[DRAFT] Defecting Athletes Causing Athletic Defects

[Misandristan]

[Title] Athlete Defectors Causing Athletic Defects

[Validity] non-capitalist, allows sports

[Description] @@NAME@@'s once great national hockey team has just lost its 20th game in a row, as its best players have been defecting from the country in order to join professional teams in capitalist countries and accept lucrative endorsement deals. One of your top aides, a massive hockey fan, has organized a roundtable on how to best fix this.

[option] "Listen, it's not that I'm not a proud @@DEMONYM@@," says @@RANDOMNAME@@, the latest defector, via a phone call from his new team's practice facility, "I just chose what's best for my family. We may not agree with these capitalists' values, but you can't blame me for taking an opportunity to give my kids a better life. Honestly, given the choice, I'd rather not have defected at all! Why not allow athletes to play for teams in other countries, and even accept endorsements, while still remaining members of the national team?"
[effect] @@DEMONYMADJECTIVE@@ goaltenders' masks are covered in ads for foreign companies who aren't even allowed to do business in @@NAME@@

[option] "Nonsense!" exclaims @@RANDOMNAME@@, the @@DEMONYMADJECTIVE@@ national team's long-time coach and a notorious disciplinarian. "These players are lucky to be able to play a game instead of having to work for a living in the first place, to grant them even more freedoms on top of that would be ridiculous! If they refuse to stay loyal to their country, I think it's high time you start a surveillance program on all team members, to make sure they never even have the chance to defect."
[effect] specially made skates are required to fit around ankle bracelets

[option] "You know, the coach does make a good point," says @@RANDOMNAME@@, your sports-adverse Minister of Labour. "Why are these players allowed to spend their time playing a children's game, rather than doing something to actually benefit our great country? This many strong, athletic, fit people tied up in simple games is a missed opportunity, quite frankly. I say we abolish the national athletics program and filter all the athletes into more productive jobs."
[effect] @@CAPITAL@@'s biggest arena is seeing its ice being cut up and sold as cubes

[option] "I don't see why we can't turn this around in our favour," @@RANDOMNAME@@, head of @@NAME@@'s espionage operations, whispers in your ear. "Especially when these players leave the country while their families stay behind. Considering how much power and influence sports stars have in these capitalist hellholes, I say we take the opportunity and use any...er...leverage we have against these athletes to make them carry out our operations in their new home country."
[effect] @@DEMONYMADJECTIVE@@ hockey players are seeing their stats drop as they have to leave their games to assassinate foreign dignitaries

[option] "You know what the easiest way to fix this is, right?" asks @@RANDOMNAME@@, a vocal government critic who you're quite sure no one invited to be a part of this meeting. "Allow private industry. Stop forcing the people to only accept what the government tells them they're worth and allow them, like these brave, noble defectors, to sell their services to the highest bidder and make the best life possible for themselves! Now, if you'll excuse me--" @@HE@@ finishes abruptly, jumping out a nearby window as he notices everyone else in the room beginning to converge on @@HIM@@.
[effect] this year's hottest free agents are all @@POPULATION@@ @DEMONYMPLURAL@@ trying to find their footing in their newly capitalist country

[Australian rePublic]

Second last option- any reason why family can't come with? A different idea would be to punish the family

[The Sherpa Empire]

I think it would make sense to have an option to pay them more while still keeping everything under government control, without any capitalistic competition.

[Candlewhisper Archive]

[Description] @@NAME@@'s once great national hockey team has just lost its 20th game in a row, as its best players have been defecting from the country in order to join professional teams in capitalist countries and accept lucrative endorsement deals.

Nice premise. I suggest "twentieth" in words, and not using @@NAME@@'s, as that macro followed by an apostrophe is incompatible with many pluralised nation names.

I was going to suggest not making it hockey, but instead picking one of the fictional sports already introduced to the game, but a lot of the jokes seem hockey specific. If you can make those jokes fit Calvinball, that'd be great.

One of your top aides, a massive hockey fan, has organized a roundtable on how to best fix this.

Redundant sentence. Cut this, and just go straight to the opinions. I suggest, however, moving the defector further down the running order.

[option] "Listen, it's not that I'm not a proud @@DEMONYM@@," says @@RANDOMNAME@@, the latest defector, via a phone call from his new team's practice facility, "I just chose what's best for my family. We may not agree with these capitalists' values, but you can't blame me for taking an opportunity to give my kids a better life. Honestly, given the choice, I'd rather not have defected at all! Why not allow athletes to play for teams in other countries, and even accept endorsements, while still remaining members of the national team?"
[effect] @@DEMONYMADJECTIVE@@ goaltenders' masks are covered in ads for foreign companies who aren't even allowed to do business in @@NAME@@

Effect line is unwieldy. Got a snappier one?

[option] "Nonsense!" exclaims @@RANDOMNAME@@, the @@DEMONYMADJECTIVE@@ national team's long-time coach and a notorious disciplinarian. "These players are lucky to be able to play a game instead of having to work for a living in the first place, to grant them even more freedoms on top of that would be ridiculous! If they refuse to stay loyal to their country, I think it's high time you start a surveillance program on all team members, to make sure they never even have the chance to defect."
[effect] specially made skates are required to fit around ankle bracelets

Hah. I take it back, stick with hockey, just for this effect line.

[option] "You know, the coach does make a good point," says @@RANDOMNAME@@, your sports-adverse Minister of Labour. "Why are these players allowed to spend their time playing a children's game, rather than doing something to actually benefit our great country? This many strong, athletic, fit people tied up in simple games is a missed opportunity, quite frankly. I say we abolish the national athletics program and filter all the athletes into more productive jobs."
[effect] @@CAPITAL@@'s biggest arena is seeing its ice being cut up and sold as cubes

That effect line isn't going to make sense on a front page that has no reference to hockey or ice skating.

Maybe:

[effect] comrades who attend ice rinks are accused of being on the slippery slope into bourgeoisie habits

[option] "I don't see why we can't turn this around in our favour," @@RANDOMNAME@@, head of @@NAME@@'s espionage operations, whispers in your ear. "Especially when these players leave the country while their families stay behind. Considering how much power and influence sports stars have in these capitalist hellholes, I say we take the opportunity and use any...er...leverage we have against these athletes to make them carry out our operations in their new home country."
[effect] @@DEMONYMADJECTIVE@@ hockey players are seeing their stats drop as they have to leave their games to assassinate foreign dignitaries

Nice. I'd go with the simpler:

[effect] ice hockey players are trained to use high speed pucks as a tool of assassination

[option] "You know what the easiest way to fix this is, right?" asks @@RANDOMNAME@@, a vocal government critic who you're quite sure no one invited to be a part of this meeting. "Allow private industry. Stop forcing the people to only accept what the government tells them they're worth and allow them, like these brave, noble defectors, to sell their services to the highest bidder and make the best life possible for themselves! Now, if you'll excuse me--" @@HE@@ finishes abruptly, jumping out a nearby window as he notices everyone else in the room beginning to converge on @@HIM@@.
[effect] this year's hottest free agents are all @@POPULATION@@ @DEMONYMPLURAL@@ trying to find their footing in their newly capitalist country

Eh, too similar to option 1. I'd cut it.

[Trotterdam]

I suggest "twentieth" in words,

Although this is commonly recommended by traditional writing guides like you'd learn in school English class, I've actually seen guidelines published specifically about web writing recommend the opposite, on the basis that the ease of clicking from page to page has shortened people's attention spans, and digits are easier to read because they stand out from the surrounding babble.

Then again, it's not like the exact number matters to the story here.