© Marc DesRosiers/Imagn
Sean Avery. The name alone conjures up images of a menace on ice. The man was a legendary pest who could get under an opponent’s skin like no one else. The former New York Ranger was as famous for his agitating style of play and controversial headlines as he was for his actual hockey talent.
After hanging up the skates, he’s dabbled in everything from fashion to restaurants to a cameo as a weatherman in the Oscar-winning epic Oppenheimer. But Avery’s latest venture might be the most unexpected of all.
In a move nobody saw coming, the man who once terrorized goalies in Madison Square Garden announced on Instagram back in May 2025 that he’s dropping his debut romance novel, boldly proclaiming, “the romance novel game is about to be elevated.” Summer Skate isn’t his first book (his 2018 memoir Ice Capades chronicled his fast-living hockey career, and contains an incredible passage about eating acid at a Phish show), but it is his first dive into fiction.
Teaming up with author Leslie Cohen, Avery co-penned Summer Skate, a “sexy and addictive” story that pulls from a world he knows all too well: the high-stakes, hard-partying life of a pro hockey player. The book is now available via Simon & Schuster.
Summer Skate centers on the fiery meeting between Jessica Riley, a bestselling novelist who fakes a mental breakdown to get away for the summer, and Carter Hughes, a cocky, soon-to-be rookie for the New York Rangers with a dark past. When they find themselves as summer neighbors in the Hamptons, Jessica sees Carter and his rowdy friends as a treasure trove of material for her next book, but the lines get blurred as their connection spirals out of control.
We’ve managed to get our hands on an early excerpt that captures the exact moment they first collide.
It’s about as subtle as an Avery hip check.
You can order Summer Skate via Amazon, where one 5-star reviewer says it’s “the hockey romance novel I’ve been waiting for” and notes they were “genuinely impressed by the storyline,” or your favorite local bookstore.
The bass of their music startles me awake. It doesn’t sound like a raging party. It sounds like a f—ing earthquake.
I stomp over there, in the dark, using the flashlight on my phone as I walk through the woods. I ring the bell. No answer. I knock on the door. No answer. I look through the opaque glass window on the door and can’t see anyone inside. I turn the knob. It’s open. I go in. It is all very orderly, but for the kitchen table, which is covered in circular tins of chewing tobacco, at least three Ziploc bags filled with weed, and a gun. I am tempted to back out, to run away, but I’d like to sleep tonight, and they probably won’t shoot a girl. I’m too cute.
Too cute to shoot.
I keep walking, more cautiously now. I continue to follow the music, my ears ringing from the onslaught of sound, and open the screen door to the backyard. Outside, there is one guy. One guy? Not a party. Not hundreds of people. Just one guy, standing in flip-flops, shirtless, with the gray trim of his boxers sticking out of his black mesh shorts. He is shooting hockey pucks on what appears to be a large square of synthetic ice, firing off pucks at a goal in the distance, while smoking a joint. He seems out of his mind, but he’s also hitting every single target. Is he experiencing some kind of psychotic episode?
“HELLO?” I yell, staring at the back of his head, which is unmoving. He is staring at the goal.
He doesn’t respond. He doesn’t even turn, just keeps taking shots and drags from his joint. I shout a little louder:
“EXCUSE ME? EXCUSE ME? HELLO?”
He turns, and he is so blindingly good-looking that my first thought is not about his body, every single muscle that you can see as he shoots, the blondish-brown hair sticking out of the navy bandana that he’s got wrapped around his head, or even the textbook face. My first thought is: he must not be in possession of two brain cells to rub together.
He stares at me, as if I’m the one who needs to explain myself.
“THE MUSIC?” I yell. “IT’S A LITTLE LOUD.”
He takes another drag from his joint and goes back to firing. I stomp over to a speaker and spend about five seconds looking for a knob before kicking it over with my foot, then unplugging it.
“Are you f—ing kidding me?” he says.
“ARE YOU?” I demand, hands on hips.
“Who the f— are you?”
“Your neighbor. Your very disturbed neighbor who doesn’t think she should have to stay up all night just because you’re listening to African techno music at a decibel level not suited for the human ear.”
He laughs. “Not suited for the human ear, huh? Go back to the city…” He goes over to the speaker and plugs it back in, turns it on.
He is taking shots again. I stare at him, dumbfounded, and then turn to walk away.
“I’ll tell you what,” I hear him say, as I’m about to walk through the door. I stop. I turn.
He puts his joint down into a plastic cup.
“If you can hit that goal, once, I’ll turn the music off, and it’ll be like a f—ing library over here.” He offers me his stick. He raises his chin in my direction, holding out the stick. As I stand there, frozen, he looks me up and down.
I walk over, step onto the white square, take the stick from his hands. He puts the puck
down.
“You get one chance,” he says.
“Five,” I reply.
He laughs. “FIVE? Get out of here.”
“Give me five or I call the police and report a noise violation. I’m sure they’d be fascinated by your kitchen table.” I smile.
“Three,” he says.
“Fine.”
I take a shot, and the puck goes sailing to the left, into a pot of flowers that is about four feet from my side. He puts another puck down. I am focused. I am determined to stop the madness. I shoot and miss the puck altogether, then shoot again, and it dribbles onto the grass.
My third shot goes in the general direction of the goal but stops significantly short of it.
“F—,” I say, and then throw the stick to the ground. He laughs and goes over to the music, turning it up even louder.
“A–hole,” I mutter under my breath and stomp toward the door.
“Come back and practice your shot again sometime!” he yells after me. “And welcome to the neighborhood!”