56 pages • 1-hour read
Fake Skating
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Symbols & Motifs
Content Warning: This section of the guide features cursing.
Hockey
The novel uses hockey to symbolize identity, performance, and belonging in a community that prizes athletic achievement. At first, Southview’s obsession with hockey makes Dani feel like an outsider. She notes, “Hockey was apparently interesting to everyone in Southview except for me” (77). The sport dominates the social landscape of both the high school and the larger community. Her lack of interest in the sport is tied to her broader view of athletes; in her experience, they are often overconfident and self-centered, and to her, hockey represents the social hierarchies and unpleasant personality types that she has learned to avoid. However, as she develops positive new experiences at Southview, hockey suddenly becomes a point of connection for Dani, particularly when she takes on the role of team manager and observes Alec in action. Her growing interest in the sport also offers a path for her to bond with Mick, who harbors deep knowledge of and enthusiasm for hockey.
Alec plays hockey “like his life was at stake and the only way he was going to see tomorrow was if he beat the other guy to the puck” (197). In his mind, hockey is not merely a game; it is a source of identity and purpose. Hockey also provides Alec with an escape from everything that is wrong in his life. On the ice, nothing else matters, and he thinks only about playing for his team and his community, letting all the pressures of his school, family, and social expectations fade away. While he initially worries that his performance might impact his family’s financial security, Alec also plays the game because the ice provides him with a sense of community. Having grown up alongside his teammates, he has developed bonds that extend beyond the sport.
While the high stakes of the state hockey championships provide the narrative framework, they also create tension for Alec. When the team finally wins the state championship, the story’s main arc comes full circle. The town gets the victory that everyone has been hoping for, but the win means something even bigger to Alec because it marks the end of his high school hockey career. After all the years of early practices, high expectations, and the stress of carrying the weight of the team, he must now face a turning point as he steps away from the high school version of himself and begins imagining what might come next.
Postcards
The postcards symbolize The Weight of Unresolved History between Dani and Alec, emphasizing the idea that misunderstandings arise whenever communication breaks down. Yet in a more innocent sense, the postcards represent the whimsical, trusting methods by which Alec and Dani communicated as kids. Back then, they used postcards to stay in touch between their annual summer visits, and they even developed a secret code so that no one else could read their messages. The postcards were their lifeline, and the simplicity and analog nature of this method reflect a simpler, more innocent time in their relationship, before adolescence made everything complicated. For them, the postcards were a way to maintain a tangible connection across the distance between them.
While Alec grows distressed over the idea that Dani has “ghosted” him and chosen to stop responding to his postcards, the reality is that because of her dad’s interference, Dani was unaware that Alec was still writing to her and expecting her responses. While Alec grew embittered by her silence, Dani had no idea why his postcards stopped coming. This simple breakdown in communication escalates over the years, and both characters make misguided assumptions, feeling hurt by the new distance between them. The postcards that once connected them thus become a symbol of misunderstanding and the weight of unresolved history. As Alec says, “[E]very time I accidentally came across that bundle in the back of my closet, I was reduced to a little boy with a thousand fucking feelings” (111). Once the two become teenagers, communication is no longer as easy as sending coded messages on postcards. Dani doesn’t know why Alec stopped writing, but Alec doesn’t understand why she stopped answering. In this context, postcards symbolize everything that went wrong and everything that still matters. When they return to sending each other postcards at the end of the novel, the renewal of this habit represents a return to the honest, uncomplicated connection that they had lost along the way.
Southview
Southview, Minnesota, is the physical setting of Fake Skating, but it is also an important symbol in Dani’s journey of navigating The Challenges of Constructing Identity. On the surface, Southview is a cold Midwestern town with the kind of weather that chills Dani to the bones. She feels that chill immediately when she and her mom move in with her grandfather. For both Dani and Hannah, Southview represents a fresh start. After the divorce and a lifetime of bouncing from place to place, the prospect of moving in with Mick gives them both a chance to set down roots and make meaningful connections instead of just passing through. Hannah sees the move as a reset. She is ready to rebuild her life, reconnect with Mick, and give Dani greater stability. Dani, on the other hand, doesn’t feel the fresh start right away. She has become so used to preparing for the next move that it’s hard for her to believe this place could be different. Southview is the first town where neither of them is waiting for the next big disruption. Instead, they can settle down and start imagining a life that doesn’t involve packing up and leaving.
Despite her ex-husband once acting “like Minnesota, and everything tied into it, was a problem” (120), Hannah feels at home from the start, easily reconnecting with old friends and picking up where she left off. Dani watches how easily Hannah moves through the world and realizes that the same place can feel completely different depending on a person’s perspective. As Dani slowly makes new friends, the town begins to take on new meaning for her. What once felt like unfamiliar territory becomes a space where she can build real connections. She learns that despite the town’s cold weather, Southview is a place filled with warmth for the people who call it home.
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