Gustav

And I believe in equality, so I'm here to boo @Tate exclusively.

Short answer: the old award committee was absolute garbage based on what I heard about it. Long answer: someone probably looked at points exclusively, threw out Gate because of +/-, and went to the next-highest. Discussion was then nonexistent because old award committee (or at least what was allegedly true about it). Based on what's been shown here, my vote probably goes to Kovalchuk for the goals. Congrats on the award though, it's more than I've ever won

Let me know how it works. I'm not sure how well it will work unless it becomes an official guideline, but I am interested. A leaguewide presser thread would probably work really well informally though.

So why can't we still have it like that? We draft players with a budget AND draft against other teams. I prefer our current setup over not drafting at all and using a budget but would be willing to try drafting with one. I'm actually a big fan of this idea. A couple hiccups that could arise are: -It might overcomplicate things for some of our newer members. It's already hard to get through a group draft as is sometimes and the new-ness of it all might be a turnoff. -We'd have to decide on a cutoff point for TPE if money values are based on that. Some drafts take forever and if, hypothetically, someone starts drafting someone at $7 and by the end of the draft they're worth $8, people are going to flip. Either that, or just go with the "don't worry about it" method and let prices change as they will.

Suggestions, suggestions... In typical BoG fashion, I'm too lazy to read through the current list of suggestions at the moment--so if what I'm saying here has already been said, forgive me. -Make VHL.com graphics worth 3 points. In my experience, it's much easier to just put out 150 words than make a graphic of any sort and this balances things out somewhat. -I'd like to see press conferences reworked at some point. Instead of "wait for one person to post 6 questions and then answer them," maybe have a press conference consist of three answers (to previous questions) and three questions (to be answered later on). It takes away some of the waiting and makes it more of a team event--everyone interacts with someone else on the team every week rather than just making it an impersonal answer-generic-stuff-from-the-GM thing. -This is controversial and I don't necessarily agree with it (and I also don't know of any easy way to enforce it), but purely objectively speaking, it makes a lot of sense to require at least one post of any sort on the forum before any TPE can be claimed in any given week. It doesn't have to be a point task, doesn't have to have any real meaning (so long as it isn't saying "posting for TPE" or something stupid like that), but it shouldn't be too much to ask that someone who would like to engage with our community should be engaging with it on some level and it's something that most people here who we'd think of as legitimately "active" do anyway.

You might find this an interesting read. Good checking is where it's at though imo; even if people yell about how it hurts your team or whatever it's more exciting to have more numbers to care about than just points.

I like it though. There's a certain style of lighting you've got that works well here and I've never been able to make it work myself...any time I try to have white parts that stand out they end up standing out WAY too much and you've managed to avoid that.

Honestly I still kind of support this: I don't actually want to argue that we need to take out what's been a convenient tool for everybody and an especially convenient tool for updaters, but the fact that there's less of a need for a lot of people to check the forum in the first place could be contributing to somewhat of a drop-off.

I have nothing to back this up other than just a general feeling, but lately (i.e. the past couple months or so) I've gotten the impression that there's been less activity on the forum. And no, I'm not trying to start a "well back in my day we didn't have Discord" thread, because I wasn't a part of the league during that time and can't logically compare then to now. I'm speaking more in terms of the last couple years versus now. I know my own activity on Discord and the forums isn't quite what it used to be (and I used to live here, so I'm cool with that), but lately I've clicked on the media spot subforum, or the .com article subforum, and looked for active threads and things I'm interested in commenting on or talking about...and there just isn't much worth reading. Even what is worth reading is largely glossed over--anecdotally, my super in-depth articles (when I care enough to write them) don't generate nearly the amount of engagement that they used to, and that's a problem for just about every other super in-depth article I've seen as well. Graphics threads used to be notorious for being less active in general, but these days they're just as active as article threads, if not outright more active due to a lot of reviewing. And on top of that, there are just fewer threads in general--outside of point tasks and league announcements, do we really even have threads to look at regularly? Maybe we've seen a bit of a culture shift recently--our member base is larger than it ever has been. Newer members may be a bit put off or intimidated by this as it's now seemingly harder to fit in, older members stick to what (and who) they know and don't mix too much with the others. That might not even be happening at all, but it's a hypothesis I have, backed up anecdotally again by the fact that there's a handful of very active newer members with which I've had little to no interaction whatsoever, even though I doubt either of us wants to avoid the other at all. It's possible that expansion of the community has led to a less personal feel to things, and in turn a less "put yourself out there" type of mindset, but it could also just be a general trend that was accidentally followed--one generally less active week leads to a bit of disengagement, a bit of disengagement leads to another generally less active week, and so on. I feel like lately all the forum has been is a place to do what we need to do and check out for the week. Hopefully it means much more than that to many of us. I'm not trying to be all anti-Discord boomer here (in fact, I love Discord and think we've gotten along perfectly well with it for quite a while!) and I'm not trying to criticize anyone in particular. I'm not even going to say there's a concrete problem here, or that there's a concrete solution to it. If you care about our community, if you care about our forum, please just think about what you can do to make it a happier, more active, and more welcoming environment when you're finished reading this. It doesn't have to be today, it doesn't have to be right now, but just think of one little thing you can do to go beyond just posting your PTs and running away. I hope this is NOT a fair criticism, and that I'm simply going insane. If that's not the case, though, get your forum hat on and go make a difference.

