FrostBeard

13 minutes ago, Steve said:

I been dumped. 

 D.C. DRAGONS PRESS CONFERENCE 
Season 89 is going to begin any day now!

Answer 3 for 1 TPE, Answer 6 for 2
 

1. How do you rate S89 Entry draft for D.C. Dragons? 
2. GM Frostbeard was called out for being "too supportive of his bottom feeder team" after he said that D.C. Dragons has what it takes to get to playoffs really soon. Your thoughts on that matter?
3. After being basically silent throughout FA time, do you think our team should look at few players still available for pickup?
4. It was rumoured that after S89 draft Calaway and Queefson had a long conversation at a bar that ended with a drunked brawl, is that true or is it a fabricated story?
5. Looking at our current roster, how well do you think you can fit into our lineup and do you feel that your player will be able to shine?
6. After long dicussions Viking Brandy has remained as the main sponsor for D.C. Dragons, some have called GM Frostbeard a "sellout" for always working with this alcohol brand, do you think it is a big deal that a manager of a team wants to keep working with a brand he has worked with for many seasons?

Beautiful, just... Beautiful 

Here we go, a small but a worthwhile trade

@Alex Thanks for quick trade talks, always pleasure working with you. 

@Ripper - Good luck in Davos, go and get that sweet Continental cup! 
@CrlineDijohn14 - Welcome to DC Dragons! Let's get to work! 

Hah, I am gonna try doing more graphics myself and who knows - maybe do some reviewing too! 

I have been a bit slacking when it comes to point tasks so it could be fun! 

Off-season

Latvia, Nereta 

Sirdsvaldis always has been very fond of spending off-seasons back on home soil, at a place where he feels incredibly calm and has a chance to reflect back on parts of his career. 

He decided to prepare a audio recording that sadly could not be played so here is a transcript of what he said.

"To be perfectly honest, my career has had many ups and downs - I came into league as a strong and team oriented centre player with a plan. Always had my mind set on one goal only, to prove that I belong. It was very tough. Had my start in Seattle, yeah, I know, you might say that there was a brief stint in VHLM and a full season with Vikings in VHLE, however, I never really felt like that was a place for me. The goal clearly was to make it to VHL as soon as possible and play with the big dogs. 

About my start with Seattle - 3 seasons, amazing atmosphere and glorious fans pushed me to new hights. I do have to say that I really only achieved the level of play in my 3rd season, a level of play that I feel I could always get to, that is what I meant. Managed to secure a continental cup, however it didn't feel that amazing. I played well throughout playoffs but still feel like I was not where I needed to be. Then came a trade that sent me to LA. 

Time in LA has been wonderful, weather is nice and yet incredibly hot for my Latvian bones, team, fans and support I have received during my last 4 seasons, going into 5th season feels like a very familiar thing to do. Never thought I would say this but I feel like not going into Free Agency even once has made me appreciate what kind of a relationship you can build with your team. It is extraordinary. Statistics. Yes. There have been ups and downs. A league leading performance in S87, top goalscorer and MVP, is all great, I am still incredibly proud that I managed something like that and everyone knows it is surely not a simple feat to do, that said, only a season prior, a team that was built to play and dominate didn't do anything because of my weak leadership. I am slightly disappointed. Heck, who am I kidding, I won't forgive myself that with the crew we have had, we didn't manage to head to finals even once in those 4 seasons. 

Well, I guess there is the 5th. In the end, the run, push to achieve greatness and understanding my own limitations has been something I have always wanted to emphasise to anyone going into this sport. It will be brutal, you will fail and at the same time those failures will become a fuel for greatness if you won't be consumed by that failure." 

 

1 minute ago, Victor said:

yeah maybe someone hasn't been inputting player names on the awards page and I'm like 3-4 seasons behind on manual HOF labour

If you need help, I am available

 D.C. DRAGONS PRESS CONFERENCE 
Relaxing with DC Dragons!

