With One Hockey Night, David Ward and Brian Deines offer up a sequel to The Hockey Tree, which won a Saskatchewan Young Readers’ Choice award in 2007. In the new book, hockey-loving siblings Owen and Holly move from Saskatchewan to Nova Scotia. They dearly miss the frozen lake on which they used to play shinny, and are forced instead to play in their driveway. Unbeknownst to them, however, Dad is secretly building a rink in their new backyard.

Yes, that’s right: secretly building a backyard rink.

Younger readers may not know that it takes at least three days to build a backyard ice-rink, but it’s a sure bet even they know that houses have windows, front and back. That’s why, when Owen and Holly’s father rules their backyard off limits, it is simply inconceivable that the two kids would not be compelled to look outside to discover what he is up to.

But they don’t. Instead, they merely exhibit a kind of dazed and feeble curiosity.  Deines’s canvas-textured visual style, which gave The Hockey Tree such a beautifully soft and dreamy feel, backfires here, making it seem as though Owen and Holly exist in a hazy stupor.

Of course, there’s no indication that Owen and Holly are not bright children.  Perhaps it is the book’s young readers who are expected to play dumb for its unsatisfying and unlikely scenario.