Nagy AL has nagy dreams

[bigAL 2,176]

Nagy AL.

 

For starters, we need to talk about where the name comes from.

 

Nagy is pronounced so differently than you think. Hear it here. "gy" is actually one letter in Hungarian, and it's the hardest letter in the whole 40-letter alphabet for me to say.

 

In Hungarian, Nagy means "big". Literally "bigAL".

 

But also, in Hungarian, the last name comes first. In the west, that name would be AL Nagy.

 

Nagy is one of the most popular last names in the country. Look at my local club's roster here, there's two Nagy on the team. Our tendy is Nagy Kristof, and so @Juice died laughing when we saw him come out for warmups. That's his name! Nagy Gergő is a PPG forward as well.Side note, we also have three Canadians on the team, so Go Ferencvaros! (Side side note, I hate that I have to call it "ice hockey" in this country, because "hockey" is already claimed by field hockey.)

 

So, enter Nagy AL, the greatest Hungarian ice hockey player since Welch Kristof.

 

AL was born to a wealthy wine baron in the Hungarian city of Eger. He grew up very privileged. As a kid, he had a golf cart he'd drive around the estate, inspecting the grapes, shooing off the geese, and generally harassing the hired hands. He felt he was the king of Nagy Szőlő Bor.

 

The rich kid was a bit of a prick, especially to people he saw as "lesser than". He'd regularly shoot golf balls into the vineyard, keeping score by listening for yelps of surprise and pain as he hit the grape pickers. Almost every month, AL would set a new high score as his competence with the driver grew and grew.

 

His "plunking the workers" score and his size grew at the same rate. By the age of 12, the boy was fully into man-child territory. When he (rarely) went to public school, AL caused all sorts of havoc in the class. During phys ed, he'd play "AL VS WORLD" in dodgeball. Opponents cowered in fear of his fastball, which caused a concussion or seven over the years. A regular Billy Madison in the classroom, AL's grades were nothing to write home about. With socializing and playing games too easy, and schooling and education too hard, Nagy AL never prioritized school.

 

And why would he? He stood to inherit daddy's wine farm. From a young age, AL had learned all he needed to learn on the estate, not from a damn book and a know-it-all teacher. He could tell the red wine from the white wine, and knew when wine was sparkling or not. He was a regular sommelier boy-genius.

 

AL spent his 20s and 30s working side-by-side with his father. He loved his daddy and loved wine even more. A dealer isn't supposed to use his own product, but when it's high-class drugs like wine, that rule doesn't apply. His red-stained teeth betrayed his excessive love for the fruits of his labour. He drank wine out of a box. He drank wine out of a bag. He drank wine out of a mate's shoe once. He liked to get "fancy" as he called it.

 

In his late 30s, AL hosted an international wine tour at his home. Winos from around the world visited. Champagners from Champagne; grape vodka cooks from Moscow; and of course, the world-renowned grapers from Niagara-on-the-Lake, Canada.

 

AL got really fancy one night with the farmer from Canada. The Canadian couldn't stop talking aboot this "hockey". AL didn't know what he was talking about until the wine-maker whipped out his Youtube channel. Turns out ice hockey was nothing like the hockey AL grew up playing. They had knives strapped to their feet. They beat the tar out of each other at the drop of a hat (or gloves). They shot pieces of rubber at a man covered in pillows. They changed lines whenever they damn well pleased, whistles be damned. And they went fast. Real fast. AL was hooked.

 

The rich kid had no problem finding a full set of equipment. He commissioned the building of an ice hockey rink right there on Nagy Szőlő, and soon spent more days in the cool refrigeration of the rink than the warmth of the grape fields. AL watched so many Youtube videos in lieu of having an actual hockey coach. In the offseasons, Welch Kristof would shack up at the estate and the two would get really, really fancy at night and train really, really hard during the day.

 

Near the end of one particularly fancy night, Kristof convinced AL he was good enough to turn pro. They drunk fancy dialled Welch's agent, and told him they had the next Hungarian superstar trained and prepped for the VHL. Welch promised the agent he was a star, that he was VHL ready, and told the agent to get as many scouts over to Hungary for a special showcase to be held the following Saturday. Game on.

