The First EVER Women’s NSL Match!- Massie’s Thoughts
MASSIE’S MISSIVES #3 – THE WNSL DEBUT!
By Jim Massie, Factory Clerk
It is the consensus longest day of the year in what feels like the longest year yet, and so to improve our chances as a civilization the NSL is going to test their dangerous new squash format on women using six brave volunteers! As is the case for most things, it will be Team North America versus Team World, with the added spiciness that whatever their countries and planets of origins, everyone already knows and, I am reliably informed, likes each other. Ha ha! We’ll see how long that lasts.
Sean and the Bragman are out of jail, although their ankle monitors confine them to the Specter Center in Philadelphia, and they gleefully pick up where they left off. Team World is introduced first, composed of Grace “GG” Gear (ENG), Alina Bushma (UKR), and Egyptian doubles star Jana Shiha (EGY), who is unretiring from hardball after retiring from softball at the ripe old age of 22 (six months ago) just to take part in this sweet exhibition. Their coach is Lynn Leong, head cheese at Yale, which used to be in North America but may have been traded to the rest of the world for a couple of first round draft picks since I stopped paying attention. Things happen fast these days!
For Team North America, coached by Atlanta society belle Célia Pashley, we have junior champion Caroline Fouts (USA), who is still legally a minor and looking forward to middle school next year, American Number 2 Sabrina “Roadrunner” Sobhy (USA), who is attempting to break free of her family’s legacy of witchcraft by carving her own path in squash, and devious left-hander Margot Prow (BAR), which I assume is the country code for barbarian.
One thing that is different from the men’s tour, and indeed from young men in general, is that all of these women appear to have lucrative side gigs in addition to pro squash. Grace Gear, for instance, is involved in many leagues, including the Squash Premier League in England, which I really hope is some cartoonish mixture of squash and Premier League soccer (squoccer!). Alina Bushma is a computer hacker, Margot Prow pillages agricultural settlements and Caroline Fouts uses her squash racquet to defend her fellow junior high students from bullies (for a modest fee). Sabrina Sobhy even featured in a Rick and Morty episode where she went into the past and somehow won the Junior and Senior US Championships at the same time, which threatened reality until it paid her to go away. And yet Jana Shiha is perhaps the most midlife-crisis-inflicting, having joined the pro tour at like twelve, switched from singles squash to the hardball doubles tour a few months ago, released a platinum singing album and inspired Japan to create the Gerudo people in the Legend of Zelda video games, all by the age of 22.
Jana (center, awesome copper hair) also has the North African high score in Tetris.
I didn’t know ANY of this coming in, so this is clearly yet another way our so-called “elite media” has let us down, but I have to admit I’m impressed. When I was fourteen I was trying to prove A-S-S in geometry and avoid reading A Prayer for Owen Meany, not earning a living and setting records. No wonder I’ve never been a keynote speaker!
Speaking of speakers, Sean and the Bragman give us an overview of the state of US Squash, now that everyone has graduated from Harvard, Drexel or (in Caroline’s case) Wingo Hebop Elementary. Top players are coalescing in the three hotbeds of Connecticut (which will have a WNSL team next year), Philly and, strangely at first glance, Florida, but it makes more sense when you remember that half of New York City now lives in Miami. And Roadrunner Sobhy, for instance, not only enjoys training in Venusian temperatures for her stamina but also works on her reflexes by chasing down snakes and smashing them against rocks. It isn’t all bad news for the Big Apple, though; in their predictions for the NSL finals tomorrow, both broadcasters favor the New York Knights after their “mollywhopping” of Newport two weeks ago. Bragman does hedge his bets since a.) he loves him some Nashville Simon Herbert, who never drives two straights in a row and b.) Nashville was able to beat Célia Pashley’s Atlanta Tornados team. And as the international crew is about to find out, Célia is a remorseless killer.
First, though, a word from our sponsors since we have actual commercials now! The Greenbrier checks in to remind us that it is frighteningly beautiful, Kline and Specter chimes in to remind us they are watching our every move and ready to sue on our behalves, and Mira Napa wines check in to remind us that they are awesome to drink while playing squash. Order something from each of them today! Ryan Leslie reads the rules and asks are we ready, but then nothing happens after I tell him that I am. I should have sent a fax. Oh wait, something does – everyone comes out to take pictures.
Leslie tries to do a series of high kicks but immediately sprains his ankle.
