Gustav

F - Igor Molotov @Phil

F - Vinny Detroit @Ahma

F - The Board Game Clue on Skates @Phil

My copy-paste for tracking: 1. @Ahma F - Daniel Janser F - Brendan Marner F - Nico Pearce D - Hari Singh Nalwa D - Pierre Emile Bouchard G - Brandt Fuhr 2. @Gustav (GM) F - The Board Game Clue on Skates F - Vinny Detroit F - Igor Molotov D - Hammar Voss D - Brian Kowalski G - Dusty Wilson 3. @Phil F - Vasile Lamb F - Girts Galvins F - Landon Wolanin D - AirRig GoodBrandSun D - Phil Strasmore G - Oskar Lindbergh 4. @DQ F - Ronan Lavelle F - Mason Jones F - Yun Chiang D - Brian Payne D - Tavish DeGroot G - Henry Tucker Jr 5. @KaleebtheMighty F - Perry Laperriere F - Tomas Sogaard F - Nezuko D - Max Torq D - Jake Thunder G - Matt Murdock 6. @DreMin15 F - Molly the Cat F - Scotty Sundin F - Zach Kissinger II D - Bo Johansson D - AK92 Wit da Hoodie G - Cole Pearce

FISTED ANALLY BY A CIRCUS MONKEY

Claiming Week 2 now

Yeah, it's likes received. Which I don't think anyone should care about, but it doesn't stop a lot of people (myself 3 years ago included) from thinking it's a huge deal. I think in general, reputation should be (and is) something that just happens naturally--you should be reacting to things you like, and putting in effort to your content should result in more likes coming your way. I'll react to things I really like, but it does annoy me when an article tags half the league when most of those tagged aren't talked about in any meaningful way and the author is just looking for views/likes.

