Peace

It's late in the week so I apologize for the delay. 1. Toronto has scored 198 goals so far this season. This is good for third in the entire league... how do you feel about that? 2. Toronto currently sits sixth in goals against. How does this reflect our defensive efforts? 3. Hextall is one win away from 200 career victories with the Toronto Legion (and his career). What team do you think we defeat for win #200? 4. How many more fights do you think Lester Green will participate in before the end of the season? 5. Who is the next player to get a game misconduct? 6. If you were stuck on an remote Island and could choose a member of the Legion to be stranded with you.. who would it be? @McWolf @Smarch @osens @BOOM @NickSunderbruch @Rayzor_7 @rjfryman @Webberj@Poptart @fromtheinside @DoktorFunk @Juice@ROOKIE745 @hedgehog337

Toronto... In season seventy four the Legion made a surprise appearance in the NA Conference Finals against the Vancouver Wolves after defeating the Seattle Bears 4-1 in the previous round. In our reality Toronto fell in a long seven game series to Vancouver, losing game six 3-2 and game seven 3-1 respectively, and actually lead the series 3-2 before those two games... obviously. Toronto's offense died at the most unfortunate time and that wound up guaranteeing Vancouver's spot in the Continental Finals, however it's fun to think about an alternate reality even if it is just a fun mind game. The sixth game between the two clubs was tied 2-2 in the third period for just under two minutes before Vancouver pulled ahead once again, and despite the Legion battling back from a 2-0 deficit with nearly all the momentum... the game was already over and no one realized it. But what if Toronto pulled ahead 3-2 before the Wolves' third goal? In reality Oh Sens shot the puck on net and Spyro made a save with no rebound, but in this scenario the solid Vancouver goalie couldn't control the puck and it bounces back towards the now evolving play. The rebound slides towards one of the faceoff dots and Raleigh Ritchie slaps the puck back to the blue line. Fredrik Elmebeck releases a snapshot towards the net and it's deflected in by Chad Magnum to give Toronto a 3-2 lead, the momentum swings even further in favor of the Legion and by the time the third period whistle blows the score ends 4-3 in favor of Toronto. The Legion register an empty net goal with Spyro pulled, and twenty seconds later -- also with Spyro pulled - Vancouver draws within one but it's not close enough. There is no game seven and the Toronto LR is going crazy. God I remember the actual disappointment of game six and seven we all experienced, it was a demoralizing event so I can only imagine how electrifying the LR would have been if we had made the finals that season. We've won game six and have taken the series 4-2, and now we're on our way to the finals and the club couldn't be more excited. It's the first finals appearance for Toronto under GM Peace and the team has a lot to prove. As a club they took out Seattle 4-1, defeated Vancouver 4-2 and now face another challenge. Helsinki is a tough team and Toronto went 2-2 during the regular season with them. Since STHS likes to just auto-generate numbers it seems I used the good old Google number generator for both SOG and scores... let's see how Google likes us! First number is home team and the second away for both goals and SOG. Game one ends in a 5-3 Helsinki victory over Toronto despite the Legion outshooting the European team 47-39; game two is much closer, a 3-1 Titan victory with a goal on the empty net, and a stronger offensive effort as they outshoot Toronto 54-32; game three goes to Toronto as they skate away with a 5-1 victory over the Titans and dominate the shot clock 42-21; game four is a 5-4 back and forth affair for Helsinki, who climb ahead in the series 3-1 with this victory, although the shots are nearly even at 33-31 for Toronto; game five is a strong 3-0 shutout by Hextall who keeps his club alive despite Helsinki dominating the shot clock 47-19; game six is the dagger in Toronto's hopes as the Titans' win the championship off a 4-2 victory over Toronto, once again dominating the shot clock 44-27. Well it seems like the Google number generator has given the Titans' their cup but had this been the real finals... I wouldn't have been disappointed honestly. In my opinion this has been a fun little theme week, I've been thinking about S74 a lot with Toronto's S77 playoff implications and always wondered what would have happened if we had won game six. I don't know how the series against Helsinki would have gone, but I'm optimistic we would have fought them fairly well. We slayed Seattle and would have defeated a young Vancouver team, and while we would have absolutely been the underdogs in a matchup against the Titans... stranger things have happened in the playoffs. As a VHL GM this is as close to the finals I have gotten and I am determined to get back there. I understand so are fifteen other VHL GMs so I'm hoping I've built Toronto well enough to contend long after S77 has concluded... and hopefully we see Toronto do well in the playoffs this season and into the future.

