rjfryman

i am down

This next season will be one for the ages. This is Vancouvers last chance to get the job done before having to do a hard retool. HHH and Freeman are still at the top of their games. The defense is also great and ready to go. With MGS moving to defense we will start to see some great things back there. The only worry about this season is really the age of the core. HHH, Freeman,and Jagr are all S66 and even though this line is great the fact that they are getting up their in age is a worry. The defense is set up for a little so they need to find a good forward to help fill the holes in the team specifically in Center. In goal we almost have an embarrassment of riches. we have the second-best goalie in the league with Eagles, and the best back up in the league with Spyro. Hopefully we are able to keep everyone and push for another cup this season but who knows.

1. Preparing to make another run with this great team. 2. Best duo points of all time. 3. I think having a pack of wolves or even a baby wolf to show the future and who will lead the VHL in later years that the pack is not a player but the team. 4. I think it would be cool but I think the shoulder patch should be something to represent the past and future wolves. 5. Not sure. I think if we could get some more efficient TPE options that would be cool. Right now for top players the best thing to save money is deprecation fighter. I think if there were options that were close to that effiecent it could be interesting. 6. Make spending money more meaningful. I am a top player who can take the min and get every depreciation fighter. If those were more expensive or if there were easier ways to get more tpe it would make money more meaningful because i couldn't just take min. 7. Eagles is an easy pick due to goalie and him doing so well. HHH is another easy one since he is a born leader on the ice. 8. I play to be the top goal scorer.

Claim for 3/22/2020

Julius Freeman once again looks forward to representing Team USA in the world Cup. Every time this comes around Freeman gets excited about helping teach the younger players from the USA to be the best players they can be like the players before. The world cup was the first time that HHH and Julius Freeman played together. The best thing about the world cup is that oftentimes that is where you can find future teammates or actually play against your real teammates from the VHL. I'm glad that the World cup is still going on with all COVID-19 scare that is going on. The VHL is one of the few sports leagues that is still going on during this trying time. Many cities and counties around the world are canceling sports and any large gatherings in order to prevent the spread. Honestly, Freeman is just excited to get out of the house since losing in the playoffs he has shut off from the world and is just ready to get back on the ice. He just wants his team to get back on track and learn from the last few seasons of loss and get things. Julius Freeman has been worrying about how the rest of his career will end up. There are things that are 100% out of his control and even though he tries and gives it 100% on and off the ice but that doesn't mean that he will get rewards on the ice or awards at the end of the season. One thing that is interesting when it comes to the new VHL and the influx of new blood and the idea that there are a lot of top tier players who get capped every week. the question that I have do we need to rethink how the hall of fame works for future players. We see a lot of top tier players in a single season having other great players on their team. For example, if you look at the top point-getter this season you will see that he has 4 other teammates in the top 10 points race. They also ended up being the winner of the whole league this season. So I guess one question I have is what does it take to be a hall of famer? Does it take rings? That is a lot to do with the GM and building a smart team with the right pieces at the right time. Does it take individual Stats? Well the tough thing with that is that if you look at individual stats they are tied to your team and who you play with. I don't know what it takes or even if its as clear cut as it once was. When I started in this league there were top players that you saw and knew that they were the best in the league. Now Its tough to say who is the best anything other than goalie. If you look at the Centers you have HHH who is by far the best on paper but sometimes doesn't have the best performance. Jet Jaguar is another great Center that plays on a great team and is a great player. There are probably 5 other Centers who are in the same range who could have to break out years and could be in that same conversation later. Honestly, LW is a little easier right now in this moment. Freeman is the top guy right now on paper and sometimes in actuality but there are two who are nipping at his feet. Guy LeGrande and Henrik Zoiderberg and both great player from S67 who are almost right there and can make the step up and move past Freeman and nap the top LW spot. it does help that both players play for great teams in Seatle and Moscow. There are things that could make a difference with those teams and players. RW is one of the player groups that is interesting in that there are a number of players right there and its hard to say which one is actually the best one. Acyd Burn is the top guy in terms of TPA. He is above a couple of player who is even older than him in draft class. And that is before S66 depreciates. Mikko Aaltonen, Shawnomir Jagr, and John Frostbeard are the players who are right behind there. I think out of the 3 other than Acyd I think Forstbeard is the top guy since he has so many TPE stored up to fight. There are things about the Right wing position that are intesting to me since they also depend on who their teammates are. Jagr has HHH and Freeman but with Aaltonen and Frostbeard they are both on the same team. All that being said all the players are interesting. With Defense there are 10 players who are above 900. only two of those players have been through depreciation so far but it is really hard to say who is the best player in the defense sphere. Smitty Werbenjarmanjensen has been the top guy for a while but I wonder if that is because of the team he is on and how they do such great things together which is not me trying to take anything from him but it is harder to say that he will keep it up when people keep on climbing in the TPE count. There are a few players who I would look at. MGS who was a Center up until last season. He could turn the Defense on its head and claim its top spot as early as next season. Defense is such a hard thing to pin down because in my mind defense is a team position not an individual position. Goalies are one of the easier things to pin down. Rayz Funk is the guy. He steals so many games for his team. He is another 151 above the next player and the next best player is about to hit another depreciation. The next player who is close is Greg Eagles from Vancouver. He is tearing it up but the problem is next player up is 165 above him. Both players are starting to save up for depreciation in the next season but its hard to see both players are doing really well but Funk has been stealing series and Eagles has been on the unfortunate side of those steals. 1076 words two weeks.

