I am bumming... truly bumming.  I have read other books by Kadohata that I really enjoyed so I had high expectations and this just fell flat for me.

Conor and his dad live hockey.  His dad briefly played in the NHL and is now a police officer.  Conor is working his way up the ranks.  But hockey is expensive especially when Conor's dog has expensive chemotherapy.

And that's it...  404 pages of hockey, dog, money angst.  There is a brief time when it looks like something might be wrong with his dad but... nope.  To me the book just didn't go anywhere.  If I had students do a plot diagram and try to find the climax I am not sure what it would be exactly.  For students who love hockey... maybe.