McLovin

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F - Ambrose Stark @McWolf group is done

F - Ben Hafkey @MMFLEX

soz i accidentally slept for 10 hours D - Condor Adrienne @diamond_ace

--> Titans Off-Season Presser 2 <-- Answer 3 for 1 TPE, 6 for 2 TPE! 1. The Pre-Season roster was revealed on Saturday, what do you think of the look of the roster going into S71? 2. Erik Summers & Guillaume Fonetenette were named Assistant Captains, while Ben Hafkey was named Captain of the Titans. What are your thoughts on these players? 3. If there was something you could've changed about how the off-season was managed, what would you have done differently? 4. What is something you're optimistic about for S71? 5. What is a personal goal you hope to achieve during this season? 6. Who is your favorite personality in the LR? @Jbeezy76 @McLovin @Wheaties @jRuutu @Spaz @Harpskii @Garrett @okochastar @Erik Summers @cody73 @Tbeez99 @Cusemode @MMFLEX @Gscx420 @quanack @Caboose30 @ng1291 @Bob Helminen @DrHexDex @Julian Dalvao

G - Rayz Funk @MMFLEX

D - Vladimir Pavlov @diamond_ace

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F - Julius Freeman @MMFLEX

1. What have you been working on to improve this off-season? Just recovering from deprecation and keeping my game strong 2. Did you attend the VHL draft? Are you pleased with the Titans haul? I was very pleased with the haul the Titans got, it's definitely ensuring we have a strong future and likely a fast rebuild. 3. We recently acquired Cody Smith via trade. What do you see him bringing to the lineup? Smith is a very capable two-way defenseman, he'll add a lot of defensive skill and a strong veteran presence to the lineup. 4. We recently acquired Tony Balonee via trade. What do you see him bringing to the lineup? Despite playing on Davos, he's shown incredible skill and dedication to the game, and a potential to be a strong top 4 dman for us. 5. We have 4 call-ups from prior drafts (Daldo, Spaz, Tarantino, Andersen). Who do you think makes the biggest impact out of the gate. I may be biased, but I'm excited to see Gary Tarantino in the big leagues. Just came off a WJC Gold Medal win with Team USA & a crazy strong year in the VHLM. I am excited to see what he can put together this year. 6. We drafted Jim Bob at #6 this weekend. Does he follow in Summers footsteps for rookie of the year? How many points do you think he earns? 92 points in his first full year in the VHLM is definitely a strong case for a good player of the future, I'd say he stands a good chance at Rookie of the Year.

put me in coach

1. Who wins the Continental Cup; Moscow or Calgary? I am answering just as Moscow won in overtime, so I guess that answers that question 2. How have you been spending your off-season so far? I'm continuing to practice, maintaining my game and getting ready for the next couple months of work ahead of the team 3. What is your preferred mode of gaming (Console or PC) and what game have you been playing most recently? PC, and I'm getting into Holdfast: Nations at War quite a bit lately 4. If you could be the creative director for the next NHL video game, what would be the first thing you add or remove? A Be a Pro storymode 5. What activity do you most enjoy during the summer? Like I said before, basically just playing hockey till the next VHL season rolls around 6. What is your favorite sports memory of all time? Scoring my first and only goal in the S67 playoffs in game 7 overtime to take Vancouver onto the second round for sure

Part I - Pick em' (Pick the correct winners of all three games for 2 TPE) Calgary Wranglers Moscow Menace Moscow Menace Part II - Predict the Score (Predict the correct score and winner of this game for 3 TPE) Moscow Menace 4-3 Part III - Player Predictions (Predict the correct player for each category, 1 TPE for each correct answer) Series leader in points: Jet Jaguar Series leader in goals: Jet Jaguar Series leader in assists: Smitty Werbenjagermanjensen Who has the series PIM lead: Mikko Lahtinen Who scores the series winning goal: Jet Jaguar

Well, I just led Team USA to Gold in the World Juniors, why not give it a shot in the big leagues? I'm going for USA!

