Victor

Very nice sim for both Moscow and Seattle. Breeze Ladrian beats up Carson Walkers at 19:26 of 2nd period Carson Walkers and Breeze Ladrian fight to a draw at 15:24 of 3rd period Carson Walkers ejected from game at 15:24 of 3rd period @Kelsier beats man up and then gets him kicked out when he comes for seconds, 10/10 shithousery Nils Friedriksen enters game at 7:01 of 2nd period Kevin Malone enters game at 1:12 of 3rd period lmao chased London's goalies twice in the same game

2-time cup champ too cuz fuck STHS

This always pleases me.

2nd line went OFF on one, nice. General Fight at 15:56 of 1st period Robin Winter beats up Cole Newhook at 15:56 of 1st period Taro Tsujimoto beats up Ryan Schwarz at 15:56 of 1st period Roque Davis and Bobby Wyman fight to a draw at 15:56 of 1st period Roque Davis ejected from game at 15:56 of 1st period Lmao we are terrible fighters.

First of all, I would like to thank Poptart for his Hall of Fame article submission for Ivo Willems (Green/OrbitingDeath) which I will be combining with this one in the HOF itself. The fact I'm adding more words on top is not a slight on Poptart's work, just that the traditionalist in me wants to add the usual Builder blurb to align the article with the rest of the entries – a sort of personal touch which comes from being in the league for a bit longer. Of course, trust Green, the perennial sim league overachiever, to get two Builder articles instead of one. I say overachiever very tongue in cheek of course – he's put in the hard work and has seen it pay off not just in the VHL but across multiple sim leagues and multiple sports. I am no expert in the matter, having been VHL-only for well over half a decade now, but I suspect Green is the most prolific modern sim leaguer by a fair margin, with his body of work (cups, trophies, Hall of Famers) across all the various leagues surpassing anyone else. But let us take a step back to his VHL beginnings first. Green, as he was known for most of his sim league career, first joined the VHL for the S31 entry draft, on the eve of the league's first expansion. The VHL wasn't his first entry into hockey sims – his SHL player Ivo Willems had already made quite an impression in that league's first decade. In that sense, Green was not particularly unique as much of the VHL's recruitment from S18 onwards centered around attracting SHL members and it stayed this way all the way through the 40s, at which point recruitment dried up entirely. SHLers came in all in shapes and sizes – for some it was a side gig, several members ended up being converted to primarily VHL members. A number of hyperactive folk tried to tackle both leagues with the same level of activity and burned out very quickly to the point where I'm not sure I've seen them in either league for many years. Green appeared to be towards the latter end of the spectrum and he took to the VHL without any SHL-centric prejudice, but it would have been impossible to say how long this would last. Remy LeBeau, his first VHL player, was a highly-rated goalie in S31, a solid draft which was part of the reason the commissioners' team of the time felt the league was ready for expansion. Despite the obvious goaltending needs of both Quebec and Cologne, for a variety of reasons LeBeau fell to sixth overall and the Toronto Legion, a move which would greatly benefit both player and franchise. I won't dwell too long on LeBeau or any of Green's other player careers – Poptart put together a wonderful list of accolades which I will include below which summarise just how good his VHL players have been. LeBeau made the Hall of Fame, as did his next two players, and within a few weeks of this article being posted, we all know Condor Adrienne will too. Thomas O'Malley is of course the most famous of these, a player with 339 TPE by the time of the S40 draft (this in the 9 TPE weekly cap days) who very much lived up to the hype and is the consensus second greatest player in VHL history (even higher among the Scotty Campbell sceptics). Going back to that SHL connection, Green/OrbitingDeath isn't the only SHLer to make the VHL Hall of Fame but he is one of a very small contingent to be inducted as a Builder. He's put in a lot of time into the league, has seen it pay off in a big way, but has also given back a lot too, as for instance a lot of O'Malley's TPE came from Green being one of the leading recruiters of the late 30s and early 40s VHL. There was no well-oiled recruitment machine in those days and the individual efforts of someone like Green should not be underestimated. Would we still be around without the members brought in back then? It's best to leave that as a hypothetical question. As a final point, but no less important to me as someone also based in Europe, OrbitingDeath is in fact Dutch. Now I don't know any other Dutch hockey sim leaguers and if we wind the clock back to when he joined both the SHL and VHL, I don't believe there were that many members outside of North America in general and certainly outside of other English-speaking countries. That's changed quite a bit since – we've seen a large Latvian sim league contingent move to English-speaking leagues and many other Europeans to boot. But Green was a pioneer in many ways and achieved all that he has while breaking down that cultural barrier. It makes it fairly obvious with that background why he was a unanimous addition as Builder in S73. @Poptart's article below: @OrbitingDeath

