Victor

Annoyingly I have run out of multi-week Media Spots (both the theme week and the other one I had running in the background) right before a week that I am away for most of. So now I need to scramble and write something in advance in case I don't get a chance next week and I don't really have time to make it a particularly long piece which means I'll then have to write again when I'm back anyway. All in all, a nightmare scenario. So with a need to ramble I thought I would do some self-reflection on my honest views on the VHL in the year 2024, its 94th (!!) season, and my relationship with it. I do a fair bit of insinuating things when I give opinions on topics around the league, a lot of it often being quite tongue-in-cheek, so I wouldn't necessarily blame you for not knowing if I enjoy being here or if I'm just a grumpy old man pining for the good old days. I also wouldn't blame you for not caring either way but look, you're here, you're 2 paragraphs in, indulge me a bit longer and maybe there'll be something useful to take away, or something you want to comment on and give me your two cents on. Forum content shall we say. Let's start there actually, the ancient battle between forum and Discord. My perspective is essentially summarised as I don't really care if the content has moved away from the forums (years ago I should add, the horse has bolted, died, and its grandchildren are racing at this point). I have Discord, I have it on my phone, it's actually sometimes more convenient from a notification perspective and being completely honest, if all that activity was on the forum I wouldn't be able to keep up with it anyway because I don't spend enough time on either medium. I do sympathise with the sentiment that it was easier to catch up with big dramatic events or someone making a fool of themselves on the forums (which let's be honest is what everyone means when they say conversations get buried on Discord – it's a massive case of FOMO). Living in a time zone where I go to sleep 5-8 hours before the majority of the league, this has undoubtedly made catching up the next day more difficult but I would argue 1) if I wanted to, I could still do it and 2) there is probably just more content now in general due to a larger member base and it would have been just as tough if we were just using forums. So that's where I stand on the situation now, but what would 15-year-old me think about it? That's really the target demographic, that's the guy who was super active and reading every post in every forum and knowing everyone and everything in the league. Could that young man do the same today? Well I imagine I would be using Discord as my default for all sorts of things if I was growing up now rather than a decade ago (or maybe not, maybe Discord is already too old and wrinkly for today's kids), so I reckon I would make do just fine. And I'd probably happily scroll through anything I missed just like I would have on the forums back in the day. So clearly, this is the way things are now and anyone trying to manufacture something else is raging against the dying of the light. Having established that the medium we use is perfectly reasonable for the day and age we are in, how do I feel about the enjoyment of the VHL as a whole? Again, I'm thinking from the perspective of my peak activity, not today, but as someone new, looking to build up their legacy in the league. Is there too much going on for someone to keep up, regardless of how active they are? I certainly don't think so. There are 16 teams now, a lot more players, an extra league, but when I was GM I didn't have an issue keeping a handle on that, and even just coming back to a more active role as a player now, I reasonably quickly caught up on the balance of the VHL. Given more time and energy, I think it's as straightforward as ever to be involved, to follow events, create activity, and just be generally engaged. There will never be a time that everyone is at their peak activity, but there will always be someone that is, and they will continue driving the league forward. I've even seen examples of significant forum content based entirely around inside jokes and VHLM events or whatever else that I don't understand but I'm happy to see people getting enjoyment out of. I would have been there, commenting back and forth on a VHL.com article or a Media Spot, and clearly there are still people who want to and are comfortable doing the same today. Those disaffected with the state of play might just be disaffected with their own inability to keep up – it's OK though, it happens to everyone eventually. I didn't really know where I was taking this when I set out this article. Turns out I've taken it far enough that I can get 2 weeks out of it after all which is a big win. But I suppose I do owe you a conclusion for sticking around this long. That would be: the league hasn't actually changed a great deal over its soon to be 17-year life. What's changed is the personnel and how it communicates but the core appeal is the same now as it was in what I would consider my prime here. And I think that's a very valuable conclusion at a time of hyper negativity in the world and a nostalgia and yearning for a past which either didn't exist or is only the past for the people who grew out of it. I don't mean to sound profound or thoughtful here but I think I found a reflection of society in the VHL through this little self-inquisition and my takeaway is that things are fine. Then again, I've always tried to see the glass as half full. now let's just throw in a completely misleading YouTube video at the top

glad I'm not the only one

One of Rara's finer moments.

