The Hockey Life

PART FIFTY-THREE: NEW INTERNS
“Frolik Navidad! Frolik Navidad!” Tess and I sang as we got into her car. Now that Thanksgiving and my birthday were both over, it was time to think about Tess’ birthday and Christmas. Luckily, I had already covered both her birthday and Christmas presents, and she had covered mine, so I was told. We needed to start buying things for our families and boyfriends, though, so that was our mission. It was good that we both had a lot of Christmas spirit, because even though it wasn’t Black Friday or anything, shopping at Christmastime could get a little crazy.
Tess plugged in her iPod and set it to her Christmas play list, which we listened to the whole car ride to Water Tower Place. We both knew it wasn’t smart to overload on holiday music too early only for it to get old by the time Christmas actually arrived, but we couldn’t help ourselves. I didn’t want to wait to jam out to All I Want for Christmas Is You, which was my favorite holiday song.
When we got to the mall, we couldn’t help but go to all our favorite stores first. Even though we couldn’t even afford to buy things for ourselves, we still had to look.
“Would it be over the top to send a wish list to my parents? I can just take pictures of everything I want today and send some to them,” Tess joked.
“I don’t know, I think we’re a little old for Christmas wish lists,” I told her.
“I guess you’re right. Oh, what do you know, an escalator!” she said. “Ready?” She looked over at me for confirmation.
“Let’s do it,” I grinned. We both got on the escalator at the same time, putting one foot on one step and the other on one behind it. We let our legs stretch out until we were practically doing the splits. We put on our most serious faces and watched for reactions from people. The kids we saw laughed, some young adults gave us props, and the older adults rolled their eyes. We kept it up until we couldn’t contain ourselves anymore. We returned to normal stances and started cracking up laughing. We did this thing where we re-enacted random stunts from Elf to see how people would react. It was always a ton of fun, but we made sure not to be over the top in case someone decided to kick us out, which we feared might happen.
Luckily, we didn’t get kicked out of any stores, but we did have a lot of success when it came to shopping. Tess and I both got our moms a few things from Lush. She got her dad a Home Depot gift card and I got my dad a Sports Authority gift card. I bought Brian a gift card to the Nike store. I even got Patrick’s gift, which consisted of a few different things he wanted and needed including a phone case, a new hoodie, shirt, and baseball cap, and some hockey stick tape which of course was necessary for him. Tess and I stopped at Giordano’s for some pizza when we got hungry and after I picked up a toy, a bone, and some treats for Puck who I missed dearly, we were done for the day.
That was on an off day, when I didn’t have to be at work. However, when I got back to work, I knew I would be in for some fun. Brad told me that another internship was starting, so I would get to talk to this year’s interns and help them out. Of course, Dylan had a pretty busy schedule, but he made sure he could come to the United Center whenever possible, including the first day of the internship.
“Welcome back,” I greeted Dylan when he arrived at the United Center on Monday morning, which was the first day for the newest set of six interns.
“Thanks. I’m glad to be back here. It’s crazy that it’s been a whole year since we were interns…but at the same time, it almost feels like it was a decade ago,” he said.
“Yeah. A lot of things have happened since then,” I said as I thought about how things had changed.
“Mostly good things, though. So, when are they going to get here?”
“They should be here already, just starting the tour. Brad said it would be about ten minutes before they got to the locker room, so we should probably head over there. That’s where we’re supposed to be,” I told him, so we walked there together. Dylan went in first and when he told me everyone was decent enough for me to see, I went in after him.
“Are the newbies here?” Sharpy asked.
“They’re on the tour now. They’ll get here in a couple minutes,” I answered. I checked my watch and decided it was alright to chat with my boyfriend for a minute or two.
“Remember when you were a newbie and you had a giant crush on me?” he asked with a ridiculous grin on his face.
“As I recall, you had a giant crush on me too,” I reminded him. “But don’t get any ideas with the female interns this year. You already chose me,” I added.
“I seriously doubt there will be any interns hotter than you anyways, so don’t even worry about that,” he said. Even so, I was a little worried. There apparently was an even distribution of gender this year - three guys and three girls - which meant that I might have something to worry about. Not that I thought Patrick would flirt, but the girls probably would. Especially if there were any even remotely similar to Puck Bunny.
A few minutes later, Brad and the six interns filed in, so I returned to Dylan’s side and tried to look professional.
“Welcome to the Blackhawks locker room! As you can see, the Hawks are about to go out and practice,” Brad announced.
