A GLOVE-DROPPING PALINECTOMY: HOCKEY MOMS AT CENTER ICE

How were we to know that when the homemade bumper sticker -- "My Hockey Mom Can Beat Up Your Soccer Mom" -- peeled off our old station wagon, a political wormhole was created in the universe, propelling hockey mom Sarah Palin out of the wilds of Alaska and toward the White House?

That bumper sticker was a products liability suit waiting to happen -- it contained no warning: "Cosmic laws prohibit the removal of this sticker. This means you!"

It happened all right. I say we removed it, but my wife will tell you it was my fault. And that is true.

I agreed with her that we hockey parents are tougher than those soccer parents (at least we carry more equipment that generally stinks more). And certainly we are more working-class (except when we aren't). Do we need a bumper sticker to trumpet our superiority in the pantheon of sports parenting?

The request for the removal of the offending piece of First Amendment-protected free speech from the bumper of her car came in July, well before either political convention. The argument I made was that our soccer mom friends might be offended by the aggressive tone and implication of class warfare.

I didn't actually see my wife remove it, but it disappeared from the back of the car. (Former President Clinton, who had been campaigning in our neighborhood for Hillary, was one of my original suspects until I realized that he had an alibi that only time travel could refute.) I should have taken all this as a warning. I didn't.

Why did I disturb this homemade testament to my wife's ever growing love of hockey? My wife is a former public defender, a trial-tested and battle-hardened criminal defense lawyer. She can take on any prosecutor, judge or cop, so you can imagine what she'd do to an average soccer mom.

Even more problematic was the fact that my wife was given the bumper sticker by the team manager of my son's hockey team, a team that I coach. She loved the sticker and all it represented. It also had a Carolina blue background and a place of honor to the left of our "More Hockey Less War" sticker, and above the Carolina Hurricanes' red and black swirling logo.

Had I known the price we'd pay for my ignorance, we would have pasted hundreds of those stickers all over both of our cars.

From the very first, my Southern-born wife couldn't stand Gov. Palin -- her accent, her smirk, her politics. I found Palin refreshing and charming. Her world view reminded me of the views of my extended family members who hail from the suburbs of Detroit. No way I'd vote for her troglodyte policies, but I saw the attraction.

This only made my wife angrier. She was the hockey mom of our hockey-playing kids. How could I emotionally cheat on her by not hating everything Palin stood for, including her looks?

Forget about debating. Let's drop the gloves, ladies. At center ice of the RBC Center, we'd have Alaskan oil-pumping Gov. Hockey Mom versus vegetarian Defender of the Criminal Defense Universe Hockey Mom (who skates and is learning to play hockey!).

And shouldn't this election be decided by hockey moms on opposite ends of the spectrum, fighting to the bitter end for what they believe, and not by the undemocratic Electoral College that didn't originally include the voices and votes of women, hockey-playing or not?

My wife's new bumper sticker is "Hockey Mom For Obama." She's daring Sarah, or anyone else, to come by and peel that one off the bumper.

[An edited version appeared in the Raleigh News and Observer editorial pages on Oct. 2, 2008]