Week 3 of 3

Was he on a 4-day bender? Was he in an alcohol-induced coma? Did he get run over by a tractor? The speculation and uncertainty gave us all life.

We are in the final throes of Season 94, the point of the regular season where most things are decided (although there is still a playoff race going on in North America) and everyone's just waiting for the playoffs to begin. Comforting as it is to always have sims at a specific time of the day, every day, clearly part of the reason most people are apathetic towards them by the end of the season is because they're taken for granted. There is no sense of jeopardy like you would get back in the day with @JardyB10. Would we get a sim? Would players in the sim be updated? Would the right lines be used? Would we need a resim? Would we need a double or triple sim to make up for lost days? What time of night would the sims land? Every sim we got was a source of excitement and accepted as a blessing that it was, for we never knew if we would ever get another one. Now in the fully automated world of the modern VHL there are no such stakes. Everything is crisp, on time, and reliable. Food for thought as we end this regular season, perhaps it's time to relearn how to be bad at simming.

Shootout winner

Strongly agree on the top 3 but doubt Dixon and Kerr make the ballot (not enough outside 1-2 seasons). The Frenchman I can see struggling on the ballot for a while like Nico Pearce which given he's literally #3 on here shows how competitive the HOF spots are. Good work profiling the good but not great though.

Picked up a Stephen King for the first time and... didn't like it at all? It was The Gunslinger, the first one of the Dark Tower series but I just got bored midway through, flicked to the end, realised the ending was just set up for the rest of the series, and didn't finish it. Very rare that happens to me. Was it just a bad one to start with? Or just because it was an introduction to a bigger world? I just felt it was too mysterious to be engaging so if that's just his style I might not bother with any others. Well written and good world building, I just... didn't care?

Bumping because of silly game recaps making me click more than necessary

Week 2 of 2 - still abolish it

Other than the fact it's Halifax of course

Barring a last minute impassioned intervention, we will soon be seeing the end of the road for a handful of players who have been on the HOF ballot for 5-9 seasons. It always feels harsh taking players off the ballot until you consider that a HOF induction is an extremely high bar to clear and even being in the conversation is a fine achievement in its own. Paul Atreides @Mr_Hatter - first of all, Hatter just disappeared one day - although he did announce it when stepping away from the VSN. In his brief time in the VHL he didn't quite for 2 for 2 on Hall of Famers, with Atreides missing out in the end. Although he cleared the 100-point mark three times in his career, two of those were at the peak of the meta era, with Moscow and Atreides some of the main beneficiaries. With Atreides' more decorated teammates and contemporaries already recognised, the BOG ultimately decided he was a level below the rest. Zach Kisslinger II @Kisslinger - 12 more points than Atreides for the Warsaw lifer and an impressive career as part of the 2nd successful Predators era. Ultimately what's gone against the 2nd Kisslinger was that 215 of his points came in his first two seasons, before the attribute change decreased scoring significantly. After that it was a solid but unspectacular career - but King Kisslinger may make it 3rd time lucky based on results to date. Oskar Lindbergh @Doomsday - a goalie who started in that era that was battered by forwards up to S82, then benefited from goalies being the dominant players for a decade or so. Ultimately Lindbergh put up solid numbers and after years of trying with Toronto got his just rewards in the playoffs with Calgary - it wasn't quite enough to lift him out of the Hall of Very Good. Doomsday's wait for a first HOFer continues.

We can fit them in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boston,_Lincolnshire

They were completely and fully affiliated actually

Expand the league until Halifax can actually finished 21st.

Got nothing on S26 Vasteras.

Time for a breakaway league

A fair point. Perhaps a solution would be automatic assignment to a team upon creation, followed by an effective free agency after a full season, where the player can swap teams at will. Kinda like how you would be developing in a school where you grew up, them have a chance to go to the college you want. The idea tbh isn't unserious - I think unlikely - but I like to think it's not unviable.