After a rough loss in the first round Julius Freeman could not rest much at the start of his offseason since he had movers coming in a few days. What was once going to be something that he just had movers take care of turned into something that could calm him down and help him try and decompress from the rough loss to Seattle. He took the time to pack all his own boxes because the loss was so rough it helped him to get back to basics and look at things that make him happy. In the packing he found yearbooks from his school days where he can see some of his earlies teammates and remember when life was simpler. He found his first pair of skates that he used to use almost every day. He found a lot of old trinkets that allowed him to move past the loss and realize life is much more than hockey but it is an accumulation of all that is in a person and what happens to them. All in all the move did wonders for Freeman and allowed him to reset and hopefully next season he can do some great things for his team and his teammates.

What went wrong in the first round? That is the question that the wolves have to ask themselves... We have a great team on paper and two of the highest TPE players in the league. HHH and Julius Freeman again had good seasons but once the playoff started their domination stopped and they just were good, not great. I will own up to the fact that I could have done better but I'm not sure what else to do with my TPE. What is more important that I have 1020 for the rest of my career or do I bump it up further and not have as good final seasons? I know I could have higher TPE overall if I started my career at the deadline but I didn't know better since this is my first character. I wish I could have known better I probably would not have been drafter higher since HHH is a stud but maybe I would be able to have a higher ceiling than 1020 and be able to carry the team better. I have no idea how to be a better teammate other than getting my TPE every week. The sim is a crazy beast that I have no idea how to control or even get on my side. I won a trophy last season but was not even in the running this season. What happened. I wish to be more active sometimes like I used to but it's hard we just had our move and work are a little crazy but hopefully, in the next few weeks life calms down and I can start to be more active again. I know as a captain on the team I could have been better at being there for everyone and honestly, I feel like I need to do better with that. It has been a rough couple of months with life and work. All in all, I think we cannot look at our first-round loss as anything we did or was done to us. I think sometimes the sims are just the sims and we have no power over them. I know with 72 games the best rise to the top but even in a 7 game series a hot goalie or a goalie the sim loves will make a difference. That being said both goalies are great and will be great for some time so I think this might be a match up for the next few seasons. Who knows though. One question I have for myself that I would love to be tested from someone who has the ability to do sims is growth vs high TPE. I know for Julius Freeman he did not update his TPA all season because he hit his growth last season. Not knowing anything about the sims but does it favor someone growing TPA vs having a high TPA all along? It would be an interesting experiment in my mind and I would love to see that it means for the league and for players if they knew that waiting and upgrading throughout the season would make you peak during the playoffs. From one standpoint I understand that having high TPA from the start is better but I wonder if the sim has anything in the code for growth? Meaning if you could get to the same TPA through the season but have the hidden "growth" points it would mean that you are doing better in the playoffs?

