Cowboy

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Following the Blades' 36th game of the season, a lopsided 7-2 victory over the Yukon Rush, bruising Russian winger Valentin Taneyev had something to celebrate. With an assist on a powerplay goal in first period by Franklin Romanowski and a goal late in the second, Taneyev managed his second 50 point VHLM season. While there are multiple players with 100 points at this point already, Taneyev is more than modestly happy with his campaign thus far in S42. "It comes down to winning in the end and we're winning a lot of game, are having a successful season, and I think I'm doing everything I can to help the team win," Taneyev commented following the win. "50 points (20G, 30A) isn't huge but it's solid and I feel like the scoring aspect is only a byproduct of Valentin's game. This level of production puts him on pace for his best offensive season to date. Valentin leads the league in hits, sits second in PIM's after 36 games, and has done a formidable job in looking after the Blades' star players," commented Taneyev's agent Tyler Vassell. Looking toward the second half of the season, the Blades have accrued a formidable 30-5-1 record and have displayed streaks of dominance multiple times; including a 13-game winning streak. In order to achieve their goal of winning the Founder's Cup, the Blades need to find an answer for the Demko-led Oslo Storm who have had their number all season and sit comfortably perched atop the league standings. "We're going to have to rally but we're starting to get back on a roll now. We're riding a 7-game winning streak right now and everything seems to be clicking. I see no reason why things shouldn't remain copacetic heading into the stretch," explains Blades' coach Raul Thundercat.

some reason they seem to look better or "crisper" on the photobucket page but what can ya do

Thats fucking bitchin

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These weren't the very first but these are the oldest in my photobucket

Better/Worse?

not my favorite outcome but yeah

I'll apply as well, has a lot of potential.

Well, I already wrote one of these fuckers earlier today and while I was word counter checking it my laptop died and I lost the whole fucking thing which pissed me off. So now I'm going to do a poor summary of an article I don't really give a shit about at this point since this is the second time I've bothered typing 250 words of bullshit. So the Blades appear to be a good team but aren't doing as well as they potentially should be with the roster they have on paper. Since trading in Dean Arbuckle for Raul Thundercat behind the bench things have turned around and the Blades recently managed to tie the season series with the Minot Gladiators (who are 3 points behind them in the NA Conference). The Oslo Storm are the only team the supercharged Blades can't solve having dropped both contests to the European Conference leaders. Here I wrote some random quote from assistant general manager Benoit Devereux about how the team has changed throughout the season via the coaching swap and the 4 trades that took place. 2 before the season began and 2 since. The biggest acquisition so far has been Teibert who has 62 points in 18 games and has turned the anemic offense of the Blades upside down. I think I also said something about Campbell who pretty much sucked when we first got him but has won a fair number of games for us lately and has held us in a few as well. While he still isn't super consistent he is the best goaltending option the Blades could have had this season since I doubt and 89 tpe inactive in Soren Douffet could outplay a 200tpe active but whatever. He's been ok and will only be better from here on out. 250 words yet? hope so cause I'm getting bored as fuck with this crap for the second time.

If anyone would want this I can modify the text as necessaryyyyy

I <3 your CnC lol Hey you fellow inactive

Brampton Pulls the Trigger After a 7-2-1 start to the season with some troubling results, the Brampton Blades decided to make a major change to the roster after only ten games. With Bratislava in full-on sale mode, Brampton managed to pick up two important pieces to their playoff push. In a late night deal Fong managed to pick up S42 center Sam Teibert (6G, 7A, 13P) and S40 defenseman Danny Schneider (4G, 9A, 13P) for an S44 1st, 3rd, and S42 backup goaltender Ivars Klejums. Teibert should fit in nicely with one of the top two offensive units, though his arrival will probably push Yannik Zug (2G, 11A, 13P) or Mikko Koskinen (4G, 5A, 9P) down to a rotation on the 3rd or 4th offensive unit. While Teibert can play in Brampton for a further season, Schneider is strictly a rental since his eligibility is up at the culmination of the current season. Schneider's likely destination in the lineup is on the second defensive pairing alongside Jack Harkness, while Franklin Romanowski and Gunzerker Salvador populate the first pairing. Fowll and Voss will see a major hit to their icetime, but with the massive ability gap between them and Schneider there's not many other options. The arrival of Teibert will probably help maximize the potential of rookie center Bronson Faux who has been a steady performer thus far. "We're expecting big things from Bronson, he has all the skills and definitely the determination to break out of the pack later this season. Adding another highly-skilled player to the second unit should only help boost production there. The line of Valentini, Faux, and Teibert could be a top line on almost any other team in the VHLM this season so we're really looking forward to what the rest of the season brings," commented Brampton Assistant General Manager Benoit Devereux.

