Banackock

VOID

20

GM Blake Campbell looks on as his team with the S56 LOTTO It's going to be a long week, so I figured we'd get the media spot out of the way for the week tonight. In fact, it's been a long season for the Seattle Bears. We've lost more games than any season during my tenure and we had very, very few ups and an extreme amount of downs this season. I actually struggled with the position knowing all the time, effort and passion I've put into the role only to have it feel so difficult this season. I've had numerous careers - one retiring early prior to being a GM, one retiring at 190 TPE to recreate as a positional need during my tenure and then retiring that player early due to the GM trading rule. Now, I found myself with Mattias forsberg (250+ TPE centre) and Federov (450ish TPE D-man) and at times I feel like Federov will be another career potentially wasted. Yet, here I still am with one of the best up and coming defenders still on my roster. Is it a bad thing? Don't see how. It's the sacrifices that sometimes need to be made as a GM if you really want to find that success. Now, if you aren't living under a rock you will have already known that the Seattle Bears have won the S56 Lottery for the upcoming prospect entry draft. This means so many things for Seattle and myself during my tenure as the Seattle Bears GM. From picking whoever best fits Seattle and my plans for the team, to combating offers and the future of where the team will be heading and how we get there. To show those on the team, those possibly joining the team via trade of free agency or those simply spectating, exactly what that means for Seattle, I've thrown together a little something. 1. McAllister @CowboyinAmerica This name has been thrown around like a football in Texas. Probably lots, yeah? Or a nascar looping the track or something like that. In other words, a lot. Something that always tags along with this young gun is the fact that he's likely going first overall. I'm not going to waste other GM's time or the other prospects. There's really no need to play the mystery game or keeps things secret as there's nothing really to keep. Mcallister will be a Seattle Bear come Wednesday, at 2101 Eastern time. 2. The offers are rolling in Now they're not just rolling in for the 1st overall pick - mind you, there is one team actively trying to get it and I'll give credit, they've made me think. In fact, they've made one hell of an offer and it's almost silly of me to turn it down. I told them it would take the craziest offer pitched my way and they had the balls and sent me just that. I'm always open to deals - offers and ideas. You'd be crazy not to be. Yet, even with the amazing offer - I can't seem to budge on letting a player (and especially person) like @CowboyinAmerica slide. Looks for talks with Federov to likely heat up. While it always great to have that elite defender, is it smart to hold onto him or build around the youth we have and let the prime players do their thing now? Guess we'll see but just to drop some fun to the league - 3 good teams are interested. 3. VERY fortunate I've never won anything like this. If not mistaken, I was robbed of it quite sometime ago and it really sucked. I just finished working a late night shift. My girlfriend and I had plans to go on a date night - drove an hour from our home to go and the moment we arrived I got called back into work on my day off. Shitty, sure - but can't complain over $50/hour. Despite the unfortunate events of the evening and how they came about, I logged back on the following day to learn that somehow we lucked out and won the lottery. I don't think we could feel anymore lucky or fortunate to be in the position we are. 4. Changes are coming to Seattle We want our players to always feel welcome and we surely want the locker room to be bumping. It's lacked lately but with the addition of McAllister, things will change and I think they will quickly. The first change that will be made is who wears what #'s. Last season, Federov was the "CAA" (so everything). In the up coming season, we're showing the hockey world who is boss for Seattle. Federov is the best player right now - sure. Hell of a defender - as are the rest of the players when it comes to each of their positions. But this year, @CowboyinAmerica gets the C, @Laflamme the "A" and Federov will take the final "A'. The future between these 3 will hopefully be huge. COME ON SEATTLE 12 for Federov (1 of 2 double weeks used)

Congrats! @Devise grats on a solid career. @Advantage one day we shall reunite for another chase at it all!

Too busy I suppose for the role. Tried my best and right when I started getting more free time, shafted. It is what it is and I didn't carry my weight as much as I should have. VHLM forever!

Wouldn't be like me if I didn't retire early

4 for Forsberg

Good luck to the GM's involved in this. Hoping to see some sort of good come to Seattle..

