Devise

Reeeeeepeaaaaat! Great job everyone, the Western Europe dynasty has begun!

Like, ideal trade for both teams given their needs and where the player (Johansen) was at in Columbus.

Yeah player stats look all messed too. Tons of players with weird durability, Humbert is completely messed as well. Edit - Ignore me, things look like they just need a regular update but nothing severe. It must be the new index I was seeing stats wrong or something. Or I can't read it correctly.

Now is he mad at us Boom or mad that he works at Ikea?

Ha. Spoken like the definition of the silver medal team. The analysts would say, "things looked bright heading into the tournament for Scandinavia until the chemistry issues lead into tough round robin losses to the Mercenaries. Even when they rebounded, it was going to take their best form to stop a nearly unbeatable Western Europe who was dominant the whole tournament."

BOOM....you mad genius. Let's do it!

That is only one game.

#EuropedestinedforGold Good try World, but even a heroic effort by Ariel couldn't deny destiny. Season 46 season of repeats. First Helsinki and soon Team Western Europe!

Honored to be led by this fine group!

Boubabi voted Denis, confirmed here!

Hey, I didn't do a ballot either. Mostly because by the time I sat down to do it it was already past.

To be fair that was only a single post, and the entire topic of the conversation almost instantly switched. I still maintain that there was some bias from Eagles, and as I stated that is fine. Bias exists. Almost everyone gets it at some point about something. Whether that means it's for a friend, or maybe they are attached to a specific player or member. Or the most common form, as different people we all value different things in STHS. Is more goals or more assists more important? Is how that player attained those goals important, or is the end number all that matters? These are all questions we deal with, and that is fine. However it is clear that the integrity of the award was compromised with the selection here, which is why I felt SOMETHING needed to be posted on it. I wouldn't really call it shaming either. Calling someone out for something whether it happened in private or not shouldn't be out of the question. It isn't like we are saying "hey you, bad member." You can sit here and quote all our responses to him directly, but he was clearly being ignorant in those posts so we responded in kind. At the end of the day, I'm fine with us looking at a potential solution that involves an award committee, or a forum for GM's to be discussing/justifying votes if need be. While as you said previously, the butthurt won't end, and that is fine...the idea is to ensure what happened here with the playoff MVP does not happen again. Butthurt because there is more than one deserving candidate is one thing, but people who have really no business of winning an award shouldn't win it. With that said, I appreciate the better thought out response Eagles (and Toast) and I can completely understand burning through awards quick, it happens.

Don't know what series you were looking at, but Denis had 2 goals and 2 assists in the 5 game finals haha. Still, it isn't like he had the pace of points or the total once Calgary moved on from Toronto. 9 Points in 10 games versus 14 in 4 is clearly a dip. From over 3 points a game to under a point per game, and then as things got tough in the finals he slowed down, and had no points in the deciding Game 5. That isn't the definition of a Playoff MVP.

Oh and for the record, this wasn't just us talking about playoff MVP either. We also clarified (Phil and I) to Klose and anyone who isn't aware how the ballot system works in the BoG. So on top of trying to rectify and bring to attention an award vote that might of not been done with the standard of quality we expect from the VHL we also showed some transparency in the way the BoG works and the way award ballots and voting works. But right, this is just one thread where Chris and I talk about our own opinions and nothing more. *laughs*

Kendrick, Draper, Jardy, Phil, a few others who liked posts. I'm pretty sure anyone with a brain can recognize that in the case of one specific award (playoff MVP) a player who earned over half his points in 4 games against what is in reality a non playoff team, then goes on to LOSE in the finals (in quick fashion no less) doesn't deserve playoff MVP. But hey keep believing this has something to do with one person opinion. Keep ignoring the quality of award integrity too, ignorant award voting from an ignorant GM. I'm open to hearing a conversation as to WHY Denis deserved the award though. Feel free, we all know you voted for him so if your open to argue go for it.

Wasn't York Morgan on a non playoff team, a team this is likely to face more shot totals and not have the puck as much. Ergo, he will get higher defensive stats, and even with that advantage against you on a non playoff team you were only 10 hits and 49 SB worse on a team that made the Euro conference finals. *laughs*

The fact that you think award integrity is a joke makes me really wish Draper would ensure you never have the opportunity to make an award ballot or vote again. Your conduct in this thread is easily hilariously awful. This is actually a relatively serious issue sir.....

