Nothing says “romance meets hockey” quite like a cover that looks as if two completely unrelated stock photos crashed into each other on the slippery ice of graphic design neglect. Through the Five Hole wants to be a steamy love story with a sports edge, but instead it gives us tonal whiplash and Photoshop confusion so severe it should come with a penalty for roughing.
Let’s start with the couple, who appear to have been plucked from a soft‑lit jewelry commercial. They’re cozy, glowing, and clearly moments away from whispering sweet nothings about autumn walks and matching throw pillows. But this luminous, outdoor, rom‑dram embrace has been brutally glued on top of a cold, empty hockey rink that looks like it belongs on an entirely different book cover—or planet. The lighting doesn’t match, the mood doesn’t match, and the characters appear to be floating in a void, gazing into each other’s eyes while completely ignoring the giant NHL arena beneath them. It’s as if the designer took two stock photos and said, “Eh, close enough,” slapped on a gradient shadow, and called it destiny.
Then there’s the title. “Through the Five Hole” already sounds like a euphemism the cover wasn’t prepared to visually support, but the typography makes it worse. We get half a title in a stiff, respectable serif font, followed by “Five Hole” in a flailing handwritten script that looks like it was pulled from a notebook doodle. The two fonts don’t flirt, they don’t banter, they don’t even tolerate each other. They sit on the ice, separate and cold, like rivals who refused to skate in the same scene.
And let’s not forget the random “Vancouver Dominators” logo hovering in the corner. It’s just there. No integration, no styling, no visual harmony—just a lonely icon clipped from a jersey and taped to the margin like a forgotten sticker.
The overall composition feels less like a book cover and more like a bad brainstorm session where three ideas entered the rink and none of them made it to the goal. A romance cover needs chemistry, cohesion, and connection. A sports cover needs energy, tension, and movement. This has neither. Instead, it leaves us with Hallmark‑channel‑cuddle‑stock pasted on top of ESPN‑background‑brochure, tied together with confused typography and zero visual cohesion.
Through the Five Hole set out to score, but this cover tripped at center ice and face‑planted into the boards.