Zetterberg

Actually criminal

Player Information
Username: aimkin
Player Name: Ahsoka Tano
Recruited From: Returning
Age: 31
Position: D
Height: 75 in.
Weight: 165 lbs.
Birthplace: Greenland

Player Page
@VHLM GM

1. Sidney Crosby no doubt, just the best all around player in the game and would be an elite player to add to Moscow's forward core.
2. I imagine Leif Reingaard has decently style, could envision @Zetterberg and his creativity with graphics translating over to fashion.
3. Yotes bc they're gone already pretty much lol
 
1. Who's been your favorite GM during your time in the VHL/E/M? Why?
2. What do you think makes a LR fun in the VHL?
3. What's the best method you've seen that keeps a LR active?
 

I support this fully 🔥

This is actually something we have moved away from in a major way since retracting the E to 6 teams. Last season we had 0 inactive veteran players, this year we have two per team because the GMs voted 4-2 that they wanted them this year. I personally think we can be completely healthy with 0. 
 
The actual issue with any "delete the E talk" stems from the cap question you mention. We've been over this many times since even before the inauguration of the VHLE, but there basically has to be one of two outcomes here. 
 
Either: a)we keep cap at 400 as you suggest, but we don't think there's any appetite for brand new players to play against a good chunk of players at 300+ TPE, or b) we move the cap to 200 or 250 and the VHL supports the excess, but right now the excess is big enough to require either expansion or raising the cap, which comes with it's own issues as well. 
 
The long and short of it is as long as there is some form of recruitment effort, deleting the E would most likely require either expansion or forcing new players to play against too strong of opposition early on, neither of which have been at all appealing based on multiple discussions. 

Maybe don't take this seriously, or maybe do? But my rebranding topic of this theme week is the rebranding of the minor league system in the VHL: The VHLE and the VHLM. Both leagues have been around for over 10 seasons now. The VHLM being introduced first way back in the first seasons of VHL history. In fact the VHLM is older than the portal and therefore we do not have access to the indexes before S35. The VHLE on the other hand has been around for only a short period of time, entering the history of our league in S80. In my eyes the VHLE was created to hold the influx of players created during Covid, and it served its purpose at first. Many people have been on the fence of this third league since it's creation including myself. I enjoyed my time in the VHLE with my player due to personal success in a Cup and Playoff MVP. Many others who didn't experience this success may have seen their time in the VHLE as a short stint of playing amongst slower TPE earning players while developing towards the VHL. Now don't get me wrong, I am only one person and I can't live out all your player's experiences, but just from word around town I feel like the VHLE is not a hot topic.
 
With that being said, I will of course suggest deleting the VHLE and expanding the VHLM. I feel the VHLE served its purpose and now times have changed. The VHLM went through a struggle bus of players a few seasons ago only to have a banging come back season in S92 from our recruitment team's YouTube ad. Now these players are in or moving up to the VHLE, making the most of it with each other and the rest of their veteran TPE earning team mates. Want to see the stats? I do too, so I looked it up:
 
VHLE: S93/S94 - S90/S91/S92 - S89 and older
 
Cologne: 3-7-5
Vasteras: 5-9-2
Oslo: 5-6-2
Stockholm: 3-5-3
Rome: 5-6-1
Bratislava: 1-4-3
 
Total: 22-37-16
 
VHLM: Rosters (F - D - G)
 
Ottawa: 8-4-1
Halifax: 9-4-1
Las Vegas: 10-3-2
Saskatoon: 7-4-2
Houston: 7-4-1
Philadelphia: 4-3-1
Mexico City: 5-2-1
Mississauga: 6-3-1
Miami: 6-2-1
San Diego: 4-1-1
 
