Spartan

Sadly I haven't had to go into the office in almost a year, so there's no road rage podcasts that are going to happen for a long time.

Bumping the thread as MIA is also an open team due to VHL hiring

Tough trade talks @samx but we got it done. Hoping it's a win for everyone involved, including both players here. @BOOM we chatted a bit and I gave you my thoughts and all. Tough decision to make, but only considered it because I thought HSK would be a worthy home for you. Looking forward to another fantastic player career from you! @FrostBeard when I heard you were available, had to try to get you here in Moscow. I know your expectations are lofty, and we'll be sure to meet them. Thrilled to have you on the team!

Condition: If Grimgor Ironhide does not re-sign with Moscow after the S93 season, S94 HSK 2nd becomes S94 HSK 1st, and S94 MOS 3rd becomes the worst of S94 MOS 2nd and S94 WAR 2nd. If both Moscow and Warsaw miss playoffs in S94, the 2nd is deferred to S95 MOS 2nd. @samx to confirm.

Big trade incoming??

Thank you for sticking through some of the dark days of Moscow @okochastar, and I'm glad we could get a playoff season and a top 10 individual season for you before we had to let you go. Wishing you the best in VAN as they get a veteran star to jump start their competitive window! Cheers for the talks @Frank, you're getting a great user and player!

Congrats DC!

Hello! As we approach the offseason, we're once again looking to hire GMs for some open positions in the VHLM. We've got a bit of turnover this offseason and are hiring for two teams (and potentially more depending on the VHL/E hirings) - Halifax and Mexico City. Thank you to @ShawnGlade and @hylands for their great work as VHLM GMs, and for all the time and effort they put into their teams and players. Please comment below if you are interested in any of these teams, and feel free to state a preference for a specific team. We cannot guarantee those preferences being followed if selected for the job, but we'll keep it in mind. We may also find out that we're losing another GM to the VHL hiring cycle, so there is a chance we'll need 3 GMs - so there are plenty of opportunities for all! Serious applications only in this thread, anything else will be sent to the gulag. Feel free to DM me or Gus with any questions, comments, concerns. Happy to discuss the positions with any interested candidates! - @VHLM Commissioner

Meant a lot to a first gen like me, so thank you for keeping me around!

I still have your old draft profile series saved, especially the one that mentioned me: Glad to see you around again man, you wrote some fantastic pieces that I loved to read!

I'm hungry now, must be lunch time

It do be that time! Figured I'd make a VHL March Madness group for anyone interested in participating. No TPE compensation (for now??? doubt a Blue approves though) but come join in for fun! https://play.ncaa.com/mens-bracket-challenge/group/1469827?joinToken=fd1e48381b7c669253a0de05&iid=bcg_share_web_other_group_email Try to make your display name your site username so we can kinda tell who's who. Or do as you please, happy bracket busting!

Bro's been IA for too long, look at the lotto history

Season 93 VHL Draft Lottery Date: February 28, 2024 Time: 7:00 PM EST Hi Everyone, Before getting into the final draft odds and the lottery itself, a reminder of the rules regarding the Draft Lottery: Please keep in mind that the Draft Lottery Tournament was removed, and is no longer being used to adjust odds after the regular season's conclusion. From the conclusion of the S93 Regular Season and Spirit of Competition rule violations and punishments, these are the final draft lottery odds: Results will be added here after the lottery: VOD and stream will be on: https://www.twitch.tv/thespartan84

Rumor mills on hyperdrive

Honorable mentions from vhl chat

cringe

1. I think getting a very young team some playoff experience and battling it out against a tough, experienced HSK team was good for morale and a sign that we can definitely compete with top EU teams. 2. Hand is raised, super excited to see the growth we can achieve this offseason and how we can start next season! 3. Ripe young age of 12. Oozing youthfulness! 4. I'd agree with that. I think even in this PC thread we have other players saying that Moscow has made a splash, and @badcolethetitan wrote an article highlighting our success in season and draft capital as well. GMs are definitely on notice around the league. 5. For Syko, it's just improving in every area as much as possible. Want to be a top goalie next season before I'm off my ELC. 6. Pretty much the same, got some contract negotiations done quickly in the offseason, now I'll just have to focus on scouting and league admin things, along with a bit of trading. But it'll be a quiet offseason, hopefully!

Curious to see if you evaluate pick pools based on quality vs quantity. Did you weight picks at all based on the round? Or adjust pick value based on which draft class they're in?

Yeah I think that's something you could, and should, bring up to Blues. While GMs generally squabble with each other when transgressions occur, I still think that the most effective way to hold everyone to the rules is by policing each other and bring up infractions as you see them. I don't expect Blues to be sitting there looking at every team's strats throughout the season. And personally, I tend to consider spirit of competition to lean mainly towards the human/bots/inactives piece vs the general tanking instance. Because I think ever team will tank at some point or the other, especially when we incentivize trades mid-season via cap hit reduction. Tanking and rebuilding are fairly synonymous, but you're right that there's no clear line there. However, we do have clear lines drawn for backup goalies and bot backup goalies, so that's just what the low hanging fruit is each season.

Trading players away is always going to be considered a slippery slope if you try to match it up against bot start rules or backup rules. Goalie is a position where every competitive team in the league would prefer to play their better goaltender if we had no rules around it. We have no injuries (league would be chalked if we did) or endurance as you say, but that'd arguably hurt skaters a lot more and we'd almost certainly have to contract the league in half to be able to roll a full 4 lines plus have some sort of system to replace players in your lineup entirely. So lets just rule that out for now as a way too complicated situation. While we can't go to a rebuilding team and say "hey, you're not allowed to get value out of what you have when your season is lost already," we can still maintain the base of this league which is that human players matter more than bots. Should report to Blues if you see this though, no? Not sure if you've already done it, just saying you should if you haven't. Though if it's just line strats and not team strats, it's near useless in our version like ice time sliders lol.

Have to read the whole section to see the bot backup bit. Its one of the explicitly defined portions within that rule that is easiest to uphold due to the quantitative nature.