Victor

Technically he's next in line at the moment if we kept passing it down the Lannister line and ignored Gendry becoming a Baratheon on the grounds of that being done by an usurper.

@Beketov - I've released Fitzgerald and Dabarno - will just not include them in my lines.

aaaaand back to outshooting but losing

Annoying thing is it wasn't forced at all, apparently HBO offered them ten episodes. The writers became tired and wanted to move on and you can tell because the dialogue really went to shit in the last few seasons. And that's basically professional negligence.

Our original captain is back! Welcome back @leafsman

Yes he was. Anyway you don't understand what I'm saying and are trying to justify bad decisions in Season 8 by bad writing earlier in Season 8. Whatever floats your boat I guess.

You'll find little sympathy here https://vhlportal.com/gameview/66/VHL66-57.html

sometimes you just have a bad day at work

Ned didn't have a character arc which was ruined? Shocking death does not need to negate what they've done before. Ned's character arc was he was naive and too honourable and that's how he went. Pretty satisfying to me. Jaime clearly showing he was not just a male Cersei over 8 seasons to then come back for reasons and die with her is butchering a character arc for shock value. The only obvious thing the writers have done is give up on trying.

It wasn't one of the low points of the episode I'll tell you that much, but that really says it all. I should say one other thing I think was in line with what GoT has been building up to is how Cersei and Jaime went. Main characters are gonna die from rubble when there's so much destruction going on *cough*Arya*cough*, I'm actually fine with that. Less fine with Jaime's entire character arc being butchered but throw that in with the rest of the episode, I'm not even going to waste my time on it.

Podrick Cast 3 - who is that?

Not even gonna be mad about a point tbh.

I love you all, life is good, what a time to be alive, hallelujah. I think we've won the two games where we've been heavily outshot and had more shots in just about every loss lmao fuck STHS.

It didn't live up to the S51 Continental Cup finals I can tell you that much.

I still don't know why the protection lists were extended beyond the playoffs but whatever.

So I had a drink, get back home, oh look there's some games posted – OH WAIT, why do I care when all I'll get from looking at them is fucking heartache. Look, I don't care about Moscow's results too much this season, I just want the guys to have productive seasons and that's largely happening. Our chances were always slim with the youngest goalie in the league and a defence which doesn't protect him too much, although I don't why the sim prefers to tease us by constantly outshooting the opposition and losing by one goal. But elsewhere... I mean Riga just scored no goals in 2 games which obviously makes sense when you have like 2,000 TPE across the top 2 players (both forwards I might add). And Malmo... I don't know what I even said last week to get Malmo's knickers in a twist but apparently it's had the same effect as when I called out Devise for selling the farm and then Toronto went on to win two Continental Cups. But honestly, why should I even give a fuck? Why waste my efforts on a sim engine which gives two cups to Toronto and is now presumably gonna let Malmo walk the league in its first season? Why spend any time wondering how Johnny Are-You-Havenk-A-Laugh Carison is the greatest goalie in the league ever since the start of the S65 playoffs with his mighty 531 TPE? What is actually the point of this league? Malmo has two (2) skaters over 500 TPA, and three (3) with more than 90 Scoring SO NATURALLY THEY ARE THE TOP SCORERS IN THE LEAGUE. Of fucking course they are, like anything would make any more sense. I'm actually relatively calm. I've left before, I'll leave again, it's not 2012 so I'm not personally affected by what happens in this league anymore. And of course I'm only going to make a fuss when it's my teams getting hit. That's what people do and that's exactly why this can be easily discredited. But think beyond my personal bias. How did Vancouver miss the playoffs last seasons? How did Seattle win nothing despite having the best team in the league for two seasons' running? How does Veran Dragomir have one 100 point season to his name despite being one of the top 3 forwards for an eternity? How is Julian Borwinn still trying to hit the heights of his rookie seasons despite having over 900 TPE now? Is any of that fair? Is any of it rewarding? Maybe it shouldn't be. But that's not something I want to put my efforts into.

CGY G1 (CGY), 39 saves from 41 shots - (0.951), W, 3-3-0, 60:00 minutes just fucking end me

Well this was a shit sim.

One goal losses are gonna break me I swear.

We outshoot, we lost, we get outshot, we still lose, for fucks sake.

Cap did us dirty.

