One of many posts I came across back in the day that featured someone who was really important in one of our affiliate leagues saying negative things about ours in their league's Discord server. Did we deserve it? On some level, yes.
Most people know that there are things you just shouldn't say anymore. Maybe not everyone agrees what those things are. Maybe some people aren't quite up on what means what and how those meanings have changed. But you've got to be living under a rock if you aren't aware that much of the Western world has fairly recently come to terms with how our choices of words can affect others, intentionally or otherwise. Whether with any intent to hate or not, lots of words are out there that once were generally accepted in most casual settings and have since been looked at with a bit of hesitation. "If I were a member of this group, would I appreciate this word being used in this way?" is a fair question that's made lots of people reflect. If you're over 20 or so, chances are that you've had both the exposure to such things being common and the life experience to question it. I'm sure you know the sorts of things I'm referring to, so I don't think I need to keep explaining. I won't act like I haven't cringed at a thing or two I've said or found funny in the past.
I'm also not going to act like the VHL hasn't, either. Talk to any super-old member, and you'll probably hear a whole lot about how the league used to be the Wild West of the Internet. I've read lots of "if you think this is bad, you haven't seen anything"-type comments, and I believe them. I've seen members attack each other personally and drop comments that really aren't OK in general. But by the time I'd joined the league, it was a good bit tamer than it was. And it's a good bit tamer today than it was then, as well.
The single most impactful day in the history of "what is and is not OK to say in the VHL," though, came about after I'd joined. October 31, 2019, should have been a really cool day for the VHL. That morning, @Beaviss, who had revolutionized league recruiting and brought it back from the brink of nonexistence by reeling in the great classes of the S60s, was hired into a very deserved role as league commissioner. The VHLM was in the middle of their Cup finals in S68, with a Game 6 slated for that day that could have given the Houston Bulls their first ever championship. And it was Halloween! What's not to like?
There was a lot to like in Houston, that's for sure--that Game 6 I'd mentioned went their way. The season was over and the M had their champion. But the story didn't end there--in fact, this one starts at this point because one comment that responded negatively to the game did so with a choice of words that would not be accepted in the VHL today. Though you can find the thread easily, I'm not going to link it for a couple reasons--mainly, what was said initially came from members who I genuinely believe are good people, who apologized for what they said and took accountability to settle their own business. I consider the start of the situation much more their business than mine, so all I think is absolutely necessary to know is that one of those "ways to describe things that used to be common and now are considered less fine to say" made its way onto our forum. It isn't OK now and wasn't OK then--but it's also a matter that has been settled.
Houston, interestingly, was helped quite a bit by deadline signings. The VHL had recently rolled out a strengthened affiliate program (the one still in existence today that gives a free 12 TPE to the super important people in our affiliate leagues), and much of the SBA's leadership had created right at the deadline and signed with the same team. With that being Houston, and with a full weekly cap claimable by all these players, all of SBA leadership saw the thread when they won the Cup--and that also meant that all of SBA leadership saw what was said.
At the time, the SBA's guidelines for personal conduct were very different from ours (and much more strict). I had been in their league for a very short time at that time as a very casual affiliate member and never had an issue with anyone there myself, but I was familiar with a few stories that at I thought were ridiculous (I really don't remember most of the stories or most of the details of what I do remember, and it's also been almost 5 years, so I'm not sure if my opinion is any different now). But being a league with stricter guidelines, I can understand where some people may have been shocked to see things posted that they would have dealt with personally on their own website.
I'm not going to say that the SBA response was entirely in the right. Our league wasn't given much opportunity to officially respond to a fairly aggressive pushback, and later on that same day, the SBA had removed their affiliation with us entirely. Their justification for this was (legitimate or not is up to you) that the VHL had generally held relaxed standards that the SBA was not interested in promoting, and that recent events had made it clear that the VHL was not interested in changing them. One day in the books for Beav as commissioner, one affiliate partner lost, and one serious dialogue that hadn't even begun to reach a conclusion--what a start to a job (and an admittedly funny one).
