Tagger

From UK checks out

So expansion has been announced for Season 73 and with that comes an opportunity to write a somewhat unique article about an element of said extension and that’s the personal thoughts of a user who is based in the country which a VHL team has located to for the first time. So for anyone who knows me, has seen the sidebar under my username or has even listened to one of my podcasts for longer than five seconds, you’ll be aware that I am English. I am not from London though, I reside in Manchester which is the opposite side of the country (London is located in the south-east, Manchester in the north-west), but I do have relatives that live over there and likely would have been down there a couple of weeks ago had it not been for the current pandemic that affects us all. So what do I think of the VHL’s inclusion of the United Kingdom? Well, I’ll break it down into three parts:
 
What I think of the VHL creating a franchise in the United Kingdom What I think of the choice of team name What I think of the logo  
But before I go into those, I want to kick off with a couple of points regarding what I’ll be saying in this article.
 
Regardless of any positives or negative opinions regarding the following matters, a VHL franchise being based in the United Kingdom and choices made with its team name or logo will not affect any decision making when it would come to whether I want to play for them or not. When it comes to selecting a team, I’ve always favoured analysing team’s personnel (both players and staff) and how the current roster would help me achieve my goals over everything else. In the past, I had favoured a move to teams I hadn’t played for before just to “round out the set” (since at one point, I only had to play for Helsinki to have played for every VHL team), but consistent expansions have rendered this goal something that would take at least two, if not three, players to achieve and I don’t like the idea of switching teams frequently just to fulfil that goal. Whatever role that they may fill, I am appreciative to anyone who takes time out of their lives to assist the VHL. However, there will be times where I may disagree with an approach that has been taken or a decision that has been made. I don’t do this to belittle anyone or make them feel bad, I do this because I feel like the input that I can provide can potentially improve upon a current setup or potentially highlight an issue that may have been overlooked. I feel like the work that Da_Berr has put in to the logos for both the United and the Stars (a logo which I am a fan of) demonstrate that he is a very capable artist and while I disagree with some of the design choices (some of which relate to issues that would not be under his control anyway), I hope that I can convey my thoughts on those choices in this article in the way which I intend which is constructively.  
What I think of the VHL creating a franchise in the United Kingdom
 
If you were to come to me and ask “which European country would you like to see an expansion franchise located in?”, my answer would not actually have been one of the two that wound up being selected as I would have gone with Germany. Oddly enough, a team name that was used in this expansion would have been absolutely perfect for a German franchise in the Phoenix, as the new German team could rise from the ashes of the now defunct Cologne Express. That naming convention would also have matched what happened with what was then my local hockey team, the Manchester Phoenix, who were named as such after they joined the league following the folding of the Manchester Storm (although oddly enough, the Phoenix are now defunct and the Storm have returned to the league). However, it appears the league preferred locating franchises in countries that had yet to be represented, and if that was the case then the two countries that were selected are two of the better ones they could have picked (since I presume they didn’t want two in Western Europe).
 
 
What I think of the choice of team name
 
For those who are not familiar with the English soccer scene, the teams do not follow the same naming system as American/Canadian sports teams. Instead of a town or city name being followed with a unique team name (often represented with a mascot), the soccer teams in England follow more traditional roots and put a fairly standard name after their town/city name (common ones include Town, City and Rovers) or base their name on the areas they were formed from (E.g. Aston Villa was named as such because they played in Aston and their founders played for Villa Cross Wesleyan Chapel cricket team, Crystal Palace was named after the building the founders owned, etc.). One of the more common names used is United, which is currently being used by 13 of the 72 teams in the English Football League system.
 
It is from this that I’m pretty sure the London United name came from. Funnily enough though, as you may have picked up from the previous section, our hockey teams follow the same naming system as NHL teams would, so it is a little weird to see our UK team go away from that given that we already follow that system in the real world. The good thing about the United name is that it does have some versatility to it in that the meaning of the word can allow it to be used as a Team Name, but at the same time it is difficult to represent the term United graphically. I don’t know which idea came first (out of the name United or the football badge design), but once one was decided, the other had to be done with it. Typically, I prefer it when teams have a matter of consistency to them, so I wouldn’t say I’m the biggest fan of going with a naming style which is predominantly used in the UK (even with the attachment I have to the United name considering my favourite soccer team is Manchester United) while other countries forgo their usual naming system to match with the VHL norm (E.g. Prague Phantoms and Riga Reign).
 
What I think of the logo
 
So I made an article about this a while ago, but I’m not the biggest fan of the VHL adopting soccer-style logos. As much as I like them ordinarily in their own environment, I prefer logos to be somewhat consistent in style, so I did not like seeing New York go in that direction with their logo. However, the fact that there are logos of that same ilk currently in the league means I am not as against the addition of the London United’s soccer-style logo in comparison to had it been the first of it’s kind in the VHL.
 
As for the logo itself, I’ll go over the features I’m a fan of first. I like the choice of the city-appropriate text, as it is the same style as the London Underground. I am also a big fan of the colour choice, blue has been quite a common choice for VHL teams (Helsinki and Toronto feature it mainly, but there also elements in Prague, Riga and New York) but I’m a big fan of Royal Blue and obviously fits with the choice of team location. Finally, with their decision to go with the soccer crest aesthetic, I like the decision to go with the blades and the castled outline around the badge.
 