Yeah we (the BoG) help bring it down to 2-3 candidates, as required. The GM's then select one player, and the most votes wins. However in some cases (like this years Playoff MVP) just because of how quickly Helsinki put out Calgary there wasn't a lot of Helsinki names to pick. So the best candidate (Koponen) ends up standing alone and by stats comparison looks weaker than Denis. But again that is part of the responsibility of GM's when award voting, to dig into the stats to see what they mean. This sometimes comes up when we have a weak conference, because the team who plays the first round against the weak team can put up very good statistics since they clearly overmatch the team in question.

Ha, exactly. Bias has always existed in some form or another in voting. It's just isolated, so it's impact is little. As Kendrick and Jardy both stated/agreed with some of us on, the issue is that 5 other GM's didn't pay attention to how the stats were earned and did a blanket quick look at the stats, and voted. A psuedo inactive collecting 13 points in 4 games against Toronto, and 9 in the other 10 in a losing Cup effort and winning playoff MVP is pretty laughable. The fact that you can't see that, regardless of Calgary bias Eagles...says a lot about your perspective on the league. People are entitled to a difference of opinion, but the reason there is a fuss here is because there is literally ZERO argument for anyone from Calgary winning the award, let alone Denis who stat padded.

Even though almost all of them stat padded against Toronto? There were several other prominent members whose award ballots included 2 Helsinki players and one CGY player, in fact that is what the final ballot ended up looking like. So not only did you go crazy and put 3 undeserving Calgary players on the ballot when most agreed that the one CGY player put on (Denis) was put on just to fill up the ballot and give some recognition to him for his stats, specifically against Toronto. But then you went and voted for Denis (because of course you did.) Your bias isn't the only thing in question, in fact it is irrelevant, because your just one person. The real issue at hand, as the rest of the thread has been discussing is GM's voting without doing any thoughtful look at how players achieved the stats they did. The fact that there was a CGY player on the ballot and GM's simply voted them without considering the fact that CGY won a single game in the finals, is kind of pathetic. As stated in several different ways in this thread.

This isn't about butthurt though. Give your head a shake. Kendrick, myself, Advantage, do you think any of us have some bias towards Draper winning the award? Denis played for Chris at one point, and all of us like Tyler. It has zero to do with butthurt. A serious award that could have impact on hall of fame implications (especially early into Koponens career) was given to a false candidate who had really no legitimate claim to the award. That sir, is a problem. I don't care how old school or wise you are if you can't see the issue at hand, then get your glasses checked.

Our "de facto" rule previously is that a team that lost in the finals can win playoff MVP is there is justification for it. As in, long playoff series, close tight, team who won the Cup doesn't have exact stand outs who dominated. But the bar for the losing team is always higher to get it, because they lost. Being the team MVP, while you've lost doesn't really make as much sense. It's why you rarely see regular season MVP awarded to a team who doesn't make the playoffs. The whole point of the award is the player who is most responsible for said teams success, and the team has to have success to justify that. Last years was a co vote, in a series that did go the distance and as you said Wingate did dominate a few games in the series. The big thing that disqualifies Denis from this years would be that he put up over half his points in the first round series. He actually only had 9 points 10 games against New York and Helsinki, where as Koponen had more in the exact same number of games against Davos and Calgary similar competition when you exclude Toronto.

Exactly. That is my fear. We are entering a reality where we are just finding bodies to put in GM roles. It isn't that they aren't qualified GM"s, but do they have that same respect/time to put in a thoughtful award vote? If not, then perhaps those people shouldn't be voting. The purpose of the award committee, would be that the Blue Team could publicly select members we all know as having the integrity of awards and the league as the first priority. Again this isn't to call out any other GM's (although I stand by calling out you Eagles, that ballot needs serious justification considering your Helsinki won in 5 games) but you sometimes get the impression a few of the GM"s out there treat award voting similar to award predictions. A copy paste or a quick scan over whose numbers are higher and that is all.

Sure. But as mentioned, not all the GM's are as bias free. We already listed Eagles award ballot, where do you think he's going to lean? It's not bad having people leaning from different teams, but every single GM has a reason to be biased. Does that mean all of them will? Of course not. As stated, our system has worked for several seasons. The biggest reason it has consistently worked though is because there isn't always an opportunity to show your bias. Sometimes the awards are so clear cut, you'd easily be called out for making the mistake. However it doesn't change the fact that when award voting does get close, that bias can come into play. I'd be fine with either solution honestly.

An award committee maybe something we should also consider. No offense to GM's here, but this would work to ensure we have as little bias as possible, we could ensure there is mandatory award discussion and that anyone who makes a voting decision has to at least justify why they did it. Just a thought of course.