NNtG: Are You Afraid of the Dark? #23: The Tale of the Horrifying Hockey Team

Oh gee. What recent event could have motivated me to cover the final book in a series I haven't covered yet? Break out the gold medals and shitty Big Macs, because we're hitting the ice for the Are You Afraid of the Dark book series. And yes, I still eventually intend to return to covering the series itself but yeah. You saw how long it took to get back to Baby-Sitters Club, right? But yes, Are You Afraid of the Dark had its own Goosebumps-like book series. Some stories based around tales from the series, while others were entirely brand new. Also, we don't get a lot of hockey horror stories... unless you look at the US Men's Hockey Team immediately after winning the gold medal that is. I'm guessing if Screammates lasted longer than four books, maybe we could have gotten something, but this will do. Is it a goal, or should it spend time in the penalty box? Let's find out with The Tale of the Horrifying Hockey Team.

I love this cover. Very simple stuff, but still very effective. The green, zombie-like hue from not just the hockey players but the ice itself. Although less eerie green, more like they're playing on a pond of frozen piss. The wisps coming off them is such a great touch, adding to the ethereal feel that the cover is going for. You want a cover about evil hockey players, then you really can't ask for anything better.

Each book opens with a quick prologue of which member of the Midnight Society is the one narrating the story. In this case it's Frank. 

John Stevenson and his friends Sanjay Patel and Steve Ciang are massive hockey fans. Since being part of their middle school winning hockey team the Hillville Penguins, they've been fully puck-pilled. John being considered one hell of a goalie with a bright future. He's also very winning focused as he also hopes to win for the baseball and soccer teams later in the year. But for now, Steve and his friends head to the pond by Grant's Wood, which are home to bears and other game, but also are so dense that there have been stories of people being lost in the woods, namely a group of six boys in 1949 who went into the woods on a dare and never returned. The trio make it to the pond where their other teammates Paul Linder, Kevin Montague, Hector Ruiz, Barry Sears and the admittedly sick ass-named Tiger Swensen are already there. But the kids also notice six boys they've never seen before on the pond. Kids wearing what look to be very old-timey Hillville Penguins uniforms with no helmets. Coincidence or the book telling the reader too much way too early? Let's find out, shall we? Also I'll be referring to John and his friends as the kids and these clearly evil hockey player kids as the players, to make things at least a bit easier.

The kids try to get the players to answer them, but they're rather indignant, saying that the pond was theirs first, despite this being the first time they've ever showed up in front of the kids. Before a hockey fight can occur before the actual hockey game, John offers the players a challenge. A hockey game. Winner gets dibs on the ice. The players agree, saying that the kids will be dead sorry though. While the other players aren't given names, they're nicknamed by John as Scarface for one having a scar on said face, Red and Raggedy Andy on account of his ragged uniform. The players don't use protective equipment, and play far rougher than the kids. Ultimately the kids manage to overcome the players and win. Of course, the players don't say anything and just leave in a huff. While the others celebrate, John isn't so sure he's seen the last of them. Given we're only on page 25 of this 118 page story, I sure hope so. 

John returns home and plays a video game called Hockeymania with his seven year old brother Marc. It also feels like a way to get a bunch of real life hockey player references in, namely Gretzky. When John wins, Marc isn't happy. At dinner, John tells his dad about the pond players and their actions, to which he notes they're sore losers, which bothers Marc because he feels like he's being called a sore loser in the process. Later that night, John's dad tells him to not be a sore winner and to give Marc a win or so every now and then. But John is of the mind that "screw giving people a win, they have to learn to suck it up and get good". Seems like the kind of kid who would flip his shit over participation trophies. That night, after having a nightmare over being bombarded by hockey pucks and losing a big game, John wakes up to see Scarface at his window, warning him that the next game they play, the players better win or else? So yeah, this isn't over after all. But when he asks Marc if he heard anything, he didn't, so John hopes this means that it's all just a wacky dream.

That gets negated immediately when the kids again see the hockey players on the ice again. They tell the kids that they're playing again for the same stakes. Winner gets the pond. The kids agree and it doesn't go so well this time with the kids seemingly getting injured with the players barely touching them. But despite that, the kids win again, angering the players more, who promise to be back because if you haven't gotten the memo about the sore loser moral, it's pretty much being hammered down. One of the kids, Kevin, suddenly has a serious hand injury out of nowhere, which might be bad if they want to, you know, keep winning and all. As John heads home, he runs into his friend Robbie Kaplan, who runs the school yearbook. He also used to play sports sometimes, to which John can't comprehend why he wouldn't be as interested in playing sports all the time. Robbie says that he doesn't like the competitiveness, the statistics, the pressure, coaches yelling at you. You know, basic reasoning. But John of course thinks that's all the best parts of sports. Yes, even the hurled abuse from coaches I guess. Robbie asks if he can get a picture of the team at the pond for the yearbook, and John agrees to it.

