It's not often that a small town journalist gets a chance to go to the pros and mingle with the best in the business, but last week I put on my big-boy pants and attended an Edmonton Oilers game as a member of the media.
Minnesota was in town and Wild rookie Justin Fontaine, who was born and raised in Bonnyville, was making his Rexall Place debut.
I jumped at the opportunity to cover the NHL and acquired single-game media accreditation for the game.
The day started off by taking in the Wild morning skate, which was followed by media scrums in the team's dressing room.
Players tend to take their time in the dressing room after practice, which allowed me to grab players for several one-on-one interviews.
I walked straight over to Fontaine, introduced myself and asked for five-minutes of his time. He was more than happy to answer all my questions and was a great guy to talk to.
After grabbing the main interview for my story, I started to think about who else in the room I could talk to. It was at that moment it hit me. I was in the Wild locker room. Ryan Suter was 10 feet in front of me. Zach Parise and Mikael Granlund (Olympic bronze medalist with Finland) had huge media scrums surrounding them just a few feet to my right.
Even though I managed to keep myself calm and collected on the outside, I was absolutely freaking out on the inside. It was a surreal moment, as a young journalist.
After the scrum dissipated from Parise's stall, I approached him and told him about the story I was working on. He was more than happy to answers some specific questions about Fontaine and even tossed in a joke, taking a shot at the moustache Fontaine grew for Movember.
Taking in the game from press row high atop Rexall Place was also an amazing experience. The view is great and the few fellow journalists I spoke to were awesome people.
After the game I experienced what it is like when a team is playing the first of back-to-back games. The Wild locker room opened, but because the team was flying to Vancouver right after the game, all of the players were busy doing other things.
After a ton of waiting, I was able to get a quick interview with Fontaine and then stand in on a post-game scrum with Wild head coach Mike Yeo.
I found it surprisingly easy to put away my "fan mentality" for the day, suit up and act like I belonged with the best reporters in the business.
Rubbing elbows with the pro's showed me that my goal of becoming a professional sports writer is not that far away. After getting a glimpse of what it's like covering a NHL game, I am even more determined to get there full-time and do it on a daily basis.
