The Hockey Life
Congratulations
PART TWO: CONGRATULATIONS
“Tess,” I said, grabbing her attention. “I was chosen for the internship.” She gave me the funniest look that made me think she almost believed me but she needed confirmation before she could process it.
“No way. Show me!” she demanded, and I motioned for her to come over to my computer. I showed her the email and the corners of her mouth turned up into a grin.
“Oh my god, Lean! You got a freaking internship with the Blackhawks!” she announced, as if I didn’t already know.
“I know, Tess, I know!” We looked at each other and we just freaked out. We let out screams of excitement. Tess seemed to be just as happy for me as I was for myself. I couldn’t even believe it. In a few days, when winter break started, I would be going to the United Center every day to learn the ropes and see what it’s like to work for the Hawks. I had never been so excited for anything in my life.
“So, what exactly does this mean? When do you start, how long is it?”
“Well, it’s a winter break internship, and it’ll start on our first day of break. I’ll get Christmas off, of course, but other than that, I’ll be pretty busy. Since break is only a couple weeks long, they usually try to schedule days outside of break too, but that’s usually only with the really dedicated, good interns.” I explained all the information I knew to her and neither of us could stop smiling. Then it hit me. I had to call my dad and Brian. They would be so excited for me. It was getting late, though, and I knew my dad was most likely asleep already, so I opted to wait until the next day to give him the news and I called Brian on Skype, knowing he would answer. I was right.
“Hey sis, how’s college life treating you these days?” Brian greeted me. How convenient, he was wearing a Hawks hoodie.
“Hey Bri, it’s been a little crazy. My finals start tomorrow,” I told him, and he laughed.
“Oh yeah, finals are the best!” he said sarcastically. He was two years older than me, so lucky for him, he was already done with college. I was jealous of him because of that.
“Just be glad you don’t have to take them anymore. I can assure you that they still suck. But something did happen to me today that has made things a little bit better.”
“Oh really? And what would that be?” Brian raised his eyebrows at me, trying to make the very important announcement I was about to make, so much less serious.
“Well, you know that internship I applied for? You know, the one that matches your sweatshirt?” He glanced down to remember what team he was supporting and smiled.
“You got it?” he asked. I was still too excited, and for a moment I thought I couldn’t speak, so I just nodded. “Holy shit, Lena! Congratulations! That’s amazing!”
“I know, I know. I took a picture of the email because I couldn’t even believe it. I’ll send it to you if you want, if you don’t believe me,” I told him, realizing I could talk again.
“I don’t need a picture for proof little sister, I know you better than most and you would never be able to pull the prank off if you were lying to me. You’re a terrible actor,” Brian said, noticing that I was genuinely happy about all of it. As harsh as his comment was, he was right. I couldn’t act or lie.
“So, are you jealous that soon I’ll get to hang out at the United Center every day and you won’t?” I asked, being a bratty little sister.
“You know what, I won’t even deny it. I am a little jealous. But, I mean, I get to hang out at our rink every day with seven year olds, so. I think you’re the one in this situation who should be jealous,” Brian snickered. He was a teacher, which was awesome, because he was a really fun, hilarious guy. He taught elementary school and he coached a younger hockey team on the side, which was perfect for him. To be honest, I was a little jealous of him sometimes. The kids were so cute, and our old rink brought back a lot of memories from when I first started playing hockey when we were growing up.
“Yeah, okay. Whatever you say, Brian.”
“Hey, I’ve gotta go. I still have some papers left to grade and then I actually need to get my sleep, so I’ll talk to you soon and I’ll see you in a few days!” he told me.
“Okay, have fun! Bye!”
I logged off of Skype and I found myself yawning. I needed to get to bed too. I had to wake up at 8:30 for an earlier class in the morning, so I changed into my pjs.
“You going to bed too?” Tess asked as she headed to her room.
“Yeah, I have an early class. Even earlier than yours,” I confessed.
“Okay, goodnight then. Don’t wake me up.”
We both went to bed. I found myself having a hard time falling asleep. My brain didn’t want to shut off yet. All I could do was think about the internship and how awesome it was that I had been chosen for it. Eventually, though, I drifted off to a peaceful sleep full of dreams that weren’t important enough for me to remember in the morning.
****************************************************************
My phone alarm woke me up at 8:30 and I was annoyed when I realized that I couldn’t afford to hit the snooze button. I turned the alarm off and saw that I had a text message from my dad.
Dad: Hey Lean, I heard that you got the internship with the Blackhawks, congratulations! I’m sure it’ll be a great experience, and I know you’ll do great. I have to head to work and I know you have exams for the next few days, so you’ll have to tell me more about it when you come home to visit. I’ll see you soon! Love, Dad.
