Da_Berr

What a season it has been for Su. After missing out on the Stats trophy last season by one point to Merrick, Su was gunning for an award. Luckily enough, he was able to not only snag the Stats Trophy that he didn't get last season but he also was able to grab the Campbell this season as well. For the stats trophy, he was neck and neck with both Mikko Lahtinen and Ola Vikingstad for the majority of the season. In the last few games, both Su and Lahtinen were able to pull away from Vikingstad and were constantly switching positions for the lead. During the final 10 game stretch, the largest gap between the two players was no more than 3 points at any time. Fortunately enough for Su, he was able to keep up with Lahtinen and was able to tie him in points with 121. At the end of the season, Su was able to share the trophy with Lahtinen by scoring 47 apples and 74 assists. This performance was also good enough to get Su the Scotty Campbell trophy with an 8 to 2 vote. The other candidate was Lahtinen, but Su was able to come away with the award, due to having less help on his team. Lahtinen had 2 other players, Kris Rice with 105 and Roque Davis with 103, on his team that were in the top 10 points. VAN's second-best scorer on the other hand was Venus Thightrap with 86 points. Despite the difference in supporting casts, some still felt as if Lahtinen deserved the award for his physical play that far outshone Su. Lahtinen had 329 HITS, compared to Su only having 84 HITS. For this reason, Su was outmatched in the Slobo race for most outstanding. Lahtinen had up to 45% of the vote, while Su only had 24%. Su didn't have much of a chance as he was both outhit and outscored by Lahtinen. Su was also able to make the 1st-team all-VHL for the second time in his career to no-ones surprise. 
 
Despite the regular-season success in both points and awards, Su struggled in the playoffs with only 7 points in 9 games. Despite the struggles, VAN was still able to make it to the second round, and free-agent pickup SS-Hornet was able to prove his worth. Unfortunately, VAN was unable to make it past the second round. Su was also able to make it on to the WC Canada team this time around, which makes it the second time he's been on this team, the first time being in S74. Su played decent in the round-robin with 8 points in 10 games. He played even better in the actual tournament with 6 points in 3 games. Unfortunately, Canada wasn't able to win the gold and lost in OT. 
 
Hopefully, Su will continue to play as he has and maybe win some more wards in the future. Perhaps one day he'll be able to make the HOF.

I'm going to steal the great @Kendrick's .Com article format here because this feels like the appropriate thing to talk about for my article this week.
 
For those of you that are unaware, @Beaviss long time member and now former Commissioner stepped down from the majority of his league duties this last week. Beavs will still be heading up as Vancouver GM for now, a role he's had great success in. Looking at his decision to step down, it's important to remember that burn out can be a big thing in leagues like this, especially as your time in the league grows along with your league responsibilities. A majority of the league jobs of all shapes and sizes come with their own form of stresses and burden, and as you maintain those roles for extended periods of time it's very easy for those feelings to mount. So before I give Beav his due proper, I just want to give a thank you to all the staff and members who help keep this place running. You all put in a lot of work, and we do not thank you all enough for it, seriously.  
 
Beaviss is such an odd member story for me, because my memories of him feel like they are rooted in seasons before he actually came into the league. While he frequently got associated with the vaunted "Old, Boys, Club" much to his chagrin, Beav was actually one of the more newer faces in the league. For some reason I always like to think he joined the league in the 30's, because I have so many memories from that era, but part of it is just how quickly he rose to be a staple member in the league that his presence instantly felt like it was that familiar. In truth, Beaviss joined the league and declared for the S57 draft all the way back in July of 2017. Keaton Louth was a defender for much of his career before switching to Right Wing. He wasn't that bad of a first player all things considered, and won a Cup and a Kanou for Beavs the first time out. Did you know that Beavs found the league because of another hockey sim game called Metroho?
 
That was only nearly 4 years ago now, which is wild to consider given how much of an impact Beavs has made on the league in his time here. It's more wild because I feel like Beav may be one of the only members associated or affiliated with the click of "older members" who run the league who actually didn't spend any time in the older forums, before this one. That is generally always the good margin to determine how long someone has been in the league, or it was before this host and site has become our staple for a while now. 
 