This was something that made lots of VHL members mad--myself included, and I had nothing at all to do with that game thread. From my perspective at the time, the entire community, just about none of which I felt were actually hateful people and most of which really didn't go around regularly dropping off-color words, had just been punished over something that probably never would have gone down the way it did had the Hounds been able to win a few more playoff games the finals been anything at all other than the team with the SBA's entire BoD up against the team that dropped the first comment. I had a lot to say about this, mostly on Discord, and although I remember being very opinionated and openly saying that I thought the whole thing was pretty stupid, that was about as far as I ever took it. The first few days on the VHL end saw some reactions from our members, though, that certainly didn't help the situation. Some people went to their league to call them the same sorts of words that lit the fire, and not only got banned for it but became shining examples of people the SBA could point to and identify as parts of the problem. I remember disliking some people I'd never talked to personally, and I felt that even though my own disagreements never broke any rules (written or otherwise), I felt that I was disliked by some people as well when I made them known--something I confirmed much later on when I joined BoG and found a screenshot of the list of people the SBA had a problem with, with me on it.
Things were pretty quiet after the first few weeks or so, though. We kept observing the affiliation agreement on our end because we didn't want to punish any regular SBA users who had nothing to do with the situation, and while the topic kept coming up (it was huge news!), it didn't ever turn into people going at each other's throats. The only differences were that VHL tasks weren't claimable in the SBA, and lots of us had grown to distrust one another.
After five months of sitting around and passively disliking each other, though, the VHL was informed that affiliation was gone forever. The league had been working behind the scenes to try to work out a set of policies that were agreeable to everyone, and it was eventually decided that this was no longer realistic. VHL leadership claimed that this decision was made unilaterally, and you can read the thread I linked there to try to develop your own opinion on the matter. That was one of the more interesting arguments featuring really important people on both sides that I've ever seen, and it relit the fire on our end. Lots of people made it clear how much they still hated the SBA then--I think I did too, but I don't remember.
Something that made me think about things a lot, though, was this post made by SBA member @Beowoof a couple days after that announcement. What was detailed in that post didn't fully line up with what I'd seen or my own perception of the situation (I was in BoG at that point and had access to all the primary sources of info), but if I tried to look at it from the SBA's perspective, I found the thoughts laid out there pretty reasonable and could see how someone on their end could have viewed things in that way. I also liked what @okochastar had to say there and thought a bit about how I'd gotten to know a handful of people from the SBA in the past months and really liked them. The sim league world was really a better place once we stopped wondering how we could run around shit-talking each other and got past all the stupid league identity stuff to just have a little bit of fun together in our free time. Plus, I'm sure the VHL wasn't perfect then and isn't now--but the league had taken a harder stance against the sorts of things we were called out for in that time and I really didn't miss seeing them.
Why, though, is this in Gustav 30 in 30 instead of just being a recap of the league in general? I'm mostly describing things done by other people, and the most I was ever connected to the situation was that I complained about it a lot. Well...I talked quite a bit in my second installment about how I'd been part of a very tribalistic team-versus-team drama in the VHLM and how that shaped my views on having basic respect for people. I think that did quite a bit in terms of adjusting how I dealt with people I knew I'd have to see again around the site. But I think that sort of tribalism popped up again on the level of the entire league, had real league-altering consequences, and sucked me back into the mindset to some extent. I was important enough as a VHLM GM that the league knew who I was, and so now I had to make sure my league was taken seriously. The SBA, much like any other league, has tons of good people in it that deserve my respect whether I've met them or not. I think this was the last time I jumped on any "my group is better than your group" train in a sim league as blindly as I did, and I think I learned a lot by watching things go down that helped make it so I wouldn't jump on things like that again.
Also just like any other league, following incentives for benefit takes priority. Reddit recruitment was pretty much the only source of new members for either of us at the time, and the SECOND our accounts were reported and blocked from a bunch of communities, guess whose affiliation was magically back.