Joseph McWolf Kallis Kriketers Also updated the OP for you all x @Esso2264

The VHL's salary cap is notoriously tough, with most players' lack of real interest in testing free agency creating a real risk of teams being able to stock up on a couple draft classes and dominating for eight seasons. Although never enough to appease GMs who do want to dominate for eight seasons, the balance has largely always been just about good enough to keep going. However, with consecutive deep draft classes and despite expansion, the increasing feeling is that the current cap system has become outdated. I don't personally have a clear solution but I am starting to sympathise with the sentiment and not necessarily because I am a GM now. Just today I was looking at the rosters of the teams in the Season 64 playoffs and with 4 of the 5 teams (minus Seattle) still contending for the cup going into Season 66, it's quite interesting to see how few players these teams have managed to retain from just two seasons ago. Vancouver (5) Beau Louth, Rauno Palo, Jake Davis, Marvin Harding, Konstantin Mulligan The retirements of Colton Rayne and Casey Jones had little to do with cap, while moving out Tristan Iseult this off-season was an intended improvement in goal. Apart from that though, Quebec/Vancouver has probably had the toughest time with the cap over the past few seasons, committed to building up a healthy prospect while trying to compete simultaneously. Just this off-season, Jorgon Weyed and Samuel Gate had to be moved out, in addition to the countless prospects who have had to be moved on in anticipation of cap issues. Toronto (4) Evan R. Lawson, Oyorra Arroyo, Luc-Pierre Lespineau-Lebrunnette, Tzuyu The Legion's approach to team-building and allergy to draft picks makes wheeling and dealing necessary, therefore significant roster changes season to season are not massively surprising. They would have been planning for the retirements of Stopko, Warlock and free agency departure of Ironside regardless. Nonetheless, just this season Toronto had to trade Chace Trepanier due to cap considerations. Riga (4) Podrick Cast, Edwin Preencarnacion, Ryan Kastelic, Kallis Kriketers Riga would have been preparing for cap hell for several seasons, but it is still startling to see so few of their old regulars still together, despite having won the cup just three seasons ago and remaining a contender since. This season was judgement day for GM Benjamin Zeptenbergs, trading the majority of the old core and pivoting to a team built around S65-S66 draftees with only the absolute top older players being retained. Helsinki (6) Julian Borwinn, Kronos Bailey, Dan Montgomery, Jesse Wilson, Sidney Crosby, Alexander Pepper The majority of the Titans' departures were out of their control, with the retirements of Johnsson, Louth, Slipher, Kane, losing Nano to the expansion draft and not being able to re-sign The Charm due to GM player rules. That was probably a blessing given they still had to make several cap-shedding trades in the last two off-seasons, losing players such as Joey Boucher and Roctrion King. Going into this season with a forward core dominated by rookies is certainly unusual for a team coming off back-to-back finals appearances. For context, the standard roster size for most of the VHL's history (including S64) is 11 players, meaning that most of these contenders have not been able to keep together even half of their squads in the last two off-seasons. Is this an issue? Not from a trading perspective after one of the most active off-seasons in living memory and not from a parity point of view, given how unpredictable S66 will almost certainly turn out to be. But from a team-building standpoint, it might be bordering on unhealthy and possibly too much of a balancing act for GMs.

