Victor

?

Damn right it was. One of the things no one mentions when reminiscing about Scotty for some reason.

Didn't realise you still could reach out to Scotty. That gives me hope that he does pop in one day, even if just to say hi. McNeil was also great. One of those who I always want to mention in an article or something but because his other players weren't HOFers I never have enough data to talk about Vengeance or Jannula.

Well there was also firestarter #1 in your LR. But yeah, I don't think it ever got too far. I just know I saw sheriff mention it which was annoying as I knew he knew better and we actually got along.

My 40 in 40 article getting you through this ? Yup Exactly the same I think, just up and left.

Sheriff was a bit of a Riga lifer - Kristian Carlsson (of gold medal record fame with Scandinavia) and Miles Larsson before Fjorsstrom. I know before he left he seemed to get caught up in the blossoming conspiracy theory coming out of Riga about my GMing Davos + commishing (we also had Jardy simming on the team), although I can't imagine that would be a reason to never show his face again. So yeah, not sure what happened to him.

I did notice before the current version of Jordan Tonn has some VHLM stats thrown onto his player page from long before he should have existed. https://vhlportal.com/players/playerfocus/1549 By contrast, he doesn't seem to have any of his own VHLM stats other than one playoff run with Ottawa? Not sure what happened there tbh.

This is hawt

Time for Jaguar to step into the void.

Clearly you shouldn't trust me on VHLM matters.

It's actually Brampton RIP

8 uncapped because of this article and also this Media Spot: https://vhlforum.com/topic/71263-the-vhls-first-decade/

Time to crack out another rough MS idea for this season's theme week, this one in VHL.com form. This one is about some members/players from the VHL's first decade that no one remembers but I quite like. S8 draftee – Andreas Oslos (Synergy). A really quiet guy who made two solid players – this guy, who played out his career fruitlessly chasing a cup with Vasteras, and then Ryley Dawson, a S14 defencemen who won a cup in his rookie season with New York (the franchise's, Synergy's and my first), and then was one of 3 free agents Calgary (again featuring me) signed to successfully defend the cup in S19. Never seen since. S7 draftee – Alex Sclafani (hoax15). A man peculiarly loyal to Pensfan and Vasteras. He was a long-time captain of the team before that became a point of pride and despite not having that much TPE. Like Oslos, his time with Vasteras did not lead to a cup. He never recreated as far as I know and disappeared without a trace. That'll be enough of that.

1,022 words so this will be used for the following weeks: 1 ending 27 October 1 ending 3 November

Well this is quite a convenient theme week isn't it? As it happens, as someone who joined the league in S10 and registered for the S11 entry draft as a wee 13-year-old, the first decade of the VHL is what I would have had to write about anyway, which is also what everyone any older than that has to write about. So first decade it is. I've had the rough workings of a Media Spot for a while actually which basically looks at the VHL decade by decade and picks out the overarching trends of each decade both within the sim and in the forum. I have no idea if I'll ever get around to writing that article however, so I will use this opportunity to expand the 1 or 2 paragraphs I was planning to dedicate to those halcyon days of 2007 and 2008. Or perhaps those were not such happy times. The formative years of a sim league are absolutely its more crucial, as so many leagues have floundered because of various obstacles in those first few seasons, be it irresponsible simmers/commissioners, in-fighting or just an inability to build a large enough member base. Especially back in those days when sim leagues were something of a novelty, hitting double digits in seasons was virtually unheard of. That's not to say that once we got past S10 it was smooth sailing from then on in. On the contrary, the VHL's first big lull in activity came as a failure to recruit resulted in some fatigue amongst veteran members on their third and fourth players by S14-S15 and that could have been the end of the league as long ago as 2010. Instead, new leadership and more importantly some new blood powered the league through to around S45 when the first warning signs of the REAL lull (the 50s) began to show. But by this point the first decade was long forgotten because we had real glory days through the 20s, then expansion and for quite a few years after that. That, in my opinion is probably for the best. It's hard to quantify how much more of a toxic environment the VHL was back in its early days. It was a snippet of the high school mentality of the late noughties of course, but it really is day and night to what we see not only today but also throughout effectively 90% of the league's existence. You would expect the VHL's first seasons to be roughly in line with the rest of its history but no, in the grand scheme of things that first decade is the outlier and most of what we think of as the VHL today was shaped over the years that followed. It's quite amusing that we have (rightly) taken the moral high ground over time against our little brother league, the SHL, in that we are the mature version of sim hockey. In 2007, the VHL was as drama-filled as the SHL has rarely been. There is not enough space to cover every relevant example. Locker room conspiracy theories in places like Calgary and then Riga, “cool kids” clubs popping up all over the shop but largely in Avangard (the future Davos), a reasonably fair but also quite an immature commissioner in Scotty, an actual team dubbed the “Shortbus” (New York) in what was nothing short of bullying of that group of members, as a team and as individuals. Welcoming committee or recruitment team? Not a chance of that existing back then. A new member had a better chance of being accused of being a multi of the infamous Scott Anderson on one of the bi-weekly witchhunts than actually being assured of a place in the league. Yet somehow the VHL survived and even thrived. By S10 it was the shining example of sim league longevity (10 whole seasons!) and somehow kept attracting just enough new members such as yours truly to keep going. Maybe we did all have thicker skin back then.... damn snowflakes. But equally, you could probably pin the survival of the VHL, while sim leagues of all shapes, sports, and sizes faltered around it, on one man – original commissioner and simmer Scotty Campbell. He would later be accused of riggery during his year in charge, although long after he disappeared from the public eye, but it's not hard to legitimately see how he would have the best players in the league simply by having the most TPE at the time. And ultimately, sim success was just reward for the work he put in around the site as a whole. It's fair to say there would be no VHL today without Scotty and although countless others have contributed their fair share since, I don't think it's possible to say that about anyone else without a caveat. As activity league-wide took a dip around S14 as noted earlier, people started pointing out that those drama- and genuine rivalry-filled days were the driver of success and what we were missing hence the decrease in posts. Fortunately, that line of thinking did not gain too much traction and ultimately we found better ways to have fun rivalries without alienating half of the league's population. As I said, it's strange looking back that this is the same league as that one, with us now being on a 3rd website (the first one lasted til S23), although it barely is of course, with just a handful of members around who really experienced the VHL's first decade. Even I, in all my old age and wisdom now, do not consider myself part of that particular 'old boys club'. Yet we wouldn't be here without those early days and it's nice that there's still a contingent who can still tie us back to our roots. That more or less concludes my ramble fuelled both by nostalgia and relief. There was a time and place for the VHL's first decade and although I miss it ever so slightly (almost as much as I miss not having joined just a year earlier), I'm also glad we have long since moved on.

Week 3 of 3.

Well, it's been a good run. @Banackock, you still should have picked me 1st overall @hedgehog337, you're the best GM Cast had @Tagger, we did good @Beketov, you still suck I'll save all the accolades for the S69 HOF induction post.

Calgary before S10 and that’s about right. Vasteras before S2*

It’s not quite the all time record (fucking Scotty Campbell) but I’ll take it among mere mortals.

Captain Duddy! @Phil @Will

Bernard the win machine is no more.

Thank you sir. CLEGANEBOWL

Greg Clegane was from Ireland that’s all you need to know

I don't even know anymore