I will also clarify that I have NEVER believed the VHL to be a hateful place in general. At the end of the day, now that I'm done caring about it, I think this was an unfortunate situation featuring lots of immaturity both ways that somehow eventually ended up changing the vibe of the league a little bit for the better. For the most part, I think we had good people who had gotten used to a certain environment and evaluated how they did things once that environment was challenged. To some extent, that was eventually me too. I did some growing that I'm almost glad happened as a result of staring alone at a screen instead of saying something wrong in real life and hurting people close to me. That isn't to say I learned to be offended by everything, or that I'm now whatever cartoonish representation of "woke" some people have in their heads over things like this (in fact, I really couldn't care less about that sort of mindset). There's a huge difference between that and just having respect for people and treating them normally--and I think the VHL has largely learned to adapt in those ways. I'm not sure that I'd say I'm glad this was a big chapter in VHL history, but I'm glad that we're past the negative parts.
Enough of that--it's time to have fun with what's left of my Wednesday night.
Read my other articles for the full Gustav experience (hi Berocka):
#1: Lightning Glory Gonna Be My Name
#2: Can't We All Just Get Along?
#3: Who Needs Cybersecurity Anyway?
#4: The House That I Built
#5: Can We Fix It?
#6: American Beauty
#7: The Kids Are Alright
#8: Dogs In A Pile
An archive of all of my written work and graphic posts so far on the forum. I did this mostly for myself so I could work backwards and reformat some of the older articles and keep track of series names and such. The pieces below are ordered by date posted-- newest to oldest. Feel free to read or if you have any ideas for articles, I'm happy to discuss a request or collab!
Pier 21:
Pier 21: Season 93 Halifax 21st Team Awards
Pier 21: A Sacrifice to Simon
Pier 21: Into Deeper Waters
Pier 21: Full Steam Ahead
Pier 21: S93 Halifax 21st Official Roster Announcement
Pier 21: Landfall
Pier 21: Hello Halifax!
Halifax SuperSailor:
Halifax SuperSailor #7 (S93 Playoffs Round 2): Maple Dogwood
Halifax SuperSailor #6 (S93 Playoffs Round 1): Andrew Skilton
Halifax SuperSailor #5 (S93 Week 5): Jon Webber III
Halifax SuperSailor #4 (S93 Week 4): John Season
Halifax SuperSailor #3 (S93 Week 3): Dorji Khan
Halifax SuperSailor #2 (S93 Week 2): Maple Dogwood
Halifax SuperSailor #1 (S93 Week 1): Alexandr Novotny
Lucy Leitner:
Lucy "Little Bites" Leitner
Lightspeed: Lucy Leitner
Breaking the 4th Wall: Season 92 and Draft Reflective
Pre-Draft Report: Lucy Leitner
Prospect Deep Dive: Lucy Leitner
Lightbringer: Lucy Leitner
Prospect Profile: Lucy Leitner
Running With the Bulls:
Running With the Bulls: Tempting Fate
Running With the Bulls: Lange Lines
Running With the Bulls: Tending to Controversy
Running With the Bulls: H-Town Heat
Running With the Bulls: Tinker Tyler Sidney Spy
Running With the Bulls: BensonGPT
Running With the Bulls: Valtr Bílý
Running With the Bulls: Green...ish
Running With the Bulls: The Heisenberg Principle
Running With the Bulls: S92 Roster Primer
VSN Articles:
VSN Presents - S92 Junior Showcase Tournament Recap
VSN Presents - The Season 92 Junior Showcase Tournament
Miscellaneous:
VHLM Playoffs: Round 2 Preview
Game 7 Prediction: Mexico City vs Miami Marauders
6-6-6 . . . 7? Predictions for Tonights VHLM Playoff Games
S92 VHLM Playoffs Preview
3 Midseason Signings Playing Big Roles for VHLM Teams
S92 VHLM All-Star Selections
S92 VHLM Trade Deadline: Top 3 Trades
S92 VHLM First Team All-Stars
3 VHLM Players to Watch in Week 3
3 VHLM Rookies to Watch in Week 2
After a long, hard-fought battle with cancer, Mama Sike decided it was time to rest. Thank you VHL for providing an outlet for me in this difficult time.
