Happy Anniversary Canadian Hockey Moms! Can you believe that it was exactly four years ago today that we launched our first webpage, then called “Hockey Mom in Canada” along with our Facebook page and Twitter. It seemed timely to launch in February 2010 because it was during the Vancouver Winter Olympics, just before we went for Gold in the men’s game. We launched the page expecting that it could become big eventually. In the first week we had 120 members. In the first year, 1,200. And 4 years later, we have over 17,000 fans on Facebook and are known as the most engaged and interactive community of Hockey Moms in the world.
I am often asked where the idea for Canadian Hockey Moms came from. In the beginning there were really three main reasons for creating this site. The reasons may surprise you.
1) I knew NOTHING about social media and wanted to learn, because this is the world our kids are growing up in. With a background in community development I wanted to see if I could build a virtual community that spanned the nation. Why NOT try it with Hockey Moms? There was nothing like this out there for Hockey Moms at the time.
2) After leaving a less than fulfilling office job to go out on my own as a consultant (to see what I do in my REAL job check this out – I get asked all the time if this is the only thing I do) I needed a venue to be creative and work on my writing. I have always been self-conscious about my writing and it seemed like a blog would be the perfect way to improve my skills. For the first several months I did not tell anyone who I was and it was very liberating. It was amusing, also, to hear Hockey Moms at the rink talking about a blog post or a discussion on our Facebook page, and no one knew it was me behind the scenes facilitating those conversations. Four years later I am still self-conscious, but I’ve gotten over it somewhat.
3) After growing up at the rink, I had entered into the realm of minor hockey for my own children and realized the toll it can take on families and I was concerned about this. Minor hockey can be stressful. Very stressful. And I had experienced some of that stress. Although I had witnessed the “politics” of minor hockey as a youth by watching my parents (who were both on our Association’s executive), I was surprised how I was affected by it with my own children. I consider myself a very rational human being so could not understand why I was having irrational thoughts. I also suspected that I was not the only Hockey Mom dealing with these issues, and felt that there had to be a way to share ideas, strategies, and to help each other through this hectic, amazing, frustrating, wonderful time in our childrens’ lives.
So, out of all of that, Hockey Mom in Canada and later Canadian Hockey Moms was born. Over the past four years I have become connected with women (and men) from every province and territory in Canada, through hockey. Many of you are regulars on our page, and I think of you as friends. I have become connected to Hockey Moms throughout the United States and learned that they love hockey just as much as we do here in Canada. And I have connections with Hockey Moms throughout Europe, who send me pictures of their trips to Canadian tournaments, and who are thrilled to be able to connect with all of our Canadian Moms.
There are few hockey related issues that we have not addressed. You regularly send me questions and I do my best to post the “Question from a Hockey Mom”. You send pictures of your children, your outdoor rinks, your hockey snowmen, your celebrations. You send me the best videos, and we get into some fantastic debates. Every day at least one of you makes me smile.
Now, four years after our very first post I want to thank all of you for continuing to make this page so entertaining, so interactive, so fun. You were all especially fun yesterday as we celebrated the Canadian women’s victory and Gold Medal. And as Canada heads into the men’s Gold medal match against Sweden on Sunday morning, I hope you’ll all tune in to let us know if you are watching, from where, and maybe send me a picture of your family taking in the game. Another gold medal would be the perfect way to celebrate four years of Canadian Hockey Moms!
Comments or questions? Email me at contactus@canadianhockeymoms.ca or leave a message on our Facebook page.