Donno100

1. With our season starting out on the wrong foot, how do you keep your morale high? I just keep on going. Even if the dawn of day looks dark, I still just keep on moving regardless of the despair felt at that period. 2. We have been in some real hard fought games. How do you feel your about your player and his/her compete level? I feel like I haven't been contributing to the team enough and that I'm just taking up a roster spot. I hope I can turn things around and that by season's end, I'll be better. 3. With Thanksgiving coming up fast, will you make time to stay in shape or pig out? Stay in shape of course. I don't really eat much at the table and will often choose to eat afew things. 4. We have some young players really doing well under the circumstances, who sticks out in your mind? No one really. All the young guys are doing the job well and executing nicely. 5. What changes would you like to see on our team, be it players or playtime? Probably changes that help us win more games. It's been a stinky 1st half and it would be nice to pull in people that can help get the job done. 6. What do you like most about our team so far? Whole experimental vibe going on here. I like how we're playing around with ideas and concepts to help our season out and become better and junk.

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139 Helsinki Titans @ HC Davos Dynamo 140 Moscow Menace @ Vancouver Wolves 141 Calgary Wranglers @ Prague Phantoms 142 Seattle Bears @ Toronto Legion

What the fuck is going on right now

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I can't believe I've been renamed by 4Kids.

I'm honestly surprised I made it this far without having made a graphic in weeks here.

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Ryo Yamazuki II was born in the 1990s in a nice part of Japan to two wonderful, caring parents who were in their early twenties. His parents were fairly wealthy from major work within Japan's automobile family and were of traditional mindsets. They were always supportive of whatever he wanted to do, taking him to try all sorts of different sports. Hockey was not a major factor in Japan, but it did not matter; when Ryo saw some hockey players at the Olympics on TV and looked interested, his parents allowed him to try. His parents demanded maximum effort though in everything and could not accept failure, so Ryo felt pressured to excel in everything. He was a gifted athlete though, so he had no problem beating out most other kids his age at other sports. He had a fondness for hockey and wanted to be the best and to eventually join the best leagues in the world. Ryo Yamazuki II plays hockey at a young age with a friend. There weren't many coaches in Japan for hockey specifically, but Ryo worked with skating instructors and mastered speed, agility, and acceleration on the ice. He would play in scrimmages as well as continuing with other sports such as baseball and soccer all the way through middle school to keep up his endurance. His parents were able to take him over to Canada a few times to play with more skilled players so that he could have more competition, and they hired a Canadian coach named Ray Penber one of those summers who taught him his hockey sense and helped him to master his shot. The Canadian players were quite impressed with Yamazuki's skills and were interested in bringing him over to one of their junior leagues, but Ryo wanted to go to school in Japan. That was the place he knew and loved, and where he had grown up; he wasn't ready to leave it. Besides, his parents said they wouldn't go live overseas so he would have had to go by himself in a foreign country, and he spoke only a little broken English and no French at all so he couldn't survive in Canada. Ryo Yamazuki II's coach gives a lecture to learning athletes about the importance of passing the puck. But with money at his disposal and being able to have whatever he wanted, Ryo also developed a bit of an attitude problem. His friends and classmates would describe his as cocky and would support this with the evidence of the constant smirk he walked around with. This attitude carried to the hockey ice as well, which did not thrill his coaches and teammates. They needed a selfless player on the ice, not one who thought he was hot stuff and the second coming of Wayne Gretzky. He even got benched a few times for rolling his eyes at the coach and other sarcastic behaviors. Ryo was a bit of a bully for some time, picking on the younger and smaller kids for not being as presentable as he was or not seeing this game as a gateway to greatness, but he had a change of heart after he made a very special girl named Misa. Misa encouraged him to be kind to others, and not wanting to push her away, Ryo decided to be nicer to others and not be as cocky as he was before. He put all his attention into what he would need for his career, getting an English tutor so that he could communicate with North American scouts and associations. He focused more on his studies and on hockey, eventually starting to play in the JMHA. Not many people scout that league but along with Ryo, there were a few future prospects that could be seen as ringers in that league like Yasuo Mashimo, Hiro Mikatana, and Yoshimura "The Iron Tank" Yoshitoshi, but a few scouts must have heard about him and he started to get offers for colleges overseas. The idea of leaving Japan was daunting and intimidating, but as the star player for the Yokohama Bears, he was about as prestigious as a hockey prospect from Asia could get. If he accepted, he would pave the way for future players from the continent, and what a better way to leave a legacy? Ryo's JMHA team, the Yokohama Bears, celebrates after a win. As Ryo was just starting to play in the JMHA, his parents announced that they would be having another kid and that it would be a boy. Ryo wasn't sure to feel about having a brother and was worried that his parents would no longer be able to focus on him in the same way. His brother would be so much younger that there would always be an age disconnect, over a decade apart age-wise in fact. By the same token, he was worried if he left he wouldn't get to know his little brother at all; Ryo would be a stranger to this new addition to the family. A mixture of apprehension, jealousy, and excitement brewed within him as the time approached. Ryo's parents (Ryo Yamazuki I and Lily Yamazuki) pose with for the camera with their new son, Mitaka Yamazuki It was a lot on his mind, but he tried to just focus on playing his best for the Bears. He didn't feel very at home with the Bears; the team's owner was an emotionless shark that cared little for the well-being of the players and all for the almighty dollar. Ryo knew then that he was done with school and college despite his parents' wishes and that he wanted to focus solely on hockey, and he had an offer to come play in the VHLM. He didn't know too much about it, but he decided to talk it over with Misa. Misa was completely supportive and thought that coming to America was the best decision for him, and said that she was willing to go with him wherever he went. Ryo then accepted the offer, and eventually a few months before leaving Japan, he proposed to Misa. Misa said yes and the two young lovers had a massive, extravagant wedding the week Ryo would end up going to America. Ryo's parents came and got emotional for the first time in his life as he prepared to leave and was heading to the airport, but Ryo promised to come back during the offseasons and other opportunities. His brother was born after he left, and his parents texted him pictures of the baby. He realized that the timing, in fact, could not be better, as, with his departure, his parents would not be left alone and having another son would help them to deal with their firstborn child being gone to a far-away land...

