Have already tried emailing old members and seen couple come back. Wouldn't hurt to try it again I suppose?
Agreed to the Facebook advertising while making it more specified. It gets fairly pricey per day the further in depth you into it (the more you reach, the pricier it is). With that said, I highly doubt we can afford the price it would take to heavily affect the VHL.
I'd say find some other sort of alternative. Are we able to throw advertisements up on Youtube? Potentially have them targeting hockey videos or anything fantasy league or sports? What about the STHS Forum and posting an advertisement there? Other hockey forums? I know once upon a time I found a huge list of hockey forums and shit with well over 200,000 members altogether.
A couple more to crack out would be: Twitter, any sort of fantasy league or fantasy league news sites, online gaming sites. Post on GOMHL, SHL and other leagues too.