Use Your Words - Kids Career Day 2022

Today’s post is Today’s post is a writing challenge. This is how it works: participating bloggers picked 4 – 6 words or short phrases for someone else to craft into a post. All words must be used at least once, and all the posts will be unique as each writer has received their own set of words. That’s the challenge, here’s a fun twist; no one who’s participating knows who got their words and in what direction the writer will take them. Until now. 

My words are:

charm ~ verb ~ prepared ~ solid ~ naive ~ blazer

They were submitted by: Climaxed - Thank you, Jenniy!

I was going to follow up on my car situation. Here's the short version: The insurance took their sweet time to transfer the money they promised, and I almost lost the pre-loved new car I had my eyes on. I had to tap into my secret nest egg to make things happen, but in the end - after many, many hours spent on the phone listening to the same #$@&%*!-ing song, talking to a handful of people, all of which claimed not to be in charge - I have now the following:

• More gray hair
• A nice car
• A new insurance company
• My freedom that comes with mobility 

So today's post is about the lucky guy that my teenage son is. Always been. In his young life, he has been having so many opportunities, and this time was no exception. 

He is a bit more than a year away from either going to the equivalent of senior high school or beginning an apprenticeship. His goal is to become a journalist. He's a bit vague on the details still, and that's OK. No need to specialize just yet.

Thanks to a nice Dad within our youth hockey community we got the name and number of the person who is the head of live sports with our national TV station. He agreed to see what he could do for Colin. 

It didn't take long, and he got an e-mail that went like this:

Thanks for your application. Because of Corona, it is still not possible to spend several trial days with us.

However, we can offer that you shadow us on March 29 for our ice hockey quarterfinal show.

If that's okay with you, you can contact me directly around 7pm. After that you may watch the show in the studio and in the control room. Be advised that you will need to arrange for your ride home after hours, if a game goes into overtime.

If that's okay with you? 

I was doing a happy dance. Of course it was okay!!!! 

Never mind it was a Tuesday night, and not only did Colin need to go to school the next day, what's worse, I needed to go to work the next day, haha.

I had prepared several scenarios for that night. There was a hotel nearby I wanted to book a room at. After dropping Colin off at the TV studio, I was going to retreat to my room and watch the game on TV. Hubby was welcome to join me or stay home. 

Or, I could take Colin to Zurich, drop him off, drive home, watch the game, go to sleep and have hubby pick him up after hours.

Either plan included to check out the nearby Burgers & Shakes restaurant.

We walked into the TV station's lobby, trying to act casually. Colin had to register on a tablet. Then we waited. "Mr F is actually expecting you, right?" the receptionist asked. 

Sure - well, we hope so. 

I had called him to confirm, but he did not seem to respond well to my charm or to my organizational approach: where do I park, are there more than one entrances, is there a vending machine if my teenager gets hungry, where will I be able to pick up my underage son after hours (I was pretty sure access badges were needed for this medium security campus.)

As we were pacing back and forth, I was wondering who within the Starbucks organization was responsible for replacing the holiday cups with regular ones... 

I was relieved when the guy (I recognized him, thanks to having him googled earlier) walked up and approached us.  "Do you want to join us?" he asked me. Seemed simpler than to deal with me about pick-up?

If you all don't mind!!

And just like that, I accompanied my son to his career day ;-) I was excited!

The guy showed us the waiting area for TV guests, the makeup room, the tech backroom, the live studio, everything. 

Then he put on his headphones and started to work. We were free to move around.

The presenter and her guest, a former hockey player (who happened to be my hubby's favourite. Too bad he didn't join us!) were reviewing the previous games and speculating what was going to happen tonight. 

A last renewal of the makeup by the makeup artist, then the game was on.

As a TV viewer, I had naively assumed that the presenter and their guest would have to spend the entire game at this uncomfortable-looking standing desk, and I felt particularly bad for this lady - Daniela - because while her hockey player guests show up in jeans, she always wears fancy clothes, and I'm not only talking about her blazer, but her very high high heels. My feet literally hurt just from thinking about it! 

Well, I hope she's OK with my letting the cat out of the bag: As soon as she's off camera, she'll slip into her comfy fuzzy slippers! What's more, they don't have to hang out at the desk. They'll  sit down in the audience area, which was were Colin and I were watching the game!

"I'm Martin" the retired hockey player introduced himself.

We know ;-)

During the regular game time, both of them were very focussed on the game. They were wearing headpieces and kept talking to the tech guys upstairs.