What up! Anyone with BoG access who's active enough to deserve it will know the same old story every season--Hall of Fame contenders are introduced, generally there are one or two really obvious choices from more recent times, and if it's just one or if the other recent choices are borderline, generally three things will happen: -We look at older players who may have been passed over, which, depending on your opinion, may or may not include Jakab Holik; -@Beketov (half-jokingly at this point) complains that his old player is never going to get in, and; -@Victor quite strongly disagrees with this, and most of the time the Holik discussion goes no further. In short, I could go over players throughout every era of the VHL, but there really isn't anyone else who exemplifies "Hall of Not Bad" in the public-perception sense of the term--I don't know of another player whose HoF chances have been stuck in limbo for this long, always being half-considered but never quite gaining any sort of serious momentum. The only one, at least in recent memory, who even comes close is Tyson Kohler, whose story I covered almost 3 years ago. Talking about the reasons why Holik was great, he has the third-most wins and third-lowest GAA (and lowest out of all who played at least 400 games) among all non-inducted players, and the second-most shutouts ever--including the most by any non-inducted player. Further, he's got a career SV% of .921 and managed to win an Aidan Shaw Trophy in the middle of an era that featured some of the strongest play in net of all time. Plus--and this does probably influence a player's recognition, and thereby their influence--he was created by a hugely significant member of the league. So, why hasn't he been inducted yet, and does he deserve it? I have been on both Team Yes and Team No at separate points in my time in the league, and I've been curious about the real answer for quite some time myself--after all, someone putting up Holik's numbers in the times that I've played in would be in the Hall of Fame easily. Well, today is the day I attempt to draw the line, form my opinion, and hopefully provide some decent support for one side of the debate. My usual aim for these articles is to find players from the same era, both in and out of the Hall of Fame, with stats as similar to the player in question as possible, and try to reason why our title player might not be in (and maybe even uncover a reason or two why they should be, if I find one). To that end, we've got... -Apollo Skye: a HoF player. Drafted by Davos in S51, Skye spent 6 seasons with Quebec during which he would win MVP twice, Top Goaler once, and pick up a cup in S56. -Rhett DeGrath: a HoF player. Though he would never win a championship, DeGrath was undeniably one of the greats of the S50s, winning Top Goaler 3 times, MVP once, and Most Outstanding once. -Sandro Clegane: a HoF player. Greg Clegane--probably the greatest goaler of all time--was just too good to be compared here, but brother Sandro gives us a very fitting example of someone drafted a couple seasons before Holik rather than a couple seasons after. He would win Top Goaler three times, along with a championship and an MVP. -Ariel Wienstein: NOT a HoF player. Drafted in S45, Weinstein would play for four different teams, with the longest stint coming with three seasons in Calgary. He never won a championship or any individual awards, but ended up with career stats similar to those of Holik. You may remember a lot of graphs from these articles, and now it's time to provide. Holik leads the group in shutouts and is tied (with Weinstein, who is interestingly far behind the others in shutouts) for second in wins. It's important to note that Clegane's pace was ahead of both of these numbers, though there's nothing here that would put Holik behind any others, and so far he's got an edge over Weinstein. Yes, he spent much of his career behind the others, but plenty of great players put in their best work at the end. I've normalized everyone's numbers here to Holik's career total--that is, I've made Holik's 2.02 career GAA (!) equal to zero and subtracted that number from everyone else's. So far, we're still not seeing anything that should rule Holik out. I've seen a sentiment out there that GAA and wins literally do not matter when evaluating a goaler, and it's neither one I fully agree nor fully disagree with, but Holik even leads the group in this number despite starting at a 3.43. Well, it had to end somewhere. The other end of what I just referenced is the idea that SV% is the only number that matters, and while that's not something I personally agree with, I do think it's easily the most important one to look at. Holik is perfectly fine in all the other numbers, but there's a clear difference between HoF and non-HoF players in this image, with Holik and Weinstein both ending up in about the same spot with a sizable gap up to Skye, who Holik has beat in everything else. I like these charts because I also think it's important to break down which seasons specifically put some players over the rest (something that's about to raise an interesting point a bit later on here). For GAA--where Holik leads overall--we see two seasons where DeGrath was above the pack, and it takes three out of the five players' "best seasons" before we hit Holik. What this says to me is that Holik's numbers were reached more by consistent good performance (which we also can tell by looking at the left half of the chart!) than by one or two clearly-best-in-the-league seasons, which is something that can actually be hurtful to someone's Hall-of-Fame chances. That said, it's just as valid, and Holik has a significant presence on the better half of this chart. Again, we see DeGrath owning the best parts of this chart, and Skye proving himself worthy. However, everyone else's best is better than Holik's. It's important to note that (in my opinion) the analysis up to this point does put Holik above Weinstein, but in terms of SV%, it's clear that he's coming up slightly short. But. Anyone who's looked at the two above sees one big fat purple line all the way to the right. That was Holik's rookie season, which looks like this: 7-33-4 | .901 SV% | 3.43 GAA | 0 SO ...all clearly below his, and everyone else's, career standard. And while it's normal to be worse in one's rookie year, and indeed every player we've looked at got better throughout their career, Holik clearly had the worst rookie experience out of them all. Davos had 5 skaters in S48, with the rest of the team made up with bots, and this clearly didn't help things out very much. We've spent the entire article comparing Holik to Sandro Clegane, too, so this does raise a fundamental question: If we can evaluate, and induct, a player based on 7 seasons of work, why can't we do that for Holik? Out of curiousity, this is what we get when we remove Holik's first season entirely and compare his hypothetical 7-season career to Sandro's. This is a super interesting plot twist because treating Holik's rookie season as an outlier--and removing it entirely--puts him above another player whose rookie season was removed entirely in every category. It also puts Holik significantly--rather than barely--above the others in GAA, gives him the best pace out of the group in wins, and raises him above Sandro in that ever-important SV% while preserving every single one of his already-leading shutouts. I think that's significant, and I think this is the single most important point in Holik's favor. And had Holik's career stacked up to the rest in every other way? I'd say this would be enough to put him in the Hall of Fame. There's one other difference that I can't really graph, though, and it's also historically meant quite a bit in HoF voting. Holik comes up short of all the others here (excluding Weinstein) when it comes down to individual awards--yes, he won the Shaw in S53, but that was it. He never won the Campbell--like every other HoFer we've looked at here--much less won any award multiple times, much less won a Cup (he has a losing record in the playoffs, which some of our others can proudly say they do not). Further, it's clear that his overall stats appearing mind-blowing to today's VHL aren't that far out in the context of the era, especially when we look at some other goalers from that era with shorter careers who have never been considered for the Hall of Fame: Edwin Threencarnacion | S52-56 | 42-39-4 | .936 SV% | 2.21 GAA | 11 SO Dmitri Dadonov | S49-53 | 135-172-26 | .925 SV% | 2.68 GAA | 29 SO Astrid Moon | S53-58 | 255-105-26 | .919 SV% | 1.88 GAA | 75 SO M.T. Power | S53-56 | 64-17-7 | .906 SV% | 1.89 GAA | 16 SO So, with everything being considered here: is Jakab Holik a Hall of Fame player? My short answer is that it's complicated, and I think it's rightfully been complicated for a long time. On one hand, we can clearly draw a line between the careers of our three HoF players here and that of Holik when we look at the overall stats, and we can point to the fact that he was really never on top of the league and instead built his reputation on just being a solid player for a long time. In addition, he didn't go anywhere in the playoffs, is clearly worse than the HoF players here in the most critical metric, and only ever took home one trophy. That said, though, I still think it's an extremely valid point that overall numbers-wise, Holik had a better 7 seasons than Sandro Clegane, whose 7 seasons got him into the Hall of Fame on the second ballot. Whether or not that's enough to push him over the line is up to you, but I think it's a viewpoint worth considering. I'm too lazy to go through and count every single season, but I have confirmed that Holik entered the HoF ballot immediately after his retirement in S56 (in real-world time, October of 2017) and remains there to this day. Some seasons, he gets a vote or two, other seasons, he doesn't. More often than not, his name is mentioned. Whether or not my article aids in anyone's decision-making is up to them, but this series would not be complete without a Holik installment. Others mentioned: @Velevra @STZ @JardyB10 @Smarch Previous Hall of Not Bad articles: Alexander Pepper Shawn Glade 1,844 words | 3 weeks

