NSL RECAP – CHICAGO GRIZZLIES AT NEWPORT DRAGONS 2025!
NSL RECAP – CHICAGO GRIZZLIES AT NEWPORT DRAGONS 2025!
By Jim Massie, factory clerk
Awaken friends, and embrace the glory that is the NSL in Rhode Island! Coming to you live from the St. George’s boarding school/monastery/secret Illuminati fortress on the Atlantic coast, get ready for several hundred shrieking teenagers to dominate the proceedings this evening!
OVERVIEW:
The Chicago Grizzlies were the only team to go winless last year. Accordingly, they traded in all their letters and completely redrafted their team, hoping they’ve drawn an unusual numbers of Qs and Xs this time. Unfortunately only a couple of their new players showed up, so they’re rolling with Argentina’s Jeremías “The Bullfrog” Azaña, England’s Perry “Malik Family” Malik and Pakistan’s Asim Khan, who isn’t technically on a team but is here because he feels really strongly about bears. One of their owners, Andy McAfee, is the team’s coach, and I assume he is of the McAfee Antivirus McAfees because every time I type something critical of him a popup covers my whole *WE WOULD NEVER DO THAT HA HA BUT SERIOUSLY YOUR FREE TRIAL IS ABOUT TO EXPIRE*
The Newport Dragons, meanwhile, made a conscious effort to get better-looking in the offseason and only retained American Sponsor “The Tranquilizer” Lovejoy, whose lucrative modeling career and penchant for long, sleep-inducing rallies have made him a popular attraction any time there’s a bachelorette party in a rest home. Joining him tonight are Egypt’s Abdelrahman Nassar and England’s Finnlay “The Wizard” Withington, who is absolutely NOT Ron Weasley with a fake passport so just get that out of your head right now.
In other news I’m pretty sure the Newport head coach is called the Taskmaster but maybe I misheard Wild Bill Buckingham.
THE MATCH ITSELF:
Hoo boy. Things went off the rails for Chicago almost immediately. Azaña won his first shift but then the Dragons sent in Withington Weasley and called a powerplay, and he cast a spell of aggression that made Azaña think HE was on the powerplay. While the Bullfrog missed a bunch of drop shots, Withington sat back and gleefully watched, getting a record-setting 8 points. Even worse for the Grizzlies, in the graphics Asim Khan got mistaken for Asim Kumar, an Indian politician and folk singer who may or may not be under indictment, and neither of them was technically on Chicago’s roster. After the period 1 blowout in Newport’s favor, Coach Taskmaster gave a motivational speech to the crowd, which, in keeping with NSL tradition, couldn’t be heard by us at home.
In Period 2, Chicago coach McAfee sabotaged his own team, bafflingly pulling Perry Malik after just five minutes with a 7-5 lead. That meant he only had two players to cover both power plays and 15 minutes of court time, and they predictably got killed by *THE AUTHOR OF THIS RECAP HAS NUMEROUS PIRATED GIFS ON HIS COMPUTER* Still, the period didn’t get truly out of reach until this ridiculous shot by Spencer “Workforce Is 100% American” Lovejoy, which prompted Jackson Bragman to erupt with a microphone-busting soliloquy that involved Kendrick Lamar and pancakes.
With their backs against the wall, and doubtless motivated by a speech from Coach McAfee that we couldn’t hear, Chicago took a brief lead in period 3 but it didn’t last for long before the avalanche began anew. Just three minutes in Newport seized the lead for the final time and Withington rocketed them all the way up to 30 points with 15 minutes left. That let Abdulrahman Nassar and Lovejoy relax on cruise control and run out the clock, leaving the Grizzlies as the only team to never win an NSL match.
