Fire Tortorella

So apparently this is actually Part 7 - I skipped Part 6 last week - whoops! Warsaw seems like we're going to be having a fun season and a fun locker room. I only half looked at the LR last season, but the locker room so far has been active with some conversation each day. Hm, more VHL content....no controversies I think recently? None that I can think of. Can the season start already? I know I hard on this every week but it's been forever since I've been in a competitive game. If you could bring back any previous VHL member, who would it be? Leave a comment below. @Squidward if that counts as gone but if not it would be @Will or @Squinty Here's another question - what is/was more important to league growth and the overall health of the league: Discord or the portal? My answer would be the portal - the ease of updating and actually getting your updates into the sim instantaneously is huge. For those who don't know, back in the day, your attributes in the sim would maybe be updated twice - sometimes at the trade deadline and always at the beginning of the playoffs. This was an entirely manual process and you had to double check everything.

Use welfare - that's what it's there for.

1.) I don't know much about the newer players in the league, but I'm sure they're going to be a great addition to the team. Pretty good name as well. 2.) Can I say Warsaw as a team? I think we'll go from just missing the playoffs to being playoff contenders/sleepers. 3.) Yes, I think the signing can happen. We should be a good team and seem like a great group of people to play with. 4.) Nope. I don't think we're going to be a top team or anything, but we can hang our own with anyone. 5.) I'm just trying to continue to improve my game. Being a young goaltender in the VHL can be rough, and I want to make sure this season goes as good as possible. 6.) I'm currently watching Sopranos for the first time, but that's not a new show. I don't think I've watched anything new in a while actually. I would say watch The Wire if you've never seen it.

So, the off-season is humming along. Speaking not knowing anything at all and just off the cuff, I wonder if we try to speed it up from what's scheduled given how (relatively) smooth it seems everything is going. I'm gonna guess we don't and that's totally fine, but just something I saw someone else on the forum mention and it made me think about it. April Fools day happened - I made a comment about reverting the league back to S35, back to the good ol' days when Skating was King, not everyone hit the 9 TPE cap every week, and I think the James Platt Welfare program either just started or was in the works in the BOG. Back in the day, not doing a point task meant earning basically half of your weekly TPE...talk about TPE inflation from then to now. Just for shiggles, I wonder how a sim league would work using NHL 22 or EHM or something with season or semi-seasonal updates. Way back in the day of MVP Baseball (05), on GameFAQs there were these series usually called "Road To The Show" or something similar where you would fill out a template on the forum and create a player and the owner would provide updates your player every so often. Nothing really for the player to do throughout the career except to watch for updates.

1.) I feel like Dlamb did well. It was somewhat fortunate to move up to 2nd in the lottery, but we were able to parlay that into some additional players for our roster. 2.) I haven't had a chance to talk to many of them since it's still the off-season, but it seems like they're a good group of people who will keep the lockerroom hoppin' 3.) To be honest I don't know - we seem pretty stacked/full at this point. I mean maybe a backup goalie, but that's not really of huge importance. 4.) Yes, we should definitely be playoff contenders and hopefully we can make a run. Once you're in, you're in and anything can happen. 5.) No, not really. My days of watching and monitoring the upcoming draft classes is over. In dlamb and the rest of management we trust! 6.) No. Regardless of how you feel about the joke, it was an immature response from Smith. The funniest thing is that he was actually laughing at the joke until he saw his wife's reaction and felt like he needed to do something about it.

I think we should go back to S35 in every way possible just for the current league to experience the old league.

A win!

Rough start for the US

Well, Warsaw moved up to 2nd place in the draft with the draft lottery! This is probably pretty huge for us - we were right on the cusp of making the playoffs last season anyway and now we have a 2nd overall pick to either select an impact player or to move in a trade for an impact player. Either way, this is nothing but a positive for the Predators. Congrats(?) to Vancouver on their third straight Continental Cup. I know there's been a lot of discussion about if these wins deserve an asterisk or not - some will look at it that way and others won't. Either way, it's hard to argue that these weren't the three Continental Cup wins that had the most significance to the VHL as a whole since they're the catalyst to some pretty major changes in the league. Speaking of that, it seems like this off-season is going to be 4 weeks or so - back in my day, the off-season could be scheduled for 3 weeks but take up to 5!

