Gustav

Had a great time being part of this! Thanks for hosting.

I think LA is finally starting to look semi-respectable. Still an underdog, but one that will be interesting to watch after some nice moves recently. I'm horrible with NHL knowledge honestly. When I looked it up, I learned who Matvei Michkov is and I also learned that he's (by some sources) favored over Celebrini--that's an interesting story and so I'll go with it. As an Italian I could go off about this. Aside from the easy answer of spaghetti, your pasta should be able to fit easily on a fork without breaking and hold sauce well (it shouldn't slip off). Things like cavatappi (for example) do both of these things worse than things like penne (for example). Penne is probably #1 because it does both of those things pretty well, and in a combined way I would say it does both of those things better than anything else. But Gustav, isn't rotini awesome for holding sauce because of all those ridges and all that surface area? Sure, and I love rotini too, especially for pasta salads, but it's also going to fall apart easily, especially if you overcook it. If you have chunks of things in your sauce, too, the interference of those things with your pasta will cause it to fall apart much more than it would with a different (penne) pasta. 1. The VHLM just finished its draft tonight. What was the first team you were ever drafted to, and what was your experience with it? 2. Football season is in full swing, and I am busy wasting just about all of all of my weekends. Is there any non-hockey sport (or anything at all) that gets you super involved during a specific time of the year? 3. What's your favorite RECENT movie?

Hello VHLM! Following the (miraculous!) news of the end of the VHLE, we were left with a list of players who were suddenly once again eligible for placement on VHLM teams. Lots of possibilities arose around how best to handle the situation, and eventually we decided on the process that you can read about here. In short, players were given the opportunity to "opt in" with their old VHLM team, and the remaining players would be placed in a draft with picks adjusted to try to spread players evenly between teams after the opt-in process was complete. In total, we had 27 players drafted who are now on VHLM rosters. They are as follows: 1. Marek Nowaczyk | @Chillybro | Las Vegas Aces 2. Cody Toland | @ctoland102 | Philadelphia Reapers 3. Pan Daffleck | @OrbitingDeath | Mississauga Hounds 4. Władysław Mintus | @mintusaurus | Mexico City Kings 5. Anthony Simmons II | @Starchychaff | Miami Marauders 6. Robin Sierra | @ethanjaeda | Houston Bulls 7. Ty Duke | @TheDuke | Halifax 21st 8. Masa Akimoto | @Hokikeijot | Ottawa Lynx 9. Drosmis Sarkanis | @Mr Bohannan | Saskatoon Wild 10. Jack Dickins | @Mystery_boy98 | San Diego Marlins 11. Blaze Thunderstrike | @eaglesfan036 | San Diego Marlins 12. Bric Sheithaus | @Oldhead91 | Saskatoon Wild 13. Cole Stermer | @Bazeus | Ottawa Lynx 14. Micah Cederbaum | @MicahC | Houston Bulls 15. Hunter S | @Hunter S | Mexico City Kings 16. Nikita Yolishev | @Joel Main | Mississauga Hounds 17. Taylor Swift | @lilchrist | Philadelphia Reapers 18. Kevin Connor | @Luke033 | Las Vegas Aces 19. Gavin Bebard | @Gavin Bebard | Las Vegas Aces 20. Quinndillus Whopper | @Max77 | Philadelphia Reapers 21. Filip Zinek | @FiZi | Mississauga Hounds 22. Shaunca | @shaun1979 | Mexico City Kings 23. Dustin Moore | @Maxx | San Diego Marlins 24. Isaak Robinson | @isaak | Saskatoon Wild 25. Hugo Boss | called up | Ottawa Lynx 26. Chuck E Cheese | called up | Halifax 21st 27. Alphonse Desjardins | called up | Houston Bulls @VHLM GM @VHLM Commissioner

