Victor

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 Yeah, dunno, I mean 500 TPE was based on my outdated knowledge of TPE, but I looked at your build, everything looks fine.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.

I've decided to add 1 question in that format to each season so you've all been warned. It's a bit of a logical puzzle tbh and there's probably a few ways to go about it, but the most obvious one (to me anyway) is as always through a few pinned threads around the forum. Nothing hidden away.

Fill out the form below for up to 2 capped TPE if you answer correctly. https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdeWLG4IQhrZJjJdcv8Oohpt-hxoAzKHEywiwGB00HQx_WWbg/viewform?usp=sf_link 1. Don't post the answers below - your post will be deleted and you will be disqualified from TPE this week. 2. Feel free to PM me any questions which can be asked in the same format and when I use those questions, you will earn uncapped TPE for it.

Answer time! 1. How many times has a Continental Cup Final gone to Game 7? Credit to @Quik - 1 uncapped TPE A bit of a bitch of a question from Quik to be honest, purely because I hate manually counting things like I assume you had to do whether it was using the HOF cup winners list - https://vhlportal.com/hof/awards/history/1 or the cup-winning goals list: https://vhlforum.com/topic/22385-cup-winning-goals/ Fortunately, he told me there were 25 so that is apparently the correct answer. Quite a high amount out of 63, considering it's only a quarter of the possible results but that's what it is, playoff magic and all that. 2. Which of the following VHL awards was never won by its namesake? Pretty easy one to get by clicking through the awards lists. Scotty Campbell, Aidan Shaw, and Daisuke Kanou all had trophies renamed after them after winning them so many times, but Brett Slobodzian had a trophy created in honour of him, becoming the first and only trophy voted for by the players, 6 or so seasons after the great man retired. It was originally the player vote equivalent of the Campbell, i.e. MVP, but changed to MOP when people couldn't grasp the concept of most valuable... tbh it's still a bit of a confusing concept in some seasons. 2 capped TPE goes to: @hedgehog337 @Esso2264 @Hybrid1486 @DollarAndADream @SlapshotDragon @Jubo07 @Sonnet @SidTheKid87 @Kisshan @Velevra @Thranduil @Toasty @xsjack @ShawnGlade @Nykonax @Enorama @Dangles13 @wcats @Ahma @Rocketman04 @oilmandan @Poptart @leafsman @hockeyis66 @Philliefan @StamkosFan @LIL V O D AK @nethi99 @Kuch9 @Antone10 @Beketov @joeyboucher1 @majesiu @Galdoblame @Tagger @Josh. @Quik @Arthur @SpartanGibbles @flyersfan1453 @DilIsPickle @Kirby @Ty343 1 capped TPE goes to: @Anthony Matthews @Bucky___lastard @GRZ @hejta As usual, week 7 will begin tomorrow. G'night.

Savage

Also quite surprised by that, like the Houston team more than Philadelphia by a fair margin. I don't plan to carry on that route once I actually have a team to talk about haha We tried that, he bottled it.

Thompson got 2 goals and 2 assists in the 10-4 win against Helsinki, eventually co winning top goals and leading the league in points by 1. (Also, is that the second time you've won top scorer with a ridiculously low total???) The North Remembers @Quik

Podrick Cast and The Charm fight to a draw at 7:05 of 2nd periodRyuu Crimson beats up The Charm at 15:55 of 3rd period What a goon. Crimson about to enter playoff mode.

Helsinki it is then.

He was yeah. If you're wondering why I included him over you, I can't name every Riga cup winning GM.