Interesting article! Thought maybe I'd put in my experience a little, but I don't want to seem like I'm high jacking the thread or anything. I found during my time as a VHLM GM that scouting wasn't really required, and quickly discovered that it was more or less just something fun we could do to get people engaged a little more. My VHLM GM tenure was from S63-S69, so I never really had to scout the prospects that were released for the VHLM Dispersal Draft. It didn't help that my strategy was to go all out every three seasons and try to win a championship for the roster and the individuals who were moving up to the VHL. But I learned as a VHL GM that scouting was more important than I realized, especially after the leagues' activity exploded. My first couple of selections were okay -- despite them going inactive on me due to IRL reasons -- but I certainly made a few blunders before I understood what I was doing wrong. I drafted a few players that other GMs already knew would never make the VHL for one reason or another, and had I put the time into scouting I would have discovered that as well. Since those hard learnt lessons I've put a lot more effort into scouting at the VHL level.

We did it! I may have jynx'd us though... 1. A win... finally! What can we learn from the 8L streak we endured? 2. The lines were shaken up, promised to players regarding lines and ice time were broken, so was the W worth it? 3. The EU Conference has been destroying Toronto. What do you think we can do to improve ourselves? 4. One of our dominating wins was a 8-3 W. Did you enjoy that game... was it fun to participate in? 5. On a scale of 1-10 where was your panic level during the 8L streak? 6. Do you think we can climb back up the NA Conference? @McWolf @Smarch @osens @BOOM @NickSunderbruch @Rayzor_7 @rjfryman @Webberj @Poptart @fromtheinside @DoktorFunk @Juice @ROOKIE745 @hedgehog337

LONDON, UK -- Erik Killinger's time with the London United has been challenging on both a personal and professional level; personal due to the distance away from his family who opted to remain in Canada, and professional primarily due to his struggles with the British hockey club. Killinger came from Toronto after producing 81 and 90 points respectively in his final two seasons with the Legion, which included a dominating playoff performance in S74 that was cut short when his team was defeated in seven games by the eventual cup champions (Vancouver). Expectations were high for the climbing defender, but the reality was somewhat disappointing. Two seasons with the United later and he never rose above his stats with his previous team, scoring 77 and 76 points in the next two seasons with the United. But it appears as if the Canadian defender is back on track. His 46 points in 36 games is good for second place among all VHL defenders, and his frequent blueline partner Kasper Kankkunen currently leads the league in points produced from a defensemen. The duo haven't played the entire season together, in fact they're currently split apart, but they're periodically on the ice with one another be it 5 on 5 or not. Regardless of when he plays alongside his fellow United rearguard, whatever the teams is doing has motivated and energized Killinger, so to put it simply 'it seems to be working'. Killinger didn't make any comments on his improvement, but was noted thanking his teammates in a previous statement.

We'll use bleach on the rim, don't worry, that'll solve the problem! (Please don't do that.)