Now to move on to the elements I am not so much a fan of. Firstly, I do not think that the Tower Bridge is the best choice of features to put in the middle of the flag. I can understand it’s inclusion given it’s importance and relevance to the city that the badge represents, but I feel like, given the outline of the badge, there were other options that would have been more fitting, like a mythical being or a lion (England’s national soccer team logo is a Lion). I think having two different types of architecture from two different eras (castles from the medieval times and Tower Bridge from the very late 1800’s) within the same graphic confuses things a little. I think my biggest criticism would be the decision to redesign the Union Jack. I don’t know if there’s a hidden design feature that I’m missing, but the Union Jack, one of, if not the most recognisable flags in the world, is missing two of it’s stripes (diagonally heading from the centre to each top corner). This is odd considering that there seems to be enough room to move the horizontal line down and include the missing stripes accordingly. In addition, the fact that it is included in itself acknowledges how well-known the UK flag is by itself, so to include it for those reasons and then change it upon including it is a design decision I don’t really understand.    
 
In conclusion, it isn’t my favourite logo, but definitely not my least favourite. There are elements and design choices that I like but also some core elements I would have definitely changed.
 
1,500+ words, 3 Weeks of use.

So expansion has been announced for Season 73 and with that comes an opportunity to write a somewhat unique article about an element of said extension and that’s the personal thoughts of a user who is based in the country which a VHL team has located to for the first time. So for anyone who knows me, has seen the sidebar under my username or has even listened to one of my podcasts for longer than five seconds, you’ll be aware that I am English. I am not from London though, I reside in Manchester which is the opposite side of the country (London is located in the south-east, Manchester in the north-west), but I do have relatives that live over there and likely would have been down there a couple of weeks ago had it not been for the current pandemic that affects us all. So what do I think of the VHL’s inclusion of the United Kingdom? Well, I’ll break it down into three parts:
 
What I think of the VHL creating a franchise in the United Kingdom What I think of the choice of team name What I think of the logo  
But before I go into those, I want to kick off with a couple of points regarding what I’ll be saying in this article.
 
Regardless of any positives or negative opinions regarding the following matters, a VHL franchise being based in the United Kingdom and choices made with its team name or logo will not affect any decision making when it would come to whether I want to play for them or not. When it comes to selecting a team, I’ve always favoured analysing team’s personnel (both players and staff) and how the current roster would help me achieve my goals over everything else. In the past, I had favoured a move to teams I hadn’t played for before just to “round out the set” (since at one point, I only had to play for Helsinki to have played for every VHL team), but consistent expansions have rendered this goal something that would take at least two, if not three, players to achieve and I don’t like the idea of switching teams frequently just to fulfil that goal. Whatever role that they may fill, I am appreciative to anyone who takes time out of their lives to assist the VHL. However, there will be times where I may disagree with an approach that has been taken or a decision that has been made. I don’t do this to belittle anyone or make them feel bad, I do this because I feel like the input that I can provide can potentially improve upon a current setup or potentially highlight an issue that may have been overlooked. I feel like the work that Da_Berr has put in to the logos for both the United and the Stars (a logo which I am a fan of) demonstrate that he is a very capable artist and while I disagree with some of the design choices (some of which relate to issues that would not be under his control anyway), I hope that I can convey my thoughts on those choices in this article in the way which I intend which is constructively.  
What I think of the VHL creating a franchise in the United Kingdom
 
If you were to come to me and ask “which European country would you like to see an expansion franchise located in?”, my answer would not actually have been one of the two that wound up being selected as I would have gone with Germany. Oddly enough, a team name that was used in this expansion would have been absolutely perfect for a German franchise in the Phoenix, as the new German team could rise from the ashes of the now defunct Cologne Express. That naming convention would also have matched what happened with what was then my local hockey team, the Manchester Phoenix, who were named as such after they joined the league following the folding of the Manchester Storm (although oddly enough, the Phoenix are now defunct and the Storm have returned to the league). However, it appears the league preferred locating franchises in countries that had yet to be represented, and if that was the case then the two countries that were selected are two of the better ones they could have picked (since I presume they didn’t want two in Western Europe).
 
 
What I think of the choice of team name
 
For those who are not familiar with the English soccer scene, the teams do not follow the same naming system as American/Canadian sports teams. Instead of a town or city name being followed with a unique team name (often represented with a mascot), the soccer teams in England follow more traditional roots and put a fairly standard name after their town/city name (common ones include Town, City and Rovers) or base their name on the areas they were formed from (E.g. Aston Villa was named as such because they played in Aston and their founders played for Villa Cross Wesleyan Chapel cricket team, Crystal Palace was named after the building the founders owned, etc.). One of the more common names used is United, which is currently being used by 13 of the 72 teams in the English Football League system.
 
It is from this that I’m pretty sure the London United name came from. Funnily enough though, as you may have picked up from the previous section, our hockey teams follow the same naming system as NHL teams would, so it is a little weird to see our UK team go away from that given that we already follow that system in the real world. The good thing about the United name is that it does have some versatility to it in that the meaning of the word can allow it to be used as a Team Name, but at the same time it is difficult to represent the term United graphically. I don’t know which idea came first (out of the name United or the football badge design), but once one was decided, the other had to be done with it. Typically, I prefer it when teams have a matter of consistency to them, so I wouldn’t say I’m the biggest fan of going with a naming style which is predominantly used in the UK (even with the attachment I have to the United name considering my favourite soccer team is Manchester United) while other countries forgo their usual naming system to match with the VHL norm (E.g. Prague Phantoms and Riga Reign).
 
What I think of the logo
 
So I made an article about this a while ago, but I’m not the biggest fan of the VHL adopting soccer-style logos. As much as I like them ordinarily in their own environment, I prefer logos to be somewhat consistent in style, so I did not like seeing New York go in that direction with their logo. However, the fact that there are logos of that same ilk currently in the league means I am not as against the addition of the London United’s soccer-style logo in comparison to had it been the first of it’s kind in the VHL.
 
