Renomitsu

no managing for me, but i'll pretend to make picks in a timely fashion

1. We have won the series against Chicago! What can you tell us about our next opponent - Vancouver Wolves? They're gonna beat us. Sucks to be from the future where things didn't go so well. 2. Lester Green has stepped up in playoffs, having most points in the team. Who needs to step up in the next series to win over Wolves? Again, we're doomed unfortunately as I come from the future. 3. 5 of the 7 games in the 1st round with Chicago ended with 1 goal difference. Do you think it's a good thing we are keeping it close or bad that we can't pull away or get it done? The latter. Vancouver was clearly superior to Chicago throughout the season - slump or otherwise, bad-natured response or otherwise - and that was obvious during the playoffs, too. 4. What kind of special power would you like? None. "Special power" means "probably going to get caught up in some weird government project," so let me stay as mundane as possible. 5. Which celebrity would you like to spend your vacation together with and why? Emilia Clarke seems like the kind of person who would be great to hang out with, but wouldn't want to do anything crazy extravagant. Let's go with her. 6. Which Guinness record would you be able to break? I like as little publicity as possible, so let's say "the fewest world records broken by a single individual," which is tied about 7 billion ways with 0.

Hi friends! As you may have seen, the Malmo and Los Angeles general manager jobs were vacated with this upcoming offseason. GM is a pretty popular job, doubly so at the VHL level. For some, there's a lot of prestige behind the job title. And I get it -- being a bigwig of the major league team means being one of the faces of the league, so many of the applicants put a lot of importance in being selected. But don't get frustrated or upset if/when you aren't selected. Someone else becoming a GM over you doesn't mean you aren't a worthy candidate, or that you weren't brought up in the conversation behind closed doors, or that the league hasn't noticed all of the effort you've put into your media, graphics, press conferences, or other leadership positions. Consider the size of the league and all of the other wonderful users you've interacted with -- and then remember your friend group, with all of its awesome people, is only a fraction of the size of the site's user base. In short: radio silence isn't an insult to you or a blacklisting. Good luck and congratulations to whoever gets selected to be GMs - but for those of you who aren't - don't give up!

1. We have finished the season in 3rd NA Conference place. We won't have to play in 1st round. What will you be doing in the free time? Sleeping. I need sleep. SO badly. 2. Dragons had 3rd most goals scored in the league, where do you think D.C will rank next season, when Dood will be retired? I'm uh... a little concerned that the team will look very different next season. So let's say 9th? 3. What will be the hardest challenge to overcome in playoffs? Getting through the first series. Take it one at a time - if we screw up the first series there's no second one. 4. What is something you are really good at? Staying up for really long times per day and working lots of hours, I guess. 5. What is the best thing you can remember from your childhood? Weirdly, taking advanced classes in school. I focused a lot on being challenged academically. 6. If you had to choose different name for this league, what would it be? Nerd Digital Hockey League (NDHL).

Toronto, Canada - With just 56 of his team's 68 games played, defender Rusty Knale (a 326 TPA fifth-season player) shot out onto the scene in a massive way -- with 293 hits and 182 shots blocked, good for tenth and sixth in the league, respectively. With such gaudy defensive stats, it's a wonder Knale wasn't picked up and started earlier. It's not unusual for defensive players on bottom-of-the-barrel teams to put up excellent stats, but with no real record of his acquisition, Knale continues to be a baffling part of a miserable Toronto squad. Indeed, STHS seems to be trying to find a way to accommodate the unusual Legion roster, including a 600+ shot Asher Reinhart and 525-shot Matty Fire, each players with an impressive number of aggregated points encompassing 99 of Toronto's 207 goals as a team by themselves. It also begs the question of "where do these players fall in the grand scheme of valuable player voting?," as the league is no stranger to having decent TPE players on awful teams winning awards because the stats have nowhere else to go.

