Plate

Review I actually really like the bold colouring on the logo. The high contrast makes the skater really pop. Very good choice of render here, because with the darker back ground your eyes pop right into the middle on the players face, and then you get the text off on the right which is a very natural place to put it. Very well done! 9/10 Don't know what palm trees have to do with dragons.

This isn't the first time either. I'm coming back to the position after S65 where I was a writer for a couple of weeks. I'm really excited for this scouting opportunity and I think that there are a lot of things that will help the department really step up their game. Here are some suggestions that I had for my interview: Interviews (Interviewing prospects during the post-season/off-season) First-Gen Rankings (Ranking the best first-gen players in the drafts, both in character and TPE earnings) Mock Drafts And More! Is there anything else I should do? I really want to know what else there could be done for scouting. IMO it's the link between a first-gen player and the league. Being scouted is a huge step towards retention and I'm really glad I can help out new people fall in love with the league just as much as I am. My partner in crime @MattyIce is a literal blessing and I can't wait to work with him on these write ups. It's going to be a blast. If any of you want to give me some pointers please feel free I need the criticism.

Before you are a media spot and a huge excel spreadsheet. For all intents and purposes, I had a quick formula to calculate a score based on 10 different stats from a player. When that score was calculated I added their current TPE onto it as well. Then I listed off each player score from largest to smallest and that is their new draft position. If you had the highest score of them all you were 1st overall. If you had the second highest score you were 2nd overall. If you had the third highest score you were 3rd overall, and so on and so forth. I subtracted each player’s new draft position from their old one. When you add up all the differences in draft position for each team’s pick; you come up with an arbitrary value to determine how well a team did in the draft. TPE values have changed since I wrote this spreadsheet, so each player is, give or take, within 12 score of each other. A team’s biggest steal is their draftee who had the highest positive jump in the draft. Whereas the team’s biggest bust is their draftee who had the highest negative fall in the draft. If a player had nobody fall in the draft, nobody busted and therefore it says “No Busts” or “No Steals”. Goalies were not included in this list because they are so weird to try and track with other players. For picks that teams literally passed on, I just assumed that they would pass again in that same spot. PHILADELPHIA Picks: 2 Score: 54 Biggest Steal: C. Rockwall (+28) Biggest Bust: (No Busts) HOUSTON Picks: 6 Score: 45 Biggest Steal: J. The 3rd (+16) Biggest Bust: A. Dear (-11) MISSISSAUGA Picks: 4 Score: 32 Biggest Steal: T. Horton (+17) Biggest Bust: (No Busts) LAS VEGAS Picks: 10 Score: 31 Biggest Steal: R. Entertainment (+25) Biggest Bust: T. Jabroni (-19) YUKON Picks: 5 Score: 25 Biggest Steal: Mattymell (+21) Biggest Bust: W. Jetski (-6) SASKATOON Picks: 4 Score: 0 Biggest Steal: B. Landry (+15) Biggest Bust: A. Askarov (-11) MINNESOTA Picks: 2 Score: 1 Biggest Steal: T. Kamashev (10) Biggest Bust: Y. Cloudersa (-9) HALIFAX Picks: 3 Score: -12 Biggest Steal: H. Gunnarsson (12) Biggest Bust: Empty (-15) MIAMI Picks: 11 Score: -30 Biggest Steal: P. Laine (+40) Biggest Bust: K. King (-16) SAN DIEGO Picks: 9 Score: -61 Biggest Steal: L. Leveque (+7) Biggest Bust: B. Von Luxembourg (-24) OTTAWA Picks: 16 Score: -85 Biggest Steal: Z. Kisslinger (+20) Biggest Bust: J. Jogr (-33) THESIS Why do players get picked earlier? Well, you’ll see there are two main reasons for players getting picked a lot higher than they should. The first is that they’re a returning player. GMs are more likely to pick a welfare agent than they will a first-gen that inconsistently earns, even if the average of that first-gens earnings are higher than welfare. And the second is team loyalty. When a new player signs with a team in the VHLM they tend to want to go back to their signing team in the draft. Or at least, that expectation will occur if it’s realistic. Sometimes a “worse” skater is selected for the locker room. Why do players fall in the draft? For one, first-gens are higher risk than recreates. You don’t know what you’re getting really. Someone might be too active and burn out quickly. Hyperactivity is sometimes not a good thing. GMs pay attention to what is said everywhere. In media spots, locker rooms they have access to, insider information, they will get it at one point. Maybe not immediately, but things generally come around. Information might deter a GM from selecting your player. That’s okay, because they do it so that you are a good fit for the team, not because you’re a bad person.

