Pucking Sweet

Jacksonville, Florida, the home of Emily Rath’s fictional Jacksonville Rays, is the most populous city proper in Florida (though the Miami-Dade County area contains nearly double Jacksonville’s population) and the 10th most populous city in the United States (“Largest US Cities by Population 2024.” World Population Review, 2024). Jacksonville was established in 1822, shortly after the United States acquired Florida from Spain, and was named after US President Andrew Jackson.

Jacksonville is in northern Florida, close to the southern border of Georgia, and therefore enjoys a more temperate version of Florida’s hot and humid climate. However, the weather remains relatively warm throughout the year, reaching freezing temperatures only a few times throughout the year. This is reflected in Pucking Sweet by the characters’ frequent reference to trips to the beach, which the protagonists’ son Bennett enjoys year-round. Although close to the eastern coast of Florida, Jacksonville is far enough inland to see less frequent instances of devastation from hurricanes than some other areas of Florida. 

Pucking Sweet also plays with Florida’s reputation as being “America’s class clown,” or a state filled with oddball personalities (Silman, Jon. “Why America Is So Obsessed With Florida.” VICE, 4 July 2016). Rath, a Florida resident herself, frames such characterization of Florida as snobbery, as only the uptight and self-important St. James family from Washington, DC, criticizes Poppy for choosing to live in Florida. Pushing back against these stereotypes, the novel frames Jacksonville as a typical city, one that provides stable homes and good weather for those seeking to live there.

Jacksonville has its own hockey team, the Jacksonville Icemen. Unlike the novel’s Jacksonville Rays, a new expansion team in the National Hockey League (NHL), the Icemen are a minor-league team in the ECHL (formerly known as the East Coast Hockey League). While the Rays play in the NHL, the top tier of professional hockey in the US, in reality, Jacksonville’s Icemen play two leagues below. The Icemen are affiliated with the NHL team the Buffalo Sabres and are considered a “farm team” for the Sabres, meaning that the Sabres may call up Icemen to the NHL when players are needed (“NHL/AHL Affiliations.” ECHL).

Before the team was purchased by a hockey franchise group based in Jacksonville in 2017, the Icemen were known as the Evansville IceMen (2010-2016), based in Evansville, Indiana. Before that, the team operated as the Muskegon Lumberjacks (2008-2010) and the Muskegon Fury (1992-2008), during which time they played in Muskegon, Michigan (Geary, Ron. “A Letter to IceMen Fans, From Team Owner Ron Geary.” Evansville IceMen, 16 Nov. 2015). These shifts, as teams are purchased and move from city to city, are not uncommon. The upheavals that the real-life Icemen have experienced over the years are paralleled in Pucking Sweet, as Lukas frets that, even with a contract that does not include a trade clause, his precarious career means that he could be sent to a new city at any point.