There are things that pop up every season that I don't like to do, whether it's got to do with running the M or doing BoG stuff or just experiencing the league in general. Rather than being things I can change (because then I'd write an article trying to change them), they're really just facts of life and parts of why administrative league jobs aren't actually all that fun. While I'm glad I am where I am, I thought I'd give you some insight as to some specific things I don't like. Draft planning: I HATE planning for drafts and it's probably the worst thing on this list for me. I actually don't mind running the drafts themselves, but trying to figure out when I'm available can be a bit tough. As a GM, I always had the luxury of submitting a list just in case things came up last minute, but I can't do that if I'm the one who has to click the right buttons and skip the right people to keep things moving. This is the only time VHL clashes with real life for me--I've had to say no to some fun things because I had a draft to run, and I always feel like I'm missing out when I commit to a day because the people I know tend to make plans for things on shorter notice than we give the draft. When I do have to miss, too, it really is for legitimate reasons, but then that makes me feel like I'm letting people down here. Submitting the awards ballot: Another thing that I don't mind the "main" part of--discussing awards can actually be pretty rewarding in that I think there's good room for fair debate and I have a good amount of say in swaying opinions to the people who I think deserve them. The awards ballot itself is tough for one very specific reason, and that is the selection of the all-rookie team. Our index isn't reliable in showing who is and isn't a rookie, and scoring leaders on the portal don't often encompass everyone, so that usually means I have to scan through every team and click on every player who I think conceivably could be a rookie, all so I can end up making a choice for who I think rookie forward #3 might be. It comes right at the end of the form and is way more tedious than anything before. Having to talk to @Spartan Reminding people of things that should ideally be automatic: which isn't blaming the portal people in the slightest. Things like waivers closing at the end of the season is our responsibility, but it isn't something that we always (or I ever) remember to do exactly on time. The worst example of this, though, is that the timing of rollover isn't always obvious to everyone and you're really not supposed to drop players before it happens. Best case, we only have to mention this when someone asks. Worst case, strings have to be pulled to reset things properly. Anyone arguing for themselves in any award thread: including nominations for Hall of Fame Builder. Barring a couple specific cases, it's always ridiculous and it makes me want to vote for you way, way less when I see it.

I'd legit apply but I'm also too lazy and have zero interest in being the press conference servant. Good luck with the search!

Fun Vandelay fact: I wasn’t ever in the running for top goalie (that I remember), but I was nominated for MVP a couple times because the team didn’t have much scoring that season. Vandelay COULD HAVE been my second player in a row to win MVP twice and no other awards.

It's a bit weird for me to think about, because I've had it on my VHL mind for years on end, but the E is deleted at long last and I'm happy. There are things I'd want to change about it in a perfect world. I still don't like that the league now prefers the idea that a player will spend (at least) one extra season in the development league. I also don't like the idea that someone who earns enough to be able to make it up to the VHL straight away will be quite strongly discouraged from doing so by the way the depreciation system is set up. But I do like, for example, that all of that extra time is spent in the same league, that we're getting rid of one of the three drafts that players need to be confused by, and that we have to deal with one fewer league taking away from our hiring pool. The E did things in its time, and not all of those things were bad. We really did need a strong response to a situation we were facing back in the day, but now that we really don't need that, I'm more than OK with getting rid of it. The league now has a much cleaner structure, that should still be resilient and hold up to recruitment drives, that is also able to maintain full M rosters at times when recruitment is limited. And this is something I'm very excited by. Naturally, a larger M community is a stronger one, and achieving that without flooding things in ways that make league sizes all messed up is something that I think is now possible. Time will tell whether things are perfect--and, spoiler alert, they never are--but S96 will be great and I think we can make the M even greater in the seasons to come.

I'm going to say Toronto because they have more top-end players and those are a bit harder to get through roster moves. They do have some work to do in mitigating retirements, but a championship will still be achievable. I'm partial to @Abaddon's MORPHEUS DESTRUCTIOUS--I've really never been one to lean heavily into the roleplay side of the site, but I really appreciated what came attached to this player and the name was cool too. I'm actually going to go out on a limb here and say NO--I actually didn't grow up on these for some reason and the ones I have memories of are just basic nugget-shaped. Perhaps if that weren't the case I would have a different opinion. 1. What is your favorite defunct VHL (or VHLM) franchise? 2. What are your thoughts on the E being deleted? Do you agree with the decision, and is there anything you would change about it? 3. What shows are you currently watching, and why should I care?

