I like that you get right into the action on page 1.
Jesse is a likeable character. An underdog with a sick kid and a dream. The NHL not wanting meat wagons anymore makes him all the more sympathetic.
The characters and setting evoke The Wrestler, Bull Durham, North Dallas Forty.
This is an interesting look into a world I’m not familiar with. An enforcer actually rubs Vaseline onto his face, like a boxer? Wow.
I like your writing style. You do particularly well the action on the ice: Jesse returns fire with a looping right hand, knocking off Jone’s HELMET and unleashing his nest of dreadlocks.
Good line: I sure hurt his right hand pretty bad.
Picking nits: Surprising to see that level of hockey be on tv screens across the country (2 countries, in fact). Clicking heels together doesn’t feel in character. It’s surprising that Sarah would need Black aces explained to her, having been around the game and invested in it for so long. It doesn’t really feel like the Jesse/Joey duel would be getting big time media coverage. The bounty on Jesse is a bit much; it doesn’t feel like you’ve established him as enough of a threat for that.
Sarah’s a bit predictable, a bit flat. You understand where she’s coming but all she really provides to the story is annoyance with Jesse. The nagging wife is a sports movie trope I think you should avoid. Similarly, if you’re going to have a sick daughter in there you could do more with her. She seems to get lost in there for a while.
Page 25: seems like we keep seeing variations of the same beat. We see Joey with the cheap shot on Jesse. Jesse and Derek talk about it. Jesse watches a clip of it. Jesse has basically the same conversation with Sarah that he had with Derek.
You sometimes tell more than you show. You show us what Joey does to Jesse but you feel the need to them tell us about it, multiple times. You tell us about Jesse’s fighting helping the team, but I’m not sure that ever show it, in an impactful way. Also, the fighting seems to be more about helping out the fighters, giving themselves opportunities to prove themselves, rather than helping the team/impacting the game. I understand that the fights have an influence the game, because the characters say it, but I don’t really see it.
Page 37: so far, the story seems to be happening to Jesse rather than Jesse taking steps to achieve his goal.
Page 55: The story takes a big leap forward with Jesse’s signing with the Voodoo.
You do a good job establishing a lot of hurdles/reasons why an NHL won’t sign him (age, injuries, diminishing skill, drug/alcohol issues, problems with the law). I think you could do a better job with how he overcomes the hurdles. He wins one fight against a guy with a bad wing, after what appears to be a string of losing fights, and he’s suddenly the NHL might be interested in him again?
I like the idea of him retiring at the end, it feels like the right finish to the story. But the execution and how you get us there leaves the climax a little unsatisfying. It’s tricky because I think you want the audience to gradually transition from pulling for him to make it over to understanding why he needs to hang it up. But there are stretches where Jesse forcing his dream makes him unlikeable. He eventually becomes a bad husband, a bad father, an unreliable teammate. It feels like you have to go there, to deliver the real view of what an athlete like him goes through, but I think you have him go through all of that but at the same time we don’t lose empathy for him.
Also, it kind of feels like it’s his choice to retire but it’s also kind of not. Because, again, what he has going against him doesn’t really feel balanced with any real hope of him surviving a stretch in the NHL. So it feels like he has less agency that you’d want from a character at this moment in the story.
I like the story you’re trying to tell, and I like the world it’s set in. I think the characters have not fully realized potential. I think if you could trigger more emotional release from the ending you could have something with this.