@TheCHEESE hope you like it!

That's something you might think is just "hey, what's going on" in Spanish (and it is, if you phrase it like "oye, ¿cómo va?"), but without the punctuation it's (loosely) "listen to how it goes" instead, a context you may have heard in a Santana song by that name. I've chosen that name here because there's a bit of a difference between those two interpretations--one extroverted, one introverted, one reaching out to the world and one letting the world reach out on its own. I bring that up because, although it's highly counterintuitive, sim results have suggested that maybe I should have done literally nothing with Davos after our first iteration of the lineup was put together this season--passively watching how the sims treated us rather than immediately reaching out and trying to see what I could get from Toronto when news broke that they were selling. Am I seriously suggesting that I shouldn't have addressed our weak point (forwards, and wingers in particular), or that making our team significantly better on paper was a bad choice? Not at all. In fact, even though we're no longer atop the standings, I'm more confident in our current lineup than I was in our former one. The line changes that we needed to make to accommodate, well, a different lineup, simply created a disturbance in the force that needs to be ironed out. I know we can be a good team--in fact, we already have been this season--and I also know that we should be able to be an even better one. Until that point, it's time to play around with things, find something that works, and listen to how it goes.

Breaking: Jokinen demands exactly 18 minutes of ice time per game

You're probably all tired of seeing this get bumped...but it's week 4 time. Using this one for all it's worth.

I consciously pick forwards first because they're more obviously predictable to the casual player. Someone I really want at forward will probably be off the board if I let them fall, but knowing how the engine treats people I know I can find some 500-TPE defenseman on a depleted roster later on who will do great things for my team. I think changing the system to combat meta might limit that to some extent, but those players are still favored pretty well by the engine so it will probably always be meta to some extent regardless of scoring system.

Here's the thing--STHS favors certain players in certain ways. In general, there are a few things that jump out to me when I make my picks that signify possible top performance...here are some that come to mind. -High CK rating. This is something we see people complaining about a lot, and two ways to address it could be to either negate the impact of hits entirely (which I think is boring) or to adjust the scoring so hits don't count for as much or they're offset by PIM counting for some sort of negative. I don't have a problem with physical players being rewarded more, and in fact I think it's an incentive for some people to choose to build a player with some CK--one of very few real build variations that's still considered "acceptable" to the big meta crowd. -Good (or even just OK) players on bad teams--especially defensemen. My steal last season was Moscow's Bob Tristan, who had decent CK and the highest TPE among defenders on a rebuilding team. He ended up doing great. Last season's top scorer was Robin Galante Nilsson, who wasn't even all that impressive physically but who had a ton of SB and points for Vancouver. The thing is that it will always be meta to some extent to go for these players--I will concede that maybe SB are worth a bit much (almost an assist!), but outside of that potentially benefiting from being lowered, there's not much we can do about it. -Anyone who's way better than the players around them. Groovy Dood was one of the hot picks of the past few drafts because he was often the only forward on DC even near his TPE level. Taro was that last season, and Tyler Walker was for one or two before that. I don't think there's anything that can be done to make those picks any less meta than they are unless we try to throw some stupidly complicated factoring-in-the-team thing into the equation, which I don't think is realistic and which I'm not a fan of anyway. The only thing I would outright support is SB being weighted less heavily. I can understand the reasons why people complain about hits as well, but I'm more neutral on that.