BATTLE 1 – FOUTS VS. BUSHMA! Sean goes over the rules again for people who just logged in or weren’t paying attention. Of note is a tweak to the power play – the team that calls it will serve the entire time, so no more Sir-Ben-Smith-style evening tea and crumpets by the defending team if they win the point. This sportsmanship sets a good example for all the kids in the audience tonight. The Bragman also alludes to the scriptwriters behind the NSL, and I’d like to point out that I once got a joke inserted into a movie that may or may not have lost money, so I’m practically an industry veteran if you are hiring.
Finally, with regards to our programming competition for the evening – the so-called “PSA World Championships” in Seattle – Sean expresses extreme displeasure at the colors of the Seattle glass court, which aren’t white enough. We should realize by now that he has enough anger to challenge Sauron himself. For his part, the Bragman gets fired up by Caroline Fouts’ authoritative spinner (of the racquet).
When the action starts, both women seem content to play to the back of the court. Bushma and her awesome shoulder tattoos take the first two points, but they get given to team North America because the scriptwriters deem it so. The two give each other plenty of space, prompting the Bragman to call them out on their barbarism, address Sean as “Matt,” and point out that both players are “inching their short balls lower and lower” which is a concept that if he did it might get his parole revoked. As the scriptwriters sort out the scoreboard, the Bragman warns us that Caroline has a tendency to explode, because duh, American middle schools, and when Caroline fulfills the prophecy and goes on an 11-2 run with terrific court coverage, Sean poses the controversial question that is never far from his mind – which is the superior jersey color, pink or mint green?
After much back and forth they decide they would both wear pink jerseys if someone handed them over “right now.” Fouts takes a commanding 10-3 lead with a “scrumptious” drop shot and at this point I have no idea what Coach Leong has planned, but it had better be amazing. Bushma finally wins a point down 3-13 and is rewarded by being pulled. They don’t screw around at Foreign Yale.
Yale’s Antarctic Fortress Campus is not for the weak of heart or trust fund.
Let’s see if Jana Shiha can fix the World!
BATTLE 2 – PROW VS. SHIHA! Fouts is so competitive she tries to take the serve despite losing the last point. Three lost points later Coach Cèlia decides she’ll pull Fouts with a 13-6 lead and sends in the Marbarian. Like all uncivilized people (*cough Sean cough*) Prow is left-handed and this lets her win 2 of her first 3 points; fed up, coach Leong now calls a power play. With the rule tweak designed to prevent stalling theoretically you should be able to rack up a lot of points, but the NSL leadership hive mind didn’t foresee both players being lovely human beings. The ladies constantly apologize for getting in the way or hitting great shots, and while this level of maturity baffles Sean it does come at a competitive cost. Shiha only picks up 4 points on the power play, and the two then alternate deep winners to the opponent’s backhand until, at 13-17, Grace Gear comes on for team World. And just as she exits, in a truly shattering event, we learn that the BAR after Margot Prow’s name stands for Barbados! WHAT? And she plays for the Barbadian National Squash Team?! Is this like a Jamaican Bobsled situation? Quick, to the Google!
Oh my God it’s true, you can play squash on vacation in Barbados!! Ask for Margot (right, blonde). She’ll hook you up!
Buoyed by this incredible discovery, the Marbarian (no, Marbadian!) wins two quick points and gets the hell out.
BATTLE 3 – SOBHY VS. GG
The Roadrunner comes in ready to close. Sabrina is ranked number 14 in the world, which is better than I’ve ever been at anything, even topping that time I took 11th in the nation for chest hair. With frightening pace, she carves out three quick points and Grace finally stops the barrage by drawing a point off interference. Incensed, Cêlia Pashley retaliates by calling her powerplay. We told, you, merciless! GG does a good job on the kill, holding Sobhy to only four points, and as a gesture of respect on the last serve of the power play Sabrina serves the ball into herself, prompting great mirth and happiness. Gear’s attempts to end rallies quickly with aggressive drops and get back into the match backfires tragically with multiple tins; when she does land it is “far little, far too late.” As the period ends North America has doubled up the World, 34-17, and Coach Leong has some plotting to do.
INTERMISSION
As an aside, since I’m a casual squash player, the best part for me is hearing the women complimenting each other for nice shots, as opposed to the men, who have to put their firearms away between points. Yet maybe this is just surface level friendliness; in the stands, one of Caroline Fouts’ classmates, nursing some ancient enmity, takes off her warmups and gets ready to save Team World.
“Fetch me my teal jersey, Ma. I’ll give her a mollywhopping she won’t soon forget!”
When interviewed about how she intends to stop the Sobhyslaught, Coach Leong shows much more caginess than the average male coach. Normally when a reporter asks something insane on the sideline they elicit a frown and some platitude like “We’ve got to cut down on our mistakes and mental errors.” Coach Leong just says, “Nah, I’m not telling you.” More female coaches, please.
