Gustav

I want Jannula again, especially since we only have one addition to the ballot and IMO it isn’t obvious. Bouchard has a higher point total than the others but with at least one more season played—perhaps the Cup means something (and I think hit totals do for sure) but Johansson has a higher point rate. This seems reminiscent of the time we had people like Welch/Killinger/Socks/whoever else sitting on the ballot forever and took a long time to sort out. 
 

Between the most recent additions, I think Johansson or Bouchard is most deserving and I THINK I lean Bouchard but it’s close. Depends where you stand on offense vs. defense. 
 

I would not be opposed to finally voting Papa this season as well and honestly probably prefer him to any of those. 
 

Consider this my second plug for Jannula—go back and read my HoNB article on him. My votes this season are somewhat adventurous in Jannula and (probably) Papa, but I think there’s nothing wrong with that. 
 

Also putting a @BOG on this since the post has been up for a while and I feel like it’s a lot of our first times noticing it. 

Probably the only time @Beketov has ever agreed with me in BoG, and it was before I was ever part of it.

The VHL has seen its share of TPE inflation over the years. The update scale used to max out at 9 TPE until that was changed at some point in the S50s. Things like doubles weeks and predictions and fantasy zone consistently give us more than we're guaranteed to earn every week. Plus, we now have one more season to earn with, a depreciation system that I hate, and new systems like catch-up TPE that do make VHL life more fair but do so by...giving out more TPE. Really, the only change I've ever seen that cut down on TPE inflation was a scale-back of the amount that could be earned through Fantasy Zone every week, when the way it worked more or less made the weekly cap 15 when you bothered to do it and make reasonable guesses.

Well, almost. The only other one I can think of was the abolishment of the VHL lottery--and also the first real change I ever advocated for on the forum.

If you were around when I joined the league, chances are that you remember the lotto. Chances also are that you haven't thought about it in a while. If you aren't familiar with the system, it's more or less exactly what it sounds like. Back before my time, it was run by @Smarch and featured a poll at the top of a forum thread that people could answer, with each answer constituting an entry to the lottery. Each week, a winner would be chosen from that field of answers at random. Which was fine--except that no one liked it.

So, at some point not long before I joined the league, the lottery system was overhauled. This time, instead of purely random based on one entry, VHL leadership decided to try to tackle two things at once and make the lottery a way to make game threads more active. This was in the days before game reviews were a thing, and there wasn't really any reason to comment on game threads unless (gasp) you wanted to use the VHL for its intended purpose of getting to know people and having real human interaction. Which, of course, no one really cares about unless you force them to (a mindset that I've always seen here on some level and never really liked). It seemed like a really good idea to reward those who were doing that and making the forum a more active and readable place. But what was never addressed was the fact that there was really nothing stopping anyone from trying to stuff their own box by just commenting everywhere...and getting tons of chances.

As far as I understand it, this really took off in S65 with the emergence of the S66 draft class. You'll know by now that we were historically large, historically new, and historically active. That also made many of us historically competitive--and waving "there's a positive correlation between the number of comments you leave on game threads and your TPE" under our noses wasn't something that took people very long to figure out. Take a scroll through the S65 Games section for the VHLM and tell me what you see--tons of comments on every game thread, all of which were made by the same handful of people. These people were doing nothing wrong, just taking an opportunity they were given. Still, it didn't quite match the intended purpose of promoting discussion--because everyone openly did not care about discussion. I remember talking about the lottery on a few different occasions with @Renomitsu and @rjfryman--two people who took full advantage of the system--and they'd openly admit that the reason why they posted everywhere was that the way things were set up was designed in a way that made that choice one that was in their best interest. This was more than fair enough, and the benefit that it served their players was sizable--eventual Hall-of-Famer Julius Freeman would enter the draft second in the class in TPE as a first-gen.

I'd comment on things when I felt like it and a few times ventured into lotto-whoring territory, winning something a couple times but not going as far as some others had. That still didn't stop me from taking issue with how things went--after all, it felt kind of dumb to open up my team's thread and see it already commented on by people who probably didn't care how my team did in the slightest. So, for the first time ever in the VHL, I took matters into my own hands.

I considered this suggestion thread my magnum opus at the time, and it was called "FIX THE LOTTERY SYSTEM GODDAMMIT", with the last word specifically added because I was under the impression that there was some study showing that cursing in the title of a book made it more likely to be bought (I can't find that, but there are a lot of online articles about that topic in general). I had done well as a player up to that point, was doing pretty well as a GM, and was ready to start throwing my VHL influence around. People largely seemed to agree with me in the replies, which felt really good, and it felt even better when I suggested in a status update that people start throwing around a "#fixthelottery" or two in their game thread comments. Some people actually did, and I had a cool week or so when I had backup every time a sim went up. 

