bigAL

Hi @MRKFC! I'm bigAL, and I'm the Assistant General Manager of the Miami Marauders. Like my colleague above said, we can't formally sign you yet, but if you want to get acquainted with the league, start earning your skill points, and boost your draft stock ahead of the S74 draft next week, come join us in our team locker room! We use Discord around here, and you can visit Miami's group by clicking on this link. Our fearless leader Ricer, myself, or many of the other friendly faces in the room will be able to help you get acquainted to the league.

Hi @Pythonic! I'm bigAL, and I'm the Assistant General Manager of the Miami Marauders. Like my colleague above said, we can't formally sign you yet, but if you want to get acquainted with the league, start earning your skill points, and boost your draft stock ahead of the S74 draft next week, come join us in our team locker room! We use Discord around here, and you can visit Miami's group by clicking on this link. Our fearless leader Ricer, myself, or many of the other friendly faces in the room will be able to help you get acquainted to the league.

PLAYOFF PRESSER! 1. The Miami Marauders have just finished sweeping the Philadelphia Reapers. What was the key to finishing that series so quickly? 2. The Miami Marauders have entered the second round of the playoffs for the first time in franchise history. How are you and the team celebrating this historic run? 3. Who are you expecting to step up and take their game to a higher gear in Round 2? 4. The scoreboard-watching is over - we're facing off with the San Diego Marlins. What's your scouting report on them? 5. Do you have any playoff superstitions? 6. Playoff beards: y/n?

Thanks for everything you do @GustavMattias, it's amazing how much work it is to coordinate all these players and keep everything happening, on time, and by the book. The thing with the blackmail was a good catch early, not enough to save the poor poor mafia, but I think you made the right call to yeet him publicly from the game while you figured out what was going on. Sorry @MMFLEX I didn't mean you to blackmail you THAT hard... I'm curious to play the discord one, - it seems like there'd be a lot of talking and a lot of scrolling back to get all the info - but the forums clearly weren't perfect either. Let's play again sometime

Washington, D.C. -> capital of the USA Toronto Ontario -> centre of the freakin universe

Wow that's thorough and well-researched and a fantastic idea! Groovy Dood scored on his very first shot in the VHL, just sayin

otherwise: f

holy shit that's amazing. so inappropriate for this thread but love it gorlab!

big shift from 99% sure I'm good to mafia now. I just fuck up a lot and don't write all my actions down, but the results haven't been terribly helpful N1: spy on Hatter - nothing, good, town was investigating him N2: spy on Berocka - nada N3: spy on Flex - visited by blackmailer but we knew that when he got yeeted N4: spy on Ricer - didn't know he was going to jail, but he was also attacked by mafia No need to reveal unless I have something worth revealing, but I don't

I'm a spy but haven't caught anyone in a lie yet - let me go through my gustav messages and draw up a will in between works

I love that this is a thing. I'm a big proponent of the Gold Plan in the NHL, and this lotto tourney is inching closer and closer to gold.

series. Winning. GOOOOOOOOOOOAAAAAAAAAALLLLLL!

In our Miami locker room, we recommend players claim trivia answers for the following week anyways. That way, you can actually cap out by Monday if you want. When I'm a ding-dong and get one wrong, then I have all week to review someone's media spot and earn that TPE back. The alternative would be to sit at 10 capped all week and hope you get the answers right when they come out on Saturday or Sunday, and then scramble to write a review or two if you get a wrong answer. That doesn't sound fun at all.