While he will be remembered as a consistent GM who brought stability and built a good legacy to his franchise, there is no denying Beavs ultimate league contribution was recruitment. His overall commitment to other league jobs as well as his abilities as a recruitment specialist are what made him such an attractive Commish option in the first place. The majority of the commishes will all admit that recruitment has never been our area of expertise. Beav being able to take the lead on that front, and do it so damn well allowed the rest of the league to focus on retention, and it ultimately lead to the great one two punch of great recruitment drives spearheaded by motivated/loyal members mixed with the development of the Portal. While we may meme about the number of expansions, and how Beav always seemed to want to expand I am so happy we were able to expand as well as we have these past few seasons. None of that would of been possible without his amazing commitment to recruiting and structuring a way to properly bring those players into the league. The work that he and recruitment crew did not just with getting people here, but in assisting with the on boarding and education process is legitimately why the league is as big as it is today. Thank you for all that you've done Beav, the league is better for it!
 

After putting together a bunch of the WJC logos, I figured I'd try my hand at some others! I feel that the Yukon Rush logo currently could use a little update, so here's my take on it!

PLAYOFF PREDICTIONS
With the first two rounds of the playoffs over, it's time for some predictions. \
 
NA VAN vs CHI
These two teams are extremely comparable, although I do believe that VAN has an overall team by a slight margin. Firstly, the forwards. CHI's best forward on paper is Robin Winter, a trade deadline acquisition from the struggling DAV. Since getting to CHI, he has been slightly over the PPG mark and has been a pretty good player for them. VAN's best player purely based on TPA is SS Hornet, Winter's teammate from DAV. Hornet has a similar story to Winter with comparable points and hits since coming to VAN. Of these two, I'd say Hornet is the better player, especially since he's on fire during these playoffs. Behind the top forwards for each team, we have Andrew Su and Christian Mingle. Su has come off of a killer season where he tied 1st for points with 121 but has struggled so far in the playoffs. Mingle also had a huge season for CHI, with 93 points and over 300 hits in the regular season. Like Su, he has also struggled in the playoffs so far. This matchup can go either way, as Su is better as a pure scorer, whereas Mingle can have a large impact even without scoring. It mainly depends on who can get their groove first. After that, I believe VAN has the definite advantage for depth for forwards.
 
For defence, I believe VAN has a better top 2 pairing, but CHI is better in-depth. VAN has both Micah Adrienne and Griff Manzer, two proven defencemen with 77 and 67 points each respectively. They are also decently physical defencemen, both racking up over 150 HITS and 130 SB. CHI on their blue line has Matty Socks and L. Matty Socks this season was on fire with 92 points and 150 HITS and SB. L has had a quiet but solid sophomore campaign with 55 points and over 200 HITS. Unfortunately, L has currently struggled in the playoffs and has yet to notch a point. So far Socks, Manzer and Adriennes' playoff performances have been solid and very similar to one another all having 5 points. CHI also has R and Lucas Brandt who have been consistent depth pieces for them, and I believe slightly outclass the younger Gabriel Akerstrom and Robin Galante Nilsson on VAN. 
 
Finally, for what some may consider the most important position in hockey, the goalie. I'd say both team's goalies are comparable. CHI has Jean Pierre Camus, who has had a stellar season so far. In the regular season, he was able to reach the 40 wins mark with an impressive 0.922 SV%. He has also been red hot in the playoffs so far, with only 1 regulation loss and a 0.932 SV%. For VAN, we have Jimmy Spyro who is on his retirement tour. Despite having a less than stellar performance in the regular season with a 0.910 SV%, Spyro has turned up the heat in the playoffs, boasting a stellar 0.939 SV%.
 
Overall I'd say VAN wins this in 7 games, although there are many factors on each team that could affect the outcome. Will both goalies stay red hot? Will the underperformers on each team finally find their groove? 

PLAYOFF PREDICTIONS
With the first two rounds of the playoffs over, it's time for some predictions. \
 
NA VAN vs CHI
These two teams are extremely comparable, although I do believe that VAN has an overall team by a slight margin. Firstly, the forwards. CHI's best forward on paper is Robin Winter, a trade deadline acquisition from the struggling DAV. Since getting to CHI, he has been slightly over the PPG mark and has been a pretty good player for them. VAN's best player purely based on TPA is SS Hornet, Winter's teammate from DAV. Hornet has a similar story to Winter with comparable points and hits since coming to VAN. Of these two, I'd say Hornet is the better player, especially since he's on fire during these playoffs. Behind the top forwards for each team, we have Andrew Su and Christian Mingle. Su has come off of a killer season where he tied 1st for points with 121 but has struggled so far in the playoffs. Mingle also had a huge season for CHI, with 93 points and over 300 hits in the regular season. Like Su, he has also struggled in the playoffs so far. This matchup can go either way, as Su is better as a pure scorer, whereas Mingle can have a large impact even without scoring. It mainly depends on who can get their groove first. After that, I believe VAN has the definite advantage for depth for forwards.
 
