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In honour of your overlord's (that's me) birthday, everyone who likes this post gets 1 TPE. #teepz #lovevictator #tpeinflation Edit: for anyone still here, check the date. This is a decade old and is no longer valid, please don’t try.

Hello everyone, Not gonna bother with a members tag on this, if you see it then great, you will be rewarded for that. If you don’t then…. Well why am I writing this because if you don’t see it how can you read this part? Anyway, today marks 5717 days (that’s 15 years, 7 months, and 26 days if you’re curious) since the VHL opened its doors. What a random number you might say, why does that matter? Well if I do the math, and I have, I was born 5717 days before the start of the VHL. Given that I joined on day one and have been here ever since that means today marks the official day that I have been in the VHL just as long as I was outside of it. Is that a stupid thing to celebrate? Probably but that won’t stop me; so please let me indulge in a bit of sentimentality for a moment. When the VHL started I had not yet completed high school, I had never had a girlfriend, hell I had never kissed a girl. I was a lonely nerd turning to the internet to find something to do; and I found it. The VHL was not my first sim league, wasn’t even the first one I joined ran by the people who ran it, but it was the first that felt different and felt like it had a good chance of surviving which so few at that point had done. I found a community here. I cannot honestly say that everything went perfectly or that my start in the VHL was without fault; I very nearly left for good within 2 months, but I stayed. I have now not only finished high school but university and going on 10 years working post-schooling. I have now not only had a steady relationship but a wife and two children, a life. All the while the VHL has been there, constantly evolving with the times sure but present. Over 5 years ago I took up the mantel of commissioner. I did it not because I thought I was necessarily the best person for the job but because I thought the league needed something, it was in trouble and I didn’t want to see it fail. I like to think that in these 5 years of growth I have at least stalled that failure. 5717 days likely means nothing to any of you, just as that paragraph likely means nothing to any of you, but it means something to me. This league, this place, this community has been a standard in my life for longer than most anything else. I’m not going anywhere right now, that’s not what this is, but I did want to mark the occasion because this league does mean a lot to me. So if you’ve made it this far feel free to take 5 uncapped TPE for your troubles, on me. I’m not sure the insane total I’ve had over the years (probably over 10k by now) so 5 for everyone that I bored with this story should suffice as a thank you for being my weird extended internet family.

Welcome to the VHL Twelve Days of Christmas Version 2! Just kidding, last years Santa had to take a leave of absence due to post traumatic stress disorder after you all complained about his 12 Days of Christmas game. Merry Christmas* and of course Happy Festivus*. You are entitled to a free doubles week if you believe you were a good behaving member of the league this year. Like this post to claim your free doubles week for the week of Dec. 22-28. (12 free TPE instead of doing a point task, 13 for mag writers) *Insert your own belief here

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The Victory Hockey League stands for equality for all, regardless of ethnicity, gender, sexuality or religion. We cannot claim to be a league of acceptance while remaining silent in a time of turmoil, such as the one currently unfolding. The murder of George Floyd is only the tipping point in what has been generations of systemic racism, not just within the United States, but, around the world. As a league, we feel this is a time to show unity and support for those who fight for equal rights and assist those minorities who are most affected, as there is no place in the world for hatred due to the colour of one’s skin, or any other factor. While we would love to assist all foundations who combat racism, inequality, and social injustice, it is simply not in our power to do so. However, we have decided to run a Donation Drive so that we can assist, in some small way, those who are affected by the injustices that have occurred. The details of the Donation Drive may be found HERE. -Victory Hockey League @Commissioner @BOG @Members

@Cowboy way back when for getting me here. @BOOM™@Noah@Devise@diamond_ace @Advantage@Jericho for being my best friends in my first extended VHL run. @Beaviss for being the reason I stayed active and around for Harding through to now. @Esso2264 for being a great GM, putting up with a lot of bullshit, and dealing with my backseat gaming when I watch him play pokemon. @Da_Berr for being an awesome AGM that helped me a ton getting Warsaw off the ground. @dasboot for being an awesome AGM that has helped us take the next step in our VHL existence and has made my job easier. @dlamb@Hooperorama@KaleebtheMighty@jman9theman9 for being the best first draft class that I could ever ask for. @Infernal@Alex Bridges@Laflamme@efiug for helping Warsaw by setting a strong example in the early years of our franchise. @Renomitsu @AW13@Siddhus@Crstats23@inflastud@Jeffie43 for being a part of a pivotal second Warsaw draft class that has played a massive hand in our come-up this season (and in jeffie's case, coming in from a trade and being a big addition to the squad). @TurnDaddy@kevinscix@Senjo1706@Jake Sumner@SilverMike@williamirc@Nicolai488 for your continued hard work in the Warsaw pipeline. @dasboot@diamond_ace for your players' terrific performances this season. @Hylands@rory @Esso2264 for putting up with me in VC almost every day and being good people. @Garsh@Mr_Hatter@JeffD@Blazzer @Spartan@Da Trifecta@fonziGG@frescoelmo @gorlab@jhatty8@solas@Jeffie43@Renomitsu @a_Ferk@OrbitingDeath @STZ@thadthrasher for being homies. @BladeMaiden for the free therapy, great conversations, and you putting up with my never-ending quest for optimization in Stardew Valley. @bigAL@Tate for brightening everyone's day whenever y'all come around. @Prout because you deserve a shoutout. @Victor@tfong @Beketov@Quik for your continued work to make this league as great as it is, in most cases even through its darkest times. @Josh for everything that you do, in the league and as a friend. @Banackock@hedgehog337 for setting a great standard for the GM position for so long, and giving the league some stability to lean on in the job while going through a massive influx of members. @Dil for putting up with all the heat and being cool nonetheless. @Enorama@rjfryman@GustavMattias@Berocka@DoktorFunk@Acydburn @FrostBeard@Jubis@Jubo07@Ricer13@Peace@McWolf@Rayzor_7 for being members of the VHL's greatest generation that I haven't mentioned yet but have done great things to make this place much better over the past couple years. If I miss anyone from this category I apologize, there are a lot of you and I've been writing this post for a while already. inb4 I forgot a homie and get shamed @VHL community thanks for making this a great second home where I can RP as a muffin. you all @Nykonax I'M SORRY @MexicanCow123 I'M SORRY

What it has been like for me as a female in the vhl.. (Note this is just how it has been for me. Other females could very well feel differently.) I found this league off a YouTube video of someone talking about it (I don’t remember who) and thought it would be interesting to try out for myself. I was very much so prepared to be one of the few girls in the league as most things like this are male dominated most of the time. At first I was quite hesitant on here and didn’t really tell anyone my gender because I was frankly afraid of how people would react. In the past I would be treated weirdly because I am not a man and it scared me that it would happen again. I didn’t want to be treated differently. I wanted to be viewed as just another person playing a game to pass time and meet new people. As I got more comfortable in my first locker room (Yukon rush) I felt comfortable enough to tell the people in there.I finally told them I was in fact a female and explained to them why I didn’t say earlier and told them that I really do not want to be treated differently because of my gender because I was here for the same reason they were. That locker room to this day is still one of my favorites because they were so genuinely accepting and didn’t really care. It gave me the confidence to be more open of who I really am. They didn’t change how they acted (honestly they got weirder) instead they continued to be who they were beforehand. I was not treated differently and they really didn’t make me feel any different then one of them. So thank you to everyone in that locker room but special shoutout to: Ricer, Cow, Alex, Dylan, and LPOS for being genuinely great people. As I got moved around I didn’t tell most of my other locker rooms because it didn’t feel right. I did tell one other one and they reacted the same way Yukon did. However, with a couple of the other locker rooms I’m in I’m not going to lie I haven’t because of the fact of being scared of reaction. There’s a part of me that feels like I already don’t fit in, in some locker rooms and me saying I am a girl would just make it more awkward. I already feel as though I’m so different from them just in a personality way that now adding that gender difference would only make it worse. Although this could very well just be me overthinking things to an extreme. Generally for me being a female in the vhl has been a very welcoming experience. I haven’t really had negative feedback from the people I have told (which is everyone now) but more just the fear of negative feedback coming. Thank you to any and everyone who didn’t change how they acted when they found it because it makes me a whole lot more comfortable knowing that they aren’t going to change because of my gender and that I’m not holding back their personality because of that. So I would like to say to anyone who reads this: please please please if you find out a user is the opposite gender please don’t treat them differently. We are all on here for the exact same reason and them being a different gender shouldn’t change how you act. I can’t speak for all females on the platform but to me I want you to act the exact same way. We are humans too. word count: 616

A bunch of you have me on Facebook so you’re bound to find out anyway, I might as well post it here like I did last time. New future VHL talent coming in September:

Not putting this in a full fledged announcement because it's optional but still something I wanted to point out. In an attempt to be more inclusive to non-cisgendered members we have added a custom profile field for pronouns which you can find by editing your profile. It will appear under your profile photo next to all your posts so that it's nice and clear to everyone what pronouns they should be using with you. We have also changed the "gender" profile section to be more inclusive in regards to non-binary and gender fluid individuals. I know this is a minor thing for most but it can mean a lot to those that aren't CIS so we're glad to be able to do it easily for them. As I've said, you aren't forced to use it so if you choose to please take it seriously. If you choose not to then you can completely ignore this and carry on with your day.

