I Couldn't Be More Afraid
I Can't Believe I Won
I had probably thrown every article of clothing from my closet to the floor in my bedroom. I went through pile after pile and every suitcase that was left unpacked from when I came home from college in May. I just had to find it; it was the only thing I wanted to wear that night.
It had been over six months since I last wore my Ranger jersey. It couldn't be anywhere in my apartment other than in those unpacked suitcases. I called my mother to see if it was at her house, but still nothing.
I remembered vividly the last time I wore that jersey…it was April 11 and I was sitting in my dorm room with my friend Scott. Scott was a diehard Flyers fan and at Drexel University, I was in the minority as a Ranger fan. Throughout college, Scott and I have a love/hate relationship and much of it involved our hockey fandoms. We often watched games together and argued over our teams and calls the refs made. I had a crush on Scott throughout all 4 years of college, even when I dated other guys. On the night before graduation, I admitted my feelings to him and he decided that was the end of our friendship. However, on April 11, when his team won the shoot out crushing the Rangers’ playoff dreams, he ended our angry trash talking by pulling off my jersey for our usual amazing hate sex. I hadn’t worn my jersey since.
I continued to scour my room for the next half hour until I found a royal blue ball at the bottom of a suitcase…it still smelled a little like Scott. I had to get ready because my best friend, Kim would be at my house within the next 15 minutes to take the train into the City to watch the Rangers take on the Maple Leafs. I wanted to look perfect, but I was running low on time. I threw my jersey on over the tank top I had already been wearing and moved on to my hair. I ran mousse through my naturally wavy light brown hair creating loose curls and then applied a small amount of black eyeliner, mascara, and neutral toned shadow to my blue eyes. The doorbell rang as I was happy with how I looked; it was a hockey game, not a club so I just wanted to look nice. Kim was waiting for me in her royal blue Marian Gaborik player tee. I yelled goodbye to my parents, checked my bag again for the tickets, and I headed out the door.
----
One week earlier…I was sitting at my computer chatting with friend and killing time before I had to be at work when I saw a tweet from the New York Rangers official Twitter. “RT to enter to win free tix and meet and greet for next Saturday’s NYR v. TOR at MSG #nyrangers” Although I never won anything, I retweeted anyway. I didn’t care as much about the meet and greet as I did about the tickets. I worked at a restaurant as a server and bartender, depending on the shift, and didn’t really make enough money to buy seats at MSG.
Three days later, the contest had come to an end and I received a message that I was chosen as the winner. The prize was two tickets in section 123, center ice seats, and passes to meet the team after the game. There were no details on how it would work. The tickets arrived the next day by FedEx.
----
“Who do you think we’ll meet?” Kim asked me on the train.
“No idea, probably depends on how they play.”
I noticed she was having trouble carrying her bag and I questioned it. She told me that it was heavy due to the hockey pucks she was carrying; she couldn’t think of anything else to get autographed, so she went to Dick’s and bought some pucks.
The conductor came on and said “we are arriving at New York Penn Station, this is the last stop, passengers remove all personal belongings from the train. Watch the gap as you exit the train.” Kim and I started to smile in excitement, neither of us had been to the Garden in a long time between college and lack of money. Live hockey surrounded by 20,000 other fans was always an amazing experience. We got off the train and ran towards the stairs that led to Madison Square Garden.
Our seats were amazing and we had a perfect view of all of the action. The game was intense, bodies were flying all over the ice and no pucks were passing the goalies. With only 5 minutes left in the third period, Dubinsky stole the puck as Schenn was attempting to keep it in the Rangers’ zone and started on the breakaway; he outskated the Leafs’ defense and shot the puck upstairs, stick side…Giguere didn’t have a shot. That was the only goal of the game. With a 1-0 victory, I hoped most of the team would be at the meet and greet.