I'm not sure exactly when the lottery was fixed, but it happened pretty quickly. The league went back to its old system (one entry in a separate random draw), which was closed entirely before long. The changes to the lottery had created a weird system that I'm sure would have been changed eventually no matter what, but I was the first one to really jump on it. You'll notice a natural progression in these articles, as time goes on and the stories become more recent, where I move a little bit away from my achievements as a player or as a GM and a little bit more into the administrative side of things. That will also come with more "making things happen" than experiencing things on my own. I'm glad I've experienced both, and that there was a time when was heavily involved in both at once.

Read my other articles for the full Gustav experience:

#1: Lightning Glory Gonna Be My Name

#2: Can't We All Just Get Along?

#3: Who Needs Cybersecurity Anyway?

#4: The House That I Built

10 hours ago, Doomsday said:

Although I have used the Doomsday name since Season 32 when I first joined, that is technically a rebrand from my first appearance here in Season Four.

Is this common knowledge? It's the first time I've heard of it.

11 hours ago, Hogan said:

TXC is a name that I used in the VHL for a brief period of time. I coined it after less than a year of joining and its original intention was to draw away from Hogan. Hogan was meant to be my player and I didn’t exactly know what I was doing when I created my player. I did actually receive many people calling me TXC, but as you can see, I’m Hogan again. Hogan never left people's minds, many still referred to me as it and I think now if I was still TXC many still would call me Hogan. 

This wasn't even intentional but I don't think I ever said TXC. I would have been fine switching if you asked but I don't think it ever would have occurred to me to do that normally. 

Wasn't there some day when Devise took control of your account and posted a few stupid things on it, and didn't that happen around the same time as TXC? I remember for some reason thinking that your name was switched by someone other than yourself and you just decided to roll with that for a while. Maybe I'm just making things up.

I actually really like the name Hogan and I think it works well in a sim league where a lot of us know each other by more "normal" sounding names than just gamer tags. For context, I got my original username (and therefore my current one) by just rearranging the name of a bass player from a band I don't even really listen to anymore. My name isn't actually Gustav, but I've found that I love that that's how people know me because it works exactly the same as if it were. I'm familiar to people and it doesn't sound fake.

The very first messages in the Hounds server.

There's a gap in my message history on the forum between April 3rd and 7th, 2019--that unfortunate period of time I described in my last article where I was busy being nonexistent as a GM in the World Juniors and not having access to my computer. Having things go the way they did might lead many people, myself included, to believe that I wasn't quite cut out for a job as GM. And as justifiable as that may have been, it didn't stop me from applying for a real GM job just four days later on the 11th. Fortunately for myself and others, the league was at the start of a massive period of growth, and jobs were available. In this case, three new teams were being added to the VHLM--the Hounds, Marlins, and Kings.

Lots of first-timers had applied for the job, many deserving, but I'd point to a bit of unintentional campaigning as something that made the difference. I'd been into the VHL Discord server a handful of times before, but hadn't gone too deep on a leaguewide basis and didn't have a whole lot of personal interaction that would have made people outside of Houston know me and like me. That would change, though, when I opened up the server to some "getting hired" talk featuring a member named Goonie, one of the other applicants.

Goonie was nice. We spent some time talking about our interests in the league, what we intended to do with a team if we got one, and all that. I learned that Goonie was an alias of an older member who wanted a bit of a fresh start, and so it meant something nice to me when we agreed to promote each other in the quest for a job--in the simplest of ways by my posting #hiregoonie and his replies of #hiregustav. We were serious about it, and it's also important to note that when you're active and interacting with others in a positive way, the league will notice. In the end, both Goonie and I got a team. Goonie was hired as inaugural GM of the San Diego Marlins (and just about immediately after ditched the fake name for his old one, @InstantRockstar), and I was brought on as the one who would kick off a legacy in Mississauga.

There were a few things I knew I valued from the start. Every GM wants an active server, but I saw how much @Rin had tried with us in Houston and wanted to give that back to my own team. In fact, I loved the Houston server so much that the first version of the Hounds server was almost an exact carbon copy of Houston--the only channel I remember adding on my own terms was #music-sharing, an extremely minor change that just served as my outlet for dumping things I wanted to share on people. I immediately hired @Radcow, a friend of mine from Houston, as my AGM, and we went to work going over the draft lists and getting ready for our first draft in league management.

