24-year old Sherman Reinhardt dreams of playing professional ice hockey, but after a disappointing career at a backwater Minnesota college, he's going nowhere fast. Nowhere, that is, until he becomes the first North American to play in the mythical Borschland Hockey League. Borschland is a place lost in time, where the locals ride in horse-drawn carriages, fly helium-buoyed airships, and go mad for their ice hockey. Making the team here turns into the least of Sherm's worries-- he's an overnight sensation and his team is skating towards a championship. But almost as fast he's hip deep in talking bears, political intrigue, the attractions of Rachael, a Borschic poetess-- and rumors that his hockey success is fixed. Is Sherm being used as a pawn in a grander game? Finding the truth, even if he loses Rachael, becomes this skater's ultimate goal.