Gudnason

One of them don't belong... I got big dick. -Baywatch reference

Didn't know we had so much Asians!!

What? Blow up a team?

But then Davos just traded a S57 1st to Helsinki... haven't looked to see what else they have. WHAT A OFFSEASON

Don't think NY is trading with Quebec (but don't rule it out) so I guess Maxwell and Sharpe to Davos?!

Oh shit MF Sharpe gone as well for a full fucking rebuild?

Riga offered 3 1sts...

@BobertZ Life as a GM is hard. What do you want to do with V2A's career? No chance in hell I finish ahead of Davos, Helsinki, and Riga anytime soon especially with McAllister heading to Seattle.

King and Power...

@Eggy216 Daring Do!

I understand your points and where you are coming from. I'm not trying to argue, but now instead of saying I'm solely abusing the system, you're bringing into discussion the legitimacy of my recruits. Anyhow, I look forward to a swift and logical resolution to this matter.

Makes sense. Thanks for everything bud!

To me, free TPE for a broken chat room is as much a joke as recruiting 60-year-old seniors who will never log back on again. Let's be honest, you don't think the guy who made the "50 years bitch" banner did it as a joke, or for potential TPE gain? You don't think people applying for the 1 TPE paying job of posting practice facility or posting welfare claims is for TPE gains? If the principle and purpose behind paying TPE for jobs is to encourage and promote activity, it sure isn't doing a good job or its intended purpose, in my honest opinion.

Thanks for the semi-closure. I do know that the point is to recruit new members to inject new blood. I have admitted in the past that this is not my strength. If I knew of any people who I can see VHL being their thing, you can be for sure that I would have brought them here ages ago. It's like people sharing good things, as the VHL has been a great part of my life, and why wouldn't I share if I could find the right people? The VHL isn't something like a good restaurant, where I will tell all my friends about it and they will try it out. Eating is a necessity, and even if it's not exactly a necessity, it sure for hell is a lot more mainstream an activity to do than joining a fictitious hockey league, unless you find the right person. So is the BoG still actively looking for a happy medium? Or has it been dead for a while and no one is working towards any constructive proposals that would both (1) decide on my settlement, and (2) proactively prevent these situations from again happening in the future?

I know, that's why I said I admit it was somewhat shady. But other members have also recruited people who don't ever come back again, and have got rewarded, albeit on a smaller scale.

"Damn a lot has changed since I was here. Guess it's a bit of a risk, but Anderson is the kind of guy who will do 2 PT's every week for sure lol" - Slava Aleksei, S55, Riga Reign locker room The above quote was posted by @Tyler in the locker room last offseason when @hedgehog337 was weighing whether or not to draft Rudi Ying at third overall. His concern came from how active I would be, especially with my other player being a GM player that would benefit my own Cologne Express, and whether or not I would pull a @Banackock and screw another GM over. Unfortunately, I'm not a high schooler anymore with a shit ton of time on my hands. I actually have to sacrifice time from my other hobbies to make time for the VHL. While I always make times for these hobbies, more time for the VHL means less times for other activities. As the seasons and months change in real life, one's dedication, interest, passion, and commitment to various hobbies always fluctuates like the tides of an ocean. With the lull and general deadness of the VHL this past season, my commitment to the league dippied into the valley this past season and there were a few weeks where I didn't even bother to do practice facility, trivia, or welfare. While I always strive to maximize my TPE when my mood is there, there are times I could care less. Not to say I am trying to fuck over Riga, because when I don't do shit around here, I don't even do shit to my GM player (granted I did end up retiring him later). With a work ethic like this, it's hard to make the Hall of Fame, let alone set records of having the highest TPE level at draft time, or creating players that have the TPE levels of Thomas O'Malley, Lord Karnage, and Tomas Tukio. Maybe it's time to lower my expectations, and you know, just play out a season or two in the VHL and outlast @KGR at the bare minimum? At this point, I actually need to re-calibrate and know that I should be thankful if Rudi Ying can be a solid first-line center for the next seven seasons as he plays out his VHL career. Or maybe I will retire him a few years early, so he gets 8% carryover instead of 7% carryover. Because with only 7%, I'll need 1065 TPE with Ying for my recreate to have 75 TPE. With 8% carryover, Ying will only need 932 TPE for his recreate to get 75 TPE. That's a whole 133 TPE less, and 932 certainly seems a lot more achievable than 1065, even if it's just because it's on the manageable side of the elusive 1000 TPE barrier. Maybe then I can aim for his recreate to be a Gabriel McAllister, Lord Karnage or Tomas Tukio. For Birkir Holm Gudnason

Oops, this 590 ended up being longer than the media spots I just wrote.

