Tuesday, February 8, 2011

Chapter 29

***Thanks ladies for all the comments, I love seeing what ya'll think! @Miranda-you said you had an idea of who she was talking to...were you right on who you thought it was? Enjoy ladies!
~J



And I turn around to see Jordan and Marc Staal standing there, disguising themselves pretty well. I run up and give Jordan a hug and say hi before he introduces us to Marc

“Where are you girls sitting?” Jordan asks
“We can either sit in the box or our seats which are right on the glass,”
“Nice! How did you score those?” Marc asks
“Well, it helps to be dating some of the players,” Savannah says
“Definitely, where are ya’ll sitting?” I ask them
“Not sure, our parents are sitting in the box,”
“Well we have extra seats next to us, if ya’ll want to sit with us,”
“Really? Sweet! You guys down?” Jordan asks his brothers
“Yeah, sounds good,”

So we make our way to our seats with the boys. They end up doing good at keeping low profiles, I thought for sure someone would recognize 2 6-foot+ guys together as the Staal brothers, but nope. We sit down right as the guys come onto the ice for warm ups, Eric and Jared are skating around and end up stopping to talk right in front of us. Yep, Jared finally had his NHL debut this season, and he has been one of the best rookies so far. We all wave to them as they skate away laughing, so we continue our conversation and wait for the game to start. There are random times that the jumbotron gives out a number for people to text and say hi or whatever when a text comes up that says,

“Pretty sure I saw one of the Staal brothers running around the arena…anyone else see them too?”

I point it out to Jordan and we all laugh, I tell them that now every single girl is going to be on the lookout. And it doesn’t help that Eric is on the ice being interviewed by Charissa Thompson, and she asks what the brothers think about it and if they are supporting him and Jared, and that’s when he opens his mouth and says that his parents are in one of the private boxes and the brothers are around the arena somewhere…now all the girls are definitely going to be looking.

“Let’s go get food,” Marc says as the scoreless 1st period ends
“Yeah, I’m starving,” Jordan adds
“Should we all go?” I ask
“Sure, why not” Jordan says as we get up
“So we should be prepared to get attacked when someone spots you?” Dayna asks
“Yeah, probably,” Marc says with a laugh

“Oh my gosh! It’s the Staal boys!” A girl, about 16 nearly screams
“And here it goes,” I say as her and a few more girls run over
“Can we take a picture with you?” They ask, of course the boys say yes
“Who are those girls, aren’t you married Marc?” another girl asks
“Yes,” he responds
“So, why are they with you?” Seriously? This girl needs to chill
“They are friends of ours,”
“Wait! She’s engaged to Toews!” one of them says, pointing to me
“Yeah, she is, now let’s take the picture, we’re hungry,” woah, Marc is a little feisty

So we get food, and make our way back to our seats after the boys got noticed a few more times. As we sit to eat and wait for the 2nd, Eric is warming up and skating right in front of us again when Jordan bangs on the glass to try and distract him, he grabs a puck and throws it over the glass right into my hands, I say thanks excitedly, just because I’m engaged to the Hawks captain doesn’t mean I have any of the game pucks.

The 2nd period starts with the Hawks opening up the scoring 2 minutes in on an amazing goal by Taylor Pyatt, to make it his 15th goal of the playoffs. The boys build off that momentum and keep up the pace, and eventually score 2 more goals, leaving the Canes in the dust going into the 2nd intermission. Crawford’s shutout bid was gone with 9 minutes left in the 3rd, with a goal by none other then Eric Staal, which made the brother’s cheer as loud as possible. That was the only goal they would score, and the Hawks went on to win the first game of the series. Jordan and Marc went to meet up with his parents and then Eric and Jared while we went down to the locker room to find our men. Jon and the guys were talking about us girls sitting with the guys, Duncan said it was a good thing the kissing cam didn’t show us, as I was the only one of us girls sitting next to the boys.

Game 2 was the same routine, the girls and I met up with the boys and they sat with us for the game again, and got spotted again by more groups of girls, and this time they were talking about us girls too

“She’s engaged to the captain, so why is she with Jordan?”
“That’s Seabrook’s girlfriend too, I mean, yeah they are the Staal’s, but Seabrook is hot,”
“And so is Taylor Pyatt, but his girlfriend is with them too,”

Those were the basics of what we heard that night, these girls are out of control. And that wasn’t all of it either; the gossip boards on the Internet were blowing up also, saying the girls and I were passing ourselves around the NHL and that we were puck sluts and the guys didn’t deserve to be treated like that. Wow, little did they know that we are simply FRIENDS with the Staal brothers…geez girls.

We were in North Carolina and game day had arrived, the boys were focused more then ever. Jordan was the only one here for these games; Marc had gone back to Thunder Bay to take care of his pregnant wife. We had met Linda and Henry back in Chicago and they were nice enough to let us join them in the box for the games there, so we walked up with them and met Tanya and Parker as well. After a hard fought 60 minutes of playing, the first overtime was set to start with the score even at 4. With 2 minutes left, we were about to prepare ourselves for another 20 minutes when the Canes scored to win game 3. We said bye to the Staal family and headed down to the visitors locker room to meet up with the boys.

Jon and the guys were still in good spirits and had good confidence about this going into game 4, so after they had morning skate on their off day, they joined us at the pool to relax.

