Victor

Absolute steal.

So I'm going into the 8th season of a player again. The end and eternal darkness is looming once more. Honestly I didn't think I'd be here for another 8th season after retiring Clegane in S52 but not only am I here with Cast, I still have another 7 seasons of Pavlov to go. And then, who knows. Now I can have few complaints about my return on investment in the VHL. Podrick Cast is my 6th player and most likely my 5th Hall of Famer. However, one thing that seems to haunt with my careers is a sense of anti-climax... I've never had a truly successful 8th season, despite it in theory being the likeliest to be so (what with fighting off depreciation and then not having to bank throughout the season). In fact, I have a won a Continental Cup in every single season of my players' careers, except my 8th: Season Trikamaki Berger Chershenko Bentley Clegane Cast 1st Cup 2nd Cup Cup Cup 3rd Cup Cup 4th Cup Cup Cup 5th Cup 6th Cup 7th Cup 8th Two players missed the playoffs entirely - Berger and Clegane having very meh final seasons. Trikamaki and Bentley went out in the first round despite being on the favoured teams to win. My boy Chershenko came closest, being regular season and playoff MVP, but losing in Game 7 overtime in the finals. Was that the one chance? Who knows. Will S68 be the one? For the second straight season, my two players will be on the same team. Moscow is in theory stronger than last year and this was the season I had in mind when the Cast/Randoms trade was made. But there's more contenders than ever before and the European Conference in particular is very tough. Cast has an equal chance of ending his career hoisting the cup or watching the playoffs from the couch. But maybe it'll be 6th time lucky....

S68 Donation - $20 Transaction ID 4E140583JW9285830 Free Week (12 TPE Capped) $1M Player Store Cash 5 TPE Uncapped Doubles Week x2

@Beketov is the last person you want to be fixing that

No

Wow Cast got voted for something!

What curse

Poor Prague is gonna get one hell of a beating.

Division 4 gonna be carnage.

2009 although you had an inactive earlier so maybe 2008 for you. Yeah those drafts got us to peak post expansion parity by S44/S45ish but then the collapse was huge, as too many of them were SHLers who didn't stick around. The super unbalanced conferences (S49/S50 NA vs EU) pretty much started when that generation retired without getting replaced.

I definitely did this on a weeknight ?

I miss three player Slobo ballots.

A couple weeks ago I went through every active player in the VHL above 100 TPE (i.e. S60 to S69) and put down the usernames of those players. I then added a few other members who don't have players but still pop in occasionally. Finally, I added their first player's draft year (or first relevant player's draft year as a few people only properly joined the league on their second attempt) and actual real life year that draft took place in. Then I pivoted the fuck out of it. Here's the result. So what does this show us? Well, for one, the absolutely insane recruitment effort which has taken place since the start of 2018 (S60). Now naturally, a table of S60-S69 players will be skewed towards the last two years as even inactives count towards the total and a similar snapshot at any point in time would have resulted in the more recent years being dominant. That said, this is still an unprecedented influx of new members, with roughly 75% of the league still on their first players. Even if only half the new joiners stick around for several years, 2018 and 2019 will still be the most popular join dates of active members. Aside from that obvious trend which has directly contributed to the revitalisation of the VHL after a really rough year or so, you can also see why the league was down in the dumps for so long. The pivot by year shows the continued retention qualities of the VHL as roughly the same amount of people have stuck around from each year, whether that be the guys here since S1 or anyone more recent. However, the last real good recruitment year before this boom seems to be 2013, with guys like CowboyinAmerica, boubabi, Tagger joining the league after expansion and keeping the momentum going through the 30s. Then the talent stopped trickling in. You look at the five members who joined in 2016 and still have players today – 2 of them are inactive, while the other 3 actually only just resurfaced. Essentially, before Beaviss and Spade joined in S57 towards the end of 2017 and then completely rehauled the league's recruitment efforts, the last 3 major contributing members to join the VHL were hedgehog and Bana in S42, and jRuutu in S43, all now over 4 years ago. That therefore paints a pretty good picture of why by S50 we were looking at artificially increasing the player pool with Project Player Two and when that didn't help / sucked the energy out of the dwindling member base we still had, we ended up with contraction by S58. So I suppose what I'm trying to say is the recruitment effort after that lowest of low points has been absolutely immense. I retired my “last” player in S52 and genuinely had no intention to come back on a permanent basis throughout 2017. Even when I did, I still found myself zoning in and out of the league in Cast's first two seasons – S60 and S61. But activity has picked up massively, I'm now in charge of an expansion team, we're expanding to a level we never came close to reaching at any point in the Cologne/Quebec era, and I might even be hooked enough to recreate for the foreseeable future. That's a job very well done if you ask me. Well done @Beaviss and the @Recruitment Crew

Unreal betrayal

Perfectly set up for riots.

Helsinki you’re really scaring me with these shots against.

Helsinki need to stop being such goons.

New York blowing a 3-1 lead to Davos the season before.

Doug Schneider made the finals in each of the seven seasons of his career so you’re tied at best. Dunno if @Green got close recently, Quill and Warlock won quite a few cups in a short amount of time.

