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***boom*** · 02-13-2022, 07:07 PM

[1472 words, ready for grading]

It was finally time. All the blood, sweat, tears, bruises, late nights, early mornings, and other sacrifices had led up to this moment. After a whirlwind of a week, Sophie Bordeleau was about to play for a professional crowd for the first time ever as a member of the Nevada Battleborn. Every nerve in her body was tingling and her heart was racing as she tried to collect herself at her locker stall, hearing the first sounds of a rocking crowd. Her first games would be a two-game series against a veritable juggernaut in the Newfoundland Berserkers. "Just go out there and play your game," manager Gunnar Söderberg had said to the team, trying to rally the troops. With a rousing cheer, the Battleborn came out through the tunnel and onto the ice to the sounds of a roaring crowd. Sophie adjusted to the bright spotlight that was on the gate to the ice as she felt her skates hit the ice of the rink, feeling like an extension of her feet. Standing on the bench facing the flag as the sounds of the anthems filled the arena, she felt right at home.

The start of the game hadn't gone well for Nevada. The Berserkers were dominating the pace of play and getting tons of shots on Willie Miller, who was doing his best to keep the puck out of the net. Skating on the right wing on a line with Chicago Bound and Patrice Bergeron Jr., Sophie was having trouble dealing with the physicality and getting off her checks, and was starting to get a bit frustrated. Down 2-0 and being outshot heavily, she was sitting on the bench when she felt a calming hand on her shoulder; seemed the coach had noticed her nerves and was trying to calm her down. Soon after, the captain Conner Snooks was able to get open for a shot and fire it home to bring the Battleborn back within one. In the locker room, the coach was encouraging despite the score. "It's coming, it's coming," the coach reassured. "Conner, good job there making space for the goal. Sophie, I know you can use that speed, we've seen it in practice, time to show them what you can do." As the conference broke, Sophie smiled at the encouragement, and was determined to take the advice to heart.

Partway through the second period, the break she was looking for finally presented itself. Crossing over the blueline with the puck, Sophie suddenly broke right, forcing the defender to chase her outside. The angle from here was way too bad to shoot from, but as she crossed behind the net she dropped the puck back for Chicago Bound who was crossing the other way. The handoff wasn't clean and the defender poked the puck away, but Adelie de Pengu, one of the older players on the team, was able to keep it in at the blueline. In the confusion, Sophie had circled back out in front of the net with nobody covering her, and when the shot from the point was kicked back out by the goalie right onto the stick of Bordeleau, she was right in her element and had nothing but net to bury it. The next few seconds were simply a blur of images in her mind - the embrace of her teammates, the loud blare of the goal horn, the sight of Chicago reaching into the net to get the puck. Everything in her life had come together for this perfect moment, and she knew her family and Jamie would be cheering really loudly across the country.

~~~

Back home in Trois-Rivieres, the Bordeleau household was buzzing. The whole family and their friends had come over for a party to watch Sophie play in her first career game, and the house was buzzing with energy. In the second period, they saw the play develop and anticipation built as she pulled to the outside and around the net. The tension turned to sighs as the play was broken up, and then the shot came in from the blueline and was kicked out by the goalie. For the moment, all was silent in the house; then, an explosion of joy as the goal horn sounded through the television. Their local girl, their trailblazer, had just completed a moment that none of them would ever forget.

~~~

As Sophie got back to the bench and the play continued, the next words were music to her ears: "Nevada Battleborn goal, her first career SMJHL goal, number 20, Sophie Bordeleau!" The crowd roared with approval and all Sophie could do was smile as teammates slapped her on the back in celebration. The rest of the game just wasn't to be, however, as they couldn't get more offense going and only were able to muster 15 total shots as the Berserkers won 6-3. Despite the loss, Sophie felt good about her performance in the game; while she hadn't generated much more offense, by the end of the game she was feeling a lot more comfortable about her ability to compete with the pros. What she wasn't expecting was the media scrum after the game; after all, scoring in your first game will tend to do that. Despite her youth and inexperience, Sophie did her best to answer the questions, making sure to praise her teammates for how well they'd accepted her into their dressing room already. She felt as if she had been a part of the team for longer than just one game, and it felt right.

The next few games were all road trips, something Sophie was very familiar with. Though she only had one more point on the road trip - a goal against the St. Louis Scarecrows - she felt herself getting more and more comfortable with every passing game. The opponents were intimidating given her small size, but Sophie had a bit of a scrappy streak and didn't back down from the pressure. The team had lost two of the three games on the trip, but now they were back home to take on a more local foe in the Anaheim Outlaws. Things got off to a very bad start, as just three minutes into the game Melvin Majestik-Moose mistimed a hit and caught an Anaheim player in the head instead. The whistle blew, everyone went to go push and shove, and Melvin was unceremoniously sent to the dressing room. A major penalty was the last thing the Battleborn needed this early, and the Outlaws eventually made them pay with a goal from Edward Higginsby as the power play wound down. Later in the period, Sophie would make her first big mistake as a pro. While chasing a puck into the offensive corner, Sophie was neck and neck with an Outlaws defender and tried to box him out by giving him a little shove to make some space. Normally, it would have been something that would have gone unnoticed, but the defender was off-balance and lost his footing, going hard into the boards. The whistle blew and everyone formed the scrum as usual, but fortunately it was strictly hockey-related this time with nothing untoward happening, unlike Sophie's last experience being in the middle of a dust-up. Fortunately, nobody scored on the power play, but the game remained 1-0 Outlaws well into the third period.

With under six minutes to play in the contest, Battleborn star Wing Wang found some space and was able to rip one home. With the score tied, the Nevada bench was newly rejuvenated as the top line of Ahlo Kysoka, Conner Snooks and Lias Ekholm-Gunnarsson hopped the boards to try and get the goal that would give them the lead late in the contest. They got some pressure, but near the end of their shift they hadn't managed to break through as they dumped it in. Ekholm-Gunnarsson got back to the bench and Sophie jumped on, but the Outlaws defender saw the opportunity for a long pass and threw it up the ice. Fortunately, Chad Nickelback had the active stick to break up the play and Snooks had the puck up the left side with speed. He sent a quick pass up to Kysoka breaking out with Sophie before trying to get to the bench himself. On a rush with numbers, Kysoka waited patiently and slid the puck over to her, who had a wide-open net to tap the puck into. The crowd erupted and she was thrilled that she'd been able to make up for her mistake in the first period and put the team ahead. As the final seconds ticked away and the team embraced in victory, Sophie thought about Jamie and her family and her team and her coach, and how she was making them all proud.

***RAmenAmen*** · 02-14-2022, 01:01 PM

These are so much fun to read, and the league needs more of them! Good luck in the playoffs!

***boom*** · 02-14-2022, 02:49 PM

02-14-2022, 01:01 PMRAmenAmen Wrote: These are so much fun to read, and the league needs more of them! Good luck in the playoffs!

Same to you! I’m really getting into writing this series.

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