Plate

I think it's because of the limitations between the attributes of your player. All defensive aspects of the game are put into "Defense", then all the shooting and power statistics are put into "scoring", all the stick handling and dangles are put into "puck handling". Breaking it up into a system that let people chose to affect more aspects of their game I think will make people feel better about the customization of their player. People will always find the best way to do something. Giving people more ways to have a good player I think is better than railroading it to one or two builds in the leauge. Just my opinion. STHS is way better than anything else on the market.

Yeah it would cost a fortune to make it happen unless you had someone from inside do it.

The Meta It's clear that there's a meta in terms of builds in the VHL. High scoring, high defense and high puck handling. Doesn't matter who you are. You always get those three as high as possible. Having more points is fun. There's no secret as to why most people do it. Using the categories they have in the NHL games for players, I'm going to attempt to recreate them by saying the three highest attributes that should be invested in when attempting to create that kind of player. Then share my thoughts on those that are most interesting. And before you even say anything, yes scoring does lead to more assists. But this is purely for playstyle purposes. A playmaker will generally pass first before looking to take a shot. Forwards Sniper: SK, PH, SC Playmaker: SK, PH, PA Two Way: PH, FO, PA, DF Power: CK, ST, SC Grinder: CK, ST, DF Enforcer: CK, FG, ST Defense Two Way: ST, PA, SC Offensive: SK, PH, SC Defensive: CK, ST, DF For me, the two way forward is something that really peaks my interest. It's also the only playstyle that has four attributes that should be invested in, because if you're a center two way forward you should be investing heavily into faceoffs. As a two way forward, your primary role is to is to play as a third defenseman on the team, and also set up your higher scoring forwards in the offensive zone. These kinds of players are exactly what a team needs to win championships. As with the current meta, there's no shortage of offensive high scoring forwards. Any team would be lucky to have one of these players on their roster A power forward would also be really fun to make. You'll notice that a power forward and grinder are almost the same thing. The difference being a grinder plays a more defensive role of attrition, while a power forward still focuses on the offensive zone. And there are really good players of those playstyles that have had fantastic careers. Both in the VHL and the NHL. It would be nice to see the VHL get spruced up a little bit with build ideas and different viable combinations. My Take on the Meta You'll notice that I didn't even bring up goalies. I didn't forget about them. It's just that with goalies you have four stats to put into and then you're basically done. I don't mind having a high scoring meta. And all of our limitations are done with the STHS engine, which don't get me wrong, I'm really glad we have access to. Otherwise this league would not be possible in its current form. There will always be that lingering idea of having their own sim engine created. I'll probably be making a power forward as my next player.

About time

Thank You Thank you to the WJC in allowing these prospects a chance in representing, not just their countries, but the unity of earth on the international stage. The troubling times we face in the real world today encourage us to stand side by side. Whether it be our friends in the locker room, the fierce competition on the ice, or management and coaching staff, I want to wish you all good luck on your campaigns. Special thank you to Zetterberg, the Team World AGM and former two time Team World GM, for helping me get the groove of things. He's been a huge help to preparing for this years WJC. Let's move on to your S73 Team World roster! Team World Roster Forwards Gary Neal The Terrible Trivium Remy Moreau Brian Strong Jr. Jared Willis Rocket Lexi Glass Jeff Odinson Isabella Campbell Defensemen Ziarie Angigbogu Bo Burrows Bobby Wyman Jiggly Gumballs Goalies Grekkark Gyrfalcon Doug Dimmadome Each of you will get a link to the discord. Mentions