We found our way to the locker room where a Garden employee was waiting for us at the door. He led us into a lounge and said that the players would be in shortly; it seemed like a very informal setting and I was getting more and more excited. I was also happy that there wasn’t a name on my jersey so that I wouldn’t feel bad getting the entire team to sign it.
“So where’s our contest winner?” Brandon Dubinsky yelled as he came bolting into the room with a smile. Kim and I got shy all of a sudden, but Kim held out a puck with her silver sharpie. Dubinsky responded, “How about I sign one from the game.”
We both smiled as the Garden employees went to get official pucks. More of the team started to come in to meet us. They were all cleaned up and wearing suits and looked like they were actually excited to be interacting with a couple of fans. Marc Staal walked over to us first and introduced himself.
“Wow, usually middle aged men win these contests, not beautiful young girls.”
“Don’t hit on them, Staalsy,” Ryan Callahan said before turning to us and saying, “hi, I’m Ryan and my friend Marc here can be a bit of a pig.”
“I’m Layla, and this is Kim,” I responded with a laugh.
“Layla, that’s a pretty name,” Marc said.
“My parents were big Clapton fans.”
In the next twenty minutes, we were joined by Sean Avery, Chris Drury, Erik Christensen, and Brandon Prust. I was a little disappointed that Lundqvist didn’t come in, but I was thrilled with how things were going. Staal and Dubinsky barely left our sides and they seemed interested in just talking. We talked about hockey and how Kim and I were raised on Long Island, but were both Ranger fans for as long as we could remember.
I was thankful that I had on one of my favorite tank tops because it was easier to take my jersey off to get it signed. The guys passed it around between them and each one affixed his signature to the back. After they were done, Drury brought it back to me and smiled, thanking Kim and I for being such great fans.
“You guys ready?” Prust asked Staal and Dubinsky.
“Yeah, just a minute,” Dubinsky responded.
“Wait a sec, Dub, why don’t we invite these two,” Staal said looking at us, Dubinsky didn’t say anything back so Staal turned to us, “we’re going to a bar in the meatpacking district, do you want to come?”
Kim and I looked at each other; we had no reason not to go other than our wardrobes. “I don’t know if we’re dressed right for that kind of bar,” I said.
“My girlfriend keeps clothes in the car, I’ll see what she has” Avery volunteered. His girlfriend was a model, so I could only imagine the kind of clothes she had. He got on his cell phone and within a few minutes, a gorgeous girl walked into the lounge and greeted him with a kiss. He introduced her to us a Hillary and she smiled and opened up the suitcase she was carrying. In it, there was a teal sleeveless top that would accent my C-cups and my eyes, Hillary handed it to me and I went to the bathroom to try it on. I loved it more on me than I did just looking at it in the suitcase. When I walked back into the lounge, Marc Staal didn’t take his eyes off of me. A minute later, Kim walked in wearing a gorgeous black top with gold accents that looked perfect on her. Hillary insisted that our hair and make-up were already perfect, and since she was a model, we trusted her. We were all set to go to the bar with some of the New York Rangers. The night was turning out even better than I could have imagined.
The guys asked us to call them by their first names, or nicknames in the case of Dubi because of confusion between him and Prust as they led us to a limo in the underground parking lot. When we arrived at the club, Marc took my hand and we bypassed the line, walking straight inside. Everyone inside was absolutely beautiful and seemed to be enjoying themselves. Kim and I walked over to the bar with a few of the guys. Ryan turned to us and asked what we wanted to drink because he was buying the first round.
“I want to get you girls now because once my fiancé gets here, I won’t get a chance to.”
We thanked him as he handed us our vodka cranberries which we could tell were made with Grey Goose rather than the house liquor we were used to. We sipped our drinks and talked to each other while many of the girls in the club started to surround the hockey players we walked in with. Ryan stayed with us making small talk; we asked about his fiancé and it was adorable how his face lit up when he talked about her. Every time I looked over at the mob of girls though, I noticed that Marc Staal was still watching my every move and whenever I made eye contact with him, he would flash his adorable smile.