VHL SEASON 73 MOCK DRAFT Written by Christopher Miller With the Season 73 VHL Entry Draft approaching, I have decided to delay my next Historical Battle article for another week. This seemed like the perfect opportunity to drop my final Mock Draft for the rest of the Victory Hockey League. I do want to make it clear that despite now being the Assistant General Manager for the Malmo Nighthawks, none of my opinions come from any specific knowledge despite my own institution. No draft strategy has been discussed as of now with Frostbeard and therefore, this is a draft from a completely blind perspective despite public knowledge. Since the Expansion Teams are now properly slotted in, along with their compensation picks, this seemed like the best time to release my three round mock. Get ready to see fifty-two predictions on where these players may fall in line come draft night. Please keep in mind that the TPE totals may not fully reflect your current number in the portal since this article has taken a couple of days to complete. **Please note that "AVG" is determined by taking the average amount of Capped TPE earned in the weeks ending June 21st, June 28th, July 5th and July 12th. Each stat can be a maximum of 12.0" --- FIRST ROUND 1. DC Dragons: LW/C - Groovy Dood (Minnesota, 234 TPE, 12.0 AVG) @bigAL NHL Comparable - Sean Couturier Groovy Dude is certainly not the best player available, but I do feel that DC is going to be looking at a forward with this pick. Ultimately, this could very easily end up being someone like Jeffrey Pines, but I do believe that Dude’s agency has really made quite the impression on the league. Enorama sees one of the most active members in the league on and off the boards, and with the professional personality he has shown thus far, Dude seems to be the type that not only will be a great locker room presence, but may also be as loyal as they come. Dude’s VHLM totals this year don’t jump off the page or anything, but consideration does have to be made that he transitioned from a winger to a center and was playing lower in the lineup due to the talent that was in Minnesota. Ultimately, Groovy would finish with 57 points and 88 hits in 72 games, but it was the improvement he made over the course of the season that has gotten so much attention. Ultimately, Groovy Dude will not be the best player in the draft next season, but in six or seven seasons I could see him being one of the best as he has some of the best raw potential in this draft class. 2. Malmo Nighthawks: D - Tyler Walker (Saskatoon, 319 TPE, 11.0 AVG) @Advantage NHL Comparable - Alex Pietrangelo Tyler Walker could make an argument for the best player in this draft class (assuming we aren’t counting Frostbeard who will be forced to go later). Unlike Dude, Walker should be able to make an immediate impact in the VHL and was utterly dominant in the VHLM this season. With 115 points, 60 hits and 101 blocked shots in 72 games, Walker showcased his incredible skills against the VHLM best all season. Playing on the eventual Founders Cup Champions, Walker played a pivotal role in the regular season and playoff success of the team. He would lead the league in assists and led all defensemen in points while being the steadying presence on arguably the best blueline in the VHLM. Walker also would record 19 points in 18 games (including 7 goals) to go along with 36 hits and 28 blocked shots, during the playoffs. As the season went on, Walker started to play more physical which has made scouts salivate given the already incredible skating and two-way play that the Canadian defender possesses. With connections in Malmo due to his agency, this one seems like a sure-bet if DC lets him slip past the first overall pick. 3. Vancouver Wolves: D - Micah Adrienne (Las Vegas, 304 TPE, 12.0 AVG) @Poptart NHL Comparable - Ryan McDonagh Vancouver is in a pretty good position with the third overall pick. While they will watch Walker go to Malmo, they have to be pretty excited to pick up a defender that matches up pretty well next to him. While Micah Adrienne and Tyler Walker are very different defensemen, it is Adrienne that many feel may be the most ready defensively in this draft class. The pure shutdown defender recorded 72 points, 250 hits and 104 blocked shots in 72 games this season. His offensive performance was actually pretty impressive for the Aces this season, but it was his defensive showings that have vaulted him up to this position. One GM I talked to had this to say: “We have him higher than Walker in this draft. I think he fits better with our team as he is an absolute savage defensively and I love his instincts physically. You need to keep your head up going through the neutral zone, and that is such an intimidating factor that people don’t realize.” Adrienne comes from a reliable agency that produced former star goaltender, Finn Davison, but it is Micah that seems to be getting even more hype. The battle between him and Walker going forward will be interesting, but Vancouver just has to be happy to nab one of them. 4. Seattle Bears (via Prague): G - Jacob Tonn (Mississauga, 310 TPE, 12.0 AVG) @MexicanCow123 NHL Comparable - John Gibson Prague was ultimately likely to trade this pick as they don’t really need defenders or goaltenders and while someone like Pines would help them, there are a lot of quality forwards later on. Therefore, they traded this pick to Seattle to pick up a couple extra picks down the draft. Seattle has to be looking for a goaltender here to replace soon-to-be-retired Rayz Funk. Jacob Tonn has the third most TPE in this draft and is narrowly behind Walker, but as we know, goalies sometimes have to wait a bit longer. Thankfully for Tonn, Seattle springs to action and trades up to nab the BPA and their future star goaltender. Tonn recorded 45 wins this year to go along with a .893 SV% and 2.84 GAA, which is decent but not spectacular. One scout we talked to had this to say on his potential: “We like Tonn a lot. We have him second on our goalie rankings, due to his size, but I can understand why some would have him first. He really is a very well rounded goaltender, but I was a bit disappointed at times with his showing this year. My biggest question for me is his size as he is perhaps the smallest netminder we have ever seen get drafted into the VHL. His talent is there but I do have concerns there. Hopefully he proves me wrong.” 5. Toronto Legion: LW - Jeffrey Pines (Mexico City, 268 TPE, 11.5 AVG) @rory NHL Comparable - Teuvo Teravainen “Thank you very much”, should be the words that Peace uses after seeing Pines fall to five. The best forward in the draft (not including Frostbeard) ends up being the second one taken, and honestly this is mainly due to the presence that bigAL has shown in the league thus far. This is a pretty easy pick for Toronto who doesn’t need a goaltender, and while they could look to someone like Glade III, Stansson or Kramerev at defense, I think you just take the best player available here and with it being on-paper the best forward that was available to be drafted by teams that are not Malmo, you have to chalk this up as a huge win. Pines has shown to be a big personality already in the VHLM but he had the performance to back it up, recording 91 points and 107 hits in 72 games. Pines is a pass-first winger that plays a responsible two-way game, but he still managed to score thirty-six goals this season, so the scoring potential is definitely there. 6. Malmo Nighthawks (via Davos): G - Grekkark Gyrfalcon (Saskatoon, 269 TPE, 12.0 AVG) @Sharkstrong NHL Comparable - Connor Hellebuyck I am not really sure Malmo was looking at Tonn over Gyrfalcon due to their Assistant GM’s familiarity with the Wild goaltender, but Seattle taking him certainly made this pick a whole lot easier. Gyrfalcon is absolutely the polar opposite of Tonn, standing 6”8 and weighing 230 lbs. He was a brick wall for Saskatoon this year, propelling them to 37 wins, a 2.33 GAA and a .898 SV%. While Tonn has been getting a lot of the press as the top netminder, Gyrfalcon has slowly come along and put himself right in that conversation as well. One scout glowed about Gyrfalcon by saying: “He reminds me a lot of both Brick Wahl’s that played in the VHL. Both were massive goaltenders who had great hand speed and reaction time, and were really huge in key moments.” Gyrfalcon finished the playoffs with a 12-4-2 record, 2.95 GAA and a .890 SV% but really stepped it up for Saskatoon’s wins in the finals. 7. Chicago Phoenix: G - Jean Pierre Camus (Yukon, 256 TPE, 12.0 AVG) @solas NHL Comparable - Ben Bishop This seems like a pretty easy selection for Chicago. Having that first pick for Expansion teams seems like an easy attempt to get that franchise goaltender, and with Jean Pierre Camus on the board, this might be the biggest lock in the draft. Camus sits as the third best goaltender in the draft, but is neck and neck with Gyrfalcon, and not that far behind Tonn either. JPC played admirably for a mediocre Yukon team, recording a .906 save percentage despite having a 3.79 GAA and just 21 wins. Yes, he had the best save percentage of any of the top three netminders in this draft. Camus, like Gyrfalcon, is a massive 6”8 goalie with a pretty well-rounded skill set that should serve him well in the VHL. Coming from a pretty well known agency, I can’t see Chicago passing up the opportunity to get their franchise goaltender at this pick. 8. Los Angeles Stars: C - John Merrick (Mexico City, 234 TPE, 12.0 AVG) @Steve NHL Comparable - William Karlsson With a few solid goaltenders likely to get to the Expansion teams’ compensation picks, I see the run on goalies ending here. Los Angeles can look to pick up a center to play with the likes of Markus Nygren, Gary Neal and potentially even Sigard Gunner. Merrick is a two-way scoring center that played for a brief time on the Mexico City Kings this season. In 26 games, Merrick recorded a very respectable 6 goals and 10 assists, before having a solid 10 point in 18 game playoff campaign. It is important to note that given the stacked nature of Mexico City, Merrick was hardly the first option on the team and likely sacrificed some of his production because of this. Los Angeles will be nabbing a player from a pretty well-known agency with a build that should serve him well in the Victory Hockey League. 9. Helsinki Titans: D - Wolf Stansson (Mexico City, 220 TPE, 12.0 AVG) @ahockeyguy NHL Comparable - Jacob Trouba Some may be surprised to see Wolf Stansson going this high, especially given that there are defenders like Kramerev and Glade III still on the board, but you shouldn’t be. Wolf Stansson has been absolutely incredible since joining the league. Off the ice, the agency for Stansson has been near perfection when it comes to earning the development time necessary each and every week. On the ice, Stansson was an absolute monster this year for Miami. Stansson recorded 30 goals and 83 points to go along with 143 hits and 138 blocked shots. He was as well-rounded as they came in the minors this year, and I think that is one of the big reasons he jumps into the top ten for me. While he does currently sit fifteenth in development time, I see Stansson being a top ten earner in the long run, and bringing his two-way physical style to a top pairing in the near future. 10. Warsaw Predators: D - Shawn Glade III (Mississauga, 229 TPE, 6.0 AVG) @ShawnGlade NHL Comparable - Matt Dumba I do have to admit that I have Glade III falling a little bit due to him rubbing some people the wrong way in the past….but it’s time for that fall to end. Glade III projects as a talented two-way defender who doesn’t really dabble into the physicality as much. He was excellent for Mississauga this year with 83 points in their 72 game campaign. My other reason for Glade III falling slightly is a bit of inconsistency in his updates as of late (as seen by the average rating above). There is certainly a chance that he has just not updated everything yet, but it may be a cause for some pause on draft night. Ultimately though, the high-end potential is there and if anyone is going to take a risk, I think an Expansion team like Warsaw could use the experience and a potentially safer pick than some of the first-gens on the board. 11. London United: D - Kosmo Kramerev (Miami, 228 TPE, 10.25 AVG) @Mongoose87 NHL Comparable - Jaccob Slavin The league voted that Kosmo Kramerev was likely to go much higher than I have him selected, but ultimately I think this will be closer to reality. Kosmo Kramerev had a marvelous year for Miami this season, finishing with 106 points, 94 hits and 142 blocked shots. Kramerev is a shoot-first defender that plays responsibly enough defensively that he should be able to transition fairly well to the Victory Hockey League. His style of play is actually eerily similar to projected second overall pick, Tyler Walker. However, my main concern isn’t his ability to produce or his on-ice skill set. My concern is that he doesn’t max his development time like Wolf Stansson does. Now, with that being said, I definitely could see him jumping ahead of Glade III, but I do think some General Managers will value Shawn’s experience in the league, so ultimately I have London being thrilled to start their draft off with a first-gen defender. 12. Calgary Wranglers (via Seattle): RW - Patrik Laine (Houston, 201 TPE, 11.5 AVG) @PatrikLaine NHL Comparable - J.T. Miller When I originally was predicting picks in this draft, I had Patrik Laine slipping out of the first round. After all, there is a ton of talent that will go in the top fifty-two selections of this draft. However, after closer inspection I felt that Laine’s enthusiasm on and off the ice, to go along with his definitively impressive development time, was enough to see him slip into the first round. Since coming into the league, Laine has shown to be one of our most active draftees on the site. He’s also a force on the ice, finishing the season with 59 points in 58 games for Houston. The goal-scoring winger could be a great fit on a first line one day, or even anchor a second line by using his shot, size and two-way play to make an impact. With Calgary having the likes of General Zod, Latrell Mitchell and Edwin THE Encarnacion on defense, I see them focusing on forward and adding a potential star in Laine. 13. Moscow Menace: D - Matty Socks (Las Vegas, 187 TPE, 10.5 AVG) @fishy NHL Comparable - Jared Spurgeon “But Advantage, he is 22nd in TPE in the draft class”.....I do not care. Matty Socks should be a first rounder come draft night. Socks plays a very defensive style of play but has the ability to jump in when necessary, as demonstrated by his 57 point campaign with Las Vegas this year. Why the jump? Socks is one of the top earning players per week of late, and I think his impressive development will vault him over a few other options. Additionally, other than maybe one other defender, the draft pool at that position is about to fall off, and one look at Moscow’s roster will tell you that they need to look for a defenseman. Alex Letang is the only defenseman in their entire franchise that is young and has any future in the Victory Hockey League. After that, you are mainly looking at players already in their prime or past it. Therefore, I think Victor puts a premium on defense here and given that he is, in my opinion, arguably the best player available to be taken, I think this is a slam dunk selection. 14. Vancouver Wolves (via New York): C - Andre LeBastard (Miami, 225 TPE, 10.25 AVG) @Andre LeBastard NHL Comparable - Bo Horvat Andre has actually impressed me quite a bit since coming into the league. His 76 point campaign was very respectable and his two-way playmaking build should serve him quite well once he reaches the Victory Hockey League. LeBastard is a pretty consistent earner and really capped off his season with a tremendous showing in Miami’s one series. With 11 assists and 12 points in their 7 game series, LeBastard showed that he has the stuff to compete with anybody when the moments are at their biggest. LeBastard could look to stall and play another year in the minors, which could set up Miami for a potential Founders Cup run. Then look out cause I think LeBastard has the potential to be a high-end second liner and maybe even a first liner if his development continues to trend upward. 15. Prague Phantoms: C - Dakota Lamb (Miami, 199 TPE, 12.0 AVG) @dlamb NHL Comparable - Brayden Schenn For those that have not been following Prague, they want forwards. They have really no need for defense in the early rounds and they are set for goaltending at the moment. Therefore, I have them looking at three players here in Lamb, Volchenkov and Baillie Jr. Ultimately though, I know how much Jason loves selecting new talent to the league, and I believe the enthusiasm Lamb has shown will certainly serve him well. Another member of Miami that could return next season, Dakota will be looking to build off of his 37 goal, 93 point campaign. Lamb projects as an elite second line center who plays effectively in all three areas of the ice and boasts a heavy and accurate shot when found in the offensive zone. Another one of those really consistent updaters that could very well go higher than many expect come draft night. 16. Malmo Nighthawks (via Riga): LW - Marshall James Frostbeard (Mississauga, 328 TPE, 12.0 AVG) @FrostBeard NHL Comparable - Leon Draisaitl This is obviously the pick given that Marshall James Frostbeard is the selected player of the General Manager. Frostbeard has to be taken with one of Malmo’s first rounders, and since this is the last pick of the first round, this is really the only pick that is 100% set in stone come draft night. To many, MJF is the best player in this draft and is coming after a tremendous 39 goal, 87 point and 259 hit campaign. Frostbeard is the top developer in the draft, and will be a future franchise player for the Malmo Nighthawks going forward. --- SECOND ROUND 17. Prague Phantoms (via Malmo): C - Alec Volchenkov (Saskatoon, 201 TPE, 11.5 AVG) @SirRupertBarnes NHL Comparable - Paul Stastny Remember when I said that Prague wants forwards? After selecting Lamb with 15th overall, I think they look for another top forward at 17th overall. I’m not too worried about positions here with how flexible our league is in that regard, but I just think that Volchenkov is the best forward available. Despite a rather mediocre campaign with Saskatoon that saw Volchenkov record just 15 points in 60 games, many scouts have indicated that they believe Volchenkov has the raw potential to be a first round selection in this draft. He is a solid faceoff taker to go along with being one of the best skaters and playmakers in the entire class. His scoring ability leaves a lot to be desired, but I think with continued development, we could see Volchenkov flourish on whatever team drafts him in the VHLM this off-season. Then you can expect him in Prague who is looking to continue stocking up at forward in this draft. 18. Helsinki Titans (via DC): RW - Dan Baillie Jr. (Saskatoon, 214 TPE, 8.5 AVG) @wcats NHL Comparable - James van Riemsdyk I’ve seen a lot of people suggest that Baillie Jr. should go in the top ten in this draft, but I just can’t agree with it. I know the member has history with his last player in the league and is generally very well liked, but I do believe he doesn’t quite cut it compared to some of the forwards I have going ahead of him. In fact, I’d argue there are a couple I have going behind that I would probably look to first, but I do think his reputation will see him go here to Helsinki. With 44 points and 150 hits this season on Saskatoon, Baillie Jr. showed that he can play in every situation but is an extremely dangerous sniper who can skate with the best of them. However, my main concern is that his average updating totals for capped development time do fall slightly behind some of the other forwards that will go between ten and twenty, and that’s why I don’t have him as high as some. 19. Vancouver Wolves: RW - Oh Sens (Miami, 192 TPE, 12.0 AVG) @osens NHL Comparable - Jake Guentzel Oh Sens is one of those forwards that I think I would have ahead of Baillie Jr. going into this draft. He has been as consistent as anyone in this draft and brings a very solid two-way scoring build to the winger position on Miami, as demonstrated by his 28 goals and 61 points this season. While he will be entering into the VHLM Dispersal Draft, I think Sens will be one of the best scorers in the minors next this season, and be someone that can explode for them. With Vancouver having back-to-back picks and already selecting Micah Adrienne with the third overall selection, I believe we will see them go forward with both of these, especially given the talent available. 20. Vancouver Wolves (via Prague): C - Kevin King (Las Vegas, 173 TPE, 11.75 AVG) @IamMOOSE NHL Comparable - Tomas Hertl Kevin King is ranked twenty-fifth in development time but I have him slightly jumping here due to his consistent activity. He is another that is updating at a near-perfect rate and has been very impressive off the ice as well. With a build that supports a goal-scoring center that can bring intangibles to the game, I do think that King’s lack of production this season should not hurt him. Despite only recording 2 goals and 8 points in 30 games, I believe that Kevin King has the potential to still be an excellent second line center, and maybe even better than that if he keeps it up. There is another winger that could go here, but given that they already took Sens, I think King makes a lot of sense with this selection. 21. Warsaw Predators (Compensation Pick): RW - Jesper Norberg (Las Vegas, 172 TPE, 11.5 AVG) @jpsd NHL Comparable - Viktor Arvidsson Speaking of that winger, I have to think Warsaw would be thrilled to select Jesper Norberg with this pick. There are some pretty impressive goalies left and a really talented defenseman, but after taking Glade III in the first round I can’t really see them going back to the blueline. Additionally, they have another compensation pick at 24 and with multiple talented goalies left, and Chicago still to pick (not looking for a goalie after drafting Camus), they are still pretty much guaranteed to get one of the top goalies available. Therefore, Jesper Norberg is an easy pick especially given the impressive consistency he has already shown to developing in the league. While he still has holes in his game, mainly defensively, Norberg seems like a contender for one of the most improved forwards next season in the VHLM. It would not shock me if we are talking about how Jesper Norberg is a steal in five seasons, let's put it that way. 22. Chicago Phoenix (Compensation Pick): D - Mikeal Keef (Minnesota, 209 TPE, 6.5 AVG) @RStar NHL Comparable - Alec Martinez Chicago will say thank you very much for having Mikeal Keef fall right into their laps. The defender is ranked nineteenth in the draft for development time and is coming off a very successful season with Minnesota, that saw him tally 67 points, 127 hits and 89 blocked shots over the course of the season. Keef is a defense-first blueliner that doesn’t mind throwing his weight around and will jump into the play when necessary. His skating still needs to continue improving and I would like to see him handle the puck better before making the jump to the VHL, but I do see Keef being a real solid player down the road. My only real concern with him, and the reason he did drop for me, is that while he is a consistent developer, I do believe his ceiling is not as high as some of the players I have going ahead of him, like Matty Socks. 23. Los Angeles Stars (Compensation Pick): G - Ajay Krishna (Ottawa, 207 TPE, 12.0 AVG) @Hooperorama NHL Comparable - Jacob Markstrom With Los Angeles not having another pick until 28, I see them getting their choice of goaltenders here and letting Warsaw take whoever the Stars don’t want. Krishna definitely is a step up on the rest of the goalies for me and probably has the fourth best ceiling of any goalie in this draft. After a really successful campaign on Ottawa (36 wins, .891 SV%, 3.58 GAA), I am looking forward to seeing if Krishna can take the next step for the Lynx. Ultimately, Los Angeles will need their goalie and this just seems like a no-brainer here with Warsaw on deck and likely looking for a netminder themselves. 24. Warsaw Predators (Compensation Pick): G - Calvin Harvey (San Diego, 174 TPE, 7.5 AVG) @Mrpenguin30 NHL Comparable - Petr Mrazek Calvin Harvey is one of the more interesting prospects in this draft. I do think he is a pretty safe pick to become a VHL goaltender one day, but my main concern is that he ends like goalies like Clayton Park did in the past, and just maxes out as a decent goalie but not really the type of netminder you want to build around. He had a pretty tough campaign playing for the atrocious Marlins, winning just ten games and recording a .889 SV% and 4.45 GAA. However, that really isn’t indicative of his potential as they were barely a VHLM team at times. However, my concern is that I don’t believe his ceiling is as high as needed to become someone to build around. With that being said, if Warsaw feels that Harvey can at least be a solid goalie then I think they take a shot here and hope for the best. I do think Harvey should become a decent goalie and while I don’t see him as an elite goalie one day, the league has shown that you don’t necessarily need to have an elite goalie to find success. 25. New York Americans (via Toronto): RW - The Terrible Trivium (Minnesota, 203 TPE, 5.0 AVG) @der meister NHL Comparable - Michael Ferland One of the biggest drops in the draft for me is Trivium mainly due to his limited potential. I see his ceiling as a solid second liner that can score goals and play pretty good defense. Ultimately, there is a pretty good chance that he does go higher on reputation alone, but as the member behind him as already stated, he isn’t going all-out like he has in the past. True to his word, Trivium has been developing slower than some of the others in this draft, but has been consistently developing as well. He would be a great fit on any team looking for a guaranteed top six winger in the future but I don’t really see first line in the cards on a championship contender. 26. New York Americans (via Davos): D - Victor Grachev (Philadelphia, 157 TPE, 10.5 AVG) @KaleebtheMighty NHL Comparable - Nick Jensen Grachev is a late bloomer that has been flying up the draft charts for some. The defenseman played limited minutes on Philadelphia, recording 3 points, 46 hits and 22 blocked shots in 26 games. He plays a no-nonsense defensive style that relies on his above-average skating and occasional physicality. Grachev has a huge frame and will still need to grow in it, but has the potential to be a steady presence on a second pairing one day soon. 27. Chicago Phoenix: LW - S Kuchar (Ottawa, 145 TPE, 10.75 AVG) @S. Kuchar NHL Comparable - Anthony Duclair Speaking of late bloomers, Kuchar is another that has really shot up the mock drafts after a brief but very impressive 28 game campaign for Ottawa this season. Kuchar recorded 23 points and 26 hits in the stretch of games, and really showed off his elite shot and above-average skating. The sky is the limit when it comes to potential for this kid and we do see him as the type of guy that could even find his way onto a first line one day. With that being said, while it was an impressive run by him, there is some risk involved in trusting in that small sample size. 28. Los Angeles Stars: RW - Jeremy Lin (Mexico City, 158 TPE, 8.5 AVG) @jman9theman9 NHL Comparable - Tanner Pearson While I do believe that his potential isn’t as high as someone like Kuchar, I do also feel that Jeremy Lin will find himself being selected at some point in the second round. Lin is a consistent earner that doesn’t necessarily max his development, but should be able to put himself in the position to be a more-than-adequate second line player. This season with the stacked Mexico City Kings, Lin recorded 12 goals and 36 points during the 72 game campaign. With Los Angeles already taking a center and a goalie in this draft, I think they will see Lin as a potential replacement for guys like Gunnar and Nygren in the future. 29. Calgary Wranglers (via Helsinki): RW - Gary Rush (Las Vegas, 137 TPE, 7.5 AVG) @G_Rush NHL Comparable - Connor Brown An earner in a similar mold to Lin, Calgary will look to add another forward to their team to join Patrik Laine after they took him in the first round. Rush is similarly built to Laine with a large frame and a big shot to accompany it. While Rush only recorded 21 points in 72 games this season, he did have 13 goals and was a threat anytime he had the puck on his stick. I project Rush to be a glue-guy second liner that has the potential to score 20+ goals in the VHL one day. 30. Warsaw Predators: D - Han Jae Kuk (San Diego, 152 TPE, 6.0 AVG) @Dtayl NHL Comparable - Victor Mete The draft is starting to fall off in talent with only a handful or two of active developers left. Han Jae Kuk is one of them with a defensive style anchored by his skating and puck handling. Kuk recorded 34 points in 68 games last year on the abysmal San Diego Marlins, but did impress with 114 hits and 140 blocked shots. His defensive game has turned some heads and it will probably bait a team like Warsaw or another Expansion team who will be looking for future top four blueliners for their lineup. 31. London United: G - Drew Minott (Houston, 140 TPE, 9.0 AVG) @DreMin15 NHL Comparable - Thomas Greiss Not Cal Conway? I really feel that Minott has passed him at this point for me. I even think there is an argument that Minott has passed Harvey, but I went with more of a sure thing there. Drew Minott is still updating at a pretty strong rate and despite not being the best goalie available on paper, does possess the best potential of any goalie left. As stated already, I feel his peak might be just behind someone like Krishna. Minott spent the year backing up in Houston and recorded a 6-24-2 record to go along with a .858 SV% and 3.98 GAA. Don’t let the numbers fool you though as Minott is certainly a project pick. He is the type of goaltender that needs at least one season more in the minors, potentially even two, before being ready for the big time. With that being said, his development time could be accelerated in London that will look towards Minott being their franchise goaltender. 32. Seattle Bears: D - Kirishima Wakaro (Mexico City, 152 TPE, 5.5 AVG) @Snussu NHL Comparable - Ben Chiarot Wakaro is from an agency known for their dabbling in football and basketball. Now they are representing a player in Kirishima Wakaro who played last season on Mexico City and recorded 40 points, 144 hits and 77 blocked shots during his 72 game campaign for the Kings. Wakaro projects as a defensive defender that boasts a hard and accurate shot that he gets off a lot. I see him being a potential fourth defender on Seattle one day and someone that can be counted on in their rotation as while his ceiling isn't high, he is another that seems like someone you can count on to still develop consistently. 33. Moscow Menace: D - Jiggly Gumballs (Houston, 142 TPE, 8.0 AVG) @JigglyGumballs NHL Comparable - Brad Hunt Remember when I said Moscow needs a defense...well here we go again. I actually do believe that Jiggly could go earlier in this draft as he is one of the only players remaining that records a point task every week. If whoever drafts him can show him some of the other easy point opportunities, there is a chance he could become a max earner. Well who better to do that then the Victator himself? Gumballs projects as a defensive defenseman that could anchor a second pairing one day but just as easily could be a borderline second pairing defender if not guided well by management. 34. Vancouver Wolves (via New York): G - Cal Conway (Saskatoon, 181 TPE, 3.0 AVG) @Shaka NHL Comparable - Jack Campbell What a fall right? Frankly, it is deserved and one peek above to his average capped TPE total over the last four weeks will tell you why. Conway was one of the most talked about goalies going into this draft, even ahead of the likes of Harvey and Krishna, and was coming off an incredible campaign as the backup goalie on the Saskatoon Wild. Many saw him as next years best goalie in the Minors, but unfortunately Conway has tailed off of late. Whoever takes him will need to reach out and get him back on track but this pick certainly becomes more risky than expected, which is why he falls to 34 for me. Vancouver can afford that risk as they aren't in desperate need for a goalie with Spyro in the prime but may want to take a run at him with their team philosophy to start looking a bit younger. 35. Seattle Bears (via Calgary): LW - Rocket (Miami, 152 TPE, 7.5 AVG) @Rocket NHL Comparable - Jesper Bratt With one of the more interesting names in this draft class, Rocket is the sleeper pick that someone like Seattle would love to pick up. He is another forward that possesses a lower ceiling but a pretty high floor with a style centered around his skating and shot. Rocket should be one of the better performers in the minors next year on whatever team picks him up in the VHLM Dispersal Draft. 36. Vancouver Wolves (via Riga): D - Fat Palloon (Yukon, 142 TPE, 7.0 AVG) @UnkemptCL4PTP NHL Comparable - Brendan Smith After having a pretty wild season that saw the defender record 68 points, 186 hits and 220 blocked shots on the lowly Yukon Rush, whats not to like about the potential of a guy like Palloon. After going to forward and goalie with their last few picks, I see them going back to defense and taking the best player available. Palloon's game is built around his skating, passing and puck handling to go along with his physical defensive style. Always a threat to take the puck up the ice, Palloon will look continue to develop consistently in the VHLM next season. --- THIRD ROUND 37. Malmo Nighthawks: RW - Vlad Imir (Miami, 90 TPE, 8.0 AVG) @Big Dee NHL Comparable - Ryan Hartman Sitting 45th in TPE for the draft, this is another big jump for a forward on Miami. Vlad Imir was a late bloomer that struggled throughout the campaign with Miami, but really started to develop consistently towards the end. He is the guy I peg to be one of the most improved next year with his defensive play style serving as his foundation for success. I could definitely see a team in the draft look at him as a project pick that will develop into a solid VHLer if he continues his current trend. 38. DC Dragons: RW - Jeff Odinson (San Diego, 101 TPE, 3.5 AVG) @GoldGear88 NHL Comparable - Jesper Fast Jeff Odinson joined this draft less than a month ago which makes him one of the newest members to this draft class. With that being said, his 18 points in 30 games to go along with an unsteady but weekly development should serve him well enough to be selected either late in the second round or early in the third. Odinson is an interesting player due to his style of play that sees him as average at everything but not elite or bad in any area. If he can develop some higher end skills in some specific areas like skating, scoring or defense, you could be looking at a future VHL player. He is exactly the type of player that someone like Enorama could mold. 39. HC Davos Dynamo (via Vancouver): C - Empty (Halifax, 116 TPE, 1.0 AVG) @StamkosFan NHL Comparable - Casey Cizikas I was ready to not even have Empty get taken in this mockup. Despite being represented by a pretty recognizable player agency, Empty hadn't really taken the steps forward required to be selected in the draft...until recently. Empty is the opposite od someone like Odinson as he is really only good at two things. That is scoring and playing good defensively. And he is elite in both of those areas. Empty is a liability in every other regard but those skills alone get him drafted and if moulded properly, he could be a darkhorse to have a productive VHL career. 40. Helsinki Titans (via Prague): C - Janiina Juutila (San Diego, 109 TPE, 4.0 AVG) @Jansgasm NHL Comparable - Nathan Gerbe A Finn being taken by Helsinki? Yeah this wasn't a hard pick to make. Juutila has slightly fallen off in development but has the scoring ability to still make an impact and turn a few heads. This is a low risk pickup at this point in the draft with a decent reward id Juutila becomes more consistent again. 41. DC Dragons (via Toronto): RW - Bobbie Cheechoo (Miami, 107 TPE, 2.0 AVG) @Sharkie NHL Comparable - Martin Frk Not unlike Juutila, Bobbie Cheechoo has been a bit inconsistent in development late. With that being said, the Canadian winger is still progressing and has an impressive two way goal scoring play style that will prepare him well if he is to make it to the VHL. DC takes this low risk player as he is one of the only players left that is still developing. 42. HC Davos Dynamo: RW - Joromir Jagr (Ottawa, 115 TPE, 5.5 AVG) @Temppi NHL Comparable - Tomas Jurco Joining less than a month ago, this massive winger possesses the skating and scoring ability to be quite a threat in the future. While he doesn't have the potential of someone like Laine, Jagr should fit well on a second line one day if he can work on maintaining consistent updating to his development. At this point you need to go best player available and I believe Joromir Jagr is that guy. 43. Chicago Phoenix: D - Rick Osman (Halifax, 116 TPE, 1.5 AVG) @dylanjj37 NHL Comparable - Matt Benning Rick Osman hasn't updated recently but he was on quite a role there just a few short weeks ago. Possessing a very one dimensional defensive game, Osman recorded 36 points, 163 hits and 177 blocked shots for Halifax this season. Hes a longshot to make it but hes also pretty low risk given his production and the pick he is going at. 44. Los Angeles Stars: LW - Florent Vericel (Miami, 128 TPE, 0.0 AVG) @dart NHL Comparable - Charles Hudon Vericel, like Osman, has fallen off late and will need contacting after the draft for the pick to work out. With that beind said, Vericel had done quite a bit of developing prior to plateauing over the last month. Vericel is a two way scoring winger that with the right moulding, could be one to watch if he gets back on track. 45. Helsinki Titans: RW - Wayne Jetski (Halifax, 91 TPE, 0.5 AVG) @namanert NHL Comparable - Reid Boucher Bonus points for having one of the best names in the draft, Helsinki takes Jetski as he is one of the only players still earning development time every week. It isn't much and it's really just been showing up at the practice facility, but Helsinki will look to grab him and see if they can broaden his developmental horizon. 46. Warsaw Predators: C - Kevin Sterk (Houston, 82 TPE, 0.0 AVG) @TenZi NHL Comparable - Byron Froese Basically read above but it is Kevin Sterk going to Warsaw. Sterk is a consistent participant in practice but has not been able to really develop anywhere else. He is a pure scorer who will continue to try and take that next step. Unfortunately for Sterk, he could be a few years off of making the VHL and has a long ways to go to do so. 47. London United: RW - Theodore James St. Louis (Yukon, 96 TPE, 3.0 AVG) @Nick Kirkpatrick NHL Comparable - Logan Shaw Theodore is probably the second last player that will be taken that has even developed over the last few weeks. He is a winger that recorded 36 points in 50 games for Yukon this season. The defensive forward has a big frame and a big shot that when he decides to shoot, can find the back of the net with velocity. Probably have him a bit overlooked here compared to a few that went before, but I think the guys just doing practice facility have more potential than shown. 48. HC Davos Dynamo (via Seattle): D - Tim Kamashev (Halifax, 68 TPE, 0.0 AVG) @Ninjaboi NHL Comparable - Xavier Ouellet Like Jetski and Sterk before, Kamashev is a consistent participant in practice but has a long way to go if he wants to make it to the VHL. Kamashev has showed off some impressive skating but really is incredibly raw in a lot of other areas. With the right mentorship, maybe Kamashev can make it and I trust Gus as much as anyone with managing that one. 49. Seattle Bears (via Moscow): D - Zachariah Kisslinger (Mississauga, 68 TPE, 0.0 AVG) @Kisslinger NHL Comparable - Joshua Didier Despite not being an active developer of his skills lately, Kisslinger was seen recently hanging out near the practice facility. He garnered some attention given that we hadn't seen him in quite some time. The physical shutdown defender will look to build on this past season and hope to use it as momentum to make it to the VHL in the next few seasons. 50. New York Americans: RW - Keno Wolf (Philadelphia, 99 TPE, 0.0 AVG) @aCrypticPancake NHL Comparable - Curtis McKenzie Keno Wolf hasnt really been seen in a while but after putting up a respectable 31 points and 63 hits, he should find himself selected in the top three rounds. His development prior to disappearing was solid and if he can get back to that, then New York will have quite the pickup on their hands. 51. Prague Phantoms (via Calgary): C - Antti Paakkarinen (San Diego, 76 TPE, 0.0 AVG) @SeamusSv NHL Comparable - Liam O'Brien Paakkarinen was seen a little more recently than someone like Wolf but didn't put quite as much development time in prior to leaving. Paakkarinen is pretty well rounded but doesn't possess any above average skills that stand out to scouts. Time will tell on this one but we are at the point where we are far less likely to see future VHL talent. 52. Malmo Nighthawks (via Riga): C - Kirk Holloway (Ottawa, 86 TPE, 0.5 AVG) @ebay12 NHL Comparable - Laurent Dauphin The final pick of the third round and this Mock Draft is Kirk Holloway, a center who played for the Ottawa Lynx last season. He too disappeared of late but has shown some flashes of potential prior to doing so. He is another average everywhere and elite nowhere player, but still managed to record 22 points and 96 hits in 46 games this year. Word Count - 7576 @Members (Ya'll can enjoy the effort put in)

It's been a crazy year for @LuluSalesAway and me. Between switching jobs, moving states, and still being in school it seems to never end. Well, we decided that it wasn't enough and that we wanted more to add on. Since I consider the VHL to be another family of mine, I wanted to share with you all some amazing news. Coming January 2022 the VHL will gain another member (don't worry, I'll manage their player until they're old enough...kidding of course). Here's to our first baby!