1.) Some will, some won't. What Vancouver did was entirely legal and available for other teams to do as well, but obviously it wasn't something that went with the direction the league wanted to go in. It's quite possibly the most influential 3-5 season stretch by an individual team though! 2.) Yup - Football (Philadelphia Eagles), soccer (USMNT, Philadelphia Union, Tottenham Hotspur) the closest, baseball (Philadelphia Phillies) and basketball (Philadelphia 76ers bandwagon fan). 3.) That's a good question - going off the last question, I'd love to watch a Spurs match and sadly when I visited @Squidward when he was studying abroad in London they were playing out of the country. I would enjoy seeing London again. 4.) I haven't looked close enough at the roster so have an opinion on this, but every team can always add more talent. 5.) Ha. Ha. Ha. I haven't been happy about the Flyers in at least 3 years....directionless team that's going to be stuck in mediocrity for a very long time. 6.) No - they're dumb and ugly. I'm not a "you can't touch the jerseys" type of person, but I do like them relatively simple and "classic" looking.

Good result for Warsaw!

So, something VHL related - is it next season yet? It feels like forever since I've played a game and months since I played a meaningful game. This off-season is going to be extra long as well with the attributes reset, but that's going to be well worth the wait in my opinion. Now onto the non-VHL related - @Doomsday (congrats on the GM job by the way) might find this interesting - @Squidwardand I went to our first Reading Royals game today. It was teacher appreciation day so we got some discounted tickets and also $1 nachos (were good), hot dogs (were not great), and popcorn (didn't have). Thought the in arena experience was pretty good (and tbh the goal horn and accompanying light/smoke were better than expected) but the level of hockey is definitely lacking. I think the skill discrepancy is much more noticeable than going to a Reading Phillies game for instance. Could definitely see myself going back again. Giroux trade - lol.

1.) Well, the season certainly ended. I enjoyed my time as a member of the Storm but I'm looking forward to playing with the Predators next season. 2.) Not really looking forward to the off-season to be honest. No new attributes for goalies, so I'm just hoping that the off-season goes as quick as possible...and it's going to be a long one regardless. 3.) I'm looking forward to the changes made by the new attributes. It's a very creative way to get around the "meta" while not changing anything with the bones of the sim engine. 4.) I'll have to take a closer look at the teams, but I'm thinking Warsaw makes the playoffs - I know we were very close this season. 5.) I think I'm the biggest winner of March Madness - I didn't make a bracket this year so I just get to watch each game for fun. I know nothing about college basketball so I don't have an educated answer. 6.) Ugh....my username should tell you all you need to know about how I think the moves the Flyers have made over the past 3 years.

Man, is it next season yet? It feels like I haven't played in 3 weeks and we're not even done the playoffs yet, let alone the extra long off-season to account for the attribute changes. Speaking of the attribute changes, I'm really excited to see them implemented. I cannot take any credit for any of the detailed work that went into the numbers portion of the change, but playing around with it, it seems like we'll get much more balanced builds. I'm sure at some point people will start to put together some type of "highly efficient" build, but the beauty of this is that the individual weights can be changed if our of "our" attributes becomes too out-of-whack. I'm a little surprised that more people aren't opting for the game recaps as a way of earning capped TPE. Granted, ever since trivia came back, I've only used them when I've missed a trivia question, and I'm guessing that most people use it only for that reason as well.

1.) I thought I got much better tracking the puck through screens. It wasn't really something that lower level teams do, so I had to adjust to it this year. 2.) Just talent - top end talent, middling talent, and depth talent. 3.) Next season I'm not sure if I'm starting or backing up, so I'd just like to have a save percentage over .915. 4.) Number 1 - where I want to be when my career is done. 5.) I was gonna say something about that but now apparently Brady is back? This off-season has been CRAZY. 6.) No, pineapple does not belong on pizza at all. Veggies on pizza are good, pineapple is bad.

Last point task?

I think I'm walking into a meme but the actual answer is Scotty Campbell.

I may not be the best person to ask, as this is my first Soulsborne game, but it is difficult. You have to be OK with dying a lot and "getting good" at the game. Combat focuses on blocking, parrying, or dodging attacks and then getting one or two of your own attacks in. You have to learn the move set of each boss by dying over and over again. It probably took me at least 3 hours to beat the first boss. It's open world exploration as well, but it becomes pretty apparent when you get to a part where you're not "supposed" to be yet because you just get one shot.

