The Friendship Match - Grit - A Game of Dystopian Hockey

Transcript of the mandatory broadcast The Hour of Friendship and Sporting Glory, carried simultaneously to all three cities of the Everlasting Omnidemocracy and to the loudspeakers of every labor-district, where attendance is recorded. The fixture is the Friendship Match: a gesture of eternal goodwill toward the megacity of New Londrax, whose touring club the glorious First Central Sports Collective of Omnigrad has graciously consented to defeat. Commentary by Citizen-Announcer Voss Tregar (Sport) and Deputy Overseer of Sporting Ideology Marl Steenholt (Meaning). The Emperor was present. This is noted in the record. So are you.

ANNOUNCER: Good evening, citizens, on this the four-thousand-and-eleventh evening of the Everlasting Omnidemocracy, which began long ago and is also happening now and will additionally always have been. We broadcast to you from the Palace of Ice and Production in glorious Omnigrad. Capacity of the Palace: all of you.

OVERSEER: Attendance is its own reward, citizen, and is also recorded.

ANNOUNCER: It is my honor to announce the presence of the Emperor — First Citizen, Eternal Servant of the People, and Honorary Captain of every team that wins. The players have saluted him. He has permitted the match to occur.

OVERSEER: A democratic gesture, freely chosen by him on behalf of everyone.

ANNOUNCER: And here they take the ice — the pride of the Forge and the Center and the Cold, the heart from which our national side is drawn: the glorious First Central Sports Collective of the Everlasting Omnidemocracy, Omnigrad. Note the emblem, citizens. The pentagon. It is everlasting. The Directorate has confirmed this.

OVERSEER: Once the emblem was a square. The People voted to improve it. It now has five sides. No citizen living remembers what the fifth side is for, and the matter is not on the ballot. This is Omnidemocracy. We do not stop improving.

ANNOUNCER: And a word on the Collective’s lineage, for the young —

OVERSEER: The club descends from the old Conditioning Directorate of Demokratarsk — yes, that institute, the one charged generations ago with producing the perfect soldier. The institute failed to produce the perfect soldier. It produced instead the perfect forward. The Plan finds a use for everything.

ANNOUNCER: And what a forward! Wearing the eternal number 9, our captain — Citizen-Striker Lev Varga! Hero of the People’s Sport, holder of the Order of Tireless Merit, fitter grade seven at Toverograd Blade Works No. 4 —

OVERSEER: — where he reports for his shift each morning, being an amateur, and from where he has been continuously absent for nineteen years, being also the greatest hockey player alive. There is no contradiction. The Works counts him present. His tools are kept polished by a citizen who loves him.

ANNOUNCER: Last season the People elected Citizen Varga the finest player in the league by one hundred percent of valid votes!

OVERSEER: The invalid votes have been corrected.

ANNOUNCER: And opposite him — well. Here come the visitors.

OVERSEER: The touring club of New Londrax, citizens. I am required by the Friendship Protocol to read their full name, and I shall do so once: the New Londrax Lions, a wholly owned subsidiary of Grynd-Ashford Holdings, a partner of forty-one further sponsors whose names appear upon the jerseys, the shorts, the helmets, and, I am told, the inner lining. Their players are not workers. They are assets. They are bought and sold and they skate for whoever pays. Observe the menagerie capital can purchase: a gork upon their defense, leased; a Necralite at forward, with the teeth filed for television.

ANNOUNCER: The Necralite is very fast, citizen.

OVERSEER: Speed is not virtue. A falling rock is fast.

ANNOUNCER: And — citizens, I must note, among the visitors there is a player whose name I will not pronounce.

OVERSEER: There is no such player.

ANNOUNCER: Of course. The man enemy propaganda calls their new star, who once — they claim — wore our pentagon, and who took the salary of New Londrax — he does not exist. The record has been corrected. Let us watch the nine men of the Lions.

OVERSEER: They field six.

ANNOUNCER: Let us watch the six men of the Lions.

ANNOUNCER: The puck is dropped! And immediately you see the difference between two ways of life. The Lions have given the puck to their bought Necralite, who carries it alone, alone, citizen, keeping it for himself —

OVERSEER: As they keep everything for themselves. Mark it, citizens. They hoard. We pass.

ANNOUNCER: And we do pass — Varga to Voor, Voor to Sedrak, back to Varga — the Collective moves the puck as the Plan moves steel, each man holding it only long enough to give it away — SCORE! What a goal by Varga!

OVERSEER: A correction, citizen Voss. Not by Varga. The goal was scored by the Collective, and indeed by every citizen of the Everlasting Omnidemocracy, and is dedicated to the Emperor, who permitted it. Citizen Varga merely stood where the goal arrived. He would be the first to say so. He has been told to be the first to say so.

ANNOUNCER: The output stands at one. The Plan forecast a goal in this minute. The goal has arrived in this minute. Beautiful.

OVERSEER: We pause for a civic announcement. The results of the All-Cities Referendum are in. On the question of the color of the new Omnigrad tram, turnout was one hundred percent; the People have chosen Grey. On the question of whether Thursday’s broadcast shall lead with the weather or with steel, the People have chosen, by a margin too vast to print, that the Directorate should decide. A mature electorate. Voting on next week’s question — the optimal width of the new tram — opens at dawn and is mandatory. Now: hockey.

ANNOUNCER: Play resumes. The Lions press — their gork defenseman is enormous, citizen —

OVERSEER: A leased ox. Note that even now, citizens, the entire New Londrax club glides upon blades stamped Made in Everlasting Omnidemocracy. They cannot manufacture a skate. They can only buy the men who wear ours. Their idols stand upon our steel. Reflect on this when you are told the enemy is mighty.

ANNOUNCER: And — the visitor, the one who does not exist — he has scored.

OVERSEER: He has not. Cut to the crowd. The crowd is overjoyed.

ANNOUNCER: [The crowd is overjoyed.] Output now: Collective one, no one nil. We resume.

ANNOUNCER: Citizens, the final whistle! The glorious First Central Sports Collective of the Everlasting Omnidemocracy is victorious, by the score of four to two.

OVERSEER: The Plan forecast four to two. The Plan does not err. The two goals conceded were also planned, as a courtesy to our New Londrax friends, that they might go home with their dignity and their forty-one sponsors. This is the meaning of Friendship.

ANNOUNCER: The Emperor is departing. He is satisfied, which is to say the People are satisfied, which is to say you are. Citizen Varga returns tomorrow to his lathe.

OVERSEER: He has never left it. Citizens, you are dismissed from the broadcast but not from the labor that follows it. Your attendance this evening has been recorded with gratitude. Glory to the Collective. Glory to the Plan. Glory to the Game, which the archeomonks gave us and which we have improved.

ANNOUNCER: Do not forget to vote.

OVERSEER: You will not be permitted to.