1. Playoffs are underway, how has your post-season gone thus far? Well I'm still posting career numbers, but the true reward is team performance. 2. What is your favorite way to travel on game day? If I said sprinting, you probably would believe me, so driving in my car. 3. What is your go-to drink on the bench? Water, any other answer is questionable 4. Do you jump over the boards or use the bench doors to get on and off the ice? Yes. I do both. 5. During pre-game warm-up what are you focusing on? (ex. shooting pucks, skating, stretching etc.) A minute or two of stretching, then I skate around to get my feet underneath me and my head in the game. 6. Its your first shift of the game, do you look to send a message to the other team with a big hit or push the offense to get scoring chances early? Considering I'm 5'9, I'm not throwing big hits anytime soon, so I suppose I'm pushing the offense

It wouldn't be a VSN Weekly if Hafkey didn't make the events of the week with at least one fight

1. The final week of the regular season is upon us, what has been your highlight? Actually putting up decent numbers and contributing to my teams success in all honesty. It's such a relief to be producing finally 2. On that note, is there anything you are disappointed of? Mostly that it took me so long to find my game. 3. Which Titan prospect are you most excited to see called up next season? Gary Tarantino for sure, won Gold with the USA in WJC and he's having himself a career year. 4. Ben Hafkey has more than doubled his career high in points. What have you seen from his play that has contributed to this success? I can finally skate and hold onto the puck, so those two are definitely helping! 5. Who do u believe makes the cup final out of the North American conference? (VAN, CGY, SEA, DC, NY) Vancouver has been a beast over the last few seasons, I see them making it this season for sure. 6. In your opinion, what was the most shocking deal from the NHL trade deadline? Barclay Goodrow for a 1st. Like, are you kidding, that's a crazy return for essentially a 3rd/4th liner.

(Alexander Pepper guarding the net against Malmo, S70) It's hard to grasp how truly remarkable Alexander Pepper @Sonnet has been for the Helsinki Titans. Over his 9 season career between the VHLM & VHL, he's been an absolute machine, and has put up some elite numbers. (Not to mention he's also broken a couple Titans records along the way!) In this Theme Week media spot, we'll go over why Alexander Pepper could be (and quite frankly should be) a Hall of Famer at the end of his career. Before he was even drafted by Helsinki all the way back in S63, he's been an elite player. His first season in the VHL-VHLM system had him put up an astonishing 50 win season, with just a super casual 10 shutouts and a GAA of 1.99. Despite falling short in the playoffs later on in the season, it was still good enough to earn him the Benoit Devereux Trophy, awarded to the player deemed to be the top goalie in the VHLM. Keep in mind this was his draft year as well, and by some stroke of a miracle, Helsinki was able to pick him up at 10th overall. How he fell that far after putting those numbers up in year one of his career baffles me. Pepper burned the teams that passed him up for that choice however, as the next 8 season would have him put up some world class numbers. His first season as a Titan had him immediately thrown into a starting position by a struggling Helsinki team. And although he ended up losing more games than he won, putting up a 25-31-8 record, he proved he belonged in this league, as his sv% was at a .918%. It's also worth noting that this year was also the year in which he faced the most shots, that being 2599, so a 3.28 GAA can't really be blamed on a rookie tendy as much as a weak defense, but the save percentage is what is brilliant to me considering the teams he went up against. Once Helsinki improved their blue line and got some help offensively, they truly gave Pepper a chance to prove he deserves the Hall of Fame. That's because over the next three seasons, there wasn't one season where he lost more than 20 regulation games, won less than 38 games, and didn't put up at least 5 shutouts. (Pepper would also maintain this pace up until this current season, S70.) He also averaged a .918 save percentage during this stretch, but his best year had to have been his S66 performance. A true Hall of Fame season, as the great man put up 49 wins in just 65 games! That alone is an incredible feat, but he didn't stop there. .921 sv%, 2.45 GAA, 5 shutouts, the Aidan Shaw Trophy for top goalie in the VHL, as well as the grandest trophy of them all, the Continental Cup. The cherry on top of this simply legendary season was he took home the Daisuke Kanou Trophy, for MVP of the playoffs. S66 was the season of Pepper, and he simply dominated everything and everyone he came across. Despite this being his peak, Alexander Pepper still showed the league why you shouldn't sleep on Helsinki, as he still won on average around 40 games, kept his GAA low and his sv% high over the next three seasons. And now that leads up to this year, his final season in the blue and white, as well as in the VHL altogether. Though his numbers have been shaky this season, it's simply ridiculous to ridicule him for a down year after being a consistent legend over the past 7 freakin' years! With the season coming near an end & the playoffs right around the corner, Pepper did announce he would retire at the conclusion of S70, and despite the inconsistency of the aging Titans this year, Pepper managed to end his career with multiple Titans records before he'll call it quits. He's the Titans all time leader in games played and wins, and is in very close contention with Astrid Moon for best goalie in Titans history. Whether or not Pepper makes the Hall of Fame is still to be determined, but what he's accomplished over his time with Helsinki is truly that of legend, and will certainly make his case at the end of it all. But to me, and every fan of the blue and white, he'll always be a legend.

