Hockey Wives: Season 1, Episode 2
Content note: this episode included a discussion about a modeling career, with all the beauty standards and weight talk that implies, and I've repeated some of those comments in this post. You can skip the two paragraphs about Martine if you want to skip that part and only read the rest of the entry.
This week's episode title was "Home Fire Burnout," but the more obvious theme that tied this episode together was money. Tiffany Parros cuts George's hair so he'll look respectable when trying to find a job - "George went to Princeton. I think he'll have some options." - and goes with him on a visit to the clothing company he's a partner in so she can get ideas for how to structure her clothing company's online store. Martine Forget, Jonathan Bernier's partner, visits her modeling agency for the first time since the birth of their son. Maripier Morin talks about her career not only in terms of her own ambition but also in terms of her future with Brandon Prust: "I know that when he retires, I'm gonna have to pay for everything, so I'm going to be his sugar mama, so I don't think he wants me to quit my job." Noureen DeWulf throws an ostentatious "gender reveal" party and invites her friends over to her house where she has an ultrasound to find out if she's having a boy or a girl. Wendy Tippet visits Brijet Whitney to see the Whitneys' giant new house, where we also see their multiple vehicles, their gardner, and their babysitter/nanny.
I found the money stuff interesting, and for the most part, the things I found iffy in those conversations seemed like a reflection of the wider world, not just the hockey world. Martine is a good example. She starts out saying of Jonathan, "He's always helping me with the baby." When it's your child, you don't help; you parent. Then she moves on to talk about modeling, and this too has the feel that it's normal for the system but disturbing as a cultural marker. She says she had an emergency C-section and wasn't allowed to work out for three months, so only now does she feel ready to go meet with her agent. Even then she says that she really needs to start working with a trainer: "For my job, I still need to lose ten pounds."
The trio of people Martine meets with at the agency ask her how she's feeling and how her skin has been: "Did you get any rashes or any marks?" She says no to rashes, but confesses, as if she's committed some terrible sin, that she has stretch marks. There are so many things that are wrong with our culture's vilification of stretch marks in general, but the condemnation of post-pregnancy stretch marks is so unbelievably illogical: you grew a person; of course your body is going to be different. The trio of agents ask Martine if she wants to put her in for other categories, like "young mom" and "mature professionals," which everyone in the room seems to consider a terrible fate. Martine says, in voiceover as we look at some of her work, that she wants to do the kind of work she was doing before she had her son, including swimsuits: "It makes me so happy to work and having my own money." The agents then take a few "Polaroids," apparently still called that although they're taken with a phone, because "sometimes clients want to know how you are looking right now." I found this whole segment to be a horrifying look at the modeling industry, but neither Martine nor the framing of the show seemed to see it as anything other than normal.
Maripier in this episode straddles the money theme and the home fire burnout theme. We follow her around at her TV show, and she tells us, "To be a TV host was my childhood dream. ... There's so many projects that I would like to do. I would like to produce. I want to do radio. I would like to write. I would love eventually to have my own talk show." Then we follow her to a twelve-hour modeling photo shoot where she has a conversation with a stylist about how busy her schedule is.
We then join Maripier for a conversation with her friend Veronique, aka V, who comes over to hang out with her so she has someone to talk to. Maripier tells V that she didn't sleep at all last night, and then tears up as she talks about how stressed out and tired she is. V asks her, "Is it affecting with Brandon? Does he see how you are?" Maripier tells V, "He knows I work a lot. He sees that." In her introductory voiceover to hanging out with V, Maripier says, "When Brandon's there, I can always talk to him, but when he's not there, that's when you need your friends," but in the conversation with V, she sidesteps the question of if he really knows how it makes her feel. She complained in the first episode that he doesn't talk to her, and that isn't any less unhealthy a relationship pattern if the pattern is actually that neither of them fully talk to each other. Elsewhere in the episode, she says that she and Brandon are always pushing each other to do better, which she explains with her hands illustrating the two of them leapfrogging upwards. This continues to make me uneasy about their relationship. Encouraging each other to be the best you can be is one thing, but I'm not sure that a continual push, to the point that you're exhausted and crying to your friends, even if that crying may be on cue for the cameras, is the healthiest way to live your life. The most disturbing thing about their relationship's portrayal on this show is that Maripier said in an interview, "We come across like a happy couple that’s supportive and makes each other better. That makes me proud." If this is what she thinks happy looks like, I despair to think of what she thinks would constitute unhappy.
