“I didn’t realize how big of a role it played in my life until I didn’t have it anymore.”
Just a few short months ago, Alexis Pearson was living out her dream working for the Minnesota Wild of the National Hockey League (NHL) and the Minnesota Whitecaps of the National Women’s Hockey League (NWHL).
Then, the coronavirus pandemic swept through the nation, shutting down most of society and more specifically for Pearson the sports world.
“In March, we were nearing the end of the NHL season and were supposed to have the NWHL Championship Game that week. Both of those things obviously got shut down,” Pearson said. “It was crazy at first. Everyone was in the same boat where we thought ‘it can’t really last that long. Maybe it will last a few weeks and we’ll just get back into things.’ That was my mindset until more things got shut down and the longer it went, the longer I thought about when exactly things would start up again. It was a balance of being upset because I’m a sports fan and want to watch sports, but also my jobs are now non-existent.
“I’m still early on in my career that I’ve thought about what this is going to look like for me. I’m luckier than some who might just be coming out of college looking for a job, but I still have a lot of the same questions as people who are looking for jobs like are they going to need me and am I replaceable. It was a tough couple of months to have to figure out how everything was going to look.”
Alexis Pearson ’19 broadcasting a Minnesota Whitecaps game on Hockey Day Minnesota 2020, her first time doing play-by-play for a professional hockey team.
Pearson, who graduated from St. Cloud State University in 2019 with degrees in mass communications and English, was left without sports and a job for the first time in her career. With many uncertainties still remaining.
“I went into a sports career because I love sports. I wanted to work in a career that I loved every single day. Sports for a lot of people are an escape. You watch sports to be entertained and to have something to ride emotions with,” she said. “When I’m not watching them at home, I’m working them. When you get that taken away, I felt lost a little bit and didn’t know what to do. It was a real challenge both professionally and personally.
“Sports are such an essential part of my life and I’ve never experienced not having them. The closer we get to sports resuming and the talk of sports resuming, it kind of gives you some sort of hope. It was one of the biggest challenges I’ve gone through mentally. You realize how a big of a role it plays in your life when you don’t have it anymore.”
Uncertainties in sports still remain
Although sports are starting to resume around the country, there are still uncertainties around Pearson’s career and her roles with both the Wild and Whitecaps.
For Pearson, she typically works home games for both teams, working for the Wild Radio Network and as a color commentator for the Whitecaps broadcasts. With the NHL now playing the remaining games this season away from Minnesota and the NWHL not playing at all, Pearson remains unemployed with both organizations for the time being.
“I don’t know what the next sports season or the next couple of years is going to look like for me. I haven’t been told no we don’t need you, but I haven’t really had a conversation with my bosses on if they’ll need me,” she said. “With the Wild and the Whitecaps, I’m not a full-time employee that travels with the teams. I’m just waiting to see how this season finished out before I try to worry about it too much because we don’t even know when the seasons are going to start next year.”
During the shutdown of sports, Pearson has been able to work as a waitress at a local restaurant where she lives, but added it took some time to initially resume that job with COVID-19 concerns.
“The first month or so was pretty tough. I was on unemployment for about six weeks when quarantine started,” Pearson said. “I also waitress, but at the time restaurants were also shut down so I didn’t even have that job. Once restaurants opened back up in June, I was able to start working again at the restaurant. I’ve been doing that full-time now since its been open.”
For a lot of people, the shutdown has made them look at every aspect of their lives and what they want to do moving forward, whether that’s professionally, personally or both. Pearson has had those thoughts multiple times over the past few months, but still holds optimism for a future career in sports.
“You go to college, you do a lot of work to get your degree, you work hard in your internship, you work hard in the professional scene and you take all of those steps, and then you get to this point and everything gets shut down. Your whole life kind of gets put on hold,” she said. “I did all of this and now everything is in a complete standstill. You start to wonder what sports are going to look like in the foreseeable future and forever. It was kind of scary in that I didn’t know what my specific career was going to look like in the future.
“My opinion on things changed every day. Some days I was optimistic and other days I was scared and worried. It’s tough enough get your start in a career, but trying to get your start during a pandemic is even harder.”
Before the shutdown
Prior to the sports world being put on pause, Pearson was living her dream covering hockey right out of college.
As she finished up her schooling at St. Cloud State, Pearson got a call from someone involved with Husky Productions at SCSU saying there was a job opportunity available with the Whitecaps that she should apply for.
Alexis Pearson ’19 interviewing Minnesota Wild player Ryan Donato during intermission of a Wild game in her first-ever live interview on the Wild Radio Network.
After applying for a broadcast position with the team, she was hired on as a color commentator for Whitecaps games and just wrapped up her second season with the organization.
But the opportunities didn’t stop there. That same week after working a Whitecaps game with Kevin Falness, who is the studio host for the Wild Radio Network, Pearson was offered an additional job with the network as a production assistant who helps with game day duties including gathering and occasionally conducting interviews played during Wild radio broadcasts.
“It was a dream opportunity for me and I always dreamt of working for the Wild. I thought about it for like two minutes and said absolutely I want to do it. I ended up starting both jobs in the same week and the rest is history,” Pearson said. “It’s really fun, I get to sit and watch hockey for a living. I grew up a big sports fan, so working in sports is a dream come true for me. It feels surreal and sometimes I realize just how fortunate and lucky I am to get to be there.”
Even though COVID-19 has impacted Pearson’s career currently and has temporarily put things on pause as she awaits to find out more on what the future holds for her, the SCSU graduate still feels she is lucky to be able to work in sports and hopes to continue to be able to live out that dream for years to come.
“I have always been someone growing up who said I never wanted to have work feel like work. This job allows me to look forward to going to work and a lot of people don’t have that luxury,” Pearson said. “When I was younger, I would always tune into broadcasts and watch sports, but now I’m a part of a group that helps brings sports to others.
“I’m living my dream. I’ve always wanted to be an announcer and a broadcaster and would like to do that at the NHL level. I’ve tried to work my way into an organization I hope to work for long-term, and if they say because of this pandemic your position isn’t essential anymore, that would be the ultimate devastation. I just want to continue to work my way through that organization because I love that job so much.”
