Tagger

Brief summary of last 13 guys to be 13th in points on the VHL’s 13th Birthday Year Note: This article comes with zero research outside of who came 13th so there will likely be inaccuracies in the descriptions Season 60 LW – Rudolph Schmeckeldorf (HSK) - Corco – 90 Points A then inactive Corco getting a good amount of points with a player who I remember only put up 9 points in his first VHL season. Season 61 RW – Edwin Preencarnacion (RIG) – Tagger – 88 Points Did not think I was going to be on this list when I first checked but the world is full of surprises. This was Preencarnacion’s rookie season and he was I believe only one vote away from a share of the ROTY trophy if not for that blasted Victor. Season 62 D – Dragon McDragon (RIG) – Jardy – 100 Points A sign of the lack of talent we had in the league at the time, 13th place was held by Jardy who, while a HoF Builder, went inactive right at start of McDragon’s career and only had 180 odd TPE. Season 63 C – Dan Montgomery (HSK) – BarzalGoat – 85 Points The highest drafted first-gen of the Season 62 draft , Montgomery led his team in points in this season, the second professional one of his career in a season where Helsinki would ultimately miss playoffs Season 64 RW – Roctrion King (NYA) – Romaris – 75 Points Drafted in the second round of the same draft as Montgomery was in, King had a solid career as a depth guy. I don’t remember much about the member except for him being one of the inaugural Brand Executives Season 65 RW - Edwin Preencarnacion (RIG) – Tagger – 90 Points After three seasons in the top ten, this season saw me slip back down into 13th place. This is also the first season I’ve covered where Riga didn’t have a player who was in the top ten in points (Podrick Cast was 11th) Season 66 C – Kronos Bailey (HSK) – Quik – 86 Points Bailey had a pretty good sophomore season for the Victory Cup winning Titans, finishing fourth amongst his team in points Season 67 C - Sebastien Ironside (CGY) – DollarAndADream - 77 Points This was Ironside’s penultimate season in the VHL and it was a solid one, comfortably leading his Wranglers team in points. Season 68 LW – Acyd Burn (SEA) – AcydBurn – 80 Points First first-gen on this list since King, Burn comfortably led the Bears in points and his team would go on to win the Continental Cup. Season 69 C – Aston Martin (HSK) – Sulvino – 73 Points A high pick in the Season 67 draft, I believe Aston Martin was inactive at this point, but that didn’t stop him putting up some respectable numbers. Season 70 D – Vladimir Pavlov (MOS) – Victor – 74 Points Oddly, there are the same amount of Moscow players who scored more points than Pavlov than all of the other VHL teams combined. Guess it’s not a surprise they took home the Continental Cup that season. Season 71 RW – Dalton Wilcox (NYA) – Dalton Wilcox (?) – 70 Points New York missed the playoffs in Season 71, but that didn’t stop Wilcox putting up some solid numbers and placing second amongst his team in points. Season 72 C – Hunter Hearst Helmsley (DAV) – Beaviss – 83 Points This was quite a fall from Helmsley’s previous season where he’d led the VHL in points and the disappointing points tally was made even more disappointing by a very short playoff stint.

1. Similar to S72, Calgary is almost unbeatable at home. The difference is how disastrous on the road they have been. (HOME 10-1-1) , (AWAY 4-9-1) Why is Calgary so bad on the road so far ? Probably the inability to find a decent local coke dealer on a way days, we have dependable service here in Calgary 2. The Wranglers obvious weakness through 26 games, has been their lack of goals for. Calgary has 70 GF , which ranks 14th overall. How does your team start scoring more goals going forward ? We score more by putting the puck in the back of the net more 3. Which VHL team has surprised you the most so far this season ? I thought DC just had an off season last year, I’m very surprised to see them currently battling with the expansion teams 4. If the wranglers go on a big winning streak, are you going to change your lucky underwear ? I will never change my underwear thank you 5. Which one of your teammates has the worst diet during the season ? My saying is “Eat everything, regret nothing” 6. what European team do you predict makes it all the way to the Cup finals ? Probably Riga again

I’ll be posting up mine at the weekend

Well you can, you swap in the CPU goalie from scratches in the Client (he's in the Farm Scratches Area), presumably sending Jaundice to scratches since he couldn't start any more games anyway.