For defence, I believe VAN has a better top 2 pairing, but CHI is better in-depth. VAN has both Micah Adrienne and Griff Manzer, two proven defencemen with 77 and 67 points each respectively. They are also decently physical defencemen, both racking up over 150 HITS and 130 SB. CHI on their blue line has Matty Socks and L. Matty Socks this season was on fire with 92 points and 150 HITS and SB. L has had a quiet but solid sophomore campaign with 55 points and over 200 HITS. Unfortunately, L has currently struggled in the playoffs and has yet to notch a point. So far Socks, Manzer and Adriennes' playoff performances have been solid and very similar to one another all having 5 points. CHI also has R and Lucas Brandt who have been consistent depth pieces for them, and I believe slightly outclass the younger Gabriel Akerstrom and Robin Galante Nilsson on VAN. 
 
Finally, for what some may consider the most important position in hockey, the goalie. I'd say both team's goalies are comparable. CHI has Jean Pierre Camus, who has had a stellar season so far. In the regular season, he was able to reach the 40 wins mark with an impressive 0.922 SV%. He has also been red hot in the playoffs so far, with only 1 regulation loss and a 0.932 SV%. For VAN, we have Jimmy Spyro who is on his retirement tour. Despite having a less than stellar performance in the regular season with a 0.910 SV%, Spyro has turned up the heat in the playoffs, boasting a stellar 0.939 SV%.
 
Overall I'd say VAN wins this in 7 games, although there are many factors on each team that could affect the outcome. Will both goalies stay red hot? Will the underperformers on each team finally find their groove? 

How did your player do this season? Are you happy with their performance? Yeah considering I tied for 1st in the league for points, I'm pretty excited. What is one job on the forum that you want to take on? Why? No jobs really interest me right now. I'm a bit too busy with school. What is your goal for the offseason? What attributes are you looking to improve on? Just maintain the build I have right now and not regress. We have a couple players retiring this offseason, Griff Manzer and Jimmy Spyro, both of which have played for Vancouver for their entire Career. Say something nice about them. Both are part of the heart and soul of the team. It'll be tough in the future without them. Are you watching WandaVision? If you are, what are your thoughts on the show so far? No Spoilers please. Nope, one of my friends is though, and he thinks its one of the best shows ever made. What is your favorite part of the VHL? Why? The sims, and seeing your player do well. It's just nice to see that your player is contributing to the team.

To Eli and how you changed the VHL discord in 3 days. Hope you're in a better place now man. 

Board of Governors Update 
February 22nd, 2021
__________________________________________________________________
 
It has ultimately been a couple months since I updated the league on the happenings inside the Board of Governors.  Now that the Top 75 project has been completed, I will be going back to doing these on a more regular basis, as that project was taking the majority of my VHL time to complete.  We are actively in the playoffs of S75 and there has been a lot of chatter lately on ways we can improve the Victory Hockey League.  Obviously with Gorlab’s recent thread, there has been a lot of discussion on allegations he made and also the possibility of switching to live sims.  I will make it clear that I won’t really be talking about that thread but will say that we are currently discussing the feasibility of doing live sims in the future.  It isn’t a sure thing, but we are taking the feedback that so many members had, and are discussing it.  Otherwise, I will be giving you all an inside look on what has been happening over the last couple of months.  This will be a longer-than-usual update given how long it has been since I posted one, so bear with me as I have a lot to go through.
 
Team Performance Bonuses

One of the more interesting topics that has been discussed revolves around giving teams more incentives to do well.  For example, with this idea every team would receive 17M to start with bonus money being awarded if you make the Playoffs, win the Lotto Tournament, win the Victory Cup, make the Continental Cup Finals, win the Continental Cup and if you win the David Knight Trophy for each year that follows. This money can then be transitioned into buying different tiers of training camp (IE: 20M gets you 15 TPE per player while the 7M option only gets you 5 TPE).
 