1. I go classic white so that i can see the puck easier. 2. Yes i did i was mentioned for about 1 min and got pinged. 3. sure im not as active as i was at some points but once the whole move thing is over i would be a guest. 4. Jet Jaguar mostly so that I can get some easy articles about reunited teammates. 5. I always like the idea of GMing an expansion team but honestly i think i need life to balance out before i do that. 6. Not really I think its fine but I don't follow it that much. 7. I think we need more forwards for the future. 8. not much honestly. A hot goalie is a hot goalie. we have a good team but morale would have taken a worse hit.

Media: https://vhlforum.com/topic/78228-theme-week-hunter-hearst-helmsley/ VHL.com: https://vhlforum.com/topic/78229-theme-week-jet-jaguar/ Bonus +1 Total 8 Uncapped.

1. Seattle mostly because I'm from the future and I worry about them 2. I have to give it to Eagles due to him just crushing it and keeping us in a lot of teams. 3. I hope HHH he always seems to step up when we need him. 4. HHH 5. I plan on trying to be the best LW in the league. 6. I hope we have a better chance than we do right now. 7. Zero, I regressed 8. Idk I like who I am.

There are very few players that, when I play against, I worry about them every time they are on the ice. There are even fewer players that fit that bill, and I feel like I have to worry about them for the rest of my career. Having played with Jet in Halifax makes me very aware of just how good he is on and off the ice. He can rile up a locker room and get his teammates going. He is one of the best players I had played both with and against with equal levels of resepect and ferocity, added to the fact that Moscow was bright when they drafted him and built around him. I worry about facing him in the playoffs because if he is on, there are few players who can shut him down. All things considered outside my those on my team, there are no more scary forwards from my draft class than Jet Jaguar. I hope he does make it someday to the HOF because he is a stand-up guy who I had a great privilege to play with and against. @gorlab Hope you get there bud.

So from my standpoint, I believe that HHH is a future HOFer. I think being his linemate shows me more than most. I know we talk HHH; we are talking about his past performance, but I am one to tell you that the best is yet to come. When you look at HHH right now, you often talk about how his first few seasons with Riga were less than ideal. He was supposed to be the runaway favorite for rookie of the year. That did not come to fruition as we all know, but once he got traded to Vancouver, we started to see an immediate bump in performance. He was averaging around 50 points when he was playing with Riga, but once he had a full season with Vancouver, his points total jumped up to 90. He took a dip in this season's total, but that has more to do with the coach trying to do something unorthodox rather than any fault of his own. In the next three seasons, you will see his points per game total go up, and you will see that with his linemates and him will be atop the leader points again for just about every season until they retire. I know this is all dependent on things that may or may not happen, but when you look at who is retiring soon, you will see the top few players who are taking the spotlight from HHH will either retire or relegate themselves to being great players in the shadow of HHH. You can already see that HHH is one of the most talented players in the VHL already based on TPE. He is 2nd behind Ryan Kastelic, who is retiring soon. Being the top TPE player will open the floodgate to allow almost nonstop domination when he is playing against every other team. Another thing to look at in this picture is who is the next best forward in TPE to HHH. That player who has the next highest TPE is his teammate and linemate Julius Freeman. The two players, when they are both on their game, are some of the best players in the league. They will have the next three seasons at the top of their game to prove why they are the best duo in the VHL right now. All this to say, they have a chance to have three more great regular seasons ahead of them, but often matters with the HOF is what happens after the regular season. They have four more chances to do something special in the postseason. Some of this is hope, and some of this is pride, but I believe they have at least one more in them at the very least. The way Vancouver is built will show that they will be in contention each of the four more postseasons. I hope they win one or two more, but honestly, the league is much more competitive. I believe this is great for the league, but if you put HHH at any point in the past, he would be MVP just about every season. @Beaviss Good Luck with it I hope we both can make it someday.