“Lay, it’s getting late,” Kim said to me after we finished our fourth round of drinks. At that point, we had been talking to just Marc, Dubi, and Erik while the rest of the guys were either on the dance floor or with their significant others. She was right, it was almost 2:30 and we wanted to make the drunk train so that we wouldn’t be stuck in the city all night.
“We should get going,” I said out loud towards the boys.
“Do you have to?” Marc asked.
“Yeah, we need to get back to Long Island soon.”
“Come to our game on Wednesday night,” Marc added. (Wednesday was the next night that they had a home game).
“Okay,” I said, not really thinking anything of it. He didn’t know more than just my first name. Kim started to walk out of the club and I was following behind when Marc took my hand. He looked me in the eye and said, “I meant it, I want to see you again.” He leaned in to kiss me and I turned my head; I wasn’t going to let myself get attached to a hockey player and a kiss could always lead to more. I followed Kim out of the club and into a cab back to Penn Station. We made our train with little time to spare and spent the ride home gushing about the attention we got from the New York Rangers.
“Marc seemed really into you.”
“Marc wanted to get laid,” I responded.
Kim laughed; no matter what happened, it was definitely a night that I would remember.
I worked the day shift on Tuesday and when I got home, I saw a FedEx package from the New York Rangers. I had no idea what could be in it unless it was just something about Saturday night, though I didn’t know what they could be sending me. I looked at the box and it was too big to just include a piece of paper.
I opened up the box to find a white Ranger jersey inside; I unfolded it and saw an 18 on the back as well as the name “Staal.” There was a letter left in the box after the jersey was removed.
“Dear Layla, I really enjoyed meeting you the other night and I meant it when I asked you to come to the game on Wednesday night. Wear my jersey and accept this ticket, then meet me in the locker room after the game. Can’t wait to see you again. – Marc.”
My mind was racing, I had no idea what I was going to do. Marc was a really fun guy and of course I was extremely attracted to him, but he was a professional athlete. I could sleep with him and then be forgotten the next day; I didn’t even know why he was trying so hard to get my attention. There was nothing special about me.
It had been over six months since I last wore my Ranger jersey. It couldn't be anywhere in my apartment other than in those unpacked suitcases. I called my mother to see if it was at her house, but still nothing.
I remembered vividly the last time I wore that jersey…it was April 11 and I was sitting in my dorm room with my friend Scott. Scott was a diehard Flyers fan and at Drexel University, I was in the minority as a Ranger fan. Throughout college, Scott and I have a love/hate relationship and much of it involved our hockey fandoms. We often watched games together and argued over our teams and calls the refs made. I had a crush on Scott throughout all 4 years of college, even when I dated other guys. On the night before graduation, I admitted my feelings to him and he decided that was the end of our friendship. However, on April 11, when his team won the shoot out crushing the Rangers’ playoff dreams, he ended our angry trash talking by pulling off my jersey for our usual amazing hate sex. I hadn’t worn my jersey since.
I continued to scour my room for the next half hour until I found a royal blue ball at the bottom of a suitcase…it still smelled a little like Scott. I had to get ready because my best friend, Kim would be at my house within the next 15 minutes to take the train into the City to watch the Rangers take on the Maple Leafs. I wanted to look perfect, but I was running low on time. I threw my jersey on over the tank top I had already been wearing and moved on to my hair. I ran mousse through my naturally wavy light brown hair creating loose curls and then applied a small amount of black eyeliner, mascara, and neutral toned shadow to my blue eyes. The doorbell rang as I was happy with how I looked; it was a hockey game, not a club so I just wanted to look nice. Kim was waiting for me in her royal blue Marian Gaborik player tee. I yelled goodbye to my parents, checked my bag again for the tickets, and I headed out the door.