Is there an attribute that covers how weak/much of a pansy the player is and how good/bad they are at diving? Soccer players taking lessons from professional wrestlers - good training camp work out idea

Happy for a 3-day weekend Sad/Mad Kyle went inactive October 16, 2014

Vassell is Taneyev's player agent

The Brampton Blades haven gotten off to a good start to S42, though it hasn't exactly gone off without a hitch. Their first two games against the Lynx and Gladiators respectively were dicey affairs. Managing to squeak by the Lynx by a slim 6-4 margin, the superior Blades were bested by a depleted Gladiators squad by a 7-5 clip. Following the loss, the Blades front office released a statement that they were firing head coach Dean Arbuckle. Arbuckle is a retired former professional hockey player from the days of the ESHL and has worked for VHL.com since his retirement. Hoping to get back into the game at rink-level, Arbuckle was hired as the Blades' bench boss in the off-season. He lasted two games in the VHLM. "Dean is a good guy and a good sports reporter and perhaps he is a good coach, but he didn't fit with our system. Arbuckle was responsible for butchering line combinations and under-utilizing some of our best players. It was obvious after only two games that Arbuckle had lost control of the bench and the team and we decided to let him go," commented Brampton's Assistant General Manager Benoit Devereux. According to VHL.com, Arbuckle is still currently employed there and is classified as a weekly columnist. Arbuckle has made no comment to the press since being released by the Blades. Under Arbuckle's replacement, Raul Thundercat, the Blades managed to take back-to-back victories over the S40 and S41 Founder's Cup winning Bratislava Watchmen; outscoring them 15-4 through two games. "So far Thundercat is displaying what we were expecting our of a head coach at this level. He is making smart decisions and we in the front office believe he is utilizing the team we have provided in the most efficient manner. I feel that the future of the club is much safer with Thundercat at the helm," continued Devereux. I would have never guessed I'd ever hear the name Raul Thundercat again. A failed prospect and VHLM lifer, Thundercat played the majority of his career in the European Conference.

Never gone FA, probably won't. This only reinforces if for me haha.