Okay, Brian obviously hadn’t been able to keep his mouth shut. That didn’t really surprise me, though. Normally, he could keep a secret, but I hadn’t asked him not to announce this news to anyone, and it was too big for him to keep to himself. I didn’t mind though. I sent a reply to my dad and I got ready for my class. Once I was showered and dressed, I grabbed a couple Special K bars to eat on the way and I headed to class.
I had two classes that day, and I had exams in both of them. My morning class wasn’t that bad - I was actually decent at it and I had studied a lot for the test. It seemed to go better than I had expected. The afternoon class, though, wasn’t quite as easy. I had a few hours in between the classes, to I took advantage of that time and spent it reviewing. The test went okay, but not as well as I had hoped. I knew I had to have passed, but probably with a lower passing grade. It wouldn’t really affect my overall grade too much, luckily.
When I got back to the apartment, Tess was already back, since she only had one class that day. She was on her laptop, pinning away on Pinterest, the most addicting website on the Internet.
“You look drained. I take it the exams were pretty bad,” she said, looking up from the screen.
“The first one was fine, the second one was the terrible one,” I quickly explained, getting out a coffee mug and everything I needed for hot chocolate. It was extremely cold out, and I needed to indulge in the heavenly winter drink.
“Well, did you pass?” she asked, stretching her neck to see what I was making.
“Yeah, I’m sure I passed. I could have done better, but I did good enough. I’m really just glad it’s over,” I admitted.
“Hey, will you make me a cup?” Tess pleaded once she realized what I was doing. I wanted to be mean and tell her to get it herself, but I gave in and decided to humor her.
“Yeah, sure.” When both cups were done, I made them extra fancy. I put a ton of marshmallows in them and added whipped cream and chocolate chips on top. I loved hot chocolate that way, and Tess did too.
“So how’d your exam go?” I asked her, handing her one of the cups.
“Good, I think. My hardest classes are tomorrow, so after tomorrow it should be a piece of cake, honestly.” I was too deep in my drink to answer, so I just gave her a thumbs up.
“Geez, I didn’t know you liked hot chocolate that much,” Tess commented, and I came up for air.
“It’s freezing outside and it’s snowing, Tess. I’m trying to warm myself up!”
“Oh hey, it is snowing. It feels like Christmas already!”
“Speaking of Christmas, do you want to finally decorate the tree?” I asked. We had gradually put up all of our decorations everywhere. Garland on shelves, a mini tree in each of our rooms, little knick knacks. We had put up our pre-lit main tree in the living room, but we hadn’t decorated it yet. Why, I didn’t really know, since we had done everything else. Hell, we had even put up mistletoe. Mistletoe that wouldn’t be used, at that. Neither of us had boyfriends. Tess had one for a while, but they had broken up before our senior year of college. She hadn’t really been with anyone else since then.
“Yeah, we probably should, since we’re running out of time to actually do it,” Tess answered, and we got out the ornaments and such. We had a black, red, and white theme, which gave us an excuse to have Hawks ornaments. We had hockey sticks, pucks, Indian heads, mini jerseys, the works, along with other cool looking ornaments and candy canes that fit the color theme.
By the time we were done, the tree looked great. It was just full enough, without looking ridiculous. I snapped a picture and sent it to Brian and my parents, proud of the good decorating job Tess and I had done.
Once we were done with the tree, we got our bags ready for our hockey practice. Yes, our team wasn’t the official college team so we didn’t work as much, but we still got together for practices quite a bit. Since we all had plenty of finals to study for, we had a shorter practice than usual - only an hour rather than the hour and a half to two hours we normally went for.
As usual, we worked pretty hard at the practice, but we had fun with it as well. I loved our team. We were like a family. We all got along pretty well, even though we were all very different. There were small but mighty girls, tall and muscular girls, and everything in between. Me, I was on the shorter, thinner side, but in my years of high school hockey, I had put on a little bit of muscle. I guess I was kind of average on my team. Everyone called me “Lean” Lena Stratton. We pretty much all had nicknames for each other. Tess was Tess “The Terminator” Smith because although she was close to my size, she wasn’t afraid to be aggressive and rough on the ice. She easily terminated anyone who pissed her off.
After practice, we showered and we had to go straight to studying when we got to our apartment. That was the worst part of finals week. We didn’t really get to have lives. We literally studied until almost midnight, since we didn’t have any super early classes in the morning. In the midst of all the work, I got messages from my dad and Brian and even some family friends that they had already given the internship news to. Even though I was glad to hear from all of them, the only person in my family that was left to congratulate me was my mom. I took one last look at my phone as I got into bed at 12:14 a.m., hopeful that I had just missed a voicemail or text from her earlier. My hopes were broken when I saw nothing, and that was the last thing I saw before I closed my eyes.
