Film Strips and Hockey Sticks

Chapter 2

  Hannah's first outing with the Penguin's was at the end of September when they visited West Point for some team bonding, or something. She had already been to a few of their practices and had a bit of interaction with the players, but she had only talked to a few of them. The one person who was interviewed most, Sid, didn't need her help before interviews, so she mostly stood next to the cameraman and tried not to get in the way.

For their trip to West Point, she was instructed to "dress nicely." So Hannah wore her nicest pair of Converse, a skirt (covered in flowers), and a somewhat decent shirt. When her supervisor asked her to change, she said she hadn't brought any clothes more formal than that. The next day she wore shorts and a tee-shirt with sandals, and eventually took the sandals off to film them playing football against some of the West Point guys. It was kind of fun to see them doing something other than hockey, and even though she knew less about football than hockey, Hannah thought they did pretty well.

Hannah had a lot of fun that weekend, much more than she had expected to. She was starting to think the guys were not as stuck up and snobbish as she had thought all professional athletes were. This made things a lot easier for her as the pre-season started and she had to work with the players more. The player Hannah worked with the most was still Sid and she ended up talking to Brandon Sutter, the guy assigned to sit next Sid, while waiting for Crosby's interviews to start. She knew Brandon a little, so she just sat between them and talked until the camera's and stuff were ready for the interview.

On one occasion she decided to fix Sid's hair for him before he went on camera because it always looked horrible, or he covered it up with a hat.

"I'm just going to adjust this a bit..." she said as she started to rearrange his sweaty hair.

He looked up at her, a bit surprised that she was touching him.

"It's okay, I'm a professional." She explained and kept touching his hair. "Well, not a professional, but I did take a theater hair and makeup class in college."

She stepped back to look at it and smiled, satisfied with the results. Sid, however, was still staring at her, as were a few other guys.

"I'm sorry, should I not have done that?" She asked sarcastically.

"Ummm, it's not a problem, I just wasn't expecting it, and my hair is pretty gross..." he trailed off, still surprised.

"Yes, your hair kind of gross, but it looked terrible and I hate to see you cover it up with that hat again," she crossed her arms as she tried to make her point.

"You should help Nealer with his hair."

Hannah turned to see who said that; Pascal Dupuis, or as the guys call him, Duper, was always picking on James Neal for obsessing with his hair.

"I'd be okay with that," replied James from across the room.

"If that's what you guys want, I can help you fix your hair before interviews," Hannah announced, not really thinking anyone would want that.

But apparently they did, and her boss Mike added it to her list of responsibilities. As she left his office she laughed to herself that she was yet again assigned to do something way under her expertise. However, this new assignment sounded pretty fun, although a little gross. Maybe she should start wearing latex gloves, like doctors do, so she wouldn't have to touch their nasty post-game/practice hair.

Hannah tried that, but gloves and hair do not mix.

"Oww," Brandon said as Hannah ran her gloved fingers through his hair. "It's like you're pulling my hair out."

"I'm sorry, I thought gloves would be more hygienic or something," she replied taking them off. "They're really hard to wear anyways, because my hands are too small for them. Is this what it's like wearing a condom?"

Hannah's question threw him, and the guys around him, off. However, they would soon learn that Hannah was not shy at all when it came to sex, or any other topic people don't normally talk about at work.

"Do you really want me to answer that?" Brandon asked as she continued to make his hair look somewhat presentable.

Hannah smiled and knew she was going to like him. "If you want to."

"Hannah, we need help with the Malkin interview." She was called across the room to assist with what she referred to as the 'B team' of the camera crew. The 'A team' got to do Sid and other important people; the 'B team' was used for things (or people) that either didn't matter as much or were lower priority, like acquiring stock footage. Normally Malkin would be considered an 'A team' interviewee, but today it seemed like everyone was getting an interview with the upcoming start of the regular season.

"What's wrong?" She asked the two struggling cameramen.

"Um, we're not really sure, but this red light is flashing on the camera, and it won't focus," Jack, the shorter of the two, explained.

"Did you take the lens cap off?" Hannah asked, having zero patience for Jack's inability to complete simple tasks.

