KC15

Reveiw: Always enjoy a good interview. Fun to get some insight into the "real" player behind the user. And they are easy to read with their back and forth and the different voices of the interviewer and player being interviewed. More like this please.

Review: Good topic, well-handled. Bolding the names allows us to quickly see which players will be discussed. Appreciate the analysis of where the FA might take their team rather than just whether they were a good pickup or not. Few small errors that could be edited out with a little more care, i.e., "everyone is committed in taking lower roles" which should be "everyone is committed to taking lower roles".

Review: Ridiculously well-researched article made all the more interesting by the hook of "let's explore the rivalry of two giants" that is carried through from start to finish. Well done!

Review: Very interesting article. Found the organization helpful in such a long article: overview of the team followed by individual player reviews by country punctuated by each country's flag. Agree with Gustav's comments about tightening some of the writing to say more with less words - but then we've got to make the word count limits. ?

Review: Rubrics for reviewing say reviews should be "constructive in nature" so I'll just say it was easy to follow with each option clearly labeled.

Review: Great article. Appreciate the vibrant vocabulary and interesting turn of phrase. "The Wild actually filled the net on a regular basis..." instead of a lackluster "The Wild actually scored ...." Fun to have the graphics break up the text. And it had to be some effort to figure out that he had discovered "the largest margin in the league between team’s top two scorers". Illuminating fact. Nice job!

Werbenjagermanjensen - D @SDCore

Oh my. Four reviews wasted. Got to review the reviewing rubrics. lol

F Ryan Kastellic @R Jubis

Love this card! The vintage look with off-white background, the excellent use of the VHL logo, the composition of the pose leaning out toward "the next thing" that we, the audience, are going to see, but looking at us head on for full effect, the superb positioning of the Dragons logo on the sweater to look like it really belongs there.... Just great!

Love this concept! Shows a lot of effort too to come up with an appropriate pairing of music and team on top of very good, clear writing. Like the balance of analysis of old core and how they are doing in draft. Unfortunately, musical taste is so far outside my own that I couldn't make it through the whole video. I'm old and have old "classic rock" tastes. lol

Love it! Very cool coordination of the jacket color (either found image or recolored) and team colors. Love the s-curved text to contrast with the spikes of the star and he head shot makes sense as an "intro" piece with the idea of a "star is born".

Review: Realized that to max earn this week, I may need to do reviewing since I don't remember trivia that will be awarded this week. Thought it would be ironic to move toward proving the author wrong by reviewing his article. lol So....entertaining article. Standard topic of reviewing the first round of the draft, but enough spin to keep it fresh. Very easy to follow an article like this and use of bolding and graphics/emojis further help with this. Enough (humorous) disclaimers that no one should really come away offended regardless of whether they agree or disagree. On the negative side, whether your user name is the same as your player name or not is irrelevant to whether your player will do well in the league and if you are going to ignore what players/users have done over the past year or more in the VHLM, you might as well not do the article. Best predictor of future behavior? Past behavior.

Absolutely no offense taken. And I'm too lazy and indifferent to save a link to this and tell you later you are an idiot @gorlab - nor do I think you are one. (That graphics discussion recently on discord was fab!) Just consider this my link and post that you'll be proven wrong. I'm in PBE, SHL, VHL, GOMHL, EFL and NSFL and nearly max earn in all of them with jobs in most of them as updater, head updater, or GM, etc. So, I'll be (warning: boomer reference alert) Joe Namath and guarantee Guy Lesieur isn't now nor will become a bust. But hating on the KC15 user name? Kansas City Royals win the World Series in 2015. Probably the last in my lifetime. I'm riding it! ?

@AcydburnMoved up to the Dragons. You can take me off future tags.

If you can swing it @zepheterit's a good gig. Fabulous LR so far. Really loving it and even at 20 wins last year, we are pumped for the start of the season.

Guy Lesieur is overjoyed by the trade that sent him from the Riga Reign, who had selected him as the 6th pick in the recent VHL draft, to the D.C. Dragons. But that joy is also tinged with some concern. D.C. gave up a couple of extra draft picks in order to ensure that Lesieur came to D.C. and he has some butterflies in his stomach when he considers, “was he worth it?” A player is always hoping that he measures up and the bar has just been raised for what “measuring up” means. He can’t just be as good as a number 6 or 7 overall pick – enough pressure as it is – he has to be that good, plus the value of those other two third round picks. And with the respect he has for his GMs, captain, Aaltonen, and assistant captain, Jerwa, his concern to not let them down mounts. True, he has the same normal concern that any player has to not let down his coaches and teammates, but already looking up to the leadership before he even heard his name called in the draft just ups the ante. And of course, there is the issue of playing in the VHL after only one year in juniors. This is made possible by the nature of an expansion team in its early years, but while he was gearing up to play against others his age and level of experience down in the juniors, and maybe having a better than 60 point season, now he is playing against grizzled veterans of the VHL. Will he measure up or will he be a liability to his team? Lesieur’s response to these concerns, of course, is simply to work harder and glean every bit of knowledge he can from his coaches, captains and teammates. He will not let his team down!