The person who most embodies the home fire burnout theme is Kodette LaBarbera, who had the most interesting and sympathetic portrayal yet. Kodette is billed in the publicity for the show as an activist, but we see nothing of that in this episode. Kodette's husband is Jason LaBarbera, a goalie who shuttles back and forth between the Anaheim Ducks and the Norfolk Admirals. Kodette and their two children, Ryder and Easton, live in Calgary all year round. Ryder has autism, and in Calgary he has stability and a good intensive therapy program that will only last until he's six. One of the things I really liked about Kodette's story is that the things that make it hard do not include conflict with her husband. She is very clear that the two of them have made this choice because it's the best thing for their children and their family.
The distance makes it hard, of course, and Jason going up and down gives it another dimension of difficulty. We see Kodette ask him over the phone, "Now are you guys in Anaheim for a bit? Do you know if we can come and visit?" She tells Kim Jones, a friend who is married to a Flames player, that she and Jason haven't had a date night since August, and if the Ducks make the playoffs and go far, they might not have another one until June. When Kodette and the kids visit Jason in his hotel in Anaheim, they split beds so that each of them sleeps with one of the kids because the kids won't share. When Kodette talks about all of this, it's just part of the reality of her life.
The thing that makes Kodette tear up on camera more than the long-distance relationship with her husband is when she talks about how their friends and family don't understand and are critical or questioning of their choice. We see a bit of an example of people not quite understanding her life when she and the kids go out to lunch in Anaheim with Tiffany, who Kodette describes as a close friend, and Noureen, who Kodette says she's glad to meet because they have a lot of mutual friends in the hockey world. You can see Tiffany and Noureen trying to be polite, and they clearly feel for Kodette, and they also clearly don't quite get it. Kodette has to take the kids and leave before Tiffany and Noureen are ready to leave: "When Ryder wants to go, it's time to go. ... You feel like you should explain to everyone why he's acting this way, but you don't owe anyone an explanation." Tiffany and Noureen's conversation after that is a kind of "I could never do that"/"it must be so hard for her with a special needs child" discussion that, while probably well-intentioned, made me cringe.
One of the things I continue to find disappointing about this show is the staged nature of the women's interactions. I can believe that Tiffany and Kodette might hang out, but including Noureen didn't seem as natural. Kodette and Jenny Scrivens go for a bike ride on the beach - they know each other from when their husbands were both with LA - and their conversation is all about how they don't worry about their husbands' safety because goalies are so protected and about how tough it is to lose repeatedly in Edmonton (the recurring throwing of shade at Edmonton on the show is both funny and sad), and not as much about their own lives. I did appreciate that Wendy and Brijet have a conversation about being outside of the circle of women when your partner isn't playing with the team, but the show still isn't quite giving me what I want when it comes to women's friendships.
I found all of this particularly disappointing this week because on the same day I watched this episode, I also watched 24CH season 3, episode 19. 24CH is the Canadiens' behind the scenes reality show, and season 3, episode 19 focused in on three of the players' wives: Julie Eller, a former Danish TV actress participating in a Dancing with the Stars-style charity event; Angela Price, who uses her background in marketing to run a health, fashion, and food blog with a high school friend and her background in event management to work on charity events; and Rhianna Weaver, who we see working on a charity event and then being silly with her children. Angela and Rhianna go together to a meeting regarding the charity event they're working on, and Angela, Rhianna, Linea Ruszkowski (Dustin Tokarski's partner), Joanna Malhotra, and Maripier skip a game to have dinner together and go see Julie dance. There are parts of this where they talk to the camera, clearly answering questions they've been asked, but on the whole it felt less like they'd been asked to get together by the producers and more like the cameras followed them to already planned events. That's not an accident; one of the people who works on the show said on Twitter, "The goal was to show them 'in action.'"
I also liked that they talked, while they were all around a table together, about being each other's friends and support system. Joanna says, "You come to a province or a country where you don't speak the language. You don't know anybody, and you really do rely on other wives. That's sort of your community." You hear some of the women say similar things on Hockey Wives, but we're not seeing it the same way. It may just be that that's easier to show when you're following a group of women whose partners all play for the same team than it is when you're following women who may be friends but are largely geographically isolated from each other, but I still want to see more of the women just hanging out together.
Erin Valois and Kaitlyn McGrath, the women whose conversation about the show I liked last week, had another conversation about the show this week, which I also liked. Erin says, "The show should just cut the crap with their staged mansion hangouts and catty asides about other cast members - the episodes should just be mini documentaries on the struggle to be an NHL player’s wife AND your own person," and Kaitlyn follows that up with, "If the first episode was like a fast-paced playoff game, this second episode was like a glimpse into a strength and conditioning workout - not much drama, but a whole lot of work." I definitely want more of this kind of unstaged - or at least less staged - look at these women's lives, and I'm glad I'm not the only viewer who feels that way.
