When the snow gets cold, teams expect to miss a few players, but when the Americans had 4 players miss, they decided to slow the game down slower than your commute home last night.  With the Americans missing Mike Shepard, Ryan Allen, Sam Machi, and–most importantly–Americans GM Tim Braunscheidel, other GM Paul Proctor decided to tinker with the lineups.  Although he claimed he would “drain the swamp”, Proctor exhibited that the high-ranking benders of the league have the ear of the #1 overall pick: 9th rounders Jeremy “Pantydropper Courteous Gentleman #MeToo” Drager and Todd “Whoop Whoop Don’t Whoopy About It!” Otto joined 10th rounder Jeremy “Shoulda Been a Cowboy” Coan as the cavalry for the Americans in a pinch.

When the Brauny’s away, the Proctors shall play

In the locker room, it was the well-lubed subs begging for a lineup from the Americans, who generally ignored the players.  After warm-ups, former Americans GM Bryan “Manny” Madaleno opted to have Drager and Otto together, putting the two fattest guys on the bench who just skated for 45 minutes together.  Lemme tell you, Whoop was a hollerin’!  The players took their innate chemistry from occasional times together on Fridays for the Worms and looked like phenoms shift one.  Shift two…HOO HOO DON’T WORRY ABOUT IT.

The Whalers (I told you I’d eventually get to them) came out of the gate hot, with GM Trent Young’s sub Gavin Clark whizzing around the ice, making trouble.  Eventually, the most talented of the bender subs, Jeremy Coan, extended his MNL goal streak to 4 games, by powering through and scoring late in the first; however, in the next shift, the WhooPanty line suffered a goal against, with a sad bumbling of the exchange of the put with Americans F Dragovic and Drager.  “Wolfie missed the net by 20 feet!  GOOD JOB!” exclaimed Otto, as Whalers F Justin Wright was busy celebrating his goal and Otto’s minus.

Physical play started to take over in the second, as the Americans aimed to shuffle the lines.  Instead of trying to go between the WhooPanty line, Whalers F Paul Wolfe attempted to go through Drager, now that the defensive rock of Americans D Jon Starr was on the other side.  Eventually, the puck was cleared and on the returning re-entry to the zone, Whalers F Tim Kimmel attempted to get some sloppy seconds from Drager, but Drager stood his ground, letting Kimmel slosh to the ground in shock.

Sometimes the image just speaks for itself

At this point, the Whalers decided their physical play wasn’t going to win them this game and had their new finesse sub Clark do the zippy work, letting Otto screen the goalie for the Whalers first lead of the night.  But late in the third, Proctor, realizing the horrendous product he iced due to his own hubris, took the game into his own hands and weaved, whizzed, and rocketed a goal into the net, tying the game up.  But the Whalers decided to knock the Americans back down quick with another goal and put the Americans into a goalie pull situation.  With the extra skater on the ice, the Americans had a handful of opportunities with some good face of wins, a few cycles, and clean shots, but Whalers G John Floreno stood tall.  All the while, Drager was basically playing tendy blocking shots desperately, trying to keep his plus/minus up, while Otto was whooping from the bench at Starr, asking if he can take a 10 second shift so Starr can “rest up”.  Eventually, a Kimmel shot from the point off Drager and Madaleno into the net to give the Whalers a 4-2 victory over the Americans.

In the locker room, Otto began taking ownership of his minuses, saying that he apologizes for his play and he knows the team is disappointed in him.  “You will never see any player in the entire country play as hard as I will play the rest of the season, and you will never see someone push the rest of the team as hard as I will push everybody the rest of the season, and you will never see a team play harder that we will the rest of the season.  God bless.” said Otto.  Jon Starr quickly turned around and said “Nobody is mad at you about this?  Why are you speaking 60 decibels louder than the rest of us?!?”  With that, Otto left on his horse into the cold dark night, waiting for the Americans to call on him again.

Whoop falling on his sword for the Americans

From the trading block, this is MNLHN Senior Reporter Jarómy Drágr reporting.