MacH

Gold: Europe Silver: Canada Bronze: Asia MVP: Ambrose Stark

231 Moscow Menace @ Seattle Bears 232 HC Davos Dynamo @ Riga Reign 233 Calgary Wranglers @ New York Americans 234 Toronto Legion @ Helsinki Titans

Toronto 2-1

Little challenges, little steps

submitted

1) We’re getting close to the halfway point of the season. Have your expectations changed from the beginning of the season? We have had a solid season so far, could still do with picking up a little in order to climb past the Reapers and Lynx. 2) Who is your half-season MVP on Minnesota? Based on sheer stats alone Kefka Palazzo's goals and assists have been wonderful this season. 3) Have you picked up any bumps and bruises or nagging injuries this year? If not, how come? If yes, what are they? Managed to sprain an ankle after falling on it funny, it's mostly healed now. 4) What is your favorite drill in practice? General skating drills, I love improving my balance and speed. 5) If you could get away with it, would you modify your equipment? Some people bend their sticks too much, others may do something crazier like add bits of razor blades in their shoulder pads. What would you do? Rocket skates obviously. 6) Describe your perfect meal. Rice as a base, some vegetables, tofu or something similar and maybe hot sauce. soy sauce or another kind of source

Hello and welcome to another VHLM Magazine article, today I have decided to sit down with my teams general manager and ask him a few questions on what he expects from his team this season and how he feels being a VHLM manager. To start with I figured I would introduce the team that I am playing for, which is none other than the Minnesota Storm who managed a 3rd place finish in S66, followed by a slightly disappointing playoff run, which I am sure they hope to improve on this season. With a solid looking roster to start S67 with I am looking forward to seeing how the team perform. Now time for the questions that I have prepared for @Rayzor_7. Hi Rayzor, to start with how do you feel about being a General Manager in the VHLM? I'm happy to be a GM, to be selected is a honor considering the amount of strong competition I had. The GM's and AGM's league wide are good people and it makes the atmosphere around being a GM light and fun. What challenges do you face this season and what aspect of the Storm's game do you believe needs to be focused on? Our biggest challenge will be producing offensive without many big names. We have Berocka who has been showing up but beyond that we are spread thin. We are producing decently so far though so I can't complain. Who are the players you would recommend VHL scouts keep an eye on? My sleeper picks would be Kaspars Claude and Alex, we picked up them both in a trade and they both show a huge amount of promise and could be useful in the VHL in the future. Which teams will be the biggest threat to a Minnesota playoff run? Without a doubt the defending champions Philly and their runner ups Ottawa, both have gone in to compete again this season. A couple other teams could play well but those two will be the main challenge in the long run. Finally to end on a lighter note, what are your favourite pizza toppings? I'm a Canadian so the one we created, Hawaiian Pizza as well as Pineapple and Bacon Pizza. That's it for my interview questions, thank you Rayzor for taking the time to respond. I hope you enjoyed reading the article.

Names for Bots F - Mike TV D - Zeduh G - Max Size

Hi everyone, thank you for coming to check oht my little post a simple post about my move from the United Kingdom over to Minnesota in the US. Obviously it all started with hockey, I have been playing since I was 11 years old I fell in love with the sport at a younger age, following the ducks as my favourite team for as long as I can remember, as some of you may have already guessed this came from the Disney film which I watched when I was a kid and found the comedy mixed with the sport an incredibly good combination which created a film that I love. Anyway I played hockey since I was 11 and was drafted for the Minnesota Storm at age 16 which I see as an incredible opportunity to further my career. As soon as I got the call letting me know the spot in Minnesota was confirmed, I quickly dropped my bad habits and improved my diet with little to know thought, removing all unhealthy snacks and junk food, replacing them with things such as fruit and cereal bars. This coupled with increased practice and gym times including weights, swimming and more cardio based exercises, as well as skating drills regularly. My body has improved in no time at all. I feel this is an incredibly important step in my career. Since arriving in Minnesota I have made sure to maintain/increase my gym and practice times as necessary. I have taken a little time to explore the city, mostly checking at local tourist spots such as the Boundary Waters and Minnehaha Park, as a big fan of nature spots like this really peak my interest and fuel my need for exploration more. Other than that I have been spending lots of times in the locker rooms and plan to start building relationships with my fellow team mates in hopes that we will all gel together and create an incredibly strong team. Practice drills with my teammates will be an interesting experience, I look forward to improving my game with players of the same or better skill level than me, I am also thinking about studying other teams and players in the league in an attempt to improve my game. Things I need go look into would be upgrading my gear, currently I am just using a generic stick from a local store in the UK, I plan on doing some research on gear that I should test out, including sticks, helmets, pads and skates so if anyone has any recommendations on shops I should visit or gear that I should test out then I welcome your suggestions. That's it from me for now, I hope you enjoyed reading my post and are interested in seeing, reading or listening to more content from myself, I plan to keep myself trainingc correctly and updating my media spots, graphics and other media in order to make sure my player is the best it could be.

