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| Reviewer | Analyst | Commentator |
The following analysis contains adult-themed language and adult situations, which some viewers may find offensive. I would advise viewer discretion.
—Cat Ellington
My Initial Commentary
Once upon a time, in the winter of 1988, I was an eighteen-year-old girl living with my beloved mother in the beautiful state of Minnesota. I had just completed my last year of high school only six months earlier and was now having fun and looking forward to a promising future. While I was happy those four years of high school were finally over, I still missed it—to an extent. I loved my courses at school: home economics (we cooked and baked all sorts of delicious food and desserts, and we learned how to make clothes), band class (I studied the violin and the trombone), music education (well, you know), English (well, you know that, too), and science. I studied all the topics I loved. And I excelled in those studies—because they were, and still are, my passions. But there was one academic subject I couldn't stand: physical education. Gym class was required, whether students liked it or not. I didn't, and I'll tell you why.
When I was younger, I was chubby and fat. And while in elementary school, my weight troubles made it that much more difficult for me to do well in gym class. Because of my weight, I endured a tremendous deal of hostility and mocking from the other kids—who took perverse pleasure in chiding and deriding me. Because of these unpleasant experiences in my physical education courses, I began to foster a hatred toward gym classes, in particular, and sports in general. Although I enjoyed watching ABC's Wide World of Sports in the late '70s and early '80s, something about those horrible experiences in my gym classes triggered my dislike towards (certain) athletics.
While no sport (besides volleyball, Regatta, figure skating, bowling, and tennis) was immune to my eye-rolling and scorn, golf, baseball, and hockey (especially hockey) took the brunt. I swear, I couldn't stand that sport. But my feelings about the game changed the day I saw his face for the first time.
I thought hockey was the most BORING sport I'd ever had the displeasure of even glancing at, which is what I happened to be doing on that cold day in December 1988. As I lounged on the comfy sectional in my mother's and my living room, listening to music, I watched images of a telecast hockey game on our TV with its muted volume. Looking at it, I muttered to myself, "That is a boring ass sport; they look like they're skating underwater. Why are they moving so slowly – like they're skating in slow motion? What the hell do people SEE in that damn sport? And what the hell happened to their teeth?" Blah, blah, blah; blah, blah, blah.
I was spitting at the game under my breath and about to change the channel when his photo flashed across the screen. I became transfixed, and my mouth ceased speaking; it only hung open. I sat frozen; I couldn't move. But my brain spoke, saying, Cat, record! Record on the VCR! Hurry up! At once, my body moved: I grabbed the remote next to me and pressed the record button. I caught it just before it all disappeared: his name, his height, his weight, his place of origin, and his stats. And his picture.
I kept rewinding the VHS tape and re-watching the recorded footage. And I was vibrating from the rapid beating of my heart. Oh God, please don't let him be in a relationship, I prayed internally. Lord God, please. I want to meet him; I have to meet him. Please, Lord, my internal prayers continued. I was smitten, I tell you, dear reader. I was not my typically cool, calm, and collected self; I had become something else. Something else, entirely. I went into my bedroom, took out my passport, and got ready to pack my Keepall 55 for a short trip. I was all set to hop on a plane and fly to the next (Canadian) city his team would be in. Seriously, dear reader, I was in lust at first sight. I had to meet that man. And soon, I did.
Dear reader, I may have been a nerd, an "Omega Mu" in spirit, but that "Alpha Beta" on TV stole my breath completely away.
Over the next year, I stood staring into the abyss of love, not only for the man but for the game he played – the game I'd previously disliked. Okay, the game I'd intensely disliked previously.
One of the first men I'd ever loved was a hockey player. He is the same man who is the subject of the entry "The Iceman" in my 2019 release, Memoirs in Gogyohka. Before meeting him and getting to know him, I couldn't tolerate the sport of ice hockey. But he spun me around and changed my outlook. These days, I can break the game down play-by-play with no qualms.
How about that, huh? A sport I once hated is one that I now love, admire—and respect.
But enough about yours truly.
Dear reader? Would you like to know of someone else who, like (the real-life) me, once hated hockey and hockey players and everything to do with the sport before falling head-over-heels for one of its sexiest and most gifted right-wingers? Our (fictional) leading lady, Peyton Berry.
On the wet-and-sticky pages of The Hockey Player's Obsession, the 19-year-old Peyton is about to go through it, over it, and under it in ways she would never have thought possible.
Dear reader? Shall we proceed?
Love Jones: The Face-off
His shots on goal are notorious; few goaltenders can block them. He's tall, powerfully built, sexy, and an irritant to opponent defensemen. His name is Parker. Parker Jones. And he is the star forward of his hockey team.
