Don Jordan is a gifted Major Junior hockey player with a problem. He is unable to control his temper and has got himself into a number of dustups with both his opposition and the hockey community itself. After one particular game during which Don strikes a player and the player has to be taken off the ice on a stretcher, Don begins to wonder if he has the temperament to be a hockey player.
After considerable thought, he decides to quit hockey altogether and find a job. However, his coach is not impressed. Don is an integral part of his hockey team and with his loss, the team becomes much less of a threat to the rest of the league. His coach tells him to take a few days off and give it some more thought, but Don is adamant. As he sees it, there is no place for someone like him with his short fuse.
Finding a job, however, proves to be harder than he imagined and after several weeks and only able to pick up work here and there, Don is frustrated and almost ready to rejoin his team. However, he receives a letter from a family friend in a small town in Southern Saskatchewan, a town called Fairmore, offering him a job. Don leaps at the opportunity and soon finds himself on a train from Saskatoon to Fairmore to take up a job at a lumber yard.
Fairmore has an intermediate hockey team that is desperate for new talent and when Don arrives on the scene, the coach loses no time in trying to recruit Don. However, Don is reluctant. He has quit hockey and has no desire to play for an intermediate hockey team.
Fairmore's coach, however, is determined to have Don join his team and eventually, through the influence of his daughter and community pressure, Don decides to join the team. Thus begins a long and frustrating journey trying to overcome his hair-trigger temper, adapt to his new environment and learn to trust the people closest to him. It is a hard lesson to learn for a 19-year-old, but Don discovers a lot about himself and his place in the hockey world.