Behold the Chart of Charts! Click on the players with asterisks to view them on the power play.
| Newport Period 1 | P+ | P- | Chicago Period 1 | P+ | P- | |
| Sponsor Quaalude Lovejoy | 7 | 9 | Jeremías Azaña | 9 | 18 | |
| The Wizard of Withington* | 14 | 4 | Perry Malik | 3 | 4 | |
| Abdelrahman Nassar | 11 | 1 | Asim “Kumar” Khan* | 2 | 12 | |
| Total | 32 | 14 | Total | 14 | 34 | |
| Newport Period 2 | P+ | P- | Chicago Period 2 | P+ | P- | |
| Abdelrahman Nassar | 7 | 9 | Perry Malik | 7 | 5 | |
| Ron Withington* | 14 | 6 | Asim Khan* | 3 | 11 | |
| Sponsor Endurance Lovejoy | 15 | 7 | Jéremías Azaña | 12 | 20 | |
| Total | 36 | 22 | Total | 22 | 36 | |
| Newport Period 3 | P+ | P- | Chicago Period 3 | P+ | P- | |
| Sponsor Flooring Lovejoy | 12 | 8 | Perry Malik | 9 | 15 | |
| Finnlay Weasely* | 19 | 11 | Jerêmías Åzaña* | 6 | 16 | |
| Abdelrahman Nassar* | 12 | 6 | Asim Khan* | 11 | 7 | |
| Sponsor 4Squash Lovejoy | 6 | 12 | Perry Malik | 11 | 11 | |
| Total | 49 | 37 | Total | 37 | 49 |
MEGARALLIES:
Click the names to view!
Lovejoy-Azaña 5: The Mouse that Roared
Lovejoy-Malik 3: Jumping for (Love)Joy
Lovejoy-Malik 5: Final Reckoning
MASSIE’S MEGARALLIES:
Lovejoy-Azaña 3: This elegant, 60-shot doozy was the high point of the match for Chicago, with their best guy outlasting Newport’s best guy and covering the entire court three times in the process. Unfortunately for them, it took place at 2-2 in the first period.
Withington-Khan 1: I was wrong. Apparently Chicago’s best guy and the highest-rated player in the building tonight overall was Asim Khan, which I might have known if he hadn’t been added to their team 18 hours before the match. Nevertheless, I have to disagree with the Bragman here; Chicago was down 11 points with 6:45 to go and facing a tired guy at the end of his shift. I was practically screaming at Grizzlies to call for the power play; instead, we got a 62-shot rally that exhausted Khan, ended in a let, took 90 seconds off the clock and let Newport sub in a fresh Nassar to tank the power play. I have no idea what Coach McAfee was thinking but *DON’T MAKE US TELL THE WORLD HOW MANY 6S AND 9S ARE IN YOUR PASSWORDS BUD*
MASSIE’S MAN OF THE MATCH:
The fact that Albus Dumbledore let this version of Ron Weasely ride the bench behind Harry Potter for twenty-eight books is goddamn wizarding malpractice. “Finnlay Withington,” or whatever he’s calling himself now, didn’t just set the NSL record for powerplay points. He put up 47 points by himself, which was also an NSL record, rated a ridiculous +26 for the evening and stoned CHICAGO’S one-minute powerplay by totally changing his style mid-rally. The announcers loved him; he impressed Sean Choi by holding his swing until he was awarded a stroke and then broke the Bragman with a ridiculous windmill quadruple fake.
He weathered a stretch of weird officiating that prompted Sean to suspect the match was rigged and so inspired his team that he got a “double fist pimp” from the Taskmaster for causing the first-ever attempt by an opponent to tap out on court. This sorcerer of squash managed to crank a cross-court winner while he was complaining about a no-let call and looking at the crowd; this Bugatti of ginger dominance even killed all sound midway through period 3 because particulate matter could no longer move in the face of his beauty. Nothing mattered anymore. I guarantee you, if Hogwarts had turned my man Finnlay loose like they actually WANTED to win, Voldemort would have let go of the Philosopher’s Sack midway through Book Freaking One and we all could have saved a ton of time.
FINAL THOUGHTS:
What a difference a year makes. When we last saw Newport, they were suffering the worst loss in NSL history. This time they set the NSL record for points scored in a period, with 49 in the third. Accordingly, I’d hate to be Chicago’s next opponent because the cosmic yin and yang are going to be balanced. They’d better hope that Coach McAfee is still calling the shots, because that guy isn’t fit to
~ squash love
Jim
