Honoring Hockey Moms

Hockey moms have the toughest job. Being a youth coach, I see what they do and how well they do it, not to mention, I'm married to one.

There was a great article written about hockey moms on the Iowa Chops website. Click here to view.
It stated "The hockey moms environment consists of cold arenas, uncomfortable bleachers, bad coffee, and an outfit that often mistakes her for a mountain climber." How true that is.

Then Sarah Palin came into the spotlight and took the hockey mom theme to a whole new level. Her popularity made those who were not hockey moms wonder what all that meant and it became more popular. Great exposure I believe and maybe it would encourage more parents to get their kids into hockey (which is always a good thing).

Then I heard an ad on AM1700 that they were having a "Hottest Hockey Mom" Contest. This I had to look in to. After reading the website, it stated :

1700 The Champ and the Iowa Chops are looking for Iowa's Hottest Hockey Mom!

Upload a photo and tell us what's special about your hockey mom. She could win a cool prize package including

VIP tickets to an Iowa Chops game

Prizes from JT's Slap Shot Hockey Shop

A Spa Treatment from The Spa at the Firehouse or The Spa at West Glen

A 3 month membership to Aspen Athletic Club

and a bunch of other stuff.
We've picked the finalists for you to vote.

Winner to be announced on Wednesday, November 6.

My issue was not with the contest, or the idea behind it, but not much thought seemed to be put into it. First, the Iowa Chops website stated upload a photo of your hockey mom and tell us whats special about your hockey mom. When you check out the link to vote, all you see is 4 pictures of moms with no description of "how they are special" See Here

It also says that there will be 5 finalists to vote on. On the site, it only shows 4. Were these the only 4 candidates submitted? I was interested to see who else was submitted and their stories, but no such luck.

Now, I'm all for putting Hockey Moms up for awards and recognizing them through contests, but there are too many great moms out there and this just seemed to be done very poorly. The final thing that I thought that was not the most "honoring" of hockey moms was the audio that came along with it.

I happen to know the hockey mom that had the most votes and she is a great hockey mom. Unfortunately, since nothing was written about her, those that don't know her, don't get the whole picture...or for that matter, they don't get to know the other moms. Every hockey mom has a story and every one is hard working, dedicated & a supporter of hockey, so to see a contest not accurately honoring them, that is sad.

Here are a few cool things truly honoring the hockey mom

http://www.nhl.tv/team/console.jsp?&id=21776

http://www.hockeymoms.com/member/index.php?section_id=105&left=219&right=234