And what. a. draft. that was for us. We took care of goaltending right away by selecting @Rayzor_7 and Rayz Funk 3rd overall, and then turned around and picked @Hogan and his namesake player Hulk Hogan at 22nd. Both eventually spent the bulk of their careers with Seattle and made the Hall of Fame. Our third pick (33rd) featured Cody Smith and @cody73, who would turn out to be a solid VHL-level depth piece as a player and an AGM in a couple different places as a member. Way later on in the draft, too, we were fortunate enough to select Scott Greene, yet another longtime Bear, managed by one of my favorite members of all time in @DoktorFunk. Though I would only invite a few people in from elsewhere, we had way more than enough to keep our server popping, and it positively popped all season long. This didn't even stop at the draft, either--someone you may know as another-future-Seattle-Bear @Berocka joined us through the waiver wire (and I had to send a second DM to get him in our server because he thought I was a bot or something at first). Perhaps the most telling with respect to servers popping was that Seattle GM and VHLM Commissioner @Banackock had access to our server through his role--and you may have noticed a certain VHL team in common among my three most distinguished picks and my most distinguished signing. 

I won't act like I wasn't lucky to stumble upon such a great group of new members so early on, nor that this wasn't most of the reason our server was as active as it was. But for all Houston was, and for all we heard Philadelphia was, in S65, I like to think that Mississauga was the place to be in S66. Constantly active, overflowing with much of the league's next generation, and even free of the drama that had plagued those other two places a season before and in article #2 of this series. 

The first Hounds team wouldn't go too far. We were led by VHLM MVP (and S65 Bull) Callum MacElroy, had developed our picks like no one's business, and firmly established ourselves as a competitive playoff team, but just didn't have the resources to spend that teams like (ugh) Philly did and got smacked around in the playoffs. I'd accomplished something big nonetheless by leading a team--this time the right way--and served the actual purpose of the VHLM by showing people a good time and helping them make it big on the next level. And, more importantly for me, I now had people who looked up to me and I felt respected as a more "established" member of the VHL. For all intents and purposes, I'd accomplished what was on my mind for myself.

Read my other articles for the full Gustav experience:

#1: Lightning Glory Gonna Be My Name

#2: Can't We All Just Get Along?

#3: Who Needs Cybersecurity Anyway?

I'm a nerd for many reasons, but one of those reasons is that I'm a little overly interested in geography. By that, I don't mean anything useful, like understanding how topographic features affect weather patterns or human migration or anything. I mean all the dumb stuff like knowing where to find any country on a map, learning the location of each of Ohio's 88 counties, or digging into the history of abnormal features like what the border used to look like between India and Bangladesh. Along the way, I've come across lots of different places that I find interesting for one dumb reason or another, and I'm going to try to match some VHL teams to those places for the purposes of rebranding.

Gaffney, South Carolina - the "Peach Capital of South Carolina," Gaffney is known pretty much entirely as the site of the iconic Peachoid water tower. Because of this, the Gaffney Peaches would be a super gimmicky team name. As it's very close to Spartanburg, I think @Spartan  and Moscow would be a nice target for relocation here. 

Kanorado, Kansas - named the way it is because of its location near the state line with Colorado, Kanorado is near Mount Sunflower, the highest point in the entire state. Although Mount Sunflower isn't at all distinguishable from the land that surrounds it, I think that's part of what makes it cool and I think the 153 people living in Kanorado could use a hockey team to make them a bit more distinguishable from the rest. The Kanorado Sunflowers make natural sense to me, and I'd move Saskatoon here because they're already in very flat territory and could get used to it pretty quickly.

Greensburg, Kansas - I swear I'll move out of small towns in Kansas after this one, but you'd be hard-pressed to find a place with a more compelling history. Greensburg was completely wiped out by a tornado in 2007, and since completely rebuilt. For that reason, I'd move Chicago here and keep the Phoenix nickname--it's arguably much more fitting here than there. Oh, and it's also the site of the world's largest hand-dug well!

Seville, Ohio - proclaiming itself as "a giant of a village" on multiple signs throughout town, I've actually visited this one and was surprised by how much they lean into their most distinguishing feature--that being the home and burial site of the world's tallest married couple. I suppose it's better to focus on that than to draw attention to being the retirement home of Jeffrey Dahmer's father, and it's for that reason that I'll suggest that they go full tacky and welcome the Seville Giants to town--relocated from New York, because New York already has a team called the Giants and I think it would be funny to get rid of a different team in favor of the name.

