This article appeared in the singles section of the Minneapolis Star Tribune.
Hope you all get a "kick" out of it. It gives a glimpse of what it was like to
be a hockey parent, female and single in a male dominated sport.  


                                         Ms. Hockey Mom

When my spouse passed away, I tossed my homemaker apparel and donned a power
suit, figuratively,  becoming the sole female parent to a hell-on-skates
hockey brat.

I wasn't exactly welcomed among the male dominated echelon of coaches and
hockey Dads. I was probably the only female in the locker room at 5 AM lacing
skates and commiserating with faces partially concealed by deeply creased
caps, disdainful grimaces and breath that reeked of last night's beer. I fit
in great alright, like a figure skater with lipstick and binaca breath. I
learned fast. I got tough with a new exterior of pants and malese, talk about
other male dominated sports. The rest of the Moms were always introduced as so
and so's wife or so and so's Mom, never by their own names alone, never having
their own singular identity. I gained that distinction. It's her, they would
say. Ms. Hockey Mom.

I became ruthless in my attempt to gain not only respect from the Dads but
from the other Moms. Ironically, being female and single didn't go over well
with Moms either, as you can imagine. Maintaining a psuedo-male front got me
respect from the Dads and disgust from the Moms. I was fighting a loosing
battle. And, all I wanted to do was fit in like everyone else. But, I had no
what's called significant other any more to make my existence meaningful to
them.

When the time came to put away childish things and deal with my son's onset of
puberty, my mere presence became a maternal intrusion to the inevitability of
heightened testosterone. I was now fighting sexism from within my own
household. How do you gain authority when you're three feet shorter than your
opponent? In my new altered role, designated not volunteered as combination
cook and bottle washer, chauffeur, disciplinarian and nurturer, I was told in
plain words to back off and often. And, when the time came around when a Dad's
touch would have been better, I wore my figurative pants and tried to be
someone I wasn't. I could be a strong role model; but I couldn't duplicate
those moments of fraternization between father and son. I couldn't play tackle
football, couldn't drop my BVDs in the hamper, couldn't share size 12 cross
trainers— I couldn't be something I'm not. I learned that I could represent
the same qualities of strength, gentleness, compassion and love that my Father
showed me, without the perfectly trimmed moustache and smell of Old Spice. My
feminine exterior didn't at all reflect the interior person who was with or
without pants, someone who tried even harder to be a good role model. I
endured all the single parent statistical comparisons, the sterotyping and the
—in plain words—prejudice that female single parents suffer.

I became a fighter. I learned how to fight my son's battles off the ice. And,
I find myself still doing this occasionally—it's a protective mechanism that
appears when duty calls, even though he is a part of a team and all that that
implies. I'll always be really— only a part of him. Been there through it all
with him, the early practices, the leagues, the hours of stick-handling and
weight-training, the disappointments, the triumphs and all that hard
work...inch by inch getting there through hard work and dedication.

Despite my figurative pants, (pants is a description according to many which
indicates who wears the authority in a household, ie. who wears the pants in
the family) he describes me and often as just.....Mom, which seems to carry a
lot of weight with him!  And, even though the pants in me still makes an
occasional appearance, it's the Mom in me that helped make the man.


Vicki Price
Proud Mom of Jason Price #22 University of Maine BLACK BEAR