I've just rejoined recently so I've just become familiar with the whole vhl-vhle dynamics going on, but to my understanding it seems that the vhle is a solution to the vhl getting too big and players need a place to get playing time? It seems as growth increases the natural progress would be to keep adding new leagues in different tiers, kind of similar to the major league and the AAA, AA, etc. It also seems that the solution to a decrease in the player base would mean deleting a league and moving excess players back up to the next tier.
But has anyone ever thought that it might be the case that the vhl could just get too big to be able to function properly? I mean, obviously the idea is that we want everyone to be able to participate and get meaningful playing time, but with the 9 season cap until retirement it also means that, unless you complete tpe whore, you never have a chance of trying to get a full career in the top league and put up a player that can make the record books. So basically most players will eventually just have to be okay with trying to put up numbers in a lower league and that's that. But that also doesn't guarantee that with a big enough player base that anyone, regardless of activity, will get a full vhl career, and thus the record books will stagnate and noone will really get any fulfillment out of trying to be the best.
I guess the point I'm trying to make is as long as everyone is allowed to participate and get a meaningful experience and we try to structure the league to facilitate that, no matter if a player wants to tpe whore or be a welfare player, then this place CAN get too big. I mean think about hockey in the real world. You have the nhl and the ahl and then a bunch of development leagues for younger players whom most eventually hang up the skates because they just aren't good enough to make the big leagues. The Nhl doesn't guarantee a meaningful experience for anyone because they can't, they have 32 teams x 23 player roster size, and then a lower tier farm league, that's it. They can make it work because not everyone is allowed, there are millions of players who play hockey who will never even get a chance to sniff the big leagues because they just aren't good enough. It seems that once something competitive gets too big either the whole structure gets screwed all to hell to accommodate everybody, or some people just get left out.