As for the logo itself, I’ll go over the features I’m a fan of first. I like the choice of the city-appropriate text, as it is the same style as the London Underground. I am also a big fan of the colour choice, blue has been quite a common choice for VHL teams (Helsinki and Toronto feature it mainly, but there also elements in Prague, Riga and New York) but I’m a big fan of Royal Blue and obviously fits with the choice of team location. Finally, with their decision to go with the soccer crest aesthetic, I like the decision to go with the blades and the castled outline around the badge.
 
Now to move on to the elements I am not so much a fan of. Firstly, I do not think that the Tower Bridge is the best choice of features to put in the middle of the flag. I can understand it’s inclusion given it’s importance and relevance to the city that the badge represents, but I feel like, given the outline of the badge, there were other options that would have been more fitting, like a mythical being or a lion (England’s national soccer team logo is a Lion). I think having two different types of architecture from two different eras (castles from the medieval times and Tower Bridge from the very late 1800’s) within the same graphic confuses things a little. I think my biggest criticism would be the decision to redesign the Union Jack. I don’t know if there’s a hidden design feature that I’m missing, but the Union Jack, one of, if not the most recognisable flags in the world, is missing two of it’s stripes (diagonally heading from the centre to each top corner). This is odd considering that there seems to be enough room to move the horizontal line down and include the missing stripes accordingly. In addition, the fact that it is included in itself acknowledges how well-known the UK flag is by itself, so to include it for those reasons and then change it upon including it is a design decision I don’t really understand.    
 
In conclusion, it isn’t my favourite logo, but definitely not my least favourite. There are elements and design choices that I like but also some core elements I would have definitely changed.
 
1,500+ words, 3 Weeks of use.

Sorry  I'll see if I can get you some access for that.

I thought something looked off when I came on the site but my name has gone back to the default member group after being red for just over a year. Obviously makes a lot of sense since it sounds like they plan on having actual paid moderators whereas we were more just general admin (e.g. moving threads to correct places) and "act if you saw something very wrong on the board", which in fairness there hasn't been too many instances of in the public forums (I only acted on one instance where someone thought it was appropriate to post Rule 34 shit on the forum, the only other big instance that immediately comes to mind is the VHLM S68 Finals thread which I couldn't deal with since I was at a friends house) and was very vague at a time where we had no code of conduct to follow or refer to regarding decisions. But yes, I was surprised to see I still had the colours after taking a six month break from the league, so it doesn't bother me.
 
I'd say the only thing that sucks is that I no longer have access to the Updaters Lounge, where I felt I gave good and prompt advice to updaters whenever they had questions. 
 
Also, I'm still on recruitment crew on the discord, which is real weird. 

Calgary Wranglers defenseman Edwin THE Encarnacion has signed a two year extension with the team. Encarnacion had a rough rookie season and recorded minimal playing time, but became a solid contributor to the Wranglers last season and was the team’s joint-leader in assists. This season has been slightly worse for the Dominican, with his point tallies falling largely because of inaccurate shooting, but he still remains a solid asset for the team that currently stands second in the VHL standings. According to sources, Encarnacion already had an agreement in place with the Calgary Wranglers General Manager upon signing his rookie deal that he would sign a two season extension providing the team was heading in the right direction, although the discussions for said extension took place with the team’s Assistant General Manager. There were rumours that Encarnacion intended to enter Free Agency after he rejected the Wranglers initial extension offer, however that was not the case and the deal was rejected so that a No-Trade Clause could be added to the deal across both seasons. We believe that the addition of this clause is less to do with an unwavering loyalty to always play in a Wranglers jersey and more to do with Encarnacion wanting a measure of control over any future destination should the team feel like trading Encarnacion was in their best interests. It’s also rumoured that, should he decide to enter Free Agency at the end of his fifth season, Encarnacion will use this No-Trade Clause to reject any attempt of a trade for his free agency rights as he doesn’t like the concept.  
 
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One term that came up this week that gave me a flashback to a different era of the VHL was the use of the term “free doubles week”. It was used by Quik to offer a doubles week out to everyone after we reached our league goal for our charity drive (well done everyone for this by the way), but the term has been used before in the VHL to describe a different kind of reward. Often given around the Christmas Holiday period, the league would offer members of the VHL a “free doubles week”, however this wasn’t used to describe “a doubles week which is free”, but instead a “free week and a double week combined”. This notably led to some confusion back in 2016 when the then-commissioner Will offered a free doubles week only for people to be confused as to whether he was offering a “free doubles week” or a “free week and a double week combined”. To be fair and in retrospect, it was pretty dumb to ever call a “free week and a double week combined” a free doubles week, because that’s just poorly written. It would have made a lot more sense to refer to a “free week and a double week combined” as a “doubled free week”, but luckily with free weeks no longer being usable with double weeks, we’ve pretty much written the old definition for the term out of the VHL, although it wouldn’t surprise me if older returning VHL members will have occasionally tried to claim a “free week and a double week combined” when the term was used.

1.  You have a record of (8-4-2 ) since our last press conference. With Seattle hot on your trail, how important is it to you to be the top team ? 
 
Top team in regular season is just an added bonus, main thing is getting done in playoffs.
 
2.  How do you feel about the Wranglers most recent contract extensions ? A 2 year deal to @TaggerEdwin The Encarnacion and A 3 year deal to Willie Dredge @Speed .
 
Dredge is a very good winger for us, so an excellent resigning. Encarnacion is a baseball player so he isn't.
 
3. The VHL has theme week this week. Which theme would you like to see the league do, if you could choose ? 
 
I'd love one where we just talk about ourselves cause that's all I can come up with for point tasks atm.
 
4.  Mikko Lahtinen @Beketov is currently on an 8 game goal scoring streak and an 11 game point streak. No one is hotter right now!  Can you explain his explosive breakout this season ? 
 