“I think we can take it in game 5,” Taylor says as were all sitting in the hot tub
“No, I think we’ll go to game 6,” Duncan says
“I’m going to agree with Taylor, you guys will get them at home after tomorrow,” I say
“Yeah, I’m with Jamie and Taylor on that one,” Kelly says
“Me too! Last time we won the cup on the visitors ice, this time we need to win it on our ice, in front of our home crowd,” Jon says

After spending about 2 hours in the hot tub and pool, we all go up to our rooms to get ready for dinner when my phone starts ringing, its Jordan

“Hey Jordan,” I say
“Hey, have you seen the newspaper today?” he asks
“Um no, I don’t think we get one at the hotel,” I say
“Well there should be some at the front desk, go get one,”
“Why, what’s going on?” I ask, now worried
“There’s a guy out here that writes the worst articles, he’s like the Rob Rossi of North Carolina, so he writes whatever he wants, and he’s bashing on us hanging out with you girls at the games, like hard core,”
“Are you kidding me?” I say as Jon walks out of the bathroom, so I tell him what Jordan told me
“No, it’s so stupid to think that this guy knows what he’s talking about,”
“Ugh, this is not going to be good if Jon’s agent gets wind of this,”
“I know, so go get the paper, tell Jon to call his agent so this doesn’t get out of hand, ok?”
“I’ll get it taken care of, thanks Jordan,”
“No problem, I’ll see you tomorrow,”

I tell Jon what Jordan told me and he calls Pat right as I’m walking out the door to go to the lobby to get a copy of the newspaper. And there it is, on the 3rd page of the first section is a picture of me, Dayna and Savannah walking with Jordan at yesterdays game, with the headline stating

“Hawks fiancĂ© and girlfriends spotted with Jordan Staal at game 3 of the Stanley Cup Finals. Their men are on the ice while they are fondling the Staal boys? Word is they all sat together at the first two games in Chicago. They sure do get around the NHL, spending time with their significant others off the ice, and fellow NHL players during the games”

Are you kidding me?? We get around the NHL? Oh hell no! And it goes on too, saying that we were getting friendly with the Staal family and seen chatting with them after games 1 and 2 back home, oh it’s bad.

I get back up to the room and show the article to Jon, while he is on the phone with Pat, and send a text to the girls telling them to come to Jon’s room so they could see the paper too. The girls show up together while Jon is still on the phone, so we quietly talk about it while we see if Pat says anything.

“It isn’t going around Chicago, but people are talking about it in Pittsburgh. He knows that your friends with Jordan so it didn’t really surprise him to see this happen, but he’s in Chicago, and he thinks that a statement should be released, but something small to put in the CST’s and possibly on the NHL website. J, call Diana and see if something can be scheduled tomorrow,” Jon says
“Ok,” I say as I dial her number

“She said that’s a good idea, that we don’t need this bad press during the playoffs, so do you want to call Pat back and see what we should do now, and if Pat sends the press release to Diana, she will get it to the NHL website” I tell Jon as I join the girls on the bed

“Here, Pat wants to talk to you,” Jon says after talking for a few minutes
“Hello?” I say
“Hi, Jamie, how’s it going?” he asks
“Pretty good, until I saw this,”
“Well, I have to tell you that I have dealt with this guy before, he’s a beat reporter who thinks he’s hot stuff and he’s really not. One of my clients actually sued him before for invasion of privacy and publishing an article pretty similar to this one,”
“Oh wow, so this guy knows how to get under peoples skin,”
“Exactly, he’s Raleigh’s Rob Rossi, he will write whatever he wants and pisses off so many people,”
“Yeah, Jordan said the exact same thing,”
“Yeah, so I know you are probably busy with the game, so I will put something together for the newspaper, and if I can get it to NHL.com, I will. Is there anything specific you want me to say?”
“Just that it’s not true, Jon knows that Jordan and I are friends, and they are friends too,”
“Ok, yeah I knew that, I’ll say too that you guys met when the Pens were in Chicago a while back,”
“Thanks Pat, oh and Diana said that if you send her the final copy, she can get it to NHL.com”
“No problem, ok that would be great, I’ll send it to you guys so you can read it before I send it in, and feel free to add anything if you want, then just send it back to me”
“Sounds good,”
“Ok, I’ll be talking to you guys soon, I’ll probably see you guys for game 5,”
“Ok, talk to you later,”

Jon goes to talk to coach Q also, because knowing he reads the paper, he saw the article. He wasn’t mad, surprisingly enough, but he knew Pat pretty well so he trusted things would get taken care of and that Jon wouldn’t lose focus. Between coach Q and Pat, they recommended we be discreet about being at the game the next night, and to take any back ways possible up to the box where we will be sitting again.

And that is exactly what we did. We went to the arena on the team bus but sat in the very back and waited until the boys were off the bus and inside and all the reporters were gone before we snuck into the building. Although this time, we sat in the owners box with Stan and Diana, which was next to the box where the Staal’s were sitting. We cheered for the boys even though no one would hear us from way up in the box but it was fun. The boys won the game 6-2 and were ready to get back home for game 5.

Getting back home took forever it felt like, but we finally made it, and we saw the article that Pat wrote and sent to the Chicago newspaper, and Diana was in the process of getting it sent to NHL.com

“In reference to an article in the local North Carolina newspaper, a few of the Blackhawks significant others were accused of being with the Staal players during the games and watched them with the middle brothers, while the other brothers took on the Hawks in the Stanley Cup Finals. This is completely false, as the girls involved in this accusation are hurt to see that this is being said about them. A few of the Hawks players are friends with the Staal boys. They have backed the boys and these young ladies, saying they all trust each other and know nothing like that would ever happen. Please disregard what was said about the girls and respect the privacy of these girls as they watch the finals with their friends. Thank you.”

3 comments:

  1. AMAZINGGGGGGGGGGG!!!!!!!!! as always

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  2. I like the Drama!! keep it up!

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  3. I can't wait for the wedding!!!!! Great story so far

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