Gustav

Also tagging @HanManHimself so he can find this as well.

HOLY DEFENSEMEN BATMAN

Hello @HanManHimself! I'm GustavMattias, GM of one of the VHLM's new expansion teams, the Mississauga Hounds, and I'm commenting here because we're currently in need of a good defenseman, and you might just be the guy for the job. We currently have a spot on the first line that's still pretty much open for the taking. I see you were recruited by @cody73, one of my players. While, of course, you're free to sign wherever you'd like, this is the team for you if you're interested in being his teammate. If this sounds good, feel free to quote this offer and say "accepted," and I'll send you an offer on the portal! Good luck this season, and don't be afraid to ask questions! -Gustav

Tagging @Viknegar so he knows where to find this.

Congrats to three Mississauga players for making the top 10!

We did keep it close. I'll say that much. Good on Rayz there, our shot differential is ridiculous. #fixthelottery

I blame Ambrose Stark. #fixthelottery

Again, absolutely nothing against you or anyone else who does this. I just have a burning hate for the system.

...I would anyway. That's just me though. I'm curious as to why nobody liked it--did anyone give a reason?

Time to finally go off about something that's been on my mind for a good while, though I've never decided to actually talk about it here. I'd say most with any reasonable amount of experience know exactly what I'm talking about, but for those who don't, let me explain. Currently, the VHL (and VHLM) uses a system called the "lottery" to encourage discussion on its game threads. Every week (for some small reward, and every month for some bigger ones), a random game is selected, and from that game, a random comment in that game's thread is randomly selected as well. Whoever made that comment is eligible for 3 TPE, if chosen in the weekly lottery, and if chosen in the monthly lottery, can end up winning a doubles week and 16 uncapped TPE if they win all three drawings. Great, right? Sure! It certainly made me want to make a few comments, especially last season, when I commented on most of Houston's game threads, and this season, when I plan to comment on all of Malmo's, for no reason other than that the lottery exists. I even won a doubles week last season from doing this. And, let me tell you, I hate the fact that the system works this way. The tipping point, for me, was when a few people began to comment on every thread for the lottery. I mean Every. Single. One. This type of thing isn't the "discussion" that the league wants to see--it's spam, and it's being rewarded. Allow me to preface the rest of this article by saying that, to the few people who have figured out how to play the system this way (you know who you are), I have absolutely NOTHING against you in particular. Hey, I'm even somewhat guilty of it myself, though I'm too lazy to take it beyond my own team's games in most cases. You've figured out how the system works, you've figured out how to play it, and you play it because it works. There's nothing wrong with that--to be honest it's damn smart. This is about a broken system, one which has potential but works in the wrong way entirely. I've gotten to know the few people who are guilty of this in my time in the league, and I'll say that they're some of the nicest people I've met on this site--I'd never write an article to complain about them. The lottery itself is what sucks. Now, how can we fix it? The tricky part here is to encourage discussion without encouraging spam. If discussion in game threads is something that's actually very important to the league, then there should be some sort of reward for doing so--our Thunderdome is just about dead, because there's no real incentive to post there (and no, I'm not suggesting that there should be, though I'd like to see that be a bit more active as well). One possible solution is to have a sort of reviewing-like system, making constructive comments on game threads an activity that can be completed for capped (or, if you really want to see some threads blow up, uncapped) TPE. But this won't work, in my personal opinion--we'd just end up with every game thread having 10 general statements about the result. This would also be hell for whatever updaters take the time to read reviews first--they'd effectively have a lot more reviews to read. Another, perhaps a more promising one, keeps the lottery, but moves it elsewhere--similar to the VHLM Fantasy Zone, a separate thread can be created, or perhaps an entry on Google Forms, which allows everyone who enters the lottery to enter exactly once. No spam, but it does reward activity in that those who are active enough to notice and post in the thread are those who are in general active in the first place. This eliminates the whole "league discussion" part of it, but again, there isn't really much league discussion going on in the game threads that isn't purely lottery-motivated. I'd also like to point out that it is my opinion that comments here and there, and really on a regular basis, will not die if the lottery is moved elsewhere or discontinued altogether. I made comments in some (though not all) of Houston's game threads last season, before I knew the lottery existed. And when I did find out about the lottery's existence, about halfway through the season, that was still before most of my teammates, many of whom dropped by threads here and there beforehand to make comments and were actually interested in talking about the games, TPE be damned. In fact, I'd argue that game threads will be a good deal more supportive of conversation without the lottery in place, because someone posting there would feel quite a bit more free to respond to a comment, without wondering if that comment was put there by someone who actually cares about what happened. The broken lottery system is what we have right now, and, though I enjoyed my doubles week last season, please, let's change things.

6 goals! Nice goaltending play from our team, too. Happy to be a part of this team; let's make some history.

G-Finn Davison @nethi99

F-Elias Dahlberg @FBR

Nice wins today. I think Malmo could definitely beat people's expectations this season.

Malmo 3-2

-New York -Malmo -Helsinki -Vancouver. I'm thinking exactly what Bush is thinking, though I feel like these are all clear favorites.

Hi @Viknegar! I'm GustavMattias, and I believe @Radcow said it all--we're looking for active defensemen and we'd love to have you! If you're interested in joining our team, you can quote and accept either one of our posts. We'd love to have you on board!

Having one defenseman on your team will tend to make you think of it as a problem, so I'm certainly with you on that one. The only thing I'm concerned with is that there isn't as much of a demand for defensemen in the VHL. Most teams are fine with 3 solid defensemen and usually won't take on more than 4. Right now, we're actually balanced enough for most VHL teams, despite the VHLM being a mess. If we could get some more defensemen, that would certainly be nice, though. Maybe I wouldn't have to play my inactive forwards as defensemen simply because I don't have anyone else. Maybe there's some way to incentivize having more of a 3-line system in the VHL?

What's this? @BOOM and @gorlab both giving me sigs on the same day, both entirely unsolicited? I think you have to fight.

Congrats on winning @Esso2264

First-ever Mississauga win!

Oh well, we tried. Nice game Cody Smith!