Going to back this up. It's at least important to GMs and commissioners. From our standpoint, M GMs are NOT supposed to drop players in the offseason before rollover because it messes with portal stuff. Having to remind everyone of this and dealing with it happening anyway just about every offseason defeats the point that "you're just supposed to know," because clearly it isn't obvious enough. I'd imagine that GMs could do this (or even just follow the retirement forum and wait to get hit by tons of pings at once), but I'd also imagine that a GM who this would occur to also isn't one who would have trouble staying on top of it in the first place.

I'm a big fan of GMs who want to keep being GMs. Props for staying on with Vegas as long as you have and never giving us anything to worry about!

Week 2

Yes, the draft order is flipped because that serves the snake order better (top teams will end up with one fewer pick). If your capped players are still under contract with your team, they will stay on your team.

-No, mainly because we would have to work out a whole framework for what could/couldn’t be done with this and it’s all happening on short notice. Hopefully it’s understandable, and it will at least give everyone a few solid teammates for the time being. We don’t anticipate making this a live event. It should be doable before the draft, and I get that it would be nice to know what you’re working with before then.

I will take your subjective description of me as a compliment. Honestly it isn't far off in that I was underweight all the way through high school and now I work out a bit. What I am out of 10 is a matter of opinion but I'll take your rating. I don't wear glasses though. You guys are right that I peaked in Mississauga but I'll take it as another compliment that you disagreed with my assessment of myself that I'm old and washed up. I at least know what biathlon is and have caught it on Olympic broadcasts once or twice but you're correct that we know nothing about it beyond that here. Never been skiing or shooting so I would be horrible at it. Thanks for taking time for me!

This is one of the busiest offseasons we've had since we first got hired and made our first rounds of big changes. There are very clear reasons for that, of course, but it's also reminded me a lot of how it felt during that time when I got to sit down and think about the issues faced by the VHLM and realize that I had the power to change those any way I wanted. I won't drop the news until we've finalized it, but we have something on the way that I think you'll like. Our goal is to be fair to both players and GMs in this process and I believe we'll get about as close as possible.

Honestly you may have done more pushing for the green light on the project than anyone else. Bitchstav likes to think that side only comes out when it's warranted.

