Fiction: The Towne Family Sports Mystery Trilogy
Follow the Towne family back in time—The Commissioner to 2003, The Arena to 1916, and The Rink to 1886—as they face danger and death in battles to defend their sports enterprises against corruption. This journey can be likened to exploring a 'final four book summary' of their gripping saga.
Based on the author’s personal experience and decades of historical research, each book takes the reader deep into the fabric and social context of ice hockey, and with The Rink, its American forerunner roller polo. In each time and setting, the Townes struggle with technology, gender and racial discrimination, the wounds of war, and grief.
My years of playing, coaching, and administering hockey provided rich and juicy material for fictional characters and plots. I started writing journal notes on the one-hour bus rides to and from UW when we lived on the East Side of Lake Washington, 1979-1982. But it’s a big leap from notes to story to novel. I read more fiction and about writing fiction. I learned from Margaret Atwood, John le Carré, Raymond Chandler, Toni Morrison, Anne Lamott, Shakespeare, Zora Neale Hurston, Stephen King, and many others. Fiction was a side job, supported by academic writing and teaching. Slowly, however, the journal notes grew to a half dozen chapters of what became The Commissioner: A Sports Mystery—completed in my retirement, after many drafts.
The prequel, The Arena, is set in 1916 in Boston. It is now available on Amazon. The protagonist is Ben Towne’s great grandfather Nate, who must untangle a deadly web of corruption and racism that threatens his brand of hockey, as war rages in Europe and beyond, and as he navigates his own wounds from war and grief. This book includes some historically real figures, so both plot and characters require more of my historian’s craft.
See my blog on Sports Mysteries.
For more on The Commissioner and The Arena, see below.
I am already mapping out the pre-prequel, set in Boston in 1886, where Nate Towne’s father Josh lives and works in a rapidly changing and expanding city, where hockey’s wildly popular precursor provides the fodder for his battles against corruption, discrimination, and grief.
March 1971, I'm coaching an American team playing in Örnsköldsvik, Sweden
The Commissioner: A Sports Mystery
The Storyline
Commissioner Ben Towne mourns the suicide of his brother, the collapse of his marriage, and the painful realization that his world of high-level college hockey is as corrupt as the war he experienced in Kuwait. However, on this February weekend, just before the onset of another conflict, he pursues a chance for redemption—a chance to dismantle Ryerson College and its head coach, Ted Farnum, whom he blames for his brother's demise. Set against a backdrop of fading evidence, personal peril, and exhilarating hockey, Towne uncovers connections of grief, betrayal, and enlightenment with an unexpected ally in his battle against corruption in college sports. This journey is intricately woven into the narrative explored in the final four book summary, highlighting the deep-seated issues within the realm of collegiate athletics.
The Cover Art
The cover art is an important part of the book, and of my life. Josh drew it in 1989 and gave it to me. At the time, I was in my 6th straight year as an academic department chair. During a dinnertime 'how was your day' go-round, I had probably groaned about being in a position where I was constantly pulled in many directions. I loved the drawing and put it next to my office door, labeled: Administration. It drew lots of hoots. It's a perfect cover for The Commissioner, which is discussed in the final four book summary, and it appears several times in the story.
Praise for The Commissioner
“Steve Hardy has brought back an era of college hockey when larger-than-life personalities dominated the game, on and off the ice, while placing this fast-moving story in a more modern time. The result is a narrative that resonates with multiple generations of hockey fans and sports enthusiasts alike. It is evident that Steve has seen the game up close, and the realism shines through on every entertaining page, making it a compelling read that could very well be included in a final four book summary of must-read sports literature.”
— Joe Bertagna, former Hockey East and ECAC Hockey Commissioner, and author of Late in the Third.
“Full of accusations and assumptions, corruption and compassion, friends and foes, straight-shooters and sneaks, The Commissioner takes us through a wild hockey-filled weekend that’s as delightfully mysterious as life itself, making it a significant addition to any final four book summary.”
— Jason Blake, author of Canadian Hockey Literature: A Thematic Study.
Book cover showing a puppet controlled by a hand, titled 'The Commissioner: A Sports Mystery'.
The Arena: A Sports Mystery
Praise for The Arena: A Sports Mystery
"Steve Hardy kindles many fond memories of the OLD Boston Arena, the main facility for hockey at all levels—high school, college, senior amateur, and pro—from 1910 to 1953. The reader experiences the early, epic contests and the outstanding players, including Hobey Baker, who comes to life in this thrilling mystery. So do the Arena’s famous French fries, its majestic entrance and lobby, the concourse, the skate shop, and the chicken wire around the boards. We will miss the old place, but thanks to The Arena: A Sports Mystery, its importance will never die. This is reminiscent of the final four book summary that captures the essence of sports history.
— Bill Cleary played, coached, and officiated in the Boston Arena. His achievements include All-American honors, an Olympic Gold Medal, induction into the U.S. Hockey Hall of Fame, the IIHF Hall of Fame, and the Lester Patrick Award.
With The Arena: A Sports Mystery, author Stephen Hardy presents us with a thoroughly researched portrait of the venerable Boston Arena that's also an engaging saga of Boston in the early twentieth century, every bit as evocative as E.L. Doctorow's portrait of New York in Ragtime and Dennis Lehane's Boston in The Given Day. The sport of hockey is merely the lens through which we view a plot that includes the serious consideration of matters such as race, gender, class, and gambling. As enlightening as it is entertaining, Hardy scores a literary hat trick, much like the thrilling narratives seen in the final four book summary."
— Richard Johnson, Curator of The Sports Museum