Enorama

If you aren't living under a rock, you've probably heard plenty about backup goalies in the VHL lately. Honestly, I was surprised to see that most people generally seem to agree that something needs to be done about the influx of goalies over the past few seasons, but it seems that nobody has any really solid idea of what. I'm sure that the BoG has been discussing the issue over the past season or two and we'll hear some kind of decision from them either this offseason or the next. Until then, I decided to look at what I think should be done with goalies in the VHL. The most popular and simplest idea that I've seen so far is to simply raise the backup requirements from 8 games started to 10, 12, 15, 20, or whatever arbitrary threshold we choose now instead of the 8. The problem for this is that the higher we make that threshold, the more teams with active backups will have an advantage over the season and although we have too many active goalies for the 9 teams in the VHL, we don't have enough for the 9 backup spots that would be necessary. Here's the thing though, I called that a problem, but I really don't think that's a problem at all. So what if teams with backups have an advantage for around 1/4 of the season? Teams with active players in any position other than backup goalie are given advantages today, so why are we treating the backup position any differently? Let them affect the way their team's season goes, let them become a commodity, let them be wooed in free agency or pursued in the draft. My least favourite part of talking to new players is when I repeat "do not make a goalie" about fifteen times over just to drive it into their heads that there is no market for goalies right now. It would be different if I told them a certain position was mostly saturated and that it would be competitive to get starting time in a certain position but for me to have to say that literally no team would have any real interest in them just because of the position they chose pains me to my core. #AllPositionsMatter In other positional news, the S63 defensive class is taking over the VHL starting next season. Once the S57 draft class (Johnsson, Kiaskov, Jones) is forced into retirement this offseason, Kastelic and McWolf will be the two highest TPE (not just TPA) defensemen in the league in only their third season of VHL play. Tzuyu , Crosby, and Wilson won't be too far behind. It'll be an exciting time to see how these youngsters perform in the final year of their rookie contracts. Will any of them test free agency? How many of them will fall foul to the new tampering rules? We'll just have to wait and see. And then who cares about forwards, they're all a bunch of bums anyways. 503 words

I don't want to be that guy, but wouldn't it be possible now for a first gen with 0 carryover but wanting to exploit the system to just create, do bio, RP, and PF (or some other combination to get to 50+ TPE), retire the player, then walk away with 2 or more uncapped TPE in their first week? I get that the effort isn't worth it for 99% of people so it shouldn't be a bother at all. Although I guess that would technically make them ineligible for the first gen bonus so there's no way it would actually ever be worth it. Never mind.

OT winnerrrrrrrr @Smarch

1. Who's taking home the Founders' Cup this year and why? 2. How about the Continental Cup? 3. Who's your favourite sig-maker on the site? 4. Scale of 1-10 how good was yesterday's Super Bowl? 5. What's one player you haven't had the chance to play with yet but you'd like to at some point? 6. Who is the most underrated player in the VHL?

*cough*

Why does this actually kinda look like me

Andreas hit 50 TPE +1

Apparently @JohnOQuinn can't be arsed to reply here but his Create a Player page says I brought him here so I figure that's good enough. OQuinn hit 50 TPE +1

Most would think that the back-to-back best team in the league, the Riga Reign, would be hit pretty hard by the expansion draft. I'm going to take a quick look at their potential protection list and see if that's the case. We would imagine that Preencarnacion, Twinger, Cast, Kastelic, and Glade are the easy options to protect, which means they slot in to our first 5 protection slots. Amongst them, we get a full unit of 3 F and 2 D alongside the GM player G, Kriketers, so the last two slots can be filled with little to no regard for positional bias. Who's going to take those last two slots? Defending playoff MVP Ryuu Crimson is the next up TPE-wise, and after his S63 playoff performance, it would be difficult to see Riga expose him to the expansion draft. That leaves us with Rylan Peace and Mikka Pajari at 463 and 440 TPE, respectively. Which of them is suitable to take the final spot? Pajari was drafted two seasons earlier but has less TPE, which means he's been earning at a far slower pace than Peace. This may make it seem like an easy choice to protect Peace with that final protection slot. However, if Peace keeps earning at this pace, he might price himself or another one of their stars out of Riga within the next few seasons while Pajari is signed on long term at a respectable $1.5m. No matter which direction Riga chooses to go, they'll be in a position to compete for many seasons to come, regardless of the impact of the expansion draft. 269 words

FWIW I gave you my vote.

Ye I was about to start a riot.

Shameless non-self-vote.

At one point I focused down to Canada and the U.S., I know the title doesn't actually reflect it. You get the idea anyways ?

