Gustav

See above--I'm going to have to go with Owen May and Beau Buefordsson. I'm playing to win! This is partly because I want to win, and partly because I feel like if I didn't win, both myself and the commissioners would face a good deal of criticism from people who think I'm too new for the job and don't think I deserved to be hired. As far as the future goes, I can't see any point in my career when I wouldn't want to GM. It's been a lot of fun lately and I like getting the new guys interested and involved. I tried to think of a song by the Dead here, but the fact of the matter is that there really isn't anything they've written in the vein of intense pump-up music. In fact, I wouldn't say I listen to a great deal in that vein. About the heaviest I get is this 24-minute masterpiece, one of my favorite songs of all time off an album that I don't otherwise care for. More like an album--check out Zonkey by Umphrey's McGee. Usually, I don't care for covers (and in fact, I'd go so far as to say that in most cases, I particularly don't care for covers) and I also don't really care for most mainstream music, but the way everything is thrown together in songs like this is just something I really love, half ironically, half unironically. The #1 step to ensuring that your players are doing what they need to do to succeed is to make sure that they know what to do in the first place. I've posted everything I know about TPE-earning at the moment, and I'll update every time something new comes up. I've also brought in Callum MacElroy, my old Bulls teammate, as well as draftees Rayz Funk and Hulk Hogan, all of whom I know are highly active on Discord. I believe that having a great locker room atmosphere will help me make something out of not much, as keeping our players active in the locker room will translate to success in league matchups as well. You know what? Cherry Garcia is OK. I don't hate it. But I'm going to have to go with either Vanilla Caramel Fudge or Milk & Cookies. Anyone who doesn't love those is out of their mind. Tagging @Renomitsu simply because I haven't lately.

In the interest of not being too cliche and saying 11, I'll go with a 10.9 here. I loved every minute of it; we just never won that cup. Being picked by an expansion team would be really interesting. All I've ever known in this league is expansion teams. But really, whoever picks me will be my favorite. No matter who it is I can't wait. Absolutely! There are stats other than just points for skaters. Watching both my hits and blocked shots pile up like nobody's business was quite fun, and it was a pleasant surprise when I scored rather than an unpleasant one when I didn't. I'd be a forward. Goaltending is quite competitive here and forward building gives you more options. I don't have any personal reason to avoid any team--I just hope wherever I go isn't completely saturated with defensemen. I'd like my ice time. @FacebookFighter has mentioned some interest in playing with me and I like that idea. Playing with @Radcow, my AGM in Mississauga, would also be pretty nice. Bert Meyers seems like a decent guy too, I wouldn't mind feeding him the puck. I understand I won't be a star in my first season, so I'd just like to be able to say that my name is recognized around the league. I'd like to change the common mentality here that every skater has to be a goal-scorer. Even defensemen here aren't built to be defensemen--scoring is commonly above defense for lots of them. Hopefully, I can influence someone to try to build a player like Jerry. I'm not too familiar with how depreciation works here, so we'll see just how much I suck in my later years and I'll decide at that point. At the risk of being labeled a filthy Communist, team success all the way! That's what being a defensive defenseman is all about--sacrificing your line on the scoresheet to contribute immeasurably to your team. I'd definitely step in. It really only takes one bad teammate to ruin the VHL experience, and that one bad teammate can ruin an entire team's atmosphere in the locker room. Being good off the ice is just as important as being good on it. Hopefully I do stick around, and I don't see myself leaving anytime soon. I've actually thought up a WONDERFUL idea for a player that's a bit of an inside joke among Sabres fans, but I won't give away too much at the moment.

Welcome to the first-ever Mississauga Hounds press conference! I'm excited to get the year going. WITHOUT FURTHER ADO... 1. Did you think you'd be going to Mississauga? Why or why not? 2. Do you like this team so far? 3. What type of player do you plan on building? 4. Give a shout-out to one member of this league who you think did the most to help you get started here. 5. Do you think we have a shot at winning it all? Who do you think will be toughest to beat? 6. Call it right now--if you're a skater, how many points will you have this season? For our goalie, what will your save percentage be? @Rayzor_7 @HulkHogan @No_Dangles @cody73 @GlowyGoat @DoktorFunk @mmarcoux98 @SweetMike666 @maximlab

cool

You have challenged the master. You, my friend, just opened up a can of worms.

