National Network for Equitable Library Service

Sonja Danychuk, a serious and introverted student, takes pride in her intellect and academic achievements—essential skills when growing up in a dirt-poor family that struggles to survive in a small town. When her father is cut down by a fatal heart attack, Sonja must find a way to pay for college while also supporting her financially strained mother. She agrees to tutor Carl Helbig, her high school’s hockey star and NHL hopeful, despite her strong aversion to his jock-like persona and what she perceives to be his intellectual inferiority. Carl graduates and embarks on a wildly successful career in the NHL, but he soon finds himself in the brain trauma unit after sustaining concussions on the ice. He and Sonja are once again drawn together, eventually hurtling towards a tragedy that neither of them can outmaneuver. Skating swiftly between tender and tense, Sonja & Carl is a surprising and heartrending love story that exposes the dark side of professional hockey.