DangerGolding

Dread it. Run from it. The Legion still arrives all the same. And now we're here.

1.) You seem to be a very effective player, would you consider extending your career? My time has come, I've never really reached the heights that I wanted to in my career and it took me too long to get going. I want to retire before my play starts to dip any more and spend some time coaching the youth and being an advocate for hockey in the UK. I hear there's a few good kids coming out of there soon. 2.) What skillset did you develop first ? My shooting has always been my pride and the thing that set me apart from other prospects, I made have been a fairly one dimensional player by I was damn good and hitting a sweet slapshot into the top bin. 3.) What are your plans after leaving the league ? As I said earlier I want to bring some good coaching to the Youth of my home country, of course London are now based there so I hope that gets the young kids interested in Hockey and we can start to see more VHL talent from the UK. 4.) What NHL player would you think that you most resemble in terms of skills ? Oh I couldn't possibly say. 5.) In your opinion what was your best VHL season ? This one right now, though I'm older I think I've aged like fine wine, being able to use my experience to my advantage has resulted in being in the best form of my life here in Toronto. 6.) What was the determining factor in spending most of your career with one team? I liked it in DC, they believed in me even when every other team passed on me, and I do mean every other team. They took me with the 61st pick in the draft and I wanted to repay them for that faith, though it never led to any real success I don't regret my time there.

Raleigh Ritchie is in the best form of his VHL career so far. His production for his new team in Toronto is one of the minor stories of the season. Last seasons for the DC Dragons he hit 15 goals and 14 assists in the whole season, his highest mark in his career. This season though, through 28 games he has already found the back of the net 12 times while setting his teammates up 13 times. This is in short small amount due to the extra responsibility given to him by the coach, as seen by his 137 shots this season already compared to last seasons 177 in the entire season. This momentum clearly gave Raleigh a boost as in the Legion recent game against Davos Raleigh scored once and nabbed two assists en-oute to a 3-4 win at home. It resulted in Ritchie's 3 star game as he was selected for the game award alongside teammates Kilinger and star rookie Merrick. Ritchie impact has clearly been felt on the second line as he has the team's second highest +/- at 12, though initially some Legion fans were disappointed by Toronto's free agent acquisition, those doubters have largely been silenced by the vets production on the ice and also the work rate that he's been putting into training since the pick up. All eyes will be on the Legion over the next few weeks to see if they can continues their recent run of form that's seeing them chase their way back to a .500 record.

After we were 1-10 the players all held a meeting together, we talked about what we needed to do better to start performing up to the level that we should. It really drew the team together and I think we've seen much higher effort levels in trainings since then. Hey man, I'm new too, you'll have to ask one of the guys who've been here longer. Making sure your getting the right stuff out of your diet, make sure your completing all the physio that the team doctors give you and getting a good night's sleep every day. Do that and the rest takes care of itself mostly. Well the obvious choice is Riga, they're doing really well this season with lot of strong wins. A Las Vegas team would be great, it's a city that can definitely host a top tier team. Or maybe a city like Boston. I think so, the GM is very active and helpful and the team gets excited over the wins that we've strung together. I'm enjoying my time here.

Ritchie is in his final year of his careers as he's announced his plans to retire at the end of the current season. He has played his entire career for the San Diego Marlins in the VHLM and the DC Dragons in the VHL prior to this season when he was let go in free agency by the Dragons and chose to sign with the Toronto Legion. He's currently having the best season of his career in Toronto.

While the Legion came into this game with a paltry record of 5-11, they have started to churn their wheels in an attempt to get out of their situation, winning 4 of the last 5 games the Legion certainly came into the game with more confidence than the Stars who had a similar record. A cagey first 15 minutes ensured after the puck drop with both teams makes a fair few mistake but none that were costly enough to give up first blood. The Legion in particular looked very slow and lacklustre, eventually this cost them with Lester Green received a pinpoint pass from Gary Neal and Green wasted no time in slotting the puck past Hextall who was understandably frustrated at the teams poor defence. The goaltender angry shouts could be heard throughout the arena, this clearly lit a much needed fire underneath the Toronto team as they came out guns blazing from the restart and just 20 seconds later Gainer linked up with Daldo before Daldo found his old San Diego teammate Ritchie open for a strong slapshot that scorched the back of the net. Not settle on their haunches the Legion powered through another attack and this time it only took a mere 14 seconds before the rookie sensation Merrick found Ritchie on a fast break who deftly tucked it away to put the Legion up 1. After the break it looked like a different Toronto team out there as they took firm control of the game with Chad Magnum scoring their third, the Stars we're going to go quietly into the night however, as Yamazuki brought the game within 1 after just 25 seconds. Though the Stars couldn't capitalise on multiple Legion penalties for the rest of quarter. In the final period Elmebeck once again built a cushion for the home team on a power play before Ritchie finished off the night with his final two goals of the night to secure a commanding 6-2 win over the Stars. Though Ritchie was the star of the night, he gave big credit in his post-game interview to Daldo and Gainer, both of which notched 3 assists for the night.