1. Recently we acquired Victor Grachev in a trade, do you think we should do more trades or keep the squad as it is? Probably keep things as they are. I suspect the more we try to change the squad up now, the more it'll cost the franchise in the long run and the less predictable our playoff run will be - which could be good... or very bad. 2. Which VHL record would you like to break? None. I want a very reasonable, previously-achieved milestone: a single HoF player. 3. Which is your best season in the league? Probably a couple of seasons ago when I was on Warsaw and we won the championship. I had a previous player in Apollo Hackett that had an OK final season, but ultimately I got so fed up with zero production season-in and season-out that even winning the championship was meh. 4. We have 3 players in the TOP10 of points leaders, the same as Vancouver. Which Big 3 do you choose? (D.C - Dood, Dear and Welch, Vancouver - Zolner, Reinhart, Tucker) And why? DC, of course. 5. Favorite holiday? I don't know if I have one. I'm not a terribly festive person at baseline. 6. NHL is starting, which team is going to win the Stanley Cup this year? I don't watch the NHL, so we'll go with whoever won the last two titles. I think that was Tampa? Sure, why not three in a row?

Over the last several weeks, we've seen a handful of GMs elect to step down - from diamond_ace calling it quits after he finishes this season out with Prague to (apparently) Hylands stepping back from his role on Malmo, this season seems to be no different. Over the last few seasons, we've seen quite a few long-standing GMs move on to greener pastures, from Victor with Moscow to Beaviss/fonzi on Vancouver and Esso on New York, it'd seem as though just about half the league is going through some kind of leadership transition within the last half-dozen seasons. As I'm deliberating on what to do for Aloe's swan song, I find myself more and more uncertain with whether she'll opt for another go at free agency or stick with one of her old teams. Warsaw is in a clear rebuilding mode, while D.C. is aging into its twilight. But with fewer overall familiar faces in leadership positions in the league and this season being one of my last for a little while, I think finding a locker room with some leadership and players I'm familiar with will be increasingly important. I do hope that the more recently selected GMs stick around for a good while - sim leagues are oft-lacking in stability and VHL has been something of a rock for me for nigh-on a decade now.

1. Groovy Dood is just 9 assists away from reaching Valentino D.C Dragons assist record. Which player will score the goal, that will put Dood in front of Valentino in assists? I don't know. It'd feel weird for Dear to score that goal, provided she's a bit more of a one-year rental than someone Dood has been playing with for a long time. I'd love for Strong or Welch to get that privilege. 2. What is the team, that you look in the schedule and think that - this match is going to be fun? Warsaw. Any time it's a high-powered offense vs. another high-powered offense, especially one that was my former team, I'm always going to find the game a bit more interesting. 3. Dood is retiring after this season, what are you offering to him, so he would stay? The VHL gods take no exceptions. Dood knows it's time for him to go and he's been a monumental figure in the league - I think he's accepted his fate, and to deny him where he believes he's going would be irreverent at best. 4. Do you prefer listening to podcasts or music? Music, personally. But IRL I've been a more music-oriented person from childhood, be it playing or listening. I do still have a healthy number of podcasts I enjoy listening to though! 5. What is your favorite genre of music or what podcast would you recommend to others? (continuing from 4th question) Right now I'm on big-band style pop (e.g. Lake Street Dive, Melt, Couch the Band, etc.), so anything by them really! 6. What languages do you know? English, sign language, some functional (but not fluent) Spanish, and a little Swedish from DuoLingo. I'm unfortunately not multilingual in any meaningful way!