Answer 3 for 1 TPE, Answer 6 for 2
 

1. Off-season is here and GM John Frostbeard hinted that one player will have to choose a place for the team to go to for a week's retreat - what would be your choice for a vacation for everyone on the roster?
2. D.C. Dragons main sponsor Viking Brandy has released a song with a title "Roar like a Dragon, sleep like an egg". Title has created a lot of buzz around it with many journalists saying it is an "awful and disgraceful title for a song" - what are your thoughts about it?
3. With team calling up two players from VHLE, Keita Kourou and Reinhard von Kongming, how well do you think they will fit in Dragons roster?
4. There has been a rumour that there is a potential for a trade to make this roster a tiny bit younger, your thoughts on that matter?
5. If you would have to look at our roster and give one player's name as our juggernaut that in vital for the team's success - which one would that be and why?
6. With S89 coming up soon, what are your expections for DC Dragons and your own player?

After thinking that it is the time to change my GM signature, decided to make again it on my own..

Houston is the best VHLM team no matter what.

I remember this being an absolute blast to see! Great idea to bring this back and I am excited to see how much of a rivalry Team Gustav (The amazing and bold ones) and Team Spartan (Yes, I know, his name had to be on the team name... Rules you know). 

Jokes aside - I hope everyone involde is going to have fun times and will be able to see how this goes! I have always personally looked at this as a bit of a All-Star Game experience for VHLM.

OV - Sirdsvaldis Miglaskems

 D.C. DRAGONS PRESS CONFERENCE 
VHL Finals are soon and so is Off-season!

Answer 3 for 1 TPE, Answer 6 for 2
 

1. How do you plan to spend your off-season, going to focus on your skills or just enjoy some time off?
2. When it comes to DC Dragons Draft - we have 5 picks in the first 2 rounds, how important for our rebuild this draft is going to be?
3. GM John Frostbeard recently said that he feels that last season and trades put DC Dragons in a really good spot for the future. Do you believe that or do you think some things could have been done better?
4. Our star goaltender Bubbles Utonium has decided to resign with DC Dragons, how important it is for our team to have a strong player in the net with so many new players coming into the team?
5. Mark Calaway, our last season's 1st Overall pick had a great season in VHLE, how much do you think that experience is going to help him on his journey to be one of the future VHL greats?
6. It was leaked by a member of DC Dragons Coaching staff that there has been some problems in the LR between Magomedov and Coiner that even resulted in a full blown fight - is there any truth to that and is it something DC Dragons fans should be worried about?

1 hour ago, Banackock said:

 

 

Don't scare me you pickle juice drinker

This is the way

44 minutes ago, Beketov said:

Tbh I was listening at work and only half hearing it haha 

Absolutely no worries, I am babbling most of the time anyway and I fully understand that most of my "ideas" are pretty horrible anyway. 

7 minutes ago, Daniel Janser said:

I think we need to separate the idea that only max earner are an asset/contributor to a teams success, though. There are active people in the league who are fun to interact with but do not care to max earn every week (or at all) for various reasons and there are max earners who do not interact much outside of their contribution to forum content (aka PT). And then are those who do both. I think all of the aforementioned contribute in their own way to the VHL experience and the success of their respective team.

I fully agree with this. There is nothing to add on that. 
 

7 minutes ago, Daniel Janser said:

In closing I wish to point out that retention in my humble opinion is not only about earning (though it can be an incentive for some), it is more about having an amazing community and having caring GMs in place (especially in the Minors, but not exclusively there), who find a way for their players to earn at a level they are comfortable with (and is sustainable for that individual).

Of course it isn't. But I do believe that earning TPE is around 25% of that. Is that 25% something we can work on? Sure. Is all the other 75% that is a thing we should work on like Mentor program, like support VHLM and VHLE as much as we can. Also sure.