So short one this week since, for the most part, it has been stressful in real life, and fun coding has not been able to be done. One thing that did get done is another successful WJC. There are still plenty of things left to be done in the coming weeks to prepare and get done, so the duties are not over, but for the time being, we can breathe naturally and relax at another good year done. We tried something new this season based on an idea that I had a while ago, but since Acydburn and myself had more power to do what we thought was best for the tournament, we just did it. Hopefully, it wasn't too bad for those involved, and honestly, I don't think it affected the winners of the tournament. The thing we tried that some people were confused about was to allow some players who were above 350 to play in the tournemant. There were rules that we followed with it, so it wasn't just the wild west. The idea and rule that we observed were when we were creating the list of eligible players anyone whose official rookie year was the same as the tournament would be available to play regardless of their TPE. We think that this change would make more people excited about the competition and would make some years exciting due to the enormous jumps some draft classes have. However, we did not allow them to play at their current TPE we would manually edit their TPE in the index to 350 or below depending on how close we can get their TPE. We were able to do this because we monitored their abilities many times through the past season, and once they got around 350, we would screenshot their scores so that we can reference them later. I think it was fair to allow players to play in their draft season, and I think it was appropriate that we dropped them to 350, so they were in line with other players and not too broken. Hopefully, this didn't make anyone upset, but I think it could be a great step to make the WJC better. It allows top-end talent to participate in the tournament more than just being capped at the VHLM limit and gives everyone at least one more opportunity to try and win the gold. If you liked it let me know if you didn't let me know why. I'm interested in both responses. As Always thank you for your time.

VHLM Players Answer 3 for 1 Capped TPE or 6 for 2 Capped TPE: 1. How do you think you have done so far this season? 2. If you could sell yourself to the VHL teams in one sentence what would that sentence be? 3. Who do you model your play after? 4. Who in your family got you into hockey first and why did it stick? 5. What was your favorite hockey memory growing up? 6. What do you wish to pass along to young hockey kids?

Julius Freeman has had a rough season compared to what he was supposed to do this season. Julius is doing well in comparison to some other people in the league, so I don't want to sound like he is doing wrong or that he is not grateful for his ability and chances on his team. Who knows what makes one player become a world eater and the other just another top-line guy. Maybe the goaltenders are just outstanding nowadays, and it's hard for anyone to go off anymore. That would make sense just about every team has a good goalie and sometimes has a good back up as well. Maybe that is a conversation for another media spot, but I am not an expert. I am just an agent for Julius Freeman. There has been some news going on at the home front. That is the reason why outside of playing for his team, he has not been as active in other duties the way he should have. He is buying a house today. He closes today at 3 pm. It is super exciting for him and his wife. The house buying process has been rough on him and his mental well being, causing anything other than his minimal duties to fall to the wasteside. It is his first house ever, which is quite an accomplishment in his mind, and I congratulate him very much. It is a three-bedroom 2 bath home that is on a 1/3 of an acre which is enough space for him and his wife. Life has been stressful with it since some parts of the process have been very smooth, while others have been less than bumpy. If I'm 100% honest now looking back, everything was pretty smooth. Freeman doesn't want to sound ungrateful for the life and opportunities he has had. The Issue its more of the fact that just about every deadline got pushed back. Since his wife and himself are more on the worriers than the calm, collective people they wish they could be every time something got pushed back, they would stress about every possible outcome for hours, and that stress consumed them for a while. There are very few things they did outside of being together with each other. They tried to watch some of their favorite tv shows, but after watching about an episode of anything, they would start to worry again. Maybe they need to begin to do some meditation exercises to help with their worrying and stress, but that is also another conversation for a different time. Honestly, now that we are about to sign all the papers today looking back, it has been a smooth process that just has taken longer than wanted or expected. The house looks fantastic for them. It is a 1952 house that just got renovated. It is a 3 min walk to his brothers' house, and it is within 20 mins drive to the center of the city. They are excited to close today and even more excited to move in a couple of weeks. We will keep those interested updated for who care.