Review: It's a fulfilling and neat bio. As Jack said, there are a few spelling errors that break the story and kinda off puts the reader and along with that, the punctuation is kinda off in some places. An example being the line that talks about Lars getting into hockey, ("Then he saw it Ice Hockye") has no comma that indicates a stop in the sentence and makes it into a run on (Along with the obvious misspelling). I'd that this is a nice story, but what can be taken away from this review is that for future writing, be sure to proofread and fix errors you spot in your work before sending it out.

Review: I enjoyed the breakdown of the two GMs histories and the feelings about what they can bring to the table. Overall, despite being rushed, this was a well thought out and clean topical talk about Expansion. Good podcast.

Review: This is a pretty good bio here, I really like the idea of Zombie George and how the writing in the Chapter "He Lives Again" paints a nice and descriptive picture of the scenery and the events going on in that very scene. Outside of the final chapter, I'd say that this is a pretty good write up for the history of GW and that if I were a teacher, I'd give it an A. Good work.

The expansion draft. So many questions to be asked about everything and everyone involved, but of course, there are past examples to look to. We can presume that each team will get to protect 6 or 7 players, perhaps even less, with the most recent prospects from the last one or two seasons being exempt, so expansion teams should have some decent players to pick from. Guys who have been buried in the lineup, who could be adequate top-line forwards or defensemen. And a backup goalie or two might get a chance to shine of course, always a logjam in goal. Still, every team more than likely will have enough spots to protect their biggest stars, especially if GMs don't count toward the protection slots. The toughest decision will be who to leave out from the list other than the obvious names for each VHL club. There will likely be many close decisions on teams, especially stacked teams. Expansion always hits the top clubs much harder than the bottom tier and rebuilding clubs, or even the middle of the pack teams. The players who are selected more than likely will have had no intentions of leaving their teams; it always comes as a shock to find out you've been left exposed. GMs will be faced with the tough task of getting unwilling players on board even if they make smart selections and massaging some sorely bruised egos. Speaking of the GMs, let's take a look at our new managers. @diamond_ace and @Enorama.Two GMs at the helm for these new teams, I honestly don't know about the GM history of these two (If they have any.) so expansion team results may vary. But while of course, you expect the expansion teams to struggle out of the gate, they could surprise everyone and pull a Vegas. To see one of the two expansion teams in the playoffs wouldn't be shocking at all. The VHL is a league that does not have an abundance of North American teams. So that opens up the possibility of having a team in the USA since there are only two American clubs; cities such as Chicago, Denver, Atlanta, and LA, are among possibilities for major US cities. Adding something exotic like an Asian or Australian team would really differentiate the VHL too; I would love to see a Tokyo team or a Sydney team for instance as it would really shake up the International game. Overall, it's a good thing to be expanding for the league. If you're not expanding, you're not growing, and if you're not growing, you ain't showing. then that signals the league's demise. While it's tough to come to terms with losing players to new clubs after working to build a roster, it's important to remember at the end of the day that the health of the VHL is the most important. There's new members joining our ranks and enough players that there needs to be more room for them to get the playing time they deserve. There will be more competition, and who knows, perhaps someday in the distant future, after many more expansions, the league could be as big as the NHL, perhaps even bigger... Who knows what the future will hold. We'll just have to sit and wait on the expansion train to come and see what's up in the league's climate.

How the fuck did I make it to the top 10? I honestly expected to lose.

1. Nope. My goal is still the same as it was before. Get lots of goals, climb my way up the ranks, and mold myself into a viable VHL player. 2. Palazzo definitely. The guy scores a lot of goals, blocks a lot of shots, and passes the puck around. Seems like an under the radar pick. 3. Nope. It's probably because of the time I spend stretching, warming up, and doing yoga. I practice on my flexibility alongside the essentials of the game. With this, I can push my limits without the fear of breaking down. 4. The Handling Drills. There's nothing I like more than deking the puck between the cones and seeing how fast and how tricky can I get with the dekes. Pretty nice drill. 5. Two things. Sticky Stick and Metal Padding. The Sticky Stick would make it to where the puck stays on my stick and can't leave unless I fling it very hard, and the Metal Padding would make it where the idiot dumb enough to try hit me ends up hurting themselves by ramming into enforced metal that's on my body. 6. A nice homemade Yoshinoya Beef Bowl with Shirataki Noodles and Shichimi Togarashi (Japanese seven spice) for a spicy touch.

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1. How do you think you've been performing this season? 2. Anything on the team seems like it needs work or is the team fully ready to lock and reload? 3. What's the plan for you this season? Any goals you wanna hit? 4. Do you think the team has a chance at being the champs? 5. Pineapple Pizza, Cursed or Blessed?

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