VHL's Third League Hello @Members! For awhile now the @BOG have been teasing a more robust option to deal with the roster room issue we have been experiencing lately. Many of you have been assuming this means more expansion, despite us continuing to refute those claims. Well... the expansion claims and us saying they are wrong were both correct in a sense. Today the VHL is announcing that the VHL and VHLM will no longer be the only leagues contained within our Community, we are adding a third, the Victory Hockey League: Europe. Be design the VHLE will fit between the VHLM and VHL so that players are not stuck at the VHLM level passed when they should be there, making the M as a true developmental league, but also not getting pushed to the VHL before they are ready for it. This will open up the rosters of the VHL teams as they will only contain the higher TPE players. Specifically the caps for the individual leagues will be: VHLM: 30-199 TPE* VHLE: 200-399 TPE* VHL: 350+ TPE *Of note these limits operate in the same way as the VHLM does now. So you can claim past the TPE limit but you cannot apply past it. Obviously there's a bit of weirdness at the bottom there as the VHL starts at 350 while the VHLE doesn't end until 399. This is intentional to allow players above 350 TPE to enter the VHL if they so choose but they are not forced to do so until the 400 TPE mark. This does mean that some players can, or will be forced to, skip the VHLE completely; know that this is not necessarily a guaranteed step in your progression. If you are above 350 TPE by your VHL draft and want to skip the VHLE completely you may do so. VHLE Leadership Obviously the @Commissioner and @VHLM Commissioner teams are already quite busy with the VHL and VHLM respectfully so running a whole third league will not fall on them, a new Commissioner team will be added to cover the VHLE. @Acydburn and @Victor have graciously offered to head up this new leadership group. This will of course involve Acyd giving up his current Green team role (which we will be hiring for) to head this new league into the future including hiring the GM's for the new roles, which leads me nicely into the next topic. VHLE Teams and Mentality In effect the VHLE is not a developmental league like the VHLM. Its purpose is not to recruit and retain members and it's GM's will not be bound to that mantra like the @VHLM GM's are. The job of an VHLE GM is to be competitive within their bracket. It will still have the fast turnarounds of the VHLM given it's small TPE window but teams may use their assets as they please to get the most out of their teams and win. Notice I did say VHLE GM's. TheVHLE teams will not be controlled by @VHL GM's or VHLM GM's but rather be new GM opportunities in their own right. But for what teams? Well that's up to you all to decide. Seeing that the league has many amazing old European teams that have been left to the sands of time, we will use those teams to make up the VHLE with the league voting on which 6 they want to see. This means that the Vasteras Iron Eagles, for example, could return; and / or the Cologne Express, Stockholm Vikings, and many others. We have the teams, we have the logos, and we see no reason to not use them so they will make up the pool of teams you all can decide on. The poll for this will be going up soon. Layout wise with the league being only 6 teams at the moment will be simple: 1 conference with the 4 top teams making the playoffs per season. In addition the VHLE will not be affiliated in any way with the VHL or VHLM so it will be simulated as an entirely separate league, the same way the two are now. Think the KHL rather than the AHL. Contract wise the league will be similar to the VHLM with more or less a "free for all" mentality. If a player has been drafted to the VHL they will receive their VHL contract but otherwise all players are signed to $1.5M contracts with no bonuses or salary cap to speak of. This could change in the future if we feel a cap and formal contract structure would improve the VHLE but we want to see if that's necessary first. Draft Structure, Career Length, and Depreciation Adding a third league will obviously affect how drafts and career lengths operate within the VHL. With the VHLE placed where it is in a player's career, and the expectation that they will spend at least one season there, it would obviously create problems for the career clock if we didn't address it. For that reason player careers will be formally extended to 9 seasons, with draft seasons being set the same as they always have. This means you will be eligible for both the VHL and VHLE draft in the same season; potentially all three if you time it right. If, at the draft, you are at or above 350 TPE and would like to go straight to the VHL you still get the 9 season VHL career, adding a year onto the total you can have now. If you spend a season in the E league, as most will, you don't lose out on a VHL season and still retain the 8 that is currently available. So, for example, let's take a player that creates at the S79 deadline. We follow the same rules as now so his VHL draft is S81. In his season and a bit in the VHLM this player earns 200 TPE. This player is drafted to both the VHLE and the VHL. He does not have the minimum TPE to play in the VHL so goes to the VHLE for S81, finishing with 350 TPE or the minimum to play in the VHL. At this point he can choose to either go up to the VHL and play 8 seasons from S82 or he may chose to stay down for a season and would enter the VHL in S83. In either case he retires at the end of S89, having played 7 or 8 seasons. An alternative example is a super heavy earning player. Let's assume he creates at the same time and has the same draft date but has a bunch of carryover and gets a very large amount of TPE in the VHLM. He enters the drafts at 350 TPE, the minimum to play in the VHL. He may choose to skip the VHLE completely and go straight to the VHL in S81. He will then play for 9 seasons and retire at the same time in S89. Nine seasons does add one caveat however; depreciation. As it stands right now depreciation only hits for 3 seasons, season 6-8 of your career. This holds two problems, one exists currently and one is new. The more obvious one is that having 9 seasons means we need to add a depreciation level. For this the same percentage (7%) from year 8 will be used but we will not be adding an additional depreciation fighter to the store that can be used for this season. That means only the Jagr purchase can help you fight 9th season depreciation, you must take the full 7% hit. The second problem, which exists now, is that players can spend extra time in the minor leagues and be hit with depreciation in their "6th" season but that could be, in fact, their 4th VHL season. This does not seem fair to hit lower earners with so quickly, even being percentage based, so we are changing depreciation slightly. Depreciation seasons are now based on VHL seasons played, not seasons since your draft. That means a player who skips the VHLE and plays 9 VHL seasons will be depreciated 4 times. A player that plays 1 VHLE season will be depreciated 3 times, and so on. So if a player takes his time to get to the VHL and only plays 5 VHL seasons he will not face depreciation by the time he is forced into retirement. Call-Ups, Send-Downs, and Graduation Bonus As all VHLE players will be owned by VHL teams as well the issue of call-ups and send downs must be addressed. Like the cap situation this may change later but to start we will only be allowing call-ups and send-downs during the off-season and, obviously, only if the player in question meets the TPE bracket for the league they are being sent to. This means that at no point mid-season can a player be plucked away from their VHLE team to join their VHL team, similarly no player will be pulled from the VHLM to join the VHLE. Whatever league you start the season in is the league you finish the season in. In addition the graduation bonus will remain in place where it is, exiting the VHLM. With the VHLM remaining as a "training ground" of sorts it makes the most sense to reward players for graduating from there. The VHLM to the VHL or VHLE is what we are looking at as the "upwards" movement while the VHLE to VHL is more of a lateral move in your career. Introduction Timeframe Obviously a change this large can't be implemented immediately and start next season. We would not want players who have already created but are undrafted to be left suddenly being told there's an extra league before the VHL that they were unaware of. There's also a matter of dealing with the players who currently sit on VHL rosters that are under 350 TPE and wouldn't be allowed under these rules. Therefore, the VHLE first season will be S80 meaning players that retire at this deadline will be the VHLE's first draft class. Players currently on VHL rosters who are under 350 TPE at the start of S80 may remain on the roster if they so choose or they may be placed into the VHLE draft, remaining as prospects for the VHL teams that drafted them. Likewise any players currently drafted who are still in the VHLM will be given the option of going to the VHL or the VHLE at 200 TPE. Their career clock remains unchanged however; only players starting in the S80 draft will be given the 9 season career and new depreciation rules. Hi, my name is Beketov, and if you have any questions, please try to direct them here:

Hello there, As of today, claims made under the James Platts Welfare Program or VHL Pension Plan can be automatically claimed on the Portal in a similar fashion to Practice Facility. These claims are not required to be approved by updater's and TPE will be awarded immediately. Note: The Portal automatically determines pension eligibility by looking at a user's past and current players. Some older, returning members may find they are only offered 4 TPE - this is due to previous players not existing on the Portal or not being linked to their user account. If this is the case, contact an admin or commissioner and we will manually approve you for the pension plan. Claims made under the VHL Partnership Plan with SBA and EFL are not quite as automated, but a post in a weekly welfare thread is no longer required. These claims can be made directly in the Portal by using the new "Affiliate PT" option under "Claim Capped" and linking to your PT on SBA or EFL. These claims will continue to be reviewed and approved by updater's. Full claiming instructions and eligibility requirements can be found here. At this time, there is no changes to the monthly Affiliate Check program and those will continue to require posting in a monthly thread. Obligatory @Members (don't hate me)

S73 VHL SEASON PREVIEW The S72 offseason has come and gone which means it is time for a new season of hockey to begin! We will be taking a look at the situation of all 16 VHL franchises heading into S73. We will be starting with the expansion teams and then be making our way up the standings from last to first. Without further ado, let us begin! Chicago Phoenix Expansion Team Honestly, If I am a Chicago fan right I would be pretty excited for the kind of damage this team will be able to do a few years down the road. You may not have the best roster right now, but it is filled with future stars. The forward core is led by Adam Syreck, Squirrely Dan, Vladimir Shaposhnikov and Milos Slavik rounding out the top-six forward group. In net, they have their first-round draft pick in Jean Pierre Camus. They are lacking a lot defensively with the only notable name being Nikita Kulikovich, but if their forward core plays well and Camus has a great season, they can be a dark horse playoff contender. London United Expansion Team London is another team that could do some damage if things go right. They have a solid offence with the likes of veteran forward Guy Lesieur along with some young forwards like Mac Hooper, Jay Jones and The Terrible Trivium. Defensively, they have James Rose who had a great season with the Houston Bulls in the VHLM last season. London’s biggest issue will be in the crease. Their starter going into this season will be Clayton Park, a career backup goalie who hasn’t fit too well into a starting role and this looks like his last season, so London may need a quick fix at goaltender but other than that I can see them possibly making a playoff push depending on what happens before the trade deadline. Los Angeles Stars Expansion Team I could see LA easily making the playoffs this season. They look to be in the best position out of all of the expansion teams. Offensively, they are led by veterans Sigard Gunnar and Tyler Barabash Jr while sprinkling in some youth with Markus Nygren, Gary Neal and first-round pick Jeffrey Pines rounding out the forward core. Defensively, They are led by the trio of Rusty Shackleford, Gert B Frobe and Kaspars Claude. The only issue I see in their team kind of like London is in the crease. They also have a career backup this time in Kolur Bjoernsson. It will only be like this as both their defence and goaltending will be rounded when second-round picks Jiggly Gumballs and Drew Minott are expecting to come up to the VHL. Warsaw Predators Expansion Team Warsaw is just like LA where their team looks like a fringe playoff contender, but can easily go further. Warsaw has the best centre depth out of all 4 expansion teams, with Hunter Hearst Helmsley and Zeno Miniti filling the roster down the middle. On the wings, they have 2 players with VHL experience in Dalton Wilcox and Damien Wolfe. Defensively, They have veterans Danny DeYeeto and Hugh Chan along with a younger player in Alex Bridges. Warsaw also has a solid goaltender in Nicolas Fomba. Mix this in with the first-round pick Dakota Lamb coming up to the VHL next year and this can be a dark horse candidate both this year and next year. Malmo Nighthawks Last Season: 26-41-5 (12th in VHL) Did not make the playoffs Malmo is a very different team from last season, having 3 first-round picks and nailing all of them. They still have a veteran presence in Aston Martin offensively but throw in young guns Chris Hylands, Ray Shields and top draft pick Marshall James Frostbeard and this team looks extremely dangerous offensively. This team was concerning defensively last year. What better way to fill that hole by taking the S73 draft’s top defender, Tyler Walker at 2nd overall. Mix that with the current core of Zyrok12 and Condor Adrienne and the call-up of Viktor Alexei Kamenov and this is a miles better defence then it was last year. In net, Malmo has long term stability in 6th overall pick Grekkark Gyrfalcon who is poised to have a breakout year in the VHL. This is a solid Malmo team that I can see as a dark horse candidate for a Continental Cup run. D.C. Dragons Last Season: 30-38-4 (11th in VHL) Did not make the playoffs. D.C. is one of those teams that can do some serious damage. They had a stroke of luck last offseason, moving up to 1st overall to select LW Groovy Dood. Dood has been working hard to fit in with the D.C line up for his rookie year in S73. D.C is led offensively by 2 young guns in Dood and RW Xaiver LeFlamant and veterans in Raleigh Ritchie, Mikko Aaltonen, Boris the Forest and Benny Graves, who is looking like he is prepared for a career year. Defensively, D.C is no slouch either being led by veterans Charles Drumm, Luciano Valentino, Ricky Johnson and a new younger defenseman in Liam Flaten. D.C also has more stability in goal as starting goaltender Stone Wolski did some hard training this offseason and looks poised to be one of the best goaltenders this year. With a team like that, you must be excited if you are a D.C fan as they could easily be a Continental Cup contender. I see them making the playoffs. Vancouver Wolves Last Season: 32-35-5 (10th in VHL) Did not make the playoffs Vancouver is a really unpredictable team. Keeping a lot of the players from last season but also sprinkling in some of the young talented players can do that to a team. Offensively, they are still led by centres Brock Louth and Andrew Su, but up the wings, they look deadly. On the right side, they have Jungkok, Gregg Stallion, Gino DiGiannantonio and Mat Tacco and on the left, they have Joe Proto. They will need to shift one or two of their right wings over to the left but they still a dangerous offence. The defence was a bright spot for Vancouver last season as they were 5th in the league in total goals against and they managed to grab Micah Adrienne at 3rd overall in the draft to further solidify their defence. Mix that in with the veterans in Jeff Downey, Andrej Petrovic and Griff Manzer and you have an excellent top 4. In net, they have stability in the starter position with Jimmy Spyro and they have Isak Sjostrom backing him up. If Vancouver can play up to their potential, they will be a tough team to beat this year, but it all depends on how they come out of the gate. They will be a playoff contender but the step to a cup contender depends on how things go. Toronto Legion Last Season: 33-35-4 (9th in VHL) Lost in Conference Semi-Finals to CGY 4-3 Despite how bad S72 looked for Toronto fans, they were in a playoff spot and managed to push the eventual conference champion Calgary Wranglers to 7 games. Not too shabby. Toronto could make a splash this year with an offence lead by Jeff Blaze, Teemu Lehtinen Jr, Chad Magnum and Kristopher McDagg. However, I expect incoming LW Joseph Gainer to have a good season. He is coming off a solid season in the VHLM and has developed nicely down there. Defensively, they are led by a young core of brothers in Gabriel and Leon Gutzwiler, Erik Killinger and a veteran piece in Fredrik Elmebeck makes for a dangerous top 4. In the crease, Toronto is no slouch either, having a solid young goaltender in Jaxx Hextall, who will only continue to get better. Add all of this to 5th overall pick John Merrick being ready to play for S74 and this Toronto team will get dangerous really fast. Prague Phantoms Last Season: 32-32-8 (8th in VHL) Did not make the playoffs Missing the playoffs was a bummer for Prague, who despite finishing better than the playoff-bound Toronto Legion ended up ultimately missing the big dance due to S72’s stacked European Conference. Prague has a powderkeg offence led by Thomas Landry II, Ondrej Ohradka, Dagmar Havlova and Alex Pearson. Defensively, they still have the 3 headed-monster of Cinnamon Block, Seabass Perrin and Wolf Stansson Jr. In the crease, they still have Virgil Ligriv in net for his last season but behind him is the young goalie Woody McPine, who was a force in the VHLM last year. Things can turn around for Prague really fast, with centre Andre LeBastard coming up from the VHLM next year. HC Davos Dynamo Last Season: 35-30-7 (7th in VHL) Lost in Conference Semi-Finals to RIG 4-0 HC Davos was absolutely steamrolled in the first round by the eventual champion Riga Reign in S72. This doesn’t change the fact they have a solid lineup, led offensively by SS Hornet, Jet Jaguar, Soren Jensen and Jerry Garcia. Davos’ defence remains mostly the same led by David O’Quinn and Roque Davis but Davos made a splash move to bring in Charlie Paddywagon from Calgary to round it off. Davos has the young up and coming Joakim Bruden in net who has a chance to have a great season. I see Davos returning to the playoff, but they can go farther than just playoffs. Moscow Menace Last Season: 35-29-8 (6th in VHL) Lost in Conference Finals to RIG 4-0 Just like Davos, a sweep at the hands of the eventual champion Riga Reign doesn’t take away how good the Moscow Menace was last season. Moscow still has a deadly first line with Nate Telker, Ryo Yamazuki II and Henrik Zoiderberg leading the way offensively but with upcoming stars Vin Calia and Lucas Brandt, those holes that come up once the first line leaves will be easy to fill. Defensively, they still have the deadly duo of Vladimir Pavlov and Oskar Lagesson but added the dangerous VHLM star Alex Letang to an already loaded back end. In net, they still have Raymond Bernard. This will be a tough Moscow team to beat this year and I expect them to be a cup contender. Helsinki Titans Last Season: 36-26-10 (5th in VHL) Lost in Conference Semi-Finals to MOS 4-2) Helsinki had a good season in S72, ending with a fantastic 6 game series against Moscow where they easily could have taken it. Helsinki is led offensively by a top line of Hiroshi Okada, Jim Bob and Erik Draven. They also have some solid 2nd line and depth pieces in Ben Hafkey, Jared Spaz and Valtteri Vaakanainen. Defensively, they have Erik Summers and Kyle Andersen leading the way along with rookie Spencer Elsby. In net, Helsinki has the two-headed monster in Zamboni Driver and Samuel Ross. Adding all of this with S73 draft picks Patrik Laine and Oh Sens coming in next season and Helsinki can easily win a Continental Cup. New York Americans Last Season: 38-26-8 (4th in VHL) Lost in Conference Finals to CGY 4-3 New York’s playoff run last year came to a heartbreaking end in game 7 against the Calgary Wranglers, giving up the game-winning goal with just 30 seconds to play. New York’s offence is still as dangerous as ever with a top-six forward group made up of Julius Freeman, Acyd Burn, Owen Nolan, Jerry Wang, Bjorn Scoringsonn and Richard Penisson. Defensively, they have the tenacious trio of Micheal Gary Scott, Lance Flowers and Hugh Jass. In net, it is also the same with A Red Guy being the starter. This team can easily make a cup run and I expect them to be a contender all season long. Riga Reign Last Season: 39-25-8 (3rd in VHL) Won S72 Continental Cup! The defending champion Riga Reign definitely have something to be proud of, going 12-1 throughout last year's playoffs and easily taking the Continental Cup and with a lineup like theirs, who says they can’t go back to back? They are led by the insane centre depth as you have Phil Marleau, Kyl Oferson, Pengu and Codrick Past roaming the middle. They also have Patrik Tallinder and Shush Nyko up the wings making this a dangerous team in the offensive zone. Defensively, they still have their top pair in Lincoln Tate and Guy Saskamoose. Those two will be just as dangerous this year. However, the biggest X-Factor in this team’s success lately, goaltender Greg Eagles. He was the big reason why Riga won the Continental Cup last spring and if he plays even close to the way he did in the postseason, I see Riga going back to back. Seattle Bears Last Season: 47-22-3 (2nd in VHL) Lost in Conference Semi-Finals to NYA 4-1 Just because Seattle lost in round 1 last season doesn’t mean anything. This team is still extremely dangerous, led offensively by veterans Scott Greene and Ambrose Stark as well as young stars Ola Vikingstad, Uhtred and Timothy Brown. Defensively, Seattle has Hulk Hogan, Berocka Sundqvist, Odin Omdahl and Randy Marsh rounding out an impressive top 4. In the net, Rayz Funk looks like he is going to play his final season, but Seattle was prepared and snagged top goaltender Jacob Tonn in the S73 draft to back him up and take the reigns once Funk retires. Seattle can easily go all the way back and win their 4th Continental Cup in 6 seasons. Calgary Wranglers Last Season: 49-16-7 (1st in VHL) Lost in Continental Cup Finals to RIG 4-1 Calgary went through a lot of games last season and ended up just short of a Continental Cup, but there isn’t any reason they can’t go back. They still have RJ Jubis, Kris Rice, Mikko Lahtinen, ACL TEAR and Willie Dredge leading offensively. Defensively, it is mostly the same, with Edwin THE Encarnacion and General Zod enforcing their will. Calgary traded Charlie Paddywagon this offseason, leaving a big hole there and it is expected that incoming rookie defender Kosmo Kramerev will fill that hole. Calgary still has Jacques LaFontaine in the net. The question for Calgary isn’t whether they can win a cup, the question is can they do it now? Their window is closing fast, the next 2 seasons are probably the best chances they will have at a cup run before they have to retool everything. Your move, Calgary. If you came here looking for a prediction, forget it. What I say now will either trigger one of three things and I will list them here. My predictions will be wrong by the trade deadline. I will predict the playoff picture correctly, but everything will just fall off at that point. My predictions will be wrong by the end of the first week. - VSN Writer Patrik Laine