A big fan of musicals, Maple Dogwood was excited to finally have a few days off before the postseason started where he could cross something off his bucket list. He'd seen "Come From Away" numerous times on and off Broadway and has always enjoyed the story. For those unfamiliar, it tells the story of the September 11 attacks and how after United States airspace was effectively closed, more than 7,000 passengers were forced to land at Gander Airport in Newfoundland. The town itself only had a population of 9,000, so this wasn't some big city taking on thousands of strangers on one of the more frightening days in modern North American history. It was a tiny town who fed, clothed, and kept safe thousands of people and did it with a smile and open heart.
"I remember the first time I saw 'Come From Away' and how taken I was with the music and the story. That caused me to do what I always do when I learn about something for the first time - head to Wikipedia. I read up on Gander, on Newfoundland, and on the incredible actions of the locals on the days following September 11th. When I found out I was headed to Halifax I realized that I wouldn't be too terribly far from Newfoundland and made plans to visit the town of Gander whenever I had a few days off," Dogwood explained.
Determined to see some of the countryside, Dogwood endeavored to make the trip to Gander without flying, much to the chagrin of his coaching staff. Numerous members of the Halifax front office cautioned against this tactic, worried that Dogwood would be too exhausted to do well in the playoffs, but his mind was set.
"First thing I did was rent a car and got on my way. I drove through the wonderful towns of Middle Musquodoboit, Elmsvale, and Greenwood, as I meandered towards the coast. I stopped for lunch in New Glasgow and had a wonderful cup of soup and sandwich. After, it was on to Port Hawkesbury and eventually to North Sydney where I caught the ferry to Newfoundland. After landing at Channel-Port aux Basques, it was back in the car for the winding drive to Gander," Dogwood said.
When he finally arrived at his destination, Dogwood checked into his hotel, got a very good night's rest, and planned on going to his number one site first thing in the morning.
"The only piece of steel from the Twin Towers outside the United States is right here in Gander, as a part of the Compassion Monument. That's the first thing I saw that first morning and it was incredibly moving. This entire community has an openness and resolve about itself that is striking. Everyone I've encountered here was gracious and felt like I'd known them for years. And to actually meet some of the people who were part of Operation Yellow Ribbon, as it was called? I can't even describe how the felt," Dogwood explained.
After three days in Gander where Maple saw all of the sights, met loads of new friends, and spent more than a few hours in pubs, it was time to head back to Halifax and prepare for the postseason. Fully preparing to get back in his rental car and make the long journey home, he got a knock on his hotel room door as he was about to leave.
"So I open the door and it's someone from the Gander Airport. They told me that they have a private plane just for me, heading back to Halifax if I wanted to take off from that fateful runway where so many stranded planes were parked on that infamous day. I almost broke down in tears and before I could answer someone whisked my bags away and I was on my way to the airport. To say that this trip had an impact is selling it short. What a wonderful story, what wonderful people, and what a wonderful way to spend a few days, honoring all those who helped in that time of crisis," Dogwood concluded.
'
Guntis Gavilrovs here again to talk about Guntis Gavilrovs! As we approach the end of the season, 5 games left, the big rookie defender for Vancouver is on track to hit all his personal goals for the season despite a slightly down year for Vancouver in the standings. Coming into the season as primarily a physical defenseman Guntis had set some goals he wanted to reach that would prove to himself he was becoming the type of VHL player he wanted to be. These goals were 250 hits, 150 blocks and 30 points. He's already reached two of these goals and is on track to hit the third in the remaining games, although I'm sure I just jinxed it now.. Gavilrovs currently has 33 points, 240 hits and 159 blocks, so all he needs is to average 2 hits a game in the last 5 games and he should reach all his goals. He's proven he can hold his own in the VHL and while there's room for improvement in some areas (-39 rating and 176 pims) his performance in the physical categories and his ability to block a lot of shots along with posting 30+ points as a rookie Dman has to have Vancouver fans, teammates and management excited about his future. He surely is.
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