10 years

Chapter 1

Rowan grunted as she was pinned to the boards, managing to slide the puck along them to Giroux before getting a fistful of stick to her spine. She threw a curse over her shoulder before pushing back into Malkin, throwing a little elbow at the overly large Russian before skating after the play.

She blatantly ignored the chirp thrown her way as she turned and called for the puck, she could feel him breathing down her neck as she got a beautiful pass from B. Schenn behind the net, the frozen piece of vulcanized rubber barely landing on her tape before it was sailing back towards the goal, above Fleury's left shoulder and hitting the twine in the back, the red light flashing as she let out a whoop, her teammates tackling her in excitement.

"Fuck yeah Row, beautiful!"

"Nice pass fucker!"

The two smiled at each other as the boo's of Consol Energy washed over them. Her goal had put her team up 3-2 with 10:38 left in the third. She made her way to the bench and sat down, grabbing a water and squirting some in her mouth and down her neck.

Minutes late she hopped over the boards for her next shift. The just as she made her way out from a scrum in the corner a deafening boom came from behind Mason. She looked in that direction and saw Luke Schenn crumpled on the ice with non other than Sidney Crosby standing over him.

She blazed towards the captain and grabbed him by the collar.

"That was a dirty fucking hit Cindy." She said pushing him away from Luke.

"Oh honey what are you gonna do?" He asked with a stupid smirk on his face.

"I'll show you, let's fucking go asshole."

The two skaters dropped their gloves, squared off and the crowd roared at the sight.

Considering Rowan has much more fighting experience that Crosby the fight was over quite quickly, with the Flyer coming out on top.

As the two fighters were in the box Luke was helped off the ice by the trainer and Simmonds.

The final score was 4-2 Flyers, with Claude scoring the empty netter. The atmosphere in the locker room was incredible, everybody happy they had beaten their arch rivals.

The usual press guys were there, crowding around her locker as microphones were shoved into her personal space. When she had first made it into the NHL she had no clue how to answer the absolutely idiotic questions that some of the trash reporters had thrown at her, most of them thinking that her stint in the NHL was mostly a publicity stunt and would be over before it had begun. All of them also assuming she used her dad to get where she was. Luckily for her, they were all wrong.

She smiled as she answered the same old questions, congratulating the team and Mason, giving them all of the credit for her goal and 2 assists.

An overly made up blonde pushed her perfectly manicured hand through the crowd, spouting out a question that Rowan absolutely had not heard before.

"Rowan, is there any truth to the rumor that you and Sidney Crosby are dating?"

Rowan blinked at the reported once before throwing her head back and laughing out loud, shaking her head and staring the blonde bimbo down.

"Well if there is, this is the first I'm hearing of it."

"Well according to-"

Rowan cut her off with a glare.

"I'd be more than happy to answer any questions about the game that you have."

The reporter fell silent and Rowan had to seriously resist rolling her eyes. She had worked hard to develop a reputation in the league as a serious hockey player, the last thing she needed was some trashy columnist tearing it all down just looking for some juicy completely false gossip.

She finished up the presser just in time to get in a quick shower before catching the bus to the airport. Plopping down towards the front she flipped off Rinaldo as he told the driver that they could leave now that she was done with her hair.

The puddle jumper made it back to Philly by 3 am. By 3:30 Row was curled up in her bed getting rest for the next game in the home-home series, with Onyx, her Brindle English Mastiff.

"Night buddy," she yawned as she scratch the pups ears and slipped into a much needed rest.