Seeking the Center

by Leslie Spitz-Edson

Agnes Demers is a young Métis woman who grew up playing hockey, skating with the neighborhood kids on the frozen ponds of her hometown, St. Cyp, through the long Saskatchewan winters. For Agnes, hockey is the measure of all things - the ultimate test of passion and power, spirit and skill. But hockey has betrayed her, left her watching from the bleachers - all because she had the miserable luck to be born female.

When Agnes moves to Wapahaska to work at the Indian Jewel Box with her friend Jo, she intends to ignore the town's minor league hockey team, the Prairie Wolves - not to mention her childhood teammate Owen MacKenzie, the Wolves' star center. In fact, she intends to ignore the whole smug, self-congratulatory scene, but it isn't long before she becomes entangled again with the game she loves, with Owen, and with the team's new enforcer, Claude Doucette, an older player who shares her Native heritage and aspires to live by its warrior creed.

Locked in a dizzying three-way tilt, Agnes must seek the center: the balance to stay on her skates, the opening to make a play, and the vision to reclaim her game.

Genres: Fiction

339 pages, Paperback

Published January 1, 2016

About the author

Except for watching the occasional baseball game with my family, I wasn’t into sports as a girl. Instead, it was music and folklore that interested me, and that I eventually went on to study. After grad school, I got a job at Folkways Records in Washington, DC. It was there that I first became interested in Métis music and culture.

Living in DC, I could hardly help becoming a fan of the Washington Capitals, our NHL team. As I read more and more about hockey, I noticed the absence of attention paid to female players and their experiences. Seeking out their stories, I began to craft my own, centered on Agnes Demers, a Métis hockey player in Saskatchewan.

Seeking the Center is my first novel.

Reviews

[Taylor]

I'm a massive fan of hockey so I was really excited to start Seeking the Center.
I really loved how knowable the author was of hockey and how she incorporated into the story. I really related to the main character a lot and I loved how aware she was of everything hockey related.
I loved the diversity and culture of the characters as well.
I did feel like the writing style was a little over descriptive and, in my opinion, made the story a bit slow. But other than that, I really enjoyed this book a lot.

[Julianna]

Please please please read this book if you're looking for:

-defined, real characters
-ATMOSPHEREEEE
-hockey and/or fashion design
-cultural representation
-dialogue on racism & sexism
-just overall intelligence + relevance + resonance

In other words, I loved this novel. 5/5 stars.

[Katie]

I loved reading this book so much. I didn't expect to feel so attached to every character as I do, and I certainly didn't expect to wish I played hockey after reading it. The writing is so descriptive and the story so rich. Seeking the Center is an amazing blend of sports and romance with drops of culture and the struggle of being different than everyone else who does what you do.

[Roxanne]

This is a Goodreads win review. This is about Agnes Demers who is a young woman who grew up playing hockey in Canada.