So the theme's "Life After the VHL." But Aloe still has another season left in her career, and I didn't find Apollo Hackett's career to be all that interesting before he won the championship with Riga in his seventh (and final) season, anyways. Instead, I opted to consider what life might be like after the VHL for me, the user – I've explored this topic a couple of times in the past through VHL.com articles, and I'd like to expand on it a little more here. The closer I get to the end of Dear's career, the more at-peace I am with a decision to hang it up in the VHL, at least for a little while. Whether that ends up being one single season or ten, I think I'll need some time off from max earning here – and probably in the EFL, too, though I do feel strongly about the success of both leagues. Ultimately, I'm a single user in a sea of dozens, if not hundreds, for either league, so I don't think any hiatus I take would be of significant (practical) impact to either league. And I've espoused not really wanting to feel the pressure of being a max earner in the VHL for a couple of seasons now. The question then becomes, what does real life look like for me currently, and what do I want to do after Dear's done? I currently work in a hospital in the southeast US as a medical resident. So most of my days – usually 6 days a week, though sometimes there are weeks when I work 5 or 7 – are spent with about 12-14 hours in the hospital or a clinic. I do a little academic reading before and after work in preparation for boards (or a licensure exam in the first year of residency called Step 3, which is specific to this year in my training), maybe catch dinner with a friend or two a couple of times a week and make time every day for a little leisure. Whether that's putting in work for sim leagues, listening to the League of Legends crew play their games, reading novels for leisure, or playing music, I can always find something to do with free time. I'm also intensely introverted, which means by the time I'm done with work, I'm usually all social-ed out; it's even occasionally a chore for me to catch dinner with a friend since I'm so exhausted from speaking with so many people every day during work. What disengaging from the earning-specific aspect of the VHL and EFL does for me is free up some time for me to enjoy other activities, whether that's by myself or with others. I've a backlog of books I'd like to read – particularly John Green's Looking for Alaska and Lisa Delpit's Teaching When the World Is On Fire. Neither are particularly difficult reads, but I've found what I've read of the latter of the two to be particularly rewarding to read provided the recent trends in my country's political environment. In my line of work, being able to engage those in stressful situations in a thoughtful and compassionate way is critical; there's a lot of room for even seasoned physicians to improve in that capacity, to say nothing of someone with the comparatively little experience I possess. I want to make a deliberate attempt to improve my communication skills with those that don't share my specific educational background or childhood socioeconomic privilege. While I do get a lot of enjoyment out of spending time in the VHL and EFL, I think it's time to take a step back and make sure I'm being intentional about the way I use a larger portion of my free time and ensuring – even moreso than the last four and a half years – that I'm becoming the best physician I can be. Thanks for reading.

Washington, D.C. - The top three teams in the North American Conference - Vancouver, Chicago, and Calgary - have cleanly separated themselves from the field, leaving the early upstart D.C. Dragons in the dust. A full 9 points separates the Dragons from the worst of the three, and although they've a game in hand over Vancouver and Calgary, their goal differential since the start of the season has shrunk considerably; despite a 20-16-3 record, the Dragons have been blown out enough that they have a negative goal differential. Individual players are excelling, but it's clear some kind of balancing act is required. The question then becomes, what's dragging D.C. down? Has there been a shift in other teams' lines without a response from the Dragons' GM? Are the Dragons, in their relatively advanced age, just not improving (i.e. banking) while other teams' players are building up? It's not immediately clear why the Dragons have sunk down a couple of spots in the last week's worth of sims, but a change is needed in short order to ensure they don't suffer a flip-flop with the New York Americans in the standings, too.

1. We have fallen from 2nd place in NA Conference to the 4th. How do we turn around this dragon in the right direction? Not sure. We had some good results today overall, and I think we really just need Groovy Dood to be his good old self. It'll be important I carry my weight to ensure that happens. 2. Vancouver Wolves has got only 3 losses in 28 games. What can we learn from a team like Wolves? 99 scr/40 pas is too strong! Just kidding, I know that's a meme from the SHL and why they switched sim engines, but we'll see how they do in the playoffs too. 3. Welch just got 8 assists in 2 games. Which NHL player would you compare him to? Uh... I don't watch the NHL. Is that blasphemous? I don't really follow real-life hockey at all, I just earn TPE. 4. How was your day? It's been okay. I'm exhausted from work, and I'm in the middle of a 12-consecutive-day stretch. 5. If you had a choice, that you could visit any place in space, where would you go? In space? Look, I've got bad enough motion sickness in a car or on a roller coaster. I don't think I could visit any place in space without vomiting my guts out. 6. What is the thing that will always make you smile? Adorable lil' babies! I don't plan on having kids of my own any time soon, but part of my job right now is taking care of newborn babies, so I can't complain.

