Many of you may have heard of Antonio Brown and his crazy off season/preseason saga. From his cryotherapy frost bite, to his outdated helmet, to being fined and getting in an altercation with Raiders GM, to finally being released and signed with the Patriots, only to be released a week later. Much like that, MNL is developing their own Antonio Brown story……… The Maffesoli Story.

Chapter 1: The Injury

EARLY SPRING…… With the MNL Draft approaching, speculation had Ryan Maffesoli preparing to be a North Star. Most mock drafts had him being drafted by the Otto bro’s as early as the 7th round. While it is very known that Maffesoli plays on the Left side, it is not a secret that he has many opinions of his potential Right Winged GM, Tye Otto. With belief he would truly be a North Star for the 2019 season, Maffesoli took it into his own hands, or should I say foot, to lower his draft stock. “No one wants to draft someone coming off an injury. Their stock is low and you are unsure how they will bounce back. Not everyone is as lucky as we were when we took a chance on Proctor who can come back after a broken ankle to help us win the Keg.” Stated Diques GM, Jeremy Drager. Some people say Maffesoli want to get hurt. Rumors circulated of him not tying his skate like normal, or being way more aggressive around the boards. Either way, his draft stock went down when he got tangled up and caught an edge. Doctors report said it was a clean break of the lateral malleolus and radial fracture of the medial malleolus. He would soon be out for 3-5 months, perfect timing for someone who wants his draft stock to drop but will be 100% ready to go for the Fall season opener.

Chapter 2: The Draft

July 15th is here and draft day is upon us. Maff is hoping his stock has dropped just enough to get picked up by any other MNL team. “I enjoyed being on the Whalers and Ducks, they made it feel like home and had the utmost confidence in my game. I wouldn’t mind being on their teams again but I would also like something new, I’ve always wanted to play with some top tier talent like Sugar, Proctor or even Matt Taylor this year.” confessed Maffesoli.

The time is 9:48pm, the Nordiques select Joe Brennen and Jeremy Drager with the 49th and 50th pick. It is coming down to it. Maffesoli can only sit and wait at this point. Tension is high as his former team, the Whalers are on the clock. “With the 51st pick of the 2019 MNL draft, the Whalers select D/F John Eidt.” The seals are on the clock and Maffesoli looks to be the best D man available. Could he be a seal? I mean they have won a Keg, and who doesn’t like playing with ShaunE? “With the 52nd pick of the 2019 MNL Draft, the Seals select F Mark Pelot.”

9:57pm, North Stars are on the clock and everyone can sense what is about to happen. The Right Winger brothers are about to fill their team with a left D man. “This isnt going to end well. This will be another case of the Chad Paulinski drama, where another player drafted by the NS just can’t handle to two headed monster they call Troy and Tye. Everyone now is looking around, knowing Maff is probably the best player to fill their positional needs. Would they really do that to such a nice individual? Why put him in that type of environment. He is just going to want out before he even gets in. “With the 53rd pick of the 2019 MNL Draft, the North Stars select………. D Ryan Maffesoli.” The looks on everyone’s faces was a combination of a feeling sorry and a horrific train wreck scene where you can’t look away. “Should we prepose a trade now to save him from his own misery” Ducks GM, Turtle Tim commented.

Chapter 3: The Road To Recovery

Things are going better than expect thus far headed into the preseason. There have been no political debates/arguments and the Right Wingers have done a good job of keeping their mouths shut and watching what they say/post on slack. Nothing but hugs and appreciation from Tye Otto. Maff has done his stint of rehab to get the ankle to 100%, he looks different on the ice. Like he is stronger than before, with a look in his eye only a goon would know. Something has definitely changed. Maybe they are brain washing him in the North Star slack channel and he is just crumbling under the pressure. Maff has a great preseason, with plenty of sub opportunities to assure his recovery for the season opener.

Tensions have released and everyone is starting to get over the fact that Maff and the North Stars don’t mix well. “He is the ying to our yang, how can you not love you a plate of Maffesoli?” described Tye Otto. The season is now underway and the North Stars are off to a slow start. If the losing continues, temperatures are bound to rise and mistakes will be made. The North Star mix is having trouble scoring but also can’t keep other teams from scoring. Is it the defense or is it the lack of production from the offense? Nonetheless, they need to buckle down and make some changes or no one will want to be a North Star, whether you play on the right or the left side.

