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HOCKEY MAMA MONEY CLUB
Episode 1: "The Sport We Said Yes To"
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You are sitting in the bleachers.
It's early. Maybe it's 6 a.m. or it could be 9:30 p.m. Maybe it's a
Saturday tournament and you've been up since 4:30. Your coffee is
lukewarm — because it's always lukewarm by the time you actually get
to the rink, no matter what tumbler we put it in.
And your kid has just stepped out onto the ice.
Maybe your heart does that thing. That little lift. That thing that
happens. It doesn't matter when I talk about this — it always hits me.
It happens every single time, no matter how many times you've seen it.
You feel it for about 30 seconds. Everything is ideal.
And then your phone buzzes. Because that's what our phones do.
The next tournament registration hotel block is open.
And here's the thing. You already know you're saying yes. You were
always going to say yes. There was never a version of this where you
said no. The only question — the only one that has ever actually
mattered — is how.
How are we going to make this work?
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WELCOME
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Welcome to Hockey Mama Money Club. I'm Tamsen Horton.
And if you just felt something when I said that — if that little
scenario landed somewhere all too familiar for you — then you are
exactly who I built this for.
This is episode one. And I am not going to sell you anything today.
I'm not going to give you a five-step plan or a quick fix or a miracle
income strategy. What I'm going to do in this very first episode is
just talk about what's real. What we've experienced. What we've seen.
Because I think the most powerful thing I can do right now, before
anything else, is make sure you feel completely seen.
So let's talk about what this sport actually costs.
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THE COSTS YOU PLANNED FOR
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I don't mean the costs you planned for. You knew about those. You
walked into this with your eyes wide open — or at least as open as
they could be when your kid looked at you with that face, and you knew
the answer was yes before they even finished the sentence.
You knew there were fees.
League fees. Team fees. Ice time.
You knew there was gear.
The bag — which, by the way, at times costs more than some people
spend on a week of groceries. The skates. The helmet. The gloves.
The sticks.
Oh, the sticks.
Here is what nobody tells you about sticks: they break. They break
frequently. They break at the worst possible times. And they are not
cheap. And your kid needs another one. And you say yes — because of
course you do. What's the alternative?
And the skates — they stop fitting. Not on a schedule you can predict
or budget for. Just whenever they feel like it. October. February.
Right before a tournament. Your kid comes to you and says, "Mom,
skates are too tight." And you look at their feet and you think,
when did that happen? And the answer is: it happened while you were
handling everything else.
That's the gear reality. And you knew some version of it.
What you maybe didn't fully see coming was everything else.
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THE COSTS YOU DIDN'T SEE COMING
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The travel. Hotels every other weekend. Gas or flights, depending on
where the tournament is. Meals on the road — because you can't pack
enough food for a three-day tournament, no matter how hard you try.
And maybe you're like me: you don't want to pack food for a tournament
ever. I do well if we have snacks in the car. Parking. Tips. The
sports drink that costs $4 at the rink concession stand — because
that's just what it costs at the rink concession stand.
And then there's what I call the Mandatory Vacation Problem.
Maybe you used to take family vacations. Trips you chose. Places you
wanted to go. And now — if you're being honest — most of your travel
is hockey travel. Every trip is a tournament in a different city.
You're in a hotel. You're at a rink. You're doing it again next month.
The family vacation didn't disappear. It just became hockey,
everywhere, all the time.
And the scheduling. Let's talk about the scheduling, because the
financial cost and the time cost are completely tangled up together.
The early morning practice or the late night ice that makes a
traditional nine-to-five feel like a puzzle you can never quite solve.
The Friday afternoon games. The Tuesday night ice time that runs until
9:30. The practices and the games and the training and the camps.
And somewhere in there, you have a job. And a home. And other kids,
maybe. And yourself. And yourself always ends up last on that list.
You are doing so much, Hockey Mama. You are doing so goddamn much.
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HOW IT ESCALATED
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Here's the thing about how it got to this point: most of the time,
it didn't happen all at once.
It started somewhere small. Maybe it was a free skate at the local
rink. Maybe it was a friend's kid who played and yours wanted to try
it. Maybe it was borrowed gear from a cousin and a beginner clinic
that cost almost nothing.
And then it escalated. One yes at a time. One season at a time.
One level up at a time.
And now it's five figures a year — easily, without blinking. And
you're not entirely sure when that happened. Because it didn't happen
in one moment. It happened in a hundred small moments of saying yes.
And you'd say yes again. I know you would.
Because you've seen your kid on the ice.
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THE EMOTIONAL WEIGHT
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But let's talk about what that costs you emotionally. Because I think
this part doesn't get named enough.
You know the cringe I'm talking about. When something breaks in
October and you just bought it in August. That specific, particular
cringe. It's not just about the money. It's about the helplessness
of it. The unpredictability. The feeling that no matter how well you
plan, this sport has another surprise waiting.
And isn't that part of what we love about hockey? It's so
unpredictable — even though it's a game, even though it has structure.
That unpredictability is part of the magic of it.