BATTLE 4 – ROADRUNNER VS. POP MUSIC – At first, it seems like maybe she didn’t say anything because they don’t really have a plan. Despite sending out their best player, Jana Shiha, the World has no answer for Sabrina, who Meep Meeps three straight points before Coach Leong drops the Acme Power Play to try and regain control. Such is Sabrina’s dominance that she takes the serve anyway, causing Shiha and the audience at home to both do double-takes. Can she do that? No, but it doesn’t matter – Shiha slowly claws her way back! At 3-3, though, a huge rally looms but Darth Leslie shows his (pink) colors and ends the power play with a suspicious no-let. With a 5-4 lead, Shiha launches the Egyptian Space Program, and then at 6-8 Célia Pashley goes nuts and decides to call a power play for Sabrina, who then doesn’t get the serve because she stole it earlier. Fair is fair! The power play sees rapidly escalating kindness, as Sobhy apologizes after hitting a great shot and then Shiha retaliates by not asking for a let when she totally could have had one. The stream has a heart attack from this Care Bear Stare and we get our first ever Women’s NSL Total Switcheroo as Margot Prow and Alina Bushma take over.
BATTLE OF THE BLONDES – PROW VS. BUSHMA – Down 6-13, right off the bat, Alina Bushma hits it into herself but, in a critical turning point for the match, doesn’t apologize. As both women went to Drexel, the Bragman wonders if they learned courtesy from the mercurial coach John White, who was known for exhibitionism and turning tricks to entertain the audience, and thus he hopes that White will turn up tonight for obvious reasons. Sean, for his part, marinates in his ceaseless anger and, in no particular order, appreciates that press conferences in the NSL allow him to criticize players in person, hates on Xbox, and muses hopefully that Alina and Margot dislike each other, as their scrappy play might imply that he’s not alone in his Hulk-like condition. Meanwhile points keep adding up – Margot extends the lead to 9 with another Darth Leslie homer call – but that lights a fire under Bushma, who turns into the Burning Bushma (one great roller from Prow aside). Alina’s fundamentals distort space time briefly and let her close the gap to 5 – but the always-cagey buzzkill Çèlia Pashley is ready and sends in Caroline who stalls the momentum further by “forgetting” that she’s like nine years old and still needs goggles. Coach Leong decides that if everything is going to stall out anyway, she might as well have some fun and get GG back on court.
BATTLE 6 – FOUTS VS GEAR! Grace starts out sloppy and hits one low, but it’s okay because she then hits one high and it balances out cosmically. Suddenly, excitement! Caroline gets mollywhopped! That’s why we wear the goggles and sometimes a balloon suit in squash.
DOINK!
Continuing the proud tradition of women athletes playing through high levels of pain and the occasional death, though, Caroline keeps going and wins the next point, saving what’s left of her tooth for the tooth fairy. It won’t be visiting anytime soon, though, as the impact seems to have energized her. As the score edges out of reach, Sean wades into controversy yet again and asks the Bragman if he could hold North America’s lead against Gear, knowing full well that his co-host is terrified of English people. The Bragman says no. Sean believes that HE could, but only by cheating, which makes sense because he is a Boston fan. When the clock runs out North America has a 13-point victory and a 2-0 lead in points.
INTERMISSION 2: People win prizes and I am jealous. League executives throw Tshirts into the stands, NSL co-founder Sponsor Lovejoy (brought to you by Earl’s House of Clowns) riles up the crowd and for once the Bragman says something that other human beings are thinking. As we get ready for Shiha vs. Sobhy 2, Caroline Fouts thoughtfully chews on some Lidocaine.
Whoever sold Sponsor purple pom poms is going to have a very unpleasant meeting with St. Peter.
BATTLES 7-8 – SOBHY VS. SHIHA AND GG REDUX!
Team World is going to go out on their shields! Jana comes out like her hair is actually on fire as opposed to merely colored like it, playing aggressively and taking a 2-0 lead, then luring her roadrunning foe into covering 200 meters just to lose the rally. Sobhy seizes the moral high ground by hitting a nick and then apologizing, though, so Coach Leong goes with the two-minute power play. It works! After two quick points, Shiha starts pushing and makes some errors, but then Sobhy goes for a kill and misses and YIKES two more points are added on. It’s an 8-3 lead – the world’s biggest of the night – but only four minutes have elapsed. How long can Shiha keep momentum? Perhaps a bit longer – Shiha hits a nick off of a floaty serve and then Sobhy retaliates to great applause, but Jana wins the next point to make it 12-6 and all of a sudden for NO REASON AT ALL the Bragman curses Team World by mention it is “nervous times.”