Total: 66-30-12
 
I chose these two stats to show how current VHLE player career lengths look and then also how the state of the current VHLM rosters look. As you can see from the VHLE numbers, per 6 teams, they average just shy of 4 S93/S94 players. This is great and these members are solid earners who are new to the league and will want to work hard for their ice time. Then you see how depth develops as per 6 teams, 6.1 players are in their 2nd to 4th season since creation, which is fair and the length of a normal minor league career. And then per 6 teams, 2.6 players have played 5 or more seasons since creation. I don't see how a league which can be considered to be competitive, but also a league beneath our major league, is averaging player career lengths this long with slow development. It is long in my eyes to have 2 or more players on your team in their 5th+ season while also players in their 2nd-4th seasons are still only earning welfare and practice. Some of these players are IA as well, what's the point of giving them ice time? The VHLM has an inactivity rule that states a player must be released if they have not submitted an update in the last 3 weeks. This is good and how we should treat all underdeveloped players. With this here is my expansion idea.
 
The VHLM with 10 teams averages 6 forwards, 3 defenders, and 1 goalie per team. This is bare minimum and I can tell you from personal experience GMing the Houston Bulls last season that being on a minor league team with a full roster is a lot more fun. I would keep the TPE Cap at 400 TPE and I would also allow players who only want to play 8 seasons in the VHL to bank after 400 TPE, even for the few that pass it before the cutoff date. This would result in the VHLE players coming back down to the VHLM and the first order of business would be to release/retire the IA players. I think it would be fair to extend the TPE IA rule to 4 weeks from 3 weeks. If you are not checking the forum/portal to submit an update at least once a month then you are not going to see success with your player. I would also like to keep the 4 seasons of play maximum rule, players should only be allowed 4 seasons in the minors before they either graduate to the VHL or become IA/retire. The point of the minor leagues is to push players to the VHL, this comes from having life on teams and pushing each other to explore and grow more for their player. Having maximum potential rosters with the VHLE players (including all players even IAs) joining would result in the current VHLM roster averages changing from 6.6-3-1.2 to 11.2-5.2-1.9:
 
VHLE: Rosters (F - D - G)
Cologne: 8-6-1
Vasteras: 10-4-2
Oslo: 8-4-1
Stockholm: 7-3-1
Rome: 8-3-1
Bratislava: 5-2-1
 
Total: 46-22-7
 
Total of Both Leagues: 112-52-19
 
These numbers averaged to our current 10 VHLM teams would result in each team having a roster with around 11 forwards, 5 defenders, and 2 goalies. This is almost full capacity, but also very amazing. To balance this out I would expand the VHLM by two teams to go back to our once before 12 team league. The average roster size of 12 teams with the number of total players of both leagues would be 9.3-4.3-1.5. These numbers again include IA players so the averages would decrease if my rules are implemented. Either way the rough data shows each team in a 12 team league with a 400 TPE cap would hold a roster of around 9 forwards, 4 defenders, and 1-2 goaltenders. Is this not what we want from our minor league system? As stated in the first sentence, take this as seriously as you want. Maybe the VHLE will get deleted one day, who knows? I know that another recruitment drive is soon on the horizon, so we will see how the VHLM and VHLE respond to that.

So hello everyone, I like to keep my topics here usually VHL related but I need to break character for a moment to announce something that’s happened very recently to me.
 
All small handful of members knew what I’ve been going through the past 2 weeks. That is, I’ve been running for my American university’s student government vice president position (as a freshman). The pain staking 2 weeks of campaigning, repeating each presentation time after time to different groups, $600 in expenses, and countless nights of rough sleep…paid off. 
 
I’m beyond thrilled to announce that I will be my university’s next student government vice president. There were about 900 votes cast, and my ticket won by 8 votes. Now these results are unofficial but I as of now do not suspect that the outcome will change .
 
i don’t know how it will impact my involvement here, I still hold the VHL very close a dear to my heart as it’s been a crutch the past 3.5 years for me. Thank you everyone for just reading this little rant but I’m beyond ecstatic right now.