And then there's the mental math in the bleachers. This is the one
that gets me.
You're at the game. Your kid is on the ice. This is the moment you
showed up for. This is the whole point. And part of your brain — the
part you cannot turn off — is calculating. What did this weekend cost?
What's in the account? What's coming up next month? How are we doing
this?
You hate doing it. And yet you can't stop doing it. Because it's a
reality. It is an absolute reality of being a hockey mom.
And underneath all of this is a tension. Two things that are both
completely true at the same time:
I want to give them this.
And I don't know how we're going to do this.
Both true. At the same time. Every time.
And you carry it. You carry it while you're booking the hotel and
washing the jerseys and making sure the skates are sharpened and
getting everyone where they need to be on time. You are the default
parent. You are the one who makes this whole operation run. And the
financial weight sits on top of all of that.
I see you. I want you to know I see exactly what you are carrying.
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WHAT SHE'S ALREADY TRYING
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Now — because you are a hockey mom, because you are not someone who
sits still when there's a problem to solve — you've been trying to
figure it out.
You're in the Facebook groups. You know the ones. Where the advice is
all over the place and the energy is chaotic and you sometimes leave
feeling worse than when you arrived.
You're watching the reels. The TikToks. Looking for something that
feels like an answer. And some of it is interesting and some of it
doesn't apply to your life at all and some of it you've already tried.
And then there are the income opportunities. The ones that found you.
Because here's the thing about hockey moms: we are optimistic. We are
hardworking. We are willing to put in the effort. And those qualities
— as wonderful as they are — also make you a target.
I want to say something about this carefully, because I'm not here to
bash anyone or shame anyone. I've watched too many women I genuinely
respect get caught up in income schemes that don't deliver what they
promised.
And because the name of this podcast is Hockey Mama Money Club, we
just need to talk about this now.
It's not that those women weren't smart or capable. They absolutely
were. It's that certain structures are specifically designed to catch
exactly that kind of person. Optimistic. Willing. Ready to work hard.
The structure exploits those qualities. And when it doesn't scale the
way she was told it would, she's not just back where she started —
she's back where she started AND carrying the weight of feeling like
she failed at something.
She didn't fail. The container failed her.
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THE NAIL POLISH PRINCIPLE
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Here's what I mean by that. I call it the nail polish principle.
Nail polish on our fingernails? Fantastic. It does exactly what it's
supposed to do. You love the color. It makes you feel incredible.
Nail polish on white carpet? Horrible.
It's not the nail polish's fault. It's the container. It's the
application. It's where it took place.
I'm not an MLM person — you'll learn more about me as we keep moving
forward. But I want to call it out early, because I don't want you
listening to these episodes wondering when I'm going to pitch you one.
There are many ways to create income. Some are used for good. Some
are used in ways that exploit. MLMs get the bad rap — and sometimes
it's deserved. But it's the container, not the nail polish.
When it's intentional, when it's in the right place, when it serves
its purpose — that's a different thing entirely. And that's what we
are going to talk about in this community.
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THE BLIZZARD BEACH PRINCIPLE
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What is missing in all of that is what I call going upstream.
Most of us are focused on the symptoms.
How do I pay for this tournament?
How do I cover this equipment bill?
How do I get through this month?
And I understand that. When you're treading water, the immediate
problem is not drowning. I get it.
But what I've found — in my own family and in watching hundreds of
hockey families over the years — is that the families who find a
different way didn't just find more money. They went upstream. They
looked at the roots. They figured out where the real levers were and
pulled on those instead of constantly bailing water.
I have a framework I call the Blizzard Beach Principle.
We were at Blizzard Beach twice this summer — two different trips,
two different Disney World vacations. And my 10-year-old Tad, who
loves to skate but is not our family's hockey player, Tad and I were
closing out Blizzard Beach one afternoon.
Here's what I noticed at the Lazy River.
When the park is closing, the lifeguards don't wade in and try to
pull people out of their floats at closing time. They go upstream —
to the back of the park, where the Lazy River feeds in — and about
45 minutes before close, they just start quietly pulling the empty
floats out of the river.
The floats nobody's on.
And by the time the park closes? The river has cleared itself.
Nobody had to fight the current.
That is what I want to do with you.
Go upstream. Pull the right things. So the current works for you
instead of against you.
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WHAT THIS PODCAST IS
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That's what this podcast is. That's what this community is.
We're going to talk about the real stuff. The money, the mindset, the
creative ways of looking at your situation that you haven't tried yet
because nobody showed you they were options. We are going to go
upstream together.
Next episode, I'm going to tell you a little bit about who I am and
why I'm the one saying all this — because I think you deserve to know
that before you keep listening. I'm going to tell you about my family,
my son, why I've been thinking about this for years, and why right now
is the moment I finally decided to stop sitting on it.
But for right now — for this first episode — I just want to say this:
You were always going to say yes.
That has never been in question.
The question is the how.
And I'm here because I think the how can be better than what you've
been handed so far.
I'm so glad you're here. I'll see you in the next episode.
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Fund the game. Do it together. Enjoy all of it.
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