I've analyzed the stats for a solid 2 minutes, and no I can't explain it.
 
5. Latrell Mitchell @dasboot and General Zod @Matt_O are in the top 10 in +/- in the entire league. They also lead all rookies and deserve a little recognition. They have been great in their roles this season. Do you have any pointers to keep them  going in right direction? 
 
Don't play on a line with me, cause I'll bring that +/- right down!
 
6.  Looking further at the Wranglers team scoring. If things continue to click, its not unrealistic to see the team have 7x 70+ point players. How far back do we have to look to see a team accomplish this feat ?
 
I'll guess somepoint around the early S60's, maybe S64. 

While the Calgary Wranglers as a team have been having a lot of success in front of goal (they current lead the league in goals scored), the rest of the teams scoring luck clearly hasn't been passed on to their Dominican defenseman Edwin THE Encarnacion. Encarnacion, who received votes for the Most Improved Player last season, scored two goals in his opening nine games but is currently on a horrible 27 game scoring slump and has a woeful 2.86% shooting percentage, which is the fifth lowest shooting percentage of all those who have scored a goal in the VHL this season.  While those below him either lean towards a passing game (Valentino, Zyrok12, Dean Clarke) or have fallen victim to regression (Dissanayake), Encarnacion is a shoot-first player with 97 scoring. Hopefully, Encarnacion's shooting will see a vast improvement in the second half of the season to justify his recent contract extension.

We added in a new system a bit ago where we allowed new members to start with more TPE based on how many weeks after the trade deadline they created their player. I think this is a good move, it allows us to be more flexible with our recruiting strategies while also finding a good balance between letting players come in without the TPE disadvantage just because they heard/remembered around the league at the wrong point of the season but also having them far enough ahead of the players who will have capped every week from the deadline to not make them question their efforts.
 
There was a poll for a championship banner to be implemented on the forum. All of the entries were good and would fit on the forum perfectly well (and somewhat agree with Motza that these should just be rotated rather than letting the vote dictate the only one we see). For me and my caveman eyeballs, it was a tough choice between 2 and 3 (I did like the clean look of 1, but something about the logos on the jerseys just didn’t seem right to me). Ultimately, I went with number 3 and I will let you decide if the deciding factor in my selection was putting a banner on the front page with the word “Dickbutt”. (Note: It wasn’t, I probably read the lists after voting).
 
 I made an article about two weeks ago questioning the choice of the retiring Brick Wahl winning Most Improved having already led the league in save percentage previously in his career. Most Improved player is definitely going to be an interesting one this year should rosters stay as they are. Adrienne will be similar in some respects to Wahl in that he has already earned some notoriety in the VHL (winning the Jake Wylde trophy in Season 70), but he is set for what I would argue to be a far greater leap over his career best in points than what Wahl had in career best at save percentage. But there is very strong competition from Mikko Lahtinen and Lewis Dawson, two players would have already equalled (or pretty much in the case of Dawson) their previous bests in just 22 games and have made a huge jump in regards to their standing within the league. Goalies are also looking set to provide strong challenges with Jaxx Hextall and Jacques Lafontaine having the edge over Eagles in terms of most improved.
 
Another change that happened to the league in the not-too-distant past was the change to reviewing, which allows users to give one solid length review of a point task for 1 TPE. And to be honest, the change made me consider actually doing reviewing  for the first time in forever (maybe ever, not sure if I’ve ever actually been a grader over in the VHL). I’m not, because I’m just going to wait for trivia answers to be given and use those points for this week, but it does offer a much more even comparison to the rest of the mini-PTS.

1. You are the number 1 team in the league at (14-5-1).  You have the most goals for, least goals against.  Can you still continue to climb from here? 
 
I'm more impressed by the fact that I've evolved from a player into a team. 
 
2. How important is it to you, that the Wranglers get contract extensions signed for upcoming UFA's Edwin The Encarnacion,  Willie Dredge and Mikko Lahtinnen ? 
 
I am kinda surprised no-ones offered me anything yet.
 
3. Can you explain why Calgary would be a great team to sign an extension with ? 
 
I mean we're top of the league and young. Seems like two good reasons right there.
 
4. What current or past VHL player's career, would you wish your player could replicate ? 
 
I mean my aim was Conner Low, but I'm looking more like a bad Ryan Kastelic atm
 
5. Who is your favorite player that is not a Calgary Wrangler ? 
 
Condor Adrienne cause he's helping my fantasy team atm.
 
7. If you had to choose one. What would your dream VHL job be ? 
 
Like a job where I can pick X number of players per week and check to see whether their previously approved updates are all legit or not (like an auditor per se), because I'm very good at picking up on errors.

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.
 
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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.

Hello everyone, welcome to my first draft analysis article! As you may or may not know, I followed the last three drafts very closely in my Draft Profiles series. While reflecting on the most recent S72 draft, I found a connection to the first draft I ever covered. That connection was that the top 2 picks went to the same team. In S70, Edwin THE Encarnacion and Mikko Lahtinen were selected with the respective first and second overall picks by the Calgary Wranglers. This time around, SS Hornet and Robin Winter were both picked by the HC Davos Dynamo with those same picks.
 
Imagine this. You’ve begun a brand new VHL franchise, and you have no other players yet. You have the choice to build around one duo; there is Lahtinen and Encarnacion, or Hornet and Winter. But what’s interesting about this hypothetical is that time has been rewinded for all of them, restoring their TPE and age to the moment they were drafted. Now that we’ve removed as many biases as we can, let’s take a look at what’s on the table here.
 

Shoutout to @Tagger and @enigmatic for the graphics I used to make this.
 
Edwin THE Encarnacion // D // 371 TPE
 
Mikko Lahtinen // C // 350 TPE
 
 

Another shoutout to @zepheter for the one on the left. Couldn’t find one for Hornet, unfortunately.
 