----
One week earlier…I was sitting at my computer chatting with friend and killing time before I had to be at work when I saw a tweet from the New York Rangers official Twitter. “RT to enter to win free tix and meet and greet for next Saturday’s NYR v. TOR at MSG #nyrangers” Although I never won anything, I retweeted anyway. I didn’t care as much about the meet and greet as I did about the tickets. I worked at a restaurant as a server and bartender, depending on the shift, and didn’t really make enough money to buy seats at MSG.
Three days later, the contest had come to an end and I received a message that I was chosen as the winner. The prize was two tickets in section 123, center ice seats, and passes to meet the team after the game. There were no details on how it would work. The tickets arrived the next day by FedEx.
----
“Who do you think we’ll meet?” Kim asked me on the train.
“No idea, probably depends on how they play.”
I noticed she was having trouble carrying her bag and I questioned it. She told me that it was heavy due to the hockey pucks she was carrying; she couldn’t think of anything else to get autographed, so she went to Dick’s and bought some pucks.
The conductor came on and said “we are arriving at New York Penn Station, this is the last stop, passengers remove all personal belongings from the train. Watch the gap as you exit the train.” Kim and I started to smile in excitement, neither of us had been to the Garden in a long time between college and lack of money. Live hockey surrounded by 20,000 other fans was always an amazing experience. We got off the train and ran towards the stairs that led to Madison Square Garden.
Our seats were amazing and we had a perfect view of all of the action. The game was intense, bodies were flying all over the ice and no pucks were passing the goalies. With only 5 minutes left in the third period, Dubinsky stole the puck as Schenn was attempting to keep it in the Rangers’ zone and started on the breakaway; he outskated the Leafs’ defense and shot the puck upstairs, stick side…Giguere didn’t have a shot. That was the only goal of the game. With a 1-0 victory, I hoped most of the team would be at the meet and greet.
We found our way to the locker room where a Garden employee was waiting for us at the door. He led us into a lounge and said that the players would be in shortly; it seemed like a very informal setting and I was getting more and more excited. I was also happy that there wasn’t a name on my jersey so that I wouldn’t feel bad getting the entire team to sign it.
“So where’s our contest winner?” Brandon Dubinsky yelled as he came bolting into the room with a smile. Kim and I got shy all of a sudden, but Kim held out a puck with her silver sharpie. Dubinsky responded, “How about I sign one from the game.”
We both smiled as the Garden employees went to get official pucks. More of the team started to come in to meet us. They were all cleaned up and wearing suits and looked like they were actually excited to be interacting with a couple of fans. Marc Staal walked over to us first and introduced himself.
“Wow, usually middle aged men win these contests, not beautiful young girls.”
“Don’t hit on them, Staalsy,” Ryan Callahan said before turning to us and saying, “hi, I’m Ryan and my friend Marc here can be a bit of a pig.”
“I’m Layla, and this is Kim,” I responded with a laugh.
“Layla, that’s a pretty name,” Marc said.
“My parents were big Clapton fans.”
In the next twenty minutes, we were joined by Sean Avery, Chris Drury, Erik Christensen, and Brandon Prust. I was a little disappointed that Lundqvist didn’t come in, but I was thrilled with how things were going. Staal and Dubinsky barely left our sides and they seemed interested in just talking. We talked about hockey and how Kim and I were raised on Long Island, but were both Ranger fans for as long as we could remember.
I was thankful that I had on one of my favorite tank tops because it was easier to take my jersey off to get it signed. The guys passed it around between them and each one affixed his signature to the back. After they were done, Drury brought it back to me and smiled, thanking Kim and I for being such great fans.
“You guys ready?” Prust asked Staal and Dubinsky.
“Yeah, just a minute,” Dubinsky responded.
“Wait a sec, Dub, why don’t we invite these two,” Staal said looking at us, Dubinsky didn’t say anything back so Staal turned to us, “we’re going to a bar in the meatpacking district, do you want to come?”
Kim and I looked at each other; we had no reason not to go other than our wardrobes. “I don’t know if we’re dressed right for that kind of bar,” I said.