STHS Grunts Week Two Welcome back to this weeks segment of STHS Grunts! Where we look at the teams playing out of their mind and other teams playing out of their mind. Because this weeks edition is so close our previous episode, they will be very close in terms of standings. Green = Standings at the end of the seasons using point % Orange = Standings according to total TPA in the locker room We can see that even though Miami has 1,152 TPA more than Houston, the two teams are tied in potential points for the end of the season. This .com series proves that TPA isn't everything. What's even more interesting is that the TPA in both conferences is almost dead even. Eastern Conference TPA = 12,008 Western Conference TPA = 12,466 Risers PHI +4 HOU +3 Lva 2 Philadelphia leads the risers this week as the first consecutive riser in STHS Grunts history! Which is really surprising because they're literally at the bottom of the league in terms of TPA. Yet they sit in a playoff spot. There is only one answer to why the team is doing so well. John Poremba. His GAA is pretty high at 4.01, but he sits atop the league with a .916 save %. Following the Reapers at number two is the Bulls! For most people this isn't surprising. They are regarded as one of the top teams in the league who can rival that of even Miami. Houstons deep scoring and solid goaltending keep them three spots above where they should be. We have Las Vegas making their first entry into this list in the third risers spot. Their strength seems to be the defensive pairing of Akerstrom and Crosby. The defensive backbone of the team, who post a combined +32 and have contributed 22 and 10 points respectively. Grunts SSK -4 YUK -3 MIN -1 Congratulations Saskatoon for overtaking Yukon as this weeks STHS Grunt! The Western conference is full of surprises and Saskatoon is definitely one of them. As everyone boggles over Houston's success, let me take the time to remind you who should be in their stead. The Wild have a great team. They've been built very well. Maybe some line changes or trades to shake up the locker room is in order. Hello Yukon fans. Every year that I've been part of this league, I've known Yukon as being in the bottom half of the league. Their last Founder's Cup was in S59. And ever since S65, they have only won three trophies. Not to say that Yukon hasn't ever been good. They have a deep history going all the way back to S31. It would just be nice to see some success in the near future for this team. I hear you Minnesota fans. You're telling me you should be tied with Halifax because you're both one spot below in the standings where you should be. I play my reverse Uno card! Halifax probably won't be making the playoffs, which means that you being a spot below will make you face a stronger team come playoff time! You dropping a spot means more than Halifax dropping a spot. Take that! Being a really good theoretical team can be a bit of a curse. For this series, it's very easy to fall if you're at the top. At the end of the day it's only one spot. The incorrect formatting on LVA is intentional. No, I'm not going to "fix" it ;).

Difference between not having confidence and not being good at it. These are easy media spots for you if you posted them there as is. Very good work!

Review Welcome to this edition of Plate makes you a better writer. Where I make a review that is far too long and could be a .com in all of itself. Firstly, I wish there were more interviews in the league. You might get two or three a week. Kind of sad. I'm glad you went out and did one! I'll be talking a bit about question quality, and the overall flow and format of your post. The best interviewers, a good example being Nardwuar, do a ton of research before they interview someone. I'm not expecting you to go bust your guts over a point task. A little probing of the locker room and getting insider information is a great way to throw GMs off guard. I know the context of the interview was shortly after the draft so the questions were very topical overall. As for the flow and formatting, it was good and made sense. However, it was a little basic and there was a missed opportunity to make it way more appealing to the eye. People have a really easy time associating colour to things. You could have set the interviewer to a certain colour, and then give DF and S their own colours. It would break up the blocky text look a bit. You also could have put in some headers before the interview to make it a bit more clear who the interviewee was before it started. I'll give an example on how the whole thing could have played out: Doktor Funk I: Hi DoktorFunk, over here! DF: Yes? I: Amy Shi here from The Hockey Times. Do you have a moment for some questions regarding the draft? DF: Ya,sure. I’ll be happy to answer them. Notice how it's easier to distinguish who's talking? That's just my suggestion. Overall you did a great job and I can't wait to see more of your work! Score Content 8/10 Get some deeper questions but they were fine at the time. Flow: 6/10 Was a little hard to follow who was talking at points. Format: 7/10 Just add a header and a bit of colour to make things stand out.

Review I was drafted by the Bulls in the 3rd round. Yes, we got resigned players. A lot of recreates that went to our team were guys that had left the league a while ago and were coming back. I can see where you're coming from with the frustration. There are seven teams out of twelve that are good. Having 58% of the league be actual cup contenders is a really good balance. And just like in real life, you're going to have teams that suck. You're also going to have a couple good players on those teams that suck. The issue stems from the volatility of the VHLM. The highest TPE players in the minors will only be there for two seasons at most. When one of those two seasons for a top player is dictated by being signed for free, I think we can agree there might be a problem. You can't force recreates to sign with bad teams, because then you're punishing them for staying in the league. Sure, you get like 40 or 60 TPE more than a first-gen (Which is a lot). It isn't enough to warrant ruining someones experience. Ideally, you have all of the possible playoff positions slotted with teams that can actually compete in them. Funnily enough there's a system that we can implement that won't need to limit draft picks. The cap system in the VHLM is a placeholder when it shouldn't be. Every player is currently signed to the same thing. First-Gens and recreates alike. I propose two suggestions: Recreates have a higher minimum signing amount depending on their starting TPE. You introduce a binary cap system where you introduce a new signing amount to recreates and keep the current amount for first-gen players. You can weigh in on the pros and cons of both implementations but something does need to change. As for the article itself, it was a great little thought experiment. It isn't every day that we get a view on how to change things from a first-gen perspective. But I think that forcing more teams to have more talent will make the league more competitive. Houston has an amazing GM, and Miami's GM did great work at the draft. Sometimes you just have to bite the bullet. Score Content: 7/10 I agree with the issue but not the solution. Flow: 10/10 No suggestions here Format: 6/10 It was really blocky. Try colouring some words for effect and italicizing others, or bolding them.