You thought I wouldn't? After all I wrote about Halifax this season...

1. Call it now--what team will be your VHL champion this season? 2. What about VHLM? 3. What's the biggest piece of advice you have for incoming first-time VHLers? 4. Just how French is your player? 5. I see you're a member of other sim leagues (based on other questions here). How do those compare to the VHL? 6. What's the best part of being an enforcer, other than beating people up? @FacePuncher

MEXICO CITY--The VHLM has certainly seen its share of expansion teams lately, with the league almost doubling in size over the past two seasons. Five (yes, five) expansion teams have made their way to the forefront of the news in the past two seasons, bringing the league from six teams to a solid eleven after an unprecedented recruitment effort last season, making even this draft, even with the number of teams as large as it is, a deep one. With those new teams come new GMs, of course, and those new GMs have been doing all they can--in one particularly interesting case, Mexico City General Manager Nyko Nax (@Nykonax) attempting to calculate his team's all-time statistics before, well, his team had played a single game. "Nax locked himself in his office for a bit Thursday night and just came out this morning," said a member of the Kings' staff. "He's still mumbling threats to Frobenius. I heard him just a couple hours ago saying to himself, 'it doesn't converge. It never converged. How can I calculate our win percentage when L'Hopital didn't tell me anything about this one?'" It seems a bit odd that Nax could know about the method of Frobenius (hell, I don't even understand it) but still not realize that, you know, he simply doesn't have a winning percentage. Per latest update, Nax was last seen attempting to suck the ink out of a ballpoint pen, a report which does not seem to be a highly positive indication for Mexico City's draft plans tonight.

Noted. Don't fall behind.

One of these days I'll create a player named Ja'HimmyQuan Djourdan just for you.

I swear I've heard this guy's name before, and in this league too. Can't seem to place it though.

I proposed another trade on the portal--I'll give you 3 baguettes for some Peace feet. And then you can have them back for your first rounder next year.

Sir yes sir. Whether you like this trade or not I'd say myself and Esso both got what we wanted.

Once my player is drafted and I know which VHL team I'd be playing with, I'd be interested in a player sig. Many thanks in advance.

ALSO--something I just thought of. People (especially new guys) are always looking for league jobs, and the job market is highly competitive among the first-generation crowd. I've been hired for a few things so far (GM somehow included) and I consider myself lucky to have been picked for any of them. So, I'm going to propose the introduction of a job that will not only be helpful to the individual press conference aspect of the matter, but will also introduce a basic league job that can be picked up by anyone, no matter the experience. (Hypothetically) introducing...the press. -Members needed: approximately 2-3 -Job pay: 4 TPE -Tasks: Members of the press would have the same question-asking abilities as anyone else. There are, however, two main differences--number one, that they would be required to ask questions every week, and number two, that they'd be asking more questions than others--but they'd effectively be earning double press conference points as pay is 4 TPE, which would make it much more possible to cap during weeks where trivia isn't present (or during weeks when it is, if you're bad at it). -Though it would be difficult (or potentially foolish) to enforce it too strictly, members of the press would be expected to ask 6 questions in each of 4 different player threads every week--effectively taking idea #2 from above and doubling the amount of TPE that someone can earn. Let me know what you think!

@rjfryman this season I'm planning on a series of articles comparing rookies' progress to how I originally had them ranked on my board. I think you might enjoy it. All I'll say is there are definitely some significant differences in our draft rankings, but it's interesting to see a different perspective.

It was at 7...now it's at 4. Fun times to be had by all.