SS Hornet // C // 379 TPE
 
Robin Winter // LW // 325 TPE
 
 
Previous Players
While this isn’t an accurate indicator of what this player will be, it is never a bad idea to have a background check on the user. Let’s look at how much TPE they earned with their last player.
 
Tagger - Edwin Preencarnacion: 1064 TPE
 
Beketov - Matt Thompson: 1571 TPE HOF
 
McWolf - Joseph McWolf: 1434 TPE
 
Sonnet - Alexander Pepper: 1390 TPE
 
It’s worth noting that TPE inflation could have been different at their peaks, but I can’t say I have any knowledge on that.
 
 
 
Draft Season
Edwin THE Encarnacion had a fantastic draft season, in which he put up 122 points (3rd amongst defensemen) in the regular season, and added a league-leading 24 postseason points. His efforts were key for a nearly unbeatable Saskatoon team, en route to a Founder’s Cup victory.
 
Mikko Lahtinen was traded early in the season, and headed to that same Saskatoon team. He posted 44 goals and 93 points on the season, with 83 coming from his time with the Wild. Lahtinen’s faceoff percentage was second in the league amongst the players with more than 25 faceoffs taken, which was impressive for such a young center. His 18 points also helped the team reach their S69 championship.
 
SS Hornet and Robin Winter unfortunately didn’t play on a Founder’s Cup winning team. Hornet made it to the second round with the Aces, tallying 4 goals and 17 points in 12 games. This came after a season of an identical 41 goals and assists, totaling 82 points.
 
Robin Winter had a remarkable draft season, with 57 goals and 120 points to show for it. Minnesota would go on to have a first round exit, but to no fault of Winter, who posted a point-per-game on the series.
 
 
 
TPE Earning
Now, we move on to the most important category, TPE earning. First, we’ll look at capped TPE. Obviously, as these guys are all top 2 picks, they’re bound to miss out on very little of it. The only one to not earn the maximum amount of capped TPE available to them was Mikko Lahtinen, who only missed out on 2. 
 
With that out of the way, it’s time to look at the uncapped side of things. This really puts into perspective the differing opportunities they had to earn TPE. First off, the time frame here isn’t the same. The S70 duo had 14 full weeks to earn TPE before their draft, while the S72 duo was finishing up their 13th week when they were drafted. Now that it’s been more than a week since the draft, we can see what they would have earned in that 14th week. 20 TPE must be subtracted since they wouldn’t have the training camp or VHLM graduation bonus, but that still adds a respective 19 and 30 TPE to Hornet and Winter. With this, their total TPE becomes 404 and 358, better than Encarnacion and Lahtinen.
 
Another opportunity the S70 players had was the VHL’s 12 days of Christmas giveaway. This totaled up to 15 uncapped TPE, which is a significant advantage over the S72 duo. Back then, donations could include an extra 5-6 TPE (though it should be mentioned that this was not used by Lahtinen), and they had two trivia payouts as well. With how the S72 guys still put up close to the same TPE totals as the S70 two, I would definitely give them the edge in TPE earning, given the lesser opportunities they had.
 
 
Other Factors
I’m not here to say one of these pairs of great players are better than the other. I leaned heavily towards the S72 guys in the last section, and I’m going to do the opposite here. I’m just trying to lay out all the information for you to make the most accurate vote. So here is the biggest factor I haven’t covered yet: position. Hornet and Winter are both forwards, being a center and a left winger to be exact. Encarnacion and Lahtinen cover two bases that are essential to a successful team; Lahtinen is a future #1 center, and Encarnacion is a future #1 defenseman. If you were in the hypothetical situation where you were building a team from scratch, that’s something that could greatly benefit your team. 
 
Jobs could also be a factor down the line. The most significant case here is Lahtinen, whose jobs are being a commish and simmer guarantee him 10 capped TPE each week. It likely isn’t a huge advantage, given that the others are almost always going to be capping out anyways, but it gives him a much lower chance to dip in TPE production long term.
 
 
Thank you for reading this, it has been fun to cover. I ask that you be as unbiased as possible in your vote, and I hope I was unbiased enough in my explanation. 

Good article, but just on this point, Ace hadn’t really been around for the five years prior to this draft. He did make an account five years ago but that was just to make one post about the SHL/VHL, his second post was 5 years later making Eller. 
 
Pretty similar to Peace actually who made an account in like 2013 but didn’t make a player or a post till Rylan Peace in 2018

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.

You should talk to Rauno Palo, the man who science hates!

Last year, I asked the doctors if I could go over 99 and they said no.

If you haven't been paying attention the very talented @Quik has started a side VHLGM League in order to get some more test sims with ample sample sizes and have a little fun in the process. There were quite a lot of sign ups and on top of being assigned a pool of attributes to give to players we also got to name our entire roster. So I figured what better way to have some fun with this than dig up some names of the past? I decided to grab from a pool of Pajodcast members previous players who for the most part our legends. I also added in a few of the side members that occasionally guested or were thrown into the mix of players. I have to say huge sorry to @.sniffuM whom I missed, but ultimately I decided the only rep you could of had was Reik and I wanted to give the rest of the league a fair fighting chance.  
 
Anyway the roster I wound up going with is as follows;
 
Center - Wesley Kellinger - @Jericho's second player, a solid player in his own right who has now seen some support to be added to a HoF ballot as he's always been on the line.
 
Center - Rauno Pajari - My own first scrub of a player who somehow is more notable than the majority of my skaters due to sticking it out and having at least one good season. It turns out "one good season" is about as good as it gets for Dev skaters.
 