1,200 words so 1 for the themed week and 1 for next week

A History of VHL Relocations Relocations are super rare in the modern VHL, much like unicorns and expansions. To have two of the above three happen at once is quite frankly mind-blowing, but the case for Quebec moving to Vancouver and Anglicising their name was strong enough, especially given the Wolves will not lose their logo, one of founding GM Pavel Koradek's finest creations. The Meute carved out a niche for themselves as the league's villains, both when building their first championship team in S35 through selling the farm and attracting two prime free agents – Yuri Grigorenko and Skylar Rift – and throughout the 40s when GM Clinton Chevy was one of the most outspoken members in the league. They went on a great four-final run from S54 to S57, but ultimately underachieved way too much; in S34-S35 when they never really got the offensive production they probably deserved, in S43-S44 and especially S49 when they dominated regular seasons but couldn't make the finals, and most recently in the early 60s – perennial playoff contenders but lacking chemistry and not really becoming a cup favourite. A relocation is, all things considered, the correct move, but what encouragement can Vancouver take from the past? Let's have a look at all the relocations in VHL history. S1: Amstel Tijgers → Avangard Havoc The first move in VHL history happened after just one season, when the unfortunately named Tijgers (based in a river or a beer) moved to Omsk, Russia, but bizarrely put Avangard at the start of the name. The VHL's Dutch experiment was always doomed to fail, with founding GM JJ Krever promptly going inactive and the Tijgers infamously selecting Robert Sharpe first overall over Scotty Campbell. 72 games gone, and no one would miss Amstel much. Things didn't really get much rosier for Avangard. GM Matt Cornell, agent of Hall of Famer Petr Shirokov, was a notorious figure famous for finding as many loopholes as possible in the VHL's early rules, as well as being a key cause of the very clique-y nature of first-decade VHL. The Havoc were never really a dominant team, but did get a Continental Cup in S7, inspired by the great Christian Stolzschweiger. A difficult rebuild ensued again however, and by the end of S10, the franchise was on the move again. S7: Hamilton Canucks → New York Americans A fairly forgotten fact by this point in the VHL, but the controversial Robbie Zimmers was once a VHL GM and moved the highly unsuccessful Hamilton Canucks to what would eventually become an iconic league location in New York. The Canucks were a mixture of mismanaged and unlucky in their seven-season VHL stay, but by the end got such a stigma that no matter how well they drafted (the S5 and S6 classes were particularly impressive for how few future stars didn't stay in Hamilton), they couldn't hang on to their players. New York had a shaky start – until S12, the franchise only playoff appearance came in S4, when it was still in Hamilton. For a while the Americans gained the 'Shortbus' moniker, as the fallout of being on the wrong side of the early day VHL cliques mentioned above. It says something about the sometimes toxic early era VHL that two prominent Shortbus members are curse-breaking specialist GM Tyler Owens and Builder Sandro Desaulniers. However, the Americans finally won a championship in S14 and after another long wait, the floodgates really opened in S32. Since then, an argument can be made that the Americans are the VHL's most successful franchise, far removed from the team that operated under a cloud back in S7. S8: Stockholm Rams → Riga Reign Relocation is all about timing and unlike the above, incoming GM Dustin Funk nailed it with his move to Riga. The Stockholm Rams were a distinctly average team, with a big of a bad reputation after a few seasons under the control of GM Chris Julien, but were clearly on the up when Funk took over from his brother. The timing was perfect as Riga made the finals four times in the first five seasons in Latvia, with a maiden Continental Cup coming in S10. A tradition of success has been built in the Baltic state ever since, with the likes of Vladimir Kliment, Mike Szatkowski, and now Benjamin Zeptenbergs leading the Reign to glory. Riga has become a staple of the VHL and a franchise which has barely ever hit a lull, with many great players passing through along the way. S11: Avangard Havoc → HC Davos Dynamo If Stockholm to Riga was an inspired move, then Avangard to Davos was truly an act of otherworldly providence. The Havoc were not a disaster as mentioned above, but when GM and league commissioner Scotty Campbell moved them to Davos, the franchise reached a new level. The Dynamo won a Continental Cup in their very first season in Switzerland and followed it up with another in S13. They continued winning on a remarkably consistent level all the way through to S38, becoming the league leaders in championships in a relatively short timeframe. In the meantime, Davos also managed to get firmly in the heads of the Riga Reign, with a rivalry which started off quite violently straight away in S11, and continues to be the most one-sided in the VHL. The magical aura was lost in the dry spell from S38 to the most recent cup win in S62, but Davos maintains a strong history of both team and individual success which is nearly unmatched in the VHL. S16, S21, S41: Vasteras moves around / After the success stories above, we do however arrive at the more tragic tale of Vasteras. In fact, knowing that the last two relocations in the league were by a now defunct franchise, with the same fate befalling Cologne, while Quebec's stay in the VHL will end at 34 seasons, carries an ominous warning for both Vancouver and Moscow – the 'old boys' club is going be to difficult to overthrow. Going back to Vasteras, the franchise which famously upset Calgary in the S1 finals struggled for the next 15 seasons until being controversially moved to Madrid and using a logo previously used by the Stockholm Thunder (the predecessor of the Rams). Things did not go much better in Madrid, although they did make the finals, but then had to deal with the disastrous tenure of GM Zach Voss and moved back to Sweden after just five seasons. A fresh start in Vasteras began with enthusiasm, with the backing of Scotty Campbell and Tyler Owens, but dreams of a dynasty turned into a bit of a slog to end the cup drought, which finally came as a massive relief in S26. However, this was not a new dawn but instead the last hurrah for the team which struggled through a subsequent rebuild and then was stymied in the 30s by GM Thomas Corcoran consistently selling the farm to try to compete and failing to do so. On the back of that, the Stockholm Vikings were born under the management of Benoit Prevost, one last chance at a new dawn. Stockholm was marginally more successful than Vasteras, with a few surprising runs to the finals in S47 and S53, but still underachieved massively for most of the time and was an easy to choice to cull during contraction. Vancouver will hope it follows the relocations much more than the most recent examples by the cursed Swedish franchise.

We really did choke away the Victory Cup yknow.

RIG G starts = RIG G plays like ass. Kriketers starts = RIG G comes in ffs

100 points is very close now.

The Jr. Bears haha - they really should have worked on that name. ah well, Saskatoon has worked out pretty well.

Feel like these are the games our depth should be coming through but guess little we can do against 9 powerplays.

Whatever happened to Hickey. He's overdue a four seasons of activity stint.