Unsportsmanlike Conduct

Game Day

After dropping about $280 on a roundtrip flight from Detroit to Denver and $80 for a two night stay at the modest Holiday Inn Express Hotel, Moss receives a thumbs up emoji from his mother in acknowledgment of the booking confirmations. He decides to cancel his Netflix subscription for a bit to make up for the financial hit to his bank account that will surely come from this trip.

Au revoir, Riverdale. We had a good run, but now I'll finally be forced to stop hate-watching your train wreck of a TV show.

Moss works from home on Friday's which allows him to pack and head to the airport ahead of his 5:02 PM flight.

The three hour flight is uneventful and, before he knows it, he arrives at the Holiday Inn Express. He takes a shower in the grimy bathroom and then falls into a deep sleep under the sketchy sheets of the hotel bed.

-

The next morning, Moss wakes to his phone buzzing from the family group chat.

The Team

mom<3

Mo- your father and I are taking your brothers out for breakfast. Are you awake?

elly-boy

wakey wakey eggs and bakey!

mom<3

I've tried calling your phone twice now with no answer. We're heading out.

mom<3

Please meet us at the arena for the game today at 5:30 PM sharp.

shaney-boy

**sent group selfie of mom, dad, Eli and Shane at the breakfast diner**

dad-man

**liked image**

mom<3

**loved image**

elly-boy

**responded to image with 4 fire emojis**

Moss likes his mom's message informing him on when he should meet them at the arena and loves the the picture that Shane sent in acknowledgment.

-

Wasting away in a hotel room for a couple of hours is, admittedly, kind of fun. Moss ends up DoorDashing a late lunch from a nearby restaurant and decides to watch trashy reality TV in bed until it's time for him to Uber to the arena.

Midway through an episode of Chrisley Knows Best, he realizes that he knows very little about the 2023-24 Boulders team. In an attempt to educate himself before the game, Moss pulls out his phone to research their current roster.

1st line: Thomas Barrette - Ethan Landry - Mikael Halla

2nd line: Tapio Kivi - Shane Kettler - Alexander Vasili

3rd line: Hudson Smith - Samuel Lewis - Conor Byrne

4th line: Angelo Rossi - Felix Armstrong - Justin Davis

1st pairing: John Evans - Tye Martel

2nd pairing: Mason Graham - Fredrik Gustafsson

3rd pairing: Eli Kettler - Marcus Enlund

Starting goalie: Petar Vanko

Backup goalie: Jakub Prochazka

Their top six are seemingly stacked, even in the absence of their injured captain, Will Larsson. Landry has consistently been a Hart trophy candidate in all eleven seasons that he has been in the NHL and Shane is no longer a rookie, but instead a reliable second line center working on cementing his role with the team.

Even with the star talent of the Barrette - Landry - Halla line and the additional offensive dominance brought by Shane, the real backbone of the team is their number one defenseman- Tye Martel.

Martel is a twenty-four year old Canadian drafted second overall in 2018 to the Colorado Boulders. Bypassing the college hockey experience, he chose to dive headfirst into the NHL at the age of eighteen and has been breaking records ever since. He was awarded the Calder trophy after his first season with the Boulders for rookie of the year and the Norris trophy twice since then because of the impressive versatility he has demonstrated as a defenseman.

Eli had already been excited to play on the same team as his older brother when he was drafted, but it was no secret that he was even more thrilled to potentially play alongside Martel who has been his idol for the last couple of years.

Moss continues his deep dive on the team by scrolling through the Boulders' Twitter account. Evidently, the social media team have been really hyping up the Kettler brothers playing their first game tonight with four of their last six posts being about Shane and Eli.

**graphic of Shane and Eli with the Boulders logo behind them** Turn up the heat! The Kettle(r) brothers are ready to steam the competition Saturday night!

We sat down with Eli Kettler ahead of his NHL debut- read more about how he and brother Shane grew up in their hectic, hockey-centric family.

**gif of Shane Kettler laughing while watching Eli Kettler in the middle of a busy locker room media scrum after practice**

Colorado Times: Shane Kettler is thrilled to be playing with baby brother, Eli Kettler, and has a message for all fans ahead of game 1 of the regular season.

The further he scrolls, the more content he sees sporadically posted on the team's Twitter account about his younger brothers.

Moss ends up scrolling to their tweets from September, which must have been around the time of the teams' media day. There seems to be endless tweets about the behind the scenes of their annual headshots as well as random fan-service interviews and games.

The video for the obligatory puppy calendar shoot catches his eye. He ends up watching the almost two minute long video where his brothers and their teammates put sweaters on dogs and pose with them for whichever month they are assigned.

Martel looks a bit flustered with the litter of puppies he is given for his portion of the shoot. His seemingly permanently red-stained cheeks flare even darker with the effort of wrangling in a baby pit bull.... it's sweet.

His alarm suddenly goes off, alerting him that it is now 5:00 PM and he needs to order an Uber ASAP if he wants to make it to the arena on time.

Moss throws on a burgundy sweater over his white t-shirt and wiggles his way into a pair of black jeans. He hasn't gotten around to buying any team merchandise yet, so the team color will have to do as far as showing support through his clothes.

-

His first Uber ends up cancelling on him last minute, but luckily another one is able to pick him up right away. He arrives at the arena with eight minutes to spare and immediately spots his parents.

"Good to see you, Mo," his dad gives him a slap on the back.

His mother throws her arms around his shoulders, standing nearly as tall as his 5' 8" frame.

"Let's get inside- I want to make sure we see Eli do his rookie lap before warmups," she drags the three of them along through the busy arena and to the family suite provided to them by the team.

Upon their arrival, they're instantly bombarded by a gaggle of reporters asking them questions about watching the two Kettler boys playing their first regular season NHL game together.

"Moss- how does it feel watching both of your younger brothers' success from an outside perspective?" A reporter jams their voice recorder in his face.

Deep breath in, deep breath out.

I just need to get through tonight. I'll be back in Detroit before I know it.