Kennebunkport, Maine - the most well-off place I've ever been to, Kennebunkport is about an hour away from Portland and is the vacation home of the Bush family (as in, both American presidents). I think this would be an interesting social experiment in that a team here could conceivably charge a whole boatload of money to people who have whole boatloads to throw around. Could they balance the budget of a team on a town with somewhat limited population? Quite possibly--and though I'm not 100% sure I love the name, perhaps the Kennebunkport Executives would have to do. I'd move (gasp) Davos here as it's a small-population, rich-people place who probably knows a thing or two.

Boonville, California - not in a part of the state that's commonly visited, Boonville is isolated from lots of other places out on the West Coast--which could certainly have been a factor in the development of a language entirely specific to Boonville. The name could come from any word at all in Boontling, but I like the Boonville Bootjacks a lot because the words sound similar and "Bootjacks" just means "Coyotes"--something that's already a thing in the hockey world. Out of all the teams the league has to offer, I think Ottawa, being very wildcat-ish itself and having (in my opinion) a relatively boring logo and a name that's just ripped from their defunct minor league baseball team, could benefit from placement here.

Amboy, California - with a population of 4, Amboy isn't the first place one would expect to have an iconic site that's come up in lots of familiar media, but Roy's Motel and Cafe is just that. The reason why both of these things are true is that the town was once a big stop on America's famed Route 66, and is one of many that serve as a memory of what once was. The Amboy Jets would be a nice fit with some of the architecture that defined the town's heyday, and it's for that reason that I'd also move New York here on the same basis as I did for the Giants above.

I hope you enjoyed my list of places and that you found them entertaining (and that you learned a thing or two about some of the more unique places the US has to offer!). Come and visit sometime.

In perhaps the most meta image the VHL has ever seen, here's my computer with this article in progress. I've had the same laptop the whole time I've been in the VHL--so imagine how many times I've pressed the space bar you see here for your enjoyment.

There have been thirteen World Junior Championships in the VHL since I took part in my first one back in S65. And before you ask, that one was a nightmare.

The WJC is a big opportunity for anyone new looking to make a difference. It's true that not many people care about the tournament if they're not in it. It's also true that not many people in our tournaments care about them. But for many, it's a big deal. That's especially true when those people are very new and are finally getting a chance to get their hands on STHS. And it was true for me as well when I applied to run Team USA in hopes of GMing my player to success. I'd never touched the STHS client before and I was ready to do what I'd seen in my own locker room in terms of helping players have a good time.

I didn't get exactly what I asked for, but it still felt great to be picked as GM of Team Asia. That feeling didn't even change when I found that there weren't enough players eligible for my team, or that the ones I had were mostly inactive. Lots of people wanted a WJC job, and it felt really good to be important. I picked my roster, made the right complaints, and soon received notice that I could fill in those inactive spots with players that had been left off of other teams. And that helped to some extent--we still had a worse roster than most other teams, but I at least brought in a few people that helped us out. @Kuch9's Viktor Kozlov and @xsjack's Jack Lynch were wrecking the M at the time, while I always appreciated seeing "Srraxxarrakex II" (I wonder how many others can spell that!) on the play-by-play. I announced the roster and sent out the proper invites, and then I got in the business of figuring out how to run STHS.

And then I broke my computer.

Running STHS on Mac is something that's been figured out by different people, in one way or another, over the years, but no one I knew had done it and neither did anyone they knew. The STHS client is Windows software, meaning that you'll need to find a workaround if you want to get your hockey jollies with any other OS. These workarounds exist for Mac, but they're janky to say the least--I eventually came across one fully functioning, but that was after I spent $100 on Parallels (a program that drained both my battery and my storage). Before "eventually," I found out how to make it work on a very janky level with Wine. Do you enjoy not being able to see where you just put your players in your lineup and just having to remember? I've got quite the program for you if you do.

Many of you know that I'm not great with computer stuff, so I'm also assuming that you know how much of an accomplishment it was that I got it to work to begin with. The STHS website has two "versions" of the client, one for Windows and one that's allegedly for Mac. The thing is, the Mac "version" is the same exact .exe file as the Windows one, and the only difference is that it downloads itself in a folder with a text file that basically tells you you're shit out of luck. I don't remember this file being particularly helpful to me, and that's what led to me eventually finding my way to Wikihow trying to figure out how I could open this thing with my computer.

"Download Wine" seemed easy enough, so I followed the link that was on Wikihow and clicked the button to download the software. That popped up a window that wasn't clear at all as to its purpose, but had a button that said "continue" or something similar. So, I clicked that...and watched as my computer installed some random antivirus software.