This week's episode title was "Home Fire Burnout," but the more obvious theme that tied this episode together was money. Tiffany Parros cuts George's hair so he'll look respectable when trying to find a job - "George went to Princeton. I think he'll have some options." - and goes with him on a visit to the clothing company he's a partner in so she can get ideas for how to structure her clothing company's online store. Martine Forget, Jonathan Bernier's partner, visits her modeling agency for the first time since the birth of their son. Maripier Morin talks about her career not only in terms of her own ambition but also in terms of her future with Brandon Prust: "I know that when he retires, I'm gonna have to pay for everything, so I'm going to be his sugar mama, so I don't think he wants me to quit my job." Noureen DeWulf throws an ostentatious "gender reveal" party and invites her friends over to her house where she has an ultrasound to find out if she's having a boy or a girl. Wendy Tippet visits Brijet Whitney to see the Whitneys' giant new house, where we also see their multiple vehicles, their gardner, and their babysitter/nanny.
I found the money stuff interesting, and for the most part, the things I found iffy in those conversations seemed like a reflection of the wider world, not just the hockey world. Martine is a good example. She starts out saying of Jonathan, "He's always helping me with the baby." When it's your child, you don't help; you parent. Then she moves on to talk about modeling, and this too has the feel that it's normal for the system but disturbing as a cultural marker. She says she had an emergency C-section and wasn't allowed to work out for three months, so only now does she feel ready to go meet with her agent. Even then she says that she really needs to start working with a trainer: "For my job, I still need to lose ten pounds."
The trio of people Martine meets with at the agency ask her how she's feeling and how her skin has been: "Did you get any rashes or any marks?" She says no to rashes, but confesses, as if she's committed some terrible sin, that she has stretch marks. There are so many things that are wrong with our culture's vilification of stretch marks in general, but the condemnation of post-pregnancy stretch marks is so unbelievably illogical: you grew a person; of course your body is going to be different. The trio of agents ask Martine if she wants to put her in for other categories, like "young mom" and "mature professionals," which everyone in the room seems to consider a terrible fate. Martine says, in voiceover as we look at some of her work, that she wants to do the kind of work she was doing before she had her son, including swimsuits: "It makes me so happy to work and having my own money." The agents then take a few "Polaroids," apparently still called that although they're taken with a phone, because "sometimes clients want to know how you are looking right now." I found this whole segment to be a horrifying look at the modeling industry, but neither Martine nor the framing of the show seemed to see it as anything other than normal.
Maripier in this episode straddles the money theme and the home fire burnout theme. We follow her around at her TV show, and she tells us, "To be a TV host was my childhood dream. ... There's so many projects that I would like to do. I would like to produce. I want to do radio. I would like to write. I would love eventually to have my own talk show." Then we follow her to a twelve-hour modeling photo shoot where she has a conversation with a stylist about how busy her schedule is.
We then join Maripier for a conversation with her friend Veronique, aka V, who comes over to hang out with her so she has someone to talk to. Maripier tells V that she didn't sleep at all last night, and then tears up as she talks about how stressed out and tired she is. V asks her, "Is it affecting with Brandon? Does he see how you are?" Maripier tells V, "He knows I work a lot. He sees that." In her introductory voiceover to hanging out with V, Maripier says, "When Brandon's there, I can always talk to him, but when he's not there, that's when you need your friends," but in the conversation with V, she sidesteps the question of if he really knows how it makes her feel. She complained in the first episode that he doesn't talk to her, and that isn't any less unhealthy a relationship pattern if the pattern is actually that neither of them fully talk to each other. Elsewhere in the episode, she says that she and Brandon are always pushing each other to do better, which she explains with her hands illustrating the two of them leapfrogging upwards. This continues to make me uneasy about their relationship. Encouraging each other to be the best you can be is one thing, but I'm not sure that a continual push, to the point that you're exhausted and crying to your friends, even if that crying may be on cue for the cameras, is the healthiest way to live your life. The most disturbing thing about their relationship's portrayal on this show is that Maripier said in an interview, "We come across like a happy couple that’s supportive and makes each other better. That makes me proud." If this is what she thinks happy looks like, I despair to think of what she thinks would constitute unhappy.