You know what, I support it. Welcome to the league @Taro Tsujimoto!

It's a bit delayed, but I didn't have much occasion to write VHL.com articles these past weeks because I've always covered it with a PT. But, let's get to the point anyway--clearly, LA W enforcement this past season came up a bit short. I'll admit that I was a bit frustrated to see us lose...and then keep losing...and then keep losing...and then finish off the season with 14 bot starts (although this arguably just kept a few losses off of my player page). It was also a bit frustrating to look at other teams' rosters, know that, yes, we didn't quite stack up to the top, but also weren't that far behind the others. I wasn't a fan of the fact that nothing meaningful was done about that mid-season, but I also understood why we couldn't really do much as we were in the position of having awful sims and not many resources to go around. Our high-TPE vets were rentals, and anyone else worth anything was a young player and a high earner. Trading people away wouldn't have done anything, and we didn't have the picks to buy anyone. And I then had to sit back and watch Vandelay put up his worst statistical season, never win in overtime for some reason, and really only give me a small handful of sims to post his name in. And that all sucked as the deadline came and went, but from a management perspective I guess I get it. I'm already signed for the next two seasons, and we're giving it another go in this one as we've picked up Vinny Detroit for what I'd consider decent value. Our young players have improved a lot--I'm better, Murray is better, Maloish is better, and we'll at least enter S87 with a decent back end. The same thing concerns me now as it did last season, though, and that's our forward group. Even with the latest upgrade, we've still got 9 players rostered on the portal, about half of which are lower TPE. We'll see if LA can finally turn things around this coming season--and I hope we can. With the goaler market as saturated as it is, and with the player market in general being fairly full, I'm probably locked in on this team for the foreseeable future whether I like it or not--so I hope we're able to make something out of that.

I'm more of a chicken sandwich guy myself, but I have to say that Arby's absolutely brings it with some of their stuff (chicken sandwich included) and deserves a lot of credit. The winner to me, though, is actually a chain called either Checkers or Rally's (depending on where you live). Probably the best burger, and awesome fries as well, for no more than you'd pay for a meal at McDonald's. I haven't done this with Timbits, but having probably done the equivalent of this with other things--yes. This is hard to answer for me and my very NHL-uneducated self. The players that come to mind for me are (and I hope this is at least semi-accurate), in no particular order: McDavid Makar Robertson Thompson (maybe homer bias) Matthews 1. Do you have any New Year's resolutions? 2. Say one good thing about an NHL team you don't like. 3. With the VHL offseason coming up, how do you plan to spend it? What are you going to do to make it interesting?