Left Wing - Ryan Sullivan Jr. - @Advantage's most recent Ryan Sullivan position switched to a winger. I decided to go with him for the synergy, given I had to choose his other player as well. He's not really HoF worthy but he did have a pretty solid career post the forward switch. Underrated power forward type. 
 
Left Wing - Nikolai Lebedev - @Noah's long lost player who retired the same season as Pajari in S31. Noah used to guest on the Pajodcast and even had his own successful podcast series called the 3-way alongside Damien(Muffins whom I mentioned above) and one other who I am forgetting. Greg? Anyway, Pajari's best season was with Lebedev by his side and I figured given the tier of the second line players this was going to be a solid fit.
 
Right Wing - Odin Tordahl - @BOOM™'s most legendary player probably? If you don't know Boom well know that he was a huge part of the Pajodcast legacy. One of our longest running listeners, he went on to make some of the most noteworthy players in the league. I could not not include Tordahl in this, as he compliments Kellinger perfectly well for a top line Dynamic Duo. 
 
Right Wing - Verner Reinholdt - Probably my best skater? Probably? Verner was meant to set the world on fire as I built him far more correctly to the meta across the board but he was only good for most of his career and never great. It's a big step up in the realm of the Devise player but still not even remotely close to HoF. Still, he is a fitting inclusion.
 
Defense - Ryan Sullivan - ADV's most legendary player and the father of Jr of whom most are familiar with now. Sullivan is one of the top D's of all time, a sure fire HoF and is easily ADV's most notable built player. Not only was it fitting to include him, its long past time we had the iconic defensive pairing of Sullivan and....
 
Defense - Daniel Braxton - Jericho's most iconic player as well. You may of heard this name brought up in a great article by Victor recently in regards to HoF's who haven't won a Cup, that was the meme at the time. Regardless though Braxton had 5 finals appearances, and up until Conner Low came in and set the world on fire had a strong argument for the greatest defender in the league. No Pajdocast team would be complete without the trio of Braxton, Sullivan and Pajari. 
 
Defense - Lars Intranquilo - @diamond_ace While probably not Jasons "best" player, for me this is the player that I have always linked to Jason/Ace. A defensive first D who bucked the trend of awards and stats long before we ever had a best defensive defender award. In terms of Pajodcast connection, Jason was actually there to see the birth of the Pajodcast. Joining Chris, Kyle and I for poker sessions, cards against humanity or other side fun well before the podcast even formed. After it did, he became a rotation chair style of guest who was on semi-regularly. 
 
Defense - Edwin Encarnacion - @Tagger - Oh Edwin. Long before Tagger used a randomizer or actually built a few legit players, he was known as the handler of Edwin. The best footballer to ever hockey a field goal kick passed the keeper Edwin was one of the most interesting meme players to ever play. A fighter and a goon, who also was a solid checker and defensive player Edwin wound up amassing some of the highest PIM totals in league history. His Pajodcast connection goes past the league as he eventually became a regular guest on several of our Youtube features and pretty much carried us through the majority of our Overwatch play. 
 
Goalie - Skylar Rift - Rift Sr, my second ever player has to be included despite retiring early as he is no doubt the best player I have ever built across the board. Had I finished his career he'd probably be HoF and it'll likely be the closest I ever get to it, but alas he will rise to captain the Pajodcast team of geezers from memory lane. 

1. Calgary has two new rookies that  will join you this season. Latrell Mitchell @dasboot (D) drafted 3rd overall and General Zod @Matt_O (D) drafted 6th overall. How will you welcome them to the team ? 
 
I will stare at them for 17 minutes straight,
 
2. Jacques Lafontaine just got his contract extended 5 more seasons past S72. What do you think about this potential franchise goalie signing ?
 
He’s a good player and it’s a great sign for the Wranglers
 
3. The Calgary Wranglers went 42-28-2 in S71. What Record do you predict to have in S72 ?
 
Not sure, it’s difficult to tell given I don’t know what the team is going to look like (I presume we’re resigning the two Bushito players, but that also puts us over cap).
 
4.  In S71 Calgary finished with the 2nd most "goals for" with 211. Calgary also allowed 201 goals against, which was 3rd most. If you had to predict a total GF and GA for S72, what would they be ? 
 
With us having younger depth d, I wouldn’t be surprised at a higher GA, but I think we can get more GF as well
 
5. In this upcoming season, would you consider anything less than making the cup finals a success ? 
 
Like the question two before, not really sure what the team is going to look like, but I think Conference Final would still be considered solid.
 
6. With new faces from the trade deadline and now the draft, let's get to know the members. This is good for members who have been around awhile  too. 
What country do you live in ?
 
Ps4, xbox, PC or not a gamer ?
 
How old are you ? 
 
Favourite food ? 
 
Are you trying to hack into my account?

What would be your ideal player stats for the upcoming season ? 
 
if I got 1500 points, that would save me a lot of hassle when it comes to HOF consideration
 
2.  Who do you think should win the "Slobodzian Trophy " (most outstanding player) and why ?
 
Brick Wahl because he was Very good at hockey
 
3. I don't like this question but if it's not Calgary hoisting the cup in S72, who has the next best chance ? 
 
I don’t like that question either!
 
4. The Wranglers are having a secret off season party. Who is the best candidate to host it ? 
 
Ill do it, I’ll post all the invites on social media
 
5. No VHL player scored more than 40 goals in S71. Will someone do it in S72 ?
 
Unless less than 1 percent of my 1500 points will be goals, it’s gotta be this guy right here
 
6.  Which VHL player has the best chance of hitting 100pts this season ? 
 
Same again, I’m getting 1500 so you can count on me
 
7. Had the NHL not been postponed, who wouldve won the Stanley Cup ? 
 
I would take a guess at The Hartford Whalers

Note: By this site, I mean the current domain we're on, which we moved to in S35 but the first draft was S36. Thanks to Victor for the spreadsheet to make this easy
 
Season 36
Dujuan Cook - 9th Overall (BagelBites)
 
Not a draft for first gens, exemplified by the fact Cook's last post was posting his achievement tracker prior to the VHL Draft. If he made the VHL, he didn't do so by right of passage, earning just 62 TPE.
 
