few life lessons to be found in these pages.

I received a review copy of this graphic novel from Animal Media Group and NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. Thank you for allowing me to review this graphic novel.

I felt hockey karma suffered from some dialogue problems just as the previous did. It wasn't to bad but unfortunately it just wasn't for me. It's nice to see hockey portrayed in graphic novels and I do like the idea, just I feel the dialogue and characters are a little lacking.

I have enjoyed all three books in this series beginning with The Stereotypical Freaks, followed by Hockey Saint and now Hockey Karma. This third volume continues with the two principle characters in Hockey Saint, Tom and Jake only several years after the events of Hockey Saint. Each successive volume brings new issues to the forefront and in this episode, Jake, although still young, is aging for a Professional Hockey player and has to make decisions about his family and career.

Hockey Karma is the third and final book in the Forever Friends Trilogy. Hockey Karma continues the story of Jack and Tom but 10 years later. They've all grown and changed, but one thing remained: their passion for hockey and helping others.

Hockey Karma is such a beautiful end to the Forever Friends Trilogy. You get to know the characters a lot more and see how they've grown up. I also loved reading about the reunion and seeing some old faces again. I can happily say that the Forever Friends Trilogy is a good graphic novel trilogy!

While The Hockey Saint was good, Hockey Karma takes everything to another level. The art is absolutely stunning, the writing shows growth and maturity, and the characters and their actions also reflect a similar degree of growth. The ten year difference in the characters has really been embodied, and the challenges that Tom and Jake are facing are no longer the trials of adolescence.

As usual, the art was fantastic, particularly the hockey scenes. I loved the subtle differences between the first and second book, as well as how the characters were shown to have aged. The colours were vibrant and expressive, and I was never once left guessing what a gesture or moment meant. The transitions were seamless, and the pace was consistent throughout. I wish I hadn’t been so glowing in my review yesterday! Because, we’re basically talking about something good that was made even better.