Victor

1. Mate, you carried those old farts more than anything. I mean at this point we all need to pull our finger out and slap Helsinki but you should be doing just fine. 2. Don't stop working. You have to be very unlucky to hit high TPE levels and not have some memorable achievements to take away from your career. Obviously everyone would love to get the HOF call, but that's impossible - but it's still perfectly reasonable to expect a great season or two and a cup. 3. Either of my two main VHL loves: Calgary and Davos. They were in the midst of contending cycles when I was drafted so there was never a chance but I'm sure I will make it back one day. 4. Bold assumption there that you know my favourite (it's not hockey ). Second is a bit of a left-field choice; biathlon. 5. Ottawa, gotta be a fanboy for this one.

Edwin, welcome to the S64 post-season!

But how can we be the little brother if we're older than everyone else. ?

Not sure what that has to do with suffering.

Kriketers just dropped the same game twice in a row..

Hey, Cast turned up. ?

Fuck me hahahaha. VHL playoffs ladies and gentlemen.

GG STHS!

This is all very pure.

Better than continuing to suffer in Helsinki though.

Should note I would have added more nuance if it was a MS, as lumping in with Seattle is definitely unfair. However, just 1 HOFer is pretty meh for a cup winner. I never made it to Cologne which is tad unfortunate.

Also @Advantage feel like you'll enjoy this one.

The Quebec City Meute have played their last game in the VHL - fittingly it was a disappointingly early playoff exit. I've had a strange relationship with Quebec - my last two players spent some time there and Greg Clegane had his best season there, but the playoff failure left a bad taste and I was hoping to avoid coming back with Cast. I was happy to see Quebec let me slip to 3rd overall in S61. That said, I love the niche that the Meute carved out. They were fully the league's villains, especially as the old holders of the title, Vasteras and Davos, faded and in the former's case disappeared entirely. Here's a few of the moments which really made Quebec memorable for me. S34: When they traded 2 drafts worth of picks for Wesley Kellinger and signed both Yuri Grigorenko and Skylar Rift from other Cologne's noses - that's when the VHL really started to turn against them. Coupled with the fact that 3 Valiqs managed to get their way and join the Meute to play with the most famous one, Alexander... this was not a much-liked team. There was lots of schadenfreude around when they missed out on the cup in S34 but they got it the next season, in a pretty inevitably boring way. The tone was set. S43-S44: Bruno Wolf and Aksel Thomassen - what an offensive duo this was and truly gave the VHL a masterclass in chatting shit without backing it up. I mean, individually they scored a lot, but as a team they lost to two very mediocre teams in Seattle and Calgary and never won a cup. It was pretty much everyone against Brovy, the GM and the mouthpiece of that era. S49: Not much really changed here, Brovy still GM, Frank still on the team, lots of regular season success but flopped in the playoffs to much glee from other members. I named this the best team to never win the cup, probably in part because I was on it but it was also a great team. Classic Quebec running into a threepeating Toronto. S56: Finally, I wasn't here for it but I was glad to see the Meute finally got another cup eventually. Frank was always committed to the star power > depth theory, and when it worked, it was great. It was really the overall story of Quebec, catering to offensive output over anything else. Until recently when for some reason they couldn't even score for seasons on end which really was the final nail in the coffin - the only real defining feature of Quebec was lost. RIP Quebec, Long live Vancouver. It's sort of the same team, but feels very different. I don't think I'll be associating the Wolves with the Meute's history for very long and hopefully this opportunity is used to build a new legacy. Au revoir mon ami. Awoooooo

GG STHS!

It could have but I think its pretty rare for the goalie coming in to not be great. It might actually be worthwhile everyone starting their backup, pulling after 2 goals and hoping their score 3 as it will probs be enough.

How is RIG LW even on the ice with so many forwards, but fair enough, maybe we should use him more.

Helsinki played the system, fair play.

There were some extreme instances where the fifth and even fourth best team in the league didn't make the playoffs. Fairly rare but a contingency for that might be needed.

Not worth it now when conferences are on the horizon again, but yeah I'd be fighting it much more if it was to stay indefinitely.

Wildcard round still the dumbest addition to the VHL.

QUE G tried so hard, he never wanted to be in the spotlight.

Ah, well don't know how Bushito did it but I put 1 TPE differences into the same bracket - i.e. 15 or 16 correct answers will get you the same amount of TPE. So the impact should be minimal.

You don't need trivia to max out do you? And if you do, 1 TPE is still very achievable here. Like I said, there shouldn't be too many difficult questions in a season - 1/2 out of 16ish seems pretty reasonable for me.

Holy motherhedging questions hogman 1. Yeah, dunno, I mean 500 TPE was based on my outdated knowledge of TPE, but I looked at your build, everything looks fine. Your wins and GAA and shutouts will help career stats though if you stick out all 8, just need to improve on save% but who knows when that will happen. 2. Of course, we won last year. Plus Kallis could always turn into Astrid Moon in the playoffs. 3. Definitely, they've always been one of the favourites and offense wins championships. They have the slightly easier path to the finals and anything else can happen there. 4. Probably not. Honestly, would have been close with Iseult but without him... Ironside-Arroyo is too much. And Quebec picked up scoring a bit but it's Stopko. RIP Meute. 5. Of course, doesn't hurt to try. 6. There'll be a space as Toronto falls off imo and I don't think Calgary or Davos will be ready. Actually competing for the cup though... dunno, depends how bad Riga looks after the cap. 7. A bit of that, a bit of a very kind fixture list... they did beat Arsenal as well and Spurs just about, but let's see how they do against PSG and Chelsea. Basically, they just started winning the games they always should have been. 8. Absolutely not, one of the worst sports. 9. I mean, that's the best way to compete right? I think it's time to start targeting the playoff streak record. 10. Probably Vancouver. I think combined with Quebec they'll have a very long playoff streak too, because they always have a pretty young team and did a bit of a retool now. Will they become a serious cup contender though is the question. That depends on how the post-Dragomir generation turns out... and of course they'll need a goalie fairly soon, but there's loads of those.