Searching for Terry Punchout

A 2026 CBC Canada Reads Selection

Shortlisted for the Amazon Canada First Novel Award

Shortlisted for the Kobo Emerging Writer Prize

Garden State meets King Leary in this slapshot debut novel.

Adam Macallister's sportswriting career is about to end before it begins, but he's got one last shot: a Sports Illustrated profile about hockey's most notorious goon, the reclusive Terry Punchout-who also happens to be Adam's estranged father. Adam returns to Pennington, Nova Scotia, where Terry now lives in the local rink and drives the Zamboni. Going home means drinking with old friends, revisiting neglected relationships, and dealing with lingering feelings about his father and dead mother-and discovering that his friends and family are kinder and more complicated than he ever gave them credit for. Searching for Terry Punchout is a charming and funny tale of hockey, small-town Maritime life, and how, despite our best efforts, we just can't avoid turning into our parents.

"An assured debut, wryly funny."—Literary Review of Canada

"A story of a father, a son and hockey that set[s] heart and mind reeling."—Chris Benjamin, Atlantic Books Today