Well, I missed the actual "Part 4" last week - whoops. I realized it at like 11:30 on Sunday night and just said "....nah". It's only 2 TPE, not the worst thing in the world. We all know goalie success comes down to STHS sim luck anyway, not actual TPE. ...is this season over yet? My career so far has consisted of splitting time on bottom VHLM teams and now splitting time on the bottom VHLE team due to Oslo breaking (but actually obliterating) the Louth rule last season. I'm probably going to be a backup next season in Warsaw as well, but at least that team should be good.....why did I pick goalie again @Squidward? So I FINALLY beat Margit in Elden Ring. This is my first "Souls" game and it took me a really, really long time. I think I had to level up to lvl 26 or something and must have spent hours on that guy. Finally figured out what I was doing wrong and it only took me about 5 more tries to get him down with the help of a NPC summoner and a spirit jelllyfish thing.

1.) We need to score more goals than we allow, no matter if that's a 1-0 win or a 7-6 win. Don't think that's happening this season though. 2.) I have always preferred writing. A long time ago I did some podcasts, and would be a guest for the right one today, but I don't have the motivation to actually put one together anymore. 3.) Think it would have to be somewhat weather related...maybe someone looking like our current logo holding a lightning bolt of some sort (Zeus?) 4.) The fans - they keep showing up game after game even with the season that we're having. Have to give them all the props in the world. 5.) Sit inside and wait for it to get warmer - Although I don't mind the cold or snow, I don't really have many winter activities. 6.) Hm....a good cheese or pepperoni pizza is probably my favorite "regular" pizza, but for specialty pizzas, I like a good white pizza with extra garlic, tomatoes, and broccoli. Overall, I think veggies on pizza is underrated.

1.) Could be better, could be worse. Even on a bottom team, I'd like to do better than a .909 - I can't escape blame for why we are where we are in the standings. 2.) I'm admittedly not in there that much, but seems like the biggest thing is just getting more people in there. That probably won't happen until next season though. 3.) I wouldn't say there's one particular thing I'm excited about joining the VHL next season - I'm hopeful that I'm a starter, but we'll see how that goes. 4.) I think McDavid the best offensive player in the NHL, but Crosby is still the best overall player, as much as it pains me to say it as a Flyers fan. 5.) My favorite and least favorite NHL team is the Flyers. 6.) Hm....so my favorite ice cream food is actually a chocolate malt, but as far as actual ice cream flavors, coffee is probably my favorite "basic" flavor, but favorite overall is rocky road or anything with graham cracker and chocolate.

FYI I wasn't speaking to now - I'm not active enough on Discord to know of any actual drama. I was talking more so about my time as a commissioner.

Not "best games", but favorite games NHL 09 - NHL 22: EASHL (specifically clubs and since NHL 21 6v6 organized leagues, introduced to me by @Squidward) - I don't play offline, versus, or HUT COD MW2 - put so much time into this game after high school, played with family Age of Empires 2 - Never got into online because I'm not good enough at RTS games for it, but I started playing this game in elementary school and have played it off and on since Football Manager - Generally buy a new one every two years League of Legends - Have played off and on for 11 years now, gave up on ranked years ago but still fun to play with friends James Bond Nightfire - This applies to a ton of games, but the experience of splitscreen vs. everyone playing online together is 100% different. Nothing like screen-looking, accusing others of screen-looking, etc... Pokemon - Not going to throw in specific titles, but just an iconic game Halo 3 - Again, iconic, very fun to play with friends, but not a game I was very good at Rock Band - Tons of great memories playing this with friends and family Madden - iconic series that has just fallen off a cliff every since they removed the vision cone for QBs, was a huge shift from realism to arcade mode MVP Baseball 05 - top top notch game for it's time.

So, let's talk about The Meta. This has been at the top of everyone's mind over the past season or two. I know saying "it's being worked on" in the BOG is only a satisfactory answer for so long, but I can really say that thanks to the dedicated work of a few BoG members and Blue Team, things really have started to move on this in the past week or two. The fine details are still being ironed out, but I'm extremely hopeful that something will be put together to implement next season. Let's talk about real life balance and VHL life. One of the things @Peacetouched on in his stepping down post is not having the patience to deal with VHL related drama/people given real life circumstances. I don't know their real life circumstances (nor do I need to know, it's not my business) but I can 100% back up what they're saying. The prime reason I stepped down from being commissioner way back when and why I stay out of the day to day running of league related things is I can't believe the handholding and immaturity of some members of this site. I'm not calling out anyone specifically (especially since my Blue Team days were way back in the day with a different member base), but given my "advancement" in real life, I just could not be bothered dealing with VHL related drama. Not trying to put words in Pearce's mouth, but I think that's the overall jist they were getting at.