I don't think Jaundice was supposed to play this game was he? iii. Human Goaltenders Below 250 TPA - Human Created Goaltenders who are below 250 TPA may not start more than 8 games in a season. Should they cross the 250 TPA threshold mid-season, this rule will only apply to games started before crossing 250 TPA. Jaundice is at 141 TPA

Awesome job @Victor, thanks for writing this! I was always kinda worried as to how a builder article for myself would look since I know a lot of what I brought to the table was behind-the-scenes stuff or ideas here and there rather than specific roles, but you did an excellent job with this! It's pretty funny to be that I wound up sticking with the Tagger name, I only changed as a joke (I was tagging everyone to take part in the lottery) and then here it is still to this day! I believe this might also still make me the only member to have a forum named after them, although you've got the league named after you so you got me beat there! Funnily enough, I watched my first ever hockey game this March just gone at my local ice rink! We (Manchester Storm) lost 2-0 and they haven't played a single hockey game since. I've clearly offended the hockey gods with my presence. That's the achievement I'm definitely most proud of, when I read that I've helped people like yourself get invested in and enjoy taking part in the league. It's crazy to think it's been just over three years since you joined the Aces and the subsequent rise up the ranks both you and @Spade18 had since then, although I always had high hopes for the pair of you from our lengthy discussions (The PM Mock Drafts with you in particular!) GET ON THE HIGH GROUND RYAN! ? But for sure those were extremely fun times, I hear Overwatch 2 is going to have a lot more in-depth PVE stuff so that should be fun to give a go once that comes out! Also thanks for taking that NYA team to those consecutive championships! P.S. I'll have your own HOF article up at the weekend. YEAH! I think you're one of the few on here that remembers when I got that name in the MFA when you were the Office Linebacker Dwight Schrute! Was psyched when I got to grab one of the most reliable and loyal members I've met in that league.

The phrase that can be best used to describe Season 70 first overall pick Edwin THE Encarnacion's regular season performance to date would be "solid but not spectacular", but he's hoping to change that impression by the end of Season 73. The Dominican defenseman has consistently improved year-on-year in points, but is yet to make a significant impact during the regular season, best evidenced with his 20th place finish amongst defenseman in Season 72. However, he has reason to be confident about his chances of success heading into this season having led the league in assists for both the Season 72 World Cup Round Robin and the Season 72 VHL Playoffs. While he's demonstrated his ability to assist others, to truly compete with the best defensemen in the league, Edwin must drastically improve on his woeful shooting form. Out of all defenseman who scored in Season 72, Edwin was 49th of 50 in the regular season and 20th out of 21 in the playoffs in shooting percentage. Hopefully though his 11.76% in the World Cup Round Robin along with a lot of inexperienced goalies entering the VHL this season will give Edwin the confidence to properly challenge for awards this season.

When I was 13, I was big into athletics and I was absolutely buzzing when the UK Men's team won the 2004 Olympic 4x100M Gold Medal.

This guy

I think if I were to talk about the biggest difference between being a fresh-faced rookie (or as fresh-faced as one can be at 50 years old) and being a veteran with three seasons under his belt, the key word I would use would be “expectation”. Even with the amount of practice hours I had logged to my name prior to the draft, the expectation for my player in my rookie season were low. If anything, it was a pretty humbling experience to be in the company of four great veteran defensemen in Charlie Paddywagon, Brady Stropko Jr., Jordan Tonn and Cody Smith and served to be a reminder that, despite leaving the VHLM on about as big a high as you can get (being Playoff MVP on a record-setting team), I still had a long way to go to achieve anything close to the same results in the big league. At the same time though, with that lack of expectation came an acceptance that my stats would not be anything of note. Comparing that to this season just gone, there were much greater expectations upon myself and when I failed to meet those expectations, there came some disappointment in myself and also some guilt in that I hadn’t served to be as good of a veteran presence to the players like General Zod and Latrell Mitchell (whose shoes I had been in just two seasons earlier) in comparison to those who came before me. Another thing about expectation would be my approach to the game both in training and in the locker room. As a rookie, while there is always the expectation that you work hard every day in training, you aren’t expected to be this beacon of inspirational light right of the gate, it’s more about listening to those around you so that when you hit that mark those veterans are at, you can become that leader. Even with three season under my belt, I think that’s been the biggest negative against me is that I haven’t even been close to becoming that leader, nor have I really even made an effort to become it. I’m in an incredibly unique situation in that they keep letting me return to this league under different aliases (albeit sometimes on fire and sometimes as a robot and sometimes as a time-travelled version of myself) yet with all that experience to my name, I’ve continued to play the role of listener rather than the role of leader. I guess that’s one of the biggest points I can make is that you are always capable of improving yourself, even as a veteran.

