Spartan

....is Simon T. Now that I have your attention with some clickbait, join me in offering my condolences to the S77 Riga Reign for getting the most ridiculous sim shaft I have seen in my time in the VHL. It isn't much (just S71), but I do feel for Hedge and the folks on the team. I joked before the season started to Hedge that we'd be seeing them in the lottery tournament which was funny at the time, now I feel pretty bad for potentially cursing their team this season. Sorry lads Anyways, the point of this was basically to be a casual season recap as Moscow's season looks to draw to a close tomorrow with the final regular season sim of S77. It's been a very different season than most, particularly because of the obvious change in my sim league life of becoming a pro league GM for the first time. It's required a significantly different mindset than I've had in my managerial career which has solely been at the minors/collegiate levels, with different intents and purposes. But changing my perspective to focus more on team building wasn't as difficult as I thought it'd be, perhaps because of my penchant of making aggressive moves with Vegas to try to contend every single season to mixed results. This season was basically the opposite though, trading for picks and younger players while trading away friends and VHL stars instead of trying to force a team into being something it just isn't ready for. Learning from experience, you love to see it. Luckily, I haven't made a move that I've disliked or regretted, all the way back to last offseason. Moving Davis, Lahtinen and Tonn while also requesting the Letang trade truly helped Moscow escape from the perilous middle ground of mediocrity and retreat to the safety of the basement of the VHL, albeit with a clear vision of what the future looks like. Atreides and Idaho were easy picks in the draft, and franchise cornerstones that I expected to feature quite a bit over the span of the season. The biggest and most pleasant surprise however was the development and performance of Phillip Stein, a rookie we traded for from London in the Lahtinen/Tonn trade. At the time of writing this, all 3 rookies are in the top 3 of rookie scoring. In a perfect world, I would love to see all three jointly win RotY, as they've truly been a very strong line despite just being rookies. I've really enjoyed the other active acquisitions in both trades and draft selections, as all of our draft selections have remained active and project to come up to the VHL within a season or two, which is awesome to see. We re-signed Malone to be our goalie of the future, or well, for the next season, but eagles is a lovely lad who has great history with Moscow, so it's just been very nice to have another familiar face on the squad from when I first got into the LR. At the risk of writing too much for a VHL.com, I'll wrap it up with our midseason trade, specifically our trade with DC. As of right now, DC has the 2nd worst record in the league, losing the tiebreaker for last against Riga, which at a glance appears wrong since DC has more wins, but there's still 3/4 games left for each team to determine their final standings. We gave up Schwarz, Jones and DC's S77 2nd for Magnum, Foles and DC's S77 1st. Schwarz will be hitting FA, Jones is a S72 player so depreciation is going to be a bitch, but it was to try to boost DC a bit more up the standings to contend for the cup, or at least make the playoffs. Magnum and Foles were just cap casualties, and won't be on Moscow's roster next season anyways. But as a user with a player on DC, this shit just backfired at a level I couldn't imagine. Not only did DC not make the playoff, but that first is looking like a top 3 pick. As a player, it sucks to miss out on the playoffs with decently high hopes for this season, but as a GM.....man am I thrilled. Our own 1st and DC's 1st this upcoming draft could both be top 3???? Sim gods gotta be looking over me to make trades to supposed contenders work out like this 2 seasons in a row. I expect some horrible luck is incoming in a few seasons, as balance must be restored. But I'm pretty psyched to have some really good looking picks in this draft to potentially finish out our roster, or at the least complete our core for the next few seasons. There are some really strong players in this next draft and it's really exciting to not only have a shot at one of them, but two of them. Doing a quick word count at this point, I've written way too much so might as well just find something else to blab about until I hit 1k words. Maybe I should actually explore the topic that I pretended to breach with the title? Put a bet on how many people will angry react this after getting clickbaited? I'll set the line at 3.5, which is rather generous since I feel like 2.5 people read these things, the half going to Cow who probably just opens it to approve and then doesn't bother reading it. Speaking of Cow, maybe he's a candidate for the horniest person in the VHL. He's come dangerously close to rivaling Fong recently, with pure, unbridled horniness in both gen chat and Moscow's LR. I'm honestly a bit scared for him, who knows what happens if he gets desperate while on his cow farm. Perhaps the horny police will need to go conduct a wellness check on him out in buttfuck, nowhere. I have now hit 1,001 words, goodbye. Tags to make people panic:

