Yes—I accidentally read these out of order. I didn’t realize Winging It was the first in the series and only figured it out 1/3 of the way through Scoring Position so of course I immediately had to download the first and start it right after.
Overall, this series was good, and these first two books were well written, and the stories were engaging, but OMFG they were all entirely way too long, or not well paced. More on that later.
Scoring Position made much more sense as the opener as it had an openly gay player, and a closeted player end up together. Ryan, openly gay and playing a major support role on every team never being the star player, is transferred to another team with Nico, on the cusp of absolute greatness, standoffish, closeted publicly, but his team knows, and spends most of the book in his head.
There are some great one-liners from the first book including:
Nico’s dick would shrivel up and fall off if he found out the GM traded a right-handed defenseman to get him laid. Nico also had a right hand. It operated fine. At least now that the bone had healed. (Scoring Position, 21)
He picked a bag of peanuts like a good pro athlete and then, after a glance over his shoulder, a Mars bar, looking like a naughty child. Ryan wanted to buy him a case of Mars bars. (Scoring Position, 93)
And there was even a knitting shoutout:
‘School is boring!’ Ella had sent with some creative gif choices. Nico liked the sleepy baby faceplanting into its dinner.
‘Take up knitting,’ he wrote back.
He watched the “typing” notification appear on the top of the screen and waited.
‘Knitting is a terrible idea! I’ll give myself carpal tunnel and how will I write my papers then?’ Nico snorted.
‘Then go trainspotting or stamp collecting. Your lack of hobby is not my problem.’
‘We can talk about why you’re avoiding me instead,’ Ella offered. (Scoring Position, 51)
I really enjoyed that throughout the novel Ryan rubbed off on Nico giving him the confidence and enthusiasm to be himself. It gave us this gem of a scene:
This was some grand-cinematic-moment shit. All that was missing was the rising music.
Ryan’s heart stuttered and his cheeks flushed, and for the first time in his adult life, the words were bursting on his tongue and he didn’t want to hold them back. ‘I love you.’
The elevator doors dinged open. Nico backed out of them, grinning. ‘I know.’
Oh, God damn it. Ryan made a noise of outraged, turned-on delight and stalked after him toward their room. (Scoring Position, 348)
Overall, this was in my top two of the series, it was a good read, and the characters really set the groundwork for the rest of the series. I do wish they would’ve appeared in more of the other books (Winging It’s protagonists took that place and I can see why, but I liked Nico and Ryan more).
The second book in the series, Winging It, produced arguably the most memorable (or annoying?) character: Dante. Dante is hilarious and over the top and when he realizes he’s attracted to Gabe he is ALL in wanting to announce it to the world and this carries throughout the series. Gabe is all about hockey and being the best player he can be, but when he’s outed by the media his world starts to crash down. He wants to keep it quiet and his life private, and that doesn’t mesh well causing the friction of the novel.
Kane and James do a good job of balancing the machismo of hockey culture with humor, so you get one-liners like those above, below, or even this one which had me legit laugh out loud:
For the second time that day, Gabe participated in the manly ritual of pretending no one in the room was crying. They ought to give him honorary membership into the heterosexuality club. (Winging It, 268)
Overall, I felt they did a good job with not over-inundating the reader with self-hatred or internal homophobia, most of the characters were more just wanting privacy which any athlete/entertainer/public figure would want. That being said, however, my biggest gripe about the ENTIRE series (including the two follow ups: Unrivaled and Crushed Ice) is that they were way too long. Not only did each of them clock in at over 375 pages (WTAF!? legit in order: 378, 386, 406, 424), but they were also divided into at most seven chapters (warm up, period 1, intermission, period 2, intermission, period 3, post-game recap). That’s right SEVEN. So, you can imagine JUST how long they were. I mean I get that it was a hockey nod, but OMFG no; I hated that there weren’t chapter breaks and even the mid-chapter breaks were few and far between. And it turned each read into a slog.
Recommendation: I’m 50/50 on the read/pass for this entire series; mostly because of the length and the lack of chapter breaks. Even with breaking up the four books with a couple of manga I struggled to get through the final two because of the length. Overall I enjoyed the stories, however the length and lack of breaks made it really hard to keep reading them. The characters were well formed and the pacing, for the most part, was okay. Kane and James I felt did a good job of balancing a hyper-masculine sport with sexuality and coming out better than others have done in the past, so it really is a toss up on the recommendation for the entire series.
Scoring Position Opening Line: “Still sticky with sweat from his morning run, Ryan Wright sat at the kitchen table in his parents’ Vancouver home and dug into his bowl of Magic Spoon.”
Scoring Position Closing Line: “No matter what the sweaters say, you and me? We’re always on the same team.” (Whited out to avoid spoilers, highlight to read.)
Additional Quotes from Scoring Position
“Something had made Kirschbaum look at their little goal celebration like it was the dessert table at a wedding and he’d brought the team nutritionist as his date.” (42)
“The look on Nico’s face when he’d been banished to the press box made Ryan want to wrap him in a blanket, feed him hot chocolate, and pet his hair.” (56)
“Nico, if you don’t come out, I’m going to come in. I haven’t been in a closet since 2007. Don’t make me do that.” (67)
“‘Good, because I’m going to need food in my belly before I start putting alcohol in it.’
Nico’s mother laughed and said something in Russian. Then she poured a bunch of rum over the wine pot and lit it on fire.
Nico’s mom was metal as fuck.” (192)
“So you like him enough to get your heart broken, but you’ve decided not to fight for him.” (224)
Winging It Opening Line: “A two-story-tall image of Gabriel Martin’s face stared fiercely down at the man himself as he approached his team’s arena.”
Winging It Closing Line: “And if Dante meant something else . . . well. That would be pretty great too.” (Whited out to avoid spoilers, highlight to read.)
Additional Quotes from Winging It
“‘I guess you wouldn’t believe me if I said this isn’t what it looks like?’ Dante said sheepishly.
‘Looks like maybe you lie to me,’ Kitty said.
‘You say, “Hey Kitty, I am bisexual.” I say “Hey Dante, is okay, you and Gabe are together?” You tell me “No.” He gestured.
‘This doesn’t look like no!’ Dante flushed deeper.
‘What was I supposed to say? “Not yet”? That’s cocky, even for me.'” (286)