What if we permanently banned every member without a player along with anyone with a player who currently has no TPE invested in fighting? *Numbers/Data used are from the Playoff Indexes (VHL/VHLM) with one edit to account for the retirement of Blake Laughton, who, had he stuck around, would have allowed Grape to survive the impending apocalypse. An unfortunate end indeed. Player Situation The bad news for the goalies in the league is that they’re all gone, they stood no chance of surviving the purge. However the good news is that everyone has a BOT goalie so level playing field, spirit of competition am I right? As for skaters, we can pretty much delete the VHLM as a lot of their talent will be forced up to the VHL immediately. Interestingly enough there are over twice as many fighters in the VHLM (24) than in the VHL (11) but the culling has limited us to just over 2 players per VHL team. Admin Situation Well, let’s put it this way, if you have a dark blue member name it’s da-ba-dee-da-ba-BYE as they’re all sent packing to the tune of Eiffel 65’s 90’s banger. Luckily, the annihilation has not deprived us completely of simming talent as Devise manages to stick around in the form of Markus Nygren, upping his fighting to 41 clearly an educated manoeuvre on his part. With only 35 players (including his own) to oversee, there probably is no need for extra commissioners or even a BOG, leading us into the three-paragraph dictatorship era. GM Situation If you are a VHL GM at this minute, I hate to break it to you, but you are already dead. Not one of the 16 GMs in the VHL have a player who has added to fighting (I don’t think Hedgehog even has a player the absolute madman), which means we need to either hire nearly half our new player base as General Managers or contract a little. The best solution for us would probably be to contract to six teams in one league, leaving us with just over one starting line per team. As for potential GMing talent available, we are lucky to still retain the talents of a VHLM GM in Motzaburger (Michael Gary Scott) and given we’re in a tight situation and we need GMs, I presume Devise declares he is taking over a team. That leaves four teams that need GM’s. Maybe Jruutu (Jim Bob), who has been in the league for over thirty seasons right now would be tempted to take the reigns of a squad of goons? Oilmandan (Randy Marsh) is a former VHLM GM who would have the experience required to fit the role. Verdict After a long period of deliberation, I have decided that this may be just a bit too radical of a decision to make just now. Should everyone who hasn’t added at least 1 TPE to fighting be banned? Absolutely. But at the end of the day, that is a group that includes myself, so we definitely can’t do this just now. However, once I’ve got my fighting up to 41, then we can start return to these discussion points.

9B9060746U0664220 5 Uncapped Doubles Week 1 Million Dollars All for Week Ending 7/19.

1. How emotional was the Game 5 loss to Riga in the finals ? Like Rice, more disappointed than anything. We had an awesome regular season, but being out-shot despite the other team having 11 more penalties just shows we weren't good enough when we needed to be. 2. We are forced to say goodbye to Smitty W. and Tyler Barabash jr Do you have any kind words for them as they transition into retirement? Congrats to Smitty on a great career and hopefully Bushito is doing OK outside of the league. 3. The Calgary Wranglers are forced to navigate through a new reduced Salary Cap and an expansion draft at the same time. This will force them to be most likely be parting ways with loyal and longtime players Sigard Gunnar and Charlie Paddywaggon Do you have anything you wish to say to these two players who have been Wranglers the past 4-5 seasons ? Thanks for their help in these seasons gone, shame we couldn't win a cup but you were both very good teammates. 4. Calgary made its first big off season move by acquiring ACL Tear's rights and then inking him to a 1 year deal. Are you excited with the acquisition ? Provided he doesn't get me injured as well, I will be more than happy to welcome him! 5. As of right now, no expansion team has a roster. So go on your gut feeling for now. If you had to predict: what new expansion team has the best chance of making the playoffs? Unless there are trades, definitely an EU team given that the goalie situation over there looks very suspect (Six of the NA teams have a goalie over 500 TPA, EU only have two (maybe less depending on Bernard). I'll go Warsaw just cause I can see .Muffins going "yolo" more than McWolf. 6. The VHL draft is only 2 sleeps away. Calgary now has the 12th overall pick in the upcoming draft. Who would you like to see them select with this 12th pick ? Dakota Lamb would be great, but there's been a lot of forwards getting 12 capped TPE moving up the rankings and I think any of those would be a great addition.

Haven't seen anyone claim this yet so I'll take this.

Talk about the Finals, the Bushito Prophecy ending but maybe a new record in it's place and look a bit at the off-season.

I recorded this before the first game, forgot to upload it yesterday though.