In the end, I feel like talking about retention is a catch-all sort of a discussion. You have to make every effort. As I see it, the suggestion there wouldn't make everyone a max earner, however it could swing few of those lost souls that would say "Yeah, sure, I can try this out."

I also very well understand that adding that extra 1 TPE can be a bit of a problem in the end as it could swing the TPE amounts by quite a bit in the end. However as I see it, we can work on that by slightly altering Hybrid attribute system as well, which is something I believe we will need to do anyway. You might ask - so what changes you mean? 

As I see it - forwards and defencemen should have their most popular attributes like for example for forwards Offensive Awareness, Defensive Coverage and Deeking (Though you need to look at them a bit more closely to determine and I am just here putting this as an example) with a bit more of a heavy TPE increase - so in stead of the normal :
35-70 --- 1 TPE per point
70-75 --- 2 TPE per point
75-80 --- 3 TPE per point
80-90 --- 5 TPE per point
90-95 --- 8 TPE per point
95-99 --- 10 TPE per point

You could adjust it to something in the line of:

35-70 --- 1TPE
70-75 --- 3TPE
75-80 --- 5TPE
80-85 --- 8TPE
85-90 --- 12TPE
95-99 --- 18TPE 

So that your main drivers for your build is a bit tougher to get so you have to choose other attributes to compensate. 

But I guess that is a full on other discussion here. All I was trying to say is that having some Max earners is good, having more of them but not too many would be better. At least as I see it. It still would be plenty of work to put it, but it would be a tiny bit easier. 

On 5/1/2023 at 4:59 PM, Beketov said:

Counter argument to your "kill welfare to help retention" argument: On the one hand your point is valid that having people just click twice and then not need to do anything else means they might not try to do anything else, good for retention right? The problem is that on the other hand how many current long term members depend on that button to stay active? How many of those people just don't have the time to stay and do the full weekly tasks? You kill welfare you lose those older members. So it's not really helping retention in a way, it's just cycling older members out for newer members and even then it's only doing so in theory.

I think that if it came out as "Kill welfare to help retention" then I might have missed the mark. 

To give a bit more of a broad idea on this: 

Currently to get 8 TPE weekly for your VHLM player you can do Welfare + PF + PC. 
Plenty of newcomers that I have had conversations have come to me and said that they feel like doing Media spots with the current 6 TPE and needing 500 words doesn't provide enough for them to try it unless we are talking about Theme week when for 500 words you get 12 TPE. 

I am not saying that Media spots should be 8 TPE or anything like that. 

What I have been wondering is that currently, to cap out 12 TPE Cap without a league job requires you to - Write a Media spot (500 Words or Graphic) + PC + Trivia + An extra suplementary task. Certain tasks are simple and require so real preparations like Press Conference - go and answer questions, simple. But the main task - Media spot or Graphic takes more work and effort AND more importantly creativity. 

As I see it - the system could be adjusted this way: 

Media spot requires 400 words for 6 TPE. 
VHL article requires 200 words for 2 TPE. 
With graphics no changes can really be made. 

If you cap out with 12 TPE, you get a suplementary 1 TPE bonus for "Capping out". Making sure that at VHLM/VHLE level you earn 15 TPE per week and at VHL level 14. 

So what this does is makes it a bit easier to cap out (But still needs to be considerable work put it. 
Makes sure that there is a clear difference between capping out at 14 or 15 TPE versus claiming even Pension + PF which would give you 6 or 7 (8 or 9 if you add the PC) depending on where you are in your career. 

This is of course just a trail of thought and something that might be a complete bs in the end. 
Capping out feels like an acoplishment and as I see it - doing this would incentivise more people to try to cap out. 

After not appearing before the press this whole season, Sirdsvaldis Miglasķēms has created a statement that he carefully read in from of the Media room in LA Stars home arena. 