Thank you to VSN management for deciding on choosing both @MattyIce and I as the scouts for the VSN!

Review As far as logos go, this isn't that bad. The colours are great, the team name and city of origin makes complete sense. It's clean and has a lot of depth to it. Although Riga is orange with their colours I don't think this infringes on their scheme too much. Especially since I imagine Riga having an orange based jersey and these are more catered to a black base. All in all this looks great. 10/10 would go full steam ahead again.

Review Yooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo. I'm not a weeb, but this is sick and I'm jealous I want one. All of the colours are excellent and blend in super well together with the aesthetic. The eyes are on point (I know those are really hard to do, so props to Riley for getting those right). Can't believe you even managed to get the shading from the hair on the face. This is literally fantastic. 10/10 almost makes me a weeb.

Thank you @Doomsday! Best of luck to your team moving forward.

From falling out of the second round Markus Schauer would finish in a three way tie for 7th in points in the VHLM, second in the league for assists at 85, and second in points for defense men. Schauer also tied for 10th in powerplay goals at 14. To say that he is an offensive dynamo in this upcoming draft is an understatement. Even more interesting than that, Schauer is a defenseman. This is a draft that is D-light for a heavy market on the back end. Will we see the opposite happen to Schauer in this draft, where he rises a couple spots to fix a need for a team? Or will he suffer the same fate as the last draft and fall an entire round? We caught Schauer after the 6-1 win over Saskatoon to win the series and move on to the second round. A game where he posted a goal and two assists. Interviewer: "You've had an incredible performance this season. What do you think contributed most to it?" Schauer: "Well, I would have to thank the team for that. My defensive partner was a stud the entire season and I'm glad I got to learn a thing or two from him. I also want to thank management and the other captains for the team in helping build such a competitive locker room. We stick to our game and goals happen. The ladies line was fantastic and we have a few other up and coming stars on this roster." Schauer was a former 3rd round pick in the S72 dispersal draft. I believe we call that a steal.

