What makes a great video? People have been trying to figure this out for years. Hollywood studio executives are fucking this up to this very day, much to Dakota Johnson’s understandable chagrin. But lucky for you, D5 always keeps it sexy. I started this project a few months ago with the simple aim to pick and rank my top 10 videos from the league’s YouTube page – seems simple enough. Unfortunately due to the fact that I had surgery and there’s only so much daytime tennis one man can bet on and the fact that for some reason I really enjoy ranking things, it snowballed to a top 25 plus a bunch of honorable mentions. Much like Dorrian’s on a Friday night, this really escalated quickly. So today we’ll just tackle the honorable mentions, tomorrow will be 25-11 and sometime this weekend we’ll unveil the top 10. Exciting stuff.
Honorable Mention: Had he been able to land this it would have easily been one of the nicest goals in D5 history. Unfortunately he completed the truly difficult part (maintain control while executing a spin move through traffic) and then fucked up the easy part (tuck it into an empty net) so honorable mention is where this ends up.
Honorable Mention: I love a good buzzer beater and while this one unfortunately has no actual buzzer in it since the scoreboard was in the midst of one of its malfunctioning spells, it’s a great play by two guys who assure me they aren’t captain but almost definitely secretly run most of red’s draft every season.
Honorable Mention: There are a lot of instances where a team puts up a few goals in quick succession but few teams did it as often as EJ Entertainment of Fall 2022 who put up an insane 43 goal scored, 8 against in 10 games. They fell in the playoffs to eventual champion purple when defensewoman of the year Cutler got injured, goalie of the year Phelps had to go to Pittsburgh to star in a production of Sister Act (seriously) and rookie of the year Krishan went back to Canada never to return again. But for pure offensive dominance, I’m not sure if we’ll ever see anything like it again. There were a lot to choose from but this won out for Sam’s completely unnecessary celebration on a stuff-in goal to make it 4-0 and because it reminded me I used to play hockey. Tear.
Also for those of you who are wondering what the hell EJ Entertainment is
Honorable Mention: There’s nothing particularly noteworthy about this goal except for the fact that I’m fairly certain it’s the only goal in league history to be scored by someone without a shirt or bra of any type. Kind of incredible that Hicks or Jack never accomplished this feat. Someone factcheck this immediately pls.
Honorable Mention: Gelman saying “oh no, where are we?” right before his team gives up a goal in the same disappointed tone he will use one day when his children fail to locate the afikoman on Passover…just beautiful.
Honorable Mention: This, on the other hand, was not as beautiful and she really should have gotten a major for this. Please don’t do this in a game. Please.
Honorable Mention: Ramy passes to a dude who isn’t on his team, not in the slightest. “I thought he was on my team…Jesus Christ.” I’m no Christian but may I say Jesus himself would be very disappointed/confused with that play.
When you watch the next clip, you can see why Ramy and Jack are such good friends. At least with Ramy’s play I know what he was trying but failing to do: pass to a teammate. I will never understand what Mr McGinty was thinking on this one. Must be some sort of 4D chess beyond the scope of our understanding of the game.
These two really come together splendidly in this random clip which I just stumbled across last year while doing god knows what. I immediately had to email it because it’s one which I’m sure gets lost in the shuffle but has so many hidden gems within. A through the legs pass that goes absolutely no where. Ramy trucking a woman, then missing a wide open chance only to get chided by Jack from the stands for not going bar down. Truly a slice of life from the halcyon days of 2019 before the world exploded mere months later.
Before you ask – no, this article was not the flimsy pretense I was referring to. But it did work out rather nicely. Moving on…
Honorable Mention: Not that Jack’s interview skills are particularly sublime but as I missed a rare D5 week to lounge/trade/gamble on tennis in Shelter Island, Jack conducted the league’s first ever between the benches mid-game interview. Best parts: 0:12, where he appears to forget Vanessa’s name and she responds by correcting his description of her from interim captain to full captain, 0:28 where it’s reported that Mikey is wearing a woman’s t-shirt and the subsequent revelation that the Bajkos are in attendance but rooting for her high school teammate Annie instead.
Really hard hitting journalism here – the D5 broadcast team will need to step it up next season. Speaking of which…
Honorable Mention: The people love Sal and with good reason. Here’s a truly legendary goal call during a playoff game.
If you want more Sal content here’s an extended clip where he refuses to go to Casa Meatbox. There’s a lot going on here.
Honorable Mention: One of the cooler goals you’ll see where Tom McGuire executes the rarely seen behind-the-back-no-look-backhand-slapper.
Honorable Mention: I was pretty good at physics when I took it in high school/college. In case you haven’t noticed, I enjoy math more than your average run-of-the-mill degen. That said, I have no idea what the physics of this play are. A textbook (and illegal) check by Charlotte somehow turns into her being launched into the air. It’s really something to behold.
Honorable Mention: Just an absolutely absurd and statistically improbable scenario where twice in one game AK gets a high stick to the face and both times the high stick is a result of his teammate lifting someone else’s stick into his face. I give him much credit for attempting to score even with a bleeding face on the second one. Unfortunately his vision was surely compromised because it was one of the worst flip attempts of all time. Still, easily one of the manliest moments of AK’s hockey career.
He would follow this up a few seasons later by showing us how sick his dance moves were. Needless to say, we were all very impressed.
Honorable Mention: I heard that the people demanded more confused Ramy content so here’s a clip where green scores a highlight reel goal to extend their lead to 4-2, only for Ramy to sadly declare he thought the game was tied. Hate when that happens.
Honorable Mention: I’ve always had a soft spot for this goal. Whether it was because it’s the rare highlight goal scored during a rare moment that I was hanging out in the stands or the nostalgia of Jack and Russo being young guns…not really sure. But contrary to popular belief, no I did not have an orgasm when they scored the goal despite what you may hear on the video.
Honorable Mention: People often ask if DRo is a malicious player or just careless with his stick and flailing limbs. His wife has assured me it’s the latter as evidenced in this clip where he very accidentally destroys this poor girls stick. Needless to say, this was the last game of her D5 career. Seriously, we never saw her again.
To be fair though, DRo is far from the only lawyer by day, stick-destroying menace by night that inhabits this league. He’s just the only one that did it to a girl (thus far).
Honorable Mention: This clip has a lot going for it. The pre-covid cameraman who wanted to film from the benches until he predictably caught a ball straight to the face made for an interesting angle. The dude yelling for Jack to “fuckin send it” (as if he needed someone to tell him). Jack sending it straight into McQuade’s knee and yet it somehow resulting in a goal. Historians say this was the last time Jack ever shot the ball so low and on target, despite the fact that he was able to assist on a goal and hurt McQuade on the same play. I’d call that a win/win.
Honorable Mention: Even though he’s never been on my team, I’m always excited when Mo scores because you can be sure it will be followed up by an insane celebration involving him screaming and/or running to the stands to immediately slam a beer. Sometimes even both.
Ok, here’s one more for good measure.
Honorable Mention: While we’re on the topic of celebration – come for the goal off a crazy deflection, stay for the ultra rare double-celly combo and the camerawoman referring to him as “Mr Clean.” Easily the finest moment of her pre-Sal tenure.
Honorable Mention: Finally, this goal really needs to be commemorated with an NFT or something. The play itself is great but the celebration afterwards has become the stuff of D5 legend. And that, in and of itself, should really tell you all you need to know about what this league is.
Well that was certainly a lot more honorable mentions than I expected. Despite some of the footage you may have just seen, this league is nothing if not honorable.
Next up: Picks 11-25. See you then.