Hockey Is My Boyfriend: Part Three (19 page)

M
y first day
of work felt a lot like the first day at a new school. I was even wearing all new clothes. I looked nice, and hopefully I had removed every price tag.

Everything on the television side was nicer. The reception area was bigger and cooler, there were more people bustling around, and everyone looked slicker here than in the radio area.

The receptionist was a slim redhead who I knew a little from my own receptionist days, but she seemed not to recognize me now. “Kelly, Mr. Williams is ready for you now. Straight down the hall, he’s in the corner office.”

Brendan Williams was the Pacific Bureau Chief. C2C Sports was divided into four regions, and he ran our television division. None of the offices here were huge, since most people worked in the bullpen when they weren’t in the studio or on location. But his office had a real door and a view of the parking lot beside the building.

I walked in. He was busy on the phone and motioned for me to sit down. He was a middle-aged, balding guy who looked like he might have been an athlete at one time, but had since let everything slide.

Finally, he hung up and looked at me over his glasses.

“So, you’re my new reporter.”

“Yes. I’m Kelly Tanaka.” Duh, he knew that, of course. But it seemed weird that we hadn’t introduced ourselves.

“I can see here that you have extensive broadcast experience: three months as a radio producer and a car commercial. Am I forgetting anything?”

It wasn’t like I had ever lied about my experience, but I felt instantly guilty. However, I didn’t want to back down completely. “I have a university degree in Communications, and I know a lot about hockey. I’ve played for years.”

“Ah yes, a university degree in Communications. Well, let me communicate very clearly with you here. Ross Laurie may have some kind of hard-on for your pretty face and hot little ass, but I actually have to put programming on the air, and I certainly don’t appreciate having to hire you over the hundreds of more qualified candidates out there. I have to give you a chance, so I will. But believe me, I will be watching for you to screw up and as soon as you do—you’re out—no matter what Laurie may say.”

“That seems clear enough,” I replied. Wow, only a few minutes ago I was looking forward to this job.

“Okay, that’s it for now. Report to Bob Bernhardt, your unit director, and start working. Or as close as you can get to working.”

It didn’t seem like “thank you” or even “good bye” were necessary here, so I slunk out of his office.

Bob Bernhardt was not around, and since I didn’t even have a desk yet, I made my way to H.R. where I knew there would be paperwork. On the way back, I ran into Arthur Kim. He would know exactly what was going on. I pulled him into the stairwell. “Talk to me. Why am I getting shafted on my first day on the job?”

“Oh my God, Kelly, I just found out this morning, or I would have given you a heads-up. Brendan Williams hates Ross Laurie, because they were both up for a job in Toronto. Laurie got the job, and Williams got shipped out here. Laurie’s been promoted twice since then and now he’s—well, you know what he is.”

“So, Williams is taking his resentment out on me?”

“Oh yes. He figures if you screw up, it’ll show that Laurie has terrible judgement. Williams told everyone that he’s looking for a reason to get rid of you—so watch your back. They’ve already started an office pool on what day you’re getting fired.”

“What? You can’t be serious.”

Arthur nodded. “Most of the bets are under one month. Someone even has today.”

“That’s cruel. I didn’t force myself into this job—it was the network president’s idea.”

“Kelly, you have to admit—your résumé is a little thin.”

“I know. But I got the hang of Ruby’s job in no time.”

“Being a radio producer is not like being an on-air reporter. Lots of people would kill to be on-air.”

“Awesome, so half the people want me to get fired so they can have my job, and half want me to get fired so they can win money. Have I got that straight?”

Arthur patted my arm sympathetically. “More than half.”

And getting fired wouldn’t just mean going back to the radio side. There was a temporary producer in my place, and Ruby was back in two months. Everyone loved Gloria, our adorable new receptionist. So if I got turfed here, I was shit out of luck. I’d have to save every extra penny. Who knew when my rainy day might come? This was Vancouver, after all.

I
t was pretty
hard to believe that things could go downhill after that great start to my job, but they actually did. For the first time in my life, I was typed as a slut. Seriously, a girl who had never even dated until Grade 12, and had biblically known only three guys in her life, was now a slut.

According to the grapevine, I had given blowjobs to Ross Laurie of such high quality that he had vaulted me to my new career as on air talent. Furthermore, I was forced into this job after my career as a puck bunny failed when James Frechette dumped me without the millions I was hoping for, even though I was such a sexpert. Honestly, high school was bad for gossip, but it had nothing on a television station full of frustrated middle-aged men with great imaginations. Apparently women were only good for one thing—two, if you counted the b.j.s.