Shit.

I found the actual button that got me past that window quickly enough and downloaded Wine for real. From there, it was about three straight hours of trial and error as I clicked things, first trying to get the software to open, then trying to open the client file from the index, then trying to figure out how to put players in my lines, then finally generating a lines file and emailing it to Devise. All was well and good and the world had no worries in it.

That was, of course, until my computer slowed to a crawl and refused to do anything I wanted it to. I really hadn't paid attention to this random thing that was sitting in my downloads folder because I didn't see anything happening with it right away, but here I was a couple days later with a nonfunctioning computer and a few searches on my phone warning me that this program (I forget what it was called) was straight-up malware that I was dumb enough to install. Deleting it didn't fix anything, so I ended up having to take it to the Apple store and hearing that they'd be happy to reset it for me, and by the way, that will be $800 (seriously), and, oh right, you have AppleCare (a 1-year policy that came with this thing and that I'm very happy I was still under the terms of at the time), so you'd better thank your lucky stars you won't have to pay that much. I didn't have a functioning computer, so it wasn't a big deal for me to just not have a computer altogether in the week or so they took to reset it (I'm also not sure why that took as long as it did either). During this time, I didn't have any real-life setbacks beyond having to convince a professor that I couldn't do the homework because my computer was broken--something that I'm sure he heard as a fake excuse all the time, because he definitely never believed me.

That also led to me dropping off the face of the VHL Earth for close to a week. Regardless, I'd sent in my lines and I hoped my team had done well despite me not being around Discord much (don't ask me why I never checked in on my phone, because I have no idea). I was not altogether surprised, but still disappointed, to find out that a.) Team Asia had gotten absolutely bodied in the first round of the tournament and wouldn't be progressing to the next ones, and b.) I had managed to screw up the lines (because I didn't know I had to hit "copy all") and everything past our first game was simmed with auto-generated lines. Asia did manage to pull off a win--despite the index no longer existing, comments on this thread tell us that we managed to beat Europe--but that was it. Team Asia was Team Disappointment for the rest of the games we played and had the GM to match.

But after the tournament, I'd learned a lot. I'd put together a team and thought about how I would hypothetically manage them had I had the means to do so, I learned that the community saw me as good enough to do something cool in an official capacity, and I learned that I really cared about those things after I had them taken away for a bit. And, for better or for worse, in my own janky way, I made STHS work on a MacBook. That's something that would set the stage for...quite a bit. And there's quite a bit more personal history, and some marginally better GM accomplishments, on the way.

Read my other articles for the full Gustav experience:

#1: Lightning Glory Gonna Be My Name

#2: Can't We All Just Get Along?

12 minutes ago, McLovin said:

DAMN I had no idea any of this was happening behind the scenes when i first joined the VHL! I remember back then all I was worried about was my first gen having a good season in the M and getting pressers done on time, I had no idea there was a whole drama TV series happening at the same time 

Maybe that's why you turned out OK 

I think my perspective of being mostly on the outside of things looking in contributed to the fact that I'm still usually in popcorn mode when one drama or another fires up here. Granted, I'll still do the right things as my job calls for them. But if it's got nothing to do with that, I don't mind that sometimes there's a thread that makes me feel like I'm back in the good old days. I'll never try to start things with anyone for no reason but there was something intoxicating about being around that when it was happening. Almost like there was something new for me whenever I opened my computer after work.

Imagine being from Boston. Your city is big, important, and historically relevant. You're in a crowd of some of the most passionate sports fans around. You love a good bowl of clam chowder and you find it a little bit charming that you can sometimes tell who's your neighbor by listening to the way that they talk. It's a much better existence than that dump over in New York, where the people sound funny, the Giants fans won't stop reminding you of what Eli Manning did to the Pats, and don't even get you started on their idea of pizza!

But what's to stop them from feeling the same sort of pride in themselves and the same sort of derision towards you? After all, you sound funny to them, the helmet catch was pretty sweet, and maybe living in a heavily Italian area has given some people a pretty good idea of how to make a pie. It's obvious to most on either side who take the time to think about it that all these things are silly, but that doesn't even stop lots of people who think it's silly to think that way from doing so regardless. I've seen this come up in the VHL time and time again over the years, which will make this a perfect intro to at least one other article I have lined up, but here it shall fit as I'm doing my best to put things in chronological order.