I'm suing for emotional damages. We WILL get a lawsuit out of this

@Members
 
Normally this would just go to the ban thread but given the circumstances I think it's best that everyone know what's going on.
 
It has unfortunately come to the attention of myself and @Acydburn that @Josh has been embezzling league funds for his own purposes. Via his access to the league PayPal he was stripping donation funds as payments for portal, forum, and domain hosting with amounts far higher than were actually needed. Because the line items were things he was paying for we had no reason, for a number of years, to think anything of it and were unaware that the costs were actually far less than what he was reimbursing himself which amounts to potentially thousands of dollars; we're still working out the total figures.
 
Obviously we are completely shocked at this behaviour and have immediately stripped Josh of his role as commissioner pending potential future legal action. We have always held firm that the league funds are used exclusively on league related activities so I am quite frankly pissed that a member of the blue team would take donation money for their own uses; whatever his excuses may be. Please be aware that we will be launching a further investigation and audit of all our costs and funds to be sure that no one else has done anything of the sort in the past.
 
Sincerely,
@Commissioner
 
Edit: In case any future people see the is and don’t see the date; it was purely an April Fool’s joke, Josh was in on it (in fact it was his idea) and the donation money is not only safe but audited.

The one big thing I personally find hurts international tournaments is the low visibility especially on the portal. Winning a medal doesn't show up on your awards, theirs no easily accessible or obvious way to see past winners, in every other sim league I've seen theirs a team section on the portal, we don't even have official logos for any of the teams in either competition. If your not paying attention the tournament can happen and you'd have no idea. Why should I care about international tournaments when everything is hidden and the league barely acknowledges it even happens afterwards?

VHLM LOGO HISTORY


After digging around I've compiled a list of almost every logo that the VHLM has ever used. From what I can tell there are 2 logos missing. If you know what these may have looked like or have the logo file please let me know. I don't believe there were more however I could be wrong and if you have any information or logos letting me know would be appreciated. Anyways here is the logo history of every VHLM team 
 
(Important notes: around S32 logos moved from being stolen and recoloured to bought or community created)

Saskatoon Wild:
Originally the Fresno Bulls (logo missing) in S9 they moved to Buffalo and became the Jr. Bears who had the same identity as their VHL counterpart who had taken it from the Hersey Bears' old branding. after a short stint there they moved once again to Saskatoon and became the Wild we know today. originally they used a Wenatchee Wild concept posted on Icethetics before switching to the current logo

     -

Ottawa Lynx:
Originally the Ottawa Ice Dogs, Ottawa borrowed the branding of the Mississauga Ice Dogs from the OHL until S33 when they switched to the lynx and introduced a cougar as a logo for some reason, this was later changed to better represent the team's identity with the introduction of a logo that actually looks like a lynx.
--

Las Vegas Aces:
The Aces have the most rebrands as far as I can tell. Originally starting as the Toledo Scorpions (taken from the new mexico scorpions) the team rebranded into the Bern Royals adopting a lion with a crown with purple and gold colours. This was later changed (probably around S32) into a king and was used until they rebranded yet again into the team we know today the Las Vegas Aces. Originally sporting an Oakland A's inspired crest. There are two known versions of this crest the time frames in which they were used are up in the air as of right now however later they dropped the style in favour of the current logo.

      
Minnesota Storm:
Originally the Gothenburg Eagles, The team started out with an eagle holding a broken hockey stick a pretty common trope around hockey bird logos this was later changed into a much more simplified logo. In S19 the team rebranded into the Oslo Screaming Seamen which branded it's self with an edited version of the New York Islanders Fishsticks jersey. This predictably only lasted 4 seasons before switching to the Oslo Storm. This introduced the Zeus logo (taken from a rugby league team in Australia the Melbourne Storm ) which was later changed (probably around S32) to the logo used by the current Oslo Storm. They moved to Minnesota however a rebrand did not accompany the move.
   