“Hey guys!” the team chanted. Brad had each intern introduce themselves individually. First was Travis. He had short, light brown hair and green eyes. He was a hockey player, a forward. Next was Melanie. She was a few inches taller than me, probably about 5’7”, with black hair and blue eyes. She wore very little makeup but she was still beautiful, with a model body. She appeared to be a nice girl, but I would still keep an eye on her. Apparently she was into photography so she would be looking for a job in that if she was a winner. Then there was Chris, a tall blondie with brown eyes. He was a recreational hockey player who was in school for film. After him was Allison, also a blonde but with hazel eyes and a short height of probably only five feet. Pretty girl, just short. She was in school for teaching, but she helped with coaching in her home town much like my brother, so she was also looking into becoming a coach on the side. Next was Aaron. He had dark brown, wavy hair and pale blue/gray eyes. He was a right winger. Last, but not least, was Kayla. She had light brown hair and blue eyes, and she was about the same height as me. She had a muscular body, which made sense since she was a hockey player - a defenseman. Everyone seemed nice enough, but none of the girls were unattractive. I was actually very happy once Jonathan Toews had finished introducing himself to them and the players headed out to the ice.
“Well, now that you’ve met the team, it’s time for you to meet some ex-interns. Our internship program, as you all know now, accepts six contestants but only two winners. These two are the winners of last year’s internship,” he said.
“Hey guys! I’m Dylan Zuniga. As Brad said, I was in the internship last year with my partner here,” Dylan said.
“And I’m Lena Stratton, Dylan’s partner for the final competition. Together we ended up winning,” I said. The interns waved and said hello, and then Brad told us to talk a little bit about our experience.
“I had a ton of fun in this program last year. As biased as this might sound coming from a winner, I really think this will be a great experience for you guys because whether you win or lose, you get to do so many amazing things here. You basically get a chance at trying out all the jobs that are offered here, from concessions worker to mascot to equipment manager. You’ll learn a lot,” I explained.
“Exactly. And, of course, participating in this program opens up a lot of opportunities after the internship is over as well. For instance, winners get to come to games basically whenever they want, and they get to participate in certain big events. They automatically get to go to the Stanley Cup final if we make it that far, and then there’s the parade - winners ride on the buses with the players,” Dylan continued.
“That’s true. A lot of professional, job opportunities come up after you’ve completed the internship too. For instance, about nine months after the internship ended for me, I got hired here as an athletic trainer, and before that, I got to practice my work here so I could have some experience before I graduated.”
“And at around the same time, I joined the Ice Hogs, which I’m a part of now,” Dylan said. Once we were done with our spiel, every single intern was wide eyed and amazed at how far we had come. Brad opened it up for them to ask us questions and it seemed like the Q and A session was never ending. Mostly the guys asked Dylan questions relating to how he got into his new hockey career, and the girls directed the majority of their questions at me. A lot of the questions were good ones, but there were some fun ones as well, although they quickly got off topic.
“What’s it like to work here as a trainer? Are you really busy?” Allison asked.
“It’s awesome being a trainer here. I go to every practice and game, home or away, for the most part, so yes, I do get pretty busy. However, I’m usually not doing stuff all day, so even when there’s a lot of things going on, I have free time in between. I’m doing what I love with the team I love, so in the end I think dedicating most of my time to my job here is completely worth it,” I answered.
“Not to be too personal or anything, but I just have to ask - are you Patrick Kane’s girlfriend?” Melanie wondered. This was where it got off topic.
“Yeah, I am, actually,” I laughed. “How’d you know?”
“I’ve seen pictures of you guys. You’re a really cute couple, just so you know,” she smiled.
“Did you two meet because of the internship?” Kayla wondered.
“Yep. We got to know each other by seeing each other usually every other day or so for two weeks, so I guess that’s how it started,” I laughed.
“I hope we’re that lucky!” Allison joked, and the girls laughed.
“I’m sure you two would like to be that lucky, but I can’t have that kind of fun here. My boyfriend would get too jealous,” Melanie smiled. I released a deep breath and it felt like a little bit of weight had been lifted off my shoulders. The prettiest girl was taken, so that was a start. After that the subject changed and not many more questions were asked before Dylan and I were dismissed. I kept an eye on the players from the bench as I always did during practice if I wasn’t tending to anyone in particular and Dylan watched the rest of practice next to me. When it ended, he headed home and I waited for Patrick to get out of the locker room so we could go home together.
“So, the intern girls are pretty cute,” I said.
“Lena…”
“Melanie’s taken, though.”
“Lena, I wouldn’t care if they were all single and looking to date me, you know I love you and only you.”
“I know that, but I don’t know them. Whether you show any interest or not, they could easily try to make a move. Although they seem to ship us, so hopefully that won’t happen,” I said.
“They ship us?”
“Yeah. Melanie apparently has seen pictures of us online, so they asked how we got together and all that. They think we’re a cute couple,” I explained.
“Well, we are pretty cute,” he agreed.
“Yeah, I guess you’re right,” I decided. I knew I couldn’t let the intern girls get to me. I probably had nothing to worry about. Even if they initiated something, Patrick would see to it that they backed off, or I would. Our relationship was rock solid, and I knew that. I wasn’t really sure what I was worried about. I guess it was just a normal thing for a girl to get a little nervous in this type of situation. I didn’t want to have to be jealous, so I decided I would try my best not to be.

Notes