![\"Victoria](\"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/11\/Bryden-is-on-the-left-Jeff-on-the-right..jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\nAnd at the danger of this becoming a \u201crah-rah-rah,\u201d \u201cI\u2019ll pat your back if you pat mine\u201d scenario between the two organizations, the Camosun interns working with the Royals franchise are reaping the rewards of internship positions that are preparing them for jobs in the professional sports team industry.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe want to make sure that the students find value in these internships, and we want to give them lots of opportunities to succeed, and we\u2019ve been very lucky,\u201d says Harris from his office at the Save-On Foods Memorial Centre. \u201cWe\u2019ve seen some spectacular things from these students, and some of them become very integral to what we do here.\u201d<\/p>\n
Putting in his time<\/b><\/p>\n
Bryden Burrell is a fourth-year Camosun student currently finishing up his bachelor\u2019s degree in Sport and Exercise Leadership at the Pacific Institute for Sport Excellence on the Interurban campus. Burrell is also the longest-running intern with the Victoria Royals, now in his fourth year with the hockey team, currently acting as the team\u2019s communications coordinator.<\/p>\n
Four years as an intern in any industry is a long time, but Burrell sees the value in putting in his time with the WHL hockey team.<\/p>\n
\u201cI didn\u2019t really know what to expect with that first year and where it could lead,\u201d says Burrell, \u201cbut just to be able to spend these past four years with the team, I\u2019ve learned so much with regards to the WHL and working for a hockey team in general. That four years\u2019 experience that I\u2019m gaining from working with the Royals is just as valuable as the degree that I\u2019ll walk out with when I\u2019m done.\u201d<\/p>\n
Burrell now acts as a mentor for a new group of interns, overseeing them as they compile stats to distribute to the media before games, live tweet during the action, and write press releases and game reports for the team.<\/p>\n
\u201cI try to give them some advice,\u201d he says. \u201cI tell them that if they just keep putting in their time and working hard and showing them that you\u2019re committed, by the end of it they\u2019ll walk out of here with the experience and qualifications to get a job, even potentially into professional sports.\u201d<\/p>\n
With the end goal of getting a full-time job with a professional hockey team after he graduates in April, Burrell says over the four years of working for the Royals he has mastered the art of balancing his studies with his work responsibilities, and he has passed along this knowledge to new interns.<\/p>\n
\u201cOne of the biggest things was the ability to balance your time properly between school and work, and that\u2019s one of the things I\u2019ve learned over the four years of doing this,\u201d he says. \u201cSo I don\u2019t have to scramble to do schoolwork at the last minute or anything. It\u2019s definitely manageable, and to gain that experience has been so beneficial.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Fresh, unbridled passion<\/b><\/p>\n
Second-year Camosun Sport Management student Jeff Phillips is currently a couple of months into his first internship with the Royals.<\/p>\n
Phillips, who grew up playing hockey in Alberta but moved away from it in recent years to focus on track and field, saw his interest in the sport reignited when he returned to Victoria and started going to Camosun. PISE, he says, is a hotbed of hockey interest.<\/p>\n
So, when a classmate who interned for the Royals last year mentioned there were more openings coming up in team communications, Phillips jumped at the opportunity. He remembers what it felt like the first time he walked through the arena doors.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was like a nervous excitement because it was something I hadn\u2019t done before, in terms of the area of communications and writing. I wasn\u2019t 100 percent sure, but I\u2019ve actually turned out to be a pretty decent writer,\u201d he chuckles. \u201cI was nervous because I wasn\u2019t sure if this was the right thing for me, but it was exciting because it was a new challenge and a new opportunity.\u201d<\/p>\n
Harris says having the interns around the rink creates a fresh energy that helps to keep all of the team staff invigorated, as well as make their daily tasks interesting.<\/p>\n
\u201cOne of the things that students bring is unbridled passion. They want to be here and hockey is like any job, it has its day-to-day monotonies and the moments where you can feel a little bit run down, and the students come in with this enthusiasm and they want to learn everything,\u201d says Harris. \u201cThey are so willing, but more importantly they are capable, and they come in with a really good skill set that they\u2019ve been taught at Camosun.\u201d<\/p>\n
While Phillips is new to his intern position and will likely see it pay dividends as he puts in more and more time, he\u2019s already feeling pretty good about working within the Royals organization.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m enjoying myself quite a bit. It\u2019s a lot of hard work, but for the most part it\u2019s right up my alley and what I like to do,\u201d he says. \u201cIt also gives me a different view on how sports teams run.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Success stories<\/b><\/p>\n
Camosun Sports Fitness and Leadership and Sport Management graduate Rachel Sproule found her way to the Royals after she bumped into Corey St. Laurent, the team\u2019s current manager of communications and hockey operations coordinator, at UVic.<\/p>\n
After interning with the Royals last year in hockey operations, Sproule snagged a full-time position as manager of special events and hockey programs with the Moose Jaw Warriors WHL team in Saskatchewan. Now a success story for both Camosun and the Royals, Sproule has some keen advice for new interns.<\/p>\n
\u201cTry and experience as much as you can with the Royals; they do give you a lot of opportunities within,\u201d she says. \u201cThey definitely give you the tools and leeway to do what you want, but they also expect a lot of you.\u201d<\/p>\n
Burrell, who hopes to follow in Sproule\u2019s footsteps and secure a WHL job of his own in April, says her getting hired in Moose Jaw bodes well for other Camosun students interning with the hockey team.<\/p>\n
\u201cWith Rachel getting that job it just shows what Jeff [Harris] and Corey [St. Laurent] are able to do with the individuals that are going through the Royals who are qualified to go into these jobs. And it also gives a good name to the school,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n
Rah-rah-rah and pats on the back<\/b><\/p>\n
Although their work duties aren\u2019t quite as fast-paced and exciting as the young WHL hockey players who hit the ice for the Royals and their opposing teams, there is a common thread for young interns looking to rise in the ranks of the sports industry, according to Camosun\u2019s Sport Management department chair Nevin Harper.<\/p>\n
\u201cI have heard from students that they are excited seeing players jump from local minor hockey to the WHL, as well as the potential for the next step to pro hockey,\u201d shares Harper. \u201cA parallel experience exists for these students in their envisioning themselves working full-time in the WHL, as well as demystifying the thought of working in professional hockey.\u201d<\/p>\n
Dealing with Camosun College, says Harris, has been a pure pleasure for the Victoria Royals. \u201cThey\u2019ve just been absolutely fantastic to work with in every possible way. They\u2019ve been very supportive of what we\u2019re trying to do here and they have an understanding that our commitment is a little larger than most internships,\u201d says Harris. \u201cThey\u2019re a first-rate organization to work with. From the work advisors to the teachers we\u2019ve been dealing with, they\u2019ve been absolutely top notch.\u201d<\/p>\n
Well, maybe those pats on the back and cheers we alluded to earlier might just be in order after all.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
When Camosun\u2019s Sport Management Program invited Jeff Harris of the Victoria Royals to do some mock interviews for their students a few years ago, it\u2019s doubtful either party could have predicted the beginning of such a mutually beneficial relationship. Harris, the local Western Hockey League (WHL) team\u2019s director of hockey operations and communications, has since […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":8214,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[15,118],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8213","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-campus","category-november-27-203"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8213","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8213"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8213\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8216,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8213\/revisions\/8216"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8214"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8213"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8213"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8213"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}