1) You were just drafted/signed by the Minnesota Storm for S67. What do you think about ng the Storm? Interested to see how the season pans out hoping for an active locker room and responsive managers, so far the discord has been fairly active no response from my manager yet though. 2) What are your expectations for the team this year? Clearly the expectation would be to win, looking forward to seeing how well we perform. 3) What are your expectations for yourself this year? As it's my first season I'm looking to build my players stats as quickly as I can in order to compete at a higher level. 4) Looking at the rest of the teams in the VHLM, who do you think will be Minnesota’s biggest rival? Why? From looking at last season it seems as though the Reapers will be a good competition. 5) What do you think about the Storm’s facilities? Any recommendations to management for improving the locker room (i.e. Discord LR)? The convenience of the Discord is good, the team info on the forum says it's the Oslo Storm... Not sure if this needs updating or it's that way on purpose. 6) Minnesota is a beautiful state, known as the land of 10,000 lakes. Have you been able to spend any time in Minnesota since you were drafted? What do you think? I've pretty much only been able to play hockey in Minnesota since I arrived, am looking forward to exploring the state however.

Improving slowly.

-4 Best keep working.

I'm up for free TPE

We took some time out of our day to follow Mac around now that he has been drafted in the VHLM by the Minnesota Storm alongside Berocka Sundqvist and Danny DeYeeto, to see what he has been doing in order to prepare himself for the coming VHLM season. He had a brief relaxing period in the off-season, catching up with some friends and playing video games, before setting himself up to begin a workout and diet plan in order to build his body, spending ample amount of time in the gym in order to develop his muscles and all around fitness, and a good amount of time in the pool swimming to improve his overall fitness levels. as well as plenty of on ice training both on and off the puck, ranging from passing and shooting drills with teammates to speed skating. As for his diet, he has recently swapped to a mostly grain and fruit diet, starting the day with cereal, his personal favourite being granola and a banana or apple, sometimes a smoothie. Followed by more fruit at lunch though he has considered changing this out for a salad instead to make sure his vegetable intake is at a good level. Sometimes he will have a cereal bar before or after training followed by a rice based meal with vegetables for his main meal in the evening.

1) Since it's not been too long since you've joined the league, what are thoughts on the league so far as a whole? It seems like an interesting community, I'm looking forward to seeing what the locker room environments are like. 2) Are there any areas in the league that you would like to see a change/improvement? None that I can think of, I will keep an eye out for any ideas I might have. 3) The VHLM Newsletter launched earlier this week, did you read it and was it helpful to you? Didn't notice this, will make sure to read it from now on. Gave it a read, yes it is helpful and I will make sure to continue reading it. 4) What are your aims this season in the VHLM? Once I'm drafted I aim to have an excellent start to my VHLM career. 5) With the teams starting to take shape, who do you consider to be the favourite for the VHLM Founders Cup? Looking at the standings it seems as though the Reapers and Ottawa are the two contenders to be watching. 6c) If a GM were to make you an offer, what kind of player would they be getting? (If you're currently unaffiliated). A focused player excited to start his career in the VHLM.

Gold: Europe Silver: World Bronze: Mercenary's

Didn't have as much time as I would like and I have only started using photoshop again for the first time in a few years, I will update this with an improved signature as my photoshop skills improve. Edit: I didn't follow any full tutorials, did a little bit of googling but mostly just played around with different brushes. Working on them.

Applying for Western Europe

Mac is an up and coming rookie player joining the VHLM in the new season, hailing from the UK he grew up enjoying music and studying at school as a normal kid would. When he reached the age of 11 he decided he wanted to play hockey, managed to scrape together a little money to get himself started and started learning to skate, after plenty of bumps and bruises he finally started to find his footing on the ice, he then spent time searching for a local time, once he found a small local team his love for the game really started to develop, spending countless hours with friends both on and off the ice, trading tips and gear to try and improve their hockey game. It took a season or two of finding their footing before the team started to make a name for itself in the league, however they went on to have 3 top 3 finishes and 1 title.

No worries man! Glad you enjoyed the post.