In a press release a few days ago, GM @Jubo07 announced that the team would be moving players up and down the line up in order to remain competitive in the last stretch of games before the playoffs. Over the last couple games, Helsinki has struggled to find their identity, and considering this is the last year for legends such as Julian Borwinn and Alexander Pepper, this is a big year for the Titans, and anything short of a deep playoff run would be considered a failure. The team was rather silent during the trade deadline, relying on their acquisitions in the off-season over making a move. Whether these changes benefit or hurt the Titans in the short and long term are yet to be seen, but one thing is for sure; times ticking on this team and this may be one of the last times the team can be truly competitive for at least a few seasons. Reporting from Helsinki, Titans Nation, Marcus Svedberg

BREWSKIS AND POOR LIFE CHOICES BABY

(Team USA after Jaxon Walker scored the GWG in double overtime against Canada) In a stunning Gold Medal game, Team USA beat Canada 2-1 in double overtime off a beautiful one timer from Jaxon Walker, a cross-ice feed from Nate Wright. To say it simply though, the USA's adventure has been a long and hard fought one, and I think it's deserving of a media spot here considering all the factors that went into this team winning Gold. Without further ado, let's get into the nitty gritty. Humble Beginnings: Simply put, everybody had high expectations of Team USA going into the S70 World Junior Cup. They had just come off a surprise comeback from being worst to Bronze medalists in the season prior, and were coming into S70 with a much improved roster. Familiar faces like Bud Knight, Nate Wright & Jaxon Walker were making returns once more, while newer faces such as Stone Wolski and Thomas Landry II were making their World Juniors debuts. I've gone over how each individual player could (and did) contribute to success of the team, but here we'll more talk about the team itself and how it preformed during the round robin and medal round. Initially, Team USA was often ranked towards the middle of the pack, with not many people believing this team could shake the inconsistency that put a damper on their previous run, while others were expecting this to be the year. A lot of problems were cited towards offense once again, mostly being the lack of a deep center core compared to the winger and defensive help they boasted. Because of this, many believed this would be repeats of previous one-and-done appearances, or falling just short of the ultimate prize. The last time Team USA won a Gold on the international stage was the S68 World Cup, and even further back to S66 for the World Juniors, so it was certainly safe to say that Americans were waiting on another dream team to come around and bring home something worth putting in the papers. With that, let's get into how the tournament started for the Americans. Round Robin: In the first two games, Team USA split the contests with Team nWo, taking the first game by a score of 6-4, and dropping the second by a score of 6-1. GM @McLovin determined that the team was okay going into the next set against Europe and kept the lines identical. This ended up being the right call as Team USA took both games against Europe by a score of 6-5 and 5-2 in each of the respective games. From this point, the Americans were looking like a strong candidate for a Gold medal appearance. They had two of the three top scorers in the tournament up to this point, goal tending and defense were at an elite level against strong competition. Unfortunately though, round robin didn't end there and things got a little worse. Game 12 against Asia would prove to be a convincing win, improving their record to 4-1-0, but things went downhill fast. In the next two games, Canada would take the USA to school, beating them 4-1 & 4-3 in both contests. For the first time in the tournament, the USA did not have potent offense carry them to a win, or a strong defense hold the line for them to the buzzer. It was a culture shock for the locker room, and as fate would have it, it didn't end there. This would again prove problematic as in the final game the USA would play in round robin as it had them fall to Asia 4-3. Though the offense gave them a chance, (and then some) ironically defense proved to be the downside of the team in the second half of the round robin and put the USA at a sub par 4-4-0 record. Thankfully though, luck would favor them again as the focus switched over to the medal round. Medal Round: Because of their third place finish, Team USA got a bye on the Quarter Finals and rested up while nWo and Asia beat each other up. Later that week, the Semis had Team USA going up against the second place Europeans, while nWo, after beating Asia in the quarters, faced the first place Canada in the other contest. It would seem that the rest helped the boys recoup, as they went on to beat the Europeans 2-0 in a convincing fashion, guaranteeing an appearance in the Gold Medal game. One final test remained though, that being the Canadians. They just came off an absolute snipe show against World, beating them in a 12 goal game, 7-5. With the defensive inconsistencies, and the fact that Canada swept the Americans in the entire tournament thus far, it was safe to say that Team USA had one last major challenge ahead of them before the prize became theirs. The final game against Canada began the day after, and boy were the Americans put to the test early. The first period resulted in a 1-0 lead for Canada, with an absolute cannon from Erik Killinger off an assist by Daldo on the power play being the only marker. The second period wouldn't fare much better as 7 minutes after a goal from Jaxon Walker to tie the game, Canada again struck on the power play, marking it a 2-1 game going into the third. GM McLovin came down from the press box into the locker room, and gave a speech that ignited something in the souls of the American players. (He had also just watched Miracle before this so that might've contributed a bit.) For the first half of the period, teams traded shots and hits, holding their breath and waiting to see which side would make the final daring move. As fortune would have it, the Americans moved first, and an incredible effort by Bud Knight off a beautiful cross ice pass from Gary Tarantino had the game tied up with 8 minutes left. This game was going into overtime. Funny enough, the first overtime frame was rather underwhelming, minus two power plays from Canada off two separate hooking calls from Thomas Landry II. Luck shined brightly in the second overtime frame however, as Jaxon Walker, who previously put Team USA on the board in the second period, ripped one home in clutch fashion to win his team Gold. The dream was finally realized. These players who might have been waiting their entire junior careers, or had just joined the squad a few weeks back, could now finally call themselves champions. Many players lost their eligibility to participate in further World Junior Cup tournaments after this, so for them this was their last chance to take home Gold. For all of them though, this is something they can carry with them for the rest of their careers. Being a Gold medalist before your VHL career even starts is a helluva way to begin said career, and a lot of players don't get that chance. GM McLovin announced shortly after the game that this would be his final World Junior Cup tournament in a press release after being quoted saying the following: "This squad was not a group of common men, they went out there and did what no one expected them to, for that I'm proud of every single guy in that locker room, they've earned this. As for me, I have a team I have to help run in Helsinki with my good friend @Jubo07 waiting for me across the ocean, and I know this team will be in good hands no matter what I decided to do. To the fans, live in the moment, you've been waiting for this. For my players, hopefully this will not be the last time I see you playing. And to everyone, HEADS HIGH, STAND TALL, FLY STRAIGHT, USA, ALL THE WAY!" Conclusion: In case you couldn't tell, I'm drawing a lot of comparisons to the Miracle on Ice, because in a lot of ways, this is our own little Miracle on Ice. No one expected us to beat the juggernauts of the East, and expected us to get our teeth kicked in by the team that whooped us in years past, but not this time. In all seriousness though, this team was a lot of fun to GM. The interaction in the locker room and on the game results pages were amazing, and I can't wait to work with a few of these guys going down the stretch, since a lot of them are Helsinki prospects. ? To the boys, well done, cherish this victory, put it in your signature, have a night out! Just don't do anything illegal since you're all still kids technically! This in a lot of ways was a hype post for the boys, and a farewell to USA Hockey and the World Juniors, as I pass the torch onto the GM that'll make the next Miracle on Ice. Good luck gents! ------------------------------------------------------------------ 1,509 words, claiming for the next three weeks

