Bow Island author writes about an apocalyptic Canada and hockey

The Last Hockey Player.

By Justin Seward

Commentator/Courier

Bow Island author Brett Loney released his second non-fictional month earlier this month called “The Last Hockey Player,” which takes readers through an apocalyptic era of what happens to Nova Scotia and Canada after society crumbles and what still exists.
The scene is set 18 years into the future where an epidemic have killed most of mankind, which forced people to flee the cities and live off of the land.
Then a professional hockey player travels across the wreckage of North America to find his mother and sister. In the midst of the journey, the player stumbles into a Nova Scotia village of survivors and discovers family unexpectedly.
“It’ll sound weird anyway,” said Loney on the story idea.
“The idea for the story almost came from a dream literally. But the dream came when I was in Cuba on a mid-winter vacation … I literally woke up from a dream about a hockey game being played in an apocalyptic world.”
“That’s kind of how I work writing short stories and I keep writing stuff in a journal and eventually I have enough to write a story.”
Additionally, the hockey-themed book came from one his original short stories “Hockey Night in Canadas,” with modifications to characters and written in a different timetime to align with the current book.
“In the short story, it was very much about a celebration of hockey being one of the last messages Canadian culture in that little village,” said Loney.
“I got thinking more about what would survive. Especially with the scenario I built in the story, which is a series of epidemic viruses sweeping through Nova Scotia, Canada and the world. It literally forces the people to flee the cities and really not carry anything because this virus is so viral.”
He mapped out scenarios in what hockey looked like in 1910 and what games looked like before moving indoors.
“I did a lot research into what the game looked like in the early days,” he said.
“How people would dress. How the game was played. I did a lot of research in Nova Scotia in terms of aboriginal culture and how people survived in the wild.”
He said he did a lot more of the writnh himself with this book compared to his first one where the novel went through a company.
His first book in 2015 was titled “Rebel With A Cause: The Doc Nikaido Story,” which was about a late Bow Island physician Dr. Harry Nikaido.
A book launch will be held in Halifax in September.
The publication is available through Amazon, Kindle and Ebooks.