Local event organizer releases fictional book about girls’ hockey

January 10, 2024

With his first book under his belt, Mabou’s Wesley Beaton says he hopes to someday get the story on the big screen.

“I wanted to make it a TV show, that was my end dream,” Beaton says of Beer League Girls, which was published in June and follows the exploits of Kaylee, a young girl who gets her big chance with a local hockey team. “That’s still the end dream.”

“I’d love for someone to find the book and want to make it into a film,” he says, adding that the idea came to him long before enlisting the help of Alberta-based writer Nadine Aucoin, who originally hails from Chéticamp.

“I think it’s a great story,” he says. “I think it would be a great thing now to turn it into a film, the way girls’ hockey is exploding.”

Beaton has two daughters, one of whom played hockey, but he says that although he used his younger daughter’s name for the main character in the book, it’s in no way meant to be autobiographical.

“It’s fiction, but it has characteristics of what I’ve seen growing up,” he explains, noting that he reached out to Aucoin after seeing a copy of her latest book.

“I didn’t know how to fill out the story – like the conversations and the scenery and the background, little things that she’s really good at.”

Though they co-authored the book, Beaton and Aucoin have yet to meet in person.

“A lot of emails and a lot of texting,” he laughs.

An employee of Port Hawkesbury Paper and a part- time caddy at the Cabot golf courses in Inverness, Beaton is well-known in the area for the hockey and golf tournaments he has organized over the years. He says he likes to dream big, recalling a sports and musical event he staged in Fort McMurray in 2012 after approaching the organizers of the annual WinterPLAY Festival there. That event included a seven-hour concert featuring a number of Maritime musical acts.

Beer League Girls is available from Beaton, through Amazon and at the Freshmart in Mabou.