Checks media spot subforum Sees I'm out of claims Screams internally So welcome to another article! Here we'll be taking a look at how every VHL team is doing--now, yes, but more importantly, into the future. We'll see who's sticking around, who's leaving, how each team is set up for the draft, all that good stuff. If you like overly wordy analysis that takes up half your computer screen to say what could be said in two lines, you've come to the right place. So, let's get into it, I guess... NORTH AMERICAN CONFERENCE Calgary Wranglers On Pace For: 44-20-8 Current Standing: 3rd GM: @Bushito The Present: Calgary looks good this season, and that's thanks to a solid veteran core with one of the best defensive games in the league. With five players over 600 TPA and a blueline where the average exceeds 700, they're a hard team to crack. Among the veterans, center Tyler Barabash Jr, defenseman Brady Stropko Jr, and goalie JB Rift provide the team's strongest statistical showings, though talent in Calgary is very much spread across the board--despite the Wranglers' record and standing, you'd have to go to 19th on the points list to find Barabash, and the same or similar may be said about many other categories, indicating that there is no sole savior of the team and that it is working well as a whole. The Future: How the Wranglers look now is nothing compared to what they might look like in a few seasons. Prospects Sigard Gunnar, Hiroshi Okada, Kris Rice, RJ Jubis, and Jacques Lafontaine are all a season or two old and max earners (or close to max earners) on the brink of busting their careers wide open, and that's not even taking into consideration the two top picks in this past draft, Mikko Lahtinen and Edwin THE Encarnacion. If you think they've got a good team now, just wait--especially when they've got two first-rounders in S72. Best Case: "Best case" is wonderful to think about for a team in a situation like this. Calgary's got five players over 600 TPA right now, and they've managed to put together a solid roster that can win games already. I'm counting seven significant earners on this list alone who are ready to move to the next level, and that's not even looking at the rest of the roster, many of whom are respectable earners in their own right. So, best case scenario? Bush builds a dynasty out of this, going on a long run of success and winning a few cups. Worst Case: It's difficult to imagine what could possibly go wrong with a team that already seems to have completed a rebuild and are enjoying the post-tank success with much more and potentially much greater to come. A good look at the portal, though, combined with the questionability of some recent events, could even put Calgary under in a few seasons, though that assumes that all that can possibly go wrong does. For one, only four players are signed through S72, and none are signed through S73. For the Wranglers to keep any of their players past that point, they'll need a few good re-signings--though, admittedly, chances are low that everyone decides to bail. The team was briefly put in jeopardy for a brief period of time last season, though, when a large part of the roster retired due to internal conflict. Though the team looks to have sorted things out since, it will be necessary for management to continue to monitor its locker room in order to actively avoid the worst. Players mentioned: D.C. Dragons On Pace For: 29-33-10 Current Standing: 9th GM: @Enorama The Present: At the moment, D.C. is a bit below average, but that's a good deal better than they were a couple seasons ago when expansion hit. They actually have more players above 600 TPA than Calgary, at seven compared to Calgary's five, though the pieces aren't quite fitting together in the same way. Next to nobody is seeing individual success--Mikko Aaltonen, the team's point leader, is 23rd on the league leaderboard, while in categories like hits and shots blocked Dragons are barely breaking into the top 40. Even Kallis Kriketers is having his worst season since S64. D.C. does have a roster that looks good on paper, though, and that much is contributing to a just-about-average level of team success. The Future: D.C. is one of the league's youngest teams, with almost two-thirds of the active roster being either S68 or S69. Whatever's going on there with player retention is working--Luciano Valentino and Mikko Aaltonen are already signed for the rest of their careers, while John Frostbeard just picked up a two-season extension. In the S69 draft, too, they were able to pick up Benny Graves, who stated before the draft that no matter where he was drafted, he planned to stick with them long-term. Other notables picked up in recent drafts, too, include Guy Lesieur and Ricky Johnson, while prospect Derek Eriksson continues to maintain a respectable earn rate in the minors and Eno's GM player, George Washington, is another career-long Dragon at forward. While they've got a first-round pick in both of the next two drafts, it's imperative that they select a goalie if they can't get one in free agency--Kallis is out after this season and backup Pekka Pouta doesn't have future face-of-the-franchise potential. Best Case: The best case for D.C. is that career signings and player retention are what will lead to them winning. While the Dragons have a couple picks to work with, it really won't be much, so maintenance and growth of the current roster will need to be management's number-one priority. If it works out, though, and they're able to free up some cap space by letting a few inactives go and securing a good goalie before long, D.C. will be a team to be reckoned with in a season or two. Worst Case: Career signings are a double-edged sword. On one hand, you're quite possibly locking up the future core of your team and ensuring its success for seasons to come. On the other, though, now you've got a massive contract on your hands that can limit cap space and make movement difficult. There's also the question of goaltending--will the Dragons be able to find a legitimate, long-term starter in time to catch their roster in full swing? The future doesn't look bad, but D.C. will have to jump through a few hoops to get there. Players mentioned: New York Americans On Pace For: 35-29-8 Current Standing: 6th GM: @Esso2264 The Present: New York looks pretty good on paper--nine players above 600 TPA and a good crop of young talent--though they're currently enjoying a fairly average place in the standings because for some reason they keep losing to Davos. Fellow baguettes Joel Ylonen and Joseph McWolf make up the team's veteran leadership, and while New York is yet another team barely cracking the top 40 in points (only two players in that range, with none in the top 30!), goaltender A Red Guy is enjoying a reasonably decent season, coming in at .918 SV% and 2.36 GAA. Overall, not half bad with a decent shot at playoff success. The Future: The Americans are a young team who look like they've got a bright future--S67 steal and TPE whore Boris the Forest is locked up for the rest of his career, and with recent selections like Lance Flowers, David OQuinn, Soren Jensen, and Owen Nolan leading the prospect pool, New York will break the curse of the S60s and will once again become one of the teams to beat. There's one obvious concern, though--a huge portion of the roster is in their contract year this season. Notable names that could be out the door next season include A Red Guy, Thorvald Gunnarson, Lance Flowers, and Ryo Yamazuki II, and that's not even considering forced retirement of McWolf or the tragic departure of Elmebeck, which will cut out half of the Americans' blueline. If players can be re-signed, this might not be a big deal, but it's a definite concern nonetheless. Best Case: In short, New York re-signs the players that matter and make a good choice with their first-rounder in this offseason's draft, maybe cashing in on defense. If this can be done, there shouldn't be any major concerns going forward--having so many contracts end in one season does raise concerns, but it also allows a team to decide who to keep and who to move in a much more flexible manner. Next season's cap should be easy to navigate, and if the right players are convinced to re-sign, the Americans will continue to be a threat. Worst Case: You can probably guess the worst case by now--basically, everyone leaves and New York gets thrown back into the void only a couple seasons after crawling out of it. They're in danger of losing both of their goalies, all but one defenseman, and two active forwards, and if all this happens, New York will find it difficult to stay afloat. Their last first-round choice was a bust as well even though I told Esso to pick him, as Iangenere Risteneen hasn't been seen for a while. So, if the next draft sees a similar miss, it's difficult to imagine the Americans remaining competitive, and even more difficult to imagine them finding legitimate success. Players mentioned: Seattle Bears On Pace For: 38-29-5 Current Standing: 8th GM: @Banackock The Present: There's no time like the present to be in Seattle. Winners of the last two cups, the Bears are feeling good behind (as I'm holding back snarky Hounds-related comments) a strong showing from their S67 draft class. Acyd Burn, Ambrose Stark, Henrik Zoiderberg, Scott Greene, Sundqvist, LeGrande, Hogan, Funk--they're all S67, and only four members of the current roster aren't. There's a good chance that they'll continue to find success this season as well--with nine players above 600 TPA, they're a much better team than their eighth-place standing suggests. The Future: When most of your roster is S67, and six of them are signed through S73, you'll be in the running for a while. Though Seattle doesn't have any prospects in the minors at the moment and won't have any homegrown replacements for its current players for a while, they also don't have much to worry about at the moment. The main concern for Seattle, at the moment, is cap--salary goes up as more TPE is earned, and if the season ended today and restarted tomorrow, they'd be $1.5 million over the cap, even if Jack Lynch is left to free agency--and that's assuming nobody else goes into a higher bracket (a few are close right now and will likely break it by then). They'll be in deeper trouble cap-wise if they use either or both of their two first-rounders in the coming draft on players who will be playing up. So, while the future is still bright, there will need to be at least one cap dump trade to get there. Best Case: The best thing that can happen to the Bears here is trading away an older, more expensive player (best choice would be Slade, though he's got a no-trade clause) and then using picks to fill in the gap left in the lineup by that player. Then, by the best-case model, that player fits in nicely and the Seattle machine keeps running. Keeping every asset will be impossible, so the best case is simply a smooth transition past the inevitable loss of current strength that keeps the team moving forward and on top. Worst Case: Sure, Seattle will end up temporarily a little bit worse after this coming offseason. As has been said a million times here already, someone valuable has to go. Worst case? Robbie chooses to exercise the no-trade clause and takes up $4 million in next season's cap space. If that happens, Seattle enters cap hell and needs to offload someone right on top of their career, in their fifth season. At that point, they've taken a step into "sell players for future assets," which is a major step running contrary to the current plan. It won't be the end of the world, but it could knock the team out of elite level long enough for the S67 class to start depreciating--and at that point, it's time for this team to start finding replacements. Players mentioned: Toronto Legion On Pace For: 26-36-10 Current Standing: 11th GM: @Peace The Present: There isn't much to be said about Toronto's roster at the moment. They're plagued with inactives, have only one first-round draft choice, and have a thin prospect pool with a few inconsistent welfare earners. The lone bright spot on the current roster is Chad Magnum, this past season's 5th overall selection and a max earner who was shipped off to Toronto as part of a large players-for-picks deal that saw Toronto's first-rounder in the coming draft go to Davos (let's not talk about what I did with it after that). Other semi-actives on the Toronto roster include Nethila Dissanayake, a former Saskatoon player who may remain loyal to current Toronto management, and Aron Nielsen, a S66 first-rounder making a recent return from inactivity. The Future: It generally isn't a great sign when the most impressive player out of the "present" group is also the most impressive player in the "future" group, but here we are. Magnum is the only player currently owned by Toronto who has future star potential. One player retires next season, and all but three are set to enter free agency, with only a few able to be re-signed as actives. Though the Legion's late first-rounder will almost certainly be burnt for Erik Killinger, Peace's player sitting near the top of the S71 class, Killinger and Magnum are the only two definite pieces they've got in place at the moment and more than time will be necessary to make them competitive. Best Case: The few active prospects they have ramp up their earning game enough to at the very least provide solid depth, and the rest is done through creative trading, free agent signings, and smart drafting, if it takes long enough to do that they'll have the picks to do it. They'll likely go through a couple more rough seasons, but will be reasonably well-set for the future in good time. Worst Case: Management is unable to make anything happen within a few seasons. Magnum becomes impatient with the consistent lack of success and leaves in free agency, or he sticks around and the process takes long enough that he and Killinger don't have many prime years left when Toronto begins to compete. Players mentioned: Vancouver Wolves On Pace For: 47-18-7 Current Standing: 2nd GM: @Beaviss The Present: There's a lot to like about the Wolves. They've got a small roster of only twelve players, but ten of them are over 600 TPA and two--HHH and Freeman--are over 1,000. Those two sit in the league's top 10 in points, spearheading the Wolves' current success. Goaltender Greg Eagles is enjoying a fantastic season in net, and there isn't a weak spot on the team that would lead one to believe that it might be going otherwise. The Future: Though Vancouver is a bit older than some of the other teams on this list, that's certainly no major concern at the moment. They'll have Freeman, Downey, Eagles, and very likely HHH through S73, they have not one but two max earners in net (backup Jimmy Spyro says hi), and to go with a long list of draft picks, they've already got prospect Griff Manzer maintaining a respectable earn rate in the minors. The Wolves have pretty much reached any GM's dream spot--to have a good team and the future assets to keep it going. Cap shouldn't be an issue next season, either, as 5-million-dollar defender Tzuyu retires and they'll be able to trade a lower-TPA player like Jerry Wang or let Kevin Low go to free agency if that isn't enough of a discount. Best Case: Beav continues to lead the team to success and smoothly transitions it into the next era. They're perfectly set up for this, and if this is done right they'll be a consistent threat to any other team in the league for, well, as much of the future as can be reasonably imagined with their current assets. Manzer comes up and continues earning well enough to become a legitimate part of the gameplan, either Spyro or Eagles is flipped for big-time draft capital or a star at some other position, and the team cashes in at the draft with some solid picks. Worst Case: It's very tough to imagine a worst case here, but one thing or another might go wrong. Tzuyu is out the door, and Kevin Low might be, and if both leave, the roster is left without a fourth defenseman--and the third will be Manzer, who will still be relatively low on the TPE chart. Micheal Gary Scott satisfies his lifelong dream of going off to Seattle in free agency, and Vancouver whiffs on its first-rounders in both of the coming drafts. These are still events that the Wolves will be able to recover from, but it won't make the transition between solid teams a simple handoff. Players mentioned: EUROPEAN CONFERENCE HC Davos Dynamo On Pace For: 18-42-12 Current Standing: 12th GM: GM Himself, @GustavMattias ego grows audibly The Present: OK, fine, let's talk about how Davos is doing right now. We suck! But that's OK, we've got our actives. As far as this season goes, Davos player leadership consists of a few older and largely inactive individuals--Materazo (our only player above 600 TPA, but at least that's one more than Toronto) is putting up great numbers on both ends of the ice, while John Madden and Anthony Matthews represent the other two pre-S66 players contributing to our game at forward. On the back end, goaltender Samuel Ross recently returned from inactivity and has been earning well since. Overall, sure, we're last in the standings, but it's a rebuild, so that is to be expected. The Future: Oh boy, the future. That's what we're all about. Let's talk about that--four first-round picks in the next two seasons, and five seconds. To go along with that, we've got a couple Davos-for-life players on defense in Fernando Jokinen and Andrej Petrovic, and there's also Milos Slavik at forward with the potential to be a decent second-line player on a good team. Winger Alex Bridges leads the pack among prospects, with a decent earn rate and solid team activity. Best Case: The best case is, obviously, that I nail it in the draft and build the best team in the league. There's nowhere for this team to go but up, and there's potential to go way up if things are managed well. We've got the prospect pool and the younger players to build a future support structure already, but the star power needs to be obtained from somewhere else, and the draft is where we'll do it. Worst Case: I run the team into the ground by being an idiot, making stupid decisions, and not drafting well. If I do, too, it's entirely my fault--I was handed a perfectly set-up team and now it's on me to work with that. And if I'm stupid enough, it won't happen quite the way anyone here in Davos is hoping. I'm still unproven as a GM on the VHL level, and if it turns out that I suck at it, that will be the team's greatest enemy. Players mentioned: Helsinki Titans On Pace For: 37-30-5 Current Standing: 7th GM: @Jubo07 The Present: The Titans sit in seventh place at the moment, and they're hanging on to the last bits of their former glory days. Julian Borwinn, Joey Boucher, Sidney Crosby, and Alexander Pepper are all in their last seasons, and it looks like Helsinki is doing what they can to make the best of it. They've made some moves to secure some players from S66 and later--Ben Hafkey, Erik Draven, Erik Summers, and Guillaume Fontenette come to mind--and have built a decent roster with dreams to compete and bring what's left of the @Quik era to an end with a bang. The Future: I came into this one thinking that this segment would be all about how the Titans need to rebuild, scrap everything, become the next Davos and all that stuff. It turns out that that isn't really the case, though--Helsinki has easily the best pool of VHLM prospects that the league has to offer, and many of their players from S66 or after will be sticking around for a bit. Though a step back is expected, it won't be nearly as drastic as one might believe. Virgil Ligriv will likely take over in net, while the others mentioned above will make up the future core. Among the prospects, Jared Spaz and Ike Bennett come to mind as two that do 6-point tasks with a decent earn rate, and there are many more welfare earners who should be up in a season or two. It seems that a retool, not a rebuild, is in order, and for that Helsinki management is grateful. Best Case: Though it's unrealistic to expect Helsinki not to take a step back, a best case scenario leads one to believe that they'll be able to emerge from the transition in only a season or two without ever tanking or being at the bottom of the league. They'll have at least two solid earners next season, and likely a bit more than that, with a first-round pick in the draft, another first-rounder in S72 when Jubo's recreate comes up, and the cap space to accommodate some free agent signings or perhaps a big-ticket player or two in a trade. If all goes well, the Titans will once again stand atop the league with an entirely different roster in not too much time. Worst Case: The worst case scenario in this instance is simply that the retool might not be done in a matter of one or two seasons. It might take a bit longer to develop the prospects--assuming, of course, that they all continue to develop and none go inactive--and by that point players like Hafkey, Fontenette, and Ligriv will be significantly affected by depreciation and well on their way to retirement. Assuming Helsinki does attempt a successful retool--and I maintain that they should, regardless of what the worst case scenario says--their prospects need to maintain their earn rates. If management isn't able to flex their player retention muscles, the Titans will be left with yet another aging roster, this time with nowhere else to go but a complete rebuild. Players mentioned: Malmo Nighthawks On Pace For: 31-38-3 Current Standing: 10th GM: @Advantage The Present: Malmo is the league's most unlucky team, and (I hope) I'm not just saying that because I play there. With eight players above 600 TPA, right up there with the more above-average teams in the league, they've still managed to be...not that great, currently sitting in 10th place. Much of the roster is in the S66-S68 range, with players like Jerry Garcia (ahem), Phil Marleau, and Michael Johnson representing the first generation of the team's history. Further supplemented is the blueline, with the likes of Condor Adrienne, while the forwards lines are graced by the presence of Aleksander Rodriguez and Dan Wilinsky. There's a solid roster there, but one that simply is not working. The Future: If you thought D.C. was notorious for career signings, then take a look at Malmo's finance page and think about how wrong you were. Every player in the S66 class or after on the 600-TPA-or-more list is locked up for most or all of the rest of their career, leaving Malmo (on paper) very set up for the future. Though Dan Wilinsky is retiring this season and Ryan Sullivan Jr the next, the Nighthawks will see first-round prospect Lewis Dawson promoted next season and will then have the cap space for a move or two to be made, and perhaps a signing as well. Best Case: Everything finally clicks for Malmo after two seasons of underwhelming sim results, and they're able to enjoy success because of it. Marleau finally finds his place on the team, Garcia stops taking so many penalties, and the Nighthawks are back on top of the league with seasons to go on the big-boy contracts. Management hits on the first-rounder in S72, and all is well. Worst Case: SimonT continues to vomit all over Sweden and Malmo's current roster simply doesn't do the trick. The career signings given to half the team begin to hurt the team rather than help it, as moves should be made to bring Malmo back to where it should be and it becomes difficult to ship people off elsewhere, particularly now-inactive Rob Mattalex, who will cost any team taking him on $4 million per season, even after depreciation hits. Malmo is unable to scrape together enough prospects for a successful retool and goes the way of the Helsinki worst-case. Players mentioned: Moscow Menace On Pace For: 48-17-7 Current Standing: 1st GM: @Victor The Present: "Top of the League" is really all that needs to be said about Moscow at the moment. They've got eight players over 600 TPA, and while that isn't top of the league, they're making it work. A veteran core including Jet Jaguar, Randoms, and the venerable Smitty Werbenjagermanjensen lead the way at the moment, and there's a ton to like on the leaderboard--six out of the top ten point scorers are from Moscow: Jaguar, Randoms, Smitty, Gritty, Mat Tocco, and the highly underrated Dan Baillie, a player who isn't a household name but has contributed almost a point per game in his Moscow career while also showing his two-way ability by consistently reaching impressive hit totals. Moscow is dominant this season, and it's hard to imagine anyone getting by them in the playoffs. The Future: The future looks good in Moscow, more so than one might expect from a look at the finances page. Though Smitty and Gritty are officially set to enter free agency after this season, neither one has historically been prone to leaving a team, and it's easy to see both re-signing. As far as younger players go, the Menace don't have much in the way of prospects, but they do have a good amount of draft picks in the coming drafts, as well as TPE whore Raymond Bernard in net, active long-term signing Nate Telker at forward, and GM player Vladimir Pavlov on defense to keep the ball rolling (or, "keep the puck moving," I guess?) into the next generation of Moscow players. Best Case: Smitty and Gritty re-sign and stick with Moscow for the rest of their careers, as does Jaguar. The Menace make some good draft choices and maybe a signing somewhere along the way, and remain a good team for the foreseeable future. One can afford to run the team conservatively at the moment, too, as more than enough cap space will be freed up by the retiring Randoms to retain the current roster should they decide to stay where they are. Worst Case: Smitty and Gritty decide to take their orange fur elsewhere and the Menace aren't as menacing in S71 after, well, not making signings like Smitty and Gritty. They remain mediocre--think of a big buff dude grimacing at you rather than scowling in terms of menacing quality--but aren't top of the league. They'll have space to work with, both cap-wise and draft-wise, but Victor, being the idiot that he is in this worst-case model, somehow manages to screw up both, missing signings and picking busts, until Moscow has an aging and top-heavy roster ready to tip over. As you can see, this worst-case scenario takes a whole lot of screwing up to achieve, but it's the most realistic out of everything as there isn't really much that can go wrong. Players mentioned: Prague Phantoms On Pace For: 37-25-10 Current Standing: 5th GM: @diamond_ace The Present: Prague is getting off to a better start than the other S67 expansion, D.C., and they're doing it with a super balanced roster. With only two players above 600 TPA, but tons in the 500-600 range, the Phantoms are making a name for themselves through depth, teamwork, and a little bit of sim luck. Current Prague veterans leading the way include Roll Fizzlebeef and Brick Wahl, though the roster runs a bit deeper with many noted players from S66-S69 seeing themselves in supporting roles. Though it could be argued that they're playing a bit above their caliber at the moment, the Phantoms are a decent team that happens to be very, very balanced. The Future: Prague's got three players--Alex Pearson, Jacob Perry, and Wolf Stansson Jr--signed through S73, with Seabass Perrin and Cinnamon Block representing a couple young bright spots on defense with solid earn rates and bright futures. Solomon Crawford isn't the fastest earner, though likely figures to be the starting goalie once Wahl is out. The Phantoms don't have many draft picks, with one first-rounder next season representing the only significant pick held by the team, but if the current roster is able to be retained successfully, they could be in more serious contention in a season or two. Best Case: The best case here isn't really as dynasty-ish and high up as some of the others, but it's still an optimistic one. Prague's future lies in retention--if they lose some players to free agency, which is possible, they may end up making some signings of their own, but the smartest way to develop the Phantoms is simply to just wait for the current roster to develop and reach a higher level of competition. After a hit in the coming draft's first round, the Phantoms sit back and wait--the defense breaks into the next level, Pearson steps it up at forward, and Prague earns a spot near the top of the league in an undisputed manner. Worst Case: Prague picks a bust next season and growth of the current roster proves to be of questionable effect. Block, Perrin, and Stansson should stick around, but most others on the team are welfare earners with second-line potential. The team also has no real star power at forward, a part of the ice a good deal more important in this league than the blueline. In this case, we'd see less of management running the team into the ground and more of the team running itself into the ground--most of this plan is dependent upon the team's ability to improve itself, and if it fails in that regard, there won't be much to see in a few seasons. Players mentioned: Riga Reign On Pace For: 42-23-7 Current Standing: 4th GM: @hedgehog337 The Present: Riga's got seven players above my arbitrary 600-TPA standard, and as has been the norm as long as I've been in this league (since the prime days of Preencarnacion and Cast), plenty of star power. They seem to have transitioned well between rosters, keeping Ryan Kastelic, the TPE whore who makes most other whores look like nuns by comparison, throughout that entire period. The current stars of the team include Kastelic, Lincoln Tate, Apollo Hackett, and former Davos franchise goalie Finn Davison, acquired this past offseason in a deal which gave Kallis the chance to be shipped out to D.C.. The Reign are strong as always, and though they aren't on top of the league, no major concerns are present as far as this season goes. The Future: Oh, look, Riga has a good team and a good set of picks again. I'm hardly surprised--this has, of course, been the case for most of the time I've been in this league. With three first-rounders in the next two drafts, Riga is there to make a big splash with their selections, and they'll be strengthening an already good team with a decent prospect pool--they've got a few decent earners in the VHLM, but forward JaredN and goaltender Nicolas Fomba, who projects as a solid backup, are the top two in that regard. With the current roster, the entire blueline is signed through next season, though only two forwards will be around for sure--with the rest either retired or hitting free agency, an overhaul up front might be necessary. Best Case: Hedge re-signs who he needs to at forward and Riga solves their goaltending problem, either through the draft or a trade. He's able to use some free cap space left in the absence of Kastelic to seduce bring in a solid player up front, and Patrik Tallinder and Guy Sasakamoose continue on their young talent track and develop into legitimate stars. Solid draft choices are made, Riga continues to be a good team, and nobody is surprised in the slightest. Worst Case: For a team where everything has gone right in recent times, what could possibly go wrong? The worst that can happen to the Reign at the moment is a loss of just about their entire forward personnel--Kastelic will be forced out, and should the others choose to exercise their right to test the market, it could thin the team out quite a bit more. Davison retires before Riga is able to find a legitimate replacement, and the team effectively becomes limited to its strong defensive core only. Though this situation is unlikely, some smart management will be necessary to avoid it. Players mentioned: Word count: 5,711. Apparently it's a 20-minute read too, hope you enjoy it. Thank God for multi-claims, because I might need them in the next few weeks. See you in a month!

In true whoring fashion. Anyone who 'likes' this post will get a Shoutout in honour of my ~11K post party. Between the three movements of the boards we've kinda lost count but this is more of shameless 'like' boosting than a party. I haven't decided if it will be in shoutout form or storyform. I'll let the alcohomahol decide. I WRITE ON SUNDAY SO PREEZ LYKE.

I'm sure some of you already have heard the news but a former VHL member, and long-time sim league community member, David Theusch aka @701 passed away on Monday, April 13th. He was only 24 years old and his passing was tragic and unexpected. David was a bit of a polarizing member who was never afraid to speak his mind and bring his thoughts/suggestions to the community. This rubbed some people the wrong way but also endeared many people to him. Speaking from my own experience, Dave was a genuinely caring and friendly guy who, like most of us, used sim leagues as an escape from the tedious grind of day-to-day life. He was always down to chat about anything and was fiercely loyal to his friends. Although he hasn't been active on VHL for the past couple of years, he was an important and active member when he was here. He was a very underrated graphic designer and loved to represent his hometown of Minot, ND, playing a pivotal role in establishing/rebooting the Minot Gladiators VHLM franchise. I'm making this post in honour of his memory. Dave was somebody who, although I never met in real life, talked with very regularly. There was a good period of time where he and I spoke every day. He had a great sense of humour and was just very easy to talk to and was a major influence in helping me, and others, learn how to make graphics. He was always willing to help, give advice, or just shoot the shit. Over the past couple of years, as we got older and more irl responsibility took up our time, we slowly lost touch and the news of his passing hit me pretty hard. I truly regret not reaching out and catching up with him when I had the opportunity to do so. Regardless of knowing 701 or not, please feel free to pay your respects or post any memories of him you have in this thread. Also, I want this post be a reminder that, even though most of us have never, and will never, meet each other in real life, real human connections are made between members in our community and to be thoughtful of this. Let people know you care about them and that they've brought a positive influence to you and your life. RIP David Theusch. You were always a real one and a guy I'm proud to consider a friend. You will be missed. I'm also including a link to a memorial fund that was setup to support his family and help alleviate the financial burden of his passing and funeral. If you have ability, please consider donating to his memorial gofundme page: Here.

not claiming just posting here The vhl is said to be a community safe for all people no matter gender, sexuality, race religion, etc. I however do not see this as being true. I'm here to focus on the one that has affected me most. Gender. It is no secret that the vhl is a majority cis male community. There is little diversity within that range. As a female in the vhl, I’ve slowly started to realize how big of an issue the vhl has with gender. After talking to some of the other few women in the vhl I have realized this is not something that is just affected me. The vhl has a serious issue when it comes to female members being sexualized, objectified, and disrespected by other members of the community. I know multiple cases in the last weeks of this happening and although the action was taken in some cases in other cases it was not taken at all. Just because we are the opposite sex doesn’t mean we want sexual comments to be thrown at us from every which direction. It is not and will not ever be okay. Learn boundaries especially when people tell you to stop. If they say stop just stop it is not that hard to do. If you can’t handle that then you really shouldn't be online because that’s just messed up. I'm sick and tired of seeing other women and myself being uncomfortable and little to nothing being done about it. A verbal warning will not do anything. Things like this should not be tolerated at all no matter how small it may seem to you, you are not the one who has to deal with it mentally. I will gladly talk to the commishs and other runners of the league to help this be changed. I want to stay in the vhl. I love it here but you push members away when they feel uncomfortable because of their gender. There all small actions so many members in this community can take to make it a better place for all. I am not mad but rather disappointed and frustrated with this league with how they continue to handle these things. In a world where there is a push for consent and speaking out there isn't that here. People don't say anything because they know stuff wont be done about it or wont be handled in an appropriate manner. It needs to change. I hope this article can start the conversation of change on this matter. Please reach out to me if you have questions or what to know how to you yourself can make a difference. Thank you for reading.

Hey Everyone! So, this will probably come as a shock to most of you, but I haven't really been around much lately. I touched a bit on this when we announced Al as the newest Commissioner, which was 2 months ago, that I was going through some changes in my personal life that meant less time for the league. Initially, this was meant to be temporary, as I settled into a new phase in my career, hoping to return to full activity as a part of the Commissioner team in this great community that I've devoted thousands of hours to over the past decade and a half. However, after a couple of months, it's become clear that I will no longer be able to put in the time necessary to be a contributing member of the Commish team. It's been a wild ride, and I'll be forever grateful for the opportunity to be a part of the leadership in the VHL. Thank you to everyone I've interacted with for being part of the journey, and if I haven't interacted with you, thank you, as well, if for nothing other than being part of the league.