VHLM By the Numbers *denotes eventual Founder's Cup Champions Strikeout denotes skew data What exactly am I presenting to you here you might be wondering? In a very basic way, this is what it takes to be a "legitimate" playoff team through the past three VHLM seasons. Due to extreme roster turnovers from season to season, the use of the conference system in the VHLM, and the "tank it for later" mentality of most VHLM general managers, there is a lot of skew data represented in the VHLM. Inclusion of skew data would cause a general bias and cause the standard deviation to skyrocket based on the huge increase in variance. By neglecting the use of the data taken from illegitimate playoff teams (i.e. the entire European Conference in S39) the data becomes less bias, with less error in consideration of our goal. The goal or aim of this data is to help determine and thereby project what it takes to be a playoff team in the VHLM; in a static world. Drastic changes to the entire league can have a profound effect on the data however. Consider in example if there was a sudden influx of good goaltenders to the VHLM with only a handful of scoring forwards. You would expect that across the league all of the values displayed above would decrease. In consideration of a phenomenon such as that, you have to adhere to the fact that this is HIGHLY theoretical. As we all know, anything can happen when riding the roller coaster known as the VHLM. By these numbers a legitimate playoff team in the VHLM will have a Goals For value ranging from 307-393, a Goals Allowed value of 164-260, a Differential value of 95-181, and a Total Points For value of 852-1076. Now, if I'm going to be brash as hell and use this information determine who is going to make the playoffs this year in the VHLM (which I'm going to do eventually), I need to do some more figuring. To aid in calculations a correlation coefficient (r) between Goals For and Total Points For has been calculated at 0.9906 with a coefficient of determination or r-squared = 0.9906 or 99% (P-Value of <0.00001 at significance level of 0.05). While the data isn't exactly linear, this gives us a good idea that the Goals For variable and Total Points For variable are very well correlated with one another (I can draw this conclusion since r ranges from -1 to 1 with a value of 0 meaning no correlation and values tending closer to 1 indicating a high correlation). That only makes sense since in hockey for every goal scored there is the possibility that three points will be awarded. However, in some instances someone might score a lone goal or a secondary assist may not be awarded. In theory, in a static world, the quantitative relation between Goals For and Total Points For should be 1:3, though I know that isn't the case in the real world or within the VHLM. Since I know there is a high correlation between the two variables I can go ahead and calculate the quantitative or ratio relation between them (should be somewhere near 3). The result is a mean value of 2.75 with a standard deviation of +/-0.0385. So for every goal scored by a legitimate playoff team over the past three seasons in the VHLM 2.75 +/- 0.038 points were awarded. Now that I know this, it will make the backwards calculations much easier once I start doing some predictions. Probably the hardest statistic to predict will be Goals Against, since it is so erratic. The skill of the goaltender has a lot to do with it though the collective defensive ability of the other five players on the ice can be just as important. The only way I can figure would be to determine how many shots a goalie would face in a season. There are equally as many variables in determining Total Points For since hockey isn't an individual sport. Since I'm only taking into account the performance of legitimate playoff teams, I may have to go back to the stats and determine the average amount of shots a goaltender on a legitimate playoff team would face, thereby neglecting blocked shots and all that fancy defensive stuff. In consideration there's probably the same margin of error in determining the future Goals Against of a team as there is determining the Total Points For. Therefore, there's never going to be a way to concretely determine any of what follows, though I can still make an educated guess. Consider that statement my disclaimer. I'm looking forward to watching Thomas Duddy's career evolve this season in Ottawa Just by scanning the Shots Against stats over the past three seasons for what I have judged to be legitimate playoff teams, the observed average is somewhere under 2000 Shots Against. However, the actual mean is 1979 +/- 313 Shots Against. That's pretty hard to determine what number we're going to use to do the calculation. So, by removing the outliers that cause significant variance we come up with a much more manageable number. By removing the S39 Wild (2362 SHA), S40 Gladiators (2243 SHA), and S41 Outlaws (2582 SHA) we can trim the Shots Against variable down to 1823 +/- 172. Not by coincidence, these teams finished the lowest in the regular season for their respective years when considering legitimate playoff teams. With that in mind I don't feel bad about discounting those values since eight samples is still fairly significant for this near-impossible task. The formula for determining Total Points For and thereby Goals For is far more pedestrian; no median and no standard deviation will be involved here. I will go through the "finalized" rosters of the VHLM teams and figure out this value by analyzing the players on the team and their respective past performances. The hardest part will be compensating for activity, change in team/line skill, line combinations, and for any of the VHLM rookies with no previous data. One thing I've learned from STHS in the past is that although hockey itself isn't an independent game, STHS can make it out to be at times. I've witnessed good players stranded on a poor team relatively keep up with their career pace in scoring time and time again. There are obviously always exceptions, but I personally believe this to be true. I will account a deviation of 10% both for and against based on skill changes within line combinations. Defense has effectively been taken care of with the Shots Against variable, though I have a standard deviation of +/- 172 to play with. With that in mind I will also try to factor in that deviation in the same manor as mentioned above for defensive pairings. CPU players will also have to be taken into account. This portion of the task will be the most monumental but may yield some interesting results. In order to do this I've gone through the rosters of each team as they would appear at this