Turku Outlaws:
The Outlaws started out as the Jonkoping Warriors for the first 11 seasons. They would later rebrand into the Kolari Wolves (Finding the Wolves logo was a little crazy I found an old vhlm magazine that had it. Reverse image searched and it only came up on a weird Russian website) They then would shortly after become the Kolari Panthers. This identity would last for 17 seasons before finally becoming the Turku Outlaws. The team would later fold in S42 becoming one of the first-ever teams to fold in VHLM history. (Notice: The Turku Outlaws logo is not the one they actually used as full versions haven't been found. however, using fragments found from the forum we know the colours, face, and hat are all that were used in the original. Basically, this would look like a knock-off of the original)

  
 
Minot Gladiators:
The Gladiators originally stole their design from the ECHL's Atlanta Gladiators replacing the Atlanta in the logo with Minot. It was used up until a rebrand in S26 had them become the Syracuse Wolfpack (logo missing) (given the context of it being pre S30 it's probably stolen and probably the Hartford Wolfpacks logo) before going back to the Minot Gladiators introducing a new logo which was the base for the current Rome Gladiators. The team folded in S42 along with the outlaws.

 
Moscow Red Wolves / Vasteras IK J20:
Vasteras IK J20 originally used the same logo as its VHL parent taken from the actual Vasteras IK in the SHL. This lasted for the majority of their run before the team rebranded to again match their VHL parent int he Madrid Thunder however they kept their name. This would happen again when the VHL team would move back to Vasteras and got the name the Iron Eagles. During this time they were affectionately dubbed the Baby Eagles In S37 They moved to Moscow and become the Moscow Red Wolves. This became the base that was later adapted into the Istanbul Red Wolves' current logo. The team was later folded in S51

 
Brampton Blades:
Folded in S53 The Brampton blades sported 3 looks the first as the Brampton Battalion stealing the North Bay Battalions branding. They would later rebrand into the Blades again stealing and recolouring the saskatoon blades' old identity. Then around S32 they changed their logo into an original design seemingly inspired by the Winnipeg Jets.
 
 
 
Yukon Rush:
The Yukon Rush (rest in peace 😭) Actually had two logos in their lifetime the first was a direct copy of the Rapid City Rush of the ECHL then the beautiful Gold and Blue R you know of today used currently by the Geneva Rush. The Rapid City logo was most likely only used for 3 or 4 seasons before being replaced.

      

Bratislava Watchmen:
Created in S31 the Watchmen used two different logos during their 22 seasons starting with a light blue and black man squinting before turning into the current one being used by its VHLE team. The team was folded in S53 and was brought back later for the VHLE

 
 
Mexico City Kings:
Founded in S66, the Kings have dawned 2 logos the first being rebranded to avoid promoting offensive imagery.

 
 
Halifax 21st:
Halifax have used two primary logos and one alternate
 
 
The Rest:
These are all the current teams who have never rebranded and are still active:
   
 
Again if you have any more information that can help paint a more accurate picture please DM me 

VHL LOGO HISTORY

World Juniors Review!!!! Hell yeah!
 

Vasteras - the Blessing and the Curse
 

 
Some cities are steeped in history and you can feel it in the ancient buildings, the cobbled streets, and evidence of lives enjoyed and endured centuries ago. Sometimes trying to make your own history can be daunting in a place whose past is so much larger than you. However, it's those who look to seize such an opportunity are the ones that tend to thrive.
 
Vasteras is a city which has that level of history in a purely Swedish context – one of the country's oldest inhabited places. But its place in VHL lore is arguably even more mythical. Founded by Lucas Tannahill in S1, the Vasteras IK were one of the oddest locations for one of the four European franchises and this only became more pronounced as other teams moved to more recognisable cities. Combined with the unoriginal logo, an identical VHLM team (Vasteras IK J20) which meant this city of some 120,000 took up 12.5% of the two leagues' locations, and a genuine and deeply-rooted hatred for the franchise started to become part of the VHL's fabric. It didn't help that Vasteras' S1 underdog Continental Cup win remained the franchise's only and despite best intentions seemed genuinely cursed, particularly after choosing to trade away Scotty Campbell in S4.
 
