Not really sure how many of you even care to read this, but recently I was asked to be a media timeout ice scraper for the Evansville Icemen. Now i'm guessing some of you have done this as well, but it was a really unique and cool experience I thought i'd share.
Now in order to understand how cool this was for me, I first need to tell you that I've been a hockey fan my whole life, I was born in Central Pennsylvania and baptized into the Penguins fandom since I can remember. When my family moved to Central Indiana I was the only hockey fan within 100 miles it felt like. No one knew about hockey and no one cared.
So when I came to school in Evansville I joined the local hockey league despite never ice skating before. Since my first game in January of this year I've gotten much better and even moved up to the intermediate league for this fall season.
Now i'd been to a few hockey games, Fort Wayne Komets, Evansville Icemen, St. Louis Blues, and one game in Pittsburgh. and I always wondered how people got jobs like that to be able to skate on the ice and shovel the snow or put the nets in place etc. Now i'm not sure how most people get those jobs, but in my case the head Public Relations guy for the Evansville Icemen was playing in our hockey league and asked if anyone was available to help out. I of course jumped at the opportunity.
Anyway when game time rolled around I was escorted behind the scenes at the Ford Center in Evansville, shown our locker room and laced up my skates. After watching the game for awhile at floor level I was given a brief run through of what to do, because I had no idea. Apparently my job was to tell the players to get out of my way and shovel around the boards. The players apparently by ECHL rule have to listen. So I got to tell professional hockey players to move out of my way during their game. All of them including the visiting Cincinnati Cyclones were extremely polite and personable. Granted I didn't have a whole conversation with any of them, but for it being a heated and close game the players were very cool.
The part that I'll remember most vividly was in the 3rd period when an Icemen player was injured on the play, as I'm skating in front of the benches telling players to move one of the Icemen and I don't know who, tells me to stop. I was so focused on just trying to get it done and off the ice I wasn't even looking up to realize I almost ran into the injured player coming off the ice. I apologized to him and the player that told me to stop and he gave me a love tap with the stick as I skated by.
I was also able to go into the Icemen locker room while the players were on the ice, which was pretty cool as well.
Anyway I just thought I'd share a pretty neat experience and I hope I get the chance to do it again sometime.
Hope I didn't bore you all to much.
GO ICEMEN!
Now in order to understand how cool this was for me, I first need to tell you that I've been a hockey fan my whole life, I was born in Central Pennsylvania and baptized into the Penguins fandom since I can remember. When my family moved to Central Indiana I was the only hockey fan within 100 miles it felt like. No one knew about hockey and no one cared.
So when I came to school in Evansville I joined the local hockey league despite never ice skating before. Since my first game in January of this year I've gotten much better and even moved up to the intermediate league for this fall season.
Now i'd been to a few hockey games, Fort Wayne Komets, Evansville Icemen, St. Louis Blues, and one game in Pittsburgh. and I always wondered how people got jobs like that to be able to skate on the ice and shovel the snow or put the nets in place etc. Now i'm not sure how most people get those jobs, but in my case the head Public Relations guy for the Evansville Icemen was playing in our hockey league and asked if anyone was available to help out. I of course jumped at the opportunity.
Anyway when game time rolled around I was escorted behind the scenes at the Ford Center in Evansville, shown our locker room and laced up my skates. After watching the game for awhile at floor level I was given a brief run through of what to do, because I had no idea. Apparently my job was to tell the players to get out of my way and shovel around the boards. The players apparently by ECHL rule have to listen. So I got to tell professional hockey players to move out of my way during their game. All of them including the visiting Cincinnati Cyclones were extremely polite and personable. Granted I didn't have a whole conversation with any of them, but for it being a heated and close game the players were very cool.
The part that I'll remember most vividly was in the 3rd period when an Icemen player was injured on the play, as I'm skating in front of the benches telling players to move one of the Icemen and I don't know who, tells me to stop. I was so focused on just trying to get it done and off the ice I wasn't even looking up to realize I almost ran into the injured player coming off the ice. I apologized to him and the player that told me to stop and he gave me a love tap with the stick as I skated by.
I was also able to go into the Icemen locker room while the players were on the ice, which was pretty cool as well.
Anyway I just thought I'd share a pretty neat experience and I hope I get the chance to do it again sometime.
Hope I didn't bore you all to much.
GO ICEMEN!
