Right Your Wrongs Summary: Second Chance Hockey Romance
TL;DR: The Short Version
Eighteen years after Shane McCabe walked away from the only woman he loved, he is standing in a Tampa press room as head coach of the Ospreys.
The new general manager introduces his wife, and she is Ariana Ridley.
Right Your Wrongs by Kandi Steiner is the sixth book in the Kings of the Ice series, and it moves between a college campus in 2006 and a professional hockey organization in the present day.
The novel follows two people who never finished their conversation, and the marriage that now stands between them.
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- The setup: Shane is now the head coach of the Tampa Bay Ospreys. Ariana is married to the team’s new general manager, Nathan Black.
- The complication: Nathan’s control over Ariana is not only personal. He is also manipulating the roster and the team’s charity to run a gambling and money-laundering operation.
- The arc: Shane and Ariana rebuild trust while gathering evidence against Nathan, with help from the players’ partners and the NHL’s integrity office.
- Core themes: resilience as an individual trait versus a shared one, reclamation of autonomy, and integrity in professional sport.
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Who Will Enjoy This Book?
Readers of contemporary sports romance, particularly hockey romance with older protagonists, are the core audience.
The book also suits readers who prefer second chance stories, dual timelines, and romances built around an existing history rather than a first meeting.
Because the plot includes coercive control, domestic abuse, and financial manipulation, the tone is heavier than a standard sports romantic comedy. Readers who want emotional angst alongside on-ice stakes will find both here.
Right Your Wrongs Summary (Spoilers Ahead)
Spoiler warning: this section covers the plot, including the ending.
Boston College, 2006
Shane McCabe is a junior star winger at Boston College when he meets Ariana Ridley in a psychology class. Professor Reid opens a debate on whether resilience is an individual trait or something built through community.
Ariana argues that resilience is internal, born of circumstance and the will to survive. Shane, who lost his parents in a childhood ice storm, argues that people are carried by the systems around them.
Shane pursues her with patience rather than pressure. He walks her to class, brings her favorite smoothies, and supports her volunteer work at Girls Inc.
Ariana eventually tells him about the abusive household run by her stepfather, Jay, and about her infant half-brother, Georgie. The relationship deepens through a Frozen Four run in Milwaukee, where Boston College falls short of a championship.
The Breakup, 2008
Ariana’s mother dies, and Jay is arrested for murder. Ariana fights for legal custody of seven-year-old Georgie.
As Shane’s NHL rookie season approaches, university advisors and lawyers warn him that tabloid attention around a rookie player would follow Ariana into her custody hearing. Shane leaves to join his team, believing the absence protects her case.
Ariana tells him that leaving means the relationship is over. She does not know his reasoning at the time.
Boston, 2013
Five years later, Shane’s playing career ends after an on-ice collision shatters his hip and tears his ACL. He is on crutches in Boston for surgery when he runs into Ariana on a snowy night.
He asks for forgiveness, and she grants it for the leaving. She tells him she cannot forgive him for staying gone.
Tampa Bay, Present Day
Shane is now forty-one and coaching the Tampa Bay Ospreys. After the death of general manager Richard Bancroft, the organization hires Nathan Black.
At Nathan’s first press conference, he introduces his wife. It is Ariana.
Nathan presents himself in public as charming and generous. In private, he belittles Ariana, controls their finances, and dictates her role in the team’s charity program, the Sweet Dreams Initiative.
Meanwhile, the Ospreys’ season becomes erratic. Veteran goalie Will “Daddy P” Perry suffers unexplained medical setbacks, pushing twenty-three-year-old backup Ben Sandin into the starting crease.
Sandin alternates bizarre errors with miraculous saves. Nathan also overrules Shane’s roster decisions and promotes rookies such as Ivan Baranov in ways that do not match the team’s needs.
Shane begins to suspect that the general manager is manipulating games for illegal sports gambling.
Support and Suspicion
Ariana tries to keep distance from Shane to protect her marriage and her safety. She finds an unexpected circle among the players’ partners, including Maven Tanev, Grace Tanev, Chloe Perry, Livia Fabri, and Mia Love.
Over time she confides in them about her history with Shane. After an afternoon together in Tampa and an evening at Shane’s home, Shane learns the extent of Nathan’s financial and physical coercion.