In Season 65, the Toronto Legion won a second consecutive Continental Cup, confounding pre-season (and indeed pre-postseason) expectations for the second season running. Somehow, the Legion followed a historic threepeat with what was briefly the VHL's longest cup drought and then two of the most unexpected championships in history. That prompted a question – how predictable were back-to-back winners in the past? It's a formidable achievement but one that relies quite a bit on timing and good fortune – great teams often falter and miss out on historic achievements and underdog stories triumph. Using a scale of 1 to 10 (1 being predictable and 10 being completely out of the blue), let's look at all back-to-back Continental Cup champions the VHL has seen. S2 and S3 Calgary Wranglers Rating: 2 The only real surprise about the early days Wranglers is that we're talking about a repeat rather than a threepeat. How Calgary managed to lose more games in a short series against Vasteras than they had in the entirety of the S1 regular season remains a mystery, but they more than made up for it by confirming their dominance in the next two seasons. The likes of Brett Slobodzian and Scott Boulet up front, Sterling Labatte and Joey Kendrick in defence, and even Robert Sharpe shoring up an otherwise shaky goaltending position by S3 – it wasn't so much that they were the best team in the league, more that no one else had figured out how to build a VHL powerhouse yet. S4 and S5 Seattle Bears Rating: 1 Seattle would be the team to figure things out next by compiling a team led by S1 draftees in the two seasons that S1 draftees peaked before depreciation. It's impossible to recreate such dominance because such circumstances aren't possible at any point other than the first five seasons of the league, but go some way to explaining 160+ point seasons by the likes of Alex McNeil and of course Scotty Campbell. Boasting six future Hall of Famers, including some bonafide legends, it's harder to name a more predictable back-to-back champion. S18 and S19 Calgary Wranglers Rating: 5 Winning consecutive championships became something of a holy grail in the VHL for a bit and was finally repeated by a team that didn't expect to win more than one cup. The Wranglers went into S18 planning to win in S19, as while they had a high-octane offensive core, featuring Mikka Virkkunen, J.D. Stormwall, Lars Berger, and a rookie Jardy Bunclewirth, they were too young and had gaping holes in defence and an inactive retiring goaltender. This was still enough to be third favourites going into the season and slowly making their way up to second as the season progressed and New York proved to not be clicking despite big moves in the off-season. Ultimately, Calgary won it all in spite of a defence featuring Hiro Renomitsu, Greg Eagleowski, and Bryton Guerequeta. The second cup was much more predictable, as their main rivals Madrid and New York went into rebuilds, with the Wranglers signing each of their best defencemen in free agency and trading for the best goalie in the league. The subsequent 8-1 run in the playoffs still stands as a VHL record. S24 and S25 HC Davos Dynamo Rating: 4 The team that got swept by Calgary in S19 was Davos, who then won the cup in S20 but then existed in a strange pseudo-contending state, powered into the playoffs by Daisuke Kanou more than a particularly talented roster. By S24, the Dynamo ended up flying under the radar as they were an older team most had gotten used to seeing eliminated in the first round. In fact, they had accumulated six future Hall of Famers and had serious firepower in the shape of Anton Brekker and Mathias Chouinard to go with the continued heroics of Kanou. It's hard to say if they were the indisputed best team in the league in S24 but they proved their worth in the playoffs and by S25 no one had stepped up to the plate, making a repeat to seal the dynasty a bit of a formality. S45 and S46 Helsinki Titans Rating: 3 Nearly every generation a team generates hype by accumulating a lot of high draft picks in a particularly strong draft class. Most often this does not result in anything special because they don't win enough before the cap hits but this Titans team met expectations better than anyone. Drafting Greg Clegane and Phil Hamilton to go with GM player Aleksi Koponen wouldn't have been enough on its own, but a perfectly timed move for Thomas O'Malley in the same off-season combined youth and experience in the best possible way and the Titans ended up storming to two straight Continental Cups. There were obstacles on the way, primarily in the form of Davos and Calgary in both finals, which meant Helsinki's wins weren't foregone conclusions, but they were nonetheless not major surprises. S48, S49, and S50 Toronto Legion Rating: 6 No one can predict a threepeat and they never come to fruition when someone does. That's probably what worked in Toronto's favour because no one expected more than a couple runs for the cup from this team in S48, perhaps one of which would be successful. In hindsight, however, it's clear that the Legion were one of the favourites in each of the three seasons and in both S49 and S50 only had to get past their own stacked conference due to the lack of great teams in Europe. Names like Hans Wingate, Max Molholt, Zach Parechkin, and Black Velvet roll off the tongue now and it seems like less of a surprise after the event but was nonetheless a massive achievement. S52 and S53 New York Americans Rating: 5 Those partial to the Seattle Bears will argue that both of New York's last two Continental Cups were massive upsets, but there wasn't much between the two and a scan down the rosters now would give the edge to New York based on name recognition. Certainly the Americans had they key to VHL success – offensive firepower – managing to combine the talents of Diana Maxwell, Tom Lincoln, and Unassisted, perhaps the three best forwards in the VHL at the time. They did lack in defence, and were backstopped by the otherwise unnoteworthy Ilya Kopralkov in S52 and M.T. Power in S53. Going into S52 in a four-team playoff race in North America, many would have predicted they would miss the playoffs rather than win it all, but overall the Americans benefited from a lack of serious competition and are middle of the park on the surprise scale. S54 and S55 Helsinki Titans Rating: 4 Another Helsinki dynasty built primarily through the draft, this was another team which shone in part because few others were in the dying days of the original expansion era. The Titans' main competition was Stockholm in Europe and Quebec in North America and their series against both teams could have realistically gone either way in both seasons. As it turns out, Helsinki took all the glory and given how frequent repeat winners became at this point, this was nothing out of the ordinary. In terms of individual talent, the main inspirations were Black Velvet and Franchise Cornerstone, two Hall of Famers at opposite ends of their careers, and it was enough. S57 and S58 Riga Reign Rating: 2 Unlucky to miss out on the finals after a Victory Cup in S56, the Reign were the best regular season team for another two seasons and this time matched this performance in the playoffs. The chemistry of Fredinamijs Krigars and John Locke up front was enough to roll over most opposition and in a recurring theme of this era, there wasn't much of it to begin with. The Reign beat a Quebec team raging against the dying of the light in S57 and then an underdog Seattle in S58, meaning they were considerable favourites throughout. S64 and S65 Toronto Legion Rating: 10 And here we are. There are no two ways about this, no one could have predicted either of Toronto's victories, let alone two of them in a row. First, we chalked it up to the monster performance of Norris Stopko in his last ever season, but then that was pretty much matched by the more surprising Johnny Havenk Carison, who has managed to carry that magic through to the start of his career in Malmo. The highly effective offensive partnership of Sebastian Ironside and Oyorra Arroyo could be seen as enough of an advantage in S64, but then Ironside left and it turned out that just Arroyo was enough in S65. Overall, it's not so much assessing the rosters that makes the last two seasons so unpredictable, it's that there was nothing even during the regular season to indicate what was to come in the playoffs. All of Riga, Seattle, and Helsinki can feel reasonably aggrived by the events of S64 and S65 because it really feels like lightning struck twice for Toronto, in a way never seen before.

Yeah, not sure at what point we just let Nano go back into FA tbh...