*With a bit of sweat on his forehead and a glass with unknown lightly brown or even caramel colour drink, Sirdsvaldis steps to the podium*

Hello there my great disciples! It is my time agian to ask for donations for the cau.... Wait, sorry, this is the wrong speech. So.... Uhm... Yeah, what's up?

I am here to proclaim that there is no bigger and better and stronger and... well, you get it - superstar in the league than me, future local HoF 5th tier cadidate and the father of your neighbours long lost child - Sirdsvaldis Miglasķēms. I am just here to talk about LA and some other cool things like rollerblading and baking cakes while wearing pirate hats. When it comes to LA, our season is going good, Sirdsvaldis is player well, but not great and that really makes me angry as I am clearly the biggest and best guy on the team and yet I am not able to prove it on ice. I am a bit angry and a bit annoyed but that is just life I guess?

When it comes to my own performance, I think I just need to improve few things like puck movement, shooting ability in both slapshot and wristshot, need to get some of my skating game on point, passing is lacking so need to work on that too, defensively I need to work on my shot blocking and just stick handling in general and need to have a bit better teamwork and have that offensive and defensive awareness on point and also need to have a bit more leadership... Yeah, I think that is it. 

When it comes to everything else, I recently decided to have a bit of a hobby and I decided to join a football league and I have been learning that. And before anyone here says "But our dear master Miglasķēms, did you really give up on your other great talents like knitting and researching political power distribution between tribes in Amazon rainforest?" - the answer is a solid and strong no. I am still doing that but your orders of knitted socks and gloves will be delayed by at least 1 or 2 calendar days. 

Okay, I think that will be it. 

Thanks for the simple trade talks @Frank

Good luck @Mr Bohannan thanks for the time here in DC - go and get that cup with Vancouver now! 

 D.C. DRAGONS PRESS CONFERENCE 
TDL is coming up!

Answer 3 for 1 TPE, Answer 6 for 2

1. GM Frostbeard has been open about the fact that even though he is happy with getting wins, he also understands the need to finish last and push ourselves in the position for the best chances at 1OA pick, what are your thoughts on that?
2. How are you feeling about your player and performance this season?
3. Thinking of the future for our team, we have managed to gain a lot of picks, do you feel that building through the draft is the answer to building a dynasty?
4. Dvorak and Adolfsen have both seen going golfing on the off-days when DC is not playing, do you feel that having a distraction like that helps players or hurts their plays?
5. After a training session our coach said to media that "This is the team that can win against anyone, we just lack enough experience to take game seriously all 60 minutes." Your thoughts on that statement?
6. With  a season as tough as this, how do you feel our team can motivate ourselves to keep pushing and not give up til the end?

GM John Frostbeard steps up to the podium near the DC Dragons home arena on a windy spring day

"It is my honour to announce who are going to be a part of our captaincy group. It is always a huge pleasure to know that as a team we are looking to write a new page in the D.C. Dragons long and exciting history, for me and the team we have here in D.C. this season is going to be a stepping stone to build ourselves as a strong and constant contender in VHL Playoffs in the future and for that we need a strong leadership group who can guide us to that goal!"

Here are the Captains for S88 D.C. Dragons

Assistant captain and a VHL Rookie who has been showing a great skill on ice that we will see continue for many more seasons - Lucas Grey @emidas
Assistant captain and a person who has had a career filled with sugar, spice and everything nice - Bubbles Utonium @fishy
Captain and leader, a player who has been with the team for all his career and has the attitude of a true captain - Jason Coiner @Jason

38 minutes ago, Grape said:

Politically speaking this is false. The Democratic and Republican parties are pretty similar on the political spectrum (both slightly auth-right), with minor differences being blown up and made to believe are major. There's a reason people are able to switch from one to the other pretty easily. The media just likes to push the divide and give far-left/right voices a platform to present themselves because radicalism = clicks. We hear antifa-this and proud boys-that, not because those groups are the norm, but because they are the exception and the exception will typically get more views. Same thing with shootings and AR-15s. Vast majority are done by handguns, but since AR-15s are the prime issue, those ones get highlighted.

