bigAL

Fuk u @gorlab I’m gonna use this as fuel and become the biggest BUST the VHL has ever seen. How did everyone in the first round get the big B except me?! 1.0/10 article, may this list rest in *whatever the opposite of peace is*

Fair enough. I saw VHLM commish offering to spot people donation money for the BLM drive, and thought that was a thing we can do? I gave a sponsorship to my inaugural Marauders who got drafted in the first round of the VHL Draft, but I get the reasoning behind it. I’ll take the cash back and buy them some timbits or something.

You owe me straight-As now

$15 donation 80172616G5918593R The bribe to get @PatrikLaine to stay in Miami S73 5 uncapped TPE $1M player store Doubles Week

$15 donation 8NA55905U7884991P Free Doubles weeks for my Marauder 1st round draft picks: @Andre LeBastard @Mongoose87 @ahockeyguy

So I AM making more money than @PatrikLaine

WHAAAAT?! You got a signing bonus to stay in the M this season? I should've held out on @Enorama and DC

Thanks for your hard work @McWolf, enjoy retirement!

Wolf Stansson in da дом!!

