Laura's breath turns into mist as she breathes heavily in the cold. Her massive hockey gear was heavy on her shoulders, but she had gotten used to it and had built the muscles over the years to hold it without getting too winded.
It was nearly the end of the game, the score was even, there were 32 seconds on the clock left, but that didn't stop Laura. She stood off to the right of the face-off, legs bent, breathing heavily as she waited. Her muscles were tense, ready to take off at a moments notice.
The ref slides in, his whistle in his mouth as he lifts the puck just to drop it again.
Laura watched as it fell. It fell slowly in Laura's eyes, like slow motion. She was completely centered, she felt like she had all the time in the world to catch the puck.
It falls to the ice with a clatter, Laura's teammate has it, knocking it over to Laura. In an instant, she's off, stepping so hard on her skates that eyes chips fly up behind her. Laura was the quickest and the smallest. She always uses that to her advantage. She slips between the opposing players, moving gracefully, like water. Her stick glides seamlessly on the ice, keeping the puck in tightly to her so no one can come in and steal it.
Two rather large players on the opposing team meet suddenly in front of Laura. Together they take up a wide space, and they were hurdling at Laura. She quickly realizes she didn't have enough time to divert course, so she finds an opening, and launches the puck to her teammate Laf, who had more bulk than speed, but with everyone already crowding to Laura, they have an easy way up to the goal.
The clock reads 11 seconds left, but Laura can tell that Laf will never make it in time. She quickly takes off down the right side of the rink as Laf goes down the left. One of the large opposing teammates follows Laura, but she was no match for Laura's speed.
Laf sees the opening as Laura hoped they would, and shoots the puck to Laura. Laura swings back her stick and hits the puck towards the net. The buzzer was the only noise that rang through the stadium. Everyone was suddenly quiet as they watch the puck hurdle past the goalie's knees before being caught in the net. All in 32 seconds.
The crowd erupts, everyone from Silas is standing, screaming and clapping. The whole team comes and dumps on Laura, huge smiles on their faces as they clap her on the helmet and on the back.
Laura's heart swells with pride. All of that work in her life finally paid off.
Hockey season ends with that last game on a high note. Laura's University's hockey team had begun to come up again when Laura had joined the team three years ago. She had been playing hockey all her life, making a sort of name for herself by the time she had graduated high school. Scouts from Silas University had scouted her one day, offered her a full ride for four years, and thank god they did because Laura had already determined that she wouldn't be able to afford it.
Now, over three years later, Laura had one more hockey season before she graduated. She was pushing harder than ever, training more and more, studying her ass off when she wasn't training.
Classes her about to start after spring break. Laura had spent in, you guessed it, studying and training. Before returning to her Dad's for spring break, the University had alerted Laura that she was behind in one particular class that she absolutely needed for her athletic degree. The University made a mistake when they made her schedule, completely leaving out a psychology class. Laura was behind by almost a full year of that class, and she needed it to graduate.
Thankfully, the school was willing to fix the problem, so as soon as spring break was over, Laura was taking another class, and she had almost a semester and a half of work she had to catch up on.