You absolutely LOVE to see it. Hell of a game, @Jbeezy76, you did your country proud with that roster. Definitely kept us on our toes!

1. Julian Borwinn retired today (but will finish the season with the Titans), what parting words do you leave for him? Thank you for everything you did for the Titans, you're gonna go down as the greatest Titan of all time! 2. Alexander Pepper retired today (but will finish the season with the Titans), what parting words do you leave for him? Another absolute legend on the Titans, couldn't have asked to have played with a better goalie in my entire career, and I am lucky I got to see you in action! 3. We appear to be comfortably nestled in a playoff position, where do you see us in the playoff power rankings? Hopefully at least in a second or third seed, though honestly I just want us to make it. Once we get there, anything can happen. 4. The VHL trade deadline is 3 days away; do you feel the Titans should entertain the trade market? Unless we get a fairly good deal that we can't pass up, I don't know if breaking the chemistry of the team right now might be the best bet. Though I'm learning a lot still so I leave it to the big man! 5. What is the last movie you watched? Was it at home, Netflix, theater etc.? Disney+, Miracle. Knowing the boys were playing Canada for Gold today, I had to watch Miracle. Looks like it paid off cause they ended up winning, in a comeback too. You simply can't write that 6. What is your go to post game beverage? A nice cold water, that or the one off soda here and there ?

Absolute legend, what a career