[858 words, ready for grading]

index

"Next!" the voice in the rink called. Anastasia Söderström picked herself up from where she'd just frozen the puck in practice and squared up for another running of the special-teams drill they were working on. She was a few weeks into her new journey as the starting goalie for the SMJHL's Detroit Falcons, and the learning curve had definitely been a steep one. Ana had given up six goals in her career debut in Quebec City and was struggling to adapt to the faster pace of play, along with all the life changes that living in North America brought. She'd been on travel teams before, but this was on another level with travel on back-to-backs, sometimes playing both games, on top of trying to keep up with her online high school classes. She was at least thankful that the team was shielding her from media obligations, so even though she'd had a rough start to the season she wasn't as exposed to the pressure from Internet fans while she got settled into her role. It also helped that with the high pick spent on her in the draft, it was pretty clear that she had a long leash in the net.

The big breakthrough came in a road match against the struggling Newfoundland Berserkers. With some tweaks to the team's strategies, the Falcons were on a tear, and they seemed prime to continue this run against Newfoundland. Fellow rookie Brayden Point had a breakout of his own in the game with his first career hat trick, Connor Ray had another two goals, and Stormlord Imotekh played the game of his life, picking up four points and adding six more blocks. It was a full team victory, and whatever got through Stormlord's shin pads was easy for Ana to track and stop. Detroit came away with an emphatic 8-0 victory, with Ana picking up 21 saves for her first career shutout in the SMJHL.

After that game, the young goalie's confidence was sky-high, and it showed in her performances. She was settling into her classes nicely with studying being an excellent way to keep her mind occupied on the road, the team's systems were coming together with Imotekh in particular being a shot-blocking wizard, and it all culminated with Ana being on the hottest streak of any goalie in the league. Even with her rough first couple weeks, her stats were quickly improving to be upon the league's upper echelon with each game. She'd also been able to get in touch with other goalies around the league to share tips and stories from their games, practices and general life between the pipes, and this made her feel more comfortable in her position. Of course, there'd be the questions of if she could keep up this torrid pace or fall off eventually, but those would be concerns for another time.

Away from the ice, Ana was still coming to terms with some newfound fame thanks to her performances, but her billet family had seen this before with other players and were useful in helping her deal with it. Kids would bring signs to the rink with her name on them and ask for autographs after games, and even though she was shy she was only too happy to oblige. She remembered all those years ago when she'd met Sophie Bordeleau at the IIHF World Championships and how kind the centre had been to her, and she wanted to pay that forward to other youth who played hockey and help them follow their dreams. As she got older, one thing she really admired even more was how comfortable Bordeleau was with being an out queer player in this league. Ana still didn't really have any idea what her orientation was, as she hadn't had a ton of social interactions of that nature due to not always understanding interpersonal cues, but she did want to find out at some point.

The calendar turned to December, but the hot streak just keep on rolling. Her stats were now solidly near the top of the league, with only Colorado's Herman Stahl having better stats by the middle of the month. Ana wasn't sure what she'd do for her first Christmas in North America, but Detroit was fortunate enough to have a home stand on both sides of the holiday so she didn't have to travel with the team. With that in mind, she set up a trip to make the quick hop to Buffalo to go see Grace for Christmas, finally meeting the other goalie in person. The two still kept in contact when they could, and with all the changes in her life she was happy to have a good friend who knew her before she was famous. There were still a couple weeks to go before she'd get to make that trip, but with hockey and school the time would really fly by there. Halfway through her first season, Ana was still filled with that awe every time she pulled on that #35 jersey with the Falcons logo on the front, and it didn't seem that wonder would go away anytime soon.