On Ice

Confessions of a Hockey Mom: Road Trip Tunes for Everyone

By Gina Knudson, 1-26-11

	When it comes to getting pumped, never underestimate the power of Pink.

Hockey is a roadtrip-intensive sport. By this time of year, the kids have racked up the stats—assists, goals, penalties, wins, losses—and the parents have logged mountain passes, miles of open road and hours upon hours in the car.

Aside from a little lumbar compression, roadtripping with the family can be a good thing. For starters, we get to know each other’s music. At least I consider that to be a good thing. The children and their carpooling teammates are not always as enthusiastic about this cultural exchange.

But they are also not as strategic as their chauffeurs. It’s deep January now and we’ve been traveling steadily for two months. Apparently our middle school technology curriculum is lacking, because the kids have yet to figure out the guiding principal of roadtrip music: He/she with the fully charged iPod battery gains world music domination, eventually.

Sometimes we don’t even make it to the county line before our daughter’s Top 40 jingles fizzle or our son’s version of “classic” rock, Green Day, goes silent.

Crestfallen at the turn of events, they act like they have no opinion as to whether REM’s pure work of genius was “Document” or “Out of Time.” They pretend to not be able to distinguish between the Grateful Dead’s “Truckin’ Live at Legion Stadium” versus the studio version.

Our oldest, the nearly 14-year-old, blurts out despondently, “I know all the words to these songs and I don’t even like them.” Her desperation sparks a memory from my childhood and a certain roadtrip from Mountain Home, Idaho, to Long Prairie, Minnesota, and I make a mental note to check if iTunes has ever heard of the Smothers Brothers. The bar for our family humanities studies is about to get raised a notch.

Fortunately for my passengers, the appearance of the tiny town of Mud Lake reminds me that we’re less than an hour from the Idaho Falls rink and my duty as hockey mom is a) to get the players to the rink safely and on time and b) to get the sulky little skaters pumped up and ready to play.

Several years ago, somewhere between Butte, Montana, and Wisdom, we started developing the playlist known as Pre-Game. I now share the contents of this playlist to long-haul hockey fans throughout the land, with annotated notes.

1. “Dashboard” (Modest Mouse): Reminds me of my role as hockey mom/chauffeur. I like the lyrics…”the dashboard melted but we still have the radio.”

2. “Uprising” (Muse): The clapping sort of reminds me of the kids banging their sticks on the ice, calling for the puck. The “they will not control us, we will be victorious” theme seems a good one before facing the Boise Hawks.

3. “Lose Yourself” (Eminem): Em’s right, sometimes we only get one shot, one opportunity. Will we capture it or let it slip?

4. “Pump It” (Black Eyed Peas): Are you kidding me? I’m even ready to strap my skates on after listening to this catchy tune.

5. “Shake That Bubble” (Young & Divine): Sometimes negotiations break down and you just agree to put stuff on your playlist. Thanks, Carly.

6. “Icky Thump” (The White Stripes): I’m told the driving guitar and steady drum pounding inspires better defense. I cannot verify that.

7. “Bleed it Out” (Linkin Park): This anthem, “I bleed it out, diggin’ deeper just to throw it away,” serves as a not-so-gentle reminder to pass more accurately, I’m pretty sure.

8. “Blood on the Ice” (The Riverdales): A good follow up to “Bleed it Out,” “Blood on the Ice” is included because the Riverdales sound Canadian.

9. “The Ballroom Blitz” (Sweet): Son, this really is classic rock. A perfect song to track the slow taunting that starts in the first period, culminating in the frenzied ballroom blitz by period 3.

10. “Hey Baby Drop it to the Floor” (Pitbull featuring T-Pain): I can only surmise that this song makes the Salmon Lady Rapids think of the ref dropping the puck at center ice.

11. “Raise Your Glass” (Pink): The importance of listening to celebratory songs prior to a big game cannot be understated. This song makes anyone want to win. And Pink’s assertion that “we will never be anything but loud, nitty gritty dirty little freaks,” makes me wonder if she has been in the girls’ locker room lately.

12. “There She Goes” (Sixpence None the Richer): By this time, the players (with me, usually girls) go to prepare for ice hockey battle. This dreamy song stays in my head while they and their opponents are skating up and down the ice.

13. “I Wanna Drive the Zamboni” (Martin Zellar): All hockey dads, and plenty of hockey moms, are obsessed with the desire to take the Zam out for a spin. Sing it loud, it makes the kids proud!

The blogosphere, if there is such a place, is new territory for Gina. If you go to iTunes’ Ping feature and type in Gina Knudson, you can try out the playlist. If you know a better way to display the music, and most definitely if you know better hockey songs, please let her know.

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