My first experience with VHL tribalism came not long after I signed up. I distinctly remember one of my very first questions in the Bulls server being related to team rivalries and who I should write articles about--which led to me writing some of the anti-Halifax pieces I alluded to in my last article--but something a little more serious than friendly rivalry between @Rin and @McWolf was more serious conflict that arose between the VHLM's two expansion franchises that season, boiled over into personal issues between members, and had effects that persisted for seasons longer than they should have.

Anyone who was around at the time is probably aware that I'm talking about Houston and Philadelphia and the conflict between Sonnet and inaugural Reapers GM @BladeMaiden. I'm going to stay out of anything personal related to this because I feel that isn't quite my story to tell, but I think there was a lot to sort out from the perspective of the players themselves.

The expansion teams in S65 had quite a bit in common that would naturally lead to competition. They were led by very active first-time GMs with one or two seasons of VHL experience, they started with similar assets, and they both featured team servers that were among the most active the league has ever had to offer. VHLM expansion then was symbolic of a whole lot more than just having more teams--the league had just started to boom, its then-largest-ever draft class had just opened the floodgates, and everyone was out to prove that they were important in this whole sea of newness. And where most teams were active and built their identities on positively representing themselves to the wider community, Houston and Philly were really active and got there by hating each other. In my almost-30 seasons in the VHL, I've never seen anything like it and I've really never seen anything close. Both teams were full of first-gens (hello to fellow S65 Bull @Grape!) and the bad thing about that, if someone chooses to manipulate it, is that first-gens are super impressionable.

I'm unfamiliar with how things got started in the way they did. All I know is that not long after I'd joined the team, I'd read through some really nasty exchanges on the forums, been snapped at a few times myself with not much reason, and heard a lot secondhand. Beyond just whatever GM conflict there may have been, the players were heavily involved. In Houston, we were never mobilized to join in arguments, nor were we ever told what to think (something that I don't think could have been said the same both ways. @FrostBeard has a great thread covering the Reapers' side of things that also happens to explain a lot about some of the interactions I remember having with people I'd have no reason to dislike normally). That said, we certainly had enough exposure to the situation that we knew what to think anyway and were often fueled by the need to do what we thought was necessary to defend our team. I remember being part of some Discord arguments. I remember being angry at some forum topics that should have had nothing to do with me. And you know what? It probably helped keep me active. I had people in Houston that I considered my friends and I wanted to see them treated right. I wasn't about to walk away from that situation.

People who played for the Reapers probably felt the same way, and though my perspective is probably biased, it seemed absolutely insane how deep that ran. I remember multiple occasions when I saw one person fighting with someone else--and within a few minutes, that amped itself up into three or four. I don't believe any of the worst offenders there are still in the league, and I also can't say I'm disappointed by that. What I am disappointed by is some of the negative fallout that caused for some. I talked to a handful of people at the time who felt that they were treated very unfairly, and I remember a particularly unpleasant experience had by one of our active first-gens that he later cited as a major reason why he left the league altogether. Were this only a GM problem, it would be one thing. But players came to believe that being part of the problem equated to being part of things in general, and some who wanted to be important got sucked too far into that.

It was also a shame that it led me to think negatively of some people who played for the Reapers (Frost is one example, but I can think of others) who weren't even part of the problem. I'm sure that some people also associated me negatively with the Bulls. And there was no reason why that should have been the case--former S65 Reapers like @McLovin and fellow Buffalo expat @DMaximus  are people I genuinely like and people who I've never seen trying to fight anyone. But that sort of thing was hard to see in the moment when I saw others who I won't name coming after my GM and teammates simply for existing. It's something that I never hope to see again in the VHL and it's a problem that I'm glad to say our current group of GMs never has. It also happened to be something that was on my mind quite a bit in my first VHL season, enough so that there has to be some way that it shaped my course as a member. I think it made me realize early on that GMs are only human and that not every person I met online is worth my time and effort in stressing about. But do you know what else I learned? I had enough fun anyway that I learned that that's OK.

Read my other articles for the full Gustav experience:

#1: Lightning Glory Gonna Be My Name

For any noobs who need context, Hedge has been GM of Riga for a good bit longer than I've even been in the VHL. This guy's run at his position has been legendary.

To @hedgehog337: thanks for serving the VHL as long as you have. I've never had any sort of issue with you as long as I've been here and I really appreciate that. On top of that, I feel like Riga has always been a good bunch of people and I think that says a lot about your ability to build a team with a positive culture. All the best in whatever you've got going on, and I hope you have the time to drop in when you feel like it!

On 4/5/2024 at 12:28 PM, Chillybro said:

it says i live in canada even though i live in the US, dang Canadians trying to make me one of them.