Review 0/10, can't believe you didn't put D.C. as the NA Conference champions and Continental Cup winners. Jokes aside, you've done a lovely job highlighting key players and team composition for the best teams in each conference, and I really like that you didn't put your anticipated conference regular season winners as both of the conference champions (it gets a bit boring to read the same teams' names over and over again). There are some bold takes in each paragraph, which helps disturb the typical "yep favorite wins everything" or "my team is the singular best and nobody can say otherwise" trend I tend to see with predictions threads. The only comment I have edit-wise is using a colon in place of a semicolon when you gave your hot take in the last paragraph (i.e. "...leads to my hot take: Every game of this series..."),

Review Anything highlighting the M or E gets a thumbs up from me! I do wish there were a bit more coverage on middle-of-the-road, fate yet-to-be-decided second and third round players, but this early in the game any exposure is good exposure. I'm definitely very appreciative of the research you put in - especially considering you're such a new member - and hope there's plenty more from you in the future! For the sake of consistency, make sure you're either capitalizing the relevant categories in a list or don't capitalize - there's no halfway (i.e. Goals, Assists, and Shots or goals, assists, and shots). Also ensure you have consistent capitalization of team nicknames/locations (e.g. bulls vs. Bulls). I think this article flows very naturally in a pattern-of-speech kind of way; so long as it's consistent, I don't mind a few missing articles here or there. Nice work!

tl;dr - I don't know. I'm at a weird point in sim leagues. Both my EFL and VHL players' careers are winding down, though admittedly my DB in EFL has another season after this before regression starts while Aloe Dear's kinda-OK stint in the VHL has a hard end-date: the end of S81. With my RB/WR Charm McClain-Callahan fast regressing despite a hefty amount of banked TPE, I know he's realistically only got a couple of seasons of viability left. I think it'd be a really nice wrap-up to these last 2.5 years in sim leagues if I wanted to end my stint here and now. I've been fortunate to be able to make time for sim leagues since starting my most recent job. And theoretically, with some clinic-based rotations in my future, I could probably make another player and max earn for a while longer - so the door's obviously still open for me to continue. But I wonder how things would be if I could just sit and chat with some people in sim leagues without the (mostly self-inflicted) pressure to max earn. Does anyone else feel this way?

1. Our team is very experienced, with most of our forwards retiring this or in the season after this one. Do you think it's a positive for our chances at Continental Cup? I don't think there's a direct, unerring correlation. Build still matters as much as total TPA does. It does mean our window is short, for what it's worth, and all we can do is make the best of it. 2. Dood and Dear are combining 39 points in 10 games. Can they keep up this great hockey? I think it'll ebb and flow. We'll keep a pretty good rate but it may dip below that for a while. It's not realistic to expect a 4 ppg pace even from two players, even with the knowledge that scoring is up this season for whatever reason. 3. Which 3 D.C players will have the most points when the season ends? Probably our first line, but that's usually the way it is, eh? 4. What is a thing you know but you wish you didn't know? Uhh, there are a lot of facts there but I think @Jeffie43 knows one fact that I know that I wish I'd never seen or thought about. 5. Do you enjoy busy city or calm country side? Busy city. I get a bit restless when there's nothing going on, and I hate feeling unproductive (whether that's in a recreational or work capacity). 6. What is something that you can't stand that other people do? Oooh, I don't want to get political on this one so it's going to be left unanswered. Sorry, press person.

F - Phil The Rock Johnson F - That Dude @a_Ferk

Literally the Entire VHL, Somewhere - Vancouver has 8 wins through 10 games, an entirely unprecedented mark in the history of the VHL; surely some dark sorcery is to blame, and this writer will not take any other explanation as an answer. We took to cold-calling the personal phones of various executives and managers across the league, and here are a few of the responses we got. "Our TPE numbers are larger than theirs, so we should win every game against them," an irate GM was noted to exclaim during an internal league meeting. "I think their team may be the best one the league has ever seen," a definitely not Vancouver-associated administrator commented. "It is entirely unacceptable that this team has any wins against my own, and must be due to an exploit of some sort," another general manager screamed at league officials. Another North American Conference manager didn't mince any words. "They're ass. I accidentally played our backup against them." "Look at how well Malmo started through their first ten games in their second or third season as a franchise and how that ended," responded another, "I think we should make drastic in-season changes based on the data acquired through the first 5 days of sims."