“Tess,” I said, grabbing her attention. “I was chosen for the internship.” She gave me the funniest look that made me think she almost believed me but she needed confirmation before she could process it.
“No way. Show me!” she demanded, and I motioned for her to come over to my computer. I showed her the email and the corners of her mouth turned up into a grin.
“Oh my god, Lean! You got a freaking internship with the Blackhawks!” she announced, as if I didn’t already know.
“I know, Tess, I know!” We looked at each other and we just freaked out. We let out screams of excitement. Tess seemed to be just as happy for me as I was for myself. I couldn’t even believe it. In a few days, when winter break started, I would be going to the United Center every day to learn the ropes and see what it’s like to work for the Hawks. I had never been so excited for anything in my life.
“So, what exactly does this mean? When do you start, how long is it?”
“Well, it’s a winter break internship, and it’ll start on our first day of break. I’ll get Christmas off, of course, but other than that, I’ll be pretty busy. Since break is only a couple weeks long, they usually try to schedule days outside of break too, but that’s usually only with the really dedicated, good interns.” I explained all the information I knew to her and neither of us could stop smiling. Then it hit me. I had to call my dad and Brian. They would be so excited for me. It was getting late, though, and I knew my dad was most likely asleep already, so I opted to wait until the next day to give him the news and I called Brian on Skype, knowing he would answer. I was right.
“Hey sis, how’s college life treating you these days?” Brian greeted me. How convenient, he was wearing a Hawks hoodie.
“Hey Bri, it’s been a little crazy. My finals start tomorrow,” I told him, and he laughed.
“Oh yeah, finals are the best!” he said sarcastically. He was two years older than me, so lucky for him, he was already done with college. I was jealous of him because of that.
“Just be glad you don’t have to take them anymore. I can assure you that they still suck. But something did happen to me today that has made things a little bit better.”
“Oh really? And what would that be?” Brian raised his eyebrows at me, trying to make the very important announcement I was about to make, so much less serious.
“Well, you know that internship I applied for? You know, the one that matches your sweatshirt?” He glanced down to remember what team he was supporting and smiled.
“You got it?” he asked. I was still too excited, and for a moment I thought I couldn’t speak, so I just nodded. “Holy shit, Lena! Congratulations! That’s amazing!”
“I know, I know. I took a picture of the email because I couldn’t even believe it. I’ll send it to you if you want, if you don’t believe me,” I told him, realizing I could talk again.
“I don’t need a picture for proof little sister, I know you better than most and you would never be able to pull the prank off if you were lying to me. You’re a terrible actor,” Brian said, noticing that I was genuinely happy about all of it. As harsh as his comment was, he was right. I couldn’t act or lie.
“So, are you jealous that soon I’ll get to hang out at the United Center every day and you won’t?” I asked, being a bratty little sister.
“You know what, I won’t even deny it. I am a little jealous. But, I mean, I get to hang out at our rink every day with seven year olds, so. I think you’re the one in this situation who should be jealous,” Brian snickered. He was a teacher, which was awesome, because he was a really fun, hilarious guy. He taught elementary school and he coached a younger hockey team on the side, which was perfect for him. To be honest, I was a little jealous of him sometimes. The kids were so cute, and our old rink brought back a lot of memories from when I first started playing hockey when we were growing up.
“Yeah, okay. Whatever you say, Brian.”
“Hey, I’ve gotta go. I still have some papers left to grade and then I actually need to get my sleep, so I’ll talk to you soon and I’ll see you in a few days!” he told me.
“Okay, have fun! Bye!”
I logged off of Skype and I found myself yawning. I needed to get to bed too. I had to wake up at 8:30 for an earlier class in the morning, so I changed into my pjs.
“You going to bed too?” Tess asked as she headed to her room.
“Yeah, I have an early class. Even earlier than yours,” I confessed.
“Okay, goodnight then. Don’t wake me up.”
We both went to bed. I found myself having a hard time falling asleep. My brain didn’t want to shut off yet. All I could do was think about the internship and how awesome it was that I had been chosen for it. Eventually, though, I drifted off to a peaceful sleep full of dreams that weren’t important enough for me to remember in the morning.
****************************************************************
My phone alarm woke me up at 8:30 and I was annoyed when I realized that I couldn’t afford to hit the snooze button. I turned the alarm off and saw that I had a text message from my dad.
Dad: Hey Lean, I heard that you got the internship with the Blackhawks, congratulations! I’m sure it’ll be a great experience, and I know you’ll do great. I have to head to work and I know you have exams for the next few days, so you’ll have to tell me more about it when you come home to visit. I’ll see you soon! Love, Dad.
