I'm similarly puzzled as to why people choose a president by how much they'd like to socialize with them. I, too, would like the "leader of the free world" to be the smartest, best educated, clearest-thinking person on the planet. Considering the reputation "hockey/soccer/little league" parents have of berating and sometimes even beating up coaches and other officials who don't treat their little darlings the way they think they're entitled to be treated, I sure as hell wouldn't consider "hockey mom" a good description of someone with a finger on the nuclear button.

"But maybe that's just me. "

Unfortunately about half the country does essentially pick the person for president that they'd like to have a beer (or coffee) with....

I'm used to people not knowing a damn thing about the sport but it's become more obvious now that the sport is sort of back in the news again because of the election.

Since the choice of Governor Palin of Alaska as the Republican VP nominee, the NY Times has now announced that hockey is a 'red state phenomenon'. Could have fooled me. Look at where US hockey players in the the NHL have actually come from. The states generally vote, well, blue. The league keeps trying to get a footprint in states that vote 'red' and the attempt is partially why fans have had to put up with two lockouts in the last 15 years.

I really, really wish people would either learn something about the sport or, just, well, shut the f*ck up.

Now, I have a podcast of an interview with Patrik Elias to get back to.

at the juvenile level - New England, New York and New Jersey, the upper midwest (MI, MN, WI) and the northwest (WA,OR), the I think most hockey moms are for Obama.

Toothless youth.

define what a "hockey mom" really is?

I mean, I love hockey, but is a VP candidate really defining herself by the sport her kid used to play?

How many practices did she carpool? How many games did she attend? How many uniforms did she clean?

And how is it any different from a mother whose kid(s) play baseball, football, soccer, basketball, field hockey or lacrosse?

Or who are in the band, the orchestra, the other performing arts, the math club, etc.?

Plain American English, please, not these silly code-words.

My cultural take is that the term "soccer mom" and it's antecedents and variations are an identifier for stay-at-home moms who chauffeur their sports-playing kids to their sports meetings or other extra-curricular activities. It's not an association with the sport per se.

I'm sure you knew that and I'm in complete agreement with your point-of-view. This cultural identification is actually an attempt to divide and control women with what I would call a "false cohort". There are too many variations in women's experience for it to be true; plenty of career women have children they take to after-school activities. Dads too, right? Hey, maybe you're a tee-ball mom, a GOTH mom, maybe "just a mom".

Divide and conquer.

It means the only time available is before school, in lots of communities. Which means mom, or dad (neither of whom might be stay-at home, btw), gets up well before dawn and takes the child - who might be a boy or a girl - female participation in hockey is growing significantly, to very early practice. It's a family sacrifice. The sport is also relatively expensive. Many parents have worked second jobs to get the kids what they need.

I don't have kids but I do actually know the sport and I have heard the players talk about what their parents have done for them. Apparently you people think it's a political ploy. Maybe you ought to actually watch a game and hear the players TALK about their families, their parents. I don't give a damn about Sarah Palin or the term hockey mom. I do care that once again most of you don't know a damn thing about the sport - or the people that actually play it. Either learn something about it or shut the f*ck up.

I suppose you could define me as a soccer mom. I live in the burbs, I have kids, one plays soccer. You can usually find me on a Saturday morning in the fall parked in a folding chair at some playing field, watching fifth graders play soccer. Hoping it won't rain.

Excuse me, but that does not even begin to define who I am. Nor who the other parents out there are.

Try... citizen, writer, wife, parent, working mom, Democrat, ex Catholic, Monty Python fan, violin mom, small business owner who likes Margaritas on the rocks with salt. And that's just the surface. Anyone who wants to lump parents (or anyone else) into buckets based on their children's activities is going to get a pretty diverse crowd.

Sheesh.

The last sentences perfectly refine who I would like to be for my President and Vice President. I don't want a person who is like me or "one of us" to be ruler of the free world. Sorry, but I can't handle that job and politics is the not the area where I chose for my career. I want a person who is better, who is qualified and able to lead damnit. Sorry McCain and Palin, that "one of us" argument is not working on me.

It was Mark Penn, Hillary Clinton's chief strategist, who was the first to talk about the role of "soccer moms" in politics, and how got everyone using this style of analysis. His book "Microtrends: The Small Forces Behind Tomorrow's Big Changes" was all about slicing and dicing the electorate into little groups, but by then he had dumped soccer moms and was talking about the importance of "active grannies".

"[H]ere is what really irritates me: Our incessant need to divide women into mom-based voting blocs"

The knee-jerk reaction to cry sexism (also applicable to racism, ageism, etc) when looking at statistics is misplaced. And though most of us who have heard of soccer moms have also heard of nascar dads, this refutation of the sexist tilt is also beside the point.

Statisticians love segmentation, and if they follow whatever microtrend catches their fancy and give it a catchy name, we have an obligation to debate the soundness and explanatory power of the analysis. But to pick any single categorization and claim that you are being typecast ignores the fact that everybody belongs to a variety of segments. If some combination of characteristics puts you in a seemingly significant one, it's not an indictment.