I was going to wait until later to release a statement. I didn’t wake up this morning or go to bed last night thinking this would happen. I never ever had plans of stepping away. I feel like this is just a poor, poor misunderstanding where my wording was blown up and examined and taken out of context.. I don’t even know.. walking in circles.. especially seeing as my words came from the source itself.. I have given two years to the role as VHLM commissioner and as I mentioned, I never intended to step away ever.. and didn’t last night or this morning when I woke up.. I have missed family events, family suppers during Easter and Thanksgiving, Ive had situations where my grandfather passed away.. my girlfriend found out she has a tumor in May and very well could have cancer.. and my world is flipped upside down. The sadness I’ve had. The dreams I’ve had to which I wake up in the middle of the night with wet eyes crying.. and I was still here for the league, it’s members, the VHLM and my family who was the VHLM and it’s GM’s. I’ve never left. My activity has never lessened. I was always here at the moment of a ping, a mention, a message.. the moment my alarm rang at 0600 I was on and was here until the moment I put my phone down to go to bed.. I feel frustrated. I feel very heartbroken. I feel disappointed in the leadership and myself. I feel small. Similar to my Hall of Fame speech I got.. I was so excited to be recognized. I was so proud to reach that level. What I got was a very short, rambled paragraph on how I improved the league and am an asshole to some. I felt so incredibly small. I felt worthless. That I try so hard for everyone here to make this league as amazing as it is, as it’s become and as it will grow into.. and felt like it didn’t matter. I don’t know, VHL. Super sad day. I was booted without even being able to say good bye to people I spent all day talking with, helping.. they weren’t just GM’s.. they were my support.. closest thing to online pals and family I’ll ever have.. I am incredibly grateful for them.. With that being said, @VHLM GM , assistants and managers that I’ve had in the past.. I can’t name you all but every single one of you.. Thank you for the amazing 2 years. Yes, sometimes we disagreed. Yes, the M section was a UFC ring sometimes.. sometimes, you know, it even ended on bad terms a little bit and it was unfortunate because in the grand scheme.. I still have a spot for those people. We had many amazing times.. I’m sorry. I don’t even know how to properly thank you guys for being my family for all the hours, days and bad, happy and good times. I just want you all to know that I love you all as members and as people and it saddens me and breaks my heart. I’m really, really going to miss you guys and miss working/talking with you all each and every hour of the day.. I don’t know.. sorry this statement sucks.. VHL, VHLM.. thank you for the support. It’s because of you amazing people, all you different people, that have come together to make this place such an .. addiction. Such a strong hobby. Such a strong part of our lives.. it’s you guys that I always wanted to do right by. I put in the work and hours with the intentions to improve you and your experiences here. I’m not perfect. I’m so deeply sorry for the mistakes I’ve made and to anyone who have crossed swords.. I can’t thank you all enough I just don’t know how to express it and am struggling to find words to say.. I wish you all the best and all the love in the world. Keep making this place a better place than it was yesterday. Remember, mistakes happen. We won’t always agree and we’re such a large group of many differences but we all are here because we love this shit. You can still expect me behind DA BEARZ.. see you out there. Take care..

Hello @Members! I'm excited to announce that we have made our charitable donation for the year of $1656 to Doctor's Without Borders! Additionally you all donated $1804 separate from the league bringing our total for the 2023 Holiday Charity drive to $3540! I'm always amazed to see the league come together and make such a difference in the world, it's great to see. You all want some rewards I imagine though don't you? Well it was close but thanks to being $40 over the $3500 threshold we have once again hit every community goal which means every member of the community can claim 20 uncapped TPE and a PT Doubles week! It also means all our community items were met which means: @twists will stream a declaration of his love for everyone that's been active in the past week. @DarkSpyro will perform some Christmas themed metal songs @Grape will do a full stream of all the Five Nights at Freddy's games. @Acydburn will stream something, he just hasn't decided what yet. @Beketov will once again stream Zoo Tycoon 2 Ultimate and name animals after VHL members. As mentioned in the OP, unfortunately to keep things fair and not have a bunch of future creates claiming this: Rewards may only be applied to players created on, or before, December 25th, 2023 We'll get that stuff all scheduled as well as the raffle draw scheduled soon so keep an eye out for that and, once again, thank you all for making this time of year in the VHL so special!

Hello all, Since the removal of trivia we have seen members taking issue with the amount of secondary task options in order to finish off their weekly cap. While trivia is returning, hopefully for the start of the season, we still wanted to offer an additional way to get your capped TPE. Therefore, as a secondary point task, members may complete a Game Recap in the appropriate sim thread. This recap must be at least 75 words, is worth 1 TPE, and may be claimed up to two times per week. The recap should cover topics relevant to the chosen game. This includes, but is not limited to: 1) A recap of the game 2) Shouting out a great performance 3) Presenting an opinion/observation from the game A member CANNOT recap a game if: 1) Their player played in the game 2) They GM one of the teams in the game Prospects of a VHL and/or VHLE team are allowed to do recaps of those teams before they make that team's roster. ALL VHL-sanctioned sims are eligible for recaps, including the World Cup and WJC. Claiming Game Recaps will be added to the portal and recaps can be claimed starting next week when sims start.

Hello All! As you are likely all aware by now with @Acydburn taking over the VHLE with Vic it has been decided that someone else will jump in as a member of the green team to replace him. Given that the founder’s cup final has finished (congrats Yukon!) it seems a great time to get things changed over in the VHLM leadership. After an application process with many great candidates it has been decided that @McWolf will be taking over as the newest member of team green and will work alongside @diamond_ace as the newest VHLM commish. The blue team wishes him all the best in his new endeavour and thanks Acyd for his service! @Commissioner @VHLM Commissioner

Hybrid Attributes: Ending the Meta Hello @Members! As I’m sure you’re all aware by now, the VHL has a meta problem. If you aren’t aware…. where have you been? I’ll explain though: at its core, the “meta” in the VHL refers to building a player with max Scoring (as well as ideally max Defense) and absolutely no Passing, or as little Passing as you can possibly manage. This tricks the engine into taking an insane amount of shots rather than passing and more shots means more goals. An individual player doing this has minimal impact on the engine as a whole but an entire team doing it is not only salary efficient (since not much TPE is needed), but can also be very beneficial to that team as they outshoot and outscore their opponents rather consistently. As more and more users have started to discover this, more and more teams have come to adopt this “meta” strategy, intentionally or otherwise. The SHL discovered this a few years ago and completely changed engines to eliminate it. Before I get into our fix I want to explain something to eliminate a misconception: we did know about this and we weren’t just ignoring it in hopes that it wouldn’t be a problem. At the time it was discovered, we ran tests and found the impact to be lesser with our engine version and roster composition. It was present but not extreme - combined with re-rolls being much harder to acquire here, we thought it best not to rock the boat believing changes would be more detrimental to league health than the problem which, at that point, had not really come up in the VHL. Unfortunately times changed and as we know, the meta has been on our doorstep for a bit now. That is why the @BOG has been working very hard the last few seasons to come up with a solution that would not only eliminate the meta without changing engines (something that would be nuclear to the portal and unwanted if it can be avoided) but also improve build diversity, roster makeup, and hopefully league enjoyment. Therefore, I present your new VHL Player Attributes: "But Beketov..." I hear you asking, "if we aren't changing engines and we can't change the attributes inside of STHS how do we have new attributes?" Good question theoretical member! The short answer is: we don't. The above are the attributes you as members will be seeing but they are not the attributes STHS will be seeing. We are calling these hybrid attributes and their job is to give us more control over builds without directly limiting what can and can't be added to. They work by spreading out the TPE placed into them into different STHS attributes at different ratios. Specifically the ratios that are used are: I know that looks like a lot of numbers and attributes but I promise it's not as complicated as it seems at first glance. Essentially 1 point into a Hybrid attribute = a ratio of 1 or more STHS attributes. For example adding 1 point to Offensive Vision will add 0.3 points to PA and 0.3 points to SC (this sounds quite low but I promise it works out). To make it so that this doesn't completely break how much TPE is needed for a build all values will be rounded down (since STHS cannot accept decimals) but the points aren't lost, they simply aren't used until you hit a new whole number. I also want to assure you that these values were not randomly determined - they were the byproduct of many test sims to ensure they would mitigate all of the issues we were aiming to address. These values can be more easily tweaked over time if a new meta develops and give us granular control over the STHS attributes in a way that simply having an update scale never has and never could. In the specific case of the meta, the eagle eyed among you have probably already noticed that there’s no way to achieve max scoring without adding to passing. In fact if you max all the scoring attributes you will end up around 64 passing by association. This was the crux of the meta fix, build attributes together in a way that making a purely “meta” player is impossible. The additional bonus of course is build diversity, or at least that's the hope. I'm hitting this explanation over the head a bit and I promise I'll stop soon but I wanted to touch on this very quickly because I can see the comments now from that theoretical member again, "couldn't we have achieved the same thing by adding archetypes or simply a required gap between passing and scoring?" Yes, theoretical member, we could have. However we chose to take longer to make this than go one of those routes because the VHL's attributes have always been based around adding what you want, where you want. We do not have limits on specific attributes or requirements like gap; it would be easier but that doesn't inherently make it better. @Beaviss originally came up with an early version of this a few years back (so credit to him) and I shot it down because I didn't think it made sense at the time. However when looking at all of this again it seemed to fit perfectly. Fix the meta and add a whole new world of build theorycrafting. We don't have any new actual attributes but having different ways to get things up and having to balance certain trade offs inherently creates more opportunity to diversify. You can try this out for yourselves since @Spartan ohas graciously simplified our testing spreadsheet here (originally designed by @Enorama, credit where due because I certainly couldn't do all that math) which you can use to start designing your build right now before this all comes into play. --- Which leads me out of the meat of this announcement and into the nitty gritty details: Implementation and what it all means. First off, this is going into effect for the start of S83 which will likely mean extending the off-season slightly because we need to accommodate the fact that every skater in the league will be re-rolled down to TPA + banked after depreciation is run, which will happen early. This is done so that you can re-apply your TPE into the new attributes as you please. You can choose to change your build if you'd like or you can try and build exactly the same, the choice is ultimately yours. Inactive players will be re-rolled by their GM's and any players not re-rolled by the start of the season will be retired. We recognize this is a large change though and builds may not be perfectly finalized even with the extra tools and preparation time. For that reason we will be offering a 3 season window (ending at the start of S86) in which you will be able to re-roll your player again for free. Everyone will be able to do this once regardless of if they have previously used the paid re-roll or not. We do also recognize that this is a WC off-season as well as the other usual off season tournaments and those will not be affected. We will download a ratings file for them the last day before everyone is reset and run the tournaments off of that file. You may have noticed by now that none of those attributes above and nothing I have said thus far relates to goalies; that is because goalies shall remain untouched for now. They will not be re-rolled or affected in any way at this time. If changes to their attributes need to be made in the future we shall do so but for now we want to gather data without adjusting them. The update scale and depreciation will also remain unchanged, again at least for now. From our testing depreciation should be roughly the same difficulty to fight as before for the higher TPE players and should be slightly easier for the lower TPE players. Additionally the update scale does not appear to require changing and will operate in exactly the same way as before with 1 caveat: attributes will start at 0 and go to 99 instead of the 40-99 that the VHL has ran with for 82 seasons. This only applies to the hybrid attributes with the ones inside STHS still having a baseline of 40. The update scale for 0-70 will remain at 1 TPE per point. The process of updating will also remain unchanged however it will look slightly different. We will be upgrading the update page to showcase not only which points go into your hybrid attributes but also the effect of your STHS attributes. It is worth noting, however, that there will be disheartening moments in this system on occasion. Because of how the ratios work and the rounding down there will be times where you add a point and see nothing change. Again I would like to clarify that every point added does get counted, it may just not be enough to push you over the rounding threshold. The TPE tool shall also be adjusted accordingly to help people figure out their builds and see exactly what adding to everything does. It will work the same as the above link but be a lot less manual. I recognize this is a long explanation, a lot of words, and a lot to take in. It is not a decision we made lightly but it is a decision we are excited about. It should hopefully fix a lot of player attribute problems we have been facing in one move and allow the league to grow without destroying everything we have built with STHS. This will allow our attributes to be closer to the expectation of the engine without suppressing the creativity to do as you please, it will put an end to the meta build, it will make for an increase in build diversity, and it will allow the VHL to continue to thrive. Please know that we will be keeping an eye on things over the next few seasons as, regardless of the amount of testing we did, ultimately the biggest test is getting it in all of your hands. If we need to adjust sliders or change goalies or anything else we will do so. We ask that you all embrace this change and help to make the league better. If you have any further questions, points of clarification, or concerns, please reach out to a Commissioner or a BoG member. We'd be happy to explain details to prevent incorrect information from circulating. - @Commissioner

Boy I can hear the negative reactions already.... I just wanted to throw a quick announcement out there in advance so that everyone doesn't get surprised by it. Our @Simmer team obviously works very hard all year to give the league nearly daily sims between the regular season, playoffs, and off season tournaments. There is a bit of time off here and there but for the most part it's a daily thing. We were hoping that playoffs would line up well with Christmas again like they did last year and provide us with an easy excuse to have a couple of days off for the holidays but sadly no dice this time around. For that reason we have decided that sims will be halted from tomorrow, December 24th, to resume on Monday, December 27th. I know it is inconvenient to have 3 days without sims but as we frequently remind our members the simmers are not robots and need time as well so a holiday break is the least we can do. So enjoy the sims today, embrace a few days with family and friends (if possible, stupid covid) and we'll see you all on the 27th for more Regular Season action in the 3 leagues. Thank You and Happy Holidays, @Commissioner

So, it is once again your fearless, totally-not-narcissistic, leader's birthday, and once again, it is happening while Ontario is under stay-at-home orders. As a birthday gift from me to all of you (that's how it works, right?), I'm gifting everyone 1 Free TPE, to be claimed by the end of the PT Week. I won't even make you say nice things about me this time To claim, link this thread and claim as Uncapped > Other > Other, with the description "Quik is making things about himself again" (or use whatever description you want that has the word birthday in it). Cheers

So as some of you know, I've been dealing with some family stuff. Well I guess now is as good as a time as ever to fill the league in on what's been going on. So November of 2021 my father had a massive stroke and ended up passing away. This was the same time that I was made the GM of Prague. So while I was implementing my plan for the future of the franchise I was spending most of my days in the hospital seeing if he was going to recover or if he was going to pass. He ended up passing 6 days later. It was definitely a tough time for me but I had something to look forward to. Fast forward almost a year, my Mom was diagnosed with Leukemia she spent about 6 weeks in the hospital receiving chemo treatment. I was there everyday dealing with that as I'm her only caregiver. As this was going on I was made a Blue in the league (sensing a theme?). She's still undergoing treatment and we're currently in her second round of chemo. So that's what I've been dealing with for the past 3 months just to give you guys some insight into my life and why I've really only been active with the other Blues and within the Prague discord. She's doing well and we're about to head to the city to meet with some Cancer specialists for the next steps and to hopefully find a "cure" instead of her having to be on a form of Chemo in a pill for the rest of her life. So with all of this negativity I had to do something positive. Well on Saturday I decided to propose to my girlfriend of almost 6 years. I had the ring for almost a month and just decided it was now or never. So with all of the negative things that have happened I have something positive to look forward to. Well, this concludes my update and just to give some folks a bit of insight into what's been going on recently.

I'm not putting this in a media spot since I don't want to claim this for TPE as it would feel wrong to do so. Before the VHL draft started, the VHL awards were given out. It honors the members for their accomplishments in the previous season. There is one trophy that is very special though. It's given out to a community member for their efforts during the season. That trophy is the Fredrik Elmebeck Memorial Trophy. It was named after a member who passed away but made a huge impact, Elmebeck. To receive this trophy members would nominate someone who they thought would be the best candidate for this trophy. A private vote decides who gets the trophy in the end. To my shock, I was nominated for this trophy. At the time I didn't really think I would win nor did I think I would even be nominated. I got some DMs from people saying they voted for me but I didn't think it would be enough to be considered. I was told by @Alex_J32 that I could message @Victor about the nominations I got. Keep in mind I only had gotten a few DMs from people, so I only expected that many to come in. What I got made me very emotional. "work mans put into fantasy" "I am nominating Youloser cause he has shown really great work ethic and really tries to help anyone whenever he can!" "Welcoming new members in during the season and his AGMing work in Minnesota" "They worked really hard as an AGM. They have taken on more roles including vhlm predictions. Especially when the couser ad came out he was huge in helping players get acclimated and giving out tons of information about it." "genuine (but not obnoxious or overbearing) interest in helping helping new members, https://vhlforum.com/topic/106463-finally-donating/" "youloser has shown tremendous passion in his role as agm for the minnesota storm. he goes above and beyond for the new members of the league. he is also running the juniors showcase tournament for new members. on top of that he donated $600 evenly split between an animal shelter and the american cancer society. i think youloser is a phenomenal example for new members of the leauge to look up to." "Not only has he taken over both the VHLM and VHL fantasy zone jobs, but he has also worked to change them for the better. He is also very involved in the Junior Showcase tournament, one of the greatest ideas for the VHL I have ever seen. He's a fantastic guy, super passionate towards the league, and is one of the quickest to respond to waiver players with a contract." "He's done a lot this season in terms of being an AGM and overall in general as a member of the community." I won't say who sent those in, mainly because Victor didn't tell me, so if you wish to remain anonymous I'm okay with that. When I received that barrage of messages from Victor, I had to step away for a bit. So how did we get to this point? To go from the unknown to the Elmebeck Trophy winner. First off, yes my actual name is Justin. I don’t care if you call me loser or Justin. Both are just fine to me. It started in October 2020 when I first joined. That Thrasher ad really must have been gold as Season 75 was a big creation season. Justin Lose was born and I was picked up by Philly. That Philly discord locker room was very exciting to be in. Lots of activity and super awesome people too. I was a newb but was helped along the way by @DMaximus . I owe a lot of my early motivation success to him. Tangent time, I believe that I am who I am today thanks to DMaximus. Not only did he help me through the 50 questions that every new player goes through, but he was also super supportive of me. Looking through those DMs on discord is like looking in a mirror with @Moon_50. More on Moon later though. Fast forward to the VHLM draft and getting drafted by the Mexico City Kings. Of course, I get a positive message from DMaximus congratulating me on getting drafted. My time in Mexico City was a blast. Having @hylands and @rory in the locker room was so much fun. Lots of MEXICOO in the morning and who could forget ElHeuvo.gif through our cup run? DMaximus might have been my first motivation boost, but the dynamic duo of Rory and Hylands made me super motivated to keep earning for that cup. I think that was the most fun I had in a discord locker room. I cherish that playoff run locker room environment. Losing the cup was a bummer but moving up to the VHL to Riga was on the horizon. My time in Riga can easily be described as unique. The biggest highlight is @hedgehog337 complaining about Simon when things don’t go our way. A joke that never gets old! My motivation was dwindling at this point as I’ve been max earning for most of my career. I knew I had to find new motivation to have fun again. My motivation almost shifted from being a 12 TPE a week player into being a GM / AGM. In May 2021 I was given a GM role in the Victory ProAm offseason league. A fun tournament that gives people the experience of being a GM / AGM that can be used for the VHL. A huge thank you to @Ledge and Dairy, @Laine, @MexicanCow123, @Ricer13, and @Zetterberg for allowing me to be a GM and ledge for being my AGM / guide to using STHS. Not gonna lie I did horrible but I knew this was going to be something I loved to do. It became my mission to become a GM in the VHL. At this time I think I wasn’t really talking in the VHL discord as much. Maybe the usual VHL sim ping jokes or asking dumb questions. A few AGM positions opened in the VHLM though. This was my first chance of achieving my goals. Rory was my first chance with Halifax. Although I didn’t get the position, Rory sent me a nice message giving me the confidence to keep going. Along came the AGM position in Minnesota. Laine messaged me an application and I answered it as usual. I get a ping on discord for a DM conversation with Laine. He said that I got the position. Funny enough after I got the AGM position in Minnesota I got another application for the Las Vegas Aces AGM position. This was my first taste of getting to help people in the VHLM. Something I wanted to do after DMaximus being my “mentor” in a way. I wanted to pay it forward. Switching gears a bit, in my time with Riga, we were desperate to go to the playoffs in Season 78. @DoktorFunk was traded for during the season and brought up the offer that if we make playoffs they would donate money to charity. (Yup, it was all his idea originally. 100% of the credit goes to him for the idea.) I joined in on this to possibly give us some magic to make the playoffs, spoiler alert we didn’t. That stuck in my mind though. In season 79 I decided that I would actually donate money to charity. I used my bowling league scores as my benchmark for how much I would give. It was a good night as I believe I bowled somewhere in the 500 series range. A few weeks passed and I was setting up the charities. At the time I thought I would just split it 50/50 with ~$250 going to each charity. It was then decided that I would just give $300 each to keep it clean and even. I also chose two charities that were close to me. American Cancer Society and the North Shore Animal League. Both had huge impacts on my life that I covered in my reveal post, so I won’t go over it again here. I didn’t do it for likes or attention. I just wanted to, “put my money where my mouth is” and donate. Something that you will come to learn about me is that I love to give more than receive. Going back to Minnesota, it was a blast to work with Laine. He wanted to give me all the tools to succeed in the league and allowed me to do more and more tasks as we moved through the season. He always said it was his goal to get me a higher position in the league. After a close run in the Season 78 playoffs, we turned to scouting for next season. After going all-in we didn’t have much in the draft, so we would have to rely on the waivers [FORSHADOWING]!! My role in the league was also shifting with the addition of VHLM Fantasy Zone being managed by myself. A huge shoutout to @16z, @Domg5, @bigAL for allowing me to run the VHLM fantasy when 16z stepped down from that role. In season 79 I was approached to run the VHL fantasy as well with Domg getting the Yukon GM role as he wanted to focus all his energy on GMing. Going from a nobody to AGM to getting 2 paying jobs was a roller coaster for sure. Alongside getting to run both came a way to breathe new life into it. Working with AL to get more people involved was interesting. Changing the format was supposed to make it more fun and easier for everyone. Of course, nothing is perfect. Now I’m comfortable doing Fantasy and even got to do my own fantasy bracket challenge with A LOT of help from @Spartan (yes another ping for this!). This is only the start by the way. That bracket challenge is coming back 100% too. In season 79 was the birth of the waiver warriors. Myself, @Alex_J32, and @JB123were always on top of new signings on the create a player page. It was a friendly competition and was very fun all season. A new Thrash ad came out and a new batch of players came in. What happened next really shaped me and why I love the VHLM. A new member by the name of @Moon_50 joined the forum. Luckily for me, I was able to snag him for Minnesota. Looking back at the DMs I sent DMaximus and what Moon sent me is scarily similar. Moon was my first “project” to get him set up in the league. Reminding him to claim stuff, doing tasks, career tasks. I was worried that I was going to burn him out with all the information I was dropping on him. He took it with stride though. Early on he expressed his interest in being a GM / AGM in the future which took me by surprise. He just joined the league and is already motivated to be a GM. All the energy I was putting into Moon was replicated for all the waivers I was getting for Minnesota. I was even accommodating the forum-only players by putting out a weekly newsletter almost of all the tasks for the week. A few people took notice of this. The Adam Crouser ad finally hit. Oh boy, that scramble when it was posted and all the creations happened. The panic of realizing that playoffs was starting and we couldn’t pick up anyone on the team also hit me. I knew I wanted to help out the players and post on everyone who created. I didn’t want anyone who created to have 0 replies because playoffs started. I remember playing Borderlands 2 with my friend and having to stop every 2 minutes to post a welcome message on a player post. Domg was a hero and came up with the Junior Showcase tournament which was supposed to help retain the players who created. I was asked to be a GM alongside Z, JB, and Alex. At the same time as the Junior Showcase tournament was starting, VHLE GM positions were posted which opened a lot of VHLM GM positions. With the encouragement of Laine, I posted for a VHLM GM job. Getting a discord message from @diamond_ace dropping subtle hints that I was a “when” not “if” for a GM position was insane to me. It got me excited about being a VHLM GM. Myself and Moon were still chatting about stuff and that’s when it hit me to bring him in for my AGM. I couldn’t tell him 100% so I used the Junior Showcase tournament as his trial run. Not only did he absolutely kill it but it made me super confident in making him my AGM. I saw myself in him when he was drafting and helping out the new players that were coming into the league. Making him my AGM in Mexico City was a no-brainer and I think all the GMs knew I was going to choose him. To wrap this novel up, I just wanted to thank everyone who supported me to this point. I want you all to know how much you guys mean to my life. I was a bored guy looking for something to do when I found the VHL. It makes me super excited about the future too. To think I didn’t even see a future for myself. A few years ago I was at my worst with depression. 2 years after graduating from college and not getting a job I was bad. I felt worthless and thought I had no future. Honestly, I thought about suicide since I was a waste. Bless my sister who caught on to the warning signs and got me to therapy. Without her, I don’t think I’d be here writing this. Things are looking up and now I’m doing great. Being the Mexico City Kings GM is just the cherry on top. To the past players who I managed, I hope you all have a great experience and I hope you will join the Kings in the future when you recreate. To the current players, I hope I’m doing my job and making you feel comfortable in the league. I want to make sure you are welcomed and that I give you my all. To the future players, you aren’t getting a GM who wants to win. You are going to be getting a friend who wants to see you succeed not only in the VHLM but in the VHLE or VHL. I want you to be comfortable and have the best time in the VHLM win or lose! Getting the Elmebeck trophy was only validation that I’m in the right place. It might have seemed like a small nod to my activity for the season but to me it means everything. I already told Diamond_Ace that the VHLM was my home. I was even approached to be recommended for a VHL GM position but turned it down. As I cry writing this, thank you to each and every one of you. TL;DR: I’m sorry that this is a novel but the VHL community is the best and I feel at home here. I cried a bit when I got nominated and when I won. I feel honored and I want to continue being a help to VHLM players forever. If I could thank everyone in the community who voted for me I would if I knew who did.

