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bilbo · 06-25-2019, 01:54 PM

Quote:Ready for grading!

Note: This is backdated because I’m great at getting things done on time and everyone should be jealous.

A Spider Says Goodbye to Halifax
And Maybe Dreams About Montgomery’s Life
Biased News with Bilbo
By Mr. Spi Der

Here at Biased News with Bilbo Jr. (BNB Jr.), we try to bring you the greatest and latest developments in most things important to bilbo in the SMJHL. BNB Jr. is a for-profit news organization dedicated to getting that sweet, sweet TPE.

Mr. Spi Der has been our senior spider journalist at BNB Jr. since season 44. He does not speak any human language, but he does know how to spin a mighty fine web in English. Our web analysts at BNB (SHL) have spent the last day reading and typing up his notes.

--

It was just past 10 p.m. on a Tuesday. My web belongings for the day were already packed up and I was online shopping for flip flops, trying to score a deal on eight bright red ones to really show off my eight legs. The problem is that my legs aren’t all the same size, so I needed to find red flip flops with a slight heel that matched ones without the heel. Too many websites were saying that male spiders shouldn’t bother with sensible flip flops, but what do they know? Nothing. I was already at hour two in my online search when Bilbo, head journalist and founder of BNB Jr., knocked on my door.

“Hey, Spi, you got a minute?” Bilbo said, voice slightly softer than usual. Even from the doorway, I already knew something was up. Bilbo never calls me by my first name, usually just Der or Mr. Spider when Bilbo is drunk at work.

I scurried over to the board on my desk that has a “yes” and “no” written on it, similar to a Ouija board. I stayed still on the “yes.”

“Not sure if you saw, but the Raiders just got knocked out of the playoffs,” Bilbo paused, “and a couple players are getting called up. Dom Montgomery is one of them.”

I stayed on the “yes” in complete shock.

Bilbo let the silence hang for a few moments. It’s not like I can communicate vocally in a human language anyway, but there was a definite silence. “So, as we discussed before, that means you’re moving to the BNB headquarters in San Francisco. You can come in at 10 tomorrow to discuss, and Dennis will help you pack up the rest of your things.”

I moved over to the “no” on the board.

Bilbo sighed. “I know, it seems sudden, but we saw this coming. You signed a contract that said you’d move to the west coast when he did. How do you think Montgomery feels?”

Well, for starters, Montgomery had a boyfriend he loved dearly in San Francisco. I had my pet lint named Alfred who really wasn’t going to be happy to hear that we needed to pack our bags and move across the continent. Montgomery probably felt fine, even if it meant he didn’t have time to say a long goodbye to the fans and his teammates before flying out west… Okay, maybe he had mixed emotions. Maybe he needed a friend (the term is applied loosely here) going there with him.

I moved back to the “yes.”

Bilbo nodded. “Yeah, he found out about an hour ago from Pride management. I just wanted to tell you before the Lockgomery Department found out downstairs. It’s probably going to be chaos getting out of the building, so be careful.”

I stayed on the “yes” at that. Bilbo exited the room shortly after and I was left to ponder my thoughts about Dom Montgomery leaving the Halifax Raiders for good. As I started to pack up my things, I heard what sounded like gunshots going off on the floor below me, but after a startling couple moments, I heard cheers and realized that the Lockgomery Department was celebrating with champagne. As everyone knew, Leopold Lockhart was on the Pride already and everyone in the Lockgomery Department was just waiting for the day that the two would be united in hockey harmony. I didn’t know what they were all celebrating about though, they were going to be moving to San Francisco with me or would be out of a job. They must not have had pieces of lint for pets that were sensitive to moving environments.

I waited about twenty minutes to see if the floor below me would quiet down, since I would have to crawl down the stairs and enter that chaotic mess, and I really didn’t feel like seeing people or other writing spiders. I just wanted to look around my office for a second to last time.

To pass some time, for ten more minutes, I scrolled through more flip flops online, and then after that search didn’t work out...