That we did

Forgot key argument: take away some of Spartans jobs

Don't bother, its days are numbered

Delete the E, contract the E, change the E, abolish the E. Expand the VHL, contract the VHL, rebrand the VHL... No, finally we have a theme week where we can focus on the real problem. Abolish the VHLM. To the five remaining members of a certain vintage, the VHLM means nothing. A mere stopgap between your last player and new and exciting beginnings in the VHL. It was often fashionable to not bother with the extra TPE you'd get from a trade deadline recreate by just doing it in the pre-season such that you didn't even need to really pay attention to the minor leagues because you'd have a VHL player at the same time and by the next season you'd have a new rookie VHL player. Yes, there was a time you could build a VHL calibre player in 8 weeks and get drafted and go straight to the big leagues. Halcyon days. The brainwashed and indoctrinated youth of today foolishly believe that they had character-building and cherished memories made in their early VHLM days. Once they take off their rose-tinted sunglasses they realise they can't name all the GMs in the league, any specific Founder's Cup winner or award winner, unless it's their player of course. Some lasting impact that is on your psyche. But that is actually secondary to the real problem the VHLM creates in the league which is too many drafts. We have a VHLM draft, a VHLE draft, and a VHL draft and it's all too much. So let's abolish the VHLM and make life easier for everyone. It's the bottom rung of the ladder and therefore the natural league to remove rather than the one in the middle or the one at the top. Common sense. Actually, scratch that. Abolish drafts. Let's bring in promotion/relegation. (the VHLM is still getting abolished) It is well known that the North American mind can not comprehend the concept of promotion and relegation but bear with me on this one. I have set out the two problems we have in the league being too many drafts and too much VHLM. By removing both of them you create a new system where 1) players have agency over where they go and 2) poor performance in the VHL actually gets punished. Imagine you are the Los Angeles Stars (shudder). Fundamentally, you suck. You suck now, you sucked when you joined the league, you sucked in the middle apart from 2-3 seasons where we pretended you didn't. For 20 seasons now the Stars have blighted the league with their underperformance but have been rewarded with continued existence. If we implemented promotion and relegation the Stars would no longer be in the VHL, they would be in the league underneath it either plummeting down further into the depths of sim league hell, or figuring out how to be a respectable franchise and making a run at promotion and a stronger, more successful return to the VHL. So how would this all work without drafts and without the VHLM? Well first of all given that the very concept of promotion and relegation is such a European model, the league underneath the VHL would have to be the VHLE. It just makes sense. So replace the M with the E in your mind as you read the remainder of the proposal. The VHLE would take over as the entry level league in our ecosystem. All new players, whether fresh recruits or recreates, would be pitched to by VHLE teams upon joining, and would get to choose which team to start their journey with. Unlike the mid-season VHLM joiners, this decision would be a lot more meaningful than where you spend part of a season – it will define your career. You could be convinced by a GM who is passionate about player development, who promises you will quickly be a desired prospect under their tutelage and ready to be sold on to some of the big fish in the VHL. Or a GM may sell you the potential of leading your team to promotion to the VHL and greater glories – a true rags to riches story. How would you stop all players joining the same team? The salary cap stays of course – higher in the VHL which would offer bigger contracts, lower in the VHLE where the money you can pay your players would be capped. You would need to get to a certain level of TPE before you could entertain VHL offers but once you hit that your 8-season clock starts and you need to decide – stick it out to hopeful promotion as the star in the VHLE, or jump ship and become a cog in a wheel of a VHL dynasty. This even encourages legal tampering! How fun! Of course this will never actually happen. I've been purposefully facetious throughout this article for that very reason. Hockey is associated with the NHL which has a specific way of doing things and the ritual of the draft is far too engrained into the culture to be overthrown on a whim. Do I genuinely think this would even work? For the reasons above I haven't given it particularly deep and critical thought and I'm sure there are flaws which could be picked apart. The biggest concern would be how money is used and how it is a sufficient incentive to be a real replacement for trades and draft picks (trades wouldn't be abolished but they would be rarer I imagine given they would be player-for-player). I do think there is something to be said for the storyline you could write by going from the bottom to the top with one team, and even more I do believe the threat of relegation would give an accountability to struggling teams which would drastically but I think positively change the dynamic of the VHL and GMing. I also really do think the concept of drafts takes away a lot of agency from players and makes your career a lottery – it's less about the decisions you make and more about what GM happens to pick you or happens to be in charge of a bad team in a specific season. Most importantly, I thought this would be a fun concept to throw out there. So on this VHLM theme week I implore you to abolish the VHLM.

Why would they name a team after a random number??