Chapter 4: The Slack Post

With tensions on the rise and boiling point getting closer and closer every week the North Stars lose, the last thing they needed is a slip up from their GM. In a since deleted Slack post, North Star GM posted an insensitive picture that shared his view on some political issues. This is starting to look a lot like rock bottom for the coveted North Stars. Within minutes of the Slack post, Maff wrote “Trade me” in the thread below the picture. YIKES! How could you be so dumb to post something that didnt need to be posted… and as a GM of a MNL team. Your team isn’t winning and you are going to make things worse by creating a rift in your team dynamic. Whether you thought it was funny or not, you should still think about everyone else’s view point on the subject, especially that of your own team. With Maff on the trading block, it seems things are going where he has always wanted them to. Getting out of the North Stars organization seems to be more likely thann he would have thought thanks to Tye. There are reports that up to 3 teams are interested in trading for Maffesoli but nothing has been accepted. “We offered them Charles, a prolific goal scorer, for Maff. They need a goal scorer, and we don’t really need anything but we would love to have a guy like Maffesoli on the squad” stated Tigers GM, Ryan Allen.

Final Chapter: The Jersey

Tensions have calmed down since “The Slack Post” but it is not forgotten. It will take a back seat this week with the delivery of our new jerseys. Everything seems great and all jerseys look and feel amazing. A leaked video of the North Star locker room showing the jerseys hung on a peg for the players as they show up to get ready for the high stakes tilt with the Whalers. One Twitter user noticed a huge error on one jersey. Many conspiracy theorists have already taken to Slack and Twitter about the purposeful misspelling of one North Star jersey. Who would have guessed? Ryan “Moffesoli”‘s jersey was the only misspelled name in that locker room. Did Maff back channel on one of his trips to china to set forth this plan to make sure everything that can go wrong, will go wrong? This whole saga has led to this point, the final straw that broke the camels back. Everything has been planned from the very beginning. Starting with the injury to drop his draft stock. He then waited for Tye to have one mishap. Everything seems to be falling into place. It doesn’t seem possible that of the two jerseys in the entire league, that one happened to be the jersey of Ryan “Moffesoli”.

So what exactly is the bigger plan? What is all this drama for? Does he want to be free from an organization that has completely different views than him? Or is he just in the market of getting on a team that legitimately has a shot at winning a keg? Everyone knows the North Stars are the biggest choke artists in the league and can never finish when they need to. Maybe it wasn’t about the views or beliefs, it was about the Keg. Everyone’s goal in MNL is to hoist that Keg and I don’t think Maff believed it can be done with this team. Genius. Pure Genius. So what team does he want to go to? What team has the best chance?……… Why of course the one with Proctor does.

Proctor has been a 3x Stanley Keg champion. Everything he touches turns to gold. Just take a look at the lowely diques of previous years. The one year they have proctor… BOOM…. Keg Champions. Some sources place Maffesoli at Service.com where he first met Paul Proctor, some would say he idolized him. The two parted ways only to potentially be joined again to complete his life long goal of winning the Stanley Keg.

What need to happen?

Once Cipps gets back to anything close to 80% and skating regularly. The Americans will then place Cipps on a line with Proctor where he will feed Cipps all game long and start getting Cipps’ stock rising. Once the goals start tallying up, the Americans will need to sell high and buy low. Maff’s stock will remain low as long as he keeps the drama saga going for a few more weeks. More losses, more issues, the North Stars will be forced to give him away for anything. With Cipps’ stock being high and starting to be known as a goal scorer, the North Stars will make this trade to better their team. Maff becomes an American, Cipps becomes a North Star. The North Stars will continue being bad because Cipps will come back to reality when he is not on Proctor’s line anymore, but instead on a line with Tye. The American’s will shoot the top where they kind of already are, Manny will then get to the play forward full time and could potentially be a reason they win the Keg this year.

From the front gates of area 51 and conspiracy theory heaven, Junior beat reporter, Pablo Cortez Miguel Hernandez Juanito Alfonso Boostamente signing off.