Greetings, VHL! By now, a handful of you probably know who I am one way or another. If you don’t, then hi, I’m fishy!!!!!! After a lot of thought and back and forths, I’ve decided to make this announcement. I’ve spent so much mental and emotional energy thinking about how you all would react to it and worrying whether I would be alienated from the community as a result of sharing this with all of you. After rolling the idea around in my head for a little over a month and a couple discussions with folks in this league, I’ve come to realize that it’s not worth the stress or worry that I’ve been giving it. With that being said, I’d like to make a public notice that I’ve come out as non-binary and am requesting that you refer to me with they/them pronouns from this point forward. I know that this topic may be unfamiliar to a lot of you, which is why I’m going to take this opportunity to educate you, to the best of my ability as someone who is still learning, about what this experience has been like and means to me. I know this post is long, but I kindly ask that you skim through it. ---------------------------------------------------- What does it mean to be non-binary? This is a really big question, especially because non-binary is an umbrella term under “transgender.” I am only me, which means that I can only speak on behalf of my own experience and what it means to me as an individual, not everyone in the community. I realized that I was non-binary when I felt disconnected from she/her pronouns and traditional signs of womanhood. Without going into a lot of detail, I don’t feel that identifying as a cisgender* woman is the most true & honest representation of myself. To be non-binary is to identify outside of a “man” or “woman” label. Here’s the best representation I can give you: Think of gender as a spectrum, looking something like this: [ --------------------------------------------------------------] Man Woman For me, my gender exists outside of that “woman” area. Different people have different understandings of where the boundaries for man and woman are. Here’s a visible representation of where I feel like I exist on the gender spectrum: [ --------------------------------[---------------]---------------] Man Woman *: To be cisgender is to identify with the gender that traditionally correlates with your birth sex. For example, my body has female biology, which means that my sex is female. To be cisgender would mean that my gender identity would be woman. The majority of people you talk to are probably cisgender. What’s the difference between sex and gender? Sex is biological, and gender is social. Someone’s sex is typically determined by their bodies. Gender is typically assigned in accordance with a person’s sex. The issue is that many people understand these two different identities as the same thing. However, gender only exists because we, as humans, decided it does. That’s it. That’s the only reason. I don’t want to go into a lot of detail here in order to avoid simply ranting, but I’m happy to discuss it further if you’d like to talk more about it. Well, they/them are the third-person plural form, and you’re only one person. You may not realize it, but English speakers actually use they/them in the singular quite often. Here’s an example: Person 1: “Oh, yeah, my cousin really liked that movie!” Person 2: “What was their favorite part? Did they think that the ending was as epic as I did?!” Feels natural, right? I do recognize that it feels odd to use they/them intentionally, but it’s not as weird when you realize you already do it. ---------------------------------------------------- I understand how confused you may be. I also recognize that, if you’ve gotten used to referring to me with she/her, that it may be difficult to make the mental switch. I also understand that this may be something you still feel really uncomfortable with. For that reason, although I strongly prefer they/them, it’s okay with me if you continue to use she/her. However, I ask that, if you do make this decision, you do so consciously and work to educate yourself on trans experiences. This post barely scratches the surface, and I’m only one person who can only speak on behalf of my own experiences. Additionally, if you do continue to use she/her, I ask that you make a point to refrain from using words like “girl,” “woman,” “girlfriend,” or the likes out of respect for that fact that I do not identify with those terms. I will not tolerate intentionally disrespectful or transphobic comments, and I will not hesitate to report anyone who ventures into that territory. I’m confident that my trust in you all is not misplaced. Please do not hesitate to reach out to me, whether in this thread, on Discord, or in a PM on forums, with any questions you may have about the topic in general, my experience, or just questions you’re afraid to ask someone else for fear of it being hurtful. Regardless of how stupid you think they may be , I am more than happy to talk with you about it - if you don’t have someone in your life that you feel comfortable talking to about these topics, I am very happy to fill that role. The best thing we can do for the trans community is to talk about it, especially in a constructive way. With much anxiety & relief, I’m ending this post. Thank you all for creating a community where I feel willing to come forward with this. Peace, fishy

Things are going well, for those who are curious my son has taken to the chemo well. Things looking up, my wife and daughter are both in good health. My job, settled down again after our usualy christmas rush people blowing fuses left and right trying to make beautiful houses for the holidays. The few months fully away from the league, and the about half a year i was barely active. Given me a nice breather. I dont really desire to join this season. As the draft just occured, or is going too soon? So figure another couple months away for another season will give me a nice breather. It also brings me to my next topic. As always my player will be russian national, he will be a Komarov. However i want to give the league, the choice in his first name, can not be Sergei, Vladimir, Pavel, or Evgeni as they have graced the league already. As well as what position/player arch i should be. I will rule out goalie right away as i was never a TPE whore, to be an elite goalie so that position makes no sense. @Members

Hi friends! After Beaviss stepped down from his role as Commissioner, @Beketov and I made the decision to maintain our 2-person team, with the understanding that we would eventually add a third member, when the time was right. As some of you may have noticed, the past two weeks have seen a wane in activity from myself, as I've had an opportunity to grow in my career, which resulted in less time in the interim for the league. With that in mind, Bek and I believe now is the right time to add a third member to the team. So, without further adieu, please welcome your newest Commissioner, @bigAL ! We feel he has shown more than capable of being a steady hand at the wheel, and what he may lack in longevity he more than makes up for in integrity, composure, and exuberance. Al is a fantastic representative for what this league is and can be, and we cannot put into words how happy we are to bring him aboard!

Welp, the season didn't end up how I thought it would go, thus what was mentioned here has happened as I lost the bet :https://vhlforum.com/topic/101415-yukon-declares-war-on-san-diego/ In short summary, both Yukon and San Diego had a bet on whoever lost the season series between eachother would have the GM get pied. So with that being said, I present my end of the bargain: #feeltherush

Graphical guru and VHLM goaltender deliverer @Zetterberg crafted this beauty of an image. July 18th, 2007. It seems like just an ordinary date, like any other in time, and perhaps it is. But for the members of the Victory Hockey League, it is the league's birthday, the day in which it officially opened its doors to the public. In a time in which sim leagues were plentiful in numbers, but short on lifespan, all the VHL has done is not only survive until the present day, but thrive. With sixteen VHL franchises, along with twelve in the VHLM, the league is bigger than ever before, with new members joining on a practically daily basis. Wrapping up our 75th season, over thirteen calendar years after VHL legends Scotty Campbell, Brett Slobodzian, and Maxim Desny first took the virtual ice, the VHL continues to produce both legendary players and unforgettable members. In commemoration of this achievement, along with a very gracious donation by @WentzKneeFan036, I've embarked on a journey to find out from longtime members of the league just what it is that keeps the VHL going, and makes it so endearing to so many. Right off the bat, one major factor for the VHL's continued success is the constant innovations made over the years. Back in 2007, many leagues made at the time were using video games as the sim engine, kind of like how the VHL All-Star Game is done using the EA NHL games currently. Except here, lines and strategies, along with player creations, updates, and edits were mainly done by a single person, with games run in real time, more often than not with results of plays and screenshots posted in a thread followed by dozens of people. I'm not going to lie, it was awesome, and incredibly engaging. But, as someone who did this for a football league, it was a lot of work, and it quickly led to burnout. Many leagues, as a result, faded away quickly. "I’m not sure a lot of people realize just how much of a trailblazer the VHL has been for its longevity," says longtime member @CowboyinAmerica. "Sim leagues had existed before the VHL started up in 2007, but they were notoriously volatile and subject to the whims of its founders/commissioners. The idea of a league going even 10 seasons would have been considered a success, 20 seasons positively ludicrous. And if you had told people at the Season 1 Draft that this thing would still be going 75 seasons later, they’d probably laugh in your face. But somehow it has, and I think that’s something to be commended." At one time, your sim hockey dreams played out with the aid of graphics like this. The first such innovation was the use of the text-based Simon T Hockey Simulator, as opposed to a more visual engine. With an index providing things like statistics, schedules, and player attributes in an easily accessible manner to the members that a video game simply couldn’t, it was a revolutionary change in sim leagues. However, that's not to say that STHS was unable to provide the same excitement that a more visual engine could. "I always enjoy being able to compete against others and my own expectations," continued @CowboyinAmerica. "But being able to chase what others have done for 75 seasons now really sets the VHL apart." "What I enjoy most about the VHL is monitoring my player's stats and our team's success," added @flyersfan1453. "For some players, individual success was more important, and for others (most of them) team success is more important. Going for one over the other with different players keeps things fresh." "When I first joined the VHL, I was very invested in tracking my own player's performance and would check every game thread to see how my team did," @WentzKneeFan036 reminisced. "Then I became a GM and at one point my favorite thing was pretty much having knowledge of every player in the VHL." "I’m a huge hockey fan and always dreamed of making the NHL," @Banackock, a longtime member and General Manager with the Seattle Bears, added. "It’s cool to be part of a league with a lot of history where you can have players ranked, etc. My biggest passion in these leagues dates back to the start of the SHL and its GMing. It’s probably what’s helped me stick around these leagues." Although STHS couldn't replicate watching streamed games or screenshots in game threads, it more than delivered in sparking competitive drives into the members of the VHL. However, some old hallmarks of the old leagues still existed, such as manual updating on the forums, members needing to wait until their point tasks were graded before they could be claimed, and updates only being processed once a week. However, as the members themselves can attest, the innovations didn't stop in 2007. "Constant improvement has been an underrated aspect of this league's history," adds the VHL's Grand Poobah, @GustavMattias. "Internet culture has shifted more towards instant gratification and communicating solely through a forum is something that would be considered hugely outdated in this day and age. Things like the portal and (though some may not want to admit it) Discord have kept us with the times, while league policies such as an improved updating system, elimination of TPE-based grading, and a cap of 12 being reachable for all have made the league much more accessible for a newer member." "At a sim level, the portal automation is such a giant relief for so many members who had to manually update everyone, manually post game threads, and all sort of work that stops members from burning out quickly," continued @WentzKneeFan036, a veteran of the VHL for many years. On an unrelated note, @gorlab's work is so profilic that it shows up on Google search results. "Sim leagues have changed a lot in the last 13 seasons, the VHL included," adds Day One member @Beketov. "We’ve done our best to try and stay ahead of these changes so that we can be better off for it. Stuff like auto-6 on PT’s, the portal, etc are things we brought to the community as a whole (so far as I’m aware) and they have made multiple leagues better. You gotta evolve with the times to last this long and I think we have." But, for league historian @Victor, among many others, one change stands above the rest: the Portal. "The portal is the biggest change for changing the way the die-hard users interact with the league," @Victor stated, "but also making it more accessible to the more chilled members. It's one of many revolutions in the VHL's long and storied history." The introduction of the VHL Portal was a true game changer. No longer did updaters need to manually scour through player threads and point tasks to approve them, all it took was the press of a button. Better yet, the TPE now went directly to the player, who could immediately apply the TPE, which now no longer needed to be manually done with the file. Trades, signings, and cuts could now be done with the portal as well, with training camp and practice facility points now claimable with the press of a button to boot. The ease of access granted by the portal was instrumental to the continued success of the VHL, but what does it take to last over 13 years and 75 seasons? "The dedication of (the VHL's) core members," answered @tfong succinctly. "At one time the VHL had only a handful of members left." "The members are what has helped the league survive," elaborated @sterling, an original member from 2007. "I was in charge of some of our most unsteady times and I’m very surprised how the league has evolved. The members are what make the league." VHL community hockey? We'll see what the future has in store. It's hardly a surprise to hear that, as without strong and consistent support from members, nothing can last forever. But, as @diamond_ace explains, what started as a hockey sim league has grown to be so much more. "Honestly, it's gotten less and less about the hockey anymore, and more about the personal relationships between the people in the league," he revealed. "There are a lot of people here I consider friends, and a few I'm even close enough to that I'll be inviting them to my wedding - you don't develop those sorts of relationships just anywhere." "This is one of very few places in my life where I feel comfortable expressing my true feelings and personality, and one of very few where I feel that I will not be judged for being who I am," added @GustavMattias. "Of course, we're only talking about words on a computer screen, but my time in this league and the people I've met here have had a giant positive effect on my own mental health, and I can say entirely honestly that I have zero regrets about joining." Along with the league itself, the community itself has grown as well. Digging into older posts of times' past will reveal a much different, brasher place. Many things, from many members, that simply wouldn't fly today. As @tfong attested, "Old VHL was more abrasive and insensitive." Today, however, that's not the case. "The fact that we could raise close to $4000 for charity speaks to where the league has come," says @sterling about the growth of the community. "At a community level, I don't think these donation and charity auction drives would have been so successful, say, 7 years ago," elaborates @WentzKneeFan036 on the community's growth. "I think it's an awesome thing to see now." "The community comes together to find a way," explains @Banackock. "I think the best one is realizing it’s the internet, not to look into things too much and just be kind to one another. A lot of people put incredible work into this place in so many different ways." Perhaps the best new tradition in the VHL is the annual VHL Charity Drive, which has been a rousing success thus far. Growth in the community has also led to perhaps the secret to the lasting success of the VHL, as @Victor so masterfully explains: "Longevity of the VHL is definitely the people though, not the sim. The simmers, the admins, the countless mods, GMs, updaters who put in so many hours into the league and making it better for everyone else, not just themselves, but also just everyone buying into the idea and giving their time and energy, however little or much, to this hobby. We wouldn't be here with 3-4 loyal guys, we need the 100+ and even more now to keep going." "Hard work is the honest answer," replied @CowboyinAmerica when asked about the league's lasting power. "It’s worthwhile to take a step back occasionally and take a look at just how much goes into making things run as smoothly as possible. And especially given that it’s often a labor of love without getting much in return, I’m always thankful for the people who are willing to put in the time to make this place special." In short, the VHL hasn't just built a successful sim league, it has also built a true community. It began as just another sim league, but it has grown to be so much more. "I think there’s a real sense of community here," adds @sterling. "I’ve seen the league change a lot through the years. Members come and go, but the basic premise of the league and the solid leadership is what makes the community. You’ve got reliable sims and good members doing their jobs to keep the ship afloat." As it turns out, it's hardly a unique viewpoint around the VHL. "The VHL has always been about community first for me, that hasn’t changed in 13 years," @Beketov continued. "Yeah the games are fun to look at and stuff, but ultimately they are meaningless numbers on a page. As cheesy as it sounds, I’ve made more friendships on this site than I have Hall of Fame players, and I enjoy the former far more." "In a cliche," @Victor summarized, "I enjoy the people and the interactions, and that's why I keep coming back in." The Victory Hockey League: 75 seasons strong, and more to come! To dwell on Victor's statement… coming back. It's a common theme here in the VHL, in a variety of ways. Members coming back from hiatuses to rejoin the league. The league itself surviving the dark ages of the 50's and coming back to reach perhaps it's highest point ever. Recreating another player to come back for another career. We live in a world filled with change, the VHL itself not immune to that. Members have aged, moved on with their lives. Some return, some do not. Others have grown to become pillars of our community. But for more than one member that I interviewed, the VHL was a source of stability for them in this ever-changing world which we live in. "The VHL has been a constant in my life through high school, college, and now adulting in the real word," stated the monetary funder of this article, @WentzKneeFan036. "While I don't spend quite as much time on it as I used to, I would definitely consider it a significant personal loss if it were to just poof and vanish for some reason. That and also Gustav's Town of Salem games have been sooo much fun!" Editor's Note: He's not wrong, Gustav does a phenomenal job with these games and they're a lot of fun, as long as you don't trust a word Eagles says. Consider joining the next one if you haven't played yet! "It’s hard to put into words really," added @Beketov, bringing us back on topic. "The VHL has been the most stable thing in my life for 13 years, as weird as that is. I joined Day 1 as a teenager going into grade 11. Since then, I graduated high school, went to and graduated from university, moved back home, got a job, moved out of my parents place, got married, moved out of province, bought a house, and had a kid. That’s a lot of change but the one constant has been the VHL. It’s activity hasn’t necessarily been this high the entire time, though I did my best to keep mine up, but it’s always been present. The league brings a lot of people from a lot of walks of life together based on this one silly little hobby of ours and I’ve absolutely loved bringing it back from the brink to its highest point yet. I’m not saying being blue is easy, it’s often not, but helping this thing I have loved, that has always been there for me, grow into the best version of itself has been phenomenal." Wrapping up, while there are many things that have made it possible for the VHL to reach 75 seasons, the biggest constant that keeps it going can be summarized in one word: community. The VHL grew to be more than just a sim league, it became a community of people across the world with a common love for hockey and bettering each other. Between growing contributions to charitable organizations and movements, increased acceptance of diversification and assisting with increasing knowledge of and helping improve mental health, this has come far beyond just ranting and raving over Simon T's Hockey Simulator, and before we all know it, we're going to be celebrating the 100th season of the Victory Hockey League. A special thank you goes out to @tfong , @CowboyinAmerica, @Victor, @Beketov, @flyersfan1453, @Banackock, @diamond_ace , @WentzKneeFan036, @GustavMattias, and @sterling for their time and patience with completing this article, and their knowledge of what makes the VHL so special. Another thank you goes out to @Zetterberg, who made the gorgeous banner for this article. @WentzKneeFan036 gets another thank you for his donation and idda that led to the creation of this article. Lastly, a big thank you goes out to you, the reader. You're a valued member of our community, and you are a part of the biggest reason why the VHL is such a special place and will continue to be.

I just want to thank everyone who I have been lucky enough to interact with and share life with but right now for myself I believe the best move for me is to step away. I wish nothing but the best for all of you and hope you all succeed in what makes you feel alive.

Good news everyone! As you might have seen here, @McWolf is stepping away from the green team. What you likely didn't know is that @diamond_ace will also be stepping down this off-season after an incredible tenure. I don't think I could possibility summarize how much D_A has done for the league better than his Builder article, so I'll include that for you all to peruse. Please join me in saying, thank you @diamond_ace ! What this does mean is we have the unique privilege of adding 2 new VHLM Commissioners at the same time! After reviewing the list of candidates that had put themselves forward for the position, we have decided on hiring: @Spartan and @Gustav! Congratulations to the both of you! - @Commissioner

This is my notice to the league. I am stepping down from my role as a VHL GM at the conclusion of Toronto's season (prior to the VHL Entry Draft). Over the last few months my interest in the Victory Hockey League has taken a steep nose dive, and as a whole I've found myself growing more irritated with the league recently; it has become a chore to login. It's not fair to those on the Toronto Legion, the league or aspiring VHLM & VHLE GMs/the GM wishful that a sitting VHL GM struggles to visits the forum beyond seeing sim results, engaging in minor trades and rarely reading threads. As the GM of Toronto I had massive plans for the second rebuild I had put the team through, I had doubled down on my scouting and was drafting members I thought would be a good fit within our developing locker room. Normally I think someone here would say something along the lines of how they feel bad the Legion weren't in a position to compete, but I'll be leaving my replacement with what I consider a decent young roster. Continuing on: I've come to terms with myself on numerous subjects; as I get older I've noticed I have less personal patience with people, which can absolutely be attributed to the daily stresses I've had [and continue] to endure over the last couple of years and the mental pressure of those stresses; I lack the tact to deal with people and the drama -- innocent or not -- that comes with the territory of being a general manager; and frankly I'm an older soul who has more controversial opinions on the practices and strategies within the VHL. History will remember me as a mediocre GM with no accomplishments, I accept that, but at least I'll step away with my integrity intact (and the S69 Saskatoon Wild). Take care everyone, - Peace (To whom it may concern, Doomsday was hired as my AGM recently, we all know he's a great person and has GM experience with the VHL. I'd like to recommend him for the position if he'd like it, but I understand that decision is not mine to make.)

I really do hope everyone has a great 2021. May you all win the Kanou's you deserve. @rory @Hylands @.sniffuM @Victor @Josh @Quik @Beketov @Blazzer @fishy @Spartan @Beaviss @Tate @CowboyinAmerica @Prout @Cornholio @rory @gorlab @Kylrad @solas @a_Ferk @dasboot @Devise @Ricer13 @Zetterberg @OrbitingDeath @Gooningitup @Enorama @tfong @Renomitsu @Spartan @efiug @GlowyGoat @frescoelmo @GustavMattias @Berocka @Banackock @Peace @Jubis @hedgehog337 @Jubo07 @McWolf @Josh @FrostBeard @Frostbite @Dil @Esso2264 @diamond_ace @Acydburn @fonziGG @IamMOOSE @Tape-to-Tape @Nykonax @Spartan @rory @WentzKneeFan036 @flyersfan1453 @Sixersfan549 @STZ @RedSus @fromtheinside @DoktorFunk @Molholt @emidas @chikn @youloser1337 @thadthrasher @Dolant @MMFLEX @GRZ @Kendrick @Bushito Be sure to tag your fellow members to give them good luck for 2021.

Hi everyone (removing members tag so people aren't pinged twice), with that confirmation, the league has surpassed all 3 milestones for total contributions to the 2020 Holiday Charity Drive. Thank you to everyone who has contributed! If you haven't donated yet, the donation drive will continue through the 20th, and all donations through the league paypal will be added to the amounts we split among Food Banks Canada and Feeding America, while you will be eligible to claim the personal donation rewards, if you haven't already. All Members may now claim the following community rewards*: $500 Community Donations: 2 Uncapped TPE for Everyone $1000 Community Donations: 4 Uncapped TPE for Everyone $2000 Community Donations: PT Doubles Week for Everyone *Must be claimed on a player created on, or before, December 25th, 2020. Thank you again to everyone for being so generous!

