Hockey Mom

Today in New England, hockey season is officially over.  It was a shorter season this year than last, and that’s that.  There is no more to say on this matter.

When we moved to New England with our family in the late 90s, my son was over the moon to play youth hockey.  At nine-years old he was doomed to mediocrity before he even started, as most self-respecting Boston-area kids are already suited up and on the ice by the age of five.  Nonetheless, he declared his intentions and brought home a long list of required gear.

Youth hockey already had a bad reputation for injuries and fighting.  Add to that the well-publicized tragedy of a local hockey dad’s fatal assault on another kid’s father at the rink and I was not keen on the idea that my little angel was drawn to this sport.  But there was no getting my way.  Hockey is a rite of passage for any boy in New England with a pulse.

Reluctantly, I drove my son to the sporting goods store.  A patient sales clerk outfitted my son from head to toe, starting with skates (my son had never skated in his life) and ending with a helmet.  I was satisfied at the cage that hung from the front of the helmet, convinced that this might spare my beautiful son’s freckle-nosed face.  But the neck guard petrified me.  What kind of happy sport requires something as frightening as a neck guard?  My mind ran involuntarily through the implication of this piece of equipment; I stopped it in its tracks.  It would not do to have these kinds of thoughts!

Once my son was fully dressed in this getup I asked him to hand me his hockey stick.  In the middle of the store I whacked him up one side and down the other—on the head, on his back, across his knees.  Randomly, I took shots at every inch of him.  “Do you like that?” I asked.  “Get a grip, mom,” he said calmly.  “I can’t even feel it.”  The sales clerk looked at me doubtfully.  “I’m not buying any of this,” I explained, “if he can’t tolerate getting hit.”  Since he did not seem to mind, I handed my Amex to the clerk, convinced that the equipment was suitable.

The gear was schlepped home, filling the entire rear compartment of my ample SUV.  It was the beginning of a lifestyle that included 5am practices, Saturday morning games, and bi-weekly skate sharpenings.  There were tournaments in New Hampshire and Lake Placid.  Soon, there was a permanent, ungodly smell in the car, in the garage, and in my son’s room.  There were in-house leagues, and travel leagues, and fall-leagues.  There were hockey dinners and awards banquets.  There were—believe it or not—codes of conduct for the parents stipulating that you must cheer for both teams and not your own child.

There were also some good things that came out of growing up in a hockey town.  For one thing, I taught my son by the age of ten to do his own laundry.  To this day, I consider this one of my greatest accomplishments as a parent.  His ability to generate dirty laundry far exceeded anyone’s capacity to clean it.  All it took was one time reaching down into his hamper, bringing my nose into close contact with that stench, to declare his laundry forever a mom-free zone. 

More importantly, my son’s hockey buddies are his closest friends even today.  While the locker room conditioned him to adopt a certain temperament and language, it also forged lasting relationships with guys who always had his back—both off and on the ice.  Even if my son is only home for a few days, the gang is waiting to get together. 

 

All these positives notwithstanding, the ten years my son played hockey was a living hell for me.  I did my share of managing teams, coordinating away tournaments, working fundraisers, producing team yearbooks, and cooking team dinners.  In the way “no good deed goes unpunished,” there was no shortage of hockey parents prepared to tell me what I was doing wrong on a moment’s notice.  There are the hockey equivalent of stage-parents, working to ensure that their son will be the one-in-a-million with a hockey scholarship to a leading college.  I did not care about any of this.  Our league included the town where hockey parents beat each other up.  All I cared about was the safety of our boys.  I wanted to see each of them stand on their feet at graduation.  

Today I attend Bruins games with my husband.  I sit in silence as he discusses player injuries with other team doctors in the press room before the games.  I jump out of my seat every time a player is flung against the glass.   I react with stunned amazement as The Garden fans rally when a fight breaks out on the ice, cheering to encourage the exchange of fists; I simply cover my ears and look away.  I remain a stoic kind of fan.  I watch the million dollar athletes with a sigh, remembering that each is some mother’s son.

Tomorrow's blog:  Rocket Man