This idea was made to put more intrigue into the GM position and also add a new layer into convincing players to come to your team, promoting team culture and also promoting a winning environment as well.  There would be more incentives for teams to want to win, and could help discourage tanking.  This would have zero cap implications as well, which was cleared up in the comments after, and would serve more for the training camp purposes than anything else.
 
The obvious concern that responders seemed to have was whether we really wanted the “rich to get richer.”  One could argue that this is not an example of a huge disparity between the rich and the poor of the league, and could help to convince some teams on the bubble to try and make moves to compete and put their team in a better position to succeed.  However, most responders seemed to feel it wasn’t really worth the extra effort and that perhaps looking into different options like a team theme week where the whole team works on a PT to celebrate the culture and history of the team.  While this really isn’t as relevant to the idea of the training camp alterations, it would serve to promote the team culture and environment that this idea was designed to do.
 
For now the idea seems to have been tabled with the league already running theme weeks, but perhaps it is something we could look at in the future to try and add other layers to the GM process, which I do think is something the league has an interest in doing.
 
Roster Room Potential Issues

About a month ago, one of our administrators brought forth a post regarding concerns over how loaded rosters are going to be, estimating the amount of prospects that will be coming up and also retirees.  This thread was designed to essentially go over different solutions to help solve these roster room issues that this poster was concerned about.  They proposed a few different possibilities like a mandatory third line for every team, the inability to double shift players (a lot of players play on the 1st and 3rd lines right now, for example) and also potentially bringing forth another expansion with two teams being the most likely scenario.
 
The responses actually leaned mostly expansion to start citing the number of potential GM’s looking for jobs plus how well our expansions have gone since Moscow came into the league. However, some poked holes in the statistics that were presented saying they were inaccurate and perhaps not looking at just the quality actives.  
 
Ultimately, this led to a pretty radical proposal which was to bring in a third league to be like an AHL/Affiliate League and leave the VHLM as a juniors system with age limits and TPE limits.  This would allow some players who are around 300-400 TPE who maybe can’t make a top six role or wouldn’t be productive, to get top line minutes on an affiliate team.  It would also create a ton of new jobs and if paired with perhaps an extended career option, shouldn’t really mess with all-time records and statistics.  The poster even brought up how you could partner teams up and run an 8 team affiliate system, which would allow those rosters to be pretty competitive and not barren just because one team maybe doesn’t have as many players representing them in the affiliated league.  Heck, maybe players who played out their full eight season career, could go down there and play until they decide to retire (they would continue to depreciate over that time).  
 
However, ultimately this discussion led to a less radical approach which was to weed out inactives in the VHL, just like the VHLM has been doing.  By doing this, you don’t rush an expansion or radical movement and can first see if the league is still having roster room issues with just active players.  In theory, you could move some of these inactives into a third league if we wanted to try and incorporate the previously mentioned idea, but that’s probably a discussion to be had in the future.  This looks like it could be a hot topic for a while but the immediate move seems to stem around looking to weed out inactives in the main league.
 
Cash Store Rework

The final thread we will be looking at is regarding a player store overhaul which has been a topic of discussion in the BOG for at least a couple of months now.  The overhaul would ultimately change the amount of money certain things cost, like making non-regression fighters cheaper to hopefully see more people use their money for purchases that aren’t the regression fighters.  This would also see potentially new purchase options like extending your career and even more uncapped TPE packages.
 
The main idea behind this is to lower the value of the regression fighters, which at this point, is all people really buy.  Therefore, I do see quite a bit of value in reworking our player store. The majority of people responding seemed to like a lot of the non-regression fighters being lowered in price but the idea of being able to purchase career extensions is still a bit of a hotbed issue where some like it and some don’t.  Therefore, the career extension idea is dead in the water for now, while the focus is now on lessening the value of the regression fighters by altering prices for other purchases and perhaps adding a few enticing options to the store as well.  I will leave it at that for now as there is currently voting going on and further discussion on what changes to make, but this one will definitely be hitting the main pages once a solution is worked out.
 
Post-writing this, the league did announce this change with THIS THREAD!!

Overview
 
After an insane couple weeks and some big changes, personally, and within the context of this league, I’ve fallen a bit behind on my articles/news. So following this week’s Theme of vacations where I have my stuff placed already I want to give a rundown of next week and what you can expect from my camp.
 