“My girlfriend keeps clothes in the car, I’ll see what she has” Avery volunteered. His girlfriend was a model, so I could only imagine the kind of clothes she had. He got on his cell phone and within a few minutes, a gorgeous girl walked into the lounge and greeted him with a kiss. He introduced her to us a Hillary and she smiled and opened up the suitcase she was carrying. In it, there was a teal sleeveless top that would accent my C-cups and my eyes, Hillary handed it to me and I went to the bathroom to try it on. I loved it more on me than I did just looking at it in the suitcase. When I walked back into the lounge, Marc Staal didn’t take his eyes off of me. A minute later, Kim walked in wearing a gorgeous black top with gold accents that looked perfect on her. Hillary insisted that our hair and make-up were already perfect, and since she was a model, we trusted her. We were all set to go to the bar with some of the New York Rangers. The night was turning out even better than I could have imagined.
The guys asked us to call them by their first names, or nicknames in the case of Dubi because of confusion between him and Prust as they led us to a limo in the underground parking lot. When we arrived at the club, Marc took my hand and we bypassed the line, walking straight inside. Everyone inside was absolutely beautiful and seemed to be enjoying themselves. Kim and I walked over to the bar with a few of the guys. Ryan turned to us and asked what we wanted to drink because he was buying the first round.
“I want to get you girls now because once my fiancé gets here, I won’t get a chance to.”
We thanked him as he handed us our vodka cranberries which we could tell were made with Grey Goose rather than the house liquor we were used to. We sipped our drinks and talked to each other while many of the girls in the club started to surround the hockey players we walked in with. Ryan stayed with us making small talk; we asked about his fiancé and it was adorable how his face lit up when he talked about her. Every time I looked over at the mob of girls though, I noticed that Marc Staal was still watching my every move and whenever I made eye contact with him, he would flash his adorable smile.
“Lay, it’s getting late,” Kim said to me after we finished our fourth round of drinks. At that point, we had been talking to just Marc, Dubi, and Erik while the rest of the guys were either on the dance floor or with their significant others. She was right, it was almost 2:30 and we wanted to make the drunk train so that we wouldn’t be stuck in the city all night.
“We should get going,” I said out loud towards the boys.
“Do you have to?” Marc asked.
“Yeah, we need to get back to Long Island soon.”
“Come to our game on Wednesday night,” Marc added. (Wednesday was the next night that they had a home game).
“Okay,” I said, not really thinking anything of it. He didn’t know more than just my first name. Kim started to walk out of the club and I was following behind when Marc took my hand. He looked me in the eye and said, “I meant it, I want to see you again.” He leaned in to kiss me and I turned my head; I wasn’t going to let myself get attached to a hockey player and a kiss could always lead to more. I followed Kim out of the club and into a cab back to Penn Station. We made our train with little time to spare and spent the ride home gushing about the attention we got from the New York Rangers.
“Marc seemed really into you.”
“Marc wanted to get laid,” I responded.
Kim laughed; no matter what happened, it was definitely a night that I would remember.
I worked the day shift on Tuesday and when I got home, I saw a FedEx package from the New York Rangers. I had no idea what could be in it unless it was just something about Saturday night, though I didn’t know what they could be sending me. I looked at the box and it was too big to just include a piece of paper.
I opened up the box to find a white Ranger jersey inside; I unfolded it and saw an 18 on the back as well as the name “Staal.” There was a letter left in the box after the jersey was removed.
“Dear Layla, I really enjoyed meeting you the other night and I meant it when I asked you to come to the game on Wednesday night. Wear my jersey and accept this ticket, then meet me in the locker room after the game. Can’t wait to see you again. – Marc.”
My mind was racing, I had no idea what I was going to do. Marc was a really fun guy and of course I was extremely attracted to him, but he was a professional athlete. I could sleep with him and then be forgotten the next day; I didn’t even know why he was trying so hard to get my attention. There was nothing special about me.