The person who most embodies the home fire burnout theme is Kodette LaBarbera, who had the most interesting and sympathetic portrayal yet. Kodette is billed in the publicity for the show as an activist, but we see nothing of that in this episode. Kodette's husband is Jason LaBarbera, a goalie who shuttles back and forth between the Anaheim Ducks and the Norfolk Admirals. Kodette and their two children, Ryder and Easton, live in Calgary all year round. Ryder has autism, and in Calgary he has stability and a good intensive therapy program that will only last until he's six. One of the things I really liked about Kodette's story is that the things that make it hard do not include conflict with her husband. She is very clear that the two of them have made this choice because it's the best thing for their children and their family.
The distance makes it hard, of course, and Jason going up and down gives it another dimension of difficulty. We see Kodette ask him over the phone, "Now are you guys in Anaheim for a bit? Do you know if we can come and visit?" She tells Kim Jones, a friend who is married to a Flames player, that she and Jason haven't had a date night since August, and if the Ducks make the playoffs and go far, they might not have another one until June. When Kodette and the kids visit Jason in his hotel in Anaheim, they split beds so that each of them sleeps with one of the kids because the kids won't share. When Kodette talks about all of this, it's just part of the reality of her life.
The thing that makes Kodette tear up on camera more than the long-distance relationship with her husband is when she talks about how their friends and family don't understand and are critical or questioning of their choice. We see a bit of an example of people not quite understanding her life when she and the kids go out to lunch in Anaheim with Tiffany, who Kodette describes as a close friend, and Noureen, who Kodette says she's glad to meet because they have a lot of mutual friends in the hockey world. You can see Tiffany and Noureen trying to be polite, and they clearly feel for Kodette, and they also clearly don't quite get it. Kodette has to take the kids and leave before Tiffany and Noureen are ready to leave: "When Ryder wants to go, it's time to go. ... You feel like you should explain to everyone why he's acting this way, but you don't owe anyone an explanation." Tiffany and Noureen's conversation after that is a kind of "I could never do that"/"it must be so hard for her with a special needs child" discussion that, while probably well-intentioned, made me cringe.
One of the things I continue to find disappointing about this show is the staged nature of the women's interactions. I can believe that Tiffany and Kodette might hang out, but including Noureen didn't seem as natural. Kodette and Jenny Scrivens go for a bike ride on the beach - they know each other from when their husbands were both with LA - and their conversation is all about how they don't worry about their husbands' safety because goalies are so protected and about how tough it is to lose repeatedly in Edmonton (the recurring throwing of shade at Edmonton on the show is both funny and sad), and not as much about their own lives. I did appreciate that Wendy and Brijet have a conversation about being outside of the circle of women when your partner isn't playing with the team, but the show still isn't quite giving me what I want when it comes to women's friendships.
I found all of this particularly disappointing this week because on the same day I watched this episode, I also watched 24CH season 3, episode 19. 24CH is the Canadiens' behind the scenes reality show, and season 3, episode 19 focused in on three of the players' wives: Julie Eller, a former Danish TV actress participating in a Dancing with the Stars-style charity event; Angela Price, who uses her background in marketing to run a health, fashion, and food blog with a high school friend and her background in event management to work on charity events; and Rhianna Weaver, who we see working on a charity event and then being silly with her children. Angela and Rhianna go together to a meeting regarding the charity event they're working on, and Angela, Rhianna, Linea Ruszkowski (Dustin Tokarski's partner), Joanna Malhotra, and Maripier skip a game to have dinner together and go see Julie dance. There are parts of this where they talk to the camera, clearly answering questions they've been asked, but on the whole it felt less like they'd been asked to get together by the producers and more like the cameras followed them to already planned events. That's not an accident; one of the people who works on the show said on Twitter, "The goal was to show them 'in action.'"
I also liked that they talked, while they were all around a table together, about being each other's friends and support system. Joanna says, "You come to a province or a country where you don't speak the language. You don't know anybody, and you really do rely on other wives. That's sort of your community." You hear some of the women say similar things on Hockey Wives, but we're not seeing it the same way. It may just be that that's easier to show when you're following a group of women whose partners all play for the same team than it is when you're following women who may be friends but are largely geographically isolated from each other, but I still want to see more of the women just hanging out together.
Erin Valois and Kaitlyn McGrath, the women whose conversation about the show I liked last week, had another conversation about the show this week, which I also liked. Erin says, "The show should just cut the crap with their staged mansion hangouts and catty asides about other cast members - the episodes should just be mini documentaries on the struggle to be an NHL player’s wife AND your own person," and Kaitlyn follows that up with, "If the first episode was like a fast-paced playoff game, this second episode was like a glimpse into a strength and conditioning workout - not much drama, but a whole lot of work." I definitely want more of this kind of unstaged - or at least less staged - look at these women's lives, and I'm glad I'm not the only viewer who feels that way.