Review by Ian Keogh

There’s no doubt Alix is the star player on her ice hockey team, yet the cost of playing is constant belittling from the team captain. Eventually she’s had enough and volcanic internal rage erupts. There’s no support for Alix, and the coach’s opinion is that she needs to be thicker skinned, in effect legitimising the bullying. Ezra goes to the same school where he also suffers verbal abuse, but he’s confident and articulate enough to respond witheringly without resorting to violence.

Faith Erin Hicks has a long and creditable record with young adult graphic novels (see recommendations), but with Hockey Girl Loves Drama Boy she’s hit on something relatively rare. And once it’s considered, there’s a definite shortage of graphic novels just following a flourishing friendship. That’s possibly because it’s difficult to handle well. There has to be enough drama to maintain interest, yet for the friendship aspect to work as the focus the drama has to be relatively natural. The instinctive clash of hockey and acting as primary interests provides interesting backgrounds, and Hicks having a dramatist’s instinct is another bonus. A key opening up sequence on a park bench is beautifully structured, Alix revealing her insecurities and Ezra’s incisive assessments on the button.

In many other cases an artist concentrating so much on faces would be less than ideal, but Hicks has long mastered emotional nuance, which calls for seeing how characters react. Hicks keeps the locations relatively simple, but solid, and when it’s needed she’ll put the effort into ensuring a beaten up old car looks its age, while panels featuring a ferry display the dedication of a manga artist. With ice hockey such an important element, it might be assumed Hicks is funnelling her own love into kinetic scenes, so it’s a surprise to read in the afterword that she has no affinity for the sport.

While Alix and Ezra are the focus, Hicks gives them a solid supporting cast. The relationship of both characters with their parents has a few bumps naturally handled, and Hicks reinforces throughout that someone disagreeing with you isn’t an indication of not caring.

The general path is predictable, but handled with such delicacy and sympathy that Alix and Ezra carry readers through with the smoothness of skates on ice.