Media Spot
 
For my PT next week Kevin King will sit down to address his recent trade, what his future looks like in London, his Malmo apply, and more!
 
Graphic
 
Likely claimed the following week, I’ll be posting what I hope isn’t going to be an utter shit graphic for King in London United.
 
The Long & Short of It: Andrew Su
 
It’s the article I had written before the end of last season but obviously never posted. I will have reworked it a bit for this season and will be giving Su the spotlight he deserves.
 
Polls & Discussion Topics
 
For a few future stuff I’ll be setting out a couple polls along with what I hope will be some discussion about the topics that I can with permission quote for said future stuff.

Riga receives:
Guy Sasakamoose
Oskar Lagesson
Ray Sheilds
S78 MAL 4th

Malmo receives:
Chance Rust
Chase Crosby
Connor Sim
Eddie Dams
Nikolas DAndrea
Teppo McBighit
Vivek Weiner
S77 DAV 2nd
S77 RIG 3rd
S78 RIG 2nd


This trade has been accepted by all parties and is pending league approval.

1.) What is your Fav version of our Jersey? Home, Away, a holiday or Charity one? Describe it and why you love it.
 
Charity, always nice to support a good cause and help others.
2.) You discover a beautiful island upon which you may build your own society. You make the rules. What is the first rule you put into place?
Treat others the way you want to be treated. 
3.) You have been given the opportunity to create the half-hour TV show of your own design. What is it called and what’s the premise?
Su's supper, Its a cooking show but the chef doesn't know how to cook.
4.) Name the top five hockey related things to take with you during a zombie outbreak. (Think of things that you would have in your hockey bag, locker or at home)
Hockey stick, Helmet, Gloves, Water bootle, Bag
5.) What are things that management can do that makes you feel supported as a player? (what is important to you?)
Do PCs every week.
6.) If the Vancouver Wolves was a Hogwarts house what house would we be and why?
Sylitherin because we do anything to win.

I will shortly be putting together the HOF ballot for S76 and that's a time of the season where I frequently at what current players might have a shot. Let's run through the drafts.
 
S69: Lots of good careers here but possibly no entries to the ballot. Benny Graves is hovering around the point-per-game mark in what we'll term Scott Greene territory – he also doesn't have Greene's cups so would appear to be a long shot. Guy Lesieur has an award from last season but off the pace in points, Cinnamon Block has been steady but never the star, guys like Jubis, Jensen never quite broke out.
 
The likeliest candidate here appears to be Patrik Tallinder, top scorer from a couple seasons ago. He is above point-per-game for his career, although a patchy playoff record might hurt him. Kris Rice is only 14 points back – it will be interesting to see if Tallinder's trophy and cup put him ahead or voters choose to pass on both.
 
S70: Wow this is like looking at an old school draft. No depth but there is Mikko Lahtinen, late bloomer but now 2-time MVP and still going strong. Bek has been worried about hitting that 600 point mark for his career but I reckon he's safely in regardless.
 
A sleeper pick here is Jacques Lafontaine, probably the most consistent of the Spyro/Wolski/Hextall (and himself) generation, but needing a signature season asap.
 
I was gonna do S71 and S72s where there are some interesting names but maybe next week.

7.) When fans see hockey players they often freak out, who is one of the people you would fan boy/ fan girl / fan person over? ( For example Venus Thightrap, is a huge comic book nerd so meeting someone like Robert Kanigher and Sheldon Moldoff who created Poision Ivy would mean a lot to her. Venus’ name is meant to be a nod to Ivy.)
Trent Kaniuga, big indie comic dude.
8.) When was the last time you screamed at the top of your lungs during a game? What were you yelling about?
A few years ago, dirty hit from behind got one of my favourite players injured.
9.) When you go home and relaxing is on your mind what room do you go to and what do you do in it to wind down? (Venus is totally into long luxurious bubble baths, it has been said she often turns into a prune while playing her fav Spotify mix as she soaks the stress away of everyday life)
Bath and Spotify jams.
10.) Is there anything hanging in your Team Locker that motivates you?
A picture of me and my family.
11.) Do you have a pet? If so tell us about your fuzzy or perhaps not so fuzzy friend lol
Unfortunately not, but if I did it would be a Shiba.
12.) Which is one that show you cannot watch with anyone?
Don't know if movies count, but Texas Chainsaw Massacre.
 

