"engaging contemporary sports romance"

Kidco bought the defending Stanley Cup champions, but the corporation is very concerned with the image of a team that plays hard off the ice. After winning the trophy, the team players paraded the cup in headlining tours of strip joints. Rumors also surfaced, though not confirmed, that the champs snorted cocaine from the cup. To improve the image of their new acquisition, public relations boss Lou Capesi hires expert Janna McNeil.

Janna finds the team captain Ty Gallagher as the toughest person to persuade in helping improve the image. Ty believes that the ice is all that counts and not fattening the wallets of the corporation. Most of the team follows his lead. As Janna and Ty mentally check one another, they begin to fall in love. However, he knows that the two times he mixed romance during the season, he lost his concentration and his team lost too. In spite of her success as a PR specialist, surprisingly Janna suffers form low self-esteem. Thus, this is one relationship that appears to have not chance of lasting through even a seven game first round series.

BODY CHECK is an engaging contemporary sports romance that will score a hat trick with readers due to the lead couple, a fine supporting cast, and hockey. The story line is fun though Ty's attitude, as a firm believer in team camaraderie, seems contradictory as he is hurting the team members from scoring contracts with sponsors. Still fans will they won the Stanley Cup with this delightful tale.

Harriet Klausner

Reviewed by Harriet Klausner
Posted February 22, 2003

Read an Excerpt

Not many women can boast bossing around a locker room full of buff, naked jocks as part of their job description, but then again, there aren't many women with a job like Janna MacNeil's.

Summary

Janna MacNeil is a publicist specializing in re-tooling clients' images and damage control. She's just been hired to transform the reputation of the New York Blades, a hockey team known for playing hard both on and off the ice.

Last year, after winning the Stanley Cup, they celebrated at strip joints and made headlines. Kidco—the team's new corporate owner—wants the Cup again, but not the scandal. And that's where Janna comes in. They are paying her big bucks to make the Blades seem "family friendly".

Her new boss, Lou "The Bull" Capesi, guzzles Mylanta like spring water, and admits the team is a PR nightmare. The way he sees it, the only way to get the guys to co-operate is to win the respect of their Captain, three-time Stanley Cup winner Ty Gallagher. No problem, thinks Janna. Getting the players to toe the corporate line will be a piece of cake—they make their living chasing a little rubber biscuit around an ice rink.

How smart can they be? All she has to do is get the captain to see Kidco's point of view.

Easier said than done, because Ty Gallagher is plenty smart, distractingly good-looking and sees things from his own point of view. And he has better things to do with his time than deal with a publicist, no matter how often she gets in his face...