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With the amount of awards that Rauno Palo ( @jRuutu) has won, I think people will rightly raise a red flag as to his potential status as an “unsung hero”. However, while his success in the sim over the recent seasons have rightly seen his player receive a lot of adulation, there’s one magnificent feat that he achieved that I don’t believe has received nearly enough attention and therefore more than warrants his status as an unsung hero. What did he do? He broke the 100 mark in an attribute “How is that even possible though?” I hear you ask. The portal has always actively stopped players from going over 99 in an attribute when they allocate their TPE, so surely this is a lie? Well yes, it would be if every attribute was upped using TPE but that isn’t the case, for Experience is an attribute that can only be gained through end of season performance and player store purchases and well, let’s just say Palo was a fellow who was committed to the cause of being the most experienced player in the VHL, to the point of being too committed in fact. This was brought to my attention in the updater’s forum by Beketov, the simmer of the VHL at the time, who put out a call for the updaters to go through Palo’s update log and find out how much Experience Palo should have had for the portal had “bugged out” and that had put Palo at a whopping 103 experience! 103! Of course it was a bug! What else could it be? And at first that looked like the case as the initial calculations that Will made only put Palo at 95 experience citing that it “must have been a double claim”. Thus, Palo’s Experience was immediately edited to this after Will’s testimony, taken as a fact and done with such pace that they would only hope that no-one would ever notice should anyone actually find a weakness in the machine’s armour. However, as a seeker of the truth and someone who believes that the power of man is capable of overcoming any machine, I simply would not accept that Palo’s experience got to this figure by mere chance, there had to be another reason! Thus I sat down, warm beverage at hand, and decided to peruse through the updating scrolls to see if my suspicions were indeed correct. Now, through experience gained through the end-of-season allocation alone, Palo had no reason to be anywhere close to 99, let alone 103, as this occurred following his sixth VHL Season, so even if his team had won the cup every single season, he could only be at the very most, an 88. However, my research revealed that on December 28th 2018, the man bought a late Christmas present for himself, 10 experience points. An experience feast fit for a king certainly, but still not nearly enough to break into the hollowed ground of the third digit number. But as it turned out, our hero wasn’t done, as on May 11th, he put down another $3 Million and commanded the store owner Josh to give him all the experience he had on him. Josh stared into the windows of Palo’s soul, admitted defeat and yielded, granting him a further 10 experience points. Combined with his end-of-season experience haul, Palo had, in just six seasons achieved ground that no other being had ever even dreamed of reaching, breaking the 100 attribute point plateau with 103 Experience. This was no “bug”, this was through no “double claim”, this was a demonstration of the true power of the human spirit. -------------------------------------------------------- So I told Will he actually was right to have 103 and he said “Right, fuck that, we’re putting a cap on that” and he was promptly edited to 99 Experience. So the lesson for today? If you can reach for the stars, hold back a little, because someone or something will fuck you up when you grab one.

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Are The Lottery Teams Set? The EU side seems pretty wrapped up with Davos already mathematically ruled out of the playoffs and Prague required to make up a 15 point deficit over a 14 game period. The NA side still has a bit of intrigue to it however. While it is likely that the Legion will be able to see out the challenge from the Wranglers for the final playoff place given that the Wranglers still have several games to play their backup goalie and the Legion have a couple of games against the Dynamo that the Wranglers do not, the Legion have been on a very bad run of form as of late (7-16-2 over the last 25 games). Given the Wranglers are only 7 points behind the Legion, the race is certainly not over yet and the Dynamo (who hold Toronto's first) will certainly be hoping the Wranglers can overcome the deficit and sneak into the playoffs. The Most Intriguing Team In The Lottery Places The Prague Phantoms. Having spent their first three picks in the Season 68 Draft (12th, 15th and 17th) and their only two picks in the Season 69 Draft (1st and 14th) on defensemen and goalies, the last thing they probably wanted heading into the Season 70 Draft was to have three of the top four prospects in TPE be defensemen, especially given that it is likely the one forward in that group (Mikko Lahtinen) goes 1st overall. If they don't get first overall though, I think Prague are more likely to just use their current pick on a forward rather than risk trading down too far and missing out on their top choice of the remaining forwards.

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1. Who wins Gold? World 2. Who wins Silver? USA 3. Who wins Bronze? Canada 4. What player will be named tournament MVP? Virgil Ligriv

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Ah, it's a shame I went to bed before that happened (Think I went to bed after the end of the second round). I presume I was right in that it was an auto-pick?

Season 68 58th Overall Alex - RW Unable to find a buyer for their fifth round selection or perhaps simply unaware that the Season 68 Draft was set to have a fifth round, the Toronto Legion wound up having to do the unthinkable and actually select a prospect in a VHL Draft. Likely an automated selection, the Legion wound up selecting the winger Alex, an appropriately short name for a team that features so little in the draft. Alex created roughly a month after the trade deadline but showed some promise early on in his career, earning at least six capped TPE in each of his first three weeks in the league whilst also completing a Rookie Profile and participating in the VHL Birthday Week activities. However, due to off-site issues, Alex's career was unfortunately cut short and he retired towards the end of July. Not to be deterred by such trivial issues, the Legion wound up selecting him in the fifth round of a draft that took place in September. This bold move (likely automated) had no results to show for it however as Alex stayed retired and meant that the Legion have yet to draft a player in 2019 to record a single VHL appearance. While one may expect that every pick to follow a retired player would not have much chance of success in the VHL, three picks later the DC Dragons selected Raleigh Ritchie who, while still in the VHLM, has been active since the draft and earned the max 12 capped TPE just this last week. The member who created Alex has actually just this week come back and created a new player (the Winger Thomas Kurt) who is set to enter the upcoming Season 70 Draft, so hopefully we will see the promise he showed in the earlier parts of his career with Alex come into play with Kurt. ---------------------------------------------------------- The End