We were way too close to an all Beaviss final, thank you Helsinki although we would have swept you fucks.

But the Slobo used to be most valuable.

2 correct answers = 2 capped TPE 1 correct answer = 1 capped TPE Uncapped TPE based on season leaderboard handed out at end of season. Link: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSc9-fRkub5nQP0UVyd3qUMdbangy7umJPYyryULtAZKGSqF8A/viewform?usp=sf_link

Oh yeah, 1 uncapped to @Enorama for q2

1. Franchise Cornerstone's 855 career points are good for first all-time according to the portal. Where does he actually rank over the VHL's full 67 seasons? The Portal is merely a snippet of VHL's history and while Franchise Cornerstone is the highest scorer in the last 20 or so seasons, he was some way off the 900, 1,000, and even 1,200 points of past greats. As per link below, Cornerstone's total puts him at a very respectable 13th all time. https://vhlforum.com/topic/347-vhl-career-stats-updated-for-s67/ 2. When was the playoff MVP co-won for the first time? I'm not sure if an odd number of people voted for awards in the early days, but there never seemed to be a tie for a while. Then in S16 Riga and Toronto fought through a 7-game Continental Cup finals and though Riga prevailed, its captain, defenceman Kaiser Straf shared the Howe Trophy with Toronto's Zak Rawlyk (who actually once scored a Game 7 OT winner for Riga against Toronto as a rookie). 2 capped TPE goes to: Beketov @Beketov gorlab @gorlab trevmi @trevmi McWolf @McWolf Tuktukthegreat @TukTukTheGreat Edustava @Edustava Omgitshim @omgitshim Sharkstrong @Sharkstrong Enorama @Enorama Tate @Tate FrostBeard @FrostBeard Elmebeck @Elmebeck Poptart @Poptart Sixersfan549 @Sixersfan549 Joubo @Joubo frescoelmo @frescoelmo majesiu @majesiu AndrewWarren13 @AndrewWarren13 Jtv123 @Jtv123 Steve @Steve DoktorFunk @DoktorFunk Matt_O @Matt_O Zeno @Zeno enigmatic @enigmatic DMaximus @DMaximus hulkhogan @HulkHogan Quik @Quik BladeMaiden @BladeMaiden Jubo07 @Jubo07 Green @Green VanCanWin @VanCanWin Saelven88 @Saelven88 DizzyWithLogic @DizzyWithLogic Mr_Hatter @Mr_Hatter jack @jack PotatoKing @PotatoKing Matmenzinger @Matmenzinger Acydburn @Acydburn HenrikZoiderberg @HenrikZoiderberg DilIsPickle @DilIsPickle Rayzor_7 @Rayzor_7 Psanchez55 @Psanchez55 nethi99 @nethi99 fonziGG @fonziGG dylanjj37 @dylanjj37 Dalton Wilcox @Dalton Wilcox 73MPL4R @73MPL4R Mini Muu @Mini Muu hewasajazzman @hewasajazzman Oilmandan @oilmandan Grape @Grape bluesfan55 @bluesfan55 Beaviss @Beaviss philliefan @Philliefan ItsMcLovin @ItsMcLovin sjs88speed @sjs88speed Infernal @Infernal wcats @wcats metaltoday @MetalToday Hughjas_ @HughJas_ Fire_In_Babylon @Fire_In_Babylon .sniffuM @.sniffuM MexicanCow123 @MexicanCow123 11 Eleven @11 Eleven Kekzkrieg @Kekzkrieg Big Mac @Big Mac GustavMattias @GustavMattias TheLastOlympian07 @TheLastOlympian07 studentized @studentized Motzaburger @Motzaburger Velevra @Velevra Telkster @Telkster DollarAndADream @DollarAndADream TacticalHammer @TacticalHammer stevo @stevo Jaku @Jaku Dominus89 @Dominus89 Brrbisbrr @Brrbisbrr Higgins @Higgins Psyduck77 @Psyduck77 rjfryman @rjfryman Esso2264 @Esso2264 NumberJ5 @NumberJ5 okocha5 @okocha5 barzalgoat @BarzalGoat Greg_Di @Greg_Di jRuutu @jRuutu GRZ @GRZ Kyle @Kyle SidTheKid87 @SidTheKid87 Renomitsu @Renomitsu Josh @Josh STZ @STZ Berocka @berocka Banana2311 @Banana2311 Liberty_Cabbage @Liberty_Cabbage JeffD @JeffD CowboyinAmerica @CowboyinAmerica Smarch @Smarch Bruins10 @Bruins10 sebster03 @Sebster03 SlapshotDragon @SlapshotDragon Motzaburger @Motzaburger flyersfan1453 @flyersfan1453 okocha5 @okocha5 Patpou22 @Patpou22 hedgehog337 @hedgehog337 Xdpark @xDParK elrune1988 @elrune1988 Briedaqueduc @Briedaqueduc Sonnet @Sonnet Sebster03 @Sebster03 leafsman @leafsman Anthony Matthews @Anthony Matthews Chillzone @chillzone 1 capped TPE goes to: Donno100 @Donno100 Midnite @Midnite

Davos still paying Simon back for the unreal S11-S39 luck.