I woke up. But when I looked down at myself, I had hands. Large human hands. I didn’t need a mirror to know who I was, because I heard my name over the loudspeaker. “With the fifth overall pick, the Halifax Raiders proudly select Dominic Montgomery.” I as Montgomery had just been drafted in the Season 44 SMJHL Draft.

I got up from my seat and went to the stage, blacking out for a few moments, but I’m pretty sure I shook hands with management and was smiling into a camera with a new Raiders jersey on. When I was backstage, I was surrounded by the likes of Alexander Selich, Leo Lockhart, Mika Mayfield, and Cassius Darrow—all players I knew, as Mr. Spi Der, to be SHL players now. But Montgomery didn’t know that yet. He knew these people as the top prospects in his draft class and his friends. When I looked at Leo Lockhart and our eyes locked, I felt something in my chest that I hadn’t before. I had a human heart that was pumping a little faster than normal. Hopefully I would not die from whatever this feeling was.

I spent that first SMJHL team training camp and the first few games of the season getting to know the players on my team like Vince Rieper, Craig Finley, Maximilian Egger, and Rainbow Dash. It didn’t seem like a long time before the scene changed and I instinctively knew that it was after Game 20 in Season 44. The Raiders had just faced the Armada in Anchorage. I looked back at a sleeping Egger on his bed in our shared hotel room and quietly walked out onto the balcony, shutting the door behind me. It was outside that night that I told Leo Lockhart for the first time that I liked him, and though I didn’t hear any of the words said between us, I could feel a new hope rising. The longer this scene went on, the less I felt like Mr. Spi Der—a spider journalist who would be telling the Lockgomery Department back at BNB Jr. to get wrecked—and more like a human teenager who was baring his soul.

By the end of the playoffs, I was able to officially transfer and play for the British Isles and eventually the United Kingdom (now Great Britain & Northern Ireland) as a tribute to my mum, Tina, who grew up playing hockey in England. A lot happened in a short period of time after that. Our general manager stepped down and a new one came in with a lot of energy. I was drafted fifth overall in the SHL’s Season 45 Entry Draft, and that meant that one day I would maybe be joining the San Francisco Pride with Leo who went first overall. Nothing happened much between us besides more texting and making plans to catch up when each other’s teams were in town, and then soon after, the SMJHL’s Season 45 Entry Draft would change everything even more.

The reporter in me started showing through again as I was made captain of the Raiders and quickly started getting to know all the new rookies. There was Troy Reynolds, a shy, quiet—just kidding. Troy was loud and was itching to fight with someone before day one. Luckily, he was fiercely loyal to the Raiders and wasn’t trying to fight with any of his teammates. Mike McKorsy was our quiet and mysterious goalie who didn’t talk a lot but definitely knew how to save our asses in a game when we needed him to. Then there was Andrej “Andy” Doskocil who saved me on more than one occasion by being a voice of reason at Raiders parties, and Matt Kholin who… Let’s just say, I stayed clear of all the alleged criminal activity. That wasn’t part of my job as captain. There were rookies coming out of the woodwork who were eager to make the Raiders a better team, and luckily for me, there was also Jimmy Slothface and Perry Morgan.

I found out that Jimmy was living in a hotel once the season started, and Perry was maybe living in a car, I didn’t ever really find out. As soon as I mentioned they should move in with me once they were given the titles of alternate captains, they jumped at the chance. The season 45 Raiders’ leadership bachelor pad was born a.k.a rented. It didn’t take long for me to discover how weird they were. Jimmy had a roomba named Rupert and Perry had a SodaStream he wouldn’t let either of us use. To offset their weirdness, I got a cactus and named it Troy, along with a painting of dogs playing poker, because why not at this point, honestly. The three of us became inseparable and season 45 was great until it wasn’t. The Raiders were very, very bad, but at least we had spirit.