There was some discussion about GM's and AGM's salary in Discord earlier. Apparently, assistant general managers do not get TPE/cash for their efforts. Now, I'm not an AGM, but I can feel their pain. Before the season started, I was made the captain of the Seattle Bears. Guess what?  I'm not getting paid either!
 
That is crazy talk. Do you think these dancing bear gifs find themselves? No. I need to spend valuable time browsing the interweb for works of art that can hopefully bring joy into the locker room. On top of that, I need to actually behave like a captain. Do you know how hard it is to not do a handshake fakeout while approaching captains of opposite teams before games? I can tell you - it is hard.
 

 
The argument for assistant general managers getting paid is reasonable, but if we take the time to compare someone bringing coffee to the general manager and then someone literally carrying the team on and off the ice, I think we can all agree that the real question is why captains are not getting paid.  
 
Assistant GM's walk around in their expensive suits. I bet they are tailor-made. They get to drive fancy cars. Sure, the general manager owns the car, but nevertheless, the assistant general manager gets to drive those beautiful machines.  The assistant general managers get to cook and eat the finest foods. Do you know what kind of luxury it is to be able to cook from the purest and most expensive ingredients? The assistant general managers get to do that. Simply put, the benefits of an assistant general manager lifestyle are already so great that I don't think salary needs to be anything other than 1 TPE that helps to cover the basics.
 

 
In my opinion, a reasonable TPE total that every captain should get each season is 10 TPE. The mental and physical stress that comes from being a captain in VHL is intense. The expectation is that the captain leads by example.
That includes absolutely everything from wearing the right team's merchandise when walking out of the bus/plane to putting the effort in every time the captain sets a foot in the locker room and ice.
Captains are the role models that every kid follows. At times it feels like the game of hockey is secondary to all the captain work off the ice. For that extra pressure and workload, I believe captains are the ones who deserve a bigger salary than assistant general managers.
 
I don't want to say assistant general managers are not needed, but if we would be on an island somewhere and you would need to pick one person to come with you to collect firewood. Would you take the captain or the assistant general manager? You would pick the captain every time. The captain already knows what it feels like when you are expected to carry heavy loads. The assistant general manager is not the ideal person for such tasks. You would take the assistant general manager to find the best ingredients for a cup of tea.
 
Pay the captains, not AGM's.

Hi All, Once again we are back with another podcast
 
Firstly CHECK OUT THE VSN https://vhlforum.com/forum/451-vsn-victory-sports-news/ , see everything they have to offer
 
This time I have my cohost @dasboot and the special guest @gorlab.
 
@fishy I hope we do not disappoint you!
 
https://anchor.fm/berocka-vhl/episodes/One-and-a-Half-Aussies---Episode-11-ft--gorlab-ep7ir0
 
Timeline:
0:30 gorlab interview
21:44 Around the VHL
29:07 S68 Redraft
 
People mentioned:
@Jubis @omgitshim @ROOKIE745 @SlapshotDragon @Josh @Peace @jRuutu @Dil @Doomsday @McWolf @Jubo07 @Da_Berr @Hylands @solas @Hooperorama @dlamb @rory @Blazzer  @Enorama @fromtheinside @Acydburn  @Beaviss @BOOM @Greg_Di @Juice @OrbitingDeath  @CowboyinAmerica @jack @JeffD @Kekzkrieg @Ace @Sixersfan594 @.sniffuM @Brrbisbrr @Mr_Hatter @Cornholio

To lead the Wolves this season the team have selected the following players! 

The Captain: Jimmy Spyro @DarkSpyro
 
*Assistant Captain: Venus Thightrap @BladeMaiden

Assistant Captain: Onde Sandstrom @fonziGG
 
This season will be the first with the core as the non defending champions. Lets get back to the promised land Wolves!


*Because Goalies cannot be captains in STHS*
C - Venus Thightrap
A - Onde Sandstorm
A2 -Micah Adrienne @Poptart

I have been blessed to be the Wolves Captain for a 3rd time in a row as well as for my final season before retirement. It is an honour to represent our Wolf pack and I hope to make our team proud.. One. Last. Time.
 

 

F - John Merrick
@TTtheT

Hey there, hope you've recovered from the hectic, potentially record-breaking* day of trades to start the off-season. Take a breath, settle down, as we have a juicy Hall of Fame induction for you today.
 
