Polenska Blog: How I Ended Up at Brown

The following blog written by Brown forward Alena Polenska appeared October 26 on the Women's Hockey Life Web site.

By Alena Polenska

Hello everyone,

My name is Alena Polenska, and I am currently a junior at Brown. I am from the Czech Republic, where I grew up and played hockey till I was 15 years old. When I was 14, I received an opportunity to come over to the US to play hockey and go to high school. At that age, not knowing much English or anything about the school, I decided to take advantage of this opportunity. It took another year before everything got sorted out, and there I was, a 15-year-old girl, who knew very limited English, flying over to the States to play hockey and study. The school I attended is called Wyoming Seminary (Kingston, PA), and it has turned my life around! Let me just tell you a short story ...

When I say I didn’t know much English, I am not kidding. I remember the flight was quite scary, it was the first time I flew by myself and not knowing much English I didn’t really know how to get through immigration and all that other stuff that was completely new to me. Before I knew it, I found myself at the Philadelphia airport trying to find my connecting flight. After some time wondering around the airport, I finally found my way to the gate when all of a sudden the flight attendant announced that our flight was cancelled, but I thought, “cancelled…I’ve heard that word before….hmm, wonder what that means”.  I went to ask about my flight; however, it was very difficult for me to turn my thoughts into words, so I just showed my ticket and said “when do my plane leave?”.  Eventually, I ended up arriving at the Scranton airport around 1:00 am.  As I was walking down the stairs, I was hoping someone from Wyoming Seminary would be there, but I had no luck.  I found myself alone in a foreign country with no luggage.  Suddenly, I heard my name; I turned around slowly and there was coach Packard, whom I met in Czech.  I was so happy to see a familiar face; now I knew I was safe.

Complete blog can be accessed via the Women's Hockey Life Web site by clicking here.