As the league came up with a host of events and activities to celebrate its tenth anniversary recently, one of the most intriguing promotions I noticed was that "any new recruitment referral [on Tuesday and only on Tuesday] is worth 5 uncapped TPE." This is unique, as usually recruitment drives only offer such large rewards once the recruit has amassed a certain amount of TPE. In cases where TPE is awarded upon player creation, I recall that the compensation is usually only 1 TPE. With such a large opportunity looming, in the five or six days between this announcement and July 18, I had approached a significant amount of people asking for the favour of creating a fictitious hockey player in a fictitious hockey league online, in return for various favours that range from me doing chores for my sister to being a "corrupt piece of shit" by giving one of my subordinates two consecutive Mondays off. With my past reputation of creating multis, the 75 TPE that I earned from this promotion was put on hold at the request of the Board of Governors. While I do not see any rules I have violated, I do admit that this can be considered somewhat shady, as even I was surprised I managed to convince 15 people to create a player. 75 TPE is quite a lot, and I can see how some members may be frustrated at me suddenly having amassed this amount of TPE in one day. First, if I was really making multis as I have been accused of by some, I could have easily made 316 multis over the course of 24 hours, and updated Birkir Holm Gudnason to 99 in every attribute aside from experience. Okay, maybe not as that would mean I would have to make one multi roughly every four-and-a-half minutes for 24 hours straight. Whlie it is easy to maintain that pace, that is definitely not sustainable for 24 hours. Point being, if I wanted to make multis to abuse the 5 TPE bonus, I could have, and would have, easily went beyond 15 players. Second, aside from my efforts, I believe the total number of recruits we got on July 18th can be counted on the fingers of one hand. Both hands AT MOST. Those who are complaining didn't even bring in any recruits themselves. There was nothing stopping them from recruiting their friends, coworkers, or even the most frequent recruit - a buddy from another sim league, who makes a player, and often never shows up again. At this point, all I want is closure. The VHLM has now been updated twice since, and all I've been told is that Corco has been instructed by the BoG to hold off on updating my players. There has been no timeline of any news, nor any communication made directly to me about the progress of such talks. In the mean time, my advice to the league is to not again offer such generous rewards in future recruitment drives. Perhaps instead of restricting TPE to be awarded until a recruit reaches 75 TPE, the first milestone could be lowered to something like 50 TPE. Even such marginal deduction would mean that a new recruit would either have to do the autobiography and rookie profile, or a couple weeks of point tasks before they could reach 50 TPE. A couple weeks is enough time for a new member to immerse themselves into the site and decide whether or not they would like to stick it out for the long term. Instead of 5 TPE at 75 TPE and 10 TPE at 200 TPE, maybe the rewards could be staggered out more. 15 TPE woud still be the maximum one recruit could net you, but maybe 3 TPE at 50 TPE, 3 TPE at 75 TPE, 3 TPE at 100 TPE, 3 TPE at 150 TPE, and 3 TPE at 200 TPE might be worth a look? Oh, and if we do give away TPE again in the future just for player creation, maybe a hard cap would be a smart thing to do. For Rudi Ying