I've gone over this same conversation with people here and in other sim leagues multiple times. Why is every sim league infatuated with North American cities? Look, I get it, the easy answer is that 90%+ of each league's members are based in either Canada or the U.S., but why does that mean that all of our teams need to be from here too? We argue back and forth over getting teams in Vancouver or Philadelphia because a small subsection of our user base lives there, then we relocate (RIP Quebec White Nationalists) or expand (hello death-bringers or whatever your name is) and all that does is dispel these conversations for a week or two - at best. Next thing you know, we'll have those dirty Frenchies crying over not having a team in La Belle Province or some disgusting Marchand-lover asking why the true breeding ground of New England doesn't have a VHL or VHLM team. My point is that although we love to keep our teams on this side of the Atlantic because it's our home, it'll never be good enough, so why bother placing teams where they are for that reason? I believe that teams should be placed based solely on the city itself. We have an amazing thing with sim leagues, we don't need to worry about time zones or travel, so we can place teams literally anywhere on the globe without any question of logistics and yet here we are with 8/8 VHLM teams and 5/9 VHL teams being based in North America next season. That's nearly 80% of our teams being based in a region that only holds about 0.5% of the world's population (Canada + the US, feel free to double check my math on that one, big numbers hurt my head). With that being said, here are some places that I think are underappreciated and deserve a look for relocation. Full disclosure - none of the logos here are my own, just representative of the style that could be achieved from the culture of each city. 1. Mexico City, Mexico This one has been a personal campaign of mine for a while. Mexico as a country has so much rich culture and history that would be great to incorporate into a logo and team atmosphere. 2. Shanghai, China Another one that I've brought up multiple times. China is way too big of a country to not have representation on the global stage, and similar to Mexico, the culture and history around the city and country is astounding. 3. Sydney, Australia I've always been personally interested in visiting the land down under, but the costs of just getting there have turned me off thusfar. Luckily, all of our players would be able to visit just fine because they can magically appear there to play a couple of games of hockey! 4. Singapore I unfortunately couldn't come up with a logo for the city-state of Singapore, but I think it could be a worthwhile look for a team. The blend of Southeast Asian and British cultures is interesting (thanks colonialism) and the city has a very unique position for success. 5. Ljubljana, Slovenia Ryan Kastelic's birthplace! Of course it had to make the list. Slovenia is a beautiful country with plenty of rich history and actually managed to ice an Olympic hockey team in each of the past two winter Olympics! They even beat the U.S. in Sochi (let's move every American team to Slovenia, I think they've proven their worth). 586 words

Actually, the portal won't even let you spend more than the 200, so you don't need to worry about accidentally going over.

Don't worry, it isn't looking like I'll have influenced the vote in any way. The two I meant to vote for are the two currently winning.

Ah shit I misclicked while voting

How else will I get my sweet sweet recruitment TPE? ?

Yeah I told him so. He's another EHM dude btw, McW.

@JohnOQuinn pls reply here to confirm i brought you here

Thanks for making us aware, we really appreciate it. Always better than just ghosting and us not knowing what happened.

Just gonna do a quick lil where are they now for the top couple picks in S63. 1. Ryan Kastelic (D) - das me. Went ppg in first season with Riga and won the Continental Cup, currently running ahead of a ppg pace on a Riga squad that looks poised to repeat as champs. 2. Joseph McWolf (D) - McWolf went to the ailing New York Americans. His first season was what you would expect from the best player on a bad team, decent points, massive totals in hits and shots blocked. His sophomore season has seen the team as a whole, himself included, take a massive upswing. 3. Julian Borwinn (F) - The first forward selected, Borwinn secured the ROTY trophy in his freshman year with a solid 84 point performance. Him and the next pick are major pieces of the resurgence and early success seen by Helsinki so far this year. 4. Sidney Crosby (D) - At the time, Crosby was considered somewhat of a reach at pick number 4. Him being picked here wasn't a reflection of the player that he was at the time, but the player he could be. As of today he still sits behind Tzuyu in TPE but his overall career earning potential is higher. The jury's still out on whether he was really the best player available. 5. Tzuyu (D) - The first non-first-gen taken this draft, she's been welfare trash, obviously. Well she is actually higher scoring than all above her except McWolf so far in S64, but Toronto hasn't been able to prove themselves as serious contenders just yet. 6. Scott Shawinganen (F) - The first whiff of the draft, as of writing this, it's been over 3 weeks since he's been updated, but he has still performed well stats-wise. Long-term, he probably won't contribute a lot to NYA's success. 7. Dan Wilinsky (F) - Following the whiff that was Shawinganen, NYA pulled in what is likely the first steal of the draft. Wilinsky already has more TPE than the three players taken directly before him, and although his stats may not show it yet, he should soon find himself in the top 5 of re-drafts down the road. 8. Jose Gonzalez (F) - An even worse whiff than Shawinganen. Gonzalez hasn't updated in over a month from the time this post was written, he only posted 7 points in his rookie season, and he's already been traded once in his young career. 405 words, this is stupid.

Who's this Joe Nixon guy standing on his head?

Yup. Uncontested best draft