The hockey news in the United Kingdom is slow at times and even now the isle has it's first imported major league sport there is still some way to go before hockey rivals the popularity of the SBA or EFL in the United Kingdom. One of the stories that avid fans have an eye on is the journey of British youngster Kaladin Kvothe, the name of the winger has been on the lips of many scouts in the European Youth Circuit as he's put up a number of impressive performances in various national and continental tournaments. 12 goals and 3 assists in the London Daggers cup final run in the Winter Games and 67 goals in the 72 games of the British Youth Hockey Championship, the best mark in a single season since Raleigh Ritchie's 64 almost a decade ago. Some aren't so hot on Kvothe though, calling his playstyle one dimensional and there no doubt that he can tend to focus on taking the first shot that comes his way rather than finding an extra pass. Though to be fair to the lad, it's a stratagem that has yet to fail. The newest story of course was the news of his VISA application to travel to the United States running into trouble, while there has been no word from Kvothe about the reason behind the issues the fact of the matter is that due to VHLM's deadline for registration it's looking unlikely that we will see the Brit on a VHLM team for another few months at least. The silver lining of course for both Kvothe and the VHLM teams that might be interested in making a play for signing the winger is that Kaladin has time to prove that he has what it takes to make not just the VHLM but all the way to the major league. After all he's following in the footsteps of Ritchie who, while did make a significant impact in San Diego, never quite took his game to the next level. Though from the looks of it, Kvothe looks like he might just be a straight upgrade from his peers that came before him. Though it's a disappointment for all those who were looking forward to a full debut season for the shooter hopefully they will see him a VHLM uniform around the trade deadline when registration re-opens.

It’s now the offseason, what do you do during this time? Relax? Train? Study film? Mostly train, I've let myself slip a vbit in the past season so I need to get back onto the training rink and work on some shooting and puck handling drills. This is likely to be my last season so I want to go out with a bang and be a major player on this Toronto team. As the new AGM of Toronto, tell me something about you so I can get to know my players! I play quidditch in real life, yeah the thing from harry potter, unfortunately no flying brooms thoughj. How do you feel about Toronto’s draft? I'm a bit out of the loop when it comes to the VHL but I'm sure the guys we've picked up are keen to get going and will be assets for years to come. What aspect of your game are you working on heading into next season? Skating, Puck Handling and shooting have been my hallmarks for my career and I think it's a bit late to teach an old dog new tricks haha, so yeah I'll likely just work on what I'm good at. Do you feel confident in the direction Toronto is heading? Looks like there's been a few good moves recently here, signing me i guess is nice even though the GM was probably hoping for a slightly more prestigious player. Overall I think Toronto and heading upwards and that's always a good sign. Which team in either the VHL or VHLM do you think needs a logo update next? I think the Philly Reapers logo is a bit busy in my opinion, also don't like the Phantoms logo much either, the big blocky text on logo's doesn't look great in most cases.

Toronto Sports Network caught up with the Legion's newest free agent acquisition, Raleigh Ritchie, it may not exactly be a marque signing but the veteran wing brings a elite but admittedly limited skillset that the Legion are hoping will bolster the teams offensive prowess. So Ritchie, what was your initial reaction when you got the news that the Dragons were not planning on re-signing you? Well it's no secret I was devastated by the news, DC were the team that took a chance on me when no other team would, it's not often than a team will display the kind of patience that the Dragons did with me. They never looked down on my slow development as a negative and the team as a whole was so encouraging. The GM called up me late on Friday night to tell me that they would not have the space to bring me back, and after the initial shock I did warm up to the idea of Free Agency for the first time in my major league career. How did your first foray into free agency go? It was surprising how quickly the offers came in really, no sooner had I announced my availability to the league that I had messages from a few different GMs around the league. I first went into it with the intention of joining a playoff caliber team that could use a backup forward but ultimately it turned out that those teams either didn't want me or didn't have the cap space. So then it was a case of looking at my remaining options and seeing which team had the best fit for me. What were you looking for in a new team? The biggest goal was to get a team that can make a decent push for the playoffs and the Legion seemed on paper to have the strongest roster. They've got a really great centre in Chad Magnum and also in goal Jaxx Hextall is looking like he'll be one of the league premier goaltenders sooner rather than later. The next biggest factor is ice time and that's something that I'm hoping to get a good amount of with Toronto. I'll have to do my best to keep up with the young guns Merrick and Gainer though. To cap off this interview how would you describe your time in DC in 3 words and also you're view of the Legion's upcoming season? Well I only need two words for the first bit. DRAFONS GOREVER and the second part I guess I'll go with UNDERDOGS BARKING UP

I feel like I should have been a late 50s pick at worst smh.

DRAFONS GOREVER

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The Fifth round god will play out his last season in DC.

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DRAFON GOREVER

Don't recognise many names there but I'll go with Bobby Wynam @Lefty_S and Jay Jones @TTtheT. Had some nontact with their agency in the past and they're class young players. I put the pressure of that on myself, I haven't produced as well as I'd hope last season and I feel I need to progress to that next step this season or it might never happen. Hard to say, us I suppose. I think it's gonna be some big skates to fill but he's got the experience under his belt now to handle that challenge, I'll be testing him his practice so lets put that question on ice for a bit. Probably Mikko, he's an inspiration for me as a forward, he's a really talented player and he's taught me a lot of what he knows. Can i choose option C, a nice fruit crumble with custard?

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