Victor

I'm just sad I'm gonna have to ask someone else to do Lahtinen's Moscow HOF graphic.

2nd Victory Cup in 3 seasons and 3rd in our short franchise history - not bad going! What a statement victory to seal it as well! Great battle Warsaw, I hope to see more of you in the near future.

@Jericho beware

The single worst person to chat trades with on MSN, beating out David Knight.

ah my least favourite ballot to put together. I honestly don't even know who's in the running lol.

Playoffs approaching? Goon mode engaged.

For those unaware, the All-VHL First and Second (and Rookie) Teams were implemented in S62 as part of a wider discussion on a lack of awards or recognition for a growing pool of players (given we have barely altered our list of awards since S1, although a few additional awards were added for defencemen and goalies in the late 50s). The All-VHL Teams have proven to be a success, a nice boost for those top forwards and defencemen who missed out on the trophies in a given season, and even for the second best goalie, which often meant in the past leaving the awards ceremony completely empty-handed. They've also proven to be useful when it comes to Hall of Fame discussion – certainly for any players who have played since they were implemented. But what about those vast swathes of VHL history from before S62? Well that's what I'm here to address today. I have scoured the regular season indexes that we have from S18 onwards to pick what I think would have been the All-VHL Teams from S18 to S61, adding on all the actual players named to the teams since then at the bottom. While this is by no means an official list and it is only one man's opinion, it is the opinion of someone that I like to think has a fairly unbiased view when assessing the VHL's historical events and was also here for nearly the entire time period in question to be able to contextualise the numbers I was looking at. More importantly though, I think All-VHL Teams are not a particularly judgemental part of the awards process and even if it's not quite the top six scoring forwards and the goalie with the highest save percentage, there are not that many stats that move the needle away from that. I have tried to put myself in the shoes of who voters would have selected in a given season based on teams and other factors (e.g. Scott Boulet Trophy winners, who have often fallen out of the top scorers in a season) and I think have come up with about as good a list as we can get when looking back at 50 seasons of data. Certainly based on the appearances by Hall of Famers and players considered the best or close to it in their position, some logical patterns seem to emerge. Anyway, the full list is linked below and will probably be kept somewhere sensible in the Hall of Fame for future reference. Whether the colour coding hinders or helps the viewing process remains to be seen but I think it at the very least brings out the cream of the crop. https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1_5H9QZiOesF8-ofxZUZX0R1KiIiLwggh4MDxaoLnOkI/edit?usp=sharing Firstly, we can see that not a single player has been in the All-VHL Teams for all 8 seasons of their career. This would require a superhuman effort from rookie season through depreciation and a lot of things falling just the way you need them to – realistically if it didn't happen in the old VHL it probably never will in the modern era. There are two players who come close though – Conner Low and Lord Karnage. Low in fact hits the mark throughout his full career, as he only played 7 seasons in total. The five First Team appearances as a defenceman make sense as he won the Labatte in each of those seasons, en route to securing his place as the best defenceman of all time and fifth place on the recently published list of top 75 players in VHL history. Perhaps more impressive is his continued success as a forward in his final two seasons, as Low didn't miss a beat and remained a top player despite the position change, something that isn't really considered in his legacy as that was already secure after 5 seasons. But probably more surprising is Karnage's consistency in fact. That he was a great player is no surprise – this is the all-time TPE record holder under the old 9 TPE weekly cap, being the first and only player to hit 1,500 TPE under that system. He won a lot of Scott Boulet Trophies, but the fact he was never the absolute best in a given season and never won a cup (making just one underdog run to the finals with the Stockholm Vikings) means Karnage has flown under the radar since retiring, as reflected by the fact he was ranked only at #42 in the aforementioned top 75 list. I won't go down the list in great detail as a fair few names join at 6 and 5 appearances (the ones in bold and highlighted in different shades of red). It becomes a who's who of some of the finest players in the VHL Hall of Fame. I do think it is worth touching on two things however. The first is the really visible cut-off between the modern era and the old VHL. It's not just the line I put between S61 (the last season I estimated) and S62 (the first season of the actual All-VHL Teams). It's also the increasing lack of players with even 4 career appearances (i.e. half a normal career) and no one exceeding that mark since Matt Thompson retired in S68. There is an increasing amount of players who only peak for 1 or 2 seasons because of how long it takes to break out or wait for someone a bit older to move out of the way, while it is much more difficult to maintain your peak into a 7th and especially and 8th season under current depreciation rules. Compare S75 which had 4 returning players in total out of the pool of 12 to S51 which saw three players on their 5th appearance and two others on their 4th and it's clearly a very different league. Secondly, the contrast between skaters and goalies. It's easier to sneak into the top 6 forwards or top 4 defencemen on a weaker season but for goalies, the margins for error are small – even most all-time greats feature only 3-4 times. The exceptions are Greg Clegane and Hans Wingate, recently voted third and seventh best players of all time respectively, the legendary Aidan Shaw, and the equally legendary Daisuke Kanou, the only goalie to make 6 appearances on the list. But perhaps most remarkably, Kanou never made it as the absolute best goalie in a given season, the recently dethroned playoff guru always settling for second-best in the regular season. That's that, perhaps this will prove useful in some future ranking or Hall of Fame conversation. But until then, hope you enjoyed this little brain dump.