In this first season after expansion, the league needed to be creative when it came to scheduling. The traditional playoff format wasn’t going to cut it with 16 teams. Eight teams can make a great tournament, sure, but if the regular season is expanding, the playoffs should be expanded too. So: what’s the change? This year, the VHL adopted a “Wild Card Round”. Like professional baseball, the VHL replaced one playoff spot in each conference with two teams that can fight each other to earn that berth. Understanding that playoffs are *hard* on the body, the Wild Card Round will only be a best-of-five series instead of the big, intense first-to-four series we are used to. This “play-in” is popular with the league head offices for a variety of reasons. First, management, players, and fans all know that playoff hockey is the best kind of hockey. Nothing matches the intensity of playoffs; the blood, sweat, and tears poured into the march to the Continental Cup; the adversity teams face with injuries, fatigue, and the stress of playing a season after the season; and knowing that winning is immortal because flags fly forever. Expanding the playoffs allow for this awesome experience to go longer, with more teams and fanbases involved. Second, the Wild Card Round keeps more teams in the playoff race longer. Let’s look at the S73 regular season standings to show why adding the extra playoff berth makes the end of the regular season so much more exciting. Fig. 1: The North American standings at the end of S73 In the North American conference, we have the #4 seed Vancouver Wolves taking on the #5 seed D.C. Dragons. The D.C. G.M. E.N.O. kept team morale high even as the Wolves ran away with the “final” (according to the index) playoff spot. D.C. finished with 76 points and 30 regulation or overtime wins. Hot on their heels were the Toronto Legion, with their 74 points but 31 ROW wins. With one more win, the Legion would be tied with D.C. while holding the ROW tie-breaker, and the Dragon’s fire breath would be extinguished for yet another season. Under the old playoff format, the Dragons would have been eliminated ages ago. The eight point gap between D.C. and Vancouver would have been unsurmountable in the final weeks of the season. Offseason plans would start to formulate. Underperforming players would be shaking in their booties. Instead, we got a down-to-the-wire, photo-finish, playoff race between two rival capital cities. Fig. 2: The European standings at the end of S73 Way out there in Europe, the conclusion of the regular season was even more wild. The Euro conference had three clear tiers: The Super-teams at the top, like Helstinki, Calgary, and New York; the struggling expansion teams in Warsaw and London; and the playoff bubble teams. Under the new expanded playoffs, everyone knew that only two of Malmo, Davos, and Prague will make the Wild Card Round, and one pouty loser will be golfing sooner than planned. The last weeks of the season in the Euro division were spent with some serious scoreboard-watching by players on those three teams. When the season ended and the standings had solidified, there was only one point separating the “in” teams and the “out” team. The Prague Phantoms were ghosted by the playoffs. I, for one, welcome our new expanded playoff format. I think playoffs are the gift that keeps on giving, and the more people that experience that, the better. It’s a sweet, sweet coincidence that my team was the one that directly benefited the most from the expanded playoffs, but I’m sure my opinion would be the same whether I was the #1 seed or the #8. That being said, I don’t expect playoffs to expand ever again. The regular season still has to mean something. Mediocre management can’t be rewarded with extra games every year. But, just for this year, I’m going to enjoy my playoffs – even if it only lasts for up to five games.

Jeff seems way too okay with getting lynched, and it's a big bet that there's only one jester in an any/all match, but... VOTE JEFF

Rory - claims psychic - Spartan, JigglyGumballs, or solas is evil! I got bigAL or MMFLEX is good! ugh can't multiquote from two different pages, but... VOTE MMFLEX

Correct. Not ready to reveal yet, but I’ve been here watching. VOTE MIKE

It was a real missed opportunity making both L and R defence, when you could have had L RW and R LW smh

No worries there Frostman, I was just kidding. Real life always comes first, and we all will remember you the VSN chief for the amazing things you've done and not the one season we survived without a chess tourney. Hold your head high and don't let VHL stress hurt your ability to deal with the real world stuff. You got this, and one it's all got, we'll happily see you around here more!

@Doomsday I hope @FrostBeard told you that you also have to organize the seasonal chess tournament now

I don't hate it - in Any/All we're at such a disadvantage that the town's gotta mobilize quick.

? It's the most wonderful time of the year ?PLAYOFF HYPE IS HERE! *as always, don't forget to click the underlined hyperlinks for more information where needed 1. Holy moly, we've got three games left at time of publishing, and we've got a 5 point lead for the Prime Minister's Cup. What was the biggest factor in our league-leading regular season? 2. Along with the end of the regular season comes the end of regular season awards eligibility. Which award do you want to be considered for, and why? 3. If you aren't planning on winning any awards, nominate someone from our team for an individual award. 4. There's a significant gap between the 7th and 8th place teams. With the PM's Cup, we'll draw #8 Philadelphia Reapers. What's the key to winning a series with Philly? 5. Philly has a historically elite goalie having a historically elite VHLM season. How the heck do we solve John Poremba? 6. How will you reset after the regular season to prepare yourself for a long playoff run? Players:

oh I have made some very un-groovy mistakes in this game, I don't know how my GM @Ricer13 will ever forgive me for snatching defeat from the jaws of victory last game ?

Can I make a request that I'm not on Quik's team?? That's too much painful noob energy on one line

@Doomsdayis a tough act to follow, but yeah I’m in edit: phew rory got there first