“It’s a very fast-paced game,” Lauren said. “It’s not like other sports because there’s something happening all of the time. It’s constant action all of the time.”

While she gave up soccer to play hockey, Lauren said that her skills from soccer have reaped some benefits in hockey.

“Sometimes, I will use my feet to kick the puck,” Lauren said. “When my hockey coach saw that, he asked me if I had played soccer before. He could tell that because other players who had only played hockey weren’t doing that.”

She credits the success that she’s had to her coaches and her parents that have supported her.

“I’ve had a lot of good coaches,” Lauren said. “My parents have also supported me by taking me back and forth to Huntsville and Decatur for practices and to games.”

Lauren’s favorite hockey player is Pavel Datsyuk of her favorite hockey team, the Detroit Red Wings.

While she likes the Red Wings, her dad became a fan of the Nashville Predators in 2011.

“She has given me grief for that,” James said. “I trained her up to be a Red Wings fan, but I decided to switch to the hometown team.”

“The Predators vs. the Red Wings is just like the Iron Bowl,” Lauren said. “They don’t like each other very much. So we have to give dad a hard time for that.”

Lauren said she would like to keep hockey as a part of her life going forward. She said she would love to play hockey in college, whether it’s on a club team or a scholarship team.

“I would love to earn a scholarship to play hockey in college,” Lauren said. “There are scholarships for hockey, but they are mostly up north, but most of the schools in the SEC have club hockey teams right now.”