One of my biggest ideas ever took almost a whole year to even become a work in progress. Something that you may have noticed by reading other installments of this series is that I generally do my best to evaluate myself fairly. I've owned up to a few things I would have gone about differently today, and I usually don't try to sell myself or tell you that I'm perfect. A possible exception to that is in my writing about my time as a VHLM GM, a job I would say I was damn good at and I won't apologize for thinking so. With that, including the fact that I was one of the better ones at securing and developing waiver players, one would expect that to be one of my favorite parts of the job. In those days, a GM had lots of control over the course of their team's roster as it related to waivers. A particularly active GM could take advantage of this by offering to lots of players and usually being one of the first to do so. A particularly active GM could also offer to players in unique and personal ways that could sway a player's perception toward their team. With this being what it was, forum-based waiver offers were something that reflected positively on those who did their job well. The thing was, it wasn't always fair. Waiver players were great for non-competitive teams looking to fill spots and end up with a more active locker room, and they were also great for fringe teams who had a few good players but lacked depth. From the objective standpoint of winning games, though, waiver signings were bad for highly competitive teams with a real shot at the championship. Especially as the trade deadlines approached, fewer and fewer teams offered to players who would bring the average down at their positions, and some who I won't name specifically went on to win the championship in seasons like (hypothetically) S70 and S73 off of rosters full of then-legal capped inactives. It didn't help that the S70s were marked by a huge crackdown on VHLM management, which went from almost completely unregulated to highly structured with rules that both helped and didn't help. There was really nothing that could have been put in place to make people make waiver offers, though, and the best that could really be done rules-wise was just a general "please be nice" statement that didn't really mean much. With rules changing and systems changing with it, I wrote an article that I'll talk about much more extensively in a future part of this series: a lengthy response to all that had happened so far. At the very end of the article, I first speculate on what would happen if we were to do something new and put the VHLM's waiver system on the portal. It just so happened that right around the same time, the Board of Gustav had an ongoing thread about VHLM changes in a general sense. I brought this up there and pushed for it for a bit, getting some positive feedback that included the first and last time @Victor will ever say this: ...but things were very jumbled in that thread, support wasn't universal, and it mostly got buried. This first happened in October of 2021, and when December rolled around and my semester was over, it was still on my mind enough that I took it to its own thread. I was really hyped about the possibilities that a new system like this would bring. First, automated waivers would mean no dodging new players, with the availability of roster spots becoming a guarantee rather than an option on the part of the GMs. Players would also gain control of their own destiny, choosing to join a top team and win a championship or go to a place able to offer them playing time and star status. It would also get rid of something else that annoyed me, which was sneaky GMs trying to lie about a player's opportunity ("we'll put you on the first line!" regardless of roster makeup) or their team's status ("we're the Cup favorites!" was thrown out there by at least three different teams in S68). The thread was somewhat active for a couple weeks, and then it died despite positive feedback. It just wasn't exciting enough for the group to want to bang it out. When putting things in place, especially big things, there's always some understandable pushback. But this thread really didn't have all that much of it. My biggest concern was whether it would be doable on the portal end, but @Dil was both very willing to do it and not at all concerned about the workload. The thread crawled its way into early January with only minor issue taken with the original idea, but the necessary "let's do it" drive never showed up and the meta conversation was happening around the same time anyway. It received its first of many bumps around this time, and it was decided at this point to have the VHLM Commissioner team at the time poll their GMs about it. I thought this was pretty fair. Except that a week later, GMs still hadn't been asked. The thread was bumped again to make this happen, and we thought it would. We then spent the next month going bump --> larger objection and alternate proposal --> bump --> bump with nothing happening and no feedback from the GMs. Portal waivers were sort of dead in the water at that point. This wasn't exactly helped by feedback from the VHLM GMs at the time, who weren't happy that the system would be taking away a level of control from them. To be fair, this is understandable. The league already has its contentious situations at times where the updaters need to draw lines between what is and isn't acceptable for TPE, or when the mod team decides to make decisions about who can and can't be hired into jobs on behalf of commissioners, and no one really likes to hear that something they've always been able to do, to an effect that they likely see as positive, is no longer going to be something they're allowed to do. On top of just losing control, though, a very fair take is that it strips those particularly active GMs of their ability to out-waiver the others through effort. We did, thankfully, choose to roll ahead with this anyway. A workaround that we'd decided on was that GMs could still make their own waiver pitches to be automatically available on the portal, and a decent counterpoint that we used to justify the rest was that the amount of work needed to constantly be available and offering to outdo the others was unrealistic to expect from a GM anyway. And, eventually, after about three months of kicking around the BoG, Dil finally proposed moving forward with portal waivers by starting to work on it. And got no response, because the idea wasn't vibes enough. Continuing to bump the post elicited replies along the lines of "I thought we were all done talking about this," when clearly we weren't because nothing had ever come out of it to conclude it. Some things had happened in the background as well. I had talked with then-VHLM Commissioner @McWolf personally about some ways to address VHLM GM issues with the system, and I had a very good conversation with one of the proposal's larger opponents in @Spartan that resulted in us finding a solid middle ground on the issue. Namely, he was concerned about my idea of auto-assigning players to teams when some may not even exist long enough to accept a contract, and we eventually agreed that it would probably be best to still require GMs to make offers officially by themselves. As far as I could tell, there wasn't anyone left in BoG that was against the proposal, so it was really frustrating to see "are we good to go?" met with literally nothing. Eventually, it got the green light from the blue team, and my* proposal finally was put into work. *this was suggested before I ever brought it up by @Berocka, apparently, who has an angry podcast about my taking credit for it somewhere. I don't have any memory of that ever happening and always thought I came up with it independently. Let's just be happy it was pulled off. We were promised a "by next season" in early May, but like all big projects, this wasn't the case (no hate here; I'm not exactly done with this series and my 31st season is coming to an end). Later on in 2022, Spartan and I became VHLM Commissioners ourselves, and that conveniently lined up with the system becoming ready. Portal waivers were finally rolled out in November of 2022, over a year from when I had first brought them up. For better or for worse, portal waivers are still a thing today! Some aren't convinced that the system is perfect, and I understand that. But a year of fighting for it to happen finally paid off despite the best efforts of those of us in power to not care about it. That part is mostly joking, to be clear. I love and trust most people in BoG and there are legitimate reasons why not everyone is rushing to implement all of my ideas all the time. It is times like these that make me wish that I could snap my fingers and make things happen instantly, but I also get that the league would probably have run itself into the ground by this point if I got to do that. Looking over the thread, I found that I actually did a lot less of the bumping myself than I thought, and it really was a group effort that contradicted the "I singlehandedly forced the system through" narrative I originally intended to take to this article. As a whole, no matter who it was, portal waivers took a really long time to make their way through the system, and I think that justifies this article's title anyway. 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 #5: Can We Fix It? #6: American Beauty #7: The Kids Are Alright #8: Dogs In A Pile #9: I Just Wanna Grill For God's Sake #10: This Old House #11: Go Directly to Jail #12: If You Can Dodge a Color, You Can Dodge a Ball #13: How I Messed Up Davos #14: Ello Gov'nor #15: Weewoo #16: Jolly Kranchers #17: How I Messed Up Davos, Part 2 #18: I've Been Everywhere, Man #19: The Sun Also Rises #20: Ripple In Still Water #21: How I Messed Up Davos, Part 3 #22: I Hate the Meta #23: I Hate the Mods