This might bring to mind a certain response which may involve the word "old", as well as those of "boys" and "club". I am not against making money matter. However, it would be a lot more difficult to implement than most may think. Let's say we bring about some cool new things in the player store, or we make player store things way more expensive as a whole so you'd basically need a monster contract to buy all the things a minimum contract for a max earner can buy now (i.e. basically all the depreciation stuff). In either situation, there's an incentive for players to negotiate for higher contracts, as more money = more cool stuff. But it's not as simple as saying that the market will adjust itself and everything will be just peachy with new contract excitement every offseason. Here's something I could realistically see happening from that which isn't so peachy: -With many players wanting more money, cap goes up as teams will generally end up spending more money. -HOWEVER, many players do not and will not see this as an opportunity to make more money and have better careers as a result. Team loyalty is a big thing here and people are already in the mindset of "I'm going to take a minimum contract to help my team." If cap does go up, I believe that we'd see the emergence of a few "teamwork"-centric teams full of people who know each other well and do not care what they're paid so long as they can win championships. These teams, if cap stays up, become perennial champions, something that's stupid and boring. -As a result of something stupid and boring popping up, cap goes back down--maybe not all the way, but enough to prevent that from happening. At that point, the question becomes whether wanting a bigger contract is worth it. Those who do are maligned as self-centered and unrealistic. It is my opinion here that the "free market" approach would, after 5 seasons or so, eventually adjust itself back down to where it is now, even if the player store is made cooler or prices go up. ...but Gustav, what if we make the player store cool enough, or we raise prices enough, that having a monster contract is needed to have a great career? Well, that's not a good thing, because: -First of all, I still think we'd see a team or two who manages to play moneyball for cup wins. -Second, this would REALLY widen the gap between great and good, and between good and OK. If having a lot of money is needed to do well, then we'd see teams allocate their assets accordingly: to the super high earners. Anyone who isn't that gets screwed over because there's no money left, and because of that their career goes down the drain. That would be the biggest "oId boys cIub" move in history, even if it would be something entirely new to the league. Is there a way to make this work for everyone? Maybe, and if you can think of one that would be great. It's just not as simple as it may seem.

100% agreed with all of this. Being at work full-time lately I've been busy for a while now and don't see life slowing down with a fairly involved semester ahead of me and (possibly) trying to make myself look as good as possible for some grad programs. The big thing that can sum up quite a bit of this article and my sim league philosophy in general (not that the other points aren't relevant) is this point: I still haven't missed a week of maxing out since the first week or two I was in this league, and I consider myself a decently-involved GM--especially now that I actually have a reason to care about whether or not we're winning games. But I felt a bit leagued-out a couple months ago and lost interest in the PBE. Do I feel bad that I was a first-rounder and a decent earner for a while and now haven't logged on in a month? Kinda. But do I want to force myself to do a set of tasks every week for the next year or two? Hell no, I'm not as dumb as I look. I'm not entirely "leagued-out" in the EFL yet, but I also haven't truly cared about what's going on there the past season or two and likely won't be recreating for a while. I love my sim leagues, and I wish I could say I love being a good member in all of them, but it just truly isn't sustainable if I want to actually do things with my life. Lately I've really only paid attention to VHL goings-on, and not having to bounce around between a few different sites (as well as probably having a team that's actually competitive) has brought back some of the super-deep appreciation to this league that I had as a new member. So yes, don't do things you don't want to do--it might make the things you do want to do a good deal more enjoyable.

For the week ending 8/8: 1. Let's just say we've had some good sims. What's the best way to keep that momentum going through the whole season? 2. It turns out that the Big Gustav Moves did not stop after the offseason ended, as we just traded for forward Addison McLaren from Toronto! It does come at a cost, though--all of our high picks are gone. Is this worth it? 3. It occurred to me that I never announced this season's captains. Though we have two captains from previous seasons still in place, one spot remains open! Who would you call the leader of our team (among players not named Taro)? 4. What's something you hope to accomplish in the next 10 years? 5. You can instantly master any one language. Which do you pick and why? 6. Who's your favorite historical figure? @Grape @Berocka@Ricer13@efiug @weekz @KC15 @TheCHEESE @Ahma @PatrikLaine @FrostBeard@Midnite @JardyB10 @tcookie

DAVID

Damn Canada do be doin strange things to a mf

A nice combination of player development and offseason buying. I don't think I did anything special; competing was more realistic than most probably thought.

FISTED ANALLY BY A CIRCUS MONKEY

Yes. It's the only Ironic answer in the quiz.