Ok. Now that the VHL draft has come and gone, I can be a little more open (really, I wasn’t open before?) about my desire to play for the D.C. Dragons first, second, and third choice. It still goes without saying – or really it does not go without saying so I will say it – there are a lot of fine GMs and locker rooms in this league and I really am quiet sure that I would have been happy in a lot of places. It’s funny. I’m in 3 hockey leagues. There are quite a few who can say the same, but there are also people who are in one, but not one or more of the others, because, “there’s so much drama there” or “that’s a pay to win league”. My experience is that it is sometimes best to ignore these voices, because everyone’s experience is different. In my case, I am enjoying all three. So, not from the perspective of my player, but from my perspective as a user, why so excited to play for D.C.? Well, some of my reasons do parallel the reasons I have written about from the perspective of my player, Guy Lesieur. But there is more to say from a user’s perspective. First of all, I really did appreciate the scouting conversations from my GMs @Enorama and @McWolf. They were really open and honest laying out where D.C. is right now as a really recent expansion team, but also clear-headed about a strategy not to stay at 20 wins forever. I play in these sim leagues for one reason only – to have fun. I have the most fun when I enjoy the companionship of the people on my team – GMs and teammates – regardless of whether we win or lose. I researched my GMs a little further by asking around about them amongst the users I had already come to know a bit. They got stellar reviews which solidified my desire to play in D.C. But back on the subject of teammates, it was really a seller to see our captain, Mikko Aaltonen’s @GRZ enthusiasm for his team in the forum. Also, with Piotr Jerwa @majesiu coming to the team I was assured of one more great teammate. Maj was commissioner of the PBE when I joined that league as my first sim league. He did a phenomenal job and was such a positive force that I was so looking forward to his coming to D.C. for the first chance of us playing on the same team together. Not sure I knew he was coming in the beginning, but I knew it was a possibility that interested me. I also like the challenge of taking a franchise that is near the bottom and helping it reach the heights. When you win a Cup after having notched only 20 victories, it’s far sweeter than when you join and existing juggernaut and just ride the coattails of others to glory. And as a beginning player, it is easier to jump in with a team that is not full of 750 TPE players and grow along with them than to try to crack the lineup of a stocked team. So, days after the draft, what’s it been like in the D.C. Dragon’s LR? All that I had hoped it would be – and more. Every user I come into contact with is just great to be around and the energy around the team is sky high. If we are like that as a 20 win team in S68, imagine what it will be like as we grow in strength and eventually win the Cup!

Congratulations, men!

What a night, Guy Lesieur has had being part of the S69 VHL Entry Draft! Guy enjoyed a very successful season in the VHLM split between the Mexico City Kings and the Las Vegas Aces, but his eyes have always been on the prize of playing in the VHL. A couple of teams scouted Lesieur and he found the management of both very impressive. As the weeks unfolded, however, a very clear favorite rose to the top – the expansion D.C. Dragons. Guy was so impressed by management’s vision for the future of the franchise, the current roster already assembled, and the way he was treated in the scouting discussions. By the time the draft arrived this evening, Lesieur was literally shaking with anticipation. D.C. had the 2nd and 7th overall picks in the first round. Defenseman Cinnamon Block went to Prague at 1OA and D.C. drafted Guy’s Las Vegas Aces teammate Benny Graves with their first pick. Who could argue either choice? As Lesieur anticipated D.C.’s next next selection at number 7, the Riga Reign called Lesieur’s name as their choice at number 6. No complaints there – Riga had scouted Lesieur and he had been very impressed by management. But there was that hope that he might be drafted by D.C. and that was now over. Or was it? There seemed to be a delay in D.C. taking their pick at number 7 and then it became clear that the delay was due to trade talks that D.C. was having with some other team. Could it be? Lesieur had no idea. After some few minutes of intense anticipation, it was announced. Yes! A deal had been struck between the Reign and Dragons. Lesieur would be going to D.C. after all in exchange for D.C.’s number 7 pick and D.C.’s 3rd round picks in S70 and S71. Guy was and is filled with gratitude to both D.C. for believing in him enough to give up the extra draft choices to get him and to Riga for making it possible for him to play for his “dream team”. In subsequent conversations with Riga management it was clear that the extra draft choices were only a small part of their motivation in the trade. They had learned of Guy’s desire to play in D.C. and made an effort to help make that happen so long as it did not hurt Riga in the doing. A very classy organization indeed. And so, Guy Lesieur says goodbye to his wonderful GM and teammates in Las Vegas and has packed his bags for a move to the American capital!

Yeah, that was pretty wild @zepheter

Agreed @STZ. Not about you not going first - could be! But it is super cool! I went 1OA in the SMJHL draft .... in the smallest draft class in the history of the league I think. lol I think that's how it happened and just hitting it off with my current GM. Weird stuff just happens sometimes, but you absolutely smoked it in juniors and deserve whatever high draft slot you end up with.

Super fun to read and I'll pour over it more later, but before the draft tonight. But my eyes went to my player and going 6th - that would be pretty cool. I'm defintiely always saying it Cal-Gary in my head all the time if I go this fine franchise.

Love it.