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Now that his hockey career is ending, what will become of his life?
Felix Batterinski grew up tough in Northern Ontario where hockey was the only way out of a life of grinding poverty. He got out and enjoyed fame as a hockey "enforcer" for the Philadelphia Flyers. But fame is fleeting.
Now in his thirties and at the end of his playing career, Felix tries to make a go of it as a player-coach for a Finnish club. As the lone Canadian on the team, he is an outsider with a reputation that takes on a life of its own. When a controversial play brings his comeback bid to a screeching halt, Felix is faced with his own obsolescence and begins a tragic descent into disillusion and despair.
"A compelling fable about violence, superstition, love and the shallowness of modern life."
"MacGregor's description of this rural Ontario family is reminiscent of William Faulkner's descriptions of rural Mississippi families -- the sense of foreboding, the family members bound together by dark secret, the mentally retarded relative, the clash of organized religion and the occult…. Clearly then, The Last Season is much more than a sports book."
"[The Last Season] is so rich in meaning that to call it simply a hockey novel is misleading…. In giving Canadians Felix Batterinski, Roy MacGregor has shown them a vital part of themselves."
"Sports literature as good as it gets."
"The best book of fiction on hockey."
"Superb—far better than many Governor General's Award-winning novels since."
“Combining entries from her grandfather’s diary with other reports and sources from the MacAlpine expedition, Karram’s book tells a tale of misadventure and recovery that is worth reading.”
Roy MacGregor is the bestselling author of Home Team: Fathers, Sons, and Hockey (shortlisted for the Governor General's Award), Northern Light, and Canadians. Currently, he is a regular columnist for the Globe and Mail. His journalism has earned him four National Magazine Awards and two National Newspaper Awards. In 2012 he became a Media Honouree Hockey Hall of Fame. He lives in Ottawa.