He commits to standing by her without taking over her decisions. Together they trace the corruption back through the charity.
Nathan has been using Sweet Dreams to launder money. He has also coerced Ben Sandin by offering to cover his terminally ill father’s medical bills in exchange for thrown plays.
Ariana secretly records Nathan’s incriminating calls and pulls hidden financial ledgers from his laptop. Shane takes the material to Michael Reeves, senior counsel in the NHL’s League Integrity office.
The Gala and the Arrest
The climax takes place at Ariana’s fortieth birthday charity gala. Ben Sandin arrives uninvited after his father dies, having missed a vital infusion because of Nathan’s financial manipulation.
Ben publicly accuses Nathan of corruption and extortion. Michael Reeves arrives with league security and law enforcement, and Nathan Black is arrested for fraud, match-fixing, and coercion.
Ending
Nathan receives a twelve-year prison sentence. Shane serves a temporary administrative suspension during the league’s due process review and is fully cleared.
Shane then coaches the Tampa Bay Ospreys to a Stanley Cup win. Ariana files for divorce, returns to social work at a local hospital, and advocates for victims of domestic violence.
Through therapy and mutual support, she and Shane rebuild their relationship on an equal footing. A year later, at the Las Vegas wedding of Jaxson Brittain and Grace Tanev, they also celebrate Georgie’s graduation from medical school.
Shane proposes with a soda-straw wrapper and then takes her to choose her own ring. Ariana accepts.
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Two Timelines, One Long Goodbye
The novel runs on dual first-person narration, alternating between Shane and Ariana. Each chapter is labeled with a time marker, moving between 2006, 2007, 2008, 2013, 2017, and the present.
The past chapters carry the relationship’s foundation and its collapse. The present chapters carry the investigation, the marriage, and the slow rebuilding of trust.
That structure means the reader learns the reason for the 2008 breakup before the characters fully discuss it with each other. The gap between what Ariana knows and what Shane knew drives much of the tension in the present-day sections.
The People in This Story
| Character | Role |
|---|---|
| Shane McCabe | Head coach of the Tampa Bay Ospreys and former Boston College winger whose NHL playing career ended with a hip and ACL injury. |
| Ariana Ridley | Shane’s former college partner, now married to Nathan Black; trained in sociology and social work and manages the Sweet Dreams Initiative. |
| Nathan Black | Newly appointed general manager of the Ospreys and Ariana’s husband, who runs a match-fixing and money-laundering scheme. |
| Georgie Campbell | Ariana’s younger half-brother, raised by her after their mother’s death; later becomes a medical doctor. |
| Will “Daddy P” Perry | Veteran Stanley Cup-winning goalie for the Ospreys. |
| Ben Sandin | Twenty-three-year-old backup goalie whose terminally ill father is used as leverage against him. |
| Chloe Perry | Will Perry’s wife and a member of the players’ partners group. |
| Maven Tanev | Wife of Vince Tanev and organizer of the group’s craft night. |
| Vince Tanev | Veteran star winger for the Tampa Bay Ospreys. |
| Grace Tanev | Maven’s sister-in-law, engaged and later married to Jaxson Brittain. |
| Jaxson Brittain | Ospreys defenseman. |
| Carter Fabri | Veteran Ospreys player. |
| Livia Fabri | Carter’s partner. |
| Aleks Suter | Ospreys player. |
| Mia Love | International pop star and Aleks Suter’s partner. |
| Michael Reeves | Senior counsel in the NHL League Integrity office who leads the investigation into Nathan Black. |
| Jay | Ariana and Georgie’s abusive former stepfather in the flashback timeline. |
| Professor Reid | Human behavior and psychology professor at Boston College. |
Books Like Right Your Wrongs
Meet Your Match by Kandi Steiner — The first Kings of the Ice book, following Vince and Maven Tanev through forced proximity and workplace dynamics in the same hockey world.
Watch Your Mouth by Kandi Steiner — The second Kings of the Ice book, centered on Jaxson Brittain and Grace Tanev and a forbidden sports romance setup.
Mile High by Liz Tomforde — A contemporary sports romance pairing an elite athlete with a strong female lead against high-pressure team dynamics.
The Right Move by Liz Tomforde — A slow-burn romance with a protective athlete hero and a strong community support system.
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