very moment, barring future trades, player improvement, and waiver acquisitions - the following are my predictions for S42. NORTH AMERICAN CONFERENCE BRAMPTON BLADES Season 42 should be the year for the Blades to come into their own in a very weakened North American Conference. With Mikko Koskinen (69G, 70A, 139P), Yannik Zug (25G, 80A, 105P), Valentin Taneyev (36G, 37A, 73P), Jack Harkness (21G, 75A, 96P), and Ivars Klajums (39W, 0.890%, 4.15GAA) all returning one could say that not a lot has changed in Brampton. That would be a very naive statement to make however. While they haven't stepped back in any one particular area, they have managed to improve mightily on both sides of the puck. With the acquisitions of Vincenzo Valentini (21G,12A, 33P), Travis Willcox (43G, 59A, 102P), E'Twaun Delicious (23G, 32A, 55P), and Bronson Faux up front it is rumored that Mikko Koskinen may be on his way out. The only place the Blades didn't manage to improve is between the pipes, though with Gunzerker Salvador patrolling the blueline it should take some of the pressure off of Klajums. I went with a reserved value of 930 points for the Blades this season since I didn't want to look to foolish and biased if they don't achieve what I think they can. That said, I think the true number should be somewhere around 1020 points. The Blades should take the North American Conference easily and contend for the Founder's Cup unless Fong goes crazy. Prediction: 930P//338GF//220GA//118DIFF OTTAWA LYNX If I had said that the Ottawa Lynx were going to make the playoffs in Season 42 during their 3-win season last year people probably would have laughed at me...maybe they are right now? I don't know. Returning only Carl Sledgehammer (40G, 38A, 78P) and adding a whopping 12 new faces through various means, the Lynx are literally a whole new team. Newcomers like Thomas Duddy, Kewl Running, Pablo Escabar, and enforcer Doug Glatt give the Lynx a lot to look forward to. Duddy looks like a complete stud and should perform admirably on a roster with free agent acquisition Hunter Backenbauer (77G, 62A, 139P) and Legion prospect Benjamin Zeptenbergs (50G, 57A, 107P). Morgan and Escabar give them a defensive pairing, though Holy the Goalie is a big question mark. Whether he can supplant OTT G before the beginning of the season remains to be seen. I figured on a factor of 646 base points for this team but I'm expecting big things out of some of these young players by the end of the season. Prediction: 726P//264GF//253 GA//11DIFF Aside from the Lynx and Blades, the remainder of the North American Conference is looking pretty poor. Minot will probably snatch the final playoff spot on the merits of Jeltz and Wingate alone. Saskatoon and the Rush are going to have rough seasons. EUROPEAN CONFERENCE BRATISLAVA WATCHMEN With their two biggest names in AIM-11 and Mario De Rossi gone, along with their combined 360 points, the landscape looks a little different in Bratislava heading into Season 42. Lord Karnage has also graduated to the big club and Jax Barnstormer appears to have moved on as well. Returning players to the Watchmen roster include Sam Teibert (59G, 79A, 138P), Kyle Kingma (66G, 55A, 121P), Superbman (21G, 57A, 78P), Sepp Reiter (2G, 22A, 24P), and Raphael Pettyfer (24G, 65A, 89P). I'm not going to lie, that's a far cry from the team they put on the ice last year. With a big hole in net, the loss of their top-two forwards, and best defenseman, Bratislava is going to have to bring in more than Paul Ready and Soren Douffet. Kingma, Pettyfer, and Teibert are more than serviceable as a top offensive unit in the VHLM and should continue to serve the Watchmen well into Season 42. Perhaps the biggest hole remains in net with Soren Douffet, who didn't play at all last season. When he did play in Season 40 he was extremely porous. A shadow of their former selves, though still dangerous, the Watchmen take a stumble but should emerge victorious in the European Conference. Prediction: 934P//339GF//220GA//119DIFF OSLO STORM The Storm are returning Til Baumann (31G, 83A, 114P), Emidas Blair (59G, 55A, 114P), and Aleksander Petrov (30g, 58A, 88P) from their 22-win team in S41. With the loss of some of their top players like Splorg Hansburger and Alex Vaklav come some new faces who are destined to have some very positive effects. Defenseman Patrick Demko, the 4th overall selection in the S42 VHL Entry Draft, along with starting goaltender Coca Cola should shake things up in Oslo following a couple off season trades. While their offensive herd has been thinned, it should allow guys like Mairis Ziedins, Til Baumann, and Emidas Blair to take more of the load and step up. I personally don't see Heffley repeating the 111 point season he just had, but that might turn out to bite me. Demko will be a most-welcomed addition to an almost non-existent back end, while Cola doesn't have very big shoes to fill. OSL G cost the Storm a lot of games in S41 and Cola was brought in to give the team a chance. Prediction: 760P//276GF//225GA//51DIFF Jack Merica should be fun to watch in S42 as well BERN ROYALS The second worst team in the VHLM last season with only 7 wins, the Royals are looking to start turning things around in Season 42. With Atticus Finch (16G, 27A, 43P) and Severin Von Karma (17G, 36A, 53P) returning amongst a sea of fresh faces, things are looking brighter in Bern perhaps. With Ken Anderson, and Golden Jedtsson now added to the back end things should tighten up a little. Without a legitimate goaltender however, I doubt the Royals can make much of a splash. Newly-acquired forwards Josh Merica and Matej Nemecek are expected to takeover the offense moving forward. Merica seems like he has what it takes to make things happen at this level and I'm expecting Bern to win some games this season off of his stick. Bern and Moscow are likely to battle for the final playoff spot in the European Conference but I give Bern the upper hand. Prediction: 630 points//229GF//287GA//-58 DIFF The Outlaws are going to be near the bottom and Moscow could very well beat out Bern to make the playoffs and "surprise" me.

Helsinki. Even though I spent the most time with Davos and had a hand in their first dynasty run and rebranding, the seasons I spent with Helsinki were the most fun I've had in the VHL. With falco, dougie schneider and lenny shalkwinzz (can't remember the name they had? jew crew or something, lol) and all those guys. Won my second, their first cup, there in S6. Color scheme has been one of my favorites since the league started. EDIT: Schneider and Shalkwinzz were the Hebrew Hammers

EPL was a wicked league. Proved how good of a sim engine OOTP is. Never seen one like it since.