"Yes, and we made sure it wasn't the battery, like it was last time," this time, it was Bryan, the slightly more intelligent of the two, who responded. They probably weren't as dumb as Hannah liked to think, but she felt like they made the stupidest mistakes that any average person could avoid.

She opened the control panel on the side of the camera and pushed a few buttons and the red light went off. She looked through the viewfinder to see if the focus was better, and it was, however, she noticed Geno's unruly hair.

"Geno, we need to do something about this," she said as she approached him with a towel. Hannah had found that drying their hair with a towel first made it easier, and less gross, to work with.

After running the towel through his hair she started to style it a bit.

"You fix camera?" he asked her.

"Yes, I fixed the camera," she said and continued to mess with his hair. "We need to work on that, Geno; your use of pronouns, articles, and the correct verb tense."

"What?"

"You're grammar is bad. But it's okay, I can help you if you want. After all, I'm supposed to make sure you're ready to be interviewed, I guess that could include helping you with your English."

He stared at her for a minute, "I know English not good, but I try."

"I know you do, but I want to help you. For example, 'I'm score' should be 'I scored.' I know that's like your trademark or something, but can we try that today? If something already happened, put 'ed' at the end of it to show past tense."

"If already happeneded?" She was pretty sure he had no idea what she was talking about.

"That's close, but not quite. Just slow down and think about it, okay?" Hannah asked as the reporters were getting ready. Geno nodded, and she moved out of the way so they could ask him questions. She stayed by the camera to see how he did, and he started out okay, but soon forgot what she had told him. It's like being in front of the camera made him forget how to make sentences, which is understandable for anyone.

After Geno, Hannah moved on to someone else who did not speak English as a first language.

"So, Olli Maatta, where are you from?" She asked as she started toweling off his hair.

"Finland."

"And how old are you, like 12? 13?" She asked and continued to arrange his blond spiky hair.

"19," he laughed, "I just turned 19 last month."

"19? For real?" She looked down at his baby faced features and his light blue eyes and pale skin, that was somehow paler than hers. "I don't believe you. I think you're lying about your age so you can play in the NHL and you have a counterfeit birth certificate to cover up the fact that you're actually 15."

He smiled and shook his head, but didn't say anything.

"So, this is your first grown-up interview, are you ready?" She asked.

"I think so; I've done interviews before, just not with the NHL."

"At least you can speak English well. Do they teach that in school in Finland?"

"Yeah, I had to take a couple years of English, but I've also been living in London for a while."

"England?" Hannah asked with an excited smile, she loved Great Britain and anything British.

"No, London Ontario," Olli replied with a laugh.

"Oh," Hannah was visibly disappointed. "And you were probably there to play hockey, right?"

He nodded.

She looked over her shoulder at the group of reporters traveling around with their microphones and recorders. "They will be over here in a couple of minutes, so why don't we get started." She sat down next to him to look over her notes and he turned a bit so he could face her a little more.

"Okay, they're going to ask you how you like playing in the 'big leagues' (their words, not mine) and what it's like to play with guys like Sid and Geno, blah blah blah... This part is boring, so we'll skip it." She turned the page to try to find something more interesting. "'How are you fitting in with the other D-men?' That's actually a good question, let's try that one."

He gave a very generic answer, and she knew he probably didn't need her help.

"That was excellent, we have time for one more question. 'Has fellow Finnish Penguin Jussi Jokinen reached out to you in any way since you started playing in Pittsburgh?' Who writes these; that question was horribly worded." She looked over the notes she was given on each player that included a list of questions they might get asked.

Olli laughed, but he answered the question pretty well.

"Dude, you're a pro. Just remember to relax, and slow down when you answer, don't talk too fast," Hannah gave him one last encouraging smile as she got out of the way and a camera was positioned in front of him. She stayed to watch to make sure he did okay, and gave him a thumbs-up and a smile every time he glanced at her.

Okay, so he still needed a bit of work, but Hannah had a feeling Olli would see a fair amount of interviews over the course of the season, and that she'd be seeing him a lot more.

Actually, Hannah had a lot of interesting feelings about Olli, and most of them were confusing so she ignored them. Right now she needed to focus on the beginning of the regular season, not Olli Maatta's cute face and blue eyes, his adorable shy smile, among other things.  

A/N: Want to keep reading? http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00Z7DW6JS?*Version*=1&*entries*=0