Also, for those curious--here is our game's spreadsheet. I think I did a pretty good job of staying on top of things, so I hope to have the stat sheets updated fairly quickly!

Gustav tries to make Szechuan beef for a very late dinner, cuts his finger open, proceeds to burn his damn tongue off, and kind of forgets this is a thing. It does taste good, though. The remaining evils and neutrals (and neutral evils) gather together to kill @Ricer13 today. And in a game where finishing votes are hard to come by, the locals just barely push a vote over the line for the second day in a row. Ricer was the GODFATHER, and the last remaining conflict of interest for anyone. THIS GAME IS OVER! Though Emperor @Ptyrell came up one control short of pulling off our first-ever ARSONIST win, this game still ends in a VHL first--the very first-ever win for a Neutral Killing role. CONGRATULATIONS TO OUR WINNERS, THE SERIAL KILLERS--@Doomsday AND @Adrest245! ALONG WITH TWO OF OUR THREE AMNESIACS (@jacobcarson877 AND @woog), ONE OF OUR TWO SURVIVORS (@BarzalGoat), AND ONE OF OUR TWO WITCHES (@Lemorse7)! As usual, whether you're new here or back for your millionth game, THANK YOU FOR PLAYING! You give me something to do for fun, and I hope I've done the same for you. Until next time! GODFATHER - @Ricer13 ARSONIST - @Ptyrell SURVIVOR - @BarzalGoat JAILOR - @Judas Graves AMNESIAC - @GoodLeftUndone SERIAL KILLER - @Adrest245 WITCH - @Lemorse7 WITCH - @Spartan SERIAL KILLER - @Doomsday AMNESIAC - @jacobcarson877 VETERAN - @Squidward SURVIVOR - @N0HBDY ARSONIST - @rory MAFIOSO - @omgitshim 5x ANY ROLE: CRUSADER - @Berocka TRANSPORTER - @jhatty8 TRACKER - @NSG JANITOR - @Advantage AMNESIAC - @woog

I'm not saying I disagree with this, and I absolutely hate it when people pull out the "if you're a solid earner/established member/whatever else that makes you not a complete beginner in any way you do NOT belong in the M because you're STEALING TIME from NEW MEMBERS" argument because I completely agree that those people have a place in the M and can be a great thing for those complete beginners. There's a big difference between "there's nothing wrong with staying down" and "I think you should stay down", in much the same way that there's a big difference between "there's nothing wrong with being in the M" and "you need to remove yourself from the M entirely and make way for the NEW MEMBERS who I'm not going to take the time to help but rather criticize the way you do it". If someone wants to be in the M, they should absolutely be given the opportunity for that, and if someone does choose to alter their earning because that's where they want to be, I'm not going to criticize them personally for that as long as it's entirely their decision. If a player decides to do it, that's great, but it should never cross the line into a GM telling the player that it's what they need to do (not that I'm saying you're doing that here). @Beketov has mentioned a few times that we disagree on a lot of things, but something we do agree on is the general idea that it's just the right thing to do to keep earning and not let the league discourage you from that. It's a huge reason why the VHLM doesn't have an uncapping system like the ones we see in other leagues--sure, there's no denying that there are certain benefits attached to that, and that those benefits are appreciated by a lot of people who use it, but there's also a big drawback involved in that it's objectively the best choice for you to make to sit around and be straight-up inactive for a bit once you hit 199. For me, that was almost a full season, and if I were a new member I can't imagine that would be good for my development. So as much as I hate the E, I'd also hate to see players being told to slow down to avoid it for that reason. So yeah. Nothing wrong with staying down, and I agree with your overall point that it's not at all a bad thing for the M if someone were to choose to do so. It just also raises the question of "how do I think earning should ideally work", and I'd always say that you should let your earning take you wherever it will. If you're right up against the cutoff, I think earning (or not earning) just a little bit extra to be where you want is justifiable, but anything more than a handful of TPE and I start to question it.