The VHL has some pretty decent logos. It also has some misses. I'm gonna rank all of my favourites and least favourites. Before you get mad at me, this is completely based on opinion. It is a qualitative list. You can disagree, just like how I have such a controversial opinion on corn on the cob, but lets be civil in our discussion. (Before you say anything about referring to my older post about colours, these are the ones they gave me and I don't know how to change it). This is also only a ranking of the LOGOS and nothing else. It's a bold thing to write about, especially with the draft in a week or so. I'd be happy to play for any of these teams I just have my opinions on the logos. If your teams logo sucks it just does nothing you or I can do about it. I also didn't bother ranking each logo beside what rank I put them in, other than the best and worst logo in my opinion. Each other logo is placed throughout equally in their respective ranks. I also can't upload all of the logos because the file size is too big and I don't know my way around that. You can make your own list by clicking on the link Here! D, Seattle, Los Angeles Why do I hate LA? There are some people that don't mind it. Here's the thing. You could have gone a million different places with the LA Stars. But instead you chose the literal version of the team. The text in the back ground is boring. There's absolutely no depth going on here. It just looks boring. I would rather not look at it than have it on my screen. I was even tempted not to put it on the list in the first place so I don't have to look at it, but that wouldn't be fair. It looks ugly. The star looks completely misplaced. Look at it, it's not even trying to be center. The logo itself doesn't even come close to looking like the other VHL logos. Very disappointed that an expansion team is given that as its logo. There was so much potential wasted. Seattle, we have to talk about that brown man. The bear itself is mediocre at best. If you look underneath the text the paw on the left doesn't look like it even attaches to the arm. The text is absolutely the wrong colour. It needs to be white and stand out a bit more. It's not a complete circle either, on the bottom is gets messed up so the shape kind of looks like a guitar pick? The only redeeming quality about this logo is the head of the bear. Everything else sucks. When your logo is 85% sucky and 15% mediocre, it deserves to be in the bottom. Some of the nails aren't even coloured right. C, Helsinki, Toronto, Davos, New York New York has the pinnacle C logo. It's not a good logo. But it isn't bad either. It just exists to give a team branding. The logo is a little safe with the crest and colours. Feel like you can do way more with it than just slap the word "Americans" onto a crest and call it a day. I would have stepped it up a notch and made the logo an eagle. Or something patriotic. The stripes on the bottom could have been the skyline of New York City and it immediately would have been bumped up to at least a B. Otherwise it just kind of exists and that isn't a bad thing I suppose? Davos I just have to be honest here like I've been with the rest of the logos and say this is just mediocre. I look at this logo and it just looks right on through. I'm a fan of the purple, but in the end it's just a background colour to an otherwise boring logo. There are plenty of other places in the world that have mountains. The circle logo just reminds me of a really old logo that's a bit outdated and needs to be redone. It just doesn't feel classic enough to stay this way. Toronto the thing saving your logo is the text. It is on point. Other than that, the bird is blue. Not even a good blue that I associate with Toronto, or Ontario in general. It's just a baby blue that's the same colour as my house. There isn't much to say about it. That might be a good thing considering the punishment I've put the other logos through. Helsinki is coming close to something that I like, except for the fact that the Titan itself has no cultural resemblance to any Norse myths. It does a disservice to the rich culture that pagan shamans cultivated through thousands of years of teachings. If you were to change it, the helmet would change to have horns on it instead of the feathers it does now. Also, there is a severe lack of beard on this fellow. That's the only complaint though. Everything else I like. The colours make sense being white and blue are the colours of the Finnish flag.

I have a STRONG case for the scouting report position.

Much better

A lot of older members (Anyone from S64 to S66) may remember a player by the name of Rhye Tyr. It's pronounced "retire", and was my first real player in the VHL. At first, I wanted to make a goalie, Markus Schauer, an ode to a franchise goalie that my cousin and I managed to draft in NHL GM mode. He played 1100 games, 750~ of those being wins, 100+ shutouts and had a career 0.935 SV% and a career GAA of less than 2. There were two seasons in his career where he was above a GAA of 2,00, but never less than 2.30. He was insane. But as the goalie markets are in the VHL, every team needs one or teams don't need them at all. Most of the time it's the latter. There was a lot of confusion and about four players ended up being retired before I settled on the final version of my VHL player. He was an offensive defense man, just like the player that I have now. And honestly I miss him. It's part of what drives me to keep going. To avoid burnout and just have fun. The memories you get from this league come from whatever you make of it. You can have just as much of a good time hitting the welfare button, as you could getting max earnings every week. It's not about winning. It isn't about individual stats or trophy chasing. Which, let's be honest, is completely up to Simon T if you get a chance at winning. The VHL is about memories. It's about having fun. Some people get their fun out of hitting the welfare button and calling it a day, checking in to see how their player is doing. Others, like myself, get their enjoyment from being involved deeply in the matured systems that the VHL has to offer. I just wanted to share this because I feel like some people can feel polarized for not putting in as much work as others. Or maybe they don't have as much time to dedicate to something as niche as this as they would like. If you're someone that's in a situation comparable to that, it's okay. We are here to have fun. I lost vision of that when I first fell through in the league. Mistakes are okay, as long as they only happen once.

I thought it was heartwarming <3. Great series! You'll do a fantastic job in New York.

Review Welcome back to the league friend! On behalf of the VHL family, we missed you and we're glad that you're back in hanging with the lot of us. It isn't often that a member will talk so thoroughly about their play in the games they're simulated in. It's more apparent in football, where there are less games which makes them all count. I really enjoyed reading the storylines of the very few minutes Giftopolous played. My biggest recommendation would be to ease up on the bolding. When everything is emphasized, nothing gets emphasized. I understand using it to point out players names and the team name as well, but I would recommend using it to highlight big moments of the game. Such as "Drew Minott managed to preserve his shutout throughout the third period...". The reason why you would ease up a bit is because it's really hard to keep track of one thing when everything wants you to look at it at the same time. Tasteful amounts is how I'll put it. I did really enjoy reading and I can't wait for more! I rate this article 8 good shifts out of 10.