+4

1. I hope so but they are a great team so I wouldn't be surprised if they kept it up 2. We should see how we are doing closer. I feel like we are good but its hard to get the cup. 3. I like it so that many people can have fun but I wonder if my player in a different generation would just be unstoppable? 4. We can make it but it takes more than just wanting it, we need to play for each other. 5. YEs he has the skill he just needs to connect a few and get his rhythm back. 6. I love it. 7. Jet Jaguar.

Seattle 4 - 3

268 D.C. Dragons @ Riga Reign 269 Toronto Legion @ Vancouver Wolves 270 Malmo Nighthawks @ Seattle Bears 271 Helsinki Titans @ Calgary Wranglers

Vancouver 4 - 3

240 Prague Phantoms @ Seattle Bears 241 Helsinki Titans @ Moscow Menace 242 Riga Reign @ D.C. Dragons 243 Vancouver Wolves @ Calgary Wranglers

Post in this thread to claim welfare/pension for this week.  If you are claiming welfare/pension, you cannot claim any 6 TPE Point Tasks for this week (Media Spot/Graphic/Podcast) or League jobs paying 6+ TPE.   VHL Welfare Plan - Members with fewer than two 700+ TPE players may claim 4 TPE VHL Pension Plan - Members who have created two or more 700+ TPE players (past or present) may claim 5 TPE VHL Affiliate Plan - Members who post a Point Task this week, in either the EFL or SBA, may link to that Point Task to claim 6 TPE Once you reach 700 TPE with your current player, if that is your second player to reach 700, you are allowed to claim the pension plan. So instead of only taking in account previous players it also accounts for your current one.   Example:  Green has had Remy LeBeau (TPE: 1301) in the past. Thomas O'Malley, his second player, is now past 700 TPE, he is eligible for the VHL Pension Plan. Note: Welfare/Pension Plan are not eligible for Doubles Weeks. Affiliate Plan is only eligible for Donation Doubles.

Life has been hard lately but I still need to do some points tasks. Julius Freeman thought this season would be the season the league would wake up and realize he is one of the best wingers in the game. There was a large amount of hype coming into the season but once the season started things have not gone on the right path for him. Vancouver tried some crazy things with its line up where they tried to make the first line the second line. The idea was that if our first line could face off against easier competition then they would get more points and attack more but after a few games that did not seem to be the case. Freeman hasn't been the same since last season, he has had a lot of things going on with his family and his housing situation, which might be the reason why he hasn't lived up to expectations. It has been painful to watch his games when he doesn't do so hot and when he simply isn't playing the way he should be. In terms of skill, he is a top 5 player in the league but based on his performance this season he will be lucky if he is top 20 at the end of this season. Maybe he will start to get hot later in the season we can only hope. But It is tough working hard and not getting rewarded for his play.

Welfare

1. I think we need to get together as a team and start to play for each other and not for personal stats. 2. I think Helsinki has and will be one of our biggest rivals for some time. 3. I think HHH is the player I have the best chemistry with. 4. I think we will go 6-4-0 Until we get our things together we will go above 500 but barely. 7. well since being rivals until being traded HHH and I have been rooming together since the trade. 8. Seattle it doesn't change who wins or loses they just hate us. I don't know why. 9. HHH so far in my opinion. 10. Not really, but If we go far and win, that is more important than my individual stats.