I'll say first that I really don't like the E, and I'm also probably biased as someone who wants the M to have lots of active, positive members. You'll do better statistically in the M, you'll likely find a more active locker room, and if you're into helping out newer people, there's no better place to do that than on a VHLM team. I would consider all of those legitimate reasons to stay down. However. As a general principle, I'm against the notion that anyone should slow down or stop their earning for any reason. I've seen players encouraged to stay down by GMs (both on higher and lower levels), and that just isn't right. If your earning would naturally take you up to the E, follow that and keep earning. I'd never tell you not to do that. At the end of the day, the VHL is what you choose to make it, and I think you can make a good experience out of it on any level if that's what you want to do.

I think the E makes it so there's no point in being middle class press conferences not being available certainly don't help, although Answer 3, Ask 3 is IMO superior to the standard format anyway. As a former GM, I would put up (or try to put up, and if I didn't, make Berocka do it) pressers every week and it was my least favorite thing to do earning-wise. I kid you not when I say that sometimes it took me around an hour to figure out which 6 things to ask that were actually interesting and relevant...though "wHaT's YouR fAvOriTe PoTatO ChiP" is always an option and one I'd fall back on sometimes as well.

Vote tracker: Ricer - 4 (Adrest, woog, Doom, Lemorse) Adrest - 2 (Ricer, Jacob) Votes needed: 4

Our game is still going, and the residents of Salem want each other to know that they're certified freaks, seven days a week. It's time for Day 7! And with no deaths last night, our player list remains at...7. List of living players (7)

And if he doesn't make the Hall of Fame I'm going to personally swim to Australia and hunt you down. I think something you've done a good job of in general (although you might think the opposite) is knowing how to be less active. I've written a lot about this myself during times when I feel like I don't have time for things. Hell, it's Saturday night, I don't have a PT for this week, and I don't know if I'm going to do one. And that's OK. Just the fact that you didn't completely disappear when you started to get less active means you're handling it a lot better than a lot of people have. So yeah, find your place if you haven't already found it and realize that you don't have to be all in all the time to enjoy the VHL. We're always happy to have you around.

"UNVOTE PTYRELL" says @jacobcarson877. For the second day in a row, our for-some-reason-Roman ARSONIST is about to roam free at night. Or not. Turns out that Jacob's vote hadn't yet been cast in the first place. And the Romans at least knew how to count. Another Arso dies, but this one wasn't for lack of trying. Last will: I don't actually know if I'll get to sleep in tomorrow. You'll find out when the sunrise GIF makes an appearance. List of living players (7)

ART VANDELAY

HI THERE! Ever want to be a VHLM GM? Here's your chance... With @Lemorse7 moving to the VHLE, we've got an open spot in Philly! Please put your applications below. I'm not going to throw in that copy-paste about member bashing, because anyone we would actually hire shouldn't need to be told that *With this thread open for PHI, please note that the offseason is dynamic and that we may be surprised with other openings we don't know about now. In that case, we will likely be using this thread to make those hirings as well, so please consider this a "Philly specifically and slightly possibly other teams in general" contingency plan thread. Best of luck!

Gooooooooooood mornin' Good MORNIN' It's great to stay up late Good mornin' Good mornin' To you! The sun rises to find some MAFIA business afoot, on both sides of the coin. @Spartan was killed by said evil faction--his role and will have been lost. @Advantage was a member of said evil faction--as a JANITOR, he was stabbed by a SERIAL KILLER. Last will: Get to talking--night phase is coming! Oh, and--an AMNESIAC has remembered that they were like a SURVIVOR. List of living players (8)

7 votes pile up for @Ptyrell, who's in some hot water. @Ricer13 withdraws a vote, but no one is taking the danger of losing out on a lynching too serious anyway. Until the ancient history books get cracked open. With an oratory stand for the ages, Ancient Rome shoots down Ancient Greece (at least for the moment) as Ptyrell escapes death by one vote, against the wishes of @Spartan and company. Yet again, we reach the night phase short of a consensus, though today was at least more entertaining to read. Those of you not yet familiar with what my sleep schedule becomes when I have nothing to wake up for should at least be aware that tomorrow is Saturday, and take a guess as to what I mean by that. List of living players (10)