The wheels fall off with breathtaking speed. First, Shiha serves the ball out, and then over the next two minutes a staggering collection of polite compliments, apologies, and invitations to brunch reveal that Sobhy has tied it at 13-all. Coach Yale has seen enough and lowers the landing Gear but her power just isn’t enough, and after three more quick Sabrina points Coach Pashley locks in her house money by sending in the Marbarian.
BATTLE 9 – BARBARIAN VS. ENGLISH HIGH SOCIETY! After losing the first point to go down four, Grace gets her rear in Gear and wins three in a row, including a 23-shot rally that is the longest of the day to pull to 16-17. But Cêlîa Pashley, ever shrewd, ever evil, calls her one minute power play to kill the momentum dead and it works. Margot grabs three points and it gets a bit chippy out there, as I’m pretty sure Margot tags Grace with a backswing at one point. Still, GG keeps the famous Stiff Upper Lip™, and after another stoic 23-shot rally Gear closes the gap to 3. With no territory lost or gained, that means it’s Foutsing time for the West.
BATTLE 10 – FOUTS V. GEAR AND BUSHMA 2 – THE TOOTHENING!
The crowd hilariously boos Caroline, hoping to get in her head, and it kind of works as an on-court collision results in a staredown. No more sorries now! The camera gives us a good look at team North America to hide the shame of Grace Gear tying things up. But right on cue as we go back to the action things get chippy again. Fouts is done with her baby teeth and wants to give them a legendary sendoff.
“That’s not a let. This is a let!”
Bragman correctly points out that history is being made and we actually see some nervousness from the pink sideline as Team World takes a 27-25 lead.
“A tale of two body languages, by Darles Chickens.”
But Caroline isn’t going to go out having lost a lead. She hits a forehand kill that she likes so much she does it again seconds later. GG can’t hold on and hits a boast into the tin, so Coach Yale sends Alina comes on to get revenge for the first period, saving Jana for the end. While the announcers feel Fouts likes this match better, Bushma has been nursing a grudge since period 1 and isn’t done! With her back against the wall at 27-31, Bushma wins her rally of the match with a 21-shot doozy, and then follows it up a few points later with a backhand so emphatic that Sponsor defects and joins Team World. With 8:45 to go, the coaches do a final Total Switcheroo and send their aces out for the last time.
FINAL BATTLE – FIGHT!
Can Jana pull it back at 31-33 against the cheery, ethical Roadrunner?! That’s the question that Sean asks after briefly being deafened by what I assume is Taylor Swift, since the Bragman apparently plays it at his dorm room parties and I stopped listening to new music in 2005. After two quick Sobhy points, Team World uses their final power play but since it’s one minute only this is going to be tough. During the play, Sean is once again baffled by the concept of sportsmanship when Sabrina hands Jana the ball back, as opposed to eating it out of spite, and the Egyptian repays the kindness by killing the serve a few points later, making an always-stylish duck face to show all is well. Up 35-34, though, Sobhy lights the afterburners and hits apology-worthy winners back-to-back that essentially seal the deal.
*thbbthhbbbthbbhbbb* “MEEP MEEP!”
Sensing victory, Cêlia Pashley calls her two-minute power play and Jana readies her final supply of dynamite, rocket skates and fake holes in walls. Nothing works – Sobhy hits the same three-wall boast two more plays in a row and follows it up with a rolling boast nick just to prove that she can. Jana does a great job of trying Sobhy’s three-wall boast and ends a couple of rallies here and there, but the damage is done. Team North America comes out with a 9 point lead and Shiha gets docked a point for existing shortly thereafter, making it 10. With three minutes left both ladies go into exhibition mode and, while points are good-naturedly exchanged, Jana calls out her own double hit and Sabrina hits her seventeenth nick. The clock hits zeroes with a 16-point North America win and Sean’s deep, deep unhappiness at the amount of class shown by everyone involved.
So ends the first women’s NSL match! The post-match interviews make it clear that everyone liked the format (good!), everyone still likes each other (suits me!) and Jana might consider declaring for the WNSL draft assuming she’s not on a concert tour. We’ll learn more in the coming months about who will declare war on Connecticut and if anyone can stop Sabrina, but for now this successful debut will pair with tomorrow’s match to serve as another milestone in American squash. North American, even. After all, the night belonged to the Barbadians as much as anyone!
See you for the NSL Finals and RESPECT THE GAME, even if it means you have to apologize for a perfect lob.
JIM