1. We have started this season with 2-0, how can we stay on this path? We've fallen off the wagon a bit with these last two sims, but I think we just need a little time to build chemistry with our new defenseman. 2. D.C has made a lot of changes this off-season. What do you think was the biggest one? I don't know the team very well, so it's hard for me to say. Converting Brian Strong Jr. from a center to a winger was a great move; I think he'll do well there. 3. Groovy Dood and Jiggly Gumballs are going into their last season. What do you think they will do in their retirement days? We owe it to them to give them a good send-off -- but I suspect Groovy Dood will produce some funk, reggae, or blues music for a living, and Jiggly... well, you know. 4. Weirdest thing that you are scared of? I'm afraid of @GeckoeyGecko about 20% of the time. Does that count? 5. What is the one thing that you would like to do more, but can't? Read. I've only read maybe a half-dozen books in the last year or so, but I just don't have enough free time to sit down and read like I used to. 6. If you had to choose one food that you would have to eat for a month every single day for every meal, what would it be? Kale, maybe? Or salmon? I think I'd enjoy eating salmon but I'd probably get tired of the smell of any food after a couple of weeks.

D - Vladimir Mlinski G - Artem Tretiak @a_Ferk

Skipped Ferk since it's been >>12 hrs F - Cabe McJake D - Kristof Welch @a_Ferk you now have two picks to make.

Review While you may have had some woes with your prior media spots, your prediction of Xavier Booberry at #1 was spot-on. It was definitely a bold prediction - it's not often that we see goalies go until a run starts on them based on historical data - but you also astutely pointed out Prague's need for a goalie, as well as an absolute demand for Toronto at goalie in order to return to relevance. All three teams took goalies in the first 7 picks, and you correctly guessed Menace would go in the second round (though admittedly not to Toronto, who'd already acquired a goalie). I think I consider this a clear victory despite slightly different locations than anticipated. Nice work.

But what about chicken nugget emotes!?!?

Review It's ok, I would feel scared of my first locker room if Ricer and Cow were my leaders too! There's so much personality in this article - both in the way you explain the different LR dynamics, as well as what you contributed (or why you came there in the first place - the Sam role is essential and a chicken nugget emoji is chef's kiss.). I'd also like to point out that the Sam role count rests at 7, and the Chicken Nugget Emoji count is 3. This is an unacceptable imbalance and needs to be rectified. From an editing standpoint, I will note that there are several instances where proper nouns should be capitalized (josh zone -> Josh Zone, vhlm -> VHLM, sam role -> Sam role), though I do also wonder if it's intentional for the sake of styling the article in classic Sam fashion. I'd also add that there are ways to improve pacing for individual sentences by adding commas (e.g. I will not lie to you, Ricer was aggressive for literally...). Thanks for giving us a look into your league LR life! You've always been a fun user to have around and I'm not surprised you've had many varied experiences in your quest to become the Sam for most every VHLM team.

Washington, D.C. - After a lot of deliberation (and several other free agency pieces had already fallen), long-time Warsaw forward Aloe Dear finally elected to leave the very team that chose to draft her. She spent 6 full seasons in Warsaw - including multiple Continental Cup series, with one such attempt winning it all. Second to that was her MVP and First Team All-VHL, followed by a Second Team All-VHL this season after the awards announcements just a couple of hours ago. "My time in Warsaw has so, so many stories to tell," Dear said, wistful at times during a recent presser, "and it's frankly strange to think that I won't be on the same team as Dakota. I've never been on a team without him as a crucial leader -- but I think we can both agree it was time for us to part ways as he enters the final stage of his career." "I also wasn't expecting as much interest as I got this off-season, what with two prior attempts at free agency ending with returns to Warsaw," she commented, "I really got offers from all over the place, and it was scary to try and commit to one. So many great opportunities were offered, but I think D.C.'s offer stuck in my head from the last time I was in free agency."

In, but there's definitely no way I have any time to be a manager.