Hockey Wives Season 2 Episode 9
Watching Hockey Wives is my guilty pleasure. Since this episode had a couple skating/coaching/parenting moments, I thought I’d do a recap of them.
Dan and Taylor Winnick go skating. Taylor Winnick clearly hasn’t skated much before and I shudder a bit at her not wearing a helmet. Good on her for trying with TV cameras filming though. Dan also doesn’t really seem like a great teacher, which is good so I can keep my job.
After skating Dan tries to reassure Taylor about skating by recounting the fact that a skating instructor told his mom that he’d never be good at hockey because he couldn’t skate. Rest assured I have never told a kid that, nor would any other coach that works here, more points for me. I did laugh hard at that comment though and yes skating is fundamental to hockey.
Nicole Brown and Kodette Labarbera attend Patrick O’Sullivan’s book launch. If you haven’t read Breaking Away you need to, I'll probably post more about it later but it's about Patrick O'Sullivan's childhood of abuse and life afterwards. While his case probably takes it to the extreme, sports parents that apply way too much pressure on their kids abound. Nicole's already witnessed this at her 7 year old's games and talks about how both her parents and Dustin's didn't pressure them at all about sports. She wants to get all the parents and tell them their kid isn’t going to play pro hockey and to just enjoy them playing and loving the sport Please do Nicole!
Breaking Away also talks about mental health in the NHL, Taylor who has been great about bringing up mental health since she was on the show comments that mental health problems are likely more common then people would think.
Tiffany Parros talks to an agency about expanding her hockey based clothing brand Tasteless Gentleman, if you haven’t checked out their stuff I’d recommend it.
Afterwards we get to see Paige and Ryan Getzlaf somehow make getting 3 small children into bed seem easy. The kids seem remarkable well behaved throughout the whole episode as we see them sit in the van and then gear up for my favorite thing, Skating lessons/hockey! Before we get to the rink though we get to hear Paige gush about how athletic and talented her sons are. I drift off until she comes to the part where she wanted to get a 1.5 hour private for her 4 year old and I almost choke. Luckily they only made it an hour which Ryan is rightfully still a bit incredulous about.
At the rink Paige talks about how she had to Youtube to figure out what to do with the equipment. Don't worry Paige, that's a lot better than what many clueless parents do! She tries to take over getting the boys ready so she’ll learn. Ryan stops her when she tries to put shoulder pads on before skates. It’s ok Paige, it would have actually still worked out fine. I'm also just happy that they both have helmets on!
I am pretty sure all the hockey/figure skating parents in Calgary are envious at the seemingly warm viewing area that the Getzlafs and other parents are watching from. No winter jackets or blankets required. We see glimpses of the boys skating, who seem fairly average for their age. They do seem to be enjoying it though which is the only thing that matters at their age and well any age for most people. Paige starts talking about how great they are again, thankfully Ryan puts an end to it.
Paige's next topic is one of our favorites. I'm worried about them getting inuries when they get older. First you don't know that they'll be playing hockey when they're older. They're kids, their interests change and you should let them. Secondly your child/children are at a much higher risk of obesity and death or injury from a car accident than from a sport.
Willa, Ryan and Paige's youngest sits contentedly during all of this. It doesn't seem that there are plans for her to play hockey when she's older. Paige jokes about her becoming a figure skater and dating her brother's friends. Sexist much. I hope this show goes on next year so we can see Willa killing it on the ice.