TORONTO, ONTARIO -- The Legions' 2-6-2 record in their last ten games may have some fans worried, but GM Peace has stated behind closed doors that the team can't lose forever and has reportedly told his club to forget the last five games and focus on the next two. The Legion will likely play Riga and Warsaw tomorrow, so it is important for the club to regroup and forget about the current five loss streak they are suffering through. Despite losing five straight games, the NA Conference as a whole has been set back and besieged by the European Conference. The only team to have made any headway in the NA Standings has been Chicago, but they haven't played the European clubs in this specific ten game span. In that time the Seattle Bears and the New York Americans have quietly snuck above Toronto in the standings, but how many games have the five teams in the playoff picture played against their European competitors within Toronto's ten game span? Chicago has played only two games against the EU, defeating the London United 5-0 before falling in a shootout against Prague 2-1. Las Angeles has played seven games against European teams and has similarly struggled against them; they were defeated 6-3 by Helsinki, 8-6 by Prague, 4-2 by Riga, beat Riga 6-1, fell 3-2 against Warsaw, dropped 4-2 to Moscow and were blown out 8-0 in Warsaw for a 1-6-0 record in the window of Toronto's last ten games. As a result the NA Conference is now wide open as three teams are tied for second place, and Toronto has now slipped to fifth. Seattle has had decent success against NA teams -- two wins over Chicago to be precise -- as the previous second and third place holders have struggled immensely over in Europe. The Bears' roster took full advantage of timely wins with conference rivals to slowly close the gap, and in their last ten games have played the EU Conference five times; they defeated Helsinki 5-1, lost to Malmo 3-2 in a shootout, were shutout 4-0 by Helsinki, stunned by Davos 5-3 and finally beat London 3-1. Keep in mind that all of those are within Toronto's last ten games, so they've got a record of 2-2-1. New York has a far different story... they've taken advantage of a weaker schedule strength against European teams but unlike any other team in the NA Conference, New York has been putting up victories against them while teams above them have not. They dropped Moscow 6-3, dispatched Malmo 5-2, fought competitively in a 6-4 loss against Warsaw, pushed London to a 4-3 OTL, defeated Riga 4-3 in the shootout, won 5-2 against Davos in New York, another victory over Malmo, 4-3, and earned themselves an overtime victory against Helsinki, 5-4; 6-1-1 record against EU teams during Toronto's last ten games is very impressive. And finally Toronto... The Legions' struggles after a blockbuster trade have been frustrating for everyone on the roster, but it's compacted and compressed from a very specific reason: Third period struggles. Toronto has dropped far too many games to be comfortable with in the final twenty minutes that the team has started to wonder why they can only play forty minutes. Too many third period comebacks have resulted in a loss, and the Legion are bleeding points from those irritating defeats. Regardless... how have the Legion fared against EU teams? They started off strong with a 3-2 win over Prague, but that's as close to a win streak they got. They were defeated by Davos 3-2 in a shootout, recovered for the final time as they blew Malmo away with an 8-3 victory, and tumbled the rest of the way. 4-2 loss against London, 3-1 loss against Helsinki, 5-4 loss against Helsinki, and a 5-4 loss against London. Overall the 2-4-1 record hasn't helped them none (obviously) and the club has fallen to the wildcard spot. So what is next for Toronto? Drastic line changes, perhaps another trade... ah who knows. Praying to RNGesus and the STHS gods might be the only solution.

Pass the bottle. Whole team needs a morale boost.

He also stole wrote all the HoF articles for a certain time IIRC. lol

So I still need two capped, and while I wanted to talk about this in a podcast, I understood that the next episode of 'WeAreLegion' is still very much in its infancy. I decided last night that instead of waiting around until the trade is more or less forgotten about, I'd briefly talk about my thoughts even if a VHL.com article ends up being a media spot. To sum of the trade for everyone Toronto acquired Hornet, Adrienne and a second pick from Vancouver recently. I sent Anigbogu, Weiss, Upton, a first round pick and a second round pick back to Vancouver in order to find neutral ground in both value and salary cap. Fonzi and I talked for nearly a full day in what I would say were good discussions, but the origins of this trade -- in my opinion -- stretch back to when Beaviss was still the GM of Vancouver and the original target was Sandstrom. Now Fonzi decided at one point in that he wanted to keep his player, I understood as most GMs actively used a now abolished clause to acquire their own player in the draft. Having the opportunity to play for the same team you manage is nice, and clearly you're going to rely on yourself to continue updating. Anyway when Beaviss stepped down and sadly left the league, the trade talks ceased for a bit until I discovered that Poptart was authorized to make moves for Vancouver. Poptart was smart though, he didn't want to commit to a large trade and his foresight may have saved Fonzi from my grubby large hands in the long run. There was a partial deal in place that would have sent a roster player and a pick to Vancouver in exchange for Sandstrom, but it never materialized and the negotiation for value never truly began. The ball park offer was decent though, so it could have happened if history was written a different way and Poptart landed the then open GM spot for Vancouver. About half a week later Fonzi was announced as the GM. I bug him a few times about a trade but the season is early and no one wanted to make moves just yet, which is absolutely understandable so I had no choice but to go with the status quo and just wait for opportunities to arise and at this point the original target was still Fonzi's player. Fast forward to the end of March and I approach the new Vancouver GM after a fresh sim and Seattle's latest trade. I know Toronto is doing well but I figure there is more I can do to get my team to another level, I wrote a media spot about those thoughts separately; original deal at this point was still on the table. This is when Fonzi informed me that he wanted to keep his player in Vancouver -- something I respected -- so the trade negotiations shifted to me asking about the availability of Adrienne. I sense there was a reluctant affirmation primarily due to the time that passed after I asked during what was an active conversation, but he was available at that specific moment in time so I jumped on the opportunity to improve my defense and upgrade away from Upton. (The reason we wanted to upgrade from Upton is I learned he may be quitting sim leagues, and I'm on a mission to win ROOKIE a cup this season. I couldn't have a member of my blueline fall to inactivity.) The asking price for Adrienne was -- firmly stating that this is (or was) my opinion -- a little much initially, but I could work with it. Fonzi said he was open to trading Hornet if I needed a forward and that actually threw a wrench in my plans, so off to Smarch I went to discuss the potential of this trade and how it suited Toronto's needs. We crunched the cap and discovered that we'd have just enough left over for a bag of pucks, but the value just wasn't where it needed to be for Toronto at the time. Proceed to renegotiate part of the trade with Fonzi, he does what he needed to do for Vancouver, and the trade is agreed upon later that evening. And there we go; through my eyes these were very much connected and spanned two GMs and an acting GM. I'm glad the trade was finally complete and now Toronto can focus on moving forward despite a rough sim with the new members of Toronto immediately producing for the Legion and our failure to play a third period of hockey. Have a good day!