When season 46 came, so did all of my anxiety. Surprisingly, Troy wasn’t one of the main reasons. I had taken him fishing before the season started, and he vowed to stop talking so much shit to the other teams in the Halifax Gazette. He kept his promise for a couple weeks. We drafted some solid guys like Esa Parmborg, Joseph Laraque, Josef Kubinec, and Ender Zavala. Perry started drinking heavily and getting in so much trouble to the point that we all kind of forgot about Matt’s alleged criminal activity. Management put me on Perry-watching duty and since I wasn’t able to keep an eye on him all the time, that just started a bit of a drinking situation for myself, one that the media and my family wouldn’t find out about. It’s not like my friends back in Michigan weren’t drinking either, so my excuse was that I was finally acting more like the dumb teenager I was supposed to be. That excuse didn’t sit well with me for long though, so I tried to cut back, especially because the anxiety wasn’t going away like it used to.

I had been seeing my friend Emily back home when we would face the Detroit Falcons in season 46, but once I realized all I really wanted to do was be in a romantic relationship with Leo, I cut things off with Emily. I knew Em and I would still be friends, and all I could really do at this point in the season because of my anxiety was focus on hockey, my teammates’ well-being, and my hope that Leo would realize I was serious about him.

February 27 in season 46 came, a day after the Raiders played the Armada in Anchorage. By this point, Jimmy and I had already come out as bisexual at the Raiders’ LGBTQ2+ Pride Night, but Leo still just wanted to be friends who held hands and had acknowledged that they liked each other. I understood the distance issue between Anchorage and Halifax and that we had to focus on hockey to reach our SHL dreams, but if I’m being honest, it really sucked anyway. Still, I was thrilled whenever he wanted to tell me about his life and it sounded like he still had plans for me to be in it. After our game against the Armada, Jimmy and I had made plans to go hiking in Anchorage with Leo and Olivier Cloutier, his roommate and a guy Jimmy had the hots for despite Cloutier being straight. As Mr. Spi Der, I knew that Cloutier would come out as not straight before season 47, but that was not information Dom had at the time.

Instead of hiking in Anchorage, Leo and Olivier surprised us with a local festival event called Fur Rondy. There were porta potty races, a ferris wheel, and all the kinds of food we couldn’t eat on our SMJHL meal plans. At one point during the festival, Leo and I decided to go off on our own, leaving Jimmy and Olivier to their own devices. They’d been getting to know each other via Instagram DMs, so as Dom, I figured Jimmy would be fine. If not, I wasn’t going to not get alone time with Leo, so Jimmy would have to chill anyway. Leo and I ended up in a photo booth where Leo finally told me that he wanted to be my boyfriend. There were fireworks later that night for Fur Rondy, but I definitely got to see them a couple hours earlier in that photo booth. Also, later that night, Jimmy would read the situation semi-wrong and attempt to kiss Olivier during the actual fireworks only to get denied. That would suck for him for only so long, thankfully.

Once Leo and I started dating, I didn’t necessarily want to admit that he was a large reason why my mental health wasn’t complete shit, but he made me want to be better for me so I could be the best boyfriend to him. Even though the Raiders didn’t have a great season, things started to look up regardless despite a few bumps in the road.

Leo and I got away to Arizona before WJC and IIHF. None of that was a blur, but for privacy reasons, I as Mr. Spi Der will not be going into detail anything that happened in this article. I got to know a couple new players in the WJC like Guy Zheng who was as cool as a cucumber. For the IIHF tournament, nobody believed in us, but we ended up winning silver against Ireland, so that was only mildly annoying but not terrible. Before the end of the tournament though, Jimmy and I heard about Perry getting called up to join the New England Wolfpack, so we had to say goodbye. He’d been having a rough time still with all the Halifax losses and whatever else he wouldn’t tell us about, so I was hoping that the Wolfpack’s management would be able to help him better than we could.

Once the hockey season was over, Leo and I went camping near Lake Michigan and then the weekend of Fourth of July would change things for a lot of my friends. Turns out, my friends from home were traitors and thought Leo, Jimmy, and Olivier were cooler than me. Turns also out that Olivier was not straight and him and Jimmy were doing a kissing thing now. The drinking I did during the season 46 season prepared me well for the Fourth of July and everything that came after.

Luckily, by the time team training camp came for the San Francisco Pride, Leo and I were very stable and I felt confident that I was playing the best hockey of my life thus far. We knew there was a great chance one of us would be going up, and it ended up being him. I felt grateful to be able to be there for him so much that I ended up shaking Jeff Kirkstone’s hand when he told me I wouldn’t be coming up for season 47 but that Leo was.