I am now about one season into my role as the general manager of the Cologne Express. While I can be somewhat considered a veteran of the league depending how you look at it, I had never managed a team before prior to being handed the Team World position in the S54 World Cup. Shortly afterwards, I was named the successor to Greg Harbinson as the new general manager of the Germany franchise. While this franchise has had its ups and downs, Cologne was at rock bottom when I took the reins with the cupboards almost fully bare. Contrary to what some people think, I never bragged about how good a GM I was/am. Tanking Yes, I have purposely tanked this past season and yes, I know that all non-playoff teams have an equal 25% chance at the first overall pick as the lottery is not weighted. However, I also know that regardless the result of the lottery, teams can only drop a maximum of one spot in the draft order. Therefore, by ensuring that I finished last in the regular season standings, I also ensured that I would have the highest chance, 75%, of securing the second overall pick; the other 25% chance of course being winning the first overall pick. If I had not purposely tanked, I would not have guaranteed the second overall pick, at worst. With this draft class looking shallower than I personally expected, the difference between second overall and fourth overall is quite significant, in my opinion. Trades I made three trades last offseason and I can only say that I did a good job on one of the three. This isn't baseball where a .333 is considered elite. One of the reasons why my returns were so poor was that I heavily misread the S55 and S56 draft classes. I thought they would be deep drafts both in terms of quantity and quality, but the players that were available for selection at the time of draft heavily disappointed me. Entry Draft vs. Free Agency After seeing how some teams operate, I came to the conclusion that while some teams heavily rely on the draft in the NHL, this is not a sustainable method of success in the VHL due to the ratios between career length, entry-level contract length, and the point of time in the career when depreciation starts. While trades are a good way to obtain talent, you need to give up talent or assets to do so, and Cologne isn't exactly blessed with that. The only way to acquire talent without sacrificing talent is through free agency. The prestige and reputation of a team's general manager plays a big role in the free agent market, and I'll have some work to do before free agents start considering Cologne. Cyclical Nature I never realized the extent of how cyclical the league can be until @CowboyinAmerica posted his series of articles on a team's window of contention. I have great respect for his media spots and insight, along with some other members' work, and it was at this point I truly realized how much I have to learn as a general manager. However, I am an ambitious GM with high hopes in the future for this Express team. I do know that I have a lot to learn along the way before success will come, especially knowing I wasn't handed a team that was anywhere close to in its best shape. For Birkir Holm Gudnason

I made three trades the past offseason shortly after I took the post - first with Calgary, then with Seattle, and finally with Riga. As you can tell from the title, two of the three trades I made ended up for the worse. My first move was trading the first overall pick in the S55 VHL Entry Draft to the Wranglers for seventh overall (New York's first round pick) and Calgary's first round pick in S56. Everyone knew that Felix Savard was the consensus pick for first overall, but at that time, his TPE levels when compared to the rest of the field was nothing like Gabriel McAllister compared to the rest of the S56 draft class. At that time, I rated six other prospects that were comparable to Savard - Dexter Lane, Peter Quill, Rudi Ying, Jake Scheel, Niko Bogdanovic, and Nicodemus Raven. By trading down from first overall to seventh overall, my thought process was that I would still be able to draft one of these magnificent seven. Oh, and I would also pick up Calgary's first rounder in S56, which I expected would be a lottery pick. In hindsight, I totally regret this trade. My second trade was a day later as I acquired Vernon Von Axelberry from Seattle while flipping two other picks with the Bears in the S55 draft. I shipped the aforementioned S55 NYA 1st and 16th overall for Von Axelberry, 21st and 22nd overall. While I had planned on keeping the seventh overall, this deal was too good to pass up when the opportunity to came up. A deal I do not regret making at all, I think this was a big win on multiple fronts. I would have ended up taking Nicodemus Raven with the pick, and the Latvian blueliner has not been seen for the better part of two months. The 21st and 22nd overall picks netted me Drahsolav Detlev and Nino Gisler, which were essential for me to reach the cap floor last season. And Vernon Von Axelberry is a goaltender I can build around for the considerable future. With Markus King looking to leave after his entry-level contract expired, the security that Von Axelberry ensured me made it easy for me to tab him as King's replacement. I get four years of Von Axelberry before he starts to depreciate, and by then, I'll hopefully have a new goaltender with the prestige of King ready to take the torch from V2A. I ended up shipping Markus King to Riga for the 9th and 12th overall draft picks in the S56 VHL Entry Draft. Looking back, although it was quite well known that King wanted out, his trade price dropped quite significantly. While Calgary didn't get the best return for King either when they traded him to Cologne under Harbinson's watch, I'm not quite sure what I was thinking at that time as that it is a horrible return by any standards. It was also a case of there not being much of a market for a goaltender at that time despite King's talent and team-friendly contract. Trade talks between two contenders which I shall not name progressed to a certain point, but with how close those teams were to the cap, it was still tough for them to add King as a backup or 1B starter despite the $2 million salary cap relief exemption for teams with two human goalies. I am thankful that I have Vernon Von Axelberry in Cologne, but the returns I managed to get from Felix Savard and Markus King are certainly disappointing. I will have to learn and reflect from these trades if Cologne is to have any success in the future. For Rudi Ying

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/12iV2-2rMf5lWsmcRxuFkqwM19RffeDL_wGHmFPcteUM/edit?usp=sharing 5 TPE to @mpclardy 3 TPE to @JardyB10 2 TPE to @Laflamme 1 TPE to @Gooningitup @Eggy216 @Bushito