LET'S GOOOOOOOOO My single biggest problem with the league, since it was put into existence, no longer exists. From the M standpoint, I thought I'd share with you a list of benefits I posted in the VHLM GM forum when we did in fact notify our GMs in advance: I think this will benefit the VHLM massively and make the league "make sense" much more easily for people approaching it for the first time. The E was a product of its time that was built to serve a purpose and really did serve it better than I thought it would when that was actually necessary. Seeing as we don't believe it's necessary anymore, though--goodbye and GOOD RIDDANCE.

About a third of the year below me--in a decent graduate engineering program--got busted last year for submitting the same AI answer on an assignment. It was pretty obvious that it was AI because, first, AI writing is super easy to spot, and second, ChatGPT spit out an answer that was flat-out wrong and wouldn't have been put down by anyone who actually thought about it. I personally know and trust most of those people, but if you didn't and you heard that someone cheated their way through their courses, would you trust what they do for a living? We're talking about a field that has people working on making almost every single product you use in your daily life. You don't want your phone dying because someone doesn't really know how to design a battery, and you don't want your food to be unsafe because someone laid out the factory in a weird way that contaminates the production lines. Sitting there and learning nothing about what you're doing robs you of the chance to improve as a person. This applies to sim league stuff as well, believe it or not. If making an article with AI is OK because you're not a good writer, then how will you ever become a good writer if you're always allowed not to try? And what about anyone else who does put the time and the effort into creating high-quality, original content and sees other people earning exactly the same points by...not doing that? The VHL isn't school and isn't here for the express purpose of forcing you to learn things, but even if you take that argument out, people who really do dedicate themselves to their work deserve fair treatment for it. No one even cares if you're a bad writer. I'd rather see something written poorly and honestly than neither of those. I'm sure none of this will change any opinions because I feel like most people either find it OK or don't. But it's a huge concern and I find it a bit troubling how many people find nothing wrong with never having an independent thought.

Love it! I don’t remember the last sig anyone made for me and I needed a Prague one. No clue how to do this on mobile but I’ll have something new under my messages soon.

No

I mean that occurred to me but I was already committed to the bit by that point.