Season 47’s SMJHL Draft brought in Timmo Kyllonen, Atlas Rush, and Biz Nasty, just some of the guys I got to know. We didn’t have a great season, but on the bright side, there was no 15-game losing streak anywhere in sight. I got a surprise early visit from Leo earlier in the season and then was able to surprise him in Boston for his first game against the Wolfpack and also catch up with Perry who seemed to be doing better. It was difficult only seeing Leo six times throughout the season, but we made the most of it, especially thanks to Jimmy being way too nice and booking us a resort stay during the All-Star break that Leo and I used to celebrate our first year anniversary. I even got Leo’s permission to use one of his sketches of an anchor to get it tattooed on my left bicep. And since it looked pretty good, I only got the minimal amount of chirping from the Raiders.

Everything was going as well as it could on Raiders until the trade deadline when the team found out that Andy was being traded to the Detroit Falcons of all places. Losing someone I considered a close friend and sane member of the Raiders was hard. It would get even harder soon enough. Jimmy was getting traded to the Vancouver Whalers. That was one of the most emotional days in a long time, mainly because I was going to lose my favorite roommate, Rupert the Roomba. Just kidding, I was losing my best friend, a thoughtful and thick-thighed forward from the west coast who I related to on so many levels. I was glad I got to hang around him all day until he left, and at least there would always be the promise that we would play together during the IIHF tournament for Great Britain.

The rest of season 47, I just focused on Leo, hockey, and cooking for myself, because it’s not like I was creative in any other avenues. The Raiders got swept in the first round of the playoffs against the Falcons, but luckily, I didn’t have time to feel sorry for myself after game 4. The Pride called me thirty minutes after the game to tell me I was getting called up and had to be in Texas the next day for game 5 of the SHL playoffs. Management even let me be the one to break the news to Leo, which was one of my favorite phone calls I ever had to make despite the loss in the J.

After this, my head started to really hurt and my eyesight seemed a bit blurry. I didn’t have much time to think about Halifax before flying off to Texas only to lose in game 5, but it was an SHL loss with Leo and my new team that I couldn’t wait to get to know come the next season. It was a good taste of what was to come for hopefully a really long time.

Once I was gearing up for the last time in the WJC, I finally had some time to reflect back on the Raiders. Despite all the jokes and bad luck surrounding the team, I always believed we could win the Four Star Cup. The personalities and heart in the locker room alone should have won it for us in season 45 and 46. It didn’t end up happening, but a lot ended up happening that I wouldn’t take back for anything. Okay, maybe some of the drunken apartment and hotel parties I would take back, but not the relationships I made.

British Isles ended up winning bronze in the WJC, and after watching Ireland win gold five seasons in a row, GB got the job done in season 47. It was a great way to end my hockey season before gearing up for my rookie season in the SHL…

And that’s when I woke up. Not Dom, but me, Mr. Spi Der, spider journalist extraordinaire.

I didn’t usually sleep at night, since that’s when most spiders are active, but somehow, I had fallen asleep after Bilbo left my office room. I looked over at the clock on the wall to find out that it was three in the morning. There were no more champagne bottles being opened downstairs in the Lockgomery Department and all the lights in the office were off besides my screensaver on my computer. Had I really just dreamed about Dom Montgomery’s entire professional hockey career and personal life up until this point?

But wait, no, I had seen past tonight and him getting called up. The Pride were going to lose in game 5 of the playoffs and then Dom would go on to win bronze and gold medals in the off-season. Of course, it was only a dream. There would surely be no way to dream up the actual life of someone for the last three and a half years or so.

After a few minutes of being active and not in my natural spider inactivity state, I realized that I hadn’t actually published the article I’d been webbing in my dream about Dom’s life. What an incredibly long article that would have been. It deserved to stay a dream instead and not a mess of a poorly constructed timeline.

