I did not know Jessica Redfield - ****Updated 15/08/2012****

******UPDATE******

The Philadelphia Flyers have opened up such an internship as mentioned below and named it after Jessica. Congratulations to them! I hope more NHL teams follow suit

FALL 2012 JESSICA REDFIELD JOURNALISM / PR INTERNSHIP - Philadelphia Flyers (Philadelphia, PA)

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By the time you read this, you definitely know more then you'd like to about what happened to Aurora, Colorado.

I was very hesitant to write this article, as I really don't want to be one of those who tries to cash in on someone Else's misery. So I am actually writing this knowing I may never publish it.

Adrian Dater is an excellent hockey columnist in Colorado who covers the Avalanche for the Denver Post. He lost a friend in Aurora last night. Jessica Redfield. Adrian wrote a quick piece on his friend Jessica today, while feeling sick to his stomach.

If you've been following the story in Aurora at all, then Jessica's is a name you have likely heard many times already. I do not want to in any way minimize the loss of anyone else in the theater - but Jessica's loss has affected me. I

I did not know Jessica Redfield - in fact, until today, I had never even heard of her.



What I now know about Jessica is that her first love in hockey was the much maligned Phoenix Coyotes. Jessica moved to Aurora from her native San Antonio to pursue her passion of becoming a sports journalist - particularly covering hockey.



In his piece, Adrian Dater writes that "Just yesterday, I was swapping Twitter direct messages with her about possible internships she was looking at, asking my advice about them". Reading that line in particular got me thinking.

There aren't enough passionate female reporters in Sports. Their numbers are growing, but they are still few. It's extremely difficult for females to get jobs as sports reporters - more difficult than in many other fields.

There are, however, many media interships that come up every year, some with NHL hockey teams. I'd like to propose that NHL teams should create an internship specifically for "young, passionate, female hockey fans" looking to get into hockey reporting. I think they should name the internship for Jessica.

Jessica shows us that there can be smart, passionate, hockey fans that just happen to be female - and they can come from non traditional hockey markets, too! Perhaps the next Jessica is knocking at the door of your favourite NHL team, help her out. Bring those voices to the masses.