IN PRAISE OF HOCKEY MOMS

Thought all might enjoy this. It was written by Gerald Skoning former player & team captain, Princeton University class of 1964.

IN PRAISE OF HOCKEY MOMS
I have played ice hockey for most of my life. It started with “shinny” pond hockey on the Fox River in Geneva as a young lad and progressed to Division I intercollegiate hockey at Princeton University and semi-pro hockey with the Chicago Cardinals of the Continental Hockey League (the predecessor of the Chicago Wolves).

As a life-long hockey junky, I am delighted to see “hockey moms” get some long overdue recognition that Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin has delivered to these heroes of the hockey world. Soccer moms had their day in the sun in the last election cycle, now it’s time for the dedicated moms of youth hockey players to stand up and take a richly deserved bow..
In my day, hockey moms were a different breed. Dedicated to be sure, and committed to their young warrior’s hockey exploits, but they weren’t on the road 24/7 traveling to tournaments around the Midwest and up into Canada. They didn’t suffer the ordeal of dawn to dusk vigils at frigid hockey rinks watching hundreds of laps of Zamboni ice machines in the course of a season.
The mission of hockey moms back then was to deliver steaming hot chocolate or chicken noodle soup to the kids playing endless games of shinny hockey dawn to dusk in bitter sub-zero wind-chill on the small hockey rinks shoveled clear of snow on the river ice.

An ideal day back then was the early, pre-snowfall, sub-zero freeze which would yield miles and miles of mirror smooth “black ice”… ideal in all skating respects except for the missed pass, or the errant shot on goal which, with no boards to stop it, would slide forever, and take about as long to retrieve. Black ice taught disciplined passing and careful shot selection, all under the watchful eye of a hockey mom from the living room window.

Today, hockey moms are even more remarkable heroes. Making time for jobs, families, and marathon hockey schedules requires the energy and skill of a world class juggler. And, some moms are juggling the schedules of two or three youngsters at once who are participating at different levels of youth hockey--- a Mite, a Pee Wee, a Squirt, and maybe even a Bantam. All different schedules, all different travel arrangements. Juggling indeed.

To many hockey moms, youth hockey is an obsession. They are forced into the ultimate “helicopter parent” roll by virtue of phone trees and car pooling and long road trips. The goal is, of course, to have their kids learn, team work, good sportsmanship, hard work, practice to make perfect, and striving to win. Aspirations of hockey moms and dads often include their youngsters making the coveted traveling team, being selected for the All Star Team, a full-ride scholarship on an NCAA Division I hockey team, or maybe even the ultimate dream of many in youth hockey, “to be drafted by an NHL hockey club and make it to ‘The Bigs’”.

The harsh reality today is that only the very rare high school hockey player graduates directly to play college hockey. College hockey rosters today at all levels are dominated by those who have taken one or two years to play “Junior A” hockey, either in Canada or here in the U.S. So, the mission of hockey moms to develop their youngsters into college or professional levels players is complicated by the fact that college coaches prefer to recruit out of the so-called “Juniors” programs, rather than out of high schools.

Those years in Juniors mean more sacrifices for the hockey moms and dads, as they travel to the remote regions of Alberta, Ontario, or Quebec, to watch their sons play for storied Junior A franchises like the Flin Flon Bombers, Oakville Blades, or the Champlain Cougars.

So, for their steadfast dedication to developing young athletes, tireless efforts chauffeuring their brood to hockey venues hundreds of miles distant, endless hours sipping steaming cups of coffee in frigid hockey rinks, and their endless patience with laundering hockey bags full of stinky equipment, we who play and have played the game salute our hockey moms (and dads) for letting us pursue our dreams.

(As for the description of hockey moms as “pit bulls in lipstick”, I’ll leave that to the political pundits to debate.)

September 14 2008 Gerald D. Skoning