Whoa, whoa, whoa. Killinger has a pulse? Thank you McWolf for trusting in me, I'd like to thank my teammates for the support as I recover from whatever Killinger is suffering from. We did it boys, a seven bomb for Devise.

Final claim

Well hello there! New PC for you wonderful people. 1. Toronto just completed a huge trade that brought in Hornet and Adrienne... thoughts? (For McWolf/Poptart: What do you think about the value sent that brought you here?) 2. What has been your favorite game of the season so far? 3. The Toronto Social Club said goodbye to two members of our LR yesterday... how do you feel? 4. SS Hornet somehow had a -20 this season with Vancouver. Care to guess why? 5. Giant and Welch are tied with ten goals a piece. Who do you think reaches 15 first? 6. Green and Sens are tied with seventeen assists each. Who do you think gets the next for 18? @McWolf @Smarch @osens @BOOM @NickSunderbruch @Rayzor_7 @rjfryman @Webberj @Poptart @fromtheinside @DoktorFunk @Juice @ROOKIE745 @hedgehog337

He was my mentor.

@fonziGG lied to me!

@fonziGGAppreciate the trade talks bud! I dunno how I feel about being the one to pop your VHL GM cherry, but someone had to do it. In all seriousness it was a back and fourth but I'm glad we found neutral ground. @Poptart and @McWolf I'm glad to have you both in Toronto. Let's go get that championship!

Just out of curiosity but could this have grown into a problem? I'm not the most popular GM by any stretch of the imagination, I've had my fair share of arguments and drama with select individuals, but I won't hold everything inside until it reaches the point where I feel like I'm confined to my own mind by the opinions of others because of my role as a VHLM/VHL GM. Things get frustrating, hell the league can be frustrating quite often. If you never had a route to vent steam or expel frustrations directly to me, then I feel like I've failed you as a friend.

Rookie VHL GMs: Veteran VHL GMs:

Yeah... I remember too.

Edited away GIF, go ahead and delete this post.

I don't want to cause any drama, but I will say some of the refusals I've gotten make a little more sense now. I appreciate the compliment, Frost. For what it's worth I really enjoyed my time in Houston with Killinger, I'm still in that LR although not overly active.

Huh. I'd say I'm surprised but I'm really not. For the rest of this article... I knew 66 was bad, but I didn't realize just how much was still behind closed doors.

1. I've covered it in a media spot I recently posted, but honestly I think I let my expectations get the better of me now that we're 8-5-2. 2. They all fell like dominoes. 3. I've spiked his water bottle with a very special, homegrown... thing. 4. They've both scored a goal now, so the next question is... who gets to 20 faster. 5. 40%? I expect better from the legendary Rayz player agency! (I really don't, I'm happy to have him on the team.) 6. Life is uh... boring, damn bloody pandemic.

