THE LEGEND

Griffin Tardiff enters 11th grade in a new school with a shoulder healing from a devastating collision in a hockey playoff game, his last time on the ice.

Narrator Griffin is self-possessed and articulate, with parents who love and support him; he’s a young man prepared to face the challenges that come with relocating due to his father’s job. A community service internship pairs him with the local radio station, where a nationally known hockey broadcaster got his start. Though he misses his girlfriend, Blair, and his old team in Ottawa, Griffin gets to cover a bit of all things hockey for the station’s broadcast and do their social media. It helps that the hockey jocks in his new school immediately befriend him. Among the all-White cast, no one seems more than merely humanly flawed. The station’s sports director has some issues, and Griffin is aware of the shallower behavior of some of his peers, but he steers his own course. He’s got the kind of self-confidence and emotional intelligence that allow him to navigate the internship and new school with ease, find success in his first attempts at covering hockey as a member of the press, share his hockey expertise with a classmate’s little brother, recognize the privilege he has as someone whose family could afford his hockey participation, and gracefully decide what to do about his relationship with Blair. The challenges are low key, and Griffin’s likability is certain.

Agreeably entertaining.