Whatever other constituencies newly-minted GOP Vice-Presidential candidate Sarah Palin is supposed to attract come November — women, archconservatives, anti-abortionists — her pedigree as an Alaskan parent has already nailed one niche voting block:

“The idea of possibly having a hockey mom in the White House just blows my mind.”

Those are the words of Dayton Bombers owner Costa Papista, with whom I just spoke after watching a CNN shot of him presenting Bombers jerseys to both John McCain and VP candidate and Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, a self-described “hockey mom”, after the GOP rally at Nutter Center — where the ECHL Bombers play.

So the amateur hockey followers presumably will cast their lot with McCain-Palin. That secures a nice zero-point-something percentage of the American electorate for the Republicans. (The Democrats should now probably redouble their efforts at snagging the warm-weather equivalent, and more societal standard-issue, soccer moms…)