One thing that has struck me whilst reading all the articles about Sarah Palin is how often she is referred to by the shorthand of "Hockey Mom". Now I lived in the States for 3 years and I think I understand a lot of the cultural references but I am still not 100% sure about hockey mom. What about all the people who have had no more contact with the US than the ubiquitous TV series. Do they know what it really means? Come to that, do the reporters and journalists who are using it really know what it means.
It clearly refers to Ice Hockey and not Field Hockey (as it is called in the US). But is it good or is it bad? Does it mean self-sacrifice or wallowing in your children's success? Does it mean that she is down to earth or extremely sporty?
And is one Hockey Mom always the same as another hockey mom. This article from the Baltimore Sun gives a bit more insight into the typologies of Hockey Moms that exist. So even that isn't that easy.
More than anything, this widepsread appropriation of a US term in European media suggests to me that the media is succumbing to one of the biggest problems in global branding - the assumption that we all know what something means and attach the same values to it. Sometimes it works, but very often it doesn't.