Congrats to both teams on a good season

You're amazing. @Laflamme

So we've tangled and fucked with the top 3 forwards, defence, goalies and badasses of the S55 season. As everyone knows, it can at times be a struggle to write on this site but with this saga of Top 3's, I've found it enjoyable to write as I reconnect with the league, it's players and can check on how everyones doing. In this episode, we're going to take a look at the 3 best forwards in this seasons playoffs with as much truthfulness and least amount of biased opinion possible. Who are the Top 3 forwards of this seasons playoffs as she dwindles down to the last game or two? Who has helped pushed their team to the glory land, or helped them make it as far as they did - whether it be for goals, assists, clutch games or other big plays. Shall we take a look? 3. Essian Ravenwing - NYA Really, win or loss, Essian played a huge part to New York's strong performance throughout the entire season leading up to their loss against the Quebec Meute in playoffs. In playoffs though, he really stepped it up for the team and tried to give them one more push into the finals before possible GM changes come about and potentially turn the route of the team and where they'll be heading. With 6 goals, 7 assists and 13 points through his 10 playoff games, his goal and points totals are still good enough to have him placed in second for both of those. Aside from those 3 big stats, he averaged 3.5 hits a game, over 31 minutes on ice each game and had 2 game winners for his boys. A mentionable stat was that he also finished with above 60% on the face-off circle. So, with a mixture of clutch, top performance and being one hell of a player, he finds himself 3rd on this weeks Forwards edition list. 2. Black Velvet - HSK It's his final season in the Victory Hockey League and during which, he decided that he was going to test the waters as a forward rather than his usual defensive positioning. Seemingly, it's turned out pretty successful for the old-timer as he's rolling through the playoffs and has helped largely carry the load on his back and eased the load for the Titans this year. Though their back is up against the wall, the pushed back last game to bring about a Game 7. For Velvet, he has double 6's for 12 points through 11 playoff games. His physical nature as a dman has carried over as he has 45 hits, all while naturally filling in the role of centre with an above 62% rate in that field. Topping that off with a similar clutch performance to Ravenwing, he has 3 game winners and if prevailing in Game 7, could be the reason the Titans went so far. 1. John Locke - QUE Usually on a list such as this, you start at 3 and make your way downward, however, this one was an easy player to throw into the number 1 spot so he was the first one we marked down. Locke has strongly commanded the playoffs this season, having a 4 goal lead on 2nd place in that race and a 2 point lead over a player who is no longer playing in the playoffs for points. With 3 clutch game winners and logging in over 33 minutes a game, this guy has held an incredible amount of pressure on his back and has so far carried it extremely well. John Locke is easily the best player on the ice for Quebec at this time and win or loss, may end up being the top player. 6 for Federov

Thanks @Frank. finally got one for Forsberg now

Shoulda had shut down big boy Aleksei Federov

GJ QUE

Boooo

don't listen to her You'd be #1 in Seattle tbh

@punkhippie

Little late to the party. Girlfriend and I just started season 1. Made it to episode 3 last night

Day 4 of memories.. Was when @Devise told me @Smarch and company were letting us claim older days of memories. But in all seriousness, I think we'll have to fire off and say my memory would be going to dominating the season with the New York Americans with my goalie Blake Campbell which in the end turned into an Aidan Shaw and Championship. that or kicking ass with Stockholm.

@Devise @Smarch so uh, are we allowed to do these late? Because I worked late as fuck on Day 4 and would love to complete all 7

Crazy shit is brewing around the VHL/VHLM and one of them crazy brews has to be the fact that somehow Las Vegas has enough horseshoes in each of their pussies to actually have a series lead on the Oslo Storm. Not sure if @Bushito is busy wanking is yogurt slinger, but he needs to resort back to some sort of winning streak here and find some old time chemistry to send these fucks back to the desert. Can't blame it on Forsberg or past shit - maybe goalies are finally catching up to Bushito when it matters most??? Fuck @TheLastOlympian07. Let me scor It's unfortunate, after the season that we had, that this is the way it could possibly end. I never thought it would be to Las Vegas and actually, I assumed we'd go all the way. Despite the series being in their favour right now, I really would love to say that it's not over yet and they're in for it. We're a good team - a strong team, and I think we can really push back and make this shit interesting. 1 for Forsberg

