Kesler

One quality haikou.

Players go to teams
This is where you think they are
Probably right on most
 
^That is a haiku^

Aint no Vasteras tho

S58 Dispersal Mock Draft

 
With the contraction of Cologne and Stockholm and the removal of conferences, the VHL will be in a very different position next season.  Not only will the league have two fewer teams like it did before Season 30, but the players of those two teams will be picked up by the eight remaining teams in a dispersal draft this offseason.  The order has been randomly generated and the draft is being conducted behind closed doors, with the results likely being revealed this coming Tuesday.
 
So for this article, I’ll be doing a dispersal mock draft (which I assume you could tell by the title) for the 2 extra TPE.  Admittedly, I haven’t been keeping up with the league as much due to finals week and a lull in interest, so I don’t know exactly how accurate this will be, but it at least makes sense to me after looking at player pages and team rosters.  So without further ado, here it is:
 
1.  New York Americans - (S57) C Chase Keller, 423 TPE
Keller and Gretzky are probably the two top players available in the draft.  Keller might be a better fit for New York, who are one of the league’s younger teams.  Gretzky still hasn’t hit regression, but 3 years is a big difference in the VHL.  It’s possible they could theoretically go for the more experienced Gretzky here, especially since they seem to be really stocking up for a cup push next season, but Keller is difficult to pass up.
 
2.  Seattle Bears - (S54) C Shawn Gretzky, 607 TPE
Seattle already has three centers on their roster.  But Gretzky is clearly the best player available at this point (and some might argue the best player in this draft in general), and the Bears don’t have any need for a goalie or a mid-first round pick.  With New York and Toronto both looking strong for next season and Riga and Helsinki likely still competing, Seattle will be looking to add another solid player to help them out.  With Aleksei Federov and Fabio Jokinen in defense already, Gretzky adds more star power to the Bears’ forward group.
 
3.  HC Davos Dynamo - (S57) G Shawn Brodeur, 324 TPE
Seems like the writing’s on the wall with the trade of DeGrath and the retirement of Burger King.  Davos is a young, rebuilding team that is now without a goaltender, so this is a perfect fit.  This gives Davos a great start to their rebuild, as finding the right goalie is usually the hardest part of rebuilding.  This pick allows the Dynamo to start building in what may be the easier positions to find.
 
4.  Toronto Legion - (S53) C Marc-Alexandre Leblanc, 537 TPE
Leblanc might take a bit of a hit from depreciation next season, but Toronto is competing and Leblanc is a useful player to have that could add to their offense.  For a lot of other teams, a first round draft pick might be more useful - either as a piece to trade or simply to use in the draft, but Toronto will be looking to compete for the cup this year so Leblanc will be much more valuable to them.
 
5.  Quebec City Meute - S58 COL 1st
At #5, the Meute probably weren’t expecting to get an elite young player like Keller or Brodeur, so a draft pick is their best bet.  And here they get the best draft pick available in the dispersal draft.  With Apollo Skye entering his final season, Diana Maxwell retired, and most of the key players in Quebec’s competing seasons traded away, the full rebuild is just starting to kick into gear.  Cologne’s first round pick in the next draft, which is going to be 5th overall, gives Quebec the opportunity to pick up a solid young player for their rebuild to go along with Marcel St-Laurent, Keaton Louth, and the various pieces they picked up this offseason.  This pick could prove crucial in the Meute’s rebuild.
 
6.  Calgary Wranglers - S58 HSK 1st
This is where things start to get less clear (although I don’t know how accurate the previous picks were).  There are some solid players still here, but Calgary are rebuilding and a draft pick (albeit a late one in a kind of weak draft class) will likely be worth more to them than a player that isn’t a star.  They wouldn’t be getting anything outstanding with this pick, which is why I’m unsure about this prediction, but they already have the first overall pick and some decent young players so a young depth player isn’t bad at all.
 
7.  Riga Reign - (S53) RW - Motherfucker Sharpe, 504 TPE
Sharpe is from the same draft class as Leblanc and has only 30 fewer TPE, but the build and the two prior teams in the draft order make a difference here.  He’s very much focused on hitting and fighting over passing and scoring, but at this point he’s easily the best player available.  Sharpe can still be a player for an already-solid Reign team that will be looking to build on last season’s Continental Cup victory. 
 
8.  Helsinki Titans - (S56) RW - The Process, 204 TPE
Helsinki’s kind of in a weird spot here.  They’ll still be competing next season - they have too many good players not to - but at the same time they got unlucky in the dispersal draft order here and they’ll be losing Theo Axelsson to retirement, leaving Franchise Cornerstone and Rudolph Schmeckeldorf to shoulder the offensive load - not to mention the retirement of Maksym Barnyashev leaves them in a tough spot with defensemen.  At this point, there isn’t much value left.  A defenseman like Aeschylus Jigglejawns CXXXVIII or Ho Lee Fook could be an alright pick as they have the potential to come back and start earning TPE at a more consistent rate, but right now they’re only 100-TPE VHLM players.  Jake Scheel and The Process are the two best players left, and of those two The Process is probably a better pick - Jake Scheel has been inactive for four months now and is a center (which the Titans already have three of), while The Process is a season younger, a winger, and could earn more TPE.
 