Third and last claim week ending August 9th. 3/3

Welcome to STHS Grunts! This is my weekly power ranking update that co-exists with my expectations article. Watch as I go week by week to tell you - the listeners, about the over performers and the under achievers. Oh boy, there are plenty of stories to tell. Let's dive into where I see every team going with the spreadsheet of doom. These are the standings that I have projected and are calculated up to this point. Friendly reminder this only takes into the consideration of the TPA of a team and nothing else. Miami stays on top as to be expected. Houston and San Diego trade spots thanks to the massive amounts of FA signings done by the Bulls throughout this week. Mississauga and Mexico City also switch places in TPA overalls. Let's compare them to how the teams are actually performing! For this I use the clever use of point percentage. By using a teams current point % we can figure out how many points they'll get in the season. Let's talk about the three biggest movers, both climbing the standings and falling in them. Top Risers Philadelphia +3 Ottawa +2 Houston +2 The Reapers are tearing it up compared to how they really should be sitting in the standings. Even though this is a rebuild season, parts of the Reaper play last season is springing to life in the early parts of S73. Ottawa is a bit of a riser with two positions over Minnesota and Saskatoon respectively. It should be no surprise that Ottawa is in the top three. A member trailing behind them however, may cause a bit of surprise as Houston follows suit. The team poised 5th in TPA overall is in the top 3. 1st in the league was tied with Houston for the first few games of the season. STHS Grunts Yukon -3 Minnesota -2 Saskatoon -2 While we all look at the race in the top five, we forget who the true winners are. And the winners of the STHS Grunt title for week 1 of S73 goes to Yukon! Getting outplayed by a team with basically one goalie (Philadelphia) is a bit of an oof. But that's okay, Yukon kind of wants to be at the bottom for a better chance at the lottery. So not all is lost. On the other side of the spectrum, Minnesota and Saskatoon are getting pushed down a bit in the standings. The surge of scoring from Houston and the two way play of Ottawa has certainly seen a bit of an upset. It will be interesting to see what moves will be made in the future to accommodate the lost points early on. Every game counts, and for Minnesota and Saskatoon, this could mean away ice and stronger teams come the playoffs.

Review I don't mind the idea of recreates/new players going to a "development" league, but that's kind of what the VHLM is. You couldn't have them be national teams because the number of athletes are skewed from different nationalities. Most teams structure their team around two lines of forwards and defense-men, and a goalie. Which is 17 players. You average about 82 players picked in the dispersal draft (over the last five dispersal drafts). So you'd need about five development teams up and running to keep those players. You said six which is almost spot on. Having VHL affiliates is something that I've always thought would be interesting to toss into the league. But this is a simulation hockey forum that's had its trials and learned its lessons. 13 years is a long time to learn what's right and what's wrong. All of the O.G commissioners and members remember much worse times. When parity was king and teams with barely 20 wins made the playoffs. With that being said, I love the article. Sometimes we need a breath of fresh air. Ridiculous questions and crazy ideas are the birthplace of things that we call normal today. For the article itself, a good way to make things pop is by throwing in a little bit of colour. You tried your best breaking up the blocky text look. Throwing in headers and highlighting ideas with flare can add a lot to your writing. Score Content: 9.5/10 Five development teams, not six Flow: 10/10 No problems here Format: 6/10 Needs to look less text blocky

I'm interested in GMing any team. I would need a little guidance from an experienced player, however. There are some that wouldn't mind having a newer member step up to the "plate" alongside them and I wouldn't mind being that person.

Review This is literally insane. I know that reviews generally talk about the article itself, but actually in this case I'm going to review the jerseys. What kind of design experience do I have to justify the following critiques? @SirRupertBarnes and I both LOVE managing hockey teams. We're cousins and we spend a lot of our time playing franchise mode together. We've done this every years since NHL 17. We take it upon ourselves to custom make the teams that we play. And even the teams that we play against. In NHL 18 we created 31 custom teams and re-branded the entire league. A softball amount of teams that we've done in total is about 70. Here are some lessons that we learned and I would like to share them with you here today! Socks The blocking and lines on the arms or bottom of the jersey should match the socks. This is a rule of thumb that makes the set look more uniform and appealing. There are teams that don't do this, but in my opinion they look inferior to the ones that do. Pants You can be a little more experimental with the pants if you wanted to. The Tampa Bay Lightning have the bolt going down the side that's really cool, the Capitals have the three stars going down the side. Implement something about Hokkaido that you could throw on there. Please never make pants white <3. Logo/Colour I love that logo. And the colours are really bold and they stand out super easily. The black on the main jerseys looks really clean, but it feels really safe compared to the colour scheme. Seattle is a good example of a team that took that bold light blue and instead of going with a black, went with a navy (Navy = sea, get it?). The only jersey that I'm on the fence with is the alternates. It's only because you have a light blue on white. Needs some more darker tones in there. Score Homes: 8/10 A little too much black. Aways: 9/10 Love these, just change the socks. Alternates: 6/10 Light blue and white is too bright.