Season 37
Jakub Linholm - 2nd Overall (RandomHero)
 
A considerably more hyped first-gen especially coming off a second overall selection (although this was only because New York held three picks in a row and figured they'd pick the first gen first), his consistent TPE earning stopped about a month or two after the draft (he did come back for a bit a few months later, but only put up 10 posts before leaving for good). Despite the low TPE total, he did win a cup, and had a very strong 82 point season in Season 41.
 
Season 38
Don Draper - 3rd Overall (Will)
 
I think Will's first effort at a player shares a lot of comparisons with S63 first overall first-gen Ryan Kastelic. Two players who earned an absurd amount of TPE (Draper's 1000+ TPE was during an era where the record was only 1400 and Draper retired two seasons early) and wound up in GM roles during their first player's stint in the VHL but their players never really performed to the ability that their TPE would have suggested. The most important first-gen created in this site's tenure. (However, if this doesn't post because of the site maintanence, I take it all back and Dujuan Cook was way better).

The VHL made a number of job changes recently so I'll give my thoughts on the ones I found most interesting (for the most part because I used to hold these roles):
 
The updater job has moved up to four TPE. In general, I am more than fine with a pay raise for an updater. During my time as an updater, there were weeks where the amount of words I was writing in PMs for denials/edits would have been more than enough to see me hit the TPE cap twice over through the usual PT means, so the pay has always seemed small for those who approach the work with the right attitude. But I think that's the key, this is fine for those who are claiming it and are doing the work that they are claiming to do.
 
One of the problems I had with the job were that there were a few instances where I felt updaters were not doing nearly enough to warrant the 3 TPE (and by that I mean ridiculously low update counts), yet still claiming it anyway. I remember one such instance where I had to tell an updater to start updating or have his claim denied because his combined pay for the month (which had been approved by other updaters) was sitting at exactly 3 TPE per claim processed, which is evidently not enough to warrant the pay as a singular claim can be done extremely quickly.
 
So I guess what I would like to see with the jobs where it makes sense to do so (so not jobs like Commissioner and Developer for example which focus on an overarching impact rather than a weekly basis) is people only being allowed to claim their job pay once they've done the job and there is evidence to prove they have done so rather than just being able to claim it whenever the week starts. This is something that we introduced for the VSN when it was clear there was rampant abuse of the claiming system (one such example saw a user claim 11 weeks of the pay with only one article produced during that period) and it's been incredibly effective in stopping this stuff and it is a pretty easy thing to monitor for most jobs (e.g. Fantasy Zone could be monitored with posts of new threads/awarding of TPE, same with Trivia, Recruitment Team can provide links to recruitment based threads like reddit posts, etc.).
 
Speaking of the Recruitment Team, their pay has seen the biggest hit of them all, going down to 6 TPE. I think this is something I'm more behind now than I would have been before, but I think part of that has to do with the fact that I've not personally seen as much activity in these fields in comparison to when I was part of the same crew. Also, while recruitment should continue to be a focus even through this peak period in the VHL's lifespan, it's definitely not as desperately required as it was when we first started offering 12 TPE out specifically for recruitment work, so I can see why the pay would go down at this time.
 
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On another note, the VHL just posted up it's awards for the season and, predictably, Prague Phantoms Brick Wahl took home a boatload of individual awards. Deservedly so, the season that Wahl had was better than any other player and all of the awards that were received based on this individual season were merited. However, I personally don't believe that Wahl was the right candidate for the Dustin Funk trophy, the one which is awarded to the player who has shown the most improvement. While it cannot be denied this is Wahl's best season to date, it isn't like this is the first time that they've put up an exemplary season in regards to the other goalies in the league. In Season 66 for example, Wahl had the highest save percentage in the league and while no award was taken home that season, it still proved that he was already capable of being the best. 
 
Compare that with the climb of Erik Summers, a player who, while he took home the top rookie trophy last season, didn't make that much of an impact in the league as a whole, registering only the 33rd most points for a defenseman. Fast forward to this season and Summers has skyrocketed up the ranks to post the best defenseman points tally of the season and the joint-most assists in the league along with a very impressive +/- of 25. While it's readily apparent that Wahl had the best season, in my eyes, the player that has displayed the greatest improvement against what they had previously shown is Erik Summers.
 
My other gripe was that Keven Foreskin was even on the ballot for this award when there were much more deserving candidates. Foreskin did achieve a career best 65 points this season, but that's not really a considerable improvement over his 58 point season two seasons prior. Compare this to the Seattle duo of Scott Greene and Ambrose Stark, who broke their career best point totals by 18 and 21 respectively to take them from good starters to league best forwards. Funnily enough, Foreskin wasn't even the best candidate on his own team as winger Owen Nolan produced an 18 point improvement over his career best to catapult into eighth in points out of all skaters. 
 
Speaking personally though, this also marks the first VHL award that I've received a nomination and a subsequent vote for to round off what I feel has been a very strong sophomore season for Encarnacion. Heading into the season, I felt like this was the only award I stood any chance of winning, but I didn't feel like I was going to improve by as much as I did given my status as a second line defenseman. 
 
But finally, thanks to the VHL for providing me with content to write about given I've struggled immensely to come up with topics over the past few months.
 
