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***boom*** · 10-30-2022, 04:10 PM

[1052 words, ready for grading]

note: this one is short but there will be a separate writing piece for the playoffs and offseason stuff! I want that to be its own piece because there's been a Lot happening

Even with the franchise record in her grasp, Sophie Bordeleau was determined to keep pushing. So many times her team had come up short in the playoffs, and she wanted to do everything she could to make sure the Quebec City Citadelles had the best road possible when they got there. She redoubled her training efforts, feeling a drive to work ever harder. Her work was paying off and the puck seemed to be exploding off her stick for plenty of goals. The team was responding well too and was challenging for first place in the league. Sophie tried not to look at the stats too much and just focus on her own game, but with the pursuit of some pretty lofty records she still took time to breathe and appreciate what was going on with her game and with the team. With Rylie Versi's high-water mark now behind her, she set her eyes ever higher. While she never wanted to jinx anything, she was aiming high to win the goal-scoring and point-scoring title, maybe even reach the mythical 50 goals. Sophie knew it would be a close race with Bnana Nwaffles staying right on her tail, but as long as she kept producing she figured she could stay ahead of the pack. Unfortunately for Sophie, some players had other plans. In January, Detroit's Bnana Nwaffles went on a tear and scored 10 goals and 17 points in a five-game run, catapulting him in front of the Citadelles centre and erasing the lead she'd built up. Sophie did her best to catch up, but a stretch of nine games where she scored just one goal ultimately widened the gap for good. She tried to train even harder to get back on top, staying later after practice each day. She'd often get home tired, and it was only when Jamie intervened that she finally backed off.

With all the media attention and the push for the playoffs, Sophie had been away from the house more often. Jamie was of course her partner's biggest supporter and she'd made it out to games as often as she could, but privately she sometimes missed the days when it was just the two of them, taking on the world, with nobody else's expectations that mattered. She kept on working on her art while keeping up with the season. There was one project she was particularly interested in working on, one that would be very important and that she badly wanted to get right. Jamie had been renting a local studio space for about a year so that she could have more space to work on her art, since her creativity had grown outside the walls of the couple's apartment. She pulled up to the art space one day while Sophie was on a road trip with the Citadelles and checked her mailbox. New from the last visit was a parcel key. She knew immediately what it was going to include. Perfect. Now to get to work. She had to get this right, and she would.

~~~

The final games of the campaign were rather emotional for Sophie. Even with the upcoming playoff run still on the way, she felt so grateful for the love that the fans had shown her and her teammates for the past four seasons, and they'd turned that love into incredible success. Along with Sophie's pursuit of records, Quebec's stud rookies were creating tons of excitement with Viktor Hargreeves scoring 28 goals and Alexander Minaj creating plenty of points from the back end. At one of the last home games of the season, a Citadelle tradition that had existed for a few years was the so-called "Senior Day" game, where the Quebec players that would be graduating to the SHL at the end of the season were honoured. At the last Senior Day, the honours had gone to stalwart goalie Justin Time and winger Rylie Versi, who had both set career high-water marks and efforts to be emulated by younger players. This time, with Sophie having obliterated the franchise points record and taken the franchise assists top spot as well, she took a moment to just take in the crowd during the pre-game ceremony. These fans had been there for every step of the way, every success and heartbreak, and she felt a sense of pride swelling within her for being fortunate enough to get to play for her hometown team and make so many memories. The final home game of the season against Kelowna ended in a heartwarming fashion, as Sophie played a great game and was all over the ice, winning draws, making plays and taking shots. The game went into overtime after a close 2-2 affair, and rather fittingly Sophie was the one to pass the torch. With so much open ice in the 3-on-3 contest, she crossed the blueline with the puck and then curled back, waiting for her teammates to catch up. Seeing the young defenseman Redd Savage coming up on the rush, she waited to draw her check to her and then fed him a quick pass. He made one deke to step around his defender and his backhand was true, hitting the back of the net as the arena erupted. It was a rather fitting way to end her regular season career, with one of the team's older leaders finding the team's youngest player for the winning goal.

It was a bittersweet ending to the season. While Sophie had smashed the franchise record for points and put up the highest number of points of any SMJHL player in their first four seasons, just barely missing the all-time record, she hadn't won the goals or points races after her cold streak late in the year. Quebec was still in the playoffs as the first seed, so they had hopefully a solid run to look forward to, and Sophie was hoping to finish out her SMJHL career with a Four Star Cup win before going up to the big leagues next season. With the past three seasons resulting in two finals sweeps and coming up short in the semifinal one year, Sophie's hunger for the championship would not be denied this time around. Whatever it took, the Citadelles were going to finally get it done with this group.

Evok · 10-30-2022, 08:00 PM

im not crying ur crying

***boom*** · 10-30-2022, 09:27 PM

10-30-2022, 08:00 PMEvok Wrote: im not crying ur crying

it's okay

***MikeLiut*** · 11-01-2022, 12:33 AM

Went to Senior Day, and my daughter got Sophie's autograph. Best day of her life.

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