Okay, Brian obviously hadn’t been able to keep his mouth shut. That didn’t really surprise me, though. Normally, he could keep a secret, but I hadn’t asked him not to announce this news to anyone, and it was too big for him to keep to himself. I didn’t mind though. I sent a reply to my dad and I got ready for my class. Once I was showered and dressed, I grabbed a couple Special K bars to eat on the way and I headed to class.
I had two classes that day, and I had exams in both of them. My morning class wasn’t that bad - I was actually decent at it and I had studied a lot for the test. It seemed to go better than I had expected. The afternoon class, though, wasn’t quite as easy. I had a few hours in between the classes, to I took advantage of that time and spent it reviewing. The test went okay, but not as well as I had hoped. I knew I had to have passed, but probably with a lower passing grade. It wouldn’t really affect my overall grade too much, luckily.
When I got back to the apartment, Tess was already back, since she only had one class that day. She was on her laptop, pinning away on Pinterest, the most addicting website on the Internet.
“You look drained. I take it the exams were pretty bad,” she said, looking up from the screen.
“The first one was fine, the second one was the terrible one,” I quickly explained, getting out a coffee mug and everything I needed for hot chocolate. It was extremely cold out, and I needed to indulge in the heavenly winter drink.
“Well, did you pass?” she asked, stretching her neck to see what I was making.
“Yeah, I’m sure I passed. I could have done better, but I did good enough. I’m really just glad it’s over,” I admitted.
“Hey, will you make me a cup?” Tess pleaded once she realized what I was doing. I wanted to be mean and tell her to get it herself, but I gave in and decided to humor her.
“Yeah, sure.” When both cups were done, I made them extra fancy. I put a ton of marshmallows in them and added whipped cream and chocolate chips on top. I loved hot chocolate that way, and Tess did too.
“So how’d your exam go?” I asked her, handing her one of the cups.
“Good, I think. My hardest classes are tomorrow, so after tomorrow it should be a piece of cake, honestly.” I was too deep in my drink to answer, so I just gave her a thumbs up.
“Geez, I didn’t know you liked hot chocolate that much,” Tess commented, and I came up for air.
“It’s freezing outside and it’s snowing, Tess. I’m trying to warm myself up!”
“Oh hey, it is snowing. It feels like Christmas already!”
“Speaking of Christmas, do you want to finally decorate the tree?” I asked. We had gradually put up all of our decorations everywhere. Garland on shelves, a mini tree in each of our rooms, little knick knacks. We had put up our pre-lit main tree in the living room, but we hadn’t decorated it yet. Why, I didn’t really know, since we had done everything else. Hell, we had even put up mistletoe. Mistletoe that wouldn’t be used, at that. Neither of us had boyfriends. Tess had one for a while, but they had broken up before our senior year of college. She hadn’t really been with anyone else since then.
“Yeah, we probably should, since we’re running out of time to actually do it,” Tess answered, and we got out the ornaments and such. We had a black, red, and white theme, which gave us an excuse to have Hawks ornaments. We had hockey sticks, pucks, Indian heads, mini jerseys, the works, along with other cool looking ornaments and candy canes that fit the color theme.
By the time we were done, the tree looked great. It was just full enough, without looking ridiculous. I snapped a picture and sent it to Brian and my parents, proud of the good decorating job Tess and I had done.
Once we were done with the tree, we got our bags ready for our hockey practice. Yes, our team wasn’t the official college team so we didn’t work as much, but we still got together for practices quite a bit. Since we all had plenty of finals to study for, we had a shorter practice than usual - only an hour rather than the hour and a half to two hours we normally went for.
As usual, we worked pretty hard at the practice, but we had fun with it as well. I loved our team. We were like a family. We all got along pretty well, even though we were all very different. There were small but mighty girls, tall and muscular girls, and everything in between. Me, I was on the shorter, thinner side, but in my years of high school hockey, I had put on a little bit of muscle. I guess I was kind of average on my team. Everyone called me “Lean” Lena Stratton. We pretty much all had nicknames for each other. Tess was Tess “The Terminator” Smith because although she was close to my size, she wasn’t afraid to be aggressive and rough on the ice. She easily terminated anyone who pissed her off.
After practice, we showered and we had to go straight to studying when we got to our apartment. That was the worst part of finals week. We didn’t really get to have lives. We literally studied until almost midnight, since we didn’t have any super early classes in the morning. In the midst of all the work, I got messages from my dad and Brian and even some family friends that they had already given the internship news to. Even though I was glad to hear from all of them, the only person in my family that was left to congratulate me was my mom. I took one last look at my phone as I got into bed at 12:14 a.m., hopeful that I had just missed a voicemail or text from her earlier. My hopes were broken when I saw nothing, and that was the last thing I saw before I closed my eyes.
@hockeygirl07
Thank you so much! :)
11/1/14