At least now we know the cause of your ills is using dark mode on the forums. And Ahma of course. Sounds like he won't be on the team next season so I'm putting all my life savings on a Davos championship.

A rare Rara shutout and 3 points from 4 for Moscow. We'll take it.

After taking a season off from inducting anyone to the Moscow Hall of Fame, we are going to make up for it by inducting two players simultaneously. This honour has only been bestowed on 4 Menace legends - Randoms, Dan Baillie, Smitty Werbenjagermanjensen, and Jet Jaguar - to date, but at the end of S75, two lifetime Muscovites announced their retirement. How can you possibly choose between two players of this calibre, a skater and a goalie, a late round steal and a first round pick, a captain and a playoff MVP? You can't, so let's honour both of these inseparable staples of Moscow's young history and fellow S70 Continental Cup champions. The first is of course our captain of the last two seasons - Nate Telker. It's a name that would have rung no bells when he was picked deep into the 3rd round of the S68 draft, but Telkster didn't let that stop him - in fact, he used it as motivation to break into the VHL by S69. From a lower profile role on the championship-winning team to evolving into one of the team's leaders after a slight retool in S72, Telker finished his career 5th on the franchise leaderboard in points and 1st in both games played and points in the playoffs. We may have fallen short in Telker's prime, but it was not for lack of trying. @Telkster While Telker took the longer route to stardom, fellow S68 selection Raymond Bernard was under pressure from day one. Moscow had gone through 4 goalies already in just 3 seasons by the time Bernard was drafted and the clock was ticking to find a franchise goaltender. It was initially a choice between Bernard, A Red Guy, and Samuel Ross, but the other two both went before our draft pick and what a stroke of good fortune that was for the Menace. I think an even greater recognition is just around the corner for Bernard - 2x top goalie, 1x regular season MVP, and 1x playoff MVP - but for Moscow he is a Hall of Famer regardless of what the league decides. We haven't missed the playoffs since Bernard became the starting goalie and he delivered most of the time we made them, while being the heart and soul of the locker room. @Mr_Hatter And as always, thank you @gorlab for the graphics.

My VHFL team approves.

Kept my save percentage above .900 and Moscow win, that's what we like to see.

Who's this Rasputin guy, he seems pretty good.

Tune

17 goals in 3 games, what a sim boys, esp for captain Letang

Also tbf Payne was probably the worst Boulet winner. Especially two time winner

Finally #landryship

Unbelievable disrespect on two time Boulet winner Peter Payne and also the legendary nagger. Also I stan Scotty Campbell. Disappointed at no Chershenko mentions for playoffs

Y'all missing out on a classic.

No, oki is actually all over the discord LR, but this is probably a key reason for Newhook's activity. Forever blessed that Prague took King with the pick right before. PIETRO PIETRO PIETRO

@Members https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSekxqVjdGFPirJrGDwWt-T5JGrcmVUaflm254Hx3C_92GcTKA/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.

@MSO94stepping up to the plate! Meanwhile Rara keeps blowing hot and cold.

Dayum Schwarz went off on one. Schwarz and Jones also with a point to prove against London.

doesn't sound real when you say til S81

I mean the 'at an old age' is a tough call in the VHL when pretty much every HOFer is still really good in the 8th season. So you'd be looking at most cups so Leeroy Jenkins or Black Velvet? I guess Velvet makes more sense as a 'QB' + threepeat = Patriots kinda maybe? (I don't know your weird ass sport). So let's boost @Higgins' ego a bit.

G - Jimmy Spyro @jpsd you have 12 hours to make your final 2 picks

Poor LA