VHL Code of Conduct Policy @Members Recent events within the league have made it clear that the VHL, both historically and currently, has been running far too much of a "Laissez faire" approach in regards to policing the use of insensitive slurs and other language. Not everyone in the league will obviously agree with how these events went down but the point remains that our approach has simply been too relaxed and things have gone too far without the administration necessarily realizing it. This is not simply in relation to the board, or the discord, or any members in particular but is a wide spread problem across multiple areas of the site and it's due time something is done about it. Ultimately the VHL was founded in an interesting time for the internet, 2007. It was a different place back then, a rather toxic place if we are being honest. However it is not 2007 anymore. The kind of words we have seen weren't acceptable (but perhaps more tolerated) back then and they certainly aren't now. To give a few examples, though they should hardly be necessary, using words like gay or retarded as synonyms of stupid is ridiculous and long past its expiration point. This isn't about censoring your posts, being Social justice warriors, or arguing about meaning of words changing over time but rather about the league being inclusive to all its members and potential members. With that in mind, moving forward, the league shall be more proactive in avoiding these types of slurs. Staff using them will be treated more severely for obviously reasons but from the top down we expect to see uses reduced and will be punishing those who do not wish to comply or clearly skirt the rules when looked at in context. Punishment will be determined by the blue team on a case by case basis but can include: • Warnings • Removal of job positions on the site • Temporary or permanent suspensions from discord, the forum, or both • PT Bans, both full and partial Punishment will depend on how severe and how frequent the offences occur and will be made more severe for repeat offenders. It is not a matter of wanting to ban members for this sort of thing but we will if we have to. Quite frankly it's an easy thing to avoid and isn't something that should be a problem in 2019. We will be leaning on our mod team as well as the BOG and general member base to make sure that people who are using insensitive language towards others or groups; whether intentionally targeted or otherwise, are punished accordingly for it. In addition we will be subdividing the Discord better to hopefully spread discussion from general and make it easier to watch for things. In this vein we will also be doing a search at the end of the week of discord and the forums for key words and phrases to keep an eye on things. In general things will fall under the guise of our already in place rules regarding Drama, Fighting, and trolling but with special attention paid to people making claims in general instead of specifically targeted. Our aim, as I said, is not to censor but to make the VHL a welcoming place for everyone. Obviously this did all stem from an event as I alluded to and there are certain members who shall be receiving punishments for their involvement in that event. The league recognizes that, while these rules were not in place at the time, members were warned to not provoke any further action and to stand down. Instead of doing so several members took matters in their own hands and made an already complex situation far worse for themselves and for the league. For their part in all this the following members shall receive the following punishments: @Josh: 1 week PT ban (as in max cap is 6/12) @Banackock: 1 week Update ban @DilIsPickle: 1 week Update ban @Nykonax: 1 week Update ban @jRuutu: 1 week PT ban (as in max cap is 6/12) @Matt_O: 1 week PT ban (as in max cap is 6/12) I know you guys likely won’t be happy about these but it’s what we deem fair given the situation that was either caused or exacerbated by your behaviour. It is our hope that these punishments are the only ones we require in the subject. Given that it’s Thursday and the cap has already likely been hit for you guys the punishments will be served next week. It is our sincere hope that the VHL can move on past our old behaviour and into a brighter, more welcoming era. We hope you can all understand that this is not an attack on your rights as members but simply a policy to make sure that your right to speech does not infringe upon the rights over others to enjoy the league. Re: SBA Affiliation In addition to the above code of conduct the league would like to make a mention of the SBA affiliation which was recently dropped because of the above mentioned issues. The league has been in talks with the BoD of the SBA but is not making this code of conduct simply to appease them or to get back the affiliation. If things improve and those discussions do continue on the right path it may happen some day but that is not our main goal and is out of our hands. However we do recognize that stopping SBA affiliation claims on our end, which was done while we sorted things out, is unnecessary and does negatively impact some of our players. For this reason, regardless of our affiliation coming back or not, and to alleviate the concerns of 90% of the population about how their dual membership of the VHL and SBA will be affected, we will continue recognizing SBA PTs as valid VHL PTs in line with previous affiliation agreements. Our updaters were told to put a hold on, not deny, any claims made while the affiliation welfare was down and they have also been instructed to approve back claimed ones for this past week if the PT week was missed by dual membership members. Sincerely, @Commissioner @BOG

Hello, VHL... With the conclusion of the regular season upon us, I think now is the right time to talk about the conclusion of something different. That being... ...that this will be my last season as Davos' GM. I was (controversially) originally brought on in January of 2020, meaning that at the end of the playoffs, I will have served the league (somewhat) faithfully for just about exactly 2 years. This will also be my first time not being a GM of some sort since April of 2019, when I became the first GM of the Mississauga Hounds. I know that this will come as a surprise to some of you, but I have given this a great deal of thought on my own time and think it's the best decision to make for myself and for the league. Bear with me, because I'm going to try to address whatever I can about it in this post. FAQ: Why? This is an interesting question, and it has a few answers. Davos will be hit hard with retirement, and I don't have the heart to deal with it. We've had some not-fun times with me here, including S70-71 when we set the record for most consecutive seasons in last place (which wasn't really my fault) and S74-79 (I think?) when we underperformed and rebuilt (which kinda was my fault). While we're a playoff team now, I don't have the same enthusiasm for turning things around that I did then. It might be possible to make it work, but I've asked myself whether I see myself working to do that and I really don't. Hopefully we get someone who will! I haven't lived up to the hype. This by itself isn't a reason to step down--the reason is mostly represented in the first point--but I was meant to be the savior of the franchise and things didn't work out that way. I will always think it's more important that everyone had fun, but with one failed attempt to compete gone and another probably gone unless some playoff magic comes out of nowhere, I also think it's unfair to the league that a consistently underperforming team has the same GM for eternity. The league and I are moving in different philosophical directions. This actually isn't about the VHLE. Everyone's also aware of the whole meta thing, and it's more about that. I'm not here to criticize anyone for going along with it, but it's another "do I see myself doing this" situation where the answer is no. I am NOT saying that I want any replacement to try to make Davos a meta team--in fact, I very much do not want that--but I find the idea of running a team less fun when "this is what I want to do" is very different from "this is what I should be doing if I want to win a championship". Like the second point, this is a very minor issue for me in relation to the first, so please don't make me "that guy who left over the meta" or anything. Just something I find worth mentioning. I don't like that I'm saying any of the above, but I've had this on my mind for weeks and I think it's the most fair explanation of my thoughts. Are you going inactive? No. In fact, I hope I stay as active as always in the future. Do you want to GM again? I hope I do at some point, and at that point I hope I'm hired! Right now, I just need a break. Are you leaving the BoG? No, you can't get rid of me that easily. I like arguing too much. A few (alright, quite a few) shoutouts to people who have made my time as GM fun: @Berocka: I cannot possibly make a list without putting you on top. I don't like to speak in absolutes, but you are my best friend in this league. Thank you for putting up with all of my bullshit, and thank you for always being there to talk. It's been great working with you almost from Day 1 and I hope we'll do some other cool stuff in the future. @Ahma: It's no secret that you LOVE Davos, and I'm amazed by your ability to stand by this team through thick and thin. Thank you for your loyalty, and also for reminding me to care when I start to lose it. @WranglersSuck, @Banackock, @Darth Kaprizov, @Tyler, @KC15, and @JardyB10: to the rest of the active members of the current roster, hi! I know this comes on short notice, but thank you so much for getting Davos where it is today and making it a wonderful place to be. Best of luck! @Brrbisbrr, @McWolf , @Laine, @FrostBeard, @Grape, @Snussu, @samx, and probably a whole lot of others I'm missing: you were the people who made the past 12 (yes, 12!) seasons fun as players. I hope you're doing well, whatever you're up to. @Doomsday, @Renomitsu, @Esso2264 , @DoktorFunk, @diamond_ace , and especially @GlowyGoat (if you ever see this): you never played for me, but you still showed up to our server because you wanted to. I appreciate this endlessly and consider you my friends. To the @VHL GM crew: some of you have given me advice, some of you have given me some respectful negotiations, some of you I've never really interacted with on a GM level. But none of you have ever made me feel unwelcome, even when I wasn't making the smartest moves, and I think that's great. @Commissioner: I haven't talked to you about this, so I'd like to apologize again for the zero-notice thing. But here's the announcement. Thanks for keeping things running for all of us! If you'd like to talk to me about the next GM, feel free to do so; if you'd rather make the decision on your own, I respect that as well. To anyone else I missed, and to many others I'd like to tag here but won't because the reasons don't really connect to my time as a GM: thank you for being you. This isn't an easy post to make, but I've been hesitating to make it for a while now and it's time to push the button. But before I do... DAVID

VHL REVERSE RETRO, PART ONE: EUROPEAN CONFERENCE The VHL doesn’t have much of a history with jerseys. As is the case with many sim leagues, teams don’t have official uniform designs due to the sim’s text-based nature. The closest we get to “seeing” our players or teams is in forum signatures, player cards, or the images selected for media spots. Occasionally you’ll see some more graphically-inclined GMs post “official” jersey designs, or creative members posting their own ideas for what VHL jerseys would look like. As someone who holds an interest in jersey design, I’ve always thought about trying my hand at some kind of VHL jersey design but never really went through with it. But recently, I was inspired to give it a try. With the NHL’s Reverse Retro promotion recently happening in real life, I figured that would be a good launching pad to work from considering the VHL’s long and storied history. So I’ve decided to make reverse retro jerseys for most of the league’s teams. Most? Yes, most. Unfortunately for the purposes of this project, there is a decent number of teams in the VHL that have not been around for nearly as long as the others. As a result, six teams will be excluded from this series (three in each conference) - Chicago, DC, London, Los Angeles, Prague, and Warsaw. I may attempt some different kind of designs for these teams later, but for a Reverse Retro project there just isn’t enough to work from. For this project, I also want to define “reverse retro”. The NHL described their promotion as “throwback jerseys with modern twists” and that’s pretty similar to what I want to do here. Of course, the lack of historical uniform designs in the VHL means I can’t necessarily make throwback jerseys - there aren’t really any old jerseys to throw back to. Instead, I’m going to make jerseys inspired by VHL history in some way, but with a twist that would make them fit into what I would imagine each team’s current jersey set would be (they are still alternate jerseys). Most of them are based on my interpretation of what the teams likely would’ve been wearing in the past, while others are a combination of multiple influences from the past. Before I get into the designs, I’d also like to give a shoutout to two people: @Sonnet, for both his “VHL Jersey Initiative” series of media spots as well as the incredibly useful SVG versions of the current VHL logos. @Flames1Fan, for his recent jersey designs - in particular, the Stockholm Vikings jerseys which were my inspiration for this series. Now, let’s get into the designs! HC DAVOS DYNAMO While Davos hasn’t necessarily had much recent success, they are still one of the league’s most historic franchises ever since they moved to Davos in Season 11. The team went on to win multiple cups in each of the next three decades: two in the 10s, three in the 20s, three in the 30s. The iconic and unique purple and black color scheme has stayed unchanged since the beginning - so naturally this jersey had to stick with it. The logo on the front, designed by @Koradek, was put in place back in the early 20s when the league was starting to focus on having original logos for each team. Five cups were won wearing that logo before it was changed to the current one. On the shoulder is the original Davos logo, which I know is stolen but I just don’t know where from. For the sake of media spots and signatures, members would often use the Los Angeles Kings as a base for the Dynamo. As a result, I imagine the Dynamo jerseys probably would’ve been very similar around that time, with the team mainly wearing black during that era. Which is why I’ve made this jersey purple, in order to fit the “reverse retro” theme of adding a twist to a throwback. The jerseys are black down the shoulders and arms, in order to create a nice balance of black and purple. The Avs-inspired mountain stripe on the hem comes from the mountains that have always been in the team’s logo - a reference to the Swiss Alps. The design also incorporates the silver from the old logos in order to both differentiate this jersey from the team’s current identity and to match the logos used. The gradient I’ve used on the back numbers is meant to represent a metallic silver fabric - think the gold worn by Vegas in the NHL. The name and number are in reference to Anton Brekker @DGFX., a hall of fame forward who spent seven seasons in Davos, where he won three cups and was captain of the back-to-back championship teams in Seasons 24 and 25. HELSINKI TITANS Helsinki is another one of the league’s most historic teams, having been in the Finnish capital since Season 1 and being known as the Titans since Season 2. So like Davos, there aren’t going to be many drastic changes in color or logo here. In fact, if you didn’t look too closely at this design you’d probably think I’ve just used the same logo as their current one. This is actually the team’s older logo, designed by Koradek (sensing a theme here?). It was used by the team from the 20s to the 50s - a period during which the team found a large amount of success and was home to many well-known, successful members. Like with Davos, I’ve designed this jersey to try and differentiate it from the team’s current identity. Unlike with Davos, I’ve actually got uniforms to work with here. Based on Sonnet’s media spot from just over a year ago, the team’s normal uniforms would be a lighter blue, with navy and silver as the accent colors. So to complement that, the reverse retro jersey is navy, with the cream from the old logo used as an accent. The stripes on the arms and waist come from the crest of the helmet in the logo and are used to add a little bit of uniqueness to what is a fairly traditional jersey. The name and number are in reference to Ethan Osborne @STZ, who was selected first overall by the Titans in Season 30 before spending six of his seven VHL seasons in Helsinki during the team’s #caphell era, captaining the team to a Continental Cup in Season 34. MALMO NIGHTHAWKS Surprise! Despite being a part of the VHL for less than ten seasons and having the same logo for the whole time, the Malmo Nighthawks still have some history to work with - even if it isn’t technically their history. As a country, Sweden has been represented in the VHL in the past. The most notable of these representatives is the infamous Vasteras Iron Eagles (a.k.a. Vasteras IK), a team beloved by some and hated by others, and also used as the main inspiration for this reverse retro design. I’ve also got home and away uniforms to work from, again thanks to Sonnet. In this case, I’ve tried to keep a relatively similar design so it isn’t completely out of place stylistically, but as you can tell the colors have been changed dramatically. The blue and green Nighthawks logo has been recolored to match the Iron Eagles, whose logo is featured on the shoulders. While Vasteras likely would’ve worn black (the Penguins and Bruins were both common choices for representatives), this jersey is yellow both to fit the theme of this series and for the sake of uniqueness. You might notice one more aspect, though - red accents have been added on the sleeves, waist, and shoulders in a tribute to another Swedish VHL team. The Stockholm Vikings, who moved from Vasteras in Season 41, kept the yellow and black but added red to their color scheme before being contracted from the VHL during the “dark ages” of the 50s. The name and number are in reference to Scotty Campbell @scotty, quite possibly the best player to ever play in the VHL. While Campbell only played for Vasteras for three seasons, he was captain for the team’s historic Season 1 Continental Cup win and found great success with the team. MOSCOW MENACE Red, you ask? Yes, red. I promise I have a reason for this. Moscow is in a similar boat to Malmo, with a decent amount of history from other teams to work with despite having been in the league for only a short period of time. It’s not nearly as much as our previous team, however. Russia’s under-representation in the VHL was a topic of conversation for a long time until the Menace joined as an expansion team in Season 65. The Avangard Havoc, despite their name, played in Omsk as the league’s first Russian team, and after the Havoc moved to Davos the country wouldn’t have a representative until the Moscow Red Wolves joined the VHLM in Season 37. Other than being the only two teams to play in Russia, the Havoc and Red Wolves have another common thread: their color schemes. Both teams wore red, black, and silver, which is the color scheme for this jersey. I’ve tried to take more of an influence from the Red Wolves in this case, however, as they played in the same city as the Menace. Unfortunately, there was a jersey design made by the team’s original GM but the image has been lost so I was unable to use it for inspiration. Instead, I’ve tried to imagine something like what a Red Wolves jersey would have looked like, except with a Menace logo. The number font and style is influenced by the wordmark that was a part of @boubabi's design, while the striping is just me trying to come up with something unique that would fit the team. The name is in reference to Sandro Clegane @JardyB10, a hall of fame goaltender who played for the Red Wolves in the VHLM where he won a Devereux Trophy (top goalie) and a Rift Trophy (playoff MVP). The number, 45, is a reference to the season when the Red Wolves won the Founder’s Cup. RIGA REIGN Riga is one of the teams that has stuck with their current logo the longest - another Koradek design from the 20s, but this time one that has lasted to the present. As a result, one has to dig back a bit further in order to pick a throwback logo for this jersey. While I remember the team having a short-lived dragon head logo, the only other logo that the team used for a significant amount of time and found success with was unfortunately stolen from the ECHL’s Ontario Reign (who have since become the Kings’ AHL affiliate). This was the team’s original logo after they moved from Stockholm to Riga in Season 9, and was also the logo worn when the franchise won its first ever cup in Season 10. Given that the Reign were the only team in the VHL to use orange until Warsaw joined, I imagine that Riga’s home jersey is probably orange. So I’ve decided to choose navy as the main color for this uniform, and have relegated orange to third on the hierarchy of colors behind white. The font for the numbers is inspired by the wordmark on the Ontario Reign’s main logo from that era, because if the logo is stolen I might as well use what I can to make things look more consistent. I’ve also recolored Riga’s current logo to match the Ontario one and put it on the shoulders to make the jersey look more complete. The name and number are in reference to Layken Heidt (Slobodzian_18), a hall of fame forward who spent all eight of his seasons with the franchise, including the team’s first season in Riga. He was captain of the team for their first Continental Cup win and also featured in four European Conference-winning teams. Thanks for checking out this article! The North American teams’ jerseys will follow once I’ve finished claiming this article (and once I’ve finished making the jerseys). Additionally, if people are interested I do have a possible idea for the six other teams that won’t be a part of the reverse retro series. ~2,041 words, good for four weeks