Player Profile - Michael Johnson In order to introduce myself to the league and media spot writing I decided to take a look at some of the VHLM players that are floating around the league and review their performance in earlier seasons. To start with we have Michael Johnson, who started his VHL career in S67 a 6'3 goaltender weighing at 210lbs he began playing for Halifax of the VHLM, I did some digging around to see what I could find about the player and it seems he had a shaky start to his career stating himself that he needs to get into the game quicker and work on his nerves. It doesn't all seem to be bad news for Michael though scoring a shutout in a 1 goal win against the San Diego Marlins and ending the season with a solid 105 goals against and a decent save percentage of 0.880%, which might not seem like much but some of the leading goaltenders in the VHL had similar stats in their rookie year. After a total 42 games played ending in the greatest a count of 25 being wins could this be the beginning of a strong career for Michael? With an promising start to his career Michael already has excellent ability in rebounds, giving him a much higher chance to hold onto the puck after making a decent save, this could prove vital along with his size allowing him to block the net from completely from view of a competing teams approaching forward. Clocking up plenty of time in the practice facility Johnson has spent considerable hours working on his style control which should give him a huge advantage in the VHL. other goaltenders in the league, including the current leading goaltender in terms of Save Percentage none other than Alexander Pepper of the Helsinki Titans, who after his similar on-paper start in the VHLM to Johnson, has racked up a total of 266 games played, with 153 wins at the time of writing. Despite his fairly solid season in S66, Michael still hasn't seen a playoff game could a chance to compete for the title in a playoff series be the inspiration that Michael needs to set his game on fire. Now comes the all important question, what can Michael Johnson do to improve his hockey game and really push himself above and beyond his current level of play, by working on both his on and off ice training of course. I noticed his skating ability is a little lower than I was expecting and without a doubt could be improved over time, just to make sure he has that competitive edge over the other goalies that he will be facing in the upcoming seasons, followed swiftly by improvements to his current ability in rebound control and hand speed. I have high hopes for Michael Johnson, providing he keeps on top his training and gives his all in every game, he looks to be an impressive player setting himself up for an incredible career.

@Walter Fizz ohhh not particularly a cheese eater my friend, thank you for the offer though.

@MexicanCow123 Thank you for the welcome, I will be sure to check out the discord at some point

Mac Hooper - RW Name: Mac Hooper DOB: 10/12/ 2003 Position: RW Nationality: United Kingdom Handedness: Right Mac is an up and coming rookie in the next VHLM draft, From the UK he started playing at the age of 10 playing for a local team in a small league and fell in love with the game. Initially finding it difficult to fit in with the team as he was rather awkward but he slowly managed to find his way out of his shell, once he had found his confidence and began playing more freely was when he really started to improve. He continued to grow as a player and learned to play alongside teammates, giving advice were necessary and taking constructive criticisms as another opportunity to improve. The team grew with Mac slowly progressing each year until at the age of 15 he led his local team to a title win and Mac saw that as the perfect opportunity to jump start his move to America and the VHL. He is looking forward to playing in the American leagues and seeing what kind of challenge it will bring to his hockey career. Strengths Passing: Mac enjoys the satisfaction of a well-executed pass that sets up a teammate to finish a play. Spending countless hours after practice to hone in on his passing ability. He is enthusiastic about bringing this sought after skill to the VHLM and racking up assists. Discipline: Making sure to pick his moments has become a key factor in the way Mac plays, biding his time patiently until the perfect moment appears, before sliding the puck across the face of the goal for a rapid onetime shot delivered by a teammate. Skating: Being quik is Mac’s specialty, moving the puck into the offensive zone cleanly and efficiently he sets himself up regularly to create plays and opportunities for himself and teammates. He has also found the skating ability useful for high-speed turnarounds. Weaknesses Size: Being a smaller player than the rest of the league he runs into the problem of being muscled around a bit, this can be avoided by an improvement to his gym routines and diet. The saving grace of his size however is his speed. Face-Offs: Mac has a pretty weak face-off to be honest, he has spent time practicing it but has yet to make progress. He looks to continue improving his face-off ability. Defense: While he has put some work into his defensive side Mac definitely needs to work on it a lot more, finding himself in sticky situations regularly and needing to use his quik thinking ability to alter the outcome of the mistake, though the lack of any mistake to begin with would be preferable. An enthusiastic young player who looks to be improving his game, he is hyped up and ready to begin his rookie season, looking to open up with a strong start and propel himself up into the VHL with a strong VHLM season behind him is what he hopes to achieve. Once in the VHL continuous improvement and consistency will be the key to improving Mac's game.

@Green thank you for the help!