(for Morozov, this is ~1,000 words so I'll be claiming it for the weeks of 12/4-12/10 and 12/11-12/17)

Will try and get this done tonight. 

Welcome boys  This team gonna be lit in a couple seasons.

Quebec Receives:
David Kiaskov
 
 Davos Receives:
S59 Que 2nd
QUE 2nd in S58 Dispersal Draft
 
Welcome @Exlaxchronicles
 
@Tyler
 

Wow this is some fucking bullshit, I accept. 
 
Never been a Legion before.

Oh man, thats unfortunate. But I will stand with your direction. I wish I could've helped this team win another cup or atleast spend a couple more seasons aha. But it looks like I've already been dealt  

Wow this is some fucking bullshit, I accept. 
 
Never been a Legion before.

ah damn I was so close!

ESKETIIIIIIT!!!!!!

Oh lol, I misread that, sorry.

To
NYA S58 2nd round pick
 
To
Rhett Degrath
 
@STZ
Trading one of the best goalies but he just doesn't fit my window sadly. Nice to get a valuable asset for him. Cheers.

Welcome to the Muete @Frank  Glad to have ya.

Get told to stop posting about contraction in the BOG because I was "wasting my time" and I was "in the minority".
 
4 Months later, league contracts.
 

 
Anyways good job admin team, hopefully this can be the start towards getting this league back to its peak!

S58: REVERSAL OF EXPANSION
 
For some time now, the league has been exploring the idea that the VHL would be a better place with only 8 teams. This is not a new idea - many members, even some admins, have questioned whether or not expansion was justified dating back all the way to when it was implemented. Of course these questions were subdued during most of the VHLs life as a 10 team league as it did seem to work for some time. However over the last while in the VHL these questions have surfaced more and more often as the logic and reasoning behind them became more and more apparent.
 
As much as possible, we wish for this not to be a sign of weakness - a primary concern expressed by some people with this plan. The way we are looking at it is that dropping the league to 8 teams will be whatever we make of it. We believe that increasing roster sizes and increasing competition will increase engagement and activity in the immediate term, making the VHL a better environment. Combining this with other changes announced, as well as all of the fantastic suggestions we received from members during the drive (which I promise are being looked at, we've just been busy with this), and we think the VHL can be a much better place right now. 
 
Beyond that, it will be up to us to build on that foundation. @Devise is still working on organizing a permanent recruitment team, and I know there are plans in the works to start up aggressive recruitment drives with what I hope will be great incentives. We also have to commit to keeping up with things like the reddit campaigns, and most importantly exploring new avenues of recruitment, which we will do. The donations made by VHL members also must start being well-spent in the area of recruitment as it is truly the #1 thing we can do to improve the league. This is a time where we need real effort and attention going into recruitment from us as the leaders of the league, but we hope as many people as possible will join us as if even a small fraction of us bring in a new member, it could make a significant difference. All of these changes - going down to 8 teams, no more 2 players, ect. ect. - must be considered improving the situation for when new members get here. If they aren't, that is when a change like this becomes a band-aid. 
 
Apologies for the side-barring but I wanted to be perfectly clear as to how the league is optimistically looking at this change. Now let's get into the specifics. 
 
The Teams
It was very difficult for us to determine the teams that should be removed. After a lot of consideration, we have decided those teams will be the Stockholm Vikings and the Cologne Express. However, the Stockholm roster will not be dispersed. Effective as of this post, the Calgary Wranglers and the Stockholm Vikings swap ALL assets, players and picks. Bushito is the new GM of the Calgary Wranglers. Stockholm, along with the former Calgary roster, will be removed. 
 
We are doing this because Calgary has been without a true GM for sometime ( @Bring Back Chat deserves much credit for sticking it out during a busy time of his life) so it makes sense to disperse that roster and leave at least one other GM/team in the same position it was in. 
 
We regret that this couldn't happen for both GM's. Advantage has a long and respected history of GM'ing in this league, and the fact that he is a causality here is hardly an appropriate acknowledgement of that. As we've told him, we're certainly willing to offer him the next available team and do whatever we can to make up for this. We truly struggled coming to this decision. As Advantages GM player hasn't come to his draft class yet, he will be entered into the S58 VHL Entry Draft as a regular player. 
 
