Hockey Mom Sarah Palin Booed at Hockey Game

Posted by ZP Heller, Brave New Films at 8:00 AM on October 12, 2008.

Sarah Palin received a barrage of boos from the crowd when she dropped the puck at last night's Flyers opener.  And honestly, who didn't see that coming?  Flyers owner Ed Snider, who claimed he was trying to honor hockey moms, should have known better than to bring cheap political theater into a Philly hockey game, of all places.  And Sarah Palin should have known better than to come into one of the most Democratic cities in the country -- whose fans are notorious for booing -- and avoid being heckled simply because she had her 7-year-old daughter Piper in tow wearing a Flyers jersey.  

"How dare they boo Piper!" Palin said at an earlier fundraiser.  Palin continues to drag her children onto the national stage for political gain, and then feigns horror when the crowd doesn't respond in kind. 

But about those Philly fans.  It's not that they're a merciless bunch of assholes, but rather, they're good judges of character.  When they booed and threw snowballs at Santa Claus back at a 1968 Eagles game, it was because the person playing Santa was a poor, last-minute substitute for the Santa who failed to show up on that brutally cold day to provide an entertaining half-time diversion from the team's horrendous play.  So when Sarah Palin stepped onto the ice last night -- another poor, last-minute subsitute for a vice presidential candidate with real experience -- it's no wonder the crowd saw right through the charade.  She's just lucky there were no snowballs on hand for anyone to throw.

Tagged as: philadelphia, sarah palin, boos, flyers

ZP Heller is the editorial director of Brave New Films. He has written for The American Prospect, AlterNet, The Philadelphia Inquirer, and The Huffington Post, covering everything from politics to pop culture.