I believe it highlights the most popular answer rather than your own. That's thrown me off a few times.

6 hours ago, Victor said:

I can't imagine finding this league and first experiencing it on my phone lol. In part because the first iPhone came out the year I joined and I very much did not have one.

 

So much content on a small screen. Nahhh I'd quit. 

I was actually exclusively a computer user for a few years; only even started checking the forum on my phone after lots of time had passed. 
 

Desktop VHL is way better and way easier to navigate. I have no idea how some people (I think @Doomsday is one?) manage to do so much off their phones. 

Some come to laugh their past away
Some come to make it just one more day
Whichever way your pleasure tends
If you plant ice, you're gonna harvest wind

-from the Grateful Dead's "Franklin's Tower"

As of next season, I will have spent 30 seasons in the VHL. I've always been a big fan of the VHL's 30 in 30 series for telling me lots of stories about the league from before my time. These brought up things that I wouldn't necessarily have gotten from reading through old indexes and checking out records, and that's lived experience--people giving perspectives on the things that happened, instead of just lists of those things that happened. Thanks to those articles, I learned why lots of the things I'd heard about were significant, and the views offered in them also served as a valuable time capsule for me as I learned how important some things are to the league despite never being talked about anymore.

So, because I hate myself, I'm doing one of my own. This isn't intended to be a comprehensive picture of league history over the past 30 seasons, nor is it a VHL 30 in 30 in its own right. I'm writing a Gustav 30 in 30, recounting not the league's history but my own and going through what's been most important to me across hopefully the next season and a half and probably a bit longer than that. And what's a better place to start than at the very beginning? It's a very good place to start, after all. Installment number one of 30, here we go

It was 2019, and then-18-year-old me was on the floor of my bedroom lost on Reddit. I remember fairly clearly having been "in the middle of some homework," which to me meant that the second I came across anything I couldn't do off the top of my head, I'd pick up my phone and scroll through it for an hour like the degenerate I am. Seriously, my degree probably would have come pretty easily if I could make myself stop doing that.

I also remember getting the sort of foggy head feeling that one gets after staring at a screen for hours on end. I'm not sure if this was from whatever I was doing, or my phone, or both, but you'd think that one little promotional post on r/sabres wouldn't tip the scales in favor of (let's be honest) a whole lot more staring at screens in that moment. I'm sure you know where this is going, because you're seeing the product of where it's gone. I joined the forum, made a few "please help me" posts, did my first press conference, and actually closed the VHL window and figured I'd seen about enough. The reason why I came back was that I was dumb enough to still sign up for things with an email address that I actually check, and later that day I got a scouting message from @Thranduil (then a long-time AGM in Halifax) in my inbox. So...yeah, whatever, maybe I'll see what happens after this "draft" people are talking about. After all, I read through the very short-lived and now entirely-nonexistent-on-the-forum VHLM newsletter (recruitment, take note!) and enjoyed it.

VHLM Gustav lasted until the 5th round and was taken 36th overall. I'd been scouted two or three times at the time, having joined two or three days before the draft and not earned much yet. But it's pretty safe to say that first-ever Bulls GM @Rin hit on a pick, kicking off what would be a formative first season for me (and one that you'll see talked about across the first few installments of this series). I'd been invited to join the team server and was initially really hesitant--I'd never talked to random people online before and wasn't sure I wanted to--but jumped in late at night (in the middle of some other assignment that I wasn't really doing) and had a good conversation right away about player builds and stuff. I think that sort of thing was a bit intoxicating for an 18-year-old kid whose friends were suddenly all busy moving away and having responsibilities. I suddenly had a group to hang out with whenever I wanted it again, and that really built a sort of bond with this place that I don't think I'd have if I joined today.

I'm not sure what I thought the VHL was when I joined. I don't remember being particularly surprised (I was never someone who thought we were a gaming community) but I also remember being mildly taken aback when I heard that our sim output was entirely text-based. I spent a few sims reading through the full play-by-play (because new people stuff; why not?) and thought it was cool anyway. In a way, I miss skimming through that and being excited to see that my player intercepted a pass or whatnot.

As far as earning and being part of the community went, it took me a minute. I wasn't always the word-dumper I am today. Instead, my first mark on the league was made in team-specific shitpost articles with very long titles. This extended anywhere from my teammates being detained at airports for "looking too Nordic" to Halifax secretly being a satanic cult to me running player quotes through a colloquial Scottish English translator for some aggressively Groundskeeper Willie-type energy. I was well-entrenched in writing media spots by this point, but my first serious article didn't even come out until halfway through that first season.