*not a verified fact
 
 
C - Hunter Hearst Helmsley, S66-S73 
 RS: 576 GP, 265 G, 362 A, 627 P, +96, 747 PIM, 1,567 HIT, 234 SB, 45 GW
PO: 56 GP, 18 G, 24 A, 42 P, +3, 84 PIM, 147 HIT, 30 SB, 4 GW
 
S71 Mike Szatkowski Trophy (Most Points)
S71 Scott Boulet Trophy (Top Two-Way Forward)
3x All-VHL First Team (S69, S71, S73)
1x All-VHL Second Team (S70)
 
He's done it! Beaviss is in the Hall of Fame! Hunter Hearst Helmsley, aka HHH, was one of the most hyped consensus first overall picks in recent memory, racking up pre-draft TPE to such an extent he was almost guaranteed to hit the ground running in the VHL. He didn't quite do that, but set up a nice foundation for his HOF bid for when he did break out. In his final 5 seasons, HHH became a bonafide star and one of the premier and most feared forwards in the league. A center who could do anything, he finished his career with a frankly ridiculous 1,828 TPE, good for 2nd all time. HHH didn't manage to win a championship or even make it to the finals, which probably more than anything held him back from a first ballot induction. But in the regular season he was at the pinnacle for a forward in the VHL's dead puck era and is a very well deserved entry into the Hall of Fame. @Beaviss
 
 
 
G - Rayz Funk, S67-S74  
 RS: 522 GP, 294 W, 179 L, 40 OTL, 2.56 GAA, .917 SV%, 36 SO
PO: 85 GP, 55 W, 20 L, 10 OTL, 2.09 GAA, .930 SV%, 7 SO
 
S67 Christian Stolzschweiger Trophy (Top Rookie)
S68 Daisuke Kanou Trophy (Playoff MVP)
S69 Daisuke Kanou Trophy (Playoff MVP)
S71 Daisuke Kanou Trophy (Playoff MVP)
S73 Daisuke Kanou Trophy (Playoff MVP)
1x All-VHL Second Team (S68)
Four Continental Cups (S68, S69, S71, S73)
 
Let's face it, Funk was just an above average goaltender in the regular season. In complete contrast to HHH, if we were judging players solely by their regular season work, Funk wouldn't even make the HOF ballot. But this is Rayz Funk, therefore the regular season is irrelevant, much like it was for the legendary Seattle team he backstopped. In the future, when people think of the team that won 4 cups in 6 seasons, they'll think of Funk, the man who was MVP for all 4 of them. The playoff MVP trophy may continue being named after Daisuke Kanou, but there is no longer debate about who the greatest playoff goaltender in VHL history is - it's Rayz Funk. Greatest playoff performer regardless of position? That's a debate for another day but the fact it exists is exactly why Funk is a first ballot Hall of Famer, regular season be damned. @Rayzor_7
 
 
It was a very close vote, here's how the votes tallied up:
 
Hunter Hearst Helmsley - 8/11
Rayz Funk - 7/11
---
Lincoln Tate - 6/11
Hulk Hogan - 0/11
 
 
But we are not done here for we have a Builder induction too. Now there's an unwritten rule that you wait for someone, especially a commissioner, to step down from their main role before inducting them as a Builder. But firstly, we've broken that rule loads anyway and more importantly, is @Beaviss ever going to stop? The man is a machine.
 
I remember coming back from hiatus in S59 or S60 and the GM of Quebec was a guy I didn't know, who also was the VHLM commish and on a mission to revamp the VHL's barely functioning recruitment team. He's still the GM of Quebec (Vancouver now) - that tenure would be worthy of Builder consideration on its own and will be just a footnote here - but has come up the ranks to become VHL commish in no time. More importantly, and I don't throw this around lightly, I'm not sure we'd be here celebrating a 75th season if Beav hadn't joined the league in those dark months in the 50s.
 
Keaton Louth may have failed to make the HOF as a player (although maybe, just maybe, hold that thought), but he is a slam dunk induction as a Builder, with a capital B.
 
 
Congratulations Beav, Ray, and Beav again!

My argument against Su is that it is basically the worse version of Merrick. His only positive stat is that he had a higher +/-, but he should given that he was on Vancouver (though that could be a knock against Merrick's SB, considering he was on Toronto). They are really close for me tbf, but I think Merrick is just mathematically a bit better. 

Vote for who you think was individually the most outstanding player in the VHL in S75. @Members