By: Sam Clark, Living Sport Barcelona ‘17 Alumna

I am excited that I kicked off 2020 with a bang. Living Sport has done it again with providing amazing opportunities to those who want to pursue a career in the sports industry. This time was no exception as it was an exclusive opportunity to those program alumni that have traveled with Living Sport as part of the International Sport Business Program.

Back in December, Alicia (the Founder & President of Living Sport) reached out to the alumni group about an opportunity to work the Fan Fair at the 2020 NHL All-Star Weekend in St. Louis, Missouri. I jumped at the chance.

In order to make this trip happen a fellow Living Sport Alum, Maryssa Bridges (a Dublin ‘19 alum who I didn’t travel with but met at another Living Sport function) and I drove from Colorado Springs, Colorado to St. Louis, Missouri. I haven't had to do a cross country road trip in a while so I forgot what the journey was about, seeing different bits of the states as we drove through. We of course experienced what you may expect on a road trip, a small patch of rough weather while driving through Kansas that was a little hairy for a minute.

Once we arrived to St. Louis, Maryssa and I made a quick trip to see the St. Louis Gateway Arch. I mean, it is a St. Louis staple, right? I had been there before but it was Maryssa's first time there so I was excited for her to see it and I definitely appreciated it more than I did the first time. It was really interesting to hear just how influential this city was in the expansion of the United States. Sadly it was too cloudy to make riding to the top fun, so we will leave that for another trip!

After getting our must-see tourist sites checked off of our list, it was time to get down to business. We attended a team orientation for our Fan Ambassador positions to kick off the weekend.

This is were we finally met Kendall Colston, a Living Sport ‘19 alum, who was serving as a coordinator for the All-Star Game and originally brought the opportunity to Living Sport. A huge thank you to her and the entire Living Sport Network who continuously pass along opportunities to our network. It shows how special this network is.

We also heard from the Chief Content Officer and a few Directors that created excitement and let us know the impact we are making. We then received our staff uniforms, which were really cool! The experience was great, and getting nice NHL swag is the cherry on top!

One of the many high points of this entire weekend was the ability to network with all sorts of people in different parts of the industry. The experience began with a Living Sport #minireunion at Fox Sports Midwest Live at Ballpark Village. If you haven’t ever been to Ballpark Village in St. Louis, you should take the time to experience it. It’s located directly across the street from Busch Stadium, and is filled with numerous restaurants, bars, and giant screens to view all of the live sports games being televised.

While at Ballpark Village our fearless leader Alicia (Living Sport Founder) ran into someone she had worked with at the Lehigh Valley IronPigs, the Triple-A affiliate of the Philadelphia Phillies. This goes to show how small the sport industry is and that a strong network is really important. This then lead to Maryssa, my newfound friend Paige (Milan ‘18 alum) and I to get the chance to talk with a group of NHL professionals. It was really nice of them to take the time to talk with us and give us pointers on how to stand out when applying for jobs in the sports industry.

The next few days were filled with working with amazing people and experiencing a wonderful event . I helped run the autograph line for some notable St. Louis Blues Alumni, scanned tickets for school children and recorded top scores for our Kid Zone games. I got to see some of the most famous trophies in sports and even scored tickets to see Patrick Kane win the inaugural Shooting Stars Competition at the NHL Skills Competition. I worked so many hours that my feet still hurt as I write this, but I loved every minute of it.

I can't wait until the next Living Sport excursion. We'll have to see how it stacks up to this fantastic weekend. ;)