I contemplated writing this article and how I wanted to write it for a few weeks now. I’ve literally erased so many pieces from time to time, but I decided that the better side of me needs to flourish and not the negative/downside of me. That being said, this article is going to be long, it’s going to be very in-depth, and most importantly, it’s going to be about my gratitude for… a lot of people. So I suppose you guys can grab your popcorn, grab your tissues, and let’s just have a bit of fun! So, to truly open this up, some backstory. Little me, baby Rockstar joined back in 2008, September 28th to be exact, so 12 years ago now. Back then I was an asshole, no other way to sugarcoat that one, I was very young, about 13 years old back then and very new to the sim league experience. I was a brat; I expected a lot and I probably got off on one of the worst starts I ever could. I made more enemies than I ever wanted to, and I had no excuses for how I was acting, I was just a douchey teenager. Fast forward a few years, still a brat, but my life kinda went in a spiral. A lot of people never really knew about my irl life going on because a) no one really asked and b) I was very closed off and not really talkative about a lot of things. I got into some fairly heavy drugs because my friends thought they were cool and of course as a naïve, rebellious teenager, I also wanted to be cool. It did a lot of harm to me mentally, physically and so on, and because of everything that transpired, I was even worse here. Some users probably noticed around S30-something or S40-something I disappeared from the league completely, like all gone, no traces, nothing. This is because of a few reasons. The first was that I lost my fiancé, not the one I am now married to, but one I was with that some people knew about. It was one of the most defeating times of my life, and I got really intense into some bad things, my life spiraled even more. Eventually I checked into rehab and made a huge stint there where I got clean, I got sober, and have been sober from all of my nightmare drugs, etc for a little while now. When I returned, I didn’t know how people would perceive me, a lot of people still held grudges, a lot of people still hated me, or still hate me, but thankfully some people were willing to let bygones be bygones and start anew. The big question on everyone’s mind now is, why does all this matter? Well, because I’m still not perfect and I’ll be the first one to admit it. Have I been a saint or an angel since my return? Absolutely not. Have I gotten into hot water and opened my mouth too many times? Absolutely. Unfortunately, my mind is fucked up, there is no nice way to sugar coat it, I’ve been a lot better as of late, and have been much better than I usually was, but I still have my moments, and I accept that I’m not perfect by any sense of the word. What I want people to hopefully take from this, is that I do not mean any harm when I do what I do, and I never hold grudges, and I never want to be perceived poorly, though I know I am to some already, and for that I am very disappointed but I will live and move on from it. Now, without further ado, before I give a frick ton of shoutouts, my overview of my 10 official seasons as GM, after a long hiatus. It’s not a pretty career, it’s not filled with tons of awards of cups, which I am also disappointed in myself for, but it’s been filled with tons of blessings, good times, amazing members and a community that I am forever grateful for. Let’s get it! [B]SEASON ONE – S66[/b] [b]REGULAR SEASON[/b]: 40-28-4 (84 points, 7th in the league) [b]PLAYOFF PERFORMANCE[/b]: Quarter-Finals [b]KEY CONTRIBUTORS (TOP 3)[/b]: Lincoln Tate (88 pts), Rhys Chism (85 pts), Edgar Tannahill (80 pts) In our first ever season, the new expansion team was able to make the playoffs with a roster that was primarily built with waivers, some drafting, and some expansion draft picks. At this time, there was no set expectation, it was a brand-new team, something new to me that hadn’t been done in a few years, and I was just getting back into the swing of things. I had A LOT of amazing members to give credit to here, despite only showing the top 3 performers of each season, this team was stacked and full of amazing personalities. [b]SEASON TWO – S67[/b] [b]REGULAR SEASON[/b]: 26-38-8 (60 points, 7th in the league) [b]PLAYOFF PERFORMANCE[/b]: Quarter-Finals [b]KEY CONTRIBUTORS (TOP 3)[/b]: Milan Griffin (77 pts), Ryan Busser (64 pts) Alyksander Hunter (53 points) Another playoff birth gives us back-to-back playoff attempts now, this one in terms of production was a little worse, despite still being 7th in the league, we finished significantly worse off with our record and as such, got eliminated early on, the same position we would be eliminated the season prior. It was a good run, with again a lot of amazing users and personalities, just did not get as deep as we would’ve hoped. [b]SEASON THREE – S68[/b] [b]REGULAR SEASON[/b]: 38-31-3 (79 points, 7th in the league) [b]PLAYOFF PERFORMANCE[/b]: Quarter-Finals [b]KEY CONTRIBUTORS (TOP 3)[/b]: Roadkill Steve (128 pts), Chad Gilbert (127 pts), Will Clarke (97 pts) Anyone knowing a scary trend? No? Well, 3 seasons in a row now we finished 7th in the league, with 3 different point totals and varying records. We also always only make it to the quarter finals, tickle me cursed at this point. This was in my opinion one of the deepest rosters I had to this point, its only 3 short seasons but in saying that, some of the deepest rosters I had built to date and the point production from a lot of the guys on the team was super high. This was my biggest ‘disappointment’ feeling to this time, as I felt I had built an outstanding roster but just couldn’t finish. [b]SEASON FOUR – 69 (nice)[/b] [b]REGULAR SEASON[/b]: UKNOWN (index is corrupted) [b]PLAYOFF PERFORMANCE[/b]: Quarter-Finals [b]KEY CONTRIBUTORS (TOP 3)[/b]: UNKNOWN (index is corrupted) So, I can’t speak much on a season I can’t really look back to. Clearly what I can tell based on the forum is that we made it into the playoffs, we again got eliminated in the quarter finals, and again, a likely disappointing season. The only takeaway here, is that we never didn’t compete…we were always a competitive team despite being an expansion team, we could’ve taken the low road and rebuilt for years and years but we never did, so I felt good that I was making it to the playoffs but for me personally, I was not satisfied with the results, always losing in the same spot… [b]SEASON FIVE – S70[/b] [b]REGULAR SEASON[/b]: 58-10-4 (120 points, 2nd in the league) [b]PLAYOFF PERFORMANCE[/b]: Semi-Finals [b]KEY CONTRIBUTORS (TOP 3)[/b]: Roque Davis (154 pts), Kyl Oferson (153 pts), Roadkill Steve (151 pts) When I say I was sick to my stomach with this season, I mean it. This has to be the absolutely biggest slap in the face season, and STHS just literally knocked me down a few pegs here. After having our BEST season ever, our 5th consecutively competing, this should’ve been on our year. Minnesota was at the time, supposed to be our biggest hurdle, they were the top team in the league, and proved it when they won the cup, however it would be Ottawa to dismantle our dreams of winning it all. Kudos to Ottawa for a crazy series, but this one easily still hurts the most. We had an excellent core, amazing depth, this now became my ‘strongest’ team, and the performance shows. [b]SEASON SIX – 71[/b] [b]REGULAR SEASON[/b]: 42-28-4 (86 points, 6th in the league) [b]PLAYOFF PERFORMANCE[/b]: Semi-Finals [b]KEY CONTRIBUTORS (TOP 3)[/b]: Alex Bridges (135 pts), Nikita Kulikovich (126 pts), Ike Bennett (102 pts) Heartbreak pt.2, sounds like an album cover but it’s just my life story as a GM. 6 seasons in a row that we have not missed the playoffs now, every single season was competitive and a grind right until the very end, this one was no different. Ottawa was the top dog this year, and we actually managed to beat Minnesota in a crazy series that we were the underdog in. We had a chance to finally beat the Lynx who crushed our dreams the season prior, but we did not get our revenge. Instead, they would go on to win a much-deserved cup, their season was strong through and through, and we would be left with another hole in my heart. [b]SEASON SEVEN – S72[/b] [b]REGULAR SEASON[/b]: 10-60-2 (22 points, 11th in the league) [b]PLAYOFF PERFORMANCE[/b]: DNQ [b]KEY CONTRIBUTORS (TOP 3)[/b]: Han Jae Kuk (34 pts), Roadkill Steve (30 pts), John Shally (30 pts) After six seasons of competing, burning assets and throwing everything I could into the team, the lack of assets and waiver signings finally caught up with us here. For the first time in our existence, we did not make the playoffs and had our teams worst season record now in history. This was still an enjoyable season thankfully because I had some excellent guys in the LR, but I know it was beyond hard for them to deal with, and it was even hard for me to deal with. I always want to give my guys and girls 110%, and get them the best success we can, and I just was not able to deliver that this season, disappointing on my end for sure. [b]SEASON EIGHT – S73[/b] [b]REGULAR SEASON[/b]: 51-19-2 (104 points, 5th in the league) [b]PLAYOFF PERFORMANCE[/b]: Semi-Finals [b]KEY CONTRIBUTORS (TOP 3)[/b]: Pietro Angellini (125 pts), John Merrick (109 pts), Lucifer Olivier Leveque (101 pts) San Diego doesn’t sleep long, let me tell you. With just one season of ‘failure’ under my belt, I was able to thankfully recoup enough assets and some great players to go on another big run. I was also quite thankful that I had recreated at this time and my player played a big part in this run with all of my carryover TPE and such, it really provided a much-needed boost for the core. Unfortunately, we were stopped once again in the semi’s, so close to that pivotal and honestly long desired championship, but it never happened. We’ve been close now so many times, but again it’s the connections I made with this team that I find special. I made a lot of amazing friends, met a lot of amazing people and they blessed me with an amazing season, I am forever grateful. [b]SEASON NINE – S74[/b] [b]REGULAR SEASON[/b]: 9-58-5 (23 points, 12th in the league) [b]PLAYOFF PERFORMANCE[/b]: DNQ [b]KEY CONTRIBUTORS (TOP 3)[/b]: Logan Hoffman (38 pts), Raphael Switzer (37pts), Cowboy Prout (34 pts) For the second time in now 9 seasons, we had a losing season. If this season taught me anything, it’s to cherish every single moment. We did lose, and there is no excuse for that, but there was a lot of friendships and bonds made. This season was special to me for that very reason, and I chalk it up as a one-off, well I guess a two-off for our career statistics. But not too shabby for 9 seasons in the books if you ask me… [b]SEASON TEN (CURRENT) – S75[/b] [b]REGULAR SEASON[/b]: 7-6-0 (14 points, 7th in the league) [b]PLAYOFF PERFORMANCE[/b]: TBD [b]KEY CONTRIBUTORS (TOP 3)[/b]: Cowboy Prout (16 pts), Scotty Kaberle (16 pts), Red Lite (16 pts) This is the current season and honestly, this league became super competitive and it shows. Despite having an insanely deep roster thanks to one of the best recruitments drives we’ve had in recent history, we’re just barely above .500% but our locker room is kicking and screaming every single day. There is so many players that make me proud to be a GM here and let me know that they are with me, willing to work with me, and most importantly, are in it for the long haul. I know I have a good group of guys here this year, and we’re not laying down without a fight. [b]RECAP[/b]: [b]TOTAL RECORD[/B]: 281-278-32 (Season 4 data is missing…) [b]TOTAL PLAYOFF RECAP[/b]: 10 seasons, 7 playoff appearances, 1 TBD. - 3x Semi Finals - 4x Quarter Finals - - 0 Cups (yes, laugh it up…) So, would I chalk up my GMing experience as a good one, or a bad one? Would I call myself a success story, or a failure? Well, it depends what criteria you would use to determine such a feat. If we define success based on cups, then I’ve failed, and I admit it’s been haunting me for seasons now. I’ve been determined, I’ve been active, I’ve been engaged, I’ve been driving myself mental, but alas, no cups have come to San Diego. If we look at playoff berths however, can we call San Diego successful? Maybe, maybe not. We’ve been to the playoffs more than we haven’t, but again those berths have not amounted to a cup, we’ve also got a winning record in the regular season, mainly because of all those playoff berths. On the flip side of it all, however, if we talk about locker room activity, member retainment, connections being made, players just being here because of San Diego, then I would call myself pretty successful. When I look around the league and see so many usernames still around, whether it be pre-existing members who stuck it out or new members on their second players (yes, I’m old, old enough that my young players are now 2nd gen players, ie Phil & Tate & Danger, etc). I don’t label my GM success on any one thing, I don’t label my GM failure on any one thing. At the end of the day, I feel blessed that season after season, players are honored to call me their GM, I feel blessed that I am constantly surrounded by people who want to be around me, who feel joy being a part of the team, who have memories from 6-7 seasons ago that they are still fond of, and most importantly, I feel blessed that I can always know, my environment in San Diego has been, and will always be, a safe, special, fun, exciting and judgement free space. Now that the team stuff is out of the way, a very lengthy thank you to many, many people. Since my return, I have met a lot of people, I have reconnected with others, and most importantly, I’ve gained true friends. This list could be a mile and a half long, even with the enemies I may speak to as well, or the people who may not like me, I feel like it’s time to put some closure on a lot of bullshit, and lay it all to rest. Without further ado, my wall of thank you/happy texts! @BladeMaiden - We had a lot of fights, a lot. We butt heads more than likely a lot of people around here, but before we began bickering and before all the crap went down, you were the very first person to introduce me to the league again, and vouch for me when being considered for my GM job. You didn't know me, you didn't need to know me, but were welcoming and honoring, we finally put bygones in the past, and really hashed it out over a very lengthy conversation just a few short months ago, and it feels good to know the person who was there for me since day one, is back on the good side, and I am not on their bad side, so thank you for that. @Banackock - You, along with D_A gave me a bit of purpose back here, I can't thank you enough for having faith in me to come back and take another GM position after years away and a lot of bad experiences in the past. Not only did you kind of help me when I needed it, but you became a great friend, and someone I trusted with a lot. We didn't talk super often, but often enough that we could shoot the shit and it didn't just feel like you were the 'boss' of the league, I really respect you, and appreciate what you did for me to give me the job, and now taking me in, in Seattle. I look forward to a lengthy run with you. @diamond_ace - Where there is one commissioner, there is two. You and I go way back, to the point that you actually helped me learn the ropes of GMing way back when, when the Lynx were known as the Ice Dogs and the GMing was very fresh for possibly the both of us. You were the one that really got me hooked on the league, and helped me find my footing for all my reigns as GM. I know you played a big part as well in getting me back into a GM spot, and I'm forever grateful for the second chance, I hope I've been deserving ever since. @Beaviss - Vancouver is a place I called home since I was drafted there, and you were the very big reason that I enjoyed it as much as I did. You were an engaging GM who really kept things light in the LR and really kept people there because they WANTED to be there. You have been nothing but accepting of me, and have been there whenever I needed ya, for little or big things, so thank you very much for having an open door policy and thank you for such an amazing experience in Vancouver, the experience will be unmatched. @Josh - Yeah, you hate being pinged, suck it! You took me in as an AGM before I got the opportunity to become a GM of my own, and in all seriousness I feel like that experience in Yukon is what truly lead me to wanting to be a GM. Without having experienced that time in Yukon I do not think I would be half the GM I am today, I do not think I would be half the person I am in these leagues, so I really respect what you did there and achieved, and I appreciate the guidance. @MexicanCow123 - My first ever AGM, it's sad to say how long ago it actually was. Having you in San Diego made the time fly, and it was super enjoyable. You've made some hiccups along the way as GM, but I feel encouraged to see where you've come in such a short period of time. You brought a lot of positivity, fun and experience to the locker room every single season you were with me, and we bonded a lot, I'm very proud of you, and keep doing an amazing job @Viperxhawks19 - My other AGM buddy, I was very depressed when you decided to leave in all honesty, no BS. After having lost Mex, and then I lost Alex due to school, you stepping down really sucked. You were so helpful and just there whenever you were needed, or even if you just felt like being around, you were a great presence for the team, and very active and engaging with the locker room and the players. They appreciated you, and so did I. @Alex Bridges - You are, and will always be a little shit for leaving me, but I'll forgive you eventually All jokes aside, it was unfortunate to lose you as soon as we did, but it didn't go without its good times. You helped the team along as much as you could and proved you were willing and able to be a great AGM. You had everything in the making to be successful if school wasn't putting so much weight on you, I think we would've continued to be a great team. @IamMOOSE - How can I leave out my current AGM? You bring back flashbacks of Mex if I am honest, when it comes to how involved you love to be and how active you are, and how engaged you are in the locker room. You're that bright light that the team was missing without a consistent AGM and you've done a lot of good for the team. Your scouting helped us build one hell of a team this year, and you nailed it. I am very blessed and proud to call you my partner in crime. @Sonnet - You're gone now (unless you came back when I wasn't paying attention) and I can't say we had the greatest relationship. To say I pissed you off is an understatement, but hopefully you can forgive me for it, I swear it was not against you personally, I'm just a stubborn ass person with a thick skull and too much time on my hands lol. That being said, my time as GM is not complete without having you as commissioner for a short period of time, and you did some good in the M, that wouldn't have been done without you in power, so thank you for being a part of the journey. @Rayzor_7 - When it comes to friendships, I'd say I found a pretty good one in you. We don't talk 24/7, its not really that kind of friendship, but we both talk when we need to, get along really well, and now you're on the team with your player so that's really fun. You are always around if I need to vent or just get something out in the air, and I feel like I do that for you too, so there is that as well. I do want to thank you for your friendship, it's an amazing one, wouldn't trade it for the world. @Ricer13 - I didn't really know you too much until you got hired to be GM, we hadn't talked that much up until that point, but I feel like we both think scarily alike, and its kind of brought that bond on at the GMing level that I've thoroughly enjoyed having. You are an excellent GM and a very great LR guy, you really know how to keep guys engaged and active and I respect the hell out of that. Keep being an excellent GM, you've done great things already and the sky is the limit! @Spartan - Another GM I've grown mad respect for, over the seasons now. You are constantly a fighter, a warrior and someone pushing and striving for greatness. There isn't a season that you want to fail (really, do we ever want to?) and you are always ensuring to the best of your ability that failure is not an option. Las Vegas has had some inconsistencies with GM's over the time now but I am glad they finally settled with you, one hell of a GM. @Doomsday - I had the pleasure of having you on my team as a player, one of, if not THE best Marlins two-way forward I have ever had the pleasure of having on my team, and if not one of the best in the minor leagues as well. You turned into an amazing user, and now an amazing GM. You clearly work your ass off, and it shows a lot, you should be and I am sure very proud of your accomplishments as GM in your short tenure, keep up the excellent work, I am very proud and happy to see you succeed here. @ColeMrtz - Still mad about the Yukon loss, but nevertheless it can't be held over your head forever (or can it? lol). I am really happy you got chosen to pickup Mississauga tbh, you're a great user and you have a good head on your shoulders. I think with some time the Hounds will be as great as they were in the hands of our boy Gus, one of the best GMs in history. You have some shoes to fill, but so far so good, keep up the good work with the team. @Hylands - Honestly, we haven't talked all that much outside of the VHLM GM chat, however I do have to say I think they made an excellent call with hiring you as GM. While we've never had too many run-ins together, you make a fine choice for GM and I'm sure you'll have a lengthy career at the helm, just don't smuggle too much of your own product over the border, okay? Need to keep you on this side of the line, not the other...ha. @DoktorFunk - Another GM I haven't had a ton of personal interactions with, most of which come in the VHLM GM chat as well, but nevertheless I can see the good you're doing in Ottawa and that is not hard to find. You are without a doubt an excellent GM, you do what needs to get done, I hear a lot of your players rave about you over the time, and winning a cup is no feat to laugh at. Keep doing you, and keep making Ottawa great! @Dil - You are, and will forever be a little shit, and you know it lol. You like to push buttons, but at the same time, you're a very smart kid. I think you're gonna go far, but I think you have some lessons to learn and some things that could be done differently, but its not my place to tell you how to GM haha. Either way, I envy your drive and I envy your abilities, I think you're gonna go places and really hit it big when Halifax comes to fruition, its just a matter of time for you to find that success. @DMaximus - A similar boat to some of the other GM's, our talks are mostly transactional, or in the GM chat, there isn't a lot of personal talks but that's absolutely okay. I feel like we've got a mutual respect for one another (maybe we don't and I'm just in my own little world lol) and we work well together when needed. Philly is lucky to have you at the helm, and I wish you, and Philly nothing but success and a good time! @a_Ferk - I think you're the only AGM I associate with outside of the GM chat lol, so you make the list! I respect the hell out of you and I was super impressed when Doom hired you. You've done an excellent job by his side and really helped put Saskatoon on the map as a threat. There is no doubts in my mind that one day you will be a GM in your own right, you have all of the characteristics to be one, and you're gonna make it big. @Tate - You single handedly go down as one of my favorite members I've ever had the pleasure of having on my team. You had such a successful career and I am honored to have been a part of it. You somehow landed on the team twice which makes it even more amazing, and you are a great user. I really have nothing but good things to say about you, and I can hope that you continue to be apart of the adventure one way or another. @DangerGolding - Another guy I've known for a while in multiple league, I also have had the pleasure of watching you with two players and having both of them on my team. You are also another member that I've gotten a long with very well and have had some good chats with. You're a dedicated user who really enjoys himself and helps others enjoy the league in return. Never, ever change, you were and still are a great experience in the league and on the Marlins. @Phil - 1/2 of the Knight bros (where tf is your brother man, been too long!) and a favorite of mine. When I seen you were available this draft as the picks continued to pour in, I was astonished, but also very happy. It was a no brainer to bring you back to the team after Marleau found success on the team your first time around. You bring a good vibe to the team and its always a blast having you in the LR, talk more though, we need that Phil energy!! @Cowboy - How do I write up a speech thingy and not include you? Such a short tenured player but yet have made such an impact. If there is a freaking gold star award for most active, engaged and willingness to learn, it goes to you. You have impressed me immensely, you are so attentive and your need for education on things is above and beyond. You surely keep me busy, and I love it haha. You've been a very welcomed edition to the team, and we're very proud to have you leading the pack! @fromtheinside - Another welcomed short tenured member who has made a huge impact early on, even nabbing himself an AGM job because of the impact you've made. You are just like Cowboy, a quick learner, someone who WANTS to learn, someone who WANTS to be a part of the league and someone who just enjoys the hell out of being here. Just like Cowboy, you were a no brainer to bring onto the team, your presence in the LR alone has been worth it, and your production and time has made it even more worth it. You will make one hell of a GM one day. There is a billion people I am sure I could write-up here, some I know I am missing but my mind is going numb trying to find every single person that I can possibly think of to thank for the experience I've had here. There is however one more person that I want to mention, @Tape-to-Tape - Thank you for putting up with me and honestly, making me open my eyes. While I still have no clue if you're an alias, or if I know you from elsewhere personally, you really made me shed some light on who I am, reflect on myself and change for the better. I appreciate you being honest, and the way I handled your situation was horrible, a very low point for my GMing career, but I am actually glad it happened, because I now know it'll never happen again, because you took the time to put me in my place and show me how I was doing things the wrong way. If you still hate me, all the power to you, I'd hate me too, but hopefully you can learn to forgive and forget, I hold no hard feelings either way. And yeah, that's me in a nutshell. Thanks for reading

Hello, VHL. Usually with my VHL.com articles I spend my time doing a quick little blab about random things throughout the league or something silly to get people talking.. HOWEVER.. this week we’re going to go the personal route and let the members in on some things going on in Bana’s life. As I’ve always tried to tell people, the world is different and at times difficult but there’s a lot of positivity left in it and things will only get better. Now, let’s dip into things... because they’re pretty damn big! Let’s start with the biggest??? 1. As a lot know, my girlfriend was diagnosed with a tumor in May, and did a biopsy in June and July (the first one they fucked up the sample). In august we learned she had diffuse large b-cell lymphoma which is an aggressive form of cancer of the blood etc. It was also a good sized tumor.. Pretty scary, difficult times... especially because she can’t get sick and we’re finding our way each day through a pandemic full of anti-mask wearers and angry people lol.. she lost her hair and chemo took a pretty strong hit to her... there was some very rough days for her especially as it went on (and me too, but she’s the one who has it).. but this is not about those bad days, sleepless/sick nights etc.. HOWEVER, oct 31 was their final planned chemo cycle (#4) and then we waited until December 9th for a PET scan etc to see how things are... and based off their findings... SHES 100% clear.. just needs to check up every 3 months as it could come back etc.. woo hoo! 2. I’ve quit smoking. Both things. Nah, not crack. Mariguana in September and I quit smoking cigarettes 31 days ago some time today.. I’ve done it once before with Champex (a pill everyday that makes smoking garbage) but this time was cold turkey and I haven’t struggled near as bad as last time.. I’m using money as my main thing but of course health too. Still grumpy days and moments and a few triggers and such for good cravings but I’ve battled through it all so far. 3. It’s fitting that this is #3 because there’s 3 of them.. but we have 3 Xmas trees up this year. We normally have two. One in the living room area, one in our bedroom... but this year we expanded to the guest bed room.. just in time for more albertan Covid restrictions haha... Keep doing good things VHL. Stay strong, stay smart and stay safe out there.. remember - it’s not just you going through it all. We’re all on this planet doing what we can to live the lives we want.

I know It’s not perfect, but it took a ton of time to make lol

Hello @Members! ’Tis the season of giving and while the VHL is doing it’s part for you all with our 12 Days of Christmas Extravaganza we thought that as a league, we could be doing more. That is why we are announcing today the first of what will hopefully be an annual VHL Charity Drive! What does this mean? It means as a league we’re opening up our hearts, and wallets, to those in need this holiday season. Specifically the league has chosen the Make a Wish foundation as it’s charity this season and we are asking you all for donations. All proceeds from this will go directly to the charity with the VHL taking 0% off the top, none of it comes to us. So how does this work? A topic has been opened in our donation section and can be found HERE. When you donate just post your confirmation ID in there so we can add it to our total and not confuse it with regular VHL donations. This of course does not fall under the “one per season” donation rule since it isn’t for the VHL. For a donation of $5 or more (you can donate as much or as little as you'd like) you’ll earn 3 TPE. Donating more does not earn you more but it is obviously welcome. In addition, everyone who donates will be entered into a raffle for some extra prizes at the end that aren't TPE based but should be fun. Don’t think we aren’t doing our part as well though. As a thank you for your generosity, the league will match the sum of total donations of all members up to $200 so the more you all donate, the more we will donate. In addition, if the league matching is maxed out (aka if league donations get to at least $200) all members, regardless of if they donated or not, will receive a free doubles week. Donations can be made to the league using our normal link which we will sum up (with proof of amounts) and donate in full to the charity likely around New Years, again with proof of amounts. However if you’d like to donate on your own directly to the charity in order to get a tax receipt (which the league cannot legally supply) you can provide proof of that as well and we will count it the same as a donation through us. In addition to this, if you'd like to donate to a different charity that’s alright as well. Again, simply provide us with proof and we’ll count it for your rewards and our matching. I would like to thank @Banackock for the original idea behind this, I certainly hope it can become a yearly thing. I would also like to thank @gorlab for the above logo as well as @Motzaburger for one he made but we aren’t using for this announcement specifically. Happy Holidays everyone, @Commissioner @Admin @BOG

As some may know, I quit smoking cigarettes just over a month again and have from time to time shared my app’s progress in my locker room as it’s either requested me to show people for helpful tools/tasks or because it does help a little bit in curbing the habit/addiction. A while into it I made that “Good News” post about my girlfriend being confirmed cancer free and also letting the rest of the league know that along with that bright light, I’ve also taken up the challenge of bettering myself and conquering the mountain that many know to be “quitting smoking”. Tonight, I found it cool to go on my phone and see a message from a fellow member that wanted to share a helpful message that they seen my post and have also quit smoking a few weeks ago. It made me proud of them. Maybe even a little bit because they were a newer member to the league and the Bears! I don’t think I had any impact on this, but a similar message popped in my head that many have echoed on here that it’s cool all the positivity going on, but also just how awesome this community and it’s members are. Kindness spreads faster than Covid. I mostly wanted to write this post up to help others (maybe myself too), have a place to chat or have resources or share stories about their successes (and maybe even failures). I know showing my progress to others, whether on here or in real life, offers up a great sense of pride and encouragement to continue a battle that often can be frustrating, exhausting and a pain in the damn ass. A few other things that have helped me are: - I have this app. Smoke Free it’s called for IOS. It tracks cravings, has a helpful bit if you need resources, have questions or are struggling. It also offers up tools and daily tasks to help you progress. I do some of these but what’s most significant for me is the money saved counter and the “Time Smoke Free” counter. Visually seeing my progress really helps me get through it. - Have a goal. Have a few if you want. My main ones moving forward and since the beginning have financial (1) and health (2). It’s fucked up probably that it’s backwards and health should be (1), but it’s a close race. I just really want to save money for whatever the hell I want - up to AND including my vacation property in the mountains. Again, that app mentioned above really does help with this . - Mental strength. You may be tough like buff Beav, but your mind is just as powerful - most likely more. The cravings can be tough as hell. I’ve had numerous moments and even portions of days where it’s in your mind at the start of quitting. Maybe a shit sleep, habitual things like driving, eating, boredom, sex, coffee, alcohol, being around those who smoke, socializing (not in today’s world lol!) or whatever. Maybe you’re having a shit day at work or just got bad news etc.. it happens and they’re (cravings) dry grass waiting for a match to drop.. but all fires can be put out! For me, weeks 1-2 were a decent struggle but once you hit that 3 weeks plateau .. it gets easier.. I’ve found it’s been a little tougher the last few days but that’s only because I think I’ve got focused in my head just how hard it’s going to be.. I had and have the thought of “I’ve quit for 36 days.. which is amazing.. but that’s only 36 days of the rest of my life” and the small accomplishment than stood beside a massive oncoming wave ready to crash into my progress lol.. One day at a time as my girlfriend reminds me. - Something that has helped me and could probably tie into the last one.. they become less frequent... your inner voice becomes louder than the cravings and they pass just as fast as they came.. in fact, I’ve had good luck with telling this thing to fuck off and be the louder one (I know some here probably aren’t surprised lmao).. they hit your mind and you either find a distraction, let them pass or I often find myself telling my mind “no. I’m not gonna smoke. I don’t like the health effects I’ve been having, don’t want to feel shamed and want to continue saving money”. So far, during this battle, I’m undefeated. I will continue to be. 36 days and counting, one at a time. - Good support. It’s helped me huge. Not so much to quench cravings but mostly just to feel encouragement and proud of myself. It’s a nice reminder as to why you’re doing it and feeling a sense of happiness and being proud always helps fuel motivation. Stay strong friends. It’s hard as shit but you can do it. If anyone needs someone to talk to or anything, I’m always a message away. Stay healthy, happy and safe. Best of luck

For the second time today, hello! We were very excited to welcome two new VHLM GMs today and felt that we should keep the party going with a second announcement. Last season, @Gustav and I made two significant changes to the workings of the VHLM - increasing VHLM GM pay from 2 TPE to 4 TPE, and changing up the draft pick holding rules to prevent unhealthy asset management in a league oriented towards development and retention. We promised to increase the quality of the VHLM GM experience, but last season felt more like we were restricting our GMs as to what they could and couldn't do. Today, we'd like to announce our largest change yet - a completely revamped waiver process and system that is now fully run through the portal. That's right! VHLM GMs no longer have to post offers into waiver threads or constantly lurk the forums in order to secure a new player. This system also puts the decision-making process into the hands of the newly created player with a simple yet informative UI thanks to the work of @Dil. Here's what new creates will see immediately after creating their player: (Data and teams are from S80 for testing and demonstration purposes) We chose elements for this page based on what we felt were the most important aspects of a team that influence a player's decision. All the teams will be sorted by standings, and the # of players per team is also visible. This should allow users to have a better understanding of the situation they're walking into. Using the screenshot above, a new center would see that some of the top teams could use a third line center, but Las Vegas is the best team that can offer them a top 6 role. We hope that this new UI will give enough information to new creates without overwhelming them in a sea of data points. To add a bit more of a personal touch from the GM along with more information on a potential player's fit on the team, we've given VHLM GMs the ability to write (and update via Team Management) a pitch and projected position that new creates can choose to read when picking between teams: (Sample text for what a new user would see) Once a new create chooses a team, they will be redirected into a forum DM created between the new create, the team GM and the team AGM if the team has one. This will alert the team's management that a new create would like to join the team so that they can begin interacting with the new user, invite them to the team LR and get them signed to a contract. The automated DM will also include helpful links to forum content such as the TPE Guide and the Updated Build Guide. As many have mentioned before, new creates sometimes simply never venture into the forum or feel like the forum is too difficult to navigate in terms of finding relevant and helpful content. This new process both redirects new users to the forum and presents them with resources to begin their VHL journey on the right path. Finally, this system can be modified at the discretion of the VHLM Commissioners. Based on the league population and positional data, we can change what we consider to be "full" teams, and increase/decrease the threshold for a team's position to display as favorable or unfavorable. This system will also be deactivated from the start of the playoffs until the conclusion of the VHLM Draft. Any creates during playoffs or the offseason will need to be signed via written pitch in their new create thread, as was the common practice. --- We're very excited to see this new system in action for S86 and hope that it improves the overall experience for new VHL users. Expect to see various VHLM rule changes being announced in the coming days as we transition the VHLM rulebook away from the old waiver system, and remove rules largely created to incentivize GMs making written pitches to new players. As always, please let us know if you have any questions or feedback! @VHLM GM @VHLM Commissioner

So today is it. 5 hours from now I'll have a wife Updates will come, but probably more likely to be tomorrow morning (or today late night)

Like the post and you will get a sig from me. Gatta make a stash before school starts again so like awaaaay