[1226 words, ready for grading]

[note: another delayed article sorry! I'm working to get caught up on writing things, this one covers all of S69.]

It was the day before the season opener for the San Francisco Pride, but Sophie Bordeleau was hard at work and deep in thought. Coming off a decent rookie season for the team, she knew she would be facing higher expectations on a squad well into a rebuild. During the offseason, teammate Walton Stromberg had been traded, and with this move it was clear that the first-line centre spot would be Sophie's going forward. The increased ice time was much appreciated, but she knew she would also be more heavily scrutinized by the media in this more prominent role. On a happier note, she'd also gotten to spend a lot of time at home over the summer with more...personal matters taking the bulk of her attention. Finishing her set in the gym, Sophie kept her mind on her latest film room session as she cleaned up and left the Pride's practice facility. Don't be afraid to take the shot if it's there. Get lower on the draws. Use your legs to protect the puck, were thoughts that ran through her mind as the familiar sight of her and her wife's apartment came into view. God, the sound of that would never get old.

As was expected, it was rough going for San Francisco on the ice. The team was icing a lot of players who were young or who had bounced around the league before coming to the Bay Area, and chemistry could be tough to come by at first. Sophie was still playing with her rookie-season linemate in Leon Athanasios, so she had at least one familiar face on the top line. Even though the success wasn't coming in the standings, she still found some comfort in playing a leadership role on the ice and in the locker room. Rookies like Ragnar Lothbrok on defense and Caleb Hayden in net were facing a lot of pressure to carry their respective units without much support, and Sophie wanted to carry on the support that the veterans on the team had shown for her in her own rookie season. She quickly started adjusting to the speed of the big-league game and the big focus of improving her decision-making ability seemed to be paying off. Last season, Sophie had felt a pressure to not take "bad" or low-percentage shots for not wanting to be seen by teammates or coaches as taking too many dumb chances and not thinking, to the effect where she only shot around 100 times the whole season and in film it was coming up that she passed up shooting chances for looking for something better. The coaches worked with her in practice to get her in situations to make her trust her shot more, and early in this season the efforts seemed to be paying off.

As the season wore on and the losses piled up, Sophie was intensely focused on the next game ahead a lot of the time, but she was still careful to make time off the ice for her personal life as well. Jamie had picked up some connections in the local art scene during their trips to San Francisco for prospect camps and last year, and these were starting to pay off. Sophie made sure to check out every one of these whenever she got the chance. Even after all this time, her partner never failed to make some provocative piece on canvas or through sculpting that pushed a mind to introspective places. The hockey player knew that she was Jamie's muse for some of these pieces, but even with that peek behind the curtain Sophie never got tired of seeing her creative brain at work. Perhaps the most calming part about it was that, for at least a few minutes or hours, she was diving into her wife's world and leaving her own. All the stress of the on-ice performance and the questions of the media could be left at the door and she could just be. It was like things were before all of the fame and fortune, and it was a relaxing vacation.

The season was winding down, and San Francisco was sitting well outside of a playoff spot and unlikely to make it in. Sophie herself got her 30th goal of the season in the second-last game of the campaign, ending up with 74 points to put a silver lining on a dismal team season. It wasn't anywhere near the top scorers in the league, but given the worries about sophomore slumps that were so commonplace, seeing such a big improvement in year two was something to take to heart. The happiest moment for Sophie came when she was unanimously voted for the team's MVP award. Even with it being the logical choice for her on-ice performance, she still felt a swell of joy at the honour. It wasn't even ten years ago when she was playing for her high school team and just trying to get through her classes, and no doubt that girl would have been shocked and overjoyed to see where she would end up now.

For all of the trials and tribulations that Sophie and her San Francisco team had faced that season, a burst of light came when she got to pull on that maroon jersey for her adopted hockey nation of Latvia and take to the ice for the World Championships. Sophie and Jamie always liked to travel well in advance of the team camp to acclimate to the time difference, and they had spent many a summer day in Riga, the little nation's capital. This country was mad for hockey, and even with her limited grasp of Latvian she did her best to participate in their excitement. The tournament this year was held in Paris, and Sophie was looking to help the young team make some noise at this tournament. The group got off to a rough start with a 3-5 record in group play, including 6-3 and 6-0 defeats at the hands of the much more experienced and deeper Swedish side. However, the plucky Latvians banded together to rattle off four straight wins and squeak into the medal stage in a weaker Group B. In what was only their second elimination game in the last 20 seasons, Latvia would once again be facing the Swedish side that had dominated them in both previous matchups. The game didn't get off to a great start, with M'Baku Olubori scoring the game's opening goal on the power play and Melvin Majestik-Moose tacking on another goal with the man advantage in the second period. With just 20 minutes to go and down by two goals, Sophie took a pass from Mats Marner and fired it past the Swedish goalie to cut the lead in half, but it would be all the underdog Latvians could muster up as they fell 3-1. Regardless, it was a huge game for a nation that didn't get many of them, and when the team plane landed back in Riga throngs of fans showed up to greet them. For a girl who grew up playing on a frozen pond in Quebec, seeing this kind of passion for hockey outside of her homeland easily put a smile on Sophie's face, and it certainly wouldn't be going away as her and Jamie settled in for the long journey home.