Just lik(E) th(E) VHL, th(E)r(E) is on(E) simpl(E) thing that can b(E) don(E) to this articl(E) to mak(E) it mor(E) (E)njoyabl(E). Th(E) rac(E) for Rooki(E) of th(E) Y(E)ar is on(E) that s(E)nds th(E) l(E)agu(E) into a fr(E)nzy (E)ach s(E)ason. Oft(E)n, th(E) winn(E)r is a hot prosp(E)ct who was draft(E)d a s(E)ason prior, an alr(E)ady VHL-r(E)ady play(E)r who choos(E)s to sp(E)nd a s(E)ason down to gain som(E) (E)xtra d(E)pr(E)ciation points that th(E)y--d(E)spit(E) th(E) parroting of som(E) of th(E) l(E)agu(E)'s high(E)r-ups--w(E)r(E) n(E)v(E)r int(E)nd(E)d to b(E)n(E)fit from. Play(E)rs lik(E) th(E)s(E) (and, y(E)s, Lazlo Holm(E)s is on(E) of th(E)m, b(E)caus(E) th(E) l(E)agu(E), also d(E)spit(E) th(E) parroting of som(E) of its own high(E)r-ups, also l(E)av(E)s on(E) with no oth(E)r s(E)nsibl(E) choic(E)) tak(E) th(E) spotlight away from oth(E)rs who may att(E)mpt to mak(E) it up at th(E) (E)aril(E)st opportunity possibl(E). You may not hav(E) h(E)ard about som(E) of who I consid(E)r th(E) VHL's b(E)st and most hardworking m(E)mb(E)rs, thos(E) who grind th(E)ir way through th(E) syst(E)m's most t(E)dious l(E)v(E)ls and tak(E) (E)v(E)n mor(E) months on (E)nd than th(E) alr(E)ady months on (E)nd that most of us activ(E) (E)nough to mak(E) it to this point ar(E) us(E)d to. I'm c(E)rtainly activ(E) (E)nough to mak(E) it to this point--I'm doing all this manually. I may miss a handful, but I'll try. Or not. This is hard. So, it's with that in mind that I put my hands to my laptop and do a thing that I found as a kid in a "fun fact" sort of book--cook you up a bit of writing a la Gadsby. I'm going to highlight a handful who, post-months-long-grind, finally found VHL's big show--and I'm going to do it all without using a particular individual of our ABC's. If I can work with it, so can our BOG. I will say now that this is harder. Try it in your own writing if you find a curiosity for it and find out how much work it is. Anyway, on with our show. kodie Curran S90 | | D | 437 TPE | @Battlepopcorn I'll cut my funny stuff for all that's in bold as our pals should click in without finding anything significant a victim of vandalism. Curran is finally on top of our mountain following two trios of campaigns in Philly and Oslo and now has 1 goal and 9 points to show for it. His Titans' unit is a bit lacking on D, though, which could signify to an analyst that I'm talking about an important plug-in for that squad anyway. With only a -1 on his -58 DIFF Titans, contributions untold by casual portal surfing may hold things from going fully downhill in S95. Alexandros Mograine S91 | | C | 500 TPE | @sliceruser Hitting 500 is a mark that warrants a happy noob, and that's what this noob just hit. Winning a championship with Saskatoon in S91, it was only logical that a known champ stay off of VHL turf through S94--a full six non-virtual months without making it up. With 35 points, and a handful of 5-on-4 goals (as both a "5" and a "4"!), London has a solid VHL forward who is thankfully still updating. With opportunity to grow still around, a road to S100 could hold goals upon goals from this old young star. Nico Belique S91 | | RW | 448 TPE | @Syzygy A sad truth of working with a months-long way up is that many don't stay updating upon finally hitting 400--why would you, anyway, if it didn't work up to that point? It's a sad thought to think, but still a possibility, that a lack of VHL action stood in opposition to Syzygy's inactivity prior to applying 48 points. Focusing on what's good, though, LA has a physical sixth forward who has put up 139 hits up to now. Anybody would want to not play with bots, and what support can go to updating Stars forwards is support for which satisfaction is shown. Med S89 | | C | 495 TPE | @Med Many of us can't look back on S89 with any sort of opinion on it as many of us didn't know what our forum was in S89. That didn't stop this story from going down, though--from last occupying a spot in any city in S91 to part of a Phantoms' forward group in S95, this is a scoring dynamo who has shown up anything but "mid" so far. Still updating through all of this past handful of months, and finding FULL WILLFUL IGNORANT ACTIONS from VHL squads, it's not too sunny of a final VHL-finding signing for this original NYA draft pick. That said, this is still a bright spot for my disastrous Phantoms, who may find inspiration in its hard work. Jacob Smith Jr S91 | | C | 439 TPE | @jacobaa19 Similar to a forward I talk about two spots prior, Smith is not a star that you will find updating today. Also similarly, I think that fighting through S92-94 transatlantically cannot fully avoid deniability as a contributing factor. With just 9 points as Warsaw's sixth forward, Smith has had a flash of glory with a singular match-winning goal in S95, and an optimist may think that what fighting spirit it took to put that puck away is just what our community could find critical to its own fight for fun for all. Did you find any of what I had so much of to start in that? I didn't. I think so many similar to who I just did discuss could find so much fun in our community--just delete the E!

Thanks for beating the haters!