The Holman Rink: A Symbol of Childhood Trauma and Twisted Atonement in Never Flinch

What Is the Holman Rink?

The Holman Rink is an abandoned hockey arena in Dingley Park, Buckeye City. Its double doors are flanked by faded paintings of ghostly hockey players, and a sign declares it condemned by city council. Someone has chalked "BECAUSE JESUS DON'T SKATE!" beneath the official notice—a detail that makes no sense to the killer Trig Gibson. Inside, the roof is disintegrating, sending beams of light through splits, and pigeons flutter overhead. The ice has long since melted. Creosoted boards crisscross the cracked concrete floor, and the wooden bleachers are sagging and splintery. A snackbar and a ticket booth sit abandoned in the lobby, and a keypad with the Plumber's Code 9721 controls entry—a code Trig learned from his father.

For much of the novel, the rink stands as a decrepit monument to a forgotten past. But its significance runs much deeper: it is the place where Trig's father first abused him and where Trig later learned his mother had been murdered. This childhood trauma shapes Trig's entire arc and culminates in the rink becoming the site of his final, bloody stand.

Where the Rink Recurs

The rink first appears in Chapter 10 (chapter 11 of the text). Trig visits it after a dental appointment, still buzzing from Novocain, and uses his father's electrical knowledge to crack the keypad code. He walks to center ice, kneels, and runs his hand over a board—thinking how quickly the dry wood would burn. He kills a drug-addicted woman there, leaving her body as part of his plan to murder the jurors who convicted Alan Duffrey.

The rink reappears in Chapter 21 (chapter 22 of the text) as Trig brings two new victims: Corrie Anderson and Barbara Robinson. He binds them to posts in the penalty box. The stalker Chrissy Stewart also enters the rink using the Plumber's Code and hides behind the snackbar, waiting for Kate McKay. In the final confrontation (Chapters 24–25), Holly Gibney approaches the rink, hears Trig speaking in two voices—his own and his father's—and shoots him after a tense standoff. Jerome Robinson finishes the kill, and the rink catches fire as the women are rescued. The building burns, its symbolic power consumed by flames.

Afterward, in Chapter 26, the park reopens, but the rink is gone—a physical and symbolic erasure of Trig's legacy.

How Its Meaning Changes

For Trig, the Holman Rink is the site of both love and terror. His father took him there for "eighteen-minute sermons" between hockey periods, teaching him never to flinch and occasionally offering rough hugs. But it was also where Daddy told Trig that his mother was gone—dead, killed by his father. The rink thus becomes the alpha and omega of Trig's trauma. He later sees it as the perfect stage for his public atonement: a mass murder that will force the guilty to feel remorse and make his crusade famous.

For Chrissy Stewart, the rink is a convenient hiding place where she can wait to kill Kate McKay. She feels no emotional connection to the building; it is simply an empty, dark shelter.

For Holly and the hostages, the rink transforms into a trap and a prison. The darkness, the isolation, and the sound of Trig's fractured monologue create a nightmare atmosphere. But after the rescue and the fire, the rink becomes a symbol of survival and justice. Its destruction cleanses the space of Trig's father's ghost and ends the cycle of abuse.

Character and Theme Connections

The rink is most deeply tied to Trig Gibson (Donald Gibson), whose childhood at the rink underlies his entire murder spree. His father's mantra "push through to the bitter end" without flinching is literally taught here, and Trig repeats it to himself as he kills. This connects to the theme of atonement and vengeance: Trig believes he must atone for his father's crime by making the innocent pay. His alcoholism and compulsive need to kill mirror the addiction and compulsion theme—he describes murder as his new "real work," just as drinking was before AA.

The rink also touches on religious extremism and violence through Chrissy Stewart, who uses the same space to pursue her own holy war against abortion providers. Both antagonists converge at the rink, though their motivations differ. The rink's original purpose—a place for sports and community—has been perverted into a killing ground, reflecting the corruption of institutions that the novel explores.

Several characters show protective duty and sacrifice in relation to the rink. Holly Gibney risks her life to enter it; Jerome Robinson runs toward danger; Betty Brady prays and carries a gun. Their actions contrast with Trig's father, who used the rink for abuse. The justice system corruption theme (Chapter 8) also echoes here: the Alan Duffrey case that motivated Trig is rooted in a wrongful conviction.

Study Questions with Answers

1. Why does Trig choose the Holman Rink for his final attack?

Trig selects the rink because it holds his deepest trauma. It was where his father beat him and where he realized his mother was murdered. He thinks of it as "alpha and omega"—the beginning and end of his pain. By bringing surrogate victims there, he hopes to force the public to confront guilt over the Duffrey case, but more fundamentally, he is replaying his own history, hoping to finally achieve the atonement his father never received.

2. How does the rink's physical condition reflect Trig's mental state?

The rink is condemned, decaying, isolated, and filled with ghosts of the past—much like Trig's psyche. The broken roof lets in fractured light, the wooden bleachers are rotting, and the ice is gone. Trig himself is a dried-up alcoholic who has replaced drinking with killing. The flammable boards he gathers as kindling mirror his own readiness to burn everything down. The rink is a desolate landscape that matches his emotional emptiness.

3. What role does the Plumber's Code play in the rink's symbolism?

The code 9721 is a piece of knowledge Trig inherits from his father, an electrician. Using it to enter the rink shows how his father's teachings—both technical and abusive—persist in Trig's life. The code becomes a key not only to the building but to his violent plan. It also suggests that while the building is abandoned, it is still wired to the past, and Trig can access it because he carries his father's lessons with him.

4. What does the destruction of the rink in the fire represent?

The fire that consumes the rink at the end of the final confrontation serves as a cleansing. It destroys the site of Trig's trauma and his final murder scene. The bodies of Trig and Chrissy are removed before the blaze, but the building itself is reduced to ash. Symbolically, this ends the legacy of abuse that began there. The survivors—Holly, Kate, Corrie, Barbara—are literally snatched from the flames, and the park reopens, suggesting that even the darkest places can be left behind. The rink's destruction is not a victory for Trig (he dies) but a necessary erasure of a poisoned space.