Cue the ill-judged move to Madrid, the move back, the curse-breaking second championships for both the Iron Eagles and J20 in S26 and S27, and then even longer cup droughts and moves to Moscow (in the VHLM) and Stockholm (in the VHL). You've probably heard at least some of the stories. By the Vikings' contraction in S57 all Vasteras-based franchises and their successors were removed, permanently it seemed.
 
Enter the VHLE. And of course, a good storyline always finds a way. Naturally, Vasteras won the inaugural Renaissance Cup, it wouldn't have made sense for anyone else too. Of course they weren't favourites for it. Obviously they've not won another championship since despite being overwhelming favourites at least once and being the best regular season on three separate occasions. You couldn't a Vasteras rebirth that is more Vasteras than what they've actually done. It's part of the magic that meant the franchise always had some support to not be killed and then to be brought back.
 
That is the historic franchise that Gianfranco Del Rocco has joined in S93. Losing in Vasteras isn't uncommon but isn't permanent, but valiantly snatching defeat from the jaws of victory certainly seems to be. The Iron Eagles are considered favourites by some to end their 12-season cup drought in S93 (in truth, barely even a cup drought by Vasteras' standards) and certainly have the players for it. Del Rocco has yet to win much with two first-round exits in both Miami and San Diego and to be honest a lacklustre time in the VHLM in general, not even hitting the point-per-game mark and being overshadowed by multiple teammates. Based on the potential, the skillset, and the alleged pedigree, he still went early in both the VHL and VHLE drafts but there is something to prove. So far, Del Rocco leads Vasteras in scoring and seems to be settling in but the city is quite welcoming at first, when expectations are low. The real challenge comes when the pressure rises, when it feels like this might be the season. The problem is Vasteras has broken the curse just enough times to keep the belief alive, but rarely enough that the sense of dread creeps in before you've even lost the game. Is Del Rocco made of the sterner stuff that can survive that pressure cooker, especially come playoff time? He has a lot to prove to his doubters and equally an enormous weight of history and potentially career-making legacy to contend with.
 
Hello Europe indeed... try to make it out alive Gianfranco.
 

First of all, fuck Vasteras.
 
Second of all, love a 4-3 win from a 0-3 deficit. 

I think MOS is a few tiers too low, no?

The one big thing I personally find hurts international tournaments is the low visibility especially on the portal. Winning a medal doesn't show up on your awards, theirs no easily accessible or obvious way to see past winners, in every other sim league I've seen theirs a team section on the portal, we don't even have official logos for any of the teams in either competition. If your not paying attention the tournament can happen and you'd have no idea. Why should I care about international tournaments when everything is hidden and the league barely acknowledges it even happens afterwards?

The simming team for S93 is:
 
VHL: @Josh
VHLE: @MexicanCow123
VHLM: @N0HBDY
Backup: @Beketov
 
@VHL GM @VHLE GM @VHLM GM

Spreadsheet showing every WJC teams placement/medal history 
link

Stefan Nikolaev has accepted Vasteras's offer.

All-VHL Rookie Team
Grimgor Ironhide @FrostBeard - Carson Walker Jr @Cwalker - Joshua Schwarzer @Velevra
Leif Reingaard @Zetterberg - CGY Janser @Daniel Janser
WWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW WWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW @rory

For the second time in 2 seasosns we saw a rookie forward score over a point per game, they were Grimgor Ironside @FrostBeard (37 G, 45 A, 82P), they were followed by defensemen Leif Reingaard @Zetterberg (13 G, 49 A, 62 P). Lastly, in goal WWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW WWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW @rory had a great season for New York, finishing with a 0.932 SV%.