Review I'm here to destroy your career with bad writing advice and corn on the cob. I appreciate the changes to both the title of the series (nice way to cover yourself for not having access to information on players before the portal era). And changing the format from the best "team" from players in their history, to just ranking the best players is an improvement in my books. It lets some nations be a bit more competitive and interesting to look at. My vote for the next country is Germany. And just because it's in the rules for me to "rank" your article I rank it 8 Jerry's out of 10.

How would you have done it?

I'm Canadian. Colour and color are both correct. https://www.grammarly.com/blog/color-colour/ I fixed it, thanks for pointing that out for me. It's a saying. I'm sorry you didn't understand it, I'll use simpler language next time around to avoid confusion. https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/nuts and bolts I didn't know that eating corn with butter, salt and pepper would be such a hot take. Bad example, I get it. Whenever I eat corn on the cob I always have it that way no questions asked. Pardon my ignorance. I went overboard because I was trying to show off the ideas. It is way cheaper for printing presses to print out hundreds of thousands of black text because sourcing the ink is cheaper. I wouldn't use four different coloured words in a paragraph normally. So it was a bad example.

I read a lot of VHL media spots. I think they're fun, creative, and it's the backbone of activity in the VHL. It makes them important to be interesting to read. And that's what I'm disappointed in. There are so many good articles that would be great if they implemented a couple of tips. Think of it as a hearty meal. You wouldn't eat corn on the cob without butter, salt and pepper would you? Then why would you write an article without all the extra flavours and spices? Sure, corn on the cob alone is a treat. But it is much better with all the nuts and bolts. I'm gonna be throwing down my top tips on how to make your article way better! We can use that first paragraph as our control. At the end of a tip, I'll rewrite it and you can judge for yourself if it's worth doing or not. Tip 1: Use Colour Please, please, please. Please, oh please, use colour in your articles. There’s nothing for your eyes to grab onto when all you see is black and white. You may be thinking to yourself “Well, books are black and white, and those aren’t a problem”. Yes, because coloured ink is way more expensive than black ink for starters. We have access to technology that lets us use hex codes! Now, I'm not saying that every word should be cooloured and to heck with any black on an article. That would be way too much. But knowing when to use colour and what colour to use can really tip an article over the edge. This is used to emphasize a word, but more importantly an idea. When choosing your colour, play into stereotypes. Red: Use red when something is bad. It's a passionate colour and brings a lot of emotion out of us. Use it to prove a point. To directly show your reader "HEY MAN THIS THING HERE, IT'S NOT GREAT CHIEF." Green: The opposite of red. It's a soothing colour to look at. When a reader see's green, it's a good sign. A sign of wholesomeness and positivity. Use it when you want your reader to understand that what you're telling them is a good thing. Yellow: Yellow is a neutral colour. It doesn't mean anything to anyone. The only thing it does it get our attention. Even as your reading this far in you can still see it out the corner of your eye screaming at you. Don't abuse it. Blue: This is a fantastic colour. iPhone users know it as sending an iMessage over the internet, whereas green is through whatever cell network they use, but I digress. Blue is intelligence, when you want to sound smart use this. Or when you're having an interview, make the interviewr's name blue. It will make your reader thing they're smarter, wise, have more authority. I read a lot of VHL media spots. I think they're fun, creative, and it's the backbone of activity in the VHL. It makes them important to be interesting to read. And that's what I'm disappointed in. There are so many good articles that would be great if they implemented a couple of tips. Think of it as a hearty meal. You wouldn't eat corn on the cob without butter, salt and pepper would you? Then why would you write an article without all the extra flavours and spices? Sure, corn on the cob alone is a treat. But it is much better with all the nuts and bolts. I'm gonna be throwing down my top tips on how to make your article way better! Tip 2: Bolding, Italicizing, and Underlying These are three simple things that we can do as writers to totally change how our article looks and feels reading. Using these increase average read time, content more scannable, and you can bold instead of using a header in certain cases. And don't you dare bold, italicize or underline an entire paragraph. Nothing gets emphasized. Underlining: The weakest of the three, so we'll start here. Sometimes it can be too hard to differentiate between links and when something is just underlined. You can use it more on print, but on the web just avoid it all together. I want to click on it right now actually... Italicizing: Commonly we use italics for highlighting quotes, conversations, or dialogue. You can use them to emphasize a word in a sentence. A little bit of kick to reinforce your idea. Bolding: You bold when you want to capture your readers' attention. Use it to highlight keywords and important phrases. Only use bold when italics do not emphasize your point enough. This is the last resort. I read a lot of VHL media spots. I think they're fun, creative, and it's the backbone of activity in the VHL. It makes them important to be interesting to read. And that's what I'm disappointed in. There are so many good articles that would be great if they implemented a couple of tips. Think of it as a hearty meal. You wouldn't eat corn on the cob without butter, salt and pepper would you? Then why would you write an article without all the extra flavours and spices? Sure, corn on the cob alone is a treat. But it is much better with all the nuts and bolts. I'm gonna be throwing down my top tips on how to make your article way better! These are just my recommendations for people going forward with their media spots. As if finding something interesting to write about isn't enough, I have to come in here and set a standard. That's life I guess. Thanks for reading and I hope to be proud of you guys when soon! (713 words, excluding the copy/pasting to prove points.) I read a lot of VHL media spots. I think they're fun, creative, and it's the backbone of activity in the VHL. It makes them important to be interesting to read. And that's what I'm disappointed in. There are so many good articles that would be great if they implemented a couple of tips. Think of it as a hearty meal. You wouldn't eat corn on the cob without butter, salt and pepper would you? Then why would you write an article without all the extra flavours and spices? Sure, corn on the cob alone is a treat. But it is much better with all the nuts and bolts. I'm gonna be throwing down my top tips on how to make your article way better!

