The Hockey Star and the Ice Princess (Complete)

Ch. 43 - Media

**** Two weeks Later ****

Rachel turned on the TV in the lobby of the ice rink while she ate her lunch. There was a pretty, blonde female reporter saying, "Welcome back to NBC's coverage of the Winter Olympics that will be taking place in just a week and a half right here in Vancouver, Canada. I'm Camille Levasque reporting on all the gossip and things you need to know leading up to the games. In Figure Skating news, the front runner to watch in the Women's Singles division is American Rachel Beckett. This is actually her second Olympics but if you recall when she was here four years ago she fainted and hit her head on the ice before her long program and had to withdraw from the competition suddenly. She fought really hard over the last year to come back after a three year hiatus and she's better than ever, but her comeback has been riddled with scandal and tragedy. Her own sister sabotaged her ice skates and got banned from competing for two years AND on top of that her Coach since she was five passed away suddenly from a heart attack just a month before the Olympics. She did have something good happen in her life recently though. The word on the street is that she got engaged on Christmas Day to her boyfriend, Cain Reed, the famous hockey star. After all the tragedy and heartache this poor girl has had to overcome we're all rooting for her to get Gold at this year's Olympic Games."

Rachel let out a sigh and changed the channel and the next one was talking about Laney and the scandal with her ice skates and coach's death too. Apparently the media thought all the drama and tragedy in her life was perfect for drawing in more viewers with sympathy so they'd watch and be rooting for her. Her name and face seemed to be everywhere. It had been like this for the past week and a half. She knew the media hysteria was only going to get worse the closer the Olympics got and then when they were over it would die down and life would get back to normal. 

It had been way worse than she expected though. News reporters and paparazzi were camped outside Cain's house trying to get an exclusive interview with her or Cain. Little did they know he wasn't even in town. He was up in Saint Paul with the hockey team still. Rachel had started wearing large, dark sunglasses every time she left the house to avoid their camera flashes blinding her and they followed her and shouted out random questions as soon as she got out of her car.

The paparazzi and reporters had also been interviewing anyone they could find in town that knew her. Last week she had seen an interview on ESPN with her Mom. She was talking about how hard she had worked over the years to help Rachel with her ice skating career, and how much she had to sacrifice, how she pushed her to be the best and took her to every practice and tournament and cheered her on. She pretty much took all the credit for how good she was when she hadn't done any of that. That was her Dad once in a while but mostly her Coach that did all that to make sure she became so good, definitely not her Mom.

But her Mom wasn't the only vulture making up lies and cashing in on knowing her. She also watched an interview last week where Addison told the reporter that she was her best friend and that they were super close and she loved her like a sister. She said they did everything together. She told them Rachel had wanted to quit after her Coach died but she was the one that encouraged her to keep going to follow her dream. Rachel had sent that interview link to Cain and they both laughed at how ridiculous it was. 

Rachel was getting so fed up with the media. The reporters even went to the bar in town and interviewed her old customers and her old boss about what kind of person she was. They talked about how sweet and wonderful Rachel was and how she always took pictures with her fans and signed autographs for them. 

The media called Rachel the Ice Princess engaged to the Hockey Star, America's sweetheart, the underdog, the woman that took three years off and fought her way back, overcoming family betrayal and tragedy to make her Olympic dreams finally come true. That was getting clicks and making people watch their special reports. It was all true but she didn't want her real life tragedy or relationship to be used for ratings. She wanted it to just be about her skating.