My kind of hockey mom - NOT!

O.K. This really is trivial in the large scheme of things. However, as the mother of a soccer player (not a "soccer mom" -- in our leagues the dads play that role), who, over the past 12 years, has witnessed increasing violence on the soccer field spurred on by parents, and whose daughter quit a team when her long-time coach said he'd teach them how to hurt people without the ref noticing, here's a few words about our who-me-I-did-nothing-wrong candidate for Vice President of the United States:

PHILADELPHIA (CNN) – Sarah Palin seems to have slipped effortlessly into the role of John McCain’s attack dog — but those aggressive tendencies may have been cultivated many years ago as an “exuberant” hockey mom in Wasilla, where she used to bang her fists on the penalty box glass and demand that her son get tougher with his opponents on the ice.

At least that’s how she described her time as a hockey mom to Comcast SportsNet’s Steve Coates, who interviewed Palin after she dropped the puck at the Philadelphia Flyers’ season opener on Saturday night. The governor recounted how she used to embarrass her son Track by yelling at him from the side of the rink, telling him to play nice. But if he was going to play rough, Palin said, she gave him license to go all out.

“I was telling him be nice, and if you’re going to get a penalty, man, make it worth it!,” she told Coates. “Don’t just be picking on somebody. Grind ‘em into the boards! Do something that’s going to be effective. Don’t just be picking on someone.”

CNN Political Ticker.