I’m A Hockey Mom

I’m a hockey mom.

4 words I never thought I would ever say, which is probably why I’m saying them because the universe is awesome like that. Last year I was invited to a super cool event hosted by GM Canada to promote their Safe and Fun Hockey program. Stella, being the sporty kid she is, volunteered to be my date. After dinner and a  short information session about the importance of helmet safety and protecting ones skull during sport, we were treated to a tour of Team Canada’s dressing room, Stella got her very own helmet, jersey and hockey stick and then an on ice skate with Olympic gold medalist, Cassie Campbell.

 

 

This would be the part where I tell you how she stepped on the ice and it was magic and awesome, nope, it was painful, oh so painful to watch. Poor kid had some basic skating lessons under her belt because in Canada you have to learn how to skate shortly after you learn how to ride a bike. She wondered around the ice chasing after pucks but not really knowing what to do with them once the puck slowed down to greet her. Stella fell…a lot but like the good sport she is, she always got up. The other kids, including several girls, clearly play hockey on a team as their skills were far more advanced than my kid. I stood in the visitors box with the other bloggers and media folk and took my pictures like a proud parent and chuckled to myself thinking, “she’s gonna hate me when this is over”.

 

 

In the change room at the end, I sat on the floor at Stella’s feet to take off her skates. I could barely make eye contact with her for fear that she would start crying from the trauma I had just caused her. I carefully posed the question to her, “so? did you have fun?” then she said,

“mom, can you put me in hockey?”

{pause}

{insert shock and awe}

Flash forward and here we are starting our very first kid on a hockey team and we couldn’t be more proud. Stella’s house league team is mostly made up of boys with only 2 girls including her but she doesn’t care. No wait, scratch that. It’s not that she doesn’t care because saying that she doesn’t care would mean that she acknowledges the fact that being on a mostly boy team is something she needs to deal with. She doesn’t see boys or girls, she just sees new friends and her very own team.

 

 

I’ve always talked the big talk about wanting to push my kids to do things outside their comfort zone and to challenge them to try new things but what I didn’t expect was that I would be the one sitting on the bleachers outside my own comfort zone. To me pushing my daughters comfort zone has meant getting them to try a dance class or move up a level at gymnastics or pass another swimming badge but Stella has taught me that my own comfort zone was quite narrow minded and totally girl stereotyped. Why wasn’t I encouraging Stella and her sisters to try hockey before? What about bobsledding? Or soccer? Or karate?

I always assumed that because I had girls, 4 of them in fact, that I would be spared the life of a hockey mom but someone had other plans for me.

Well played Stella, well played.