Ever since early December when the Edmonton Oilers announced that they were going to host a weekend hockey clinic in Bonnyville, I have been fantasizing about what player might come to town.
There were days where I was optimistic and thought about meeting Taylor Hall, Ryan Nugent-Hopkins or Jordan Eberle and days were I was pessimistic and assumed they would just bring Luke Gazdic or Jeff Petry – with no offense intended to Gazdic or Petry, of course.
As many of you know, the Oilers stepped up in a big way this past weekend and brought star forward Ryan Nugent-Hopkins to Bonnyville. As soon as I heard “the Nuge” was coming to town I got pretty excited at the opportunity of being able to interview him. But, as it turned out, this opportunity almost passed me by.
I went over to the Centennial Center early on Friday evening with the intention of tracking down an Oilers public relations worker and setting up the interview. After tracking down the official PR guy I was told that, “I should have set up an interview in advance” and that he “didn't know if I would be able to interview Nugent-Hopkins.”
I was blown back by this remark. I understood how big of a celebrity Nugent-Hopkins would be in Bonnyville, but never thought the process for getting an interview with him would be this difficult. Confused, I mulled around the C2 for a while, trying to grasp the fact that I might not get the interview I had been waiting for. After a few minutes my mindset changed. This was a great opportunity; I wasn't going to let anything stop me from getting this interview, especially a PR guy.
About twenty minutes later another PR guy came out and informed the two radio DJs (who apparently set up interviews in advance) that they would be interviewing Nugent-Hopkins in a private back room. So, I did what any good reporter would do and followed them in.
Ten more minutes passed before Nugent-Hopkins, accompanied by the PR guy, entered the back room. As soon as the PR guy looked at me I gave him the, “you are going to have to physically drag me out of this room if you don't want me here” stare - at least that's the stare I was going for. He responded with a “make it quick, we are behind schedule,” look and closed the door.
I got the interview with Ryan Nugent-Hopkins. I put myself in the right place to get the job done. So when you are reading the generic “I enjoy visiting small towns” quote from Nugent-Hopkins, know that it wasn't just a generic effort to get it.
