Hockey Moms....

Last night I had a great night.  I had the pleasure of sitting with a few of my favorite hockey moms and chatting and eating and reflecting on times past.  If you have never had the chance to sit with a hockey mom you are really missing out.  These ladies in particular, they are funny, fantastic (and a few other 'f' words)  ladies.  I mean we really are a special brew of women.  Who else thinks, 'I am going to strap some SHARP knives to my 4 year old (or younger) little man (or lady as the case may be) and put them out on a sheet of ice and see how it goes! If they do well enough by next year we will give them a long stick and fling a frozen chunk of rubber around'  Doesn't that just sound fun? Oh and when they start to fall, we will pay someone to make those knives sharper....makes sense right?

So maybe we take a bit of our child's life in danger.  Maybe.  But we will also get up earlier than the morning paper man in freezing temps to take our child to the freezing rink so that they can practice.  It must be love.  Because my body certainly knows it is not right that I force this upon it every October-March.  We forgo our weekends and weeknights.  We spend our expendable cash and work overtime to make more expendable cash so they can attend camps and have new equipment.  (that stuff is NOT cheap!).  We eat frozen dinners *heated up...most of the time* and fast food.  We live on caffeine and alcohol (much more that latter as they grow) We live a 'special' lifestyle.  People look at us and shake their heads.  They feel sorry for us.  Sometimes, it feels awful.  Your superstar gets cut from the team he wants to be on.  He must face the truth.  Sometimes you aren't the best.  Sometimes you are and you just get screwed.  Sometimes there is an adult who somehow, someway has the world thinking he is gospel and you get the short end of the stick.  What are you going to do?  Crawl in a hole and cry?  Quit?  Or, persavere and let them kick themselves? 

We as hockey moms, feel all of the things our kids do, and we love it.  We let them dream, we let them try.  We sit as a group at games, we confide in each other things we can't tell others.  We are a family.  A dysfunctional family maybe, but eh, what family isn't?