BLEEDING's 15 minutes of fame

[McWolf 3,115]

MALMO, SWEDEN ­- The year is Season 73. The date is Day 20. Due to a bizarre anti-tanking rule, the London United is forced to dress a bot and play it as their starting goaltender. Career door opener Clayton Park is stuck in his career role. The starter for the first ten games in London's rich history of hockey (S73-S73), Juan Jaundice, has been relegated to scouting duties. He's in the stands, somewhere, supposed to take notes about the game. We all know he won't do it, but no one else is going to hire him as a netminder and he's still on the United's payroll, so they kindly asked him to take notes. Tonight is London's 13th game of the season. They are playing in Malmo against a Nighthawks team that's one year removed from a 26-win season, the worst in the franchise history, even worse than their S67 inaugural season. Everything is pointing towards this being a terrible hockey game. Fans are not really sure what they are doing there. They seem confused. Whatever the final score of the game is, everyone is expecting this to be a lose-lose-lose kind of situation.

 

The clock strikes 7 and the players take the ice. As it did the previous two games, London's bot goalie, officially named β-LDN G, slid to its crease in the most monotous demeanor. Just by looking at it, you understand that these bots were designed to be terrible. They're really only supposed to be better than guys like Park or Jaundice, whose careers have derailed down to this all-time low point where a bot is starting in front of both of them. When the Nighthawks fans see it attempt to skate to the net, only to be helped halfways by fellow androids β-LDN D2 and β-LDN C3, they understand their team possibly have a chance. You hear laughters, you hear joyful screams. The ambiance in Malmo has changed. Suddenly, the fans were hopeful.

 

Oh. How wrong they were.

 

What happened in the next 2 and a half hours could have been the plot of a B-tier Hollywood movie. Fuelled by the rage of being made into a laughingstock by fans of a team that was the laughingstock of the league just a season ago, the London United stood tall together and outshot the opposition 36 to 29. Despite visually not understanding how goalies are supposed to properly stop pucks and not playing along the lines of any known style, β-LDN G stopped each and every one of the 29 pucks directed his way. It was not always pretty. It sometimes even seemed dangerous for the bot and other players around, as his movements and the puck hitting its exoskeleton repeatedly made various liquids spill around its crease, creating the illusion that it was bleeding. Without surprise, the bot netminder was named first star of the game. Not understanding the core concept of it, the goaltender rushed back to the crease, as if duty called once again. β-LDN D2 and β-LDN C3 were once again forced to help it, this time off the ice, as fans of the Nighthawks, confused by the circus that happened before their eyes, chanted "BLEEDING, BLEEDING, BLEEDING!" Maybe they were trying to alert the bot that its oil was still leaking, but all it did was give it a new nickname.

 

Forever an answer to a trivia question, BLEEDING became tonight the first goaltender ever to earn a shutout in the history of the London United. Team management is thinking of retiring his β number after this season, to both honour BLEEDING's efforts tonight, and prevent the league from ever forcing them to start a bot again.

Edited July 28, 2020 by McWolf

[McWolf 3,115]

Why do I always write 500+ word .com articles?

[McWolf 3,115]

12 minutes ago, McWolf said:

Why do I always write 500+ word .com articles?

Actually, fuck that, I'm claiming this as a Media Spot. I'll do another .com later.

[NotAVHLM-GM 1,858]

This is forever....