A Puck in Every Pot: What to Expect from the Hockey Mom in Chief

Could our potential Hockey Mom in Chief best the One?

Remember, before there was the One, there was The Great One - for some of us, even determinedly non-sports fans like myself, there was a magical time around the end of the millennium when Hockey briefly mattered. For me, it began in a sweaty, padded group huddled around a battered black and white TV at the Crystal Palace. ("nickname: The Rat Rink", for exactly the reason you imagine) This was 1980, when Herb Brooks and his amateur bladesmen* defeated the Soviet Juggernaut. And at almost exactly the same historical moment, born from the ashes of that mighty conflagration, Gretsky (The Great One) emerged on the scene like the Phoenix. Or at least like the Phoenix's pet Coyote.**

For myself and the nation's tweens, we now had a vessel for our burgeoning interest in hockey. We began grimly tucking our jersey's into our Cooperall's to the strains of Def Leppard's "Pyromania", as our collective Dad's blearily trucked us from rink to rink. By the way, this was way before "hockey moms", an appellation of which I am still somewhat suspicious - frankly, my Mom could *never* get my laces tight enough. Which actually raises some excellent debate questions: did Governor Palin use a skate key? Did Bristol start with Figure or Hockey skates?