The Puck Stops Here: A Hockey Coach Analyzes Palin’s Brand

Today's post is from Michelle McAteer, an Assistant Coach for the defending National Champion Women's Ice Hockey team at the University of Minnesota Duluth. She's a proud Canadian who desperately wishes she could vote in the U.S.

In case you haven't heard, Republican Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin is an "average Alaskan hockey mom." For anyone who didn't grow up on skates, like I did, it's a relatively new colloquial term that plays off of the term "soccer moms," a moniker used extensively in the 1996 election season to neatly describe the type of white suburban woman who voted for Clinton (Bill, that is).

Lately, I can't seem to watch the news, read a paper, or browse the internet without coming across the effusive lingo of hockey moms. As a member of the hockey world, this is extremely odd to me. I'm used to my sport being largely ignored, but suddenly it's the newest political catch phrase. Bowling gets more television airtime than hockey (so does cheerleading), but suddenly the word "hockey" is coming out of the mouths of Anderson Cooper, Bill O'Reilly, Larry King, and is at the heart of the political dialogue. Will this newfound fame propel my sport? Will hockey become this country's sporting darling?

No, it won't. After its 15 minutes, hockey will continue to be a marginalized sport. Partially, because it's played regionally in the United States—along the east coast in New England, in the mid-west with Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Michigan being hot-spots, and in pockets elsewhere. The NHL, the highest level for hockey players in the world, is like the red-headed step-child (or Cindy McCain's half sister) compared to the NFL, NBA, and MLB in terms of marketability, money, fans, and viewers. Hockey is also a more expensive sport to play due to higher startup costs, pricey equipment, ice rental, and travel expenses, making it less attractive than more affordable recreational sports for kids like basketball or soccer. Hockey is a sport that thrives in roots but often is unable to grow in unfamiliar markets. So if Sarah Palin's use of the term hockey mom isn't going to help the sport, then how does the sport help her?

I always imagined NASCAR as the official sport of the Republican party, appealing to flag-waving, country music loving-fans who are mostly white, straight, blue-collar, Christian, and middle-class. But, in this piece in the Guardian, columnist Steven Wells suggests hockey is more fitting for conservative rhetoric because it "represents an idealized 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." Perhaps Palin figured she already locked up the NASCAR voters after naming two of her children Track and Bristol (as in the Bristol Motor Speedway and not the port in southwestern England).

Palin presents herself as the anti-thesis to Clinton's soccer mom, whom Wells points out "has mutated out of her political pigeonhole . . . [becoming] an SUV-driving, road-hogging, sweatpants-wearing, latte-sipping, brat-spewing, strip mall-shopping, suburban folk devil." But Palin's "hockey world" resembles nothing like the one that I know—that is, the world of women's hockey. Palin claims that the only difference between a hockey mom and a pit-bull is lipstick, suggesting her own connotation of the term is a one-size-fits-all. I've played and coached and have happily resided in the hockey world my entire life, and we are not all white, Christian, "pro-life," gun-touting, gas guzzling, and certainly not all Republican. Women's hockey struggles for support and respect, and while men's hockey is marginalized on a national scale, women's hockey fights even harder for a piece of the pie. In addition to inadequate financial support and respect, women's hockey players battle stereotypes that force them to defend their "feminity" as they play a "masculine game."

Time magazine wrote last week that at the moment, women identify with Palin's complex life as a working mom and raising a child with special needs. But pit-bull Palin doesn't seem to understand the complexities of women in the women's hockey world. It's safe to say she wasn't trying to associate herself with me, my community, or my experiences. I'd also wager that the large subset of gay women in the hockey world never crossed Palin's mind as she branded herself part of the hockey minority. At the collegiate level, though, lesbians are a visible part of game. In some cases, we are even the majority. Do I know the statistical breakdown? No, but I'd say that the subset "lesbians in hockey" is comparable to "gay men in dance." And, yes, some of us are lipstick lesbians.

Palin's claim to authority as a "hockey mom" is useful to her because this paradoxical phrase symbolizes the essence of Palin's brand. The unflinchingly patriotic masculinity associated with hockey allows Palin to take on a powerful position, but by fusing it with motherhood politics, she's kept within her God-given role as a submissive wife, mother, running mate, and perhaps even as a sort of First Lady. So, if I could chose between having my sport plugged nationally through Sarah Palin's frame of reference, or return to the status quo of being overlooked, let's just say that I'd watch bowling any day without complaint.

Comments

[Liz]

Well said, Michelle! Very entertaining post about hockey and Palin. I wouldn't boo it at all. :)

[Tim Marshall. London]

Yr kiddin me - hockey doesn't get on the tv?! We show it at least once a week here - well, the bit where they throw half hearted punches at eachothers helmets - that makes the news. We call that sort of fighting 'handbags at ten paces'. But I actually do quite like the sport, mens and womens and was gen suprised to read yr comments that it gets less airtime than bowling. The jibes about lesbian hockey - just plough thru it - our women 'soccer' players have had to go thru the same rubbish and are now emerging on the other side.
www.skynews.com/foreignmatters

[Beantown]

At last, someone within the hockey world takes back the phrase. You piece is even more interesting when read in conversation with Dave Zirin’s post on the role of sports in the white house. http://www.thenation.com/doc/20081020/zirin

[Steve]

Well said!

Congratulations on your national championship for the Bulldogs-- though as a former resident of St Paul I can't be all that sad about your loss to the Gophers last weekend. I hope you defeat everybody else on your schedule, and I'm sorry I don't get to watch more hockey these days. (Maybe after the election.)

[Annie Kiel, Boston]

Brilliantly stated! Thank you for representing and promoting the reality of the hockey world and not allowing Palin to 'run with' this image she is trying to create and identify with!!!

[atrzop]

What a terrific post--thank you!

[Kim McCullough]

Michelle - as a fellow coach and passionate supporter of the female hockey at all levels, thank you for speaking out about the "Hockey Mom's" effect on the women's game. I completely agree with you that it is unlikely Governor Palin would want to associate herself, and her politics, with the female hockey world - although I am sure she would be quite "tolerant".

Kim
Total Female Hockey Club

[Christy Field]

Thank you for your insight, Michelle. From someone who doesn't know much about the hockey world, your words and opinion hold value in my eyes. Palin has never rung true to me and every day I am finding more reason not to trust her. Your article is todays reason for me! Good luck in your game and play safe.

Christy in CA