I was being left to sink or swim—all by myself. Given how little I knew about television broadcasting, it seemed pretty sure that I would sink. I wasn’t qualified, but I thought I could do the job if given an opportunity. But all my opportunities would have to be earned by hard work and determination. Good thing I’d always supported lost causes.

Bob Bernhardt, my boss, was almost nice to me. The direction from Toronto was that I had to be on-air, doing hockey. The direction from Williams was to minimize my presence. Since these two directives contradicted each other, Bernhardt decided that I should begin by training. However he didn’t have time to invent a training program, so he gave me clerical work or sent me to watch other people doing their jobs. Since these people were stressed out and overworked, being a useless observer wasn’t making me popular. I kept offering to help and getting turned down. After all, Williams had already decreed I was shark bait.

But I wasn’t going to take this lying down. I figured that every day I lasted was one more day of experience that I could put on my résumé. H.R. had outlined my employment terms and my probationary period was three months. At any time before February 15th, I could be fired without cause or even termination pay. But if I lasted until then, it became harder to get rid of me.

If they weren’t going to train me, I’d train myself. Watching and not being able to ask questions turned out to be a great way to learn. The TV division was like radio on steroids, and there were many more layers of technical guys here. Fortunately for me, most of them belonged to unions, and they didn’t really care what Williams thought since he had little power over them. They hated being bothered when a broadcast was going on, but in the quiet times they were more than happy to answer all my dumb questions.

I worked long hours for someone who wasn’t actually doing anything, and once I got home, I went to work too. If I got any kind of assignment, I researched the details carefully, because I knew everyone would be jumping on any error. I recorded videos of myself and figured out how I could project better and look more relaxed. I watched broadcasters from other networks to see what I could improve upon. I took April’s makeup advice so I could look camera-ready in five minutes. Maybe I did get a break because of genetics, so I might as well stop fighting it and appear attractive on camera. While I wasn’t philosophically on board with being the cute sports girl, someday I might get to ask questions that showed I knew the sport and thus dispel some stereotypes at the same time.

One thing that had impressed me about Jimmy was how hard he worked. He practiced and prepared harder than anyone I had ever met, and then he was ready when his chances came. Many players who got drafted in the first round never fulfilled their promise. My opportunity was now and I was going to work my ass off to take advantage of it.

All I did was work. Oh, of course I worked out too; I needed to relieve all my stress. I managed to catch every Organ Donor game and even two practices. They were now in second to last place! And I circled February 15th on my calendar and crossed my fingers. Or I would have crossed them if I had a free moment.

A
fter only three
weeks of “training,” Bernie gave up and decided to throw me into the fire. But we both knew I wasn’t ready yet and he didn’t want to lower our programming quality, so he chose my assignments carefully. Any hockey event that nobody was interested in, I got to cover. Rink maintenance, minor hockey stuff, fundraisers, old-timer tournaments, heart-warming kid stories, crazed fans—I got them all. But never the Canucks, of course, and even important junior hockey stories went to someone else. But since I was taking up part of the salary pool, Bernie wanted content he could at least run during the hours that nobody was watching.

Although we were supposed to rotate and work with different cameramen, I usually ended up with the same guy, Zack McConnell. He was a nice guy, but a stoner who couldn’t always be relied upon to perform properly. Luckily, given the calibre of stories we were doing, filming quality was never an issue.

One morning, Zack and I were driving out to Langley in the C2C Sports van.

“Well, Zack, I think this story may be a new low—even for me.”

“Coolio. What’s shaking?”

“We are interviewing a dog who plays hockey. I have to ask, did anyone actually do these stories before I got here? Or have they been saving them up?”

“No clue,” he replied. I wondered if he was stoned right now. If so, I should be driving the van.

“Zack, did you do something wrong to get stuck working with the station pariah?”

“Who’s that?”

“Me.”

That puzzled him for a bit. “Oh hey, well, I guess it was the video.”

“What video?” Talking to him took patience.

“Well, I filmed my girlfriend and I doing it, you know, doggy-style.”

“And?” I wanted to get that image out of my mind as quickly as possible. Zack was about 5’10” and 130 pounds of snow-whiteness.

“I accidentally handed that video in, when we were, you know, doing the highlights of the Giants’ game.”

“And they ran it?”

“Yeah, nobody checked it first. Sandy announced, ‘In WHL action tonight, the Giants came from behind to dominate the Cougars, and here are the highlights.’ And then they, you know, ran the video.”