Funnily enough I made a podcast a month and a half ago pointing out that the line %'s and team strategies didn't work in the version of the sim we were using. Think the title of "Things you might not know about" is somewhat fitting given some of the reactions to this article ? I remember bringing up 1.5 as an option in the BOG back when they were first considering a sim engine change and I believe Will had said he'd done a few tests and the results were fairly similar to that of the current sim 1.1. I think the SHL also uses 1.5 given that their index has the effects of line %'s and strategies displayed but no-one has any giveaways and takeaways (a V2 stat). As for the PS and EN stuff, yeah it's difficult to tell if it does have any effect or not in 1.1. Those attributes aren't in the Version 1 manual but like @studentized says whether they were added in after the fact I'm not sure. It doesn't help that there are two different STHS items with V's (the sim engine and the Program itself) so it's difficult to tell which he's talking about (unless he says V3 since I don't believe there's a V3 sim engine yet but there is of the Program). I guess we could always ask him on the forums see if he remembers.

Helsinki 2-0

175 Seattle Bears @ Helsinki Titans 176 Prague Phantoms @ HC Davos Dynamo 177 Calgary Wranglers @ Moscow Menace 178 Riga Reign @ Vancouver Wolves

Touching on my experience with my least favourite sim league before going back into VHL stuff and looking at my S37 season with the Express and Team World.

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I did recall Godavari not doing that much earning after being traded to us. Looking back at his posts seems to confirm that, he didn't earn any TPE in the last month or so with the team.

Seattle 2-1

139 Helsinki Titans @ HC Davos Dynamo 140 Moscow Menace @ Vancouver Wolves 141 Calgary Wranglers @ Prague Phantoms 142 Seattle Bears @ Toronto Legion

Name: Edwin THE Encarnacion Position: Defenseman Height: 6'2" Weight: 235 lbs VHLM Team: Saskatoon Wild VHLM Draft: 2nd Overall Pros Shooting – Only ranking eighth on the Wild in shots taken, Encarnacion hasn’t been taking a ton of shots (especially given he leads the team in average minutes per game), but of the shots he has had, he’s been taking a lot of good ones. His 18.64% shooting percentage puts him at joint-tenth in the league and is also leading the Wild in that statistical category. Defense – Given the strength of the current Wild roster, we were not expecting to see much of Encarnacion’s defensive capabilities in the lead-up to the draft but, thus far, when he has been required to have an impact on defense, he has stepped up accordingly. Encarnacion currently leads the Wild in shot blocks and is 28th in the league in that category, a respectable figure given that they are facing two shots or more per game less than any of the other VHLM teams. Consistency – While Encarnacion has had some impressive individual performances in games (he is currently tied with Danny DeYeeto in first stars on the Wild), what scouts have been most impressed by is the consistency of his performances. Through seventeen games, Encarnacion recorded points in sixteen of those games (the only game he didn’t record a point was in the Wild’s 5-1 victory over the 21st) and is currently on an eleven point scoring streak. Work Ethic – One thing that all of the Encarnacion’s have displayed in the lead-up to their drafts is their high work ethic and THE Encarnacion is no different in that regard. After this piece has been posted, Encarnacion will have recorded over 30 practice hours (TPE) more than his nearest rival, Wild teammate Mikko Lahtinen. While there have been Encarnacion’s that have dwindled when it comes to improving their game post-draft, we see no reason to believe he won’t continue to rack up practice hours at the rate he currently is for the foreseeable future. Cons Physicality – The VHLM is a notably less physical league than the VHL, so to see Encarnacion record surprisingly low hit totals is a bit of a concern. His 34 hits is currently only good enough for sixth on the Wild and, while there’s still plenty of time for Encarnacion to develop this part of his game upon being drafted, he may face a tough rookie and sophomore season if he isn’t able to add a more physical edge to his game. Indecisiveness – While Encarnacion is currently listed as a defenseman, plans to remain at that position for the remainder of this season and is currently doing very well at that position, there’s still something that giving Encarnacion second thoughts about his current position and he is potentially considering a move to forward. Such indecisiveness may be viewed unfavourably by a team picking in the very early picks who is looking specifically for a defenseman. Draft Projection With the VHL standings fluctuating so dramatically week on week, it’s difficult to analyse which teams will potentially be picking in the top half of the draft, so it’s difficult to assess Encarnacion’s draft stock in comparison to the rest of his draft class. However, with his work ethic and current ability, we believe Encarnacion will most likely be selected with one of the top three picks in the draft.

Talk about my stats taking a tank after the move to the Bears and the ensuing move to the Express in S36 and my first playoff appearance. Note: I recorded this over 2 months ago, but the member behind Gregory Glass (Reverb) has come back since the recording was done and made a player in the S70 Draft.

I do indeed, although United's still my number one team I support and Spurs is still my second team cause of my dad supporting them. Needless to say this move didn't go down well in our household. At least time showed I was right to have my concerns about Mourinho haha (although Ole's not been great either ?).

12 hours passed, onto me. F - Elias Dahlberg D - Luciano Valentino @HughJas_

When he was around during my podcasts, I would pronounce the name like Ahk-kek-kwis Kai