"Can you rewind to the face-off, no, not this one, the earlier one, when they end up losing the puck at the blue line... yes, that scene. Can you zoom in? I want to talk about that move he did."

"Wait a minute, was that a hand pass? Can you verify?"

"No way was this a penalty! He barely touched him. What a joke!"

It was interesting and fun to follow their conversations. What I found most amusing: During the first period, pretty much nothing happened game-wise. No goals, no real opportunities. Just a somewhat careful, solid game. What were they going to talk about intermission, except this one penalty? 

As they were preparing, they were speculating about one player being so skillful, dominant and able to decide the game. That player did absolutely nothing to meet these predictions, so there went that narrative ;-)

During every intermission, a tech person arrived and changed the batteries in the presenters' transmission devices. Good move. Imagine they kept talking and talking, and there was no sound! Or they would miss the announcement that commercials will be over in five seconds!

There was a small F&B buffet trolley. Soup, sandwiches, coffee, chocolate.

"Do you want some candy?" I heard Martin ask Colin, just as I was dashing around the corner to look for the bathroom. You may only exit and re-enter the studio while they're not on air.

The game ended 2:2 after three periods. Meaning they were going into overtime. It was no surprise, this encounter had been tied in previous games, too. 

The first overtime was a rinse and repeat of the first period during regulation. Nothing happened. Again, Daniela and Martin had to scramble what they were going to say during intermission. Good thing there were plenty of goals to talk about of the other game that was on! (The team we root for!) 

We found out Martin does not share our love. 

"Do you play hockey, too?" he asked Colin. "What team?" 

"Where do you live? You drive almost an hour per way to have him train there?"

For the rest of the night he kept coming up with other teams that may be a little closer, and that are way higher on his approved list ;-) We literally argued about freeways, tunnels and traffic jams. It was good fun. 

The second overtime came and went without a goal. There were no more highlights of other games to talk about. There were even no more commercials scheduled. They had absolutely nothing to talk about during this intermission, except speculations which team was more tired and therefore more likely to commit errors.

"Are there any questions from the fan community, Twitter, anything???" 

Pure desperation! 

They asked the tech guys to research "longest playoff overtime in Switzerland", and they came back saying "Three years ago, SC Bern vs Geneva Servette, the goal happened after 117 minutes and 43 seconds. Bern won." 

Good for them. Bern ended up winning the entire championship that year. We must know. Our team was their opponent in the finals :-( 

In case you're wondering... 

The world record is held by the Norwegian teams Sparta Sarpsborg and Storhamar Ishockey. In Storhamar's 2-1 away win, the winning goal came only in the eighth overtime after 217:14 minutes.

The longest hockey game in NHL history was played between the Detroit Red Wings and the Montreal Maroons in 1936. This game lasted 176 minutes until Mud Bruneteau scored the first and only goal of the game for Detroit in the sixth overtime period.

So in order to break any record, tonight's game had to go on longer, much longer!!

This is us, at midnight. I asked Colin "How long are we going to hold out? This may go on all night?" 

He looked at me, confused. "Until somebody scores, duh!"

At this point I had not even told Colin what I had arranged with his teacher: He was allowed to sleep in and go to school later the next morning. Too bad I did not have the same agreement with my boss ;-)

Soooo, in the third overtime, the 105th minute of the game, Fribourg's #5 Philippe Furrer scored!

It's at 3:25 in this clip.

Philippe Furrer is a Swiss hockey legend, and this is his last season, so I was very happy for him to have scored this game winning goal!  

Philippe was very happy, too.

"I could certainly have played two or three more periods without any problems" the 37 year old claimed in his interview.

Let's just say personally I was OK with going home at 0:45am. I am usually not very verbal at this time of day, or night, for that matter, but as we got home around 1:30am I told hubby all about our night, so by the time we got to sleep it was 2am.

For what it's worth: both Daniela and Martin - plus a number of active hockey players - have school kids, too, and they had to get up the next morning just like everybody else. 

Thank you for bearing with me through the lengthy hockey talk. 

So what do you think, am I the first Mom to chaperone her kid's career day? Would you have enjoyed a night like this?

Please don't leave before checking out my blogger friends' posts:   

                                                                                                                                                                                  

Baking In A Tornado

On the Border 

The Diary of an Alzheimer's Caregiver

Climaxed

Part-time Working Hockey Mom

PS: Today's Blogging from A - Z post on coffee is about Starbuck's mission statement - head over there and check it out!