This sadly is false. Of course when parties and their majority members are in the Centre-left or Centre-right you can easily switch between them HOWEVER the voice of certain more radical parts have become a driving force for political change. 

Loud ideas drive support in the society - that is the reason we see people like MTG and Matt Gaetz and Bernie Sanders and AOC elected. Because they speak about things that their voters support, ideas that others are either afraid to say or do not believe in. Because of that push ar rally around these ideas more centre political actors have to move and support certain positions that they might not support. That is why you can easily say that Democratic and Republican parties have moved away from the Centre-left and Centre-right positions, because they are forced. 

There is a reason why looking at certain countries in Europe you see Populists winning from both sides because people want to hear things about change - what that change is however is up to the person. 

This whole conversation started with the simple - no compromises are easily possible and democracy is dying which in fact is true. Sad, but true. And talking about media - media has always been a driving force of the political system. Daily Wire and FOX support Republicans the same way as MSNBC supports Democrats on the SocDem wing, CNN supports liberals. 

Also, to just quickly mention switching form one party to another - that is not based on the fact that they are similar but based on the fact that politics of each have become more devisive which in fact creates a larger base of independent voters. It if well researched.

Thinking about it a bit more, I think that this idea that the US political parties are unable to compromise right now is an expected chain of events. And I think it is very much closely associated with this problem of "Democracy is dying" that Nurx started.

We all know that at some point in 90s Democratic party and Republic party started moving away from being Centre-left and Centre-right parties to being Left/Far Left and Right/Far Right leaning parties respectively. For the US political environment it made sure that the  aggression of ideas from both sides started to come up. 

This is something that I have been following for years in Latvia and it is basically the same in US and any other democratic state. Democratic party sees this time, age of Gen Z and Millenials as an opportunity to push for more progressive measures (I have to point out that most of the Democratic party are not Social Democrats by any means but actually just Moderate Liberals) that might seen very simplistic like trying to eliminate hate speech and making sure that gun problem is to some extent being fixed. On the other hand, Republican party who has strong wing of Far-right activists like MTG and Matt Gaetz (Even though again, Republican party in a huge majority should be considered Moderate Conservatives) believes that it is also the time to revert certain progress made in terms of rights and openness of ideas. At this point is a huge political game where one party talks about how US not as great as people think but it can be better if the country would follow a way of reforms and change that have helped countries like Denmark, Sweden and Finland become  great examples of strong government that supports its citizens VS the other party who looks at some time in history and says "Hey, remember how great you lived back in *insert any decade when the person was in their 20s/30s* - lets work to make sure we get back to it!". 

It is tough because those situations, sadly are mutually exclusive and there is no compromise. You can't compromise when taking away woman's rights for abortion, you can't compromise when your whole political agenda is based "America is a Christian nation". It is tough because the moderates that could try to compromise with the other side are drawn in to support all the ideas that their party puts out because if not, they will not be reelected or nominated. 

Look at how many Republicans spoke badly about Trump after January 6 Capitol riots and how they are reacting now to his idictment. They know that if Trump will become Republican nominee they will need his support no matter how aggressively they stood against him when it comes to Capitol riots.  It is just one example but sadly that is how the political relationships work. 

It is very tough - I can say from my own experience, as a person who is in office, elected to represed certain people in my municipality in Latvia, pushing certain ideas and supporting good causes is tough when the overall majority of elected officials are of the opposite political spectrum. 

I am fairly left leaning. Would easily call myself a Social Democrat. In my municipal council we have 19 members, out of which - 14 would be considered conservative leaning or full blown conservatives. There has been calls to silence voices, to take away ability to speak about topics that are tough for our coucil leaders, however, at least in Latvia, there is no option for our Council to recall or punish other Council members so we are safe. 

I can't imagine how it would feel to be in a situation where would worry about being kicked off for thinking differently.