Good showing, I'll take it! @N0HBDY with a goal tho

Welcome

welcome back my man

New PC Q's (Week ending 4/25) 1. We've seen a decent amount of trades in the past week or so, including sending out Ryan Schwarz, Jay Jones and Fat Palloon. Anything you'd like to say about these players? 2. Given the moves in question, how do you (honestly) feel about the direction of our team? 3. Moscow has had some rough games in the past week, albeit playing against most of the top teams in the league. What do we need to do to stop the slide and get back to winning games? 4. @WentzKneeFan036 re-signed with us this past week, how excited are you to have Malone as our starting goalie for the next season! 5. There's been some chatter of folks wanting a gaming channel in the Moscow LR. What games would you talk about if it was added? 6. You guys roasted me last time, say something nice this time

Hi creed, quick review for you here. I really like the depth of your rambles which holistically cover most of your activity in the VHL over the past week or so. Well done on applying for more league jobs, excited to see you trying to be more involved in the league. Now for some feedback, my number one thing here is going to be formatting. Large blocks of text, or one massive paragraph is difficult to read, and also difficult for you to go back and proofread to fix any grammatical errors or spelling mistakes. I highly recommend that if you're ever changing the subject and moving on to a new topic, create a new paragraph! A perfect spot for it would have been after you finished talking about applying for the Houston AGM job and then started talking to the Philly GM job. Splitting it into a new paragraph would be amazing. In addition, remember to capitalize the first letter in each sentence, it also helps a lot in making these posts easier to read! Overall, nicely written with a lot of depth, but make sure to fix some of the formatting and spelling errors, 7/10!

Maybe it is indeed time to delete the M smh

Claim 4/4

Thank you to our captain this season, @UnkemptCL4PTP for being a positive force in the locker room and remaining committed to the team despite the change in team situation. You were my favorite defense partner with Letang, and I'll always cherish our hockey chats. Pens are still better tho . But I hope you're able to win a cup with Prague before you retire, you definitely deserve it . @diamond_ace thanks for the easy chats, I'm mildly concerned that you know me that well. Looking forward to our future chats!

Also willing to pick up an article if needed

MOSCOW MOSCOW MOSCOW Can say Gritty is the best Flyers fan I know, though I suppose the bar is very low

Welcome home pt. 3?

oh christ I tagged the wrong one fml

1. Oh boy.....what if Letang didn't spear an opponent in the last 10 minutes of Game 7 in last season's EU Conference finals.?The result was a Warsaw powerplay goal on the ensuing 5 minute major. If only..... 2. I don't recall S75 very well, but over in Moscow it was a decent season for me. Bit of a lull in points, didn't quite hit a point per game. But all runs end somewhere, seems like both Moscow's and DC's run that season ended prematurely. 3. Yeesh, I honestly don't know what I'd be doing right now. Probably playing video games on an Xbox, maybe some other GM leagues. Hadn't done player leagues before that. 4. Trade deadline is next Monday But thrilled to see the duo come over, as I spent time with both of them last season on Moscow. Excited to see how we improve with them! 5. Davos would be up there, as I don't think it's been a secret that I'd like to play for @GustavMattias someday. Also wouldn't mind New York, another league buddy there in @Esso2264. Also when I was AGM, we mildly schemed to try to draft Letang there, so I suppose that's another "what if" 6. 1st place in the NA conference baby!