The next day, John exits his house, only for Scarface to show up again and warn him to lose the next game. He says that the injuries will continue, but John, either too hopped up on constantly winning or too dense to realize that there's something supernatural about the players, thinks he's just trying to scare him and the kids from playing. Interestingly, all the injuries have subsided and the kids are in fighting form again, so I guess the injuries were warning shots that failed to land. They play the players again but this time it's a tie game shootout, so everyone's going to have to play for a fourth time. More like The Tale of the Horrifying Monotony. Robbie gets his photo and leaves, as do the players. John decides to follow them in the woods along with Sanjay and Steve. However, Steve almost falls into a giant hole filled with maggots. They wonder what could have made such a big enough maggot hole, and then realize they're late to get home, which gets John grounded for being late and being vague about why he's late. He also checks his backpack and sees that again, the players have left a warning telling them to throw the game, or else.

John gets a decent nightmare about beating the players again only for everyone to disappear and for the ice to continue to get longer and longer until it cracks and he falls in and drowns. John wakes up and checks the emails from his friends saying that they're good to go for tomorrow. Then he gets an email from the players again warning him about the game that he and his friends will die if they don't throw the game. I guess a ghost hockey team from the 40s know how to use the internet? John apologizes to his dad and is free from his grounding so he's able to play at the big game. At school, John and his friends learn that the school trophy case has been broken into, with the championship hockey trophies being sprayed with X's and the word "losers" on it. Which, I mean these evil hockey players haven't won once, so I fail to see how this threat makes sense. Robbie grabs John and shows him the 1949 yearbook which just so happens to have a picture of the hockey players that John has been facing. Less dead-looking versions of said hockey players. Sure enough, these are the same ones who disappeared into the woods years ago, and it's almost the 50th anniversary of their disappearances. 

John runs off and immediately realizes that everything lines up. The players' looking dead, the maggot-filled holes in the woods, the hauntings, it all lines up in a neat, yet bizarre, package. Not only that, but these players seemed determined to win no matter what, as if they've been holding a 50 year grudge. So now John figures that yeah, they might need to throw the game to satiate the egos of zombies. However, Sanjay, Steve and the other players are more determined than ever to put the players in their place, which I mean given they graffito-tagged their trophies is fair enough reasoning. John heads to goal, ready to throw for the team, when Sanjay and Steve try to defend him. However, it's all in vain as the players get the goal and lead by one. Eventually the 1949 players win. The kids aren't too upset about losing the pond to play on, and aren't too broken up about losing, so they're at least good sports about it. Everyone leaves, but John stays for a bit and leaves a stone with the 1949 team's name engraved on it, as a memoriam, congratulating them for finally winning. John also lets Marc in at the Hockeymania game as he's pretty much learned his lesson about being a good sport. At least a sport good enough to not come back to the realm of the living after 50 years at least.

This one was decent. I wouldn't say great, but I do like what it set out to do. Tell a very straightforward morality tale about being a good sport. How the need for winning can cloud one's judgment and make you a worse person because of it. It's a good moral handled quite well. I will say though that if there is an issue with this book it's the pacing as it's very slow. You get a few hockey games that are quick and action packed, then a lot of slowdown with similar stuff of John and his home life, and constant warnings from the 1949 players. So it feels like hockey game to home stuff to hockey game to home stuff and it makes these 118 pages feel every bit as slow as possible. But even with the monotonous feeling of the plot I wasn't ever really bored with it, even if it became obvious what the general issue with the 1949 players was and how it was meant to parallel John being a bad winner dealing with the ultimate group of sore losers. And the nightmare scenes we get are effective, so that works. 

John is a fine protagonist. You get who he is quite quickly and what his general flaw is. That he's too obsessed with the idea of winning and being the best. So much so that he can't see how others can't see things the same way as him. That the winning and competitiveness is more important than anything else. Wild then that it literally takes a group of ghost hockey players to set him straight but here we are. The ghost players are solid antagonists. You don't really know anything about them, even their actual names, but them being characters is not the point. The point of them is to be the embodiment of the moral that John has to learn. That the obsession with winning can be something you take to the grave, and in the case of these kids, something they couldn't rest in peace without. I like how they're structured in the book. How despite their threatening demeanor, they just keep losing or being tied. It could make them look like lame villains in that they're so easily bested, but the fact they continue to escalate things by trying to injure the kids, or doing property damage, it does make you wonder if they would have actually killed John and his friends had they lost this time as well. And the point is that they need to win so that everything can be set right, so them being clowned a bunch before that is fine. Marc is a decent little brother, Sanjay and Steve are decent friend characters and the rest of the team are needed, so they aren't Superfluous Clay in this instance. Also Tiger Swenson is an incredible name.

So yeah. This one was fine. Pacing is really the only thing that hurts it as it is very sluggish. But if you want a book about hockey, it does the trick. If you want a decent little horror story, it does that too. And it's a book that does its moral well enough that it doesn't feel too condescending. I'll definitely have to come back to Are You Afraid of the Dark, or at the very least its books. It definitely feels like the kind of story that would work as an episode at the very least. So light recommend. It doesn't exactly come off as a game winning goal, but I respect its game regardless. The Tale of the Horrifying Hockey Team gets a B-.