 

The next morning, Welch and AL awoke to a ton of texts from VHL personalities. DC Dragons GM Eno Rama messaged saying he was sending his top Eastern European scout to the showcase, and that Osens was excited to see the new guy. Dakota Lamb RSVP'd, saying he'd come right from Warsaw to see his fellow European Union Bad Boi. Bana was asking if it was faster to fly east or west from Seattle. Things were happening.

 

The morning before the showcase and the day the scouts were to arrive at Nagy Szőlő, AL got some bad news. His father had fallen into the grape crusher and was pulverized into a murderous Merlot. AL was beyond shook. His grief came hard and fast: to exact revenge on his father, AL was determined to murder every bottle of red wine in the cellar. He pulverized the Shiraz section; he demolished the Pinot Noir; he ruthlessly humiliated the Cab Sauv; and he tortured the treacherous Merlot. By the time the scouts showed up that evening, AL was not just fully in the bag, but in about seven bags. He was a mess.

 

Welch, acting as AL's agent, took over the hosting duties for the evening. He made up an excuse that AL was busy meditating on top of a mountain, preparing mentally for the excitement of the next day. The loud, violent smashing of wine bottles outside the dining hall windows betrayed his lie, and the scouts noticed.

 

The next morning, Welch dragged AL out of bed and poured him into the golf cart that took him to the rink. Welch cashed in all sorts of favours to make this happen, and he wasn't letting some excess day-after fanciness hurt his street cred. In his mind, some AL was better than no AL. Turns out, he was wrong. AL was a mess.

 

The plan was simple: Welch would run a practice in front of the scouts. AL would show off his individual skills, his skating, his puck handling, his shooting. His massive frame spoke for itself, so everyone there knew he could throw the body. AL did not follow the plan. No one planned for him to projectile vomit from blue line to blue line. The scouts were not impressed at his surprising ability to sweat sweet red sweat. His stick was shaking, and he was falling over after each slapshot. It wasn't pretty.

 

The scrum afterwards was worse. AL insisted the meeting happen in complete darkness, and that everyone whisper. He sat at his locker room stall with a five litre jug of orange Gatorade beside him. The plan was for a "draft interview" of sorts to happen at this time, but the scouts wanted no part of that. Osens chastised the Hungarian for being, quote, "a fucking trainwreck." DLamb was embarrassed on behalf of everyone who ever lived in wine country. Bana started googling "is it faster to fly east or west from Hungary to Seattle". Welch had promised them a 42 year old, VHL-ready superstar. This was not that.

 

One by one the scouts filed out, taking their goodie bag full of white wine and VHSes of AL's highlights from other practices. By some miracle, both Osens and Lamb, still living twenty years in the past in their respective Eastern European countries, chose to actually watch the highlight videos. On that grainy tape, they saw the makings of a star. He could do crossovers forward and backward when he was sober. Without a constant urge to vomit, he was actually pretty speedy. With a balanced equilibrium, the guy had a wicked slapshot. He wasn't VHL-ready as promised, but the tools were there.

 

The next week, with AL still a trainwreck from the death of his father, Osens called Welch. He told the agent that AL had some skills, but was not even close to ready for the VHL. Nonetheless, Osens promised to pull some strings and get the guy over to North America to play in the VHLM, if he could get his life sorted out. While not the ideal outcome, Welch agreed to the deal.

 

The agent presented the offer to an awfully fancy AL. The player had just returned from a meeting with the estate lawyers, trying to figure out what to do with a winery that featured an empty cellar and a massive, unused hockey rink. Their advice, based on the state of the property, the state of AL's life, and the financial implications, was to sell the farm. AL pushed back, and agreed to nothing in that meeting. When he exited and met with Welch, he began to see a way forward. The sale of the winery would give AL just enough money for a one-way flight to North America. Hockey would give him a purpose in life, a reason to wait until the late evening to get off-his-rocker fancy. And, most importantly, he would escape the ghost of his father.

 

AL agreed to play in the VHLM, and his agent started working the phones.

 

Game on.

[Juice 641]

57 minutes ago, bigAL said:

The next morning, Welch dragged AL out of bed and poured him into the golf cart that took him to the rink. Welch cashed in all sorts of favours to make this happen, and he wasn't letting some excess day-after fanciness hurt his street cred. In his mind, some AL was better than no AL. Turns out, he was wrong. AL was a mess.

 

Welp, there goes my management career, cheers @bigAL