Alright, out of my own free will and totally not because I was requested to do so, I've decided to write about Moscow's starting goaler, THE Mr. Kevin Malone also known as @WentzKneeFan036 So Malone has enjoyed a pretty decent season considering he's on a team openly rebuilding. In 40 games, he's won 20 of them, and 3 of them were lost in OT or a shootout. He sports a .922 save percentage, and a GAA of 3.23. Also had one shutout in the first sim and then never got one. But I think Moscow's success this season, despite the sheer amount of youth and fresh faces on the team, has largely relied on the efforts of Malone. While his save percentage and GAA won't crack the top 10 in the leaders of the respective categories, he is in the top 10 for wins - tied with the likes of Stone Wolski, Jaxx Hextall, and even the player he was traded for, Jacob Tonn. Truly a remarkable performance by Malone to keep his team in close games and bail out our young defense. Also, a slight change from the mildly satirical approach that I started this piece with. I know that it's difficult for a goalie to be staring at the starting spot on a team looking to be competitive for the next couple of seasons, and then get traded out of the blue to a team that is in the infant stages of a rebuild. Especially for a S74 player nearly halfway through his career. It's not the most desirable situation to be in, but I just have to praise eagles for his overall support and patience with the process. He's been nothing but respectful and direct when communicating with me about how he feels, and we've had some productive conversations as a result. I will always respect people who are direct and effective with their communication, as it's a skill few have and it's even more difficult to put into practice. But Eagles has been great in those regards, and I can't express how much I appreciate it and his overall presence in our locker room.

1. I think we've been on a nice pace, getting to truly see what our rookies and young players can do. It's definitely exciting to see the potential we have! 2. I don't think they speak any english and they realize we don't understand them. So they just yell "MOSCOW MOSCOW MOSCOW" and that's basically good enough for us. 3. I'm usually active in the Town of Salem games, as we're a ToS forum featuring simulation hockey. I think it's a fun game to play and folks are always helpful, so highly recommend joining it sometime! 4. Just hockey really, and the Penguins. A couple trades were reported to have happened yesterday, so interested to see if they get confirmed and how the folks can play. Jeff Carter is a very interesting acquisition. 5. I think гулаг is definitely the best channel, and for secrecy reasons, will not be going into detail. However, the comrades channel is also really nice since it's the public channel of the server and you get to meet and chat with a lot of people. 6. uhhhhhh......your hair looks like a teenage girl's from 2011?

1. So if you had asked me this a week ago, I'd have said yes. But then I got a chance to speak with @BrutalBoost and he said it wasn't the best of times, so maybe I'll scratch it off my bucket list. 2. I'd think either @N0HBDY or @IHateBobNutting could do a pretty good job, they seem like they have the potential to be some pretty funny guys. 3. @Caboose30 of course, we have a desperate need for door opener 4. I think our current scheme of black and gold is my favorite. It matches the color scheme of the Steelers and Penguins as well! 5. I suppose I have to pass on this question. 6. @Victor bum.

Condition: If D.C. re-signs Schwarz, D.C. sends Moscow their S79 1st round pick as well. @Enorama to confirm. Anyways, cheers to the quick chats. We've got a bunch of young folks coming up next season and we needed to start making space for them. Thanks @TTtheT for your time on Moscow over the past few seasons, you've been a great person to have in the LR and on the ice. Best of luck to you both in DC!

Frankly......who cares? Folks have written in PC's that they don't ever want to play for Vegas because they didn't get ice time when we had a full roster. Those don't turn into full blown arguments or complaining, it's just their opinion which they're entitled to. I'm sure folks will always take issue with something that someone else does. Up to you whether you want to take it personally and make a full case out of it or focus on the people who want to be on the team and/or have enjoyed their time on the team. If we're simply shutting down all public discourse, you're not going to see different opinions or any tolerance for simple disagreements. We're already shifting into that mentality with recent threads being locked because people had conflicting thoughts or feelings, and now it's a meme that if a thread gets past a page, it's ripe to be locked. People need to start being able to handle some conflict and deal with it, call in the mods if you're literally getting bullied or something.

1. I think we can definitely make it, but we've struggled a little bit again recently. Might need to make an acquisition or two, but we're definitely capable of playing much better. Just haven't done it consistently enough yet. 2. Just tighten up a bit more defensively, we're allowing too many goals. 3. I think overall I've been doing well, have been on a 4 game slump though. Would like to break it and help the team win some more games. Will just have to try to think less about putting up the most points or blocking the most shots and just playing my game. 4. I've said this many times, but Davos. I know they've had a rough history and I think it'd be nice to be part of the turnaround. 5. Abuse of official. 100% of the time, they deserve it - unless the ref is Wes McCauley. He's a gem. 6. A little bit of both, y'know? I love Discord because of how easy it is to have a conversation on there, or hop on a call with folks. But reading out paragraphs or having lengthy discussions can be more fun on forums.

glorious jomboy reference

2-0 baby, lets gooooooo