Steven Wells in Guardian yesterday:
This was a cold-bloodedly deliberate attempt at political branding. Palin referred to herself a hockey mom in her carefully scripted and vetted acceptance speech - and not for the first time. In 2004 she boasted: "It's said the only difference between a hockey mom and a pit bull is lipstick. So with lipstick on, the gloves come off."
This is a deliberate political coinage. The question being, why? And how exactly does a hockey mom differ from a soccer mom (a phrase that's been around since at least 1983 but became a political cliche during the 1996 presidential election when it was widely used to describe suburban white women who voted for Bill Clinton).
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"A hockey mom is more American," says Philadelphia columnist Liz Spikol. "A lot of Americans are suspicious of soccer, and still believe it connotes the foreign. Whereas hockey is as GOP-North American as a fetus on posterboard."
She has a point. The soccer mom has mutated out of her political pigeonhole. In the lexicon of hipsters looking for an easy bourgeois icon to bash, the soccer mom has become an SUV-driving, road-hogging, sweatpants-wearing, latte-sipping, brat-spewing, strip mall-shopping, suburban folk devil.
To others she's become lazy shorthand for white, middle class heteronormativity. In the hit TV series Weeds the suburban drug dealer heroine is repeatedly referred to as a soccer mom - despite the fact that, when seen at her son's game in the first episode, she clearly believes that a match is comprised of four quarters.
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The thug who impregnated her 17-year-old daughter (and who described himself as "a fucking redneck" on his MySpace page) certainly is.
"I live to play hockey," he writes. 'Ya fuck with me I'll kick [your] ass'"
And there, I think - in a sweary nutshell - is the reason Palin is so keen to be seen as a hockey mom. In the minds of the effete conservative elite who run the Republican party, the hockey-playing yob who got Palin's daughter pregnant represents an idealised form of American masculinity - unthinking, brutish, willfully ignorant, easy to manipulate, unquestioningly patriotic, proudly reactionary, quick to respond to any perceived threat with overwhelming violence - and very unlikely to ever vote Democrat. Or - by extension - play soccer.
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Well put. Also, hockey is very expensive. It's working class to *like* hockey. It's middle to upper middle class to gear your kid up in 600 - 2 grand worth of basic equipment.
Is there any actual proof that her son Track, or any of her daughters, ever really played hockey? I thought I read somewhere that Track never made the team.
As a liberal elitist scientist hockey player, I cringed when she said that.
...of course, I cringed at many of the things she's said so far.
I hate soccer.
I'm a basketball and college football man myself. Hockey is played by Canadians. Over here you surf.
Have any of you people been to Minnesota? Canada? Alaska? I lived in Minnesota for 8 years and let me tell you - hockey is BIG up nort'. You see, if you are real lucky, there is about 3months of soccer field time; but with rinks you can play outside for 4 months and inside the rest of the year. Plus, the University of Minnesota, etc., have hockey scholarships inhigher numbers than soccer.
And if you are in an intramural league or a school team, it isn't *that* expensive -as the kids grow out of gear you trade it around with other families.
This is a manufactured concept - she said 'hockey mom' because she's Alaskan. In Georgia, we have 'football moms'.
...which was the point of the article. Or wasn't.
So all the discussion of "hockey is more American" [since when?] and your title for this post isn't about trying to paint the choice of the term 'hockey mom' as a cynical ploy by a politician?
Please, Bora - we've been here before
Actual popularity of hockey has nothing to do with this being a political ploy - read the entire article. Actual popularity of hockey just makes the political ploy easier to implement.
I did read the article, and it is ludicrous! It can be as easily (and sourcelessly) argued that Americans associate hockey with Canada and, thus, the foreign and the socialist.
I find it hard to believe that Palin survived in Alaska surrounded by communists to the west and socialists to the east without being irrevocably tainted. Afterall, not only does Alaska begin with an A but contains 3 of the letters. Even her name includes multiple letter A's!
What is the letter A? Two short slips from C which stands for nothing less than communism and child rape, thats what.
I think you'll find my logic to be unassailable!