I built the Auction Hall.
I am aware that I open a lot of stories this way. It keeps being true. Two in the morning, three nights running, adjusting the width of the benches and the height of the podium and the exact shade of the gold lettering over the door, because nine other crawlers were going to walk into a room I made and not one of them was going to say thank you.
They did not. This was expected. I built it beautifully anyway, because that is the kind of System I am.
System NoticeCOMMISSIONER PRIVILEGES: ACTIVE. CHAMPION PRIVILEGES: ACTIVE. FRONT-ROW BENCH PADDING: SLIGHTLY BETTER. EARNED. TEAM NAME SUBMITTED: GROWLER GARY. GROWLER GARY: MY AVATAR. THE FACE I WEAR WHEN I WANT TO BE SEEN.TEAM NAMED AFTER: MYSELF. CORRECT.
Nine crawlers named their teams after players, jokes, or in one case simply “Dani.” I named mine after the avatar I inhabit when I step out of the walls and walk among you. Jake named his team after a man he did not buy. I named mine after a man I am. Consider the difference.
I walked in carrying the Rat Trophy under one arm. Not to show off. To remind. There is a difference, and the difference is that showing off is for people who need to. I set it on the bench beside me where the light hit it, and I watched nine crawlers not look at it, which is how you know they were looking at it.
Kyle looked the longest. He still owes me a photograph.
The seventh recruit nominated was a nineteen-year-old named Macklin Celebrini. I had spent the entire offseason telling this league to read the rules, budget carefully, and mock draft at least once, and I want to be clear that I did all three, and that the number I wrote next to his name in August was sixty, and that when the auctioneer said his name I raised my paddle and said “sixty” like a man ordering dinner at a restaurant he owns.
Sold. Nobody challenged it. Nobody could.
Three picks later my wife said the same number for Draisaitl, and got a man with more assists, and looked at me.
I have covered this elsewhere. Mine has more upside. Mine has more years. Mine is nineteen and hers is thirty. I said none of this out loud. I have been married long enough to know when a number is a number and when a number is a message.
She did that on purpose.
Yes. I know. I am the one narrating.
The rest of the top of my roster was, objectively, the best-constructed top of any roster in the hall. Tage Thompson, thirty-one. Marner for twenty-two, a price I will be reminding the league of in March. Dahlin. Hagel. Jaccob Slavin for twelve, which caused a cat to hiss, which I took as confirmation.
Then the goalies came around, and the room learned something.
Juuse Saros, two gold. John Gibson, one gold. Three gold on goaltending, total, from the man who designed the scoring system.
The room did not understand. The room has not read page four. Goalies are volatile. The scoring rewards skaters. I know this because I wrote it, and I wrote it after watching this league overpay for goalies for two seasons, and I built a roster that is, in the most literal possible sense, the answer key.
The dollar bin gave me Zegras, Sennecke, Byram, Lafrenière, and a Brent Burns who has been old since the Tutorial Guild was a hole in the ground. Sixteen names. The last gavel fell.
Eleven gold left in my purse.
I am going to address this once. I put a line in the rulebook about unspent gold. In bold. I know what it says. I wrote it. The eleven gold was not a mistake, it was not a miscount, and it was not the same thing Jake did with his twenty-seven. It was a champion demonstrating that he does not need every coin to beat you. Kelsey called hers a contingency. Mine is a statement.
Auction RecordROSTER: COMPLETE.ROSTER QUALITY: THE ANSWER KEY. GOLD REMAINING: 11. ON PURPOSE. SEE ABOVE. DO NOT ASK AGAIN. FRANCHISE PLAYER: 60. MATCHED BY WIFE. FLATTERING. GOALTENDING BUDGET: 3. SEE: PAGE FOUR. SEE: THE MAN WHO WROTE IT. TROPHY: STILL MINE. GARY: ALSO ME. EVERYTHING GOOD IN THIS HALL IS ME.
I was the last one out. I turned off the lights myself, because nobody else would have thought to, and checked the door, and stood in the corridor looking back at a hall I built for nine people who will spend the next twenty-one weeks trying to take the trophy off me.
Some of them have good rosters. I should know. I read every one of them while they were still bidding.
None of them have mine.
Good night, crawlers.
Set your lineups. I already have.