I won't give away the rest, but S65 was a great time. I learned a lot, got to know lots of people, and grew to appreciate the culture of the VHL. And if you're interested in hearing more of a deep dive into my history--stick around. It's coming just as soon as I can make it.

I've never really gotten involved with student government stuff but one of my friends peaked in undergrad was really into it. If that's any indication, I think you'll love getting involved and having the opportunity to make your school what you want it to be.

Bek is out here making April Fools jokes because “obviously we would never actually do this” and stuff. 
 

Convenient that this comes out after the domain “expires” and we make “jokes” about his opium addiction. 

I wouldn’t say I was ever scared or anything, but I’d never posted anything anywhere on the Internet, much less joined a community, when I joined the VHL. Flash forward 5 years, and…well, one could say that’s changed. Even flashing forward a month I knew I had nothing to worry about. 
 

I’ve liked people to varying extents in my time in the league, but could count on one hand the number of times I’ve had a real issue with anyone. And that’s after interacting with hundreds—that’s a great success rate considering real life numbers. I even have my issues with league administration but can confidently say that everyone here wants everyone else to feel welcome. Thankfully, you climb the ladder in this league partly by being a good person, and I’m glad you’ve felt that. 

Week 3

Today - fairly boring after some plans were bailed on, but not bad. Yesterday I submitted a bunch of documents for a milestone in my degree program (I'm a little over a week and just a short presentation away from a Master's degree!) and that made today fairly quiet. I made a very nice Thai curry tonight and watched my school's basketball team lose a close game.

10 years ago would have been the back half of 8th grade--I was still in middle school. I don't have many specific 8th grade memories. I guess I do remember catching one of my friends writing about how I was "mi major amigo" on a Spanish assignment (which still means a lot). That same year, I also got a couple people I knew to join the tennis team (the one sport I played through high school), started taking some of the "harder" math and science classes, and got more seriously into music. In a few months, it will be 10 years since I started playing guitar and I've loved every minute of it.

Happy birthday and happy anniversary of the most egregious karma farm I've ever seen outside of VSN. I'm glad the VHL never got to see me at 13.

TDL gets you higher TPE; start of season gets you drafted and back in the system sooner.

Honestly it used to mean a lot more to recreate at the deadline back when we didn't have catch-up TPE or...other things. The main TPE-maxing decision these days is the choice of how much time you want to spend in the E  which I have a lot to say about. 

I think the good thing is that you're probably good with whichever one makes you happy. There are different experiences for different people and neither one will wreck your career.

--

However, the main reason why lots of people create at the start of the season is to keep a (retired) player in the VHL while someone new gets past the initial development stages and gets drafted as soon as possible. With this already being Teno's last season, and the league past that point, I think it's more worth your time to go for the deadline unless you really hate our development leagues.

Week 2 of trying not to hate my weekends is underway and I’m glad that I seem to be getting somewhere. I think I’ve been making the mistake of depending on the availability or interest of others to have fun and I’ve been doing my best to do nice things for myself independently of that. 
 

The past couple weeks I’ve hit the driving range for the first time since last summer and I’m glad to say that I haven’t completely lost it. My clubs are largely HORRIBLE and I’m missing a few, and I’ve also dug through their used bin and picked up a Cobra 6-iron (probably at least 10 years old, but a good brand!) for $10. 
 

I’ve also gotten over months of wondering if it’s weird and gotten up to visit a bar by myself. To answer my own question, yes, it’s weird (there’s no one here close to my age and they all know each other)—but I also don’t regret it. It’s nice to be in a space with people around and I get to watch my basketball bracket fall apart. 

G - Joel Castle

@Knight, then tag Patrik for the last pick.

Dropping in to give notice to @CowboyinAmerica that you’re not on the clock yet officially but can feel free to pick at any point you’d like as no one else has an opening on defense. 

F - The Frenchman

@LucyXpher

Week 2

17 hours ago, Berocka said:

the remaining commissioner will be able to work with me and we will be able to get along well.

D3 mostly because I feel like it at this point. I had a doctor tell me a while ago I was a bit low but I also drink an absolute shit ton of milk--so I like to think the daily intake is certainly satisfied. Also a scoop of protein powder after every workout, though I have no idea if it's doing anything.

Are there specific reasons why I'd take any of this other stuff/any benefits it brings? I feel like a lot of it comes with a nice load of pseudoscience but I'd appreciate being able to sort out the good stuff from that too.