THE INTERNSHIP

Early April of 2015, I wasn’t sure what my upcoming summer would consist of. I knew that I was going to have to take a couple of summer classes so I thought I was going to be living in Fort Collins. But once I registered for the summer, I realized that I was only going to be taking online courses so I didn’t necessarily have to stay in Fort Collins. I started to explore my options for internships I could possibly do, and I applied for two in one day. The first one was to work for the Loveland Bluejays baseball team helping out with their website. The second one was to work the Colorado Avalanche in the media relationship department.

After sending out my resume and cover letter to both of them, the Avalanche were the first ones to get in touch with me asking me to come out for an Interview the next week. Brendan McNicholas, the executive director of media services for the Avalanche, interviewed me at the Pepsi Center asking me several questions about my internship that I have here at CSU with the athletic communication department. I left feeling pretty good about how I did, even though he said he interviewed over ten people but is only going to hire one person. I wasn’t sure if I gave him a good enough impression about myself, but nonetheless, it was a good experience regardless of what happens. Four days later, I got a call from Brendan when I was in class and I stormed out to hallway to take his call where he told me that I got the job! I politely declined an interview with the Loveland Bluejays a couple days later.

I was pumped up, but I really didn’t know what to expect as he only vaguely went over the internship would entail. He asked me to come in for training at the Pepsi Center the following week so I could know my routine. The current intern at the time showed me the morning process which is basically to cut out relevant news stories from the Denver Post and USA Today papers and make copies of them and give it to everyone in the office. When we were distributing the copies, she nonchalantly told me “Ok, so this is Joe Sakic’s office, right there is Partick Roy’s office.” I was flabbergasted, as I didn’t even know that I was going to be in the same vicinity of two of my biggest idols growing up. Now I was really excited for my summer.

Meeting Joe was an honor. He came up to me to introduce himself and I laughed and told him “Yeah I know who you are.” He is a really nice guy. Asking me about my family, where I grew up, and how I like CSU. Seeing him on a daily basis is pretty crazy for me, when he asks for a favor of me I feel like sprinting around the office to get it done as quickly and nicely as possible.

Meeting Patrick went a little differently. Chris MacFarland, the assistant GM, asked me if I could pull up some stats on the Patrick’s computer because he didn’t know where to find them. I walked into his office as he was on the phone with Sakic. He told Joe to hold on for a second and asked me to pull up the number of Faceoffs each player has taken, won, and loss. Luckily I looked like I knew what I was doing and found the stats he wanted as he continued to talk to Joe. He looked at the computer to see what I pulled up and then proceeded to punch me in the arm saying, “That’s what I wanted!” I laughed and asked if he needed anything else and he said he was good to go.

This summer, I have written articles that thousands of people have read, met two of my biggest idols, interviewed rookies including the Avalanche’s first overall pick Mikko Rantanen, met Cody McLeod, and got to become friends with the employees of the Avalanche. Pretty crazy considering just a couple of months ago I thought I would be in Fort Collins all summer just taking classes.