I love hockey! As a child, I grew up with my Dad watching the Leafs play and listening to him "discuss" hockey with our Habs fan neighbour. Everyone heard those discussions. I collected hockey cards, put them in the spokes of my bike and played some kind of card tossing game with my neighbour Stephen to try and win some of his cards. My Dad was a manager for one of the local teams so I spent most of my weekend in arenas playing with other kids that were dragged to the arena by their parents. We had fun running through the bleachers and buying "Snowball" gum with the money we found. Occasionally we actually watched some of the game, cheer for the goals and scream for the hits. My neighbour always had an outdoor rink so we played our version of hockey. I couldn't stop and the stick tripped me up but we had fun.
As I got older, I watched hockey a little less. My parents had split so hockey wasn't on the TV as much, I did enjoy it when I did get to see it. Back in those days, we only had 5 channels if we were lucky, so sometimes hockey was the only thing on. I was enrolled in figure skating and would often ask to stay to watch the game that came on after. As a teenager I refused to be a "puck bunny" so I didn't watch the games live. My favourite movie was a CBC movie called Hockey Night with Megan Follows and Yannick Bisson. I watched it a million times and not just because I thought Yannick was so cute...although he was and still is for that matter.
Fast forward through the years and I am now a very proud hockey mom. Hockey moms get a bad rap due to some super crazy hockey moms. One thing is true for all hockey moms I think, and that is that we love our children and enjoy watching them play. While I actually only have 2 children, both of whom play hockey, I consider all the kids on my children's team as my kids - so don't mess with any of them. If one of our players get hurt, I feel great concern for their well-being. If they make a great play I feel pride for them. I don't think non-sports mom's truly understand the hockey mom mindset. Some of my friends can't understand why I can't miss games to do something else. (I can but generally choose not to miss the game.)
From August to May you will find me at the arena cheering on my kids and waiting through practices. I have travelled to many places in Ontario and even some towns in the US and racked up many kilometers on my van. As a family we have celebrated the wins and commiserated the losses. My non-hockey friends and family don't understand our lifestyle but that doesn't matter - it works for us. I only have a few more years left before my kids move on to university and away from hockey. It will be quite a change to not go to the arena almost daily. Luckily I have friends with younger children and I could go watch them play when I need a hockey fix.
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