For the M, Winnipeg and Edmonton already have teams in the NHL. Not to say that teams in the sim league can't exist in the NHL (Toronto, Vancouver for example). Just a suggestion for some other cities and names that might be possible: Phoenix Pharaohs Kansas City Thunder Oklahoma Stampede Just some suggestions.

Why not move the VHLM voting to the VHLM comissioners + VSN editor in chief (Sonnet, Diamond Ace and Frostbead)? You could just have a separate award for best player as chosen by VHLM GMs (If it doesn't exist already, but I think it does). It sounds like the issue is that the VHLM doesn't get as much attention as it should. Considering the fact that it's the best tool the VHL has at retaining new members and training them for the VHL. Also, there should be an award in the VHLM for the most outstanding VHLM first-gen player (member). Though, that's more of a topic for the suggestion thread.

This is my second claim for week ending August 2nd. 2/3

Dude that is sick! Congrats to everyone! GO BULLS GO!

McWolf is a stud. Big reason why I performed as well as I did on the S65 Halifax squad.

... at least as an offensive defense man, his play must be attractive to his gm, RJ. The third rounder has put up nine points in the first six games of the Bulls season. He is sitting at 7th for assists in the league. We caught Markus Schauer outside of a German diner. Schauer was enjoying some sauerbraten and schweinshaxe. Reporter You've had a very good season so far. Are you impressed with your first few games? Schauer I'm just impressed with the team effort so far. Christian Mingle has been an all-star. The veteran presence of Riley Knight alongside me has helped get my bearing on the season. Don't even get me started on how well that ladies line is doing. Reporter Is there anything you would like to improve on for the playoffs? Schauer I need to do better at stopping shots on Dre. Too many shots are being left in. He's bailed us out more times than I can count, but he shouldn't have to. I take responsibility for that. The Bulls have allowed 17 goals against. It is the second highest amount among the top five teams in the league. On the flip-side, Houston has scored 37 goals in just 6 games. They are on pace for scoring 444 goals on the season.

Review That's right Jiggs. After all the LR interactions that we have, which is funny considering we aren't on the same team, I'm popping you a review. I don't care how topical this is. I'm here to get it done so you can keep making ? content. I loved this interview! You don't need any help coming up with any bright ideas or making your player personable. The only things that I would suggest touching up on is adding colour. This is a common suggestion, but it's something that lets the eyes rest a bit easier and gives it something to focus on. Breaking up the black and white is really tough. Just as an example, you could have given the Reporter and Jiggs colour on top of their boldness. See how Reporter and Jiggs stand out a bit now (Not a fan of the green I used but you get it). Score Content: 9/10, Not enough pranks. Format: 8.5/10, Add some colour. Flow: 10/10, Changing anything would make it worse.

I feel like it's an unwritten responsibility for VHLM management to keep new players involved. Being interviewed, from a first-gens perspective, certainly would help retain interest.

Working on a suggestion thread as we speak.

TPE is a guideline. The main factors for how high a player is drafted isn't necessarily TPE. I can summarize it into the three A's: Activeness Attitude Aspirations Activeness. If you're more active than someone with 20 or so TPE more than you then you're "technically" more valuable. You have a higher potential because you'll get more TPE in the long run. The amount of players you've had in the VHL also lowers the risk and you'll be drafted higher. Attitude. Your personality affects where you will go. Just like in real life. It's kind of a popularity contest but for a GM trying to build a locker room it's one of the main things that's taken into consideration. The more locker rooms you're compatible with the higher you'll get drafted. Aspirations. This more closely ties to motivation. You might be active in the community but not do many point tasks because you have a hard time staying motivated to put the words in. And that's okay. The more aspiration you have as a player means you'll get drafted higher. That's a really good mentality that not every GM/AGM has. Management might say they do, but I would be willing to bet that most (51+%) of players don't get interviewed at any point in their draft season.

The version that exists now is a spreadsheet that gets updated every week with the TPE totals of every player. But you can just see it if you go to the draft page and look at the list of players in your draft year. It's not the same as interacting with a scout.