The Dispersal Draft
All current players, prospects, and RFA's of the removed teams will be placed in a special dispersal draft. The draft order will be completely randomized as a list. There will be no special weighting so every team has an equal shot at top picks. This draft will begin today, prior to the actual VHL draft and free-agency - due to that time constraint we are not going to do the draft live but rather in the GM forum and then it will be publicly posted. 
 
All players on rookie contracts drafted will have their contracts carried over in its entirety to the team that drafted them. All other players drafted will be signed to a 1-season contract with the team that drafted them, therefore allowing them to re-negotiate it or choose not to. 
 
Any active player set to be an FA will continue to be a UFA. Any inactive player set to be an FA will be in the dispersal draft. 
 
League Structure
Removing two European teams destroys the current Conferences in the VHL. Therefore, next season will be one world conference. This was actually something we were thinking about anyways before we decided to this, for the purposes of playoffs to address the often large disparity between conferences. And given that the scheduling doesn't take into account conferences, this actually changes very little - however we are going to change the playoff format. 
 
The top 5 teams will compete in playoffs. Round one will be a wildcard round between the 4th and 5th teams in the league to determine who makes it to the Semi-Finals. The next 2 rounds will carry on the same as they always do. Draft lottery will be the same, among the 3 teams who missed playoffs entirely and the team who was eliminated in round one. 
 
Of course it is kind of silly to have 5 NA teams and 3 EU teams. I'm hoping we can turn finding a solution to this into a fun event for the community, for example having a special PT for coming up with solutions. There's been some suggestions in the BOG like moving the EU teams to NA or moving an NA team to EU, but we want to see what everyone else would like the league to look like. So all that being said, we will be very open to proposals of relocating or re-branding going forward. 
 
Draft Picks
The only picks that are of issue are S59 COL or CGY picks belonging to other teams. Teams owning these picks will receive fair compensation in the form of an S59 draft pick at some reasonable point. S58 CGY or COL picks belonging to other teams will be in their expected position. All picks owned currently by Cologne or Calgary themselves will cease to exist. Any S59 STO picks currently belonging to any team will become S59 CGY picks. 
 
Other Notes
The salary cap for S58 will be $33 000 000, representing a 1M increase over S57. While it's possible this is not necessary, we are abruptly removing $64M worth of cap space in the VHL so we're doing this as a safety measure and we will re-evaluate it next season once things stabilize. 
 
That's pretty much it for now. I'm probably missing something but there will be more announcements soon as the draft order and draft results are published. The regular off-season will also be getting underway shortly and we hope to have some special TPE opportunities coming up. 
 
~VHL Commissioner's,
Beketov / Devise / Will

This is it right here, we need to bring back fucking chat. 

This is it right here, we need to bring back fucking chat. 

This is it right here, we need to bring back fucking chat. 

This is it right here, we need to bring back fucking chat. 

Call me a hypocrite because I can't think of any ideas outside of ones in other leagues, but one thing I have always found frustrating with this league is the lack of opportunities to earn TPE. From what I can tell the only weekly opportunities are:
Media/Graphic/Podcast/Welfare VHL.com Article/Podcast Job Pay And the VHLM practice facility is offered to VHLM players as well.
 
There isn't enough variety. You have 3 tasks to do each week, potentially just 1, if you don't have a job, or got advanced pay from an article or graphic. While I like the concept of being able to write one giant article for 4 weeks pay, that just decreases activity even more. If we had more activity here, I would be all for it, but I really don't think we can afford to allow people to write one article a month, for full points. I have no idea how many people exercise this option, but if just 5 people do, that is 5 articles in one month, rather then 20, must they produce one each week. 
 
Another problem with the lack of variety comes with no way to earn max points in a given week, for some members (specifically newer members). If you don't have a job, which I'm sure is a decent amount of the members here (again, having just come back, I have no idea how many), it is impossible to earn 9/9 capped TPE. IF you do a PT for 6, and a podcast for 2, that gives you 8 capped TPE. Not to mention the fact that a lot of people don't like to record themselves, and as such, will avoid doing podcasts. Thus, you have members without a job getting a max of 7/8 capped TPE. 

I think adding a couple more weekly tasks that give you 1-2 capped TPE, could generate a lot more activity, as everyone will be able to earn the max of 9 capped TPE in any given week. People that claim welfare (whether it is 2, 3, or 4), will also be able to make more in a week, and I've noticed we have nearly 20 members on welfare. Maybe if those members on welfare could do a couple more smaller tasks each week, they would get more engaged in the site.
 
We need more tasks that give the people something to do. Having potentially just one task (which is either a 150 word article, or a short podcast), isn't enough to make people want to check in everyday.
 
This is a bit of a mess, and it might have been brought up before, but again, I just got back, so sue me. 

If we cut Calgary and Stockholm thats about 14 players to divide up over 8 teams. Plus the ones on the fence in the VHLM, you have two new players for each team. It's a start and putting our efforts towards that would be best, instead of arguing over whether we go down to 6 teams so quickly.