Have a hockey hangover? Tyler Hellard’s debut novel is really about coming home

Tyler Hellard’s Searching for Terry Punchout introduces us to the titular NHL enforcer who holds the (fictional) record for the league’s most career penalty minutes. But it’s Hellard’s protagonist Adam Macallister who does the searching. Terry "Punchout" Macallister is Adam’s estranged dad.

The 2018 debut novel is on this year’s Canada Reads shortlist. From April 13-16, five Canadian celebrities will each champion one book they think all Canadians should read. Hockey YouTuber and podcaster Steve “Dangle” Glynn will be championing Searching for Terry Punchout.

Meet the Canada Reads 2026 contenders

The novel opens with Adam returning to his fictional hometown of Pennington, Nova Scotia to try and revive his own failing career as a sports writer with a hit profile on his old man.

“He's been running away from the East Coast the whole time, and now he's ended up in a spot where he doesn't have much of anything and he has to come home hat in hand, which is not something he's comfortable with,” Hellard told Mattea Roach on an episode of Bookends.

The journey sets Adam on a collision course with old friends and old wounds. It’s a familiar story for anyone who has moved away from home and left behind community and history. Hellard took inspiration from his own migration west. He grew up in Summerside, P.E.I., and is now based in Calgary.

Hellard told Roach about the emotions he channeled to create Adam, and the version of adulthood Adam is chasing throughout the book — one the rest of us might be, too.

Mattea Roach: How much of your own experience of leaving the East Coast and going west did you put into this novel?

Tyler Hellard: There's quite a bit of me in Adam, and me running away from small town East Coast. There's a bit early in the book where he talks about how half the people he knew just wanted to leave and the other half couldn't imagine being anywhere else.

And I don't know of the exact math from Summerside, but it certainly felt that way, where a lot of us were like, “I can't wait to go to university. And when I leave university, I can't wait to live in Halifax,” or “I can't wait to go to Toronto,” or wherever it was you were headed.

And then there's other people who were like, “I don't know what you're talking about. I'm going to UPEI, and when I'm done there, I'm coming back to Summerside, and I'm going to meet someone and we're going to have kids and we're going to live and work here forever and it's going to be amazing.”

Can you take me back to what it felt like to want to get out?

It just felt like the world was waiting and amazing things would happen as soon as I left. And it had nothing to do with Summerside, in retrospect. I didn't hate Summerside. I hated being 16. I wasn't very good at being a teenager. So it really was misplaced blame and assuming that, if I did get to Halifax or Toronto or Calgary, people would just hand me things and life would be amazing. And it turns out you actually have to put in the work and then you can have a good life, and you can do that anywhere.

I didn't hate Summerside [P.E.I.]. I hated being 16.- Tyler Hellard

We see Adam coming back into this world of his childhood and high school friends who mostly didn't leave town. What inspired that part of the novel?

I don't keep in contact with people very well, but I'll slide right back into those old habits and old friendships pretty easily. That's just the way I am, but I find Summerside has always been very good for that. I can go home and call people who didn't even know I was coming and we’ll be having drinks or something that evening, and my accent will dial up thirty per cent, and I'll start swearing a lot more.

And then there's people I didn't get along with in high school, and I see them as adults. I'm one of those people who's like, “This is a moment. Because in grade 11 we argued,” or “You punched me,” or something. They don't know who I am. They don't care. A lot of those feelings I had to work out and put in the book.

There's a point in the book where Adam is reuniting with a high school flame of his, Jennifer, where he's thinking about the life he could have had if he'd stayed in town and just settled down like some of his friends did. What does Jennifer and this alternate path represent for Adam at this point in his life?

She's kind of the only adult. She got pregnant young and she raised this kid — with her parents’ help, but without a father figure for him. She had to get a job and be mature. And nobody else in the story is really taking responsibility for anything in their life.

So I think he looks at her as a what could have been, both in the way of teenage heartbreak, but also like “If I had hung around with her, if we'd ended up together, would I have that sort of adulthood I long for?” Which probably isn't true because, you know, you have to grow up on your own.

What was that growing up process like for you? Was there a moment where you were like, “I think I've resolved whatever high school baggage I had from back in Summerside”?

I don't know if there was a moment. It was a process, and a lot of it was just immaturity. I just didn't know myself or how to be in the world. Meeting my wife helped a lot just. She's the greatest person I know and she lives in my house, which is handy. And she's a grown up. But she doesn't let me get away with not being a grown up. She gives me something to aspire to so I can be more grown up following her lead.

And then having kids really helps. Remember when you're young and you look at your parents like, “Well, they understand the world. They pay bills, they know what's going on." And then you're 20, and you're like, “OK, but I'll get there!” And then you're 25 and 30 and you're like, “Oh my God, everyone's an idiot! Nobody knows what's going on!” And you realize your parents never really had it together. They know how to pay bills and have a mortgage and sort of play adult because they learned along the way, and you can learn along the way. But the idea that there's this adult that you can just become and the world makes sense and you’re calm — that just doesn't exist.

Losing a parent is something that Adam, your main character, deals with as a teenager that doesn't quite force him into growing up. It’s the final straw that makes him want to leave town. Meanwhile, everyone's in the background making sandwiches, filling up his fridge, making sure he's taken care of. And he just kind of doesn't notice. When he comes back all these years later that care is sort of still there for him. Where did that come from for you?

I like to believe that most people are essentially good and caring, and I think in small towns especially, but in any community, I think people want to support each other. My favourite book of all time is Cannery Row by John Steinbeck. And it's a bunch of weirdos who live near each other and they support each other as best they can and they love each other.

I think if people didn't really want to be good and caring, life would be really hard for all of us.- Tyler Hellard

We think of our community as this carefully curated group of people. It's kind of not! Someone could be your bestest friend in the world, maybe, but it's not like you went around interviewing people. With your family, you were born and they were there and you're stuck with them forever. And a lot of your friends and the people you end up closest with, it's proximity, it's people who live near you, it’s people who work with you. And so I think if people didn't really want to be good and caring, life would be really hard for all of us.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity. It was produced by Ashly July.