This was a blast tournament to be a part of and I can't wait for next season to (hopefully) do it all again!

Hi I recruited @Thranduil

Had it been the old system he would have been, but there's more to how good you are than points!

HE'S BACK

Team World finished off the S73 WJC with a shiny bronze medal. A notable feat that the team should be proud of. We sat down with their general manager to garner some thoughts on the tournament. Reporter Was Team World your first choice when you threw your hat in for the many possible general manager positions? Plate Unless you were very fond of the set of players that come specifically from the world region, I hardly think that it's anyone's first choice. The beauty of Team World is that you come in with an "Us Vs. the rest of the world" mentality. There are a lot of players that feel the same way too. Analysts and fans see us as left overs, but this year we showed we could be a main course too. Team World will always have a special place in my heart. Reporter You made some drastic line changes after the first couple games. Was that a tough decision to make? Plate Well, you put your best guys out there on the first day and sometimes you don't get the chemistry you're looking for. So we shook things up and everyone seemed happy with it. After we made those changes we were the best team in the round robin. But when you only play so few games every point matters. There were a lot of lessons learned from that we learned from during the course of the tournament. Looking back at the tapes we got to know who the players were a bit more and made adjustments. We ended up having a good time in the locker room and at the end of the day that's all that matters. Reporter Are you going to explore more opportunities in management in the future? Plate Team World is definitely a good test of skill to see how someone can put together a competitive group of players. With the experience that I have now, I wouldn't mind expanding my portfolio a bit more. There are positions constantly available and hopefully the commissioners will consider giving more people opportunities to do what I did.

I vote for Vector

I appreciate the civil discussion. My boys @PatrikLaine and @JigglyGumballs did all of this by hand. Some of the defensive stats are missing out like hits and shots blocked, so the list is a little skewed. You can make the argument that averaging out players based on their ice time is "unfair". But I would actually say the contrary. If you're playing for Miami and you're still producing, but not as much as any other 1st line forwards out there, then you don't have a chance. If you're a 2nd line left winger and you're destroying it on points then yeah, you are a better player for your position than someone with less points getting more ice time than you in general. And it's that "in general" that we have to accept to give the article any validity. The top players get enough recognition with awards as it is. I think it's about time we find good ways to reward players playing deeper in the roster. If you have a better suggestion than this then write it. I would be happy to help .