I figured one of the first things to look at which we hadn't been able to previous was going to Season 5 and comparing the attributes of Scotty Campbell during his best ever season to the other players in the VHL. The Team Roster page doesn't work on the regular season but luckily works on the Playoff Archive. Here's what stood out: - Campbell had very high attributes in passing (97) and scoring (99). While a few other players had focused on getting their scoring to 99, only Joey Kendrick (98 Passing and Scoring) was equal to Campbell when it came to combined talent in both distributing and finishing. - Campbell had the best Face-Off rating (85) by some distance. 13 ahead of his nearest rival Robbie Zimmers, although given strength has some effect in face-offs, Campbell's closest rival was probably Scott Boulet (70 STR, 70 FO) - Given his dominance, I was surprised to see Campbell as low as he was when it came to his skating attributes. His 84 skating was 12th in the league while his Puck Handling was 24th in the league. - It was also interesting to get a proper glimpse into the level of goalies he was up against. The league's best goalie Maxim Desny had just three attributes in the 80's, while the league worst Toronto (who didn't win a single game in regulation) were playing a rookie goalie who had 81 TPA (both in this current era and the old one given that none of his attributes were at a point where he had to worry about the update cap) and had a GAA of 6.31. If that's the scale of goalies we were dealing with then, it's not really any wonder no-one has yet to break Campbell's numbers.

1. The Toronto Legion forced the first series to 7 games. Going into game 7 how confident were you that the Wranglers would come out victorious ? I knew we were going to win, we have the Bushito going away as GM legacy on our side! 2. Which Calgary Wrangler player has been your playoff MVP so far ? It's close between Gunnar and Dredge, but I'll give it to Dredge since he's had a GWG. 3. You just beat the Americans 3-1 on July 4th, in a game 5 showdown. How important is winning game 5, in a 7 game series ? It's very important and I like it because I like winning games. 4. It is never good to look ahead but lets say you find a way to beat New York. You have Riga waiting for you in the finals. How well do think Calgary would match up vs Riga ? It'll be interesting, Greg Eagles has had a very good playoffs but they've also had an easier run-in than say a team like New York, so hopefully if we were to get there we can provide him with a bit of a challenge. 5. Why has Home ice been so crucial for the S72 Calgary Wranglers ? regular season ( 29-4-3) , current playoffs (4-1-0) Because I've literally built my house in front of the goal and only I have the key to the doors 6. Do you do yoga as part of your daily training ? I don't engage much in yoga but I do meditate.

So during the early days of the UK lockdown when all sports were postponed, Sky Sports (A UK sports media company that has about 5 channels) had to find a way to fill their programming schedule and one of the things they had was "Carra's Challenge", which was named after the creator of said challenge former Liverpool defender Jamie Carragher. The idea behind Carra's Challenge is that he'd have people pick their best XI (eleven players in a soccer side) with different parameters on who they could select in said XI. For example, one required you to name a best XI of players who were relegated, but no players could share the same nationality or team. So I figured I'd do something similar with the VHL. My challenge is as follows: - Pick a two line team (6 forwards, 4 defenseman, 1 goalie) from players who have played in this VHL season. Forwards can play anywhere along the forward line but cannot be picked as defenseman and, in turn, defensemen cannot be selected as forwards. - No player can share a nationality or a VHL team with any other player selected for the team. For this challenge, I will say that the team they represent currently is the only one you have to worry about (E.g. Jet Jaguar played for Moscow and Davos, but you only have to count him as a Davos player) although maybe I'll do another one later which makes a traded player counts for both teams he played for to give an extra challenge. - Once you've picked your two line team, you can add a player from the team you haven't picked as a spare. They can be either a forward, defenseman or a goalie, but like the other players, they cannot share a nationality with one of the other players. So this was my attempt at the challenge: Forwards (LW - C - RW) Julius Freeman ?? - Jet Jaguar ?? - RJ Jubis ?? Mat Tocco ?? - Hiroshi Okada ?? - Mikko Aaltonen ?? Spare: Chad Magnum ?? Defensemen D - Condor Adrienne ?? - D - Berocka Sundqvist ?? D - Vladimir Pavlov ?? - D - Cinnamon Block ?? Goalie G - Greg Eagles ?? My biggest deliberation was whether to put Michael Johnson in instead of Greg Eagles and put either Phil Marleau or Kyl Oferson as the second line center instead of Okada, but I went with the current best performing goalie in the playoffs.