I was cracking up, and Zack chuckled too.

“You must have gotten a lot of complaints.”

“Well, hey, actually that was the weird part, we didn’t get any. Probably why I didn’t get fired, right? I figured our viewers were the kind of guys who pay to see that shit, you know?”

More likely we didn’t have any viewers awake at that time. And I would pay a lot not to see Zack’s skinny white butt.

We got to the Langley farmhouse with the canine Gretzky. The whole family was waiting for us: Walter, Dorothy, and Bandit the golden retriever. They were very excited about being on TV.

“Oh, the kids wanted to be here too, but they had to work,” Dorothy explained. She had cookies and coffee ready for us, which was very sweet. Zack inhaled the food.

“I hope you’re not disappointed, Dot,” said Walter.

“Shush up,” she said and blushed pink.

“Dot was hoping that they would send Jeremy Ormiston. She thinks he’s quite the looker.” Jeremy was the top reporter at the station. I could not imagine his expression if he were asked to spend three hours on the road to interview a dog.

“Jeremy has to work the Canucks game tonight,” I explained.

“I don’t believe we’ve seen you on TV before, dear,” said Dorothy.

Most people who slept at night hadn’t. I smiled brightly.

“You’ll have to let us know when this will be on, so we can let everyone know.”

“Gosh, Dorothy, it probably won’t be on during prime time hours. But I will tell you so you can record it.”

Walter had created a mini-rink in his basement with painted-on lines and two small nets. Bandit had actually been trained to carry a mini-stick in his mouth, but he did most of the puck handling with his front paws. It was very cute to see him moving the puck down and score a goal. I hoped like hell that Zack was getting good video. Last week, when I interviewed this little girl who had raised money for Canucks Place, the tops of our heads weren’t even in the frame.

I asked Dorothy and Walter some questions about how Bandit first started doing this, and how they had trained him. I was wrapping things up when she interrupted me.

“Kelly, would you like to play hockey with Bandit?”

“Me?”

“Yes, he loves it when someone gets down on the floor with him. Walter would do it, but his knees are so arthritic.”

I checked out Dorothy’s knees, they looked fine but she didn’t seem inclined to kneel down either. Zack smiled vaguely, but that was his normal reaction to everything.

“Um, okay. What does he like to do?”

“You could play goal,” suggested Walter. “Try to keep him from scoring. He loves that.”

I took off my jacket and rolled up my sleeves. Was there no end to the glamour in my life?

Walter handed me a mini-stick. Bandit did seem to perk up as soon as I got down to his level and got into position. He started to growl softly and circled the puck away from me.

“C’mon, Bandit,” I said. “Show me what you’ve got.”

He came straight in and pushed the puck towards the left side of the net. I flicked out the mini-stick and made the save. The puck hit the far wall and Bandit looked surprised. Well, as surprised as a golden retriever with a mini-stick in his mouth could look. My reflexes must have been faster than Walter’s.

Dorothy urged him on and Bandit took another attempt, on my right this time, but I saved that as well. I wondered if I was being too competitive, and I should let the dog score—like you would with a small child. But Walter found it quite funny and laughed loudly.

“Golly, Bandit. Looks like you met your match.”

The dog dropped the stick and picked up the puck in his mouth. He eyed me and made a mad dash. Maybe he was trying to go five-hole, but since I was kneeling on the ground there was no five-hole. 75 pounds of dog velocity hit me and knocked me onto the floor. As I fell, my mini-stick came up and whacked him in the nose. Bandit started whining pitifully, and Dorothy dashed over.

“Bandit! Are you okay? Did the mean lady hurt you? My poor baby.”

Walter and Zack ran over too. I looked up at them through the mesh of the tipped plastic net. Walter pointed down like a ref. “Goal.” And Zack was filming the whole thing.

A
ny hopes
I had that the whole embarrassing ending of that video would not be seen by my coworkers were dashed the next day. As I walked to my desk, someone went, “Woof!” Then someone on the other side of the bullpen yelped.

“Has everyone seen the tape?” I wondered aloud. They all replied by barking. I realized they were all mocking me, but I had seen the playback and it was funny. And if looking like an idiot was a reason to get fired, a lot of people would be in trouble.

I laughed along with them. It wasn’t like we were all going to be friends, but I think people were softening. I was working hard and I wasn’t afraid to laugh at myself. And after that, my new nickname became Doggy-style. It wasn’t perfect, but it was marginally better than BJ.