As the curtain opens to cue the performances, the 26-year-old Jones is at the ice rink practicing with his teammates. The right-winger is in the slot, firing off puck shots at the goalie and scoring, one for all, all for one. Hardly a Bender, Parker Jones is the man, the star, the sultan of slapshots.
He is also a man whose masochistic hormones are about to awaken the senses of his genitalia, erectile tissue swelling with hot blood to induce a deliciously wicked boner—resulting from his first vision of her.
She's petite and pretty—a ravishing brunette with hazel eyes and a body that won't stop arousing him. He's watching her arguing with his coach, and she looks pissed. But who the hell is she? When Parker asks one of his teammates, the guy only tells him in so many words that the girl is the coach's daughter and, therefore, off-limits. But to hell with that; Parker Jones is already in love – and he skates over to where she and her daddy, Coach Berry, are to meet her.
The coach stops grumbling at the young lady long enough to switch to a friendlier face for his pet player, Parker (one of his best goal-scorers). When Coach Berry introduces the cutie to Parker as his daughter Peyton, Parker Jones melts from the scorching heat of desire. But Peyton Berry freezes over with cold hostility: she's not impressed by the tall, dark, handsome, and rugged jock, and she couldn't care less about his sexy aquamarine eyes nor about the way they lustfully scanned her over. So, with a humph, she turns on her heels and scampers away, leaving her new admirer, Parker Jones, peering—with lechery—at her hiney. And he likes it, he likes it.
Parker Jones, the great hockey hunk, always gets what he wants. And he wants Peyton Berry. And he will get her, whether or not she shares his affections, because the winger is nothing if not persistent—and consistent; a stalker-to-be bordering on creepy.
The Perils of Denial
A future scientist in the making, Peyton Berry is a college student studying her passion for chemistry. She lives in a dorm on campus with a roommate she hardly ever sees due to their conflicting schedules, and she loves the peace of being with only herself and her thoughts. Her family life was not so good, thanks to her selfish father, who neglected Peyton's mother (and Peyton) in favor of his coaching career in hockey. The man never cared about anything except hockey; he valued it—above all else. And Peyton resented him because of it. She resented her father for breaking her mother's heart, and she resented the sport of hockey because she blamed it for destroying her family. And that resentment extended to those men who played the sport as well. Peyton despised them all and never wanted to have anything to do with the hockey community. Still, she couldn't get that guy she met at the rink out of her mind: That hockey player – what was his name? Oh, Parker Jones.
How he looked at her, his gorgeous eyes roving over her body, sent a jolt rushing through Peyton. And she can't focus on her chemistry concoctions because she keeps thinking about him. Dammit! She's not even into his type; she cannot TOLERATE hockey players, but thoughts of Parker Jones won't leave her mind: Why did he have to look at her like that—as if he could swallow her whole? Why her?
Peyton sits in the diner, preparing to wolf down a scrumptious sub and clear her mind of nagging thoughts about that hockey player when, out of nowhere, he appears. What the heck? He's suave and begins conversing with Peyton as if the two are old friends. Taken aback, Peyton can only ask him what he's doing there. And as if anticipating her question, Parker Jones has an answer: he was hungry and decided to drop in. But Peyton knows it's bull; his excuse for being in her neck of the woods would be laughable if it weren't so suspicious. She asks him pointedly if he's stalking her, and Parker Jones answers her pointedly, yes.
Parker is bold, alright, but his boldness is no match for the stubbornness of the conflicted Peyton.
Still, despite her stubbornness, Parker can see them all in her pretty eyes: want, need, and desire. Peyton feels those emotions, too, but she's teamed up with fear to help her fight against them. Peyton is adamant. She has no interest in dating a hockey player. Or does she?
Dammit! Why does he arouse these...these feelings in her?
The Power Play at Peyton Peyton’s Place
Peyton can't help but think about Parker Jones. The sportsman has been all over her thoughts lately, especially after he surprised her at the diner, showing up out of nowhere and imposing himself on her and her personal space. Who does this guy think he is, barging in on her life and being an annoyance? And a hockey player, no less.
Peyton wants to forget about him, but that is hard to do now that he has her pinned against the wall in her dorm, kissing her passionately, fondling her, and calling her beautiful and baby. Alert enough to think through the hazy daze of passion, Peyton questions how Parker Jones got into her place. She questions if he followed her home. Oh God! She thinks. Is he...is he stalking her?
Peyton thinks logically, but her emotions and body aggressively debate her reasoning. She likes the way he's making her feel. His power—both physical and emotional—is crushing her. As this sexy man towers over her, commanding her arousal, Peyton cannot combat the heat soaring through her. But she must. She has to make him stop—or she might fall over the deep end.
