A Thank You to Hockey Moms Everywhere
It’s that time of year again. The hockey season is over, unless you’re playing spring hockey, and the weather’s getting warmer, hinting at summer, a time for camps and skills clinics before the season starts once again.
Somewhere in that mess of “off season” we take a day to celebrate the lady that makes it all happen, Mom. She’s not just any mom though, she’s a hockey mom.
Those early Saturday and Sunday mornings for games and practices? She was up hours before you, making sure your laundry was done before it was time to leave and making sure you had a pre-game meal in you before hitting the road. She made sure you were to the rink ten minutes before the coach told you to be there just in case you had to make a detour. She drank styrofoam cup after cup of stale concession stand coffee because it was too early for Biggby, Tim Horton’s, and Starbucks to be open on your way to the rink.
She helped heal all your injuries, from the bruises on the backs of your knees from hacks and wacks from opposing players, to the puck to the gut you got blocking a shot, to the concussion you got in your first year of checking, to the agony you felt after getting cut from that travel team. She was there for your first goal, your first game, your first shutout, your first hat trick, your first steps on the ice. She was there for it all.
She tied your skates even though she knew you could do it yourself, she made sure you had a clean change of clothes after practice, even though she knew you’d come out of the locker room wearing the same clothes you wore under your gear anyway.
Every time you broke your stick taking your infamous slapshot from the point she took you to Perani’s to buy a new one, even though it cost her at least $150 every time. Every time you said your toes were being crunched in your skates she made sure you had a pair that fit by the next time you had to play in a game.
Even when you got older, when you insisted she didn’t have to watch you practice anymore, she sat there through the entire practice anyway. She spent her summer taking you to tryouts and camps, making sure you had the best opportunities available, even if it meant spending the summer at the rink instead of the beach. She sacrificed her free time so you could play the game you love, she drove thousands and thousands and thousands of miles froze at every rink within two hundred miles. She bought you that new stick for Christmas, even though it meant she wouldn’t get as much. She spent her Friday, Saturday, and Sunday nights watching college, pro, or junior games because you idolized the players on the ice who inspired you to play the game.
She cheered for you when you won, she cheered for you when you lost. No matter the outcome of the game, she was always waiting in the lobby with a smile on her face and a Gatorade in her hands. She brought cowbells, airhorns, clappers, the whole shebang to every game, even when you were “too cool” for your Mom to be your biggest fan in the stands. The truth of the matter was and still is, she will always be your biggest fan, even when you’re twenty-seven and playing in the beer league back in your hometown on Tuesday night.
You never really fully understood the sacrifices she made so that you could play until you were older, when you realized what it meant and what it cost for her to drive an hour each way to practice three times a week and for your games on the weekends.
She drove you to the seven in the morning Learn to Play sessions on Saturday and Sunday mornings when you were seven.
She drove you home at eleven thirty at night when you were fifteen and got the latest ice-time of any of the youth hockey teams.
When you finally made it to college hockey, she was there in the stands cheering you on, even though she wasn’t the one driving you to and from the rink every day anymore.
When you stepped off the ice for the final time, she cheered and cheered and cheered until she knew you were back in the locker room and waited until she was in the car to cry about the fact that her baby was done playing hockey. She’ll never say it to your face, but she’ll be just as upset, if not more, than you were about your last game ever.
The ups the downs, the crazy turns you took along the way, she was there. For those of us who started playing the game late in our lives, she was crazy enough to suit up her almost fourteen year old in the best equipment she could find so that she could get out on the ice with her brother.
Everyone says that a Mom’s job is to do what’s best for her kids, to sacrifice things like quiet time, summers at the lake, and weekends out with friends for her kids, but Hockey Moms go above and beyond. I could go on and on about the things that Hockey Moms do for their kids, the list is endless. So take some time to tell your Hockey Mom, call her, go up to her and thank her for all she’s done for you this Mother’s Day. After all, she’s done so much for you.
So, to Hockey Moms everywhere (especially mine!) THANK YOU for ALL that you do for your smelly little (and not so little!) rink rats, the thousands of miles you’ve driven us, the thousands of dollars you’ve spent on ice fees and equipment, and the countless hours you spent freezing your butt off in the stands watching us play. We love you!
This Mother’s Day, I’ll be spending at a rink with my mom all day because what makes Hockey Moms the happiest is when her kids are happy, and, typically, that’s when they’re watching or playing hockey. After all, there’s no place that a Hockey Mom would rather be.