Holik will never make the HOF.

Dream-shattering post here

Yeah we might lose 4 games to you over the next 10 seasons.

PIETRO PIETRO PIETRO

Another solid sim for the boys, but Angellini most of all, he went OFF

Nah Y u mad is only Rara

Davos and New York changing successful logos for no reason and becoming shit

So New York. Here we are again. A rebuild starts off promising, then half your prospects go inactive, the sim results don't come, and then we're back to square one. Well this time it didn't even start promising... I don't know what ancient curse Devise placed on New York after winning their last two cups, but the results are clear to see. For those not up to date, here's a quick summary of the Americans' struggles: Mid 60s: Things started off so promising with the drafting of McWolf and Wilinsky. Then fellow S63 first-rounder Shawinganen went inactive, as did the GM and his goalie, and then first overall S65 pick Carles Puigdemont for the final crushing blow. New York made a couple brief playoff appearances and it was back to rebuild by S67. The S68 era: This should have been the one. The GM didn't go inactive (a franchise first since S55!) and they were packed with S68 first-rounders. Except every other pick went inactive (one for more tragic reasons than others), as did the S70 first-rounder Risteneen, while the players who stuck around were crippled by some voodoo which meant they never quite hit the heights they could (the S72 and S73 teams were genuine cup contenders). The current rebuild: I'm sad. S74 first rounder Schauer – inactive. S75 first rounder Thatcher – jury is out. S75 second rounder Zyuzin is gone, while Prout just asked out and has been traded. There is a core in place but is it enough in this day and age? I'm afraid the curse is showing no signs of slowing down. /antiamericansentiment

As a fellow former hiatusee this is relatable content. I am simultaneously nostalgic for old VHL and I would have not come back to old VHL. Crazy how we've ended up at a place with so many more people and yet so many fewer being pissed off with something.

Can't even write a MS about Chicago without mentioning us. Living rent-free.

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdfFiVuP9no6eFErclsH9W8SdzLDaLUwa2uGLaOCtsnAKNcuw/viewform?usp=sf_link Each correct answer is worth 1 capped TPE at the end of the week. Don't reveal the answer in public, but if you're not sure, ask around, here, or in the special trivia Discord channel.

You traded your mojo to me @TTtheT

The 50s were a crazy time.

I actually have no idea which teams each player was on beforehand so this is wonderfully chaotic.

Oh hey it's my 2nd.

Lmao well we won on aggregate.

Tonn always delivers after a day off... and we were nice to Rara too