Victor

Just realised this series ended the longest wait between two teams meeting in the playoffs..... since Season 8! https://vhlforum.com/topic/52282-an-all-encompassing-playoff-spreadsheet/

Sorry what. League's gone soft.

This season we have corrected a major fuck-up, restoring the Labatte to its previous glory after a 4-season absence and introducing the Valiq. However, given the Labatte for 4 seasons was effectively the Valiq, the winners of 1 award were moved to another and its place?... Nothing. A void in the history books. The idea of going back and deciding on the 4 missing Labatte winners surfaced in the BOG discussions, but was shut down for some reason I can't remember and was not particularly bothered to argue. However, looking at the league's best defencemen over VHL's history recently while I'm putting together my all-time top 10 lists has made me realise two things: 1. It's a very easy task to do. Firstly, the most recent winner, in S62, would be very straightforward given I know for a fact that everyone in the award committee agreed that Johnsson was the best dman in the league but had to take just the Wylde because Kovalchuk had too many points. Secondly, the other 3 winners are Ay Ay Ron. On the basis that the Labatte is effectively a direct battle between the Valiq and Wylde winners (this won't always be the case but definitely would have been in S59 to S61), Ron - who won 2 Valiqs and a Wylde in those three seasons - was definitely the outstanding candidate. He was more well-rounded in the respective seasons than all of Jokinen, Johnsson, and especially Dexter Lane. 2. For Ay Ay Ron, 3 Labattes would give him a much more legitimate shot at the HOF (which I think is a lock anyway regardless of the last two seasons). Very few defencemen won 3 Labattes and it would better reward his legacy in context. Anyway, I don't see the harm. Thoughts?

Its not a 3-1 curse when it was 3-0 lol. That said, one team in this series has a significantly better goalie.

Not 3-2, does not compute.

Jim Gow - against his former team!

I got into a fight!

Part I - Pick em' (Pick the correct winners of all three games for 2 TPE) Game 5 - Calgary Wranglers @ Riga Reign Game 6 - Riga Reign @ Calgary Wranglers - series over Game 7 - Calgary Wranglers @ Riga Reign - series over Part II - Predict the Score (Predict the correct score and winner of this game for 3 TPE) Game 5 - Calgary Wranglers @ Riga Reign 1-2 Part III - Player Predictions (Predict the correct player for each category, 1 TPE for each correct answer) Series leader in points: Crimson Series leader in goals: Crimson Series leader in assists: Shephard

Twinger lulled them all into a false sense of security.

Hmm, should I focus my rivalry on Ironside instead now? @DollarAndADream

Done.... in the 3 which haven't been removed yet.

You'll be in the HOF this time old boy. Just maybe not first ballot.

Seattle and Quebec dun goofed. Can't say I didn't warn ya. Vase Trikamaki Lars Berger Alexander Chershenko Matt Bentley Greg Clegane Robert Sharpe Alexander Beketov Alex Young Niklas Kristensen Jason White Evgeni Chekhov Jackson Miller Jakab Holik Roman Sokolov Fayt Leingod Geno Esposito Benjamin Glover Keiji Toriyama Lloyd Light Diana Maxwell mist4ke

I'm both proud and disappointed that this is the extent of your power abuse.

Gritty bleeds orange, you can't use him against us.

( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

Jack Shephard's last hurrah.

Lol nice try Seattle back to mediocrity boys.

Gow against his former team!! (for real now)

Nah that's too obvious For VHL history?

1. Obviously any of the top 4 teams could win it going into the playoffs, we are now only 5 wins away and certainly I am hopeful. If we do triumph, it will be because we were a younger, more active team throughout the season and kept getting better. 2. Helsinki I think, followed by New York. Both in pretty similar positions rebuild-wise and had lots of good rookies, but which one ends up being better I think depends on what they do in the off-season. 3. It feels like Calgary is on its last legs. Even if they don't sell their veterans, I don't think they can maintain the pace of the last few seasons. 4. Obviously the 3 straight finals were a favourite. A specific moment was convincing Tordahl to sign in FA, but equally getting the Davos Seaworth avatars going for the playoffs - one of the last great rallies. Fave player has to be Thomas Landry, one of the best captains ever, an absolute steal of a trade who bled purple. Great member, shame he left soon after. That said it was a great team, few superstars but lots of good members' first players - Davey Jones @Trifecta, Shane Baker @Velevra, Sergey Brovalenko, the list goes on. 5. I'll get back to you on this one as I've hit my 2 TPE for this week now.

I'm currently working on something. For the VHL's 50-season anniversary I was hoping to create an all-encompassing list of the greatest ever VHL players, maybe even a top 100. A team of veteran VHL members was gathered but a lack of consensus and my dwindling activity ended that project. We don't have any anniversary coming up now but this has been eating away at me for many years, so I will give it a solo attempt. Instead of a broad top 50/100 list, I will instead go for a few quick top 5s or 10s every week, in the following categories (maybe more as I go along): Top defencemen – maybe split along Valiq/Wylde lines Top forwards Top goalies Best playoff performers Best two-way forwards Hopefully this will be enjoyable to read and something that I or someone else can come back to in the future and update with new, even better players of the current and next generations. If you have any strong opinions about any of these categories or would just like to offer some help, then absolutely be my guest, drop me a PM or post below. The first instalment, ranking the top 10 playoff performers of the past 63 seasons, will be coming out on Monday. Watch out for it in the Media Spot section.

Ryuuuuuuuuu We are loving overtime.

Nice of Cast to finally show up. RIG G

Just noticed the backup oh boyyy