Mattias Forsberg (4)

Over the last decade or so, the Seattle Bears have either been one of the best teams or one of the worst. A rollercoaster, to say the least, has run rampage on the fans, players and management of Seattle for quite sometime. We'd like to say it all started when GM Blake Campbell took the reigns over from Mike, but we don't believe that's the case at all and feel that the team was already heading in this direction during Mike's time. Once GM Blake Campbell was announced the new head gm of the Seattle Bears, he only solidified the idea that the Bears were heading from a high to a low, to a hopeful potential high. As we fast forward numerous of season of rebuilding and then contending, we now find ourselves back at the start. One may call it the Bears circle of life theory and are basing everything off that (we'd like to say it may not be as successful). Let's not blame the Bears though as they've also had some shitty luck on some asshole moves and retirements. This year, the winds had seemed for a short while to be changing. With a fairly successful draft under their belt, they walked away happy. A player who was picked with one of their last picks became active out of the blue and to be honest, was a player Campbell told the commissioner to choose Via "best player available". Then they grabbed a goalie, Perought, rather than having their GM create as one. Seemingly, that has worked out incredibly well... (ha). Next, you key in Xavier LaFlamme @Laflamme, who has pretty great potential and may be one of the best future Bears players if he sticks with it. Then, of course, you got your GM player in Mattias Forsberg and his other player Aleksei Federov who should of been a dominating defender by now. So what exactly is their plan moving forward now that they're sitting tight on their sofas at home, watching reruns of Friends or if they're bold enough, the Season 55 playoffs. Somewhere they could be, want to be, but are not. So what's next? 1. Draft Lottery - We want #1 It's to no surprise that the Bears, like any lottery organization, want the first overall. Yes, we know, the glorified @CowboyinAmerica is steamrolling the league right now when it comes to the up and coming VHLM draft, but the Bears more so want this pick for leverage. Pretty sure @hedgehog337 would suck a dick for this pick and a lot of other GM's would pay a handsome price for it too. This isn't to say the Bears would trade it. Hell, they may even surprise the league with the #1 pick and take a different piece if they find it suiting for their team. Owning that #1 pick though is where things start for them. If they do not, 2nd appeases them very much as well as they have their heart set on a couple players. 2. To move or not not move.. Aleksei Federov, he was supposed to be this huge backbone of the team moving forward when they picked him up in the draft. Unfortunately, that hasn't come to face yet and he's wasting his career sitting on the organization right now. If things don't pick up in the next season or two, expect a major blow up to happen once again and MAYBE even a management change. Blake Campbell has quoted that while he has heavily enjoyed his GMing tenure, he wishes that he'd had the ability to freely also enjoy his player careers before it's too late on the VHL. 3. Free Agency We'll admit, we're not crazy good but if there's players out there willing to give the team a chance, it may par out pretty good. We'd need a starting goalie, one more defender and a little help up front. Calgary sucks, Toronto is mediocre and New York is supposedly heading into a rebuild. MAYBE New York will make headlines - Beat Seattle twice in series, now players join team to help chase championship. Maybe Stockholm will help them out? Campbell sent them Sven Wolf as promised - will they return the love? @Advantage. Either way, FA is big and Seattle looks to make a few splashes there. And of course, much more, but I lack motivation and have cracked my 600 words - so see yah. 6 for Federov

Last day of memories and we'll fire this one off to whatever series that was where we clawed our way slowly back into the series being down 3-0 or 3-1 and forced a game 7 only to tank out in the final game. Pretty sure it was one of the series against New York, but who knows, could be wrong. Either way, the boys were jacked in the LR and it was a hell of a ride thinking we may actually pull it off.

Oslo, baby.