But just kidding, I would spend the next seven hours quickly webbing the majority of this article that I made the web analysts write out. I lied to them and said that Bilbo wanted this article published just so they would analyze and type it up for me so I could keep it as a memory of also my time in Halifax. Dom’s life deserved to stay in my memories and his, but I wasn’t about to forget about this inside scoop into the mind of one of the SHL’s future stars. I wasn’t that nice.

At 10 a.m. like BIlbo said, Dennis came in to help me pack up my things in the office. I discussed my transfer to the new San Francisco headquarters with Bilbo for a bit and then at lunch time, Dennis and Mallory surprised me with a feast of alive, immobilized flies to eat. Despite our terrible work dynamic at SMJHL and SHL drafts, they really were my best friends at the BNB Jr. building in Halifax.

Dennis dropped me off at my apartment and now was the hard part: telling Alfred my pet piece of lint that we would be moving to San Francisco very shortly. He blew away from me every time I tried to get near him, so I left him alone for a couple hours to blow off some steam and also so I could pack up my other belongings.

I didn’t end up making it to game 5 where the Pride took on the Renegades, but just like my dream had predicted, the Pride lost. I wouldn’t really put my stock into it though, most people were predicting that. Instead, I focused on getting Alfred and myself to the airport on time, not having any other friends or family in the area to say goodbye to since I had devoted my life to writing about hockey since the beginning of my life a couple years ago. I was getting pretty old now, and retiring to the warm west coast didn’t actually seem like a bad idea.

We didn’t get an actual seat on the plane, but I stayed up in first class behind a man who smelled terrible. It was rough trying to make our connecting flight, but we managed and were in San Francisco after twelve hours of flying and quickly getting around the airport by the grace of all hockey gods.

After someone from BNB in San Francisco came to get us, Alfred and I were taken to our new home, and I took a couple days off to help him settle in and to also explore the nightlife in the area. Just like in Halifax, there were virtually no opportunities for humans and spiders to mingle, and I’m not really looking to meet another spider right now, so I ended up going into work on vacation to complete more of this article that I knew I would never publish.

I will stop it here, not wanting to wait for WJC and IIHF to be complete to see if I indeed predicted the future and actually had a dream of Dom Montgomery’s real life, but all I want to say is that I enjoyed my time in Halifax greatly and now a new chapter has started. Or at least a new article, because this one is complete.

-

Not from Mr. Spi Der: TY to ThaDangaZone for drafting me, King for being King, Nobody for nothing, Grapehead and tweedle for being cool to Leo and Dom, flam, Jearim, Jepox just because, and all you Raiders/GB/Wolfpack/Pride idk I'm not listing u all. Even if you aren't a part of Dom's narrative, u r a part of mine. If you just skimmed this all, did you at least read the part about aliens? Let me know your thoughts on continuing that part of the narrative in the comments. Special shout out to ej, Jenny, and sloth for making most of this article possible. Ty for giving me feelings and things to write about to make money, bless. I wanted money but also a way to thank some SHL faces who have made this next go-around an absolute blast so far. Definitely the greatest way to waste my time on the internet ever besides watching this over and over (it swears, people at work).

Your friend,
bilbo

tweedledunn · 06-25-2019, 03:12 PM

*slothfacekilla* · 06-25-2019, 03:56 PM

To set the record straight, Jimmy was just trying to give Olivier a kiss on the cheek at Fur Rondy, you know.......... like a European greeting?

bilbo · 06-25-2019, 04:36 PM

06-25-2019, 03:12 PMtweedledunn Wrote:

i like u

06-25-2019, 03:56 PMslothfacekilla Wrote: To set the record straight, Jimmy was just trying to give Olivier a kiss on the cheek at Fur Rondy, you know.......... like a European greeting?

Yeah, that's def what I meant, soz. Jimmy wants to give Olivier a European everything.

Flareon · 06-25-2019, 07:06 PM

06-25-2019, 04:36 PMbilbo Wrote:
06-25-2019, 03:56 PMslothfacekilla Wrote: To set the record straight, Jimmy was just trying to give Olivier a kiss on the cheek at Fur Rondy, you know.......... like a European greeting?

Yeah, that's def what I meant, soz. Jimmy wants to give Olivier a European everything.