NSL RECAP – PHILADELPHIA LIGHTNING VS. NEW YORK KNIGHTS 2025!

NSL RECAP – PHILADELPHIA LIGHTNING VS. NEW YORK KNIGHTS 2025!

By Jim Massie, factory clerk

Everyone! We are unveiling a new, memorandum-style format this season, which awestruck researchers have termed the Essence of Massie. Tell the biker gang chasing you to pull over, dammit, and then send them this link on your phones. You’re going to want EVERY BIT of information in here because gambling is now mandatory in the NSL and you, personally, stand to make a fortune. Read on!

OVERVIEW:

The New York Knights are the defending NSL champions. They are owned by their part-coach, part-owner Elisabeth Hill and mysterious international criminal Lu Valdizan, but tonight they are missing last year’s MVP and noted Frenchman Sébastien Bonmalais. He missed his flight because he was arguing about suffering in a café in Marseilles. They do, however, have Rory Stewart from Scotland, Dillon Huang from the equally foreign country of San Francisco, and, in a huge coup, Englishman Simon Herbert, who they got from the Nashville Crushers after he parted ways from his old team in a good-natured hail of gunfire.

The Philadelphia Lightning, in contrast, are a brand-new team for the 2025 season. They are named after whatever it is in the Specter Center that makes everyone’s hair stands straight up and are a truly enormous group, with at least three owners and what I think are eight players. The three that they were able to detain at the airport and wrangle onto playing are Englishmen Nathan “The Milkman” Lake, former American junior champ and refugee from Chicago Andrew “The Skiing Statesman” Douglas, and Charlie “Smooth Operator” Lee.

Perhaps most importantly, though, management has the beloved Philly Phanatic on hand. For those of you not in the know, the Phanatic was a local man, Sylvester “Rocky” Balboa, who was so committed to Philly sports that he challenged the world heavyweight champion to a battery-throwing contest. He lost in overtime on a botched call from Santa Claus but, refusing to accept defeat, raised his arms in triumph and turned into a giant, furry green bird, thus setting the sportsmanship standard that the city upholds to this day.

THE MATCH ITSELF:

The match itself was nuts and, as fits a match between New York and Philadelphia, featured several controversies and no small amount of rage. For those of you who are waiting to play Fantasy Squash, though, here is the box score, in the order that the players appeared. Asterisks mean they got the power play. Now BEHOLD! The CHART OF CHARTS!

Phillighting Period 1	P+	P-	NYK Period 1	P+	P-
Nathan Milkman Lake	7	13	Simon Herbert*	16	7
Andrew Skiing Douglas	2	5	Dillon Huang	2	2
Smooth Charlie Lee*	8	6	Rory Stewart	6	8
Total	17	24	Total	24	17

Phillightning Period 2	P+	P-	NYK Period 2	P+	P-
Smooth Charlie Lee	10	16	Simon Herbert	16	11
Nathan Milkman Lake*	7	7	Rory Stewart	4	5
Andrew Skiing Douglas	4	3	Dillon Huang*	6	5
Total	21	26	Total	26	21

Phillightning Period 3	P+	P-	NYK Period 3	P+	P-
Andrew Skiing Douglas	7	7	Simon Herbert*	7	4
Nathan Milkman Lake*	10	9	Dillon Huang	1	5
Smooth Charlie Lee	3	5	Rory Stewart	11	9
Nathan Milkman Lake*	14	5	Simon Herbert*	7	16
Total	34	26	Total	26	34

Phillightning Overtime	P+	P-	NYK Overtime	P+	P-
Smooth Charlie Lee	1	0	Rory Stewart	0	1
Nathan Milkman Lake	1	0	Simon Herbert	0	1
Andrew Skiing Douglas	1	0	Dillon Huang	0	1
Total	3	0	Total	0	3

The Phanatic swung true – left for dead after two periods, Philly kept things close all the way through the third, seized momentum in a stunning turn of events, and then took the first-ever NSL shootout 3-0. It’s only fitting that the normal broadcast team, Jackson Bragman and Sean Choi, weren’t calling this match. If they hadn’t already faked their deaths the joy from this would have killed them.

MEGARALLIES: Click the names to watch

Lake vs. Herbert 1 and 2

Lee vs. Stewart 1: Forehandathon!
Lee vs. Stewart 2: Backhandathon!

Lee vs. Stewart 3: All the Marbles

MASSIE’S MEGARALLIES: Click the names to watch

Douglas vs. Herbert 1

Not only did this 67-shot doozy prompt announcer Olivia Blatchford-Clyne to marvel at how the rallies were “long and hard and back and forth” so we wouldn’t miss Jackson Bragman, but Spencer Lovejoy told us the full, tragic saga of Simon Herbert’s break with Nashville.

Douglas vs. Huang 3

This had everything – 94 shots, court sprints, saved nicks, a controversial ending and a solemn discussion regarding both the evils of gambling and double-fist pumping. A must-see!

MASSIE’S MAN OF THE MATCH:

For 105 minutes, New York’s newest mercenary Simon “Gingerbread Man” Herbert was going to be the first-ever recipient of this award and it was the surest thing in the history of sure things. He’d gotten his team out to leads in each of the three periods and hit a racquet-breaking corkscrew boast that roughed up Smooth Lee. Then, with 5 minutes left, the Milkman, Nathan Lake, decided the hell with all that. He entered with a crate full of half-and-half, a one point deficit and a powerplay in his back pocket and struck a blow for every forgotten everyman of England. Facing down the aforementioned Gingerbert, who had whomped him 13-7 at the beginning of the match and stonewalled his previous powerplay, Lake got revenge in the most dramatic way possible – erasing the deficit, setting the NSL record for powerplay points (7), taking the third period for the Lightning and then, for good measure, winning his tiebreak rally. To further assert his dominance he even started T-1000ing into his own teammate Andrew Douglas in the post-match interview. Nathan’s redemption arc and collection of Megarallies are exactly the sort of story I want my name attached to, so he is my inaugural Man of the Match!

CONCLUSION:

Philly is 1-0 and in first place in the NSL North. New York is 0-1 and their title defense is on the ropes. One more loss and they are eliminated. GAMBLE ACCORDINGLY!

Love,

Jim