Week 3 Claim

Coming off the back of the league announcing the implementation of an official rule that makes it publicly clear that teams will not be allowed to put forward purposefully weakened lines with the intent of trying to accrue more losses that in turn would lead to a greater chance of missing the playoffs, I figured I'd flash back to a season where we were forced to make a behind-the-scenes rule regarding the spirit of competition. Season 51 <- Click for Index Back in Season 51, the league had a much more relaxed rule-set and a distinct lack of available players that only served to encourage aggressive tanking to any team that were not set to be in a position to compete anytime soon. There were no restrictions on which inactive Free Agents you could pursue (meaning that non-competing teams would frequently look to 0 TPE players* to fill their roster) and in place of the current minimum player limit was a salary floor of $20 Million, though this effectively achieved nothing given that there were no rules to prevent you from paying a straight $7 Million to a player who was barely any better, if at all, than a CPU BOT. Notably, this also applied to goalies which meant that you could play a 0 TPE inactive goalie in place of the then 175 TPE CPU goalie provided to each team to give a team a much greater chance of losing. Fast forward to the end of the season and, in the EU Conference, the Helsinki Titans have a slim 1 point lead over the HC Davos Dynamo with three games to go, with the most important fixture being one where the two sides would play each other. What is of note is that, while Helsinki were in possession of their own first, Davos were not as they had traded it away to New York before the pick made it's way to the Stockholm Vikings, a team who were already eliminated from playoff contention and guaranteed a top two pick with their own selection. If the standings stayed as it was, Stockholm would then have two picks in the lottery. They did not though as, in the crucial game between the two teams that still had a chance at making the playoffs, Davos would beat Helsinki 3-0. However, there were two key notes for this game: - Helsinki were playing a CPU created player called TOR G-1, for this game and the two other remaining games of the season. TOR G-1 was a goalie that really should not have been utilized given that it was only created to ensure the games could sim (teams need two goalies in the sim, otherwise it will not let teams set lines), however it was acknowledged that playing him was no worse or better than a team signing a 0 TPE goalie to achieve the same results - Having accidentally beat a Seattle team that had already made the playoffs in the previous game, Helsinki went on to remove all three of their human players from the lines. Given that Asher Donovan and Evgeny Nezhmetdinov do not even have a mention in the box score for their final three games, they may have gone so far as to put them on scratches to make sure they did not play. Funnily enough, having been in the discussions in the BOG when issues with Helsinki were brought up in there, I don't recall if anyone actually brought up the benching of the human skaters. However, this issue did bring to light that there really wasn't any excuse for any inactive goalie worse than the team's assigned CPU goalies to be signed to a team's roster, and so a rule was put in place to prevent an inactive goalie with less TPE than the assigned CPU goalie from starting. Helsinki did not wind up punished for either of these, but they had failed to properly adhere to the salary floor over the course of the season (even with how poorly it was implemented) and had to forfeit a 2nd round pick as compensation. *Up until the start of Season 46 (when the base 30 TPE for player creation was introduced), players without carryover would start off with 0 TPE, but were allowed to have their first 3 Point Tasks doubled along with an exclusive 10 TPE training camp. Therefore at this point in time, there were still players about with both 0 TPE (created pre-S46) and 30 TPE (created post-S46)

I copy the link from the share button on soundcloud, paste it into the topic and then press enter after I’ve pasted it in. Once I press enter, it changes the link to the embedded soundcloud player prior to clicking Create New Post/Topic

1. Are you happy about winning the Victory cup ? Delighted, I was able to pawn off the trophy for a snickers bar and a monthly subscription to Patriotic Quilts magazine 2. Are you surprised Toronto has tied up the series at 2 games to 2 ? I am, but that's only cause I deliberately look to surprise myself at any opportunity to improve my alertness. When I order my food on apps, I set a random time closing my eyes and throw my phone away afterwards. Never a better reason to be woken up at 3 AM then by a delicious slice of PAPA JOHNS™ 3. What is your score prediction for game 5 ? 19-0 with Edwin scoring points on 34 of them 4. What do the Wranglers need to do to beat Toronto and move on to the 2nd round ? Don't let them score a single goal and then get at least one goal a game ourselves 5. Are you currently growing a playoff beard ? I already had a beard so I've just stopped showering instead 6. What is your gameday routine during the playoffs ? I put my dirty laundry on the ice as an intimidation technique

Heading into the Season 72 Playoffs, we get another chance to see if one of the VHL's most unusual trends will repeat itself. While Bushito has been gone from the league the last month due to personal issues, an interim GM for the Calgary Wranglers has been assigned in the form of R_Jubis. This marks the third time in the VHL's history that a GM or interim GM has been officially assigned to cover for Bushito in the middle of a season, with the most intriguing element of this being that both of those previous teams (HC Davos in S31, Seattle in S43) would go on to win the Continental Cup in the same season that the new/interim GM was installed. Given that neither of these teams were going in as Victory Cup winners going into their respective playoffs (in fact Seattle had the lowest points total out of all the teams who made the playoffs in S43), it will be interesting to see if the Victory Cup winning Calgary Wranglers will continue the trend.