TORONTO, ONTARIO -- The Legions' season has officially begun; the seemingly decade long off season has finally concluded. An 8-5-2 record off the season start seems decent on paper, but the reality behind Toronto's early record has the GM of the club scratching his head trying to figure out what has gone wrong. While the season may be early there is a lot to like about how the team is playing. Here are some examples; Toronto's blue line is hyper active at the moment, producing more points than any other defensive core in the league; the Legions' offense is moderately comfortable at second best in the VHL, and just one goal behind league leaders Chicago; and frankly Toronto features one of the more restrictive defensive pairs in the league, landing forth in shots against... however there are early signs of struggle by the Toronto Legion. Wait... did you say Toronto has the most productive blue line? Yes, actually, we do... The Legion have received a massive contribution from their four defenders and GM Peace is both extremely thankful for it and completely surprised about it. Jolly Green Giant, Scotty Kaberle, Kristof Welch and Kate Upton have acquired a combined 65 points from the blue paint this season (so far). It's one thing to claim this, and quite another to show you, so here are the defensive points from other teams: London's defensive core has produced 45 points, Helsinki's blue line has produced 43 points, Vancouver's four defenders have contributed 52 points, Riga's developing defensemen have chipped in 41 points, Seattle's veteran defensive core has earned 42 points, Warsaw's dangerous blue line has 52 points, Chicago's group comes close with 64 points, Malmo's lighter crop of defenders have 34 points, Prague's group have produced 39 points, Los Angeles' skilled quartet has 56 points, Moscow's consistent efforts have earned them 50 points, Calgary's younger group has 47 points, New York's rebuilding blue line has 34 points, Davos' has five defenders contributing to 38 points, and finally DC has earned themselves 57 points. So... yes, Toronto has the highest producing blue line in the VHL at the time this article was written. Chicago comes in just one point less than Toronto, but beyond the reining champions no one else comes within being 'practically close' over a small stretch of games. The impressive activity from the Legions' four defenders is... well... impressive, and they've certainly helped their team skate away with a somewhat disappointing 8-5-2 record at the end of the first week of VHL hockey. Full disclosure here: I am the one who thinks the record is somewhat disappointing... not members of Toronto, they're actually quite happy being where we are early in the season considering we failed to make the playoffs last season at all. I don't mean to be negative, but I see some signs that concern me. Noted above I said Toronto has allowed the fourth least amount of shots on goal, yet we've allowed the second most goals in the VHL and that's indicative of an issue somewhere. It doesn't matter if we're playing 5 DEF, 4 DEF, 0 DEF... I can't seem to stop the bleeding, and that's gotten in my head a little since discovering it. I guess the only thing I can say about why I think it's a somewhat disappointing start is because I truly believe this team is capable of more, we're better than the results of some of the games we've had. So yeah... safe to say it got in my head a bit. Anyway, I guess it would be kinda awkward switching back to the original perspective, so from this point on it'll be my thoughts essentially. I do want to cover some of the positive stuff, I'm not a pit of darkness and I've found some enjoyment out of my teams 8-5-2 record. I'm happy that Toronto is improving from where we left off last season and thankful that the drama in the LR has melted away, so I'm enjoying the current crop of users that make up the roster. They're a pleasure to have and I loath the day I have to part with any of them... damn that 40m cap. On another front we've been pretty active in trade discussions early but they've all dried up. Some of them were negotiations, some of them were just discussions, while others were GMs telling me they were waiting for this or that day/scenario to happen. Each one of them is understandable, we've only just begun the season so anything can happen and I understand not wanting to shake up the roster too much. Teams that are on the outside like Riga with rosters that shouldn't be on the outside may rebound into a playoff position by game forty or so, but I've realized something. We need expansion... that's just my opinion anyway, but hey the numbers have been ran, right? I don't think we'd need a salary cap adjustment if the rosters were limited to six forward, four defenders and a duo of goalers. Teams are simply stuffed to the brim and active members on the third line... well they're not enjoying it. I know I wouldn't if I was only getting 9-13 minutes a game! I and many others have the opinion that the VHL should be a 6F/4D/1-2G league. Moving away from this topic, there's not much more I can add. Something further related to Toronto's start is the we have in goal, which is Rookie's Hextall and Hedge's Klamasteris for those of you who didn't know. Hextall just recorded his 400th career VHL game -- all for Toronto -- with a record of 181-167-43. He's got a career save percentage of .917 and a career goals against average of 2.97, he's been a solid goaltender for us and I've covered it a few times already. I just wanted to show my appreciation again my acknowledging the sacrifices Rookie made to stay with Toronto when he could have gone to any other team or requested a trade away from the club to somewhere more competitive. I'm thrilled he's decided to stay with Toronto for his career, and we'll try to get him those 200 career wins he deserves. This season's theme is #WinForRookie for a reason and I'm determined to get him at least one more playoff appearance before Rookie is forced to hang Hextall's skates. Eight seasons just isn't enough sometimes, it just doesn't feel like natural regression when the end product is a forced retirement when the player still has more than serviceable TPA with the potential to continue to bank. Save the record books! I guess that's it for this. If you read all of this... I'm sorry. Maybe I'll be more cohesive next time.