Peyton intends to fight the feelings of intense wanting (for the left winger) that are desperate to escape from her innermost being. But the virgin Peyton—of all people—should know this one thing: she can never fight a hockey player and win. Least of all, one driven by an insatiable desire to "pop the cherry" of her "hair pie."
I Got a Love Jones for You: The Butt-ending
His penile eye drips its Cowper's fluid, like drool, in long-awaited anticipation. Its smooth head will stroke her precious hymen before its thick, elongated shaft takes the deep plunge into the warm, dark, and wet world of her never-before-penetrated vaginal canal.
There now, his breakthrough is excruciatingly pleasurable, and her moaning howls are similar to banshee wailings.
Scoring one climaxing hat trick after another, he rides her into the sunset and watches her surrender into the night.
His power is the kind only a real man possesses. And she has no choice but to conform. When he tells her to call him "daddy," like it or not, that is—exactly—what she will do. His every wish is her command: she will call him "daddy" until her dying day.
The young woman fought semi-hard, but she lost. Now she lies, spread-eagle, on his bed, wet and sprung—
Tsk-tsk, the lovely Peyton Berry, despite her (witless) pride, must now lick her wounds and accept the truth – which is this: when Parker Jones, the cocky (slang pun intended) and undisputed king of the wraparound, shoots...he scores. No foul. No penalty.
PutMe In, Take Me Out, Coach
Parker Jones had to do quite a bit—including beating up one of her classmates because the guy dared to drape one of his beefy arms around her slender shoulders—to prove his love for Peyton. And now she's his. He saved her life when she tripped and nearly lost it, and she's his. Peyton belongs only to him. And the hockey star doesn't care what Coach Berry thinks – now that Coach Berry knows. If his coach doesn't like the fact that Parker and Peyton are now a couple, well, Parker, as much as he loves to be out on the ice, reckons the coach can bench his ass. But Coach Berry, regardless of his disapproval, probably won't bench the defiant winger. Because Parker is his biggest goal scorer, the team's star. And Jonesie makes that self-centered, neglectful bastard look good to all those who have eyes to see. So there.
Furthermore, if Coach Berry wants to have anything at all to do with his grandchild, he better mind his p's and q's—
Wait. What grandchild?
My Summation at the End of Regulation
All of my dear (female) readers who think the NHL man—hell, male hockey players, period—should be edible, say I.
As I belt out laughter—I am so grateful none of you can hear—I have to say that it only indicates how much fun I had with this one.
Notwithstanding several typos that were too prominent to ignore, The Hockey Player's Obsession (set in an unnamed city with an unnamed hockey club) was still enjoyable to read. I loved the characters on these pages, although Emma Bray kept them to a minimum, electing to magnify her two starring leads, Parker and Peyton, and their newfound love: for here, on these provocative pages, the world is their pearly oyster.
While a few other characters with speaking roles, like Parker's sister, two of his teammates, Peyton's hefty classmate, and Coach Berry, briefly drift in and out of their orbit, the storyline predominantly revolves around Parker (who will make the reader wonder how he ever has time to join his team at the rink for games when he's following Peyton around at all hours of the day – every day) and Peyton.
Determined in nature and delightfully humorous, The Hockey Player's Obsession is a sultry quickie of 74 pages. The novella is part of Bray's 4-book Stalker Sportsmen series, which, in addition to compulsive players in hockey, highlights dogged athletes in football, basketball, and baseball – a series many sports enthusiasts are sure to love, I expect.
But for the typographical errors that gave this tale the impression of having been written by an amateur rather than a professional USA Today best-selling author, The Hockey Player's Obsession hit the G-spot like a master tongue flicker.
The title's only (major) shortcoming was poor editing.
Dear reader, if the tantalizing effects of steamy contemporary romance novels allure you, I highly recommend The Hockey Player's Obsession as a must-read, even if the novella failed to command a five-star review from me. For what it's worth, perhaps some of you might beg to differ.
With that, I wish you all a happy reading experience.
Butter Butta the Biscuit!
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©2025 Quill Pen Ink Publishing. Literary Criticism by Cat Ellington for The Arts. The Cat Ellington™ Literary Collection. The Cat Ellington™ Poetry Collection. All rights reserved.
NEXT UP: Cat Ellington's review of The Plastic Surgeon by AJ Carter
Having read this tantalizing, superb book review, I have been intrigued enough to journey into this literary work. And I must say, it did not disappoint me! A thriller of the finest caliber with so vicious with its plot twists and deceptive characters that it was hard to put down!
ReplyDeleteHello, Cat Ellington. I have a request. Do you have any available autographed copies of your books from the Reviews by Cat Ellington series? Please say yes! Thanks
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