About the Team

Monday Night Lights started as an organized drop-in around 2014ish that we turned into a full-fledged official league that we self-run and manage ourselves. MNL has been playing together since 2016 and comprises of 80 players playing across 7 teams. We're a self-organized Draft league, meaning we redraft players every year to compete for our league's Stanley Keg (made out of a Labatt Blue Keg) and we manage our own stats, schedules, awards, and records. After our games, since every player has played with and against everyone one over the past 8 years, we all kick back in front of the rink on what we call the Labatt Blue Party Deck (no joke, article from 2017 here: http://news.mnlhl.com/2017/11/07/labatt-blue-party-deck/) with beers and hang out until everyone has to begrudgingly go home. We have a strong sense of comradery and competition, but also look to give back to our community by doing regular volunteering in the Detroit area, like with the Capuchin Soup Kitchen and Focus: HOPE.

The league is comprised of 7 franchises with GMs that remain consistent every year, but does a yearly redraft of all new skaters for each team. Each team is named after a defunct NHL Franchise, so we have the North Stars (the League Villains), the Nordiques (the League Darlings and my franchise), the Whalers (our most recent Keg Champs), the Golden Seals (considered our most winningest franchise), the Americans (the loosest ran ship), the Tigers (the tightest ran ship), and the Scouts (our newest expansion). Previous folded franchises (relos or rebrands) included the Mighty Ducks and the Maroons. Every year, we get fresh jerseys with new designs for each team (some pictures below) with everyone's names on them. We have a Slack channel where we constantly spend all day all debating who's team is better and commiserating about the Wings. There, we share links to fake parody articles on our News Site written by our ghost writer Dickie Dunn or to our Podcast ("When are we gonna have another episode of the podcast again, Pearcy?!?").

Our year starts with our annual draft where we all get together and watch the teams come together, a September to March Fall/Winter Season, capped by a Wildcard week, and then a 3-game semifinals series and 3 game-finals series (that we stream on Twitch every year with full Play-by-Play and Color Commentary). After that, we have people vote for all-stars , as well as yearly awards (that we call the Dickies after our ghost writer Dickie Dunn), and then we have an All-Star Game (and the correlating "Bender Bowl" for those who weren't voted in as an All-Star) at some unique location. We've skated at Joe Louis Arena, Little Caesars Arena, the Belfor Center (where the Wings practice), Michigan's Yost Ice Arena, Michigan State's Munn Ice Arena, and several outdoor rinks for events like this. Then we cap off our season with the annual Dickies, where we dish out the winners of the Dickies, as voted on by their peers, have a few charity raffles, and have a general end-of-year party.

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Nordiques

Nordiques

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Hockey

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Monday Night Lights Hockey League