The minor hockey season is winding down and we are in the throes of preparing for the grand finale – which is of course the year-end team party! Before the year-end party can take place, there are a bucket load of little ‘jobs’ that need to be taken care of.

Starting with the namebar…

Before I return all these game jerseys to the hockey association, they have to be washed, dried and hung on hangers, with all the namebars removed. Failure to do so will result in a public flogging at centre ice with wet hockey towels. Okay not exactly, but the team’s jersey deposit may be withheld, and no hockey mom wants to be responsible for that delay!

Hockey moms are easily stereotyped, judging by the thousands of hockey memes on social media. I can tell you it’s easy to judge me simply by my children’s namebars. It’s not the name on the namebar by which you’ll judge me; it’s the name bar itself!

In the early years, six namebars were carefully sewn onto six game jerseys before Game One of the season. Yes, it took an entire evening, a few glasses of wine (you bet there’s a ‘bar’ in ‘namebar’!), and several bandages to stop the bleeding, but I was a hockey mom and those namebars were going to be proudly displayed! But by my 5th Season (my apologies, Scotiabank) my kids were lucky to have their namebars on by Christmas!

Despite my painstaking efforts at the beginning of the season and the toll that the sewing needle took on my fingers, by mid-season those namebars came loose and were flapping like a chicken’s wings as my kids skated down the ice. Sadly, do it right the first time is not a moniker by which this hockey mom is known.

Like any hockey mom, I know my namebars are only as good as my seam ripper. The lifespan of these namebars is entirely dependent on whether I can remove it without putting a hole right through it!

If namebars were currency, I’d have amassed a small fortune. I started as a hockey mom with six namebars, two for each kid in hockey. Naturally a few more namebars were added to our fortunes if my kids happen to play for a different team from one year to the next and the jerseys were a different colour, which thankfully did not happen too often. Then, of course at the beginning of the season when it’s time to sew the namebars on the jerseys, I can’t find any of these namebars and in the interest of time and saving my children from some unspeakable embarrassment by being nameless during the first league game of the season, I’ve invested in more namebars (only to find the missing ones a week later). Now with only one child left in hockey, I have a treasure trove of namebars from which to choose.

So as your season draws to an end, hockey mom, I hope you’ll take good care of those namebars. Just remember: people are watching (and may even be judging!)

Three cheers for the almost end of the hockey season – may all your namebars survive to the next.