1019 words
 
Using for two weeks (W/E 5/17 and 5/24 barring circumstances)

The VHL made a number of job changes recently so I'll give my thoughts on the ones I found most interesting (for the most part because I used to hold these roles):
 
The updater job has moved up to four TPE. In general, I am more than fine with a pay raise for an updater. During my time as an updater, there were weeks where the amount of words I was writing in PMs for denials/edits would have been more than enough to see me hit the TPE cap twice over through the usual PT means, so the pay has always seemed small for those who approach the work with the right attitude. But I think that's the key, this is fine for those who are claiming it and are doing the work that they are claiming to do.
 
One of the problems I had with the job were that there were a few instances where I felt updaters were not doing nearly enough to warrant the 3 TPE (and by that I mean ridiculously low update counts), yet still claiming it anyway. I remember one such instance where I had to tell an updater to start updating or have his claim denied because his combined pay for the month (which had been approved by other updaters) was sitting at exactly 3 TPE per claim processed, which is evidently not enough to warrant the pay as a singular claim can be done extremely quickly.
 
So I guess what I would like to see with the jobs where it makes sense to do so (so not jobs like Commissioner and Developer for example which focus on an overarching impact rather than a weekly basis) is people only being allowed to claim their job pay once they've done the job and there is evidence to prove they have done so rather than just being able to claim it whenever the week starts. This is something that we introduced for the VSN when it was clear there was rampant abuse of the claiming system (one such example saw a user claim 11 weeks of the pay with only one article produced during that period) and it's been incredibly effective in stopping this stuff and it is a pretty easy thing to monitor for most jobs (e.g. Fantasy Zone could be monitored with posts of new threads/awarding of TPE, same with Trivia, Recruitment Team can provide links to recruitment based threads like reddit posts, etc.).
 
Speaking of the Recruitment Team, their pay has seen the biggest hit of them all, going down to 6 TPE. I think this is something I'm more behind now than I would have been before, but I think part of that has to do with the fact that I've not personally seen as much activity in these fields in comparison to when I was part of the same crew. Also, while recruitment should continue to be a focus even through this peak period in the VHL's lifespan, it's definitely not as desperately required as it was when we first started offering 12 TPE out specifically for recruitment work, so I can see why the pay would go down at this time.
 
--------------------------------------------------------------------
 
On another note, the VHL just posted up it's awards for the season and, predictably, Prague Phantoms Brick Wahl took home a boatload of individual awards. Deservedly so, the season that Wahl had was better than any other player and all of the awards that were received based on this individual season were merited. However, I personally don't believe that Wahl was the right candidate for the Dustin Funk trophy, the one which is awarded to the player who has shown the most improvement. While it cannot be denied this is Wahl's best season to date, it isn't like this is the first time that they've put up an exemplary season in regards to the other goalies in the league. In Season 66 for example, Wahl had the highest save percentage in the league and while no award was taken home that season, it still proved that he was already capable of being the best. 
 
Compare that with the climb of Erik Summers, a player who, while he took home the top rookie trophy last season, didn't make that much of an impact in the league as a whole, registering only the 33rd most points for a defenseman. Fast forward to this season and Summers has skyrocketed up the ranks to post the best defenseman points tally of the season and the joint-most assists in the league along with a very impressive +/- of 25. While it's readily apparent that Wahl had the best season, in my eyes, the player that has displayed the greatest improvement against what they had previously shown is Erik Summers.
 
My other gripe was that Keven Foreskin was even on the ballot for this award when there were much more deserving candidates. Foreskin did achieve a career best 65 points this season, but that's not really a considerable improvement over his 58 point season two seasons prior. Compare this to the Seattle duo of Scott Greene and Ambrose Stark, who broke their career best point totals by 18 and 21 respectively to take them from good starters to league best forwards. Funnily enough, Foreskin wasn't even the best candidate on his own team as winger Owen Nolan produced an 18 point improvement over his career best to catapult into eighth in points out of all skaters. 
 
Speaking personally though, this also marks the first VHL award that I've received a nomination and a subsequent vote for to round off what I feel has been a very strong sophomore season for Encarnacion. Heading into the season, I felt like this was the only award I stood any chance of winning, but I didn't feel like I was going to improve by as much as I did given my status as a second line defenseman. 
 
But finally, thanks to the VHL for providing me with content to write about given I've struggled immensely to come up with topics over the past few months.
 
1019 words
 
Using for two weeks (W/E 5/17 and 5/24 barring circumstances)

Note: By this site, I mean the current domain we're on, which we moved to in S35 but the first draft was S36. Thanks to Victor for the spreadsheet to make this easy
 
Season 36
Dujuan Cook - 9th Overall (BagelBites)
 
Not a draft for first gens, exemplified by the fact Cook's last post was posting his achievement tracker prior to the VHL Draft. If he made the VHL, he didn't do so by right of passage, earning just 62 TPE.
 
Season 37
Jakub Linholm - 2nd Overall (RandomHero)
 
A considerably more hyped first-gen especially coming off a second overall selection (although this was only because New York held three picks in a row and figured they'd pick the first gen first), his consistent TPE earning stopped about a month or two after the draft (he did come back for a bit a few months later, but only put up 10 posts before leaving for good). Despite the low TPE total, he did win a cup, and had a very strong 82 point season in Season 41.
 
Season 38
Don Draper - 3rd Overall (Will)
 
I think Will's first effort at a player shares a lot of comparisons with S63 first overall first-gen Ryan Kastelic. Two players who earned an absurd amount of TPE (Draper's 1000+ TPE was during an era where the record was only 1400 and Draper retired two seasons early) and wound up in GM roles during their first player's stint in the VHL but their players never really performed to the ability that their TPE would have suggested. The most important first-gen created in this site's tenure. (However, if this doesn't post because of the site maintanence, I take it all back and Dujuan Cook was way better).

Peak Victatorship this