quik now everyone unlike it

Here's something I always thought should be the case, but I never decided to officially propose it until tonight, when @RunnerBert11 asked me what TPE there is to be earned from asking press conference questions. As most experienced members who have done a presser or two know, asking 5 questions will earn you 1 TPE, while answering 6 questions will earn you 2. WHY IS THIS THE CASE? Nobody wants to answer 5 (or 10) questions--5 won't get you 2 TPE and 10 gives you an extra 4 questions you don't know what to do with. So! Here's my proposal to fix the system, a thought that many have definitely had (and that someone's probably brought up here, though I'm too lazy to find out). What I'm saying is that we have two options... 1. Change the pay to 1 TPE for asking 6 questions and 2 TPE for asking 12. This is likely the less disruptive to the system out of both of these choices, though I must say that we do have something to consider here. Pros: This changes the system the least. Those who are already happy with asking 10 questions a week will likely be just fine with asking 12 (although I cannot claim to speak for anyone). Also, this brings about a HUGE improvement on the part of someone answering the questions. Under this system, anyone being asked anything at all will have at least 6 questions (to completely cover one week) and may end up with 12 (to completely cover 2 weeks!). No doubt about it, this is a great development for the answerer. Cons: Remember when I said we have to consider something here? Here's where I bring that up. The press conference tab is filled with people answering, and there just aren't that many asking. Individual press conference threads die within a week or two, unless you're pretty well-known around the league--I'd say I'm reasonably well-known, and even my first press conference thread died until Bert gave me some questions today (thank you Bert). In fact, the asker-answerer ratio is so unbalanced that two people came into my thread to answer my questions. The con here is not that this will make things any worse--which I don't think it will--but that it leaves another existing problem untouched. 2. Change the pay to 1 TPE for asking 3 questions and 2 TPE for asking 6. Originally, I thought this was a bad idea, but the more I think about it, the better it sounds. Pros: Remember that asker-answerer ratio? This fixes the problem. I'd say that what's keeping people away from asking questions is the fact that they have to come up with 10 new ideas for 2 little TPE. I've tried asking questions in pressers before, and having the mental capacity of a glazed donut, I'm next to incapable of doing so. Usually, I end up asking 6 questions, because a) that's all I can come up with, and b) that's what the answerer actually wants. By making the number of tasks required to earn TPE the same, more members will be active in terms of asking. Individual pressers will become largely a success (especially for newer members who currently create them and are then either ignored or given one or two sets of questions). This also helps out GMs in team press conferences--asking your team 6 questions, so they'll earn 2 TPE, will only get you 1 TPE, and asking them 10 or 12 for the extra points is pointless. Cons: The one possible negative aspect of this is that individual pressers may just become too competitive with the team ones, which are still, for the most part, the most important. However, I really don't see this happening. Human nature (at least for anyone who is, like me, fairly lazy) dictates that we'd rather have things handed to us rather than working for those same things (read: TPE). Answers aren't entirely original thoughts, though questions must be. I can still see the majority of the league being on the answering side of things, but I do believe that this system would help to balance things out. If you're reading this and you have any input on the matter, please feel free to add to it. Let's make the VHL a better place.

FISTED ANALLY BY A CIRCUS MONKEY ...just kidding, there were better players than Jerry and I'll admit that any day of the week. Congrats to all especially my man @Kirby

1. You're one of the league's most highly-rated new members from this past season. Who would you say helped you out the most on your way to success? 2. You more or less played center all season due to the lack of centers in Minnesota. You switched position, however, a bit late in the season, really only in time for the playoffs. Did you see Meyers moving to center as a move to be made for the long-term future? 3. We've seen a lot of new guys getting hired as GMs lately. Why not you, the new guy with AGM experience? 4. At what point do you see yourself getting drafted, and by which team? 5. Let's say you were currently sitting around 180 TPE, and could go up to the VHL or sacrifice a very small amount of TPE to stay down. Which would you choose given that you'd still be in Minnesota? 6. You were passed over by Team USA during World Juniors, and you'll likely pass the 350-TPE cap for Juniors when they roll around next season. How soon before you finally break into the World Cup? @RunnerBert11

6 likes. Let's hear it.

Congrats @FrostBeard! Hoping you can keep Houston great; you're taking over from one of my favorite people on this site. Good luck this season!

-While it has changed a few times, @Sonnet's title is currently "Dead Influencer," and I can say that if memory serves right, that's what it was when I first joined the league. -My player is Jerry Garcia, a name shamelessly stolen from the legendary Grateful Dead (often referred to as just the "Dead") guitarist. -Sonnet did everything possible to help (or, should I say, influence?) me in my first days in the league. While this is likely a reference to some anime I've never heard of, I like to think that this wasn't a coincidence. Sonnet obviously knew what he was going to do to me the minute I was drafted. Now I'm, you could say, pretty good. Damn you Sonnet.

#HireFacebookFighter This guy is super knowledgeable in not only the locker room but in his article writing as well. Has been outwardly interested in GMing in our locker room for quite some time now. I can tell you that if he's hired, he'll come in with a plan and make Houston dangerous this season.