Fitting position

There are times when Sarah Parsons wouldn't mind being back at Noble and Greenough. ''I'd love to go back and do another year," she says. ''I was so young for my class that I could easily have been in the grade below me, and I have a lot of friends in that group."

Right now, the 18-year-old Dover resident finds herself in a sort of Neverland. She's been accepted at Dartmouth but is deferring entrance. She's on the Olympic women's ice hockey team, but it won't be official until the final 20-player roster is announced Dec. 27. She's either going to have a hurried couple of days off at Christmas or an extended winter vacation.

''There are a lot of questionables right now," says Parsons, who'll be back in the area Sunday afternoon when her teammates take on the Hockey East All-Stars in Durham, N.H. ''So I'm just taking it as it comes."

Just because Parsons has a gold medal from the World Championships, just because she scored the squad's last two goals against archrival Canada, doesn't mean she can start packing for Turin.

Too many crazy things can happen. Like mononucleosis, which kept Parsons out of action for a couple of weeks last month.

''When I was in Saskatoon [in October], I felt really tired, so I thought I had a cold," she says. ''Then I thought I had the flu. Then I thought, I'm just run down and sick. Then we all had blood tests and some of my results came back weird."

Hockey is a slippery sport played during the season of sneezes and sniffles, so Parsons is taking nothing for granted. So her attitude is the same as it was at this time last year, when she was trying out for the World Championships squad.

''You try really hard not to think about it because you don't want to get ahead of yourself," she says.

Getting ahead of herself has been the secret of Parsons's rapid climb up the elite ladder. She made the US under-22 team at 16. She made the world squad at 17. Now she's the youngest member of the team by nearly two years, playing alongside women who are old enough to be her aunt, if not her mother.

Parsons is the poster girl for the Cammi Generation, the legion of starry-eyed, slapshooting 10-year-olds who watched Cammi Granato and her teammates win the 1998 Olympic gold medal in the inaugural women's tournament in Nagano. So who was Parsons's role model? ''Cammi," she says. ''Like every other kid."

Two years ago, Parsons found herself dressing next to her idol at a tryout camp.

''She was being quiet," recalls Granato. ''So I said, 'You know, it's OK to talk to an old person. We're not that boring. We're fun.' And she laughed."

Being The Kid in a locker room full of bemedaled veterans has been a major adjustment for Parsons. At Noble and Greenough, her Dedham prep school, she was a scoring dynamo, piling up a New England-record 222 goals and 406 points.

''Not to take anything away from her Nobles team," says US teammate Katie King, who doubles as an assistant coach at Boston College, ''but very few players could play with her."

It didn't take Parsons long -- as in one practice at a national camp -- to figure out that she needed to elevate her game in a hurry.

''I had to change my game a lot when I got up here," she says. ''I could never get away with half the things that I did in high school. That was a quick lesson."

Parsons wasn't going to be a dynamo in this company, not with the likes of Minnesota legend Krissy Wendell up front. But she soon found that she could hold her own.

''Well, I can get her the puck," Parsons says.

The off-ice adjustment might have been more daunting for a girl who was years away from being able to drink a legal beer with her teammates and needed an extended hall pass from school to play in overseas tournaments.

''Sometimes it was kind of funny," Parsons says. ''I'd say, 'Aw, I have to go back and take a calculus test.' "

Her surrogate aunties went out of their way to make her feel comfortable, frequently inviting Parsons along when they went out to eat or shop.

''Once I felt more comfortable socially, then I felt more comfortable on the ice, which is kind of weird," she says. ''But it made it a lot easier."

Rooming with Helen Resor, her old Nobles teammate and a Yale sophomore, has smoothed the way, too.

''It's awesome," Parsons says. ''She's my best friend."

What had helped make her a hockey wonderchild, though, was Parsons's willingness to leave her comfort zone and push herself.

''When I play my best," she says, ''is when I'm playing with someone who in all honesty I probably couldn't keep up with but can still manage to play with."

Playing alongside males, which began when Parsons joined the Boston Junior Terriers at age 8, gave her an early taste of life in the fast and bumpy lane and taught her the necessity of keeping her head up.

''Since I've been used to playing with boys, I don't have a hard time playing with people who are better than me," she says.

Parsons was a shooting star at Nobles, making the team as a seventh-grader. By the time she was done, the Bulldogs had won three New England titles and Parsons had earned the John Carlton Memorial Trophy, which the Bruins award to the Eastern Mass. male and female high school seniors who best combine hockey and academics.

Well before then, Parsons already had been pegged as a potential Olympian by making the under-22 squad.

''That was like a complete shock," she says. ''I had no clue, no idea." But once she got invited to the 2003 national team camp and was able to keep up with her elders, Parsons began sensing that she might just belong there.

Actually making last season's world squad, which was loaded with experienced forwards, was another matter, so Parsons tried to keep her hopes under wraps when she turned up for the tryouts in Walpole over the holidays. ''You don't want to set yourself up to be disappointed," she said.

At the same time, she felt no pressure, and that allowed her to play with abandon.

''I had no expectations to make the team, so I knew that I had nothing to lose, really," she says. ''If it didn't work out this time, there would be plenty of other times."

It was weeks later, when Parsons was planning a graduation party with friends, that she found out she'd be going to Sweden for the world tournament. Her mother had checked the USA Hockey website and seen Sarah's name on the roster.

''I was shocked," Parsons said. ''I smiled for a good two days after that."

All it took was one game for her to prove to herself and the rest of the world that she belonged: She scored two goals and set up a third against the Chinese.

''I was so nervous going into it, questioning whether I'd be able to play with these people," said Parsons. ''It was a major confidence boost."

It took her teammates 15 years to win a world title. Parsons did it in her first chance. But that didn't mean she'd earned a spot on the Olympic team.

''I can see what might happen if I were to think that," she says. ''It can go to your head and completely mess you up. So I won't even let myself come close to thinking that."

Forty candidates, nearly a dozen of them Olympians, showed up at the Lake Placid camp in August. When coach Ben Smith announced the 22 names for the training team for Turin, Granato wasn't one. Parsons was. The star-spangled guard was changing. Parsons may still be The Kid, but nobody's asking to see her hockey ID.

''To see Sarah when she first came on the team and to see Sarah now . . ." muses teammate Tricia Dunn-Luoma. ''She's done an amazing job."

For a wobbly fortnight, which kept her out of the pre-Olympic tournament in Turin, Parsons wondered whether the mono might have sabotaged her trip to Olympus.

''When I found out, I was really upset and had a few tears, but I got over it," she reports. ''I'm glad it didn't happen this week or even later. Missing Italy sort of stunk, but I'm feeling a ton better now. I'm back to my old self."

When the Americans, who'd lost four straight exhibitions to the Canadians, finally beat them in a shootout over Thanksgiving weekend, it was Parsons who scored the winner. In last week's 3-1 loss, Parsons netted the goal. Wouldn't two tallies against the Yanks' nemesis cement her place? ''It's no indication of anything," she says.

Still, there's every indication that Parsons will get the first of what could be three or four five-ringed invitations two days after Christmas. Since the roster already is down to a dozen forwards, the remaining cuts likely will be on defense. So, shouldn't her parents be dialing up Alitalia for February reservations?

''I told them they can do whatever they want," Sarah Parsons says. ''Just don't tell me about it."