Let’s make like a hockey player and get the puck out of here.” ― Alexander Gordon Smith, “Solitary”
Contact Sport is part of the Dreamspinner Press Daily Dose Collection for June. It is a very short story. Jamie Connor is a star ice hockey player at his college. He is handsome, talented and charming. He has been able to cruise through many a troublesome situation on those attributes alone. He is unashamedly bi-sexual. The only person who has ever said no to sex with him is his best friend and fellow hockey great, Noah.
In order to foster relations between the college and the nearby BWI, a mathematics college, the Dean makes the hockey team play a game against the BWI team. Jamie puts the odds of their winning against the nerds at fifteen to one. He and Noah expect a bunch of skinny acne prone nerds.
Before the game, the dean, the head of BWI and Alex Blaine meet with Jamie and Noah. Alex Blaine is the owner of a local very successful business, Blaine Enterprises. Many students, including Jamie, apply for coveted jobs within his organization. He is also the largest contributor to the college, enabling them to have state-of-the-art hockey training facilities.
While Jamie’s team is able to win the game, it does not go as expected. For one thing, Jamie is lined up across from “The Pretty One” to whom he feels an immediate and strong attraction. The only things Jamie knows about him is that he is beautiful, a much better hockey player than most of the others on his team and that he was talking to Mr. Blaine before the game.
After the win, Jamie hopes to meet up with “The Pretty One” for some personal fun. Mr. Blaine, however is rushing the young man out of the locker rooms. The Pretty One begs Blaine for just five minutes. He enters the locker room where Jamie is waiting and the two exchange quick hand jobs. Then The Pretty One introduces himself as Matt Blaine, Alex’s son.
When Matt’s father finds them, they have put themselves back together. While leaving with his father, Matt calls to Jamie that he’ll be in touch about a practice session. That is where the story ends.
I always try hard to find something to like in every story I read, and while I can’t say I hated this one, I can’t say I liked it either. The characters felt flat to me, the plot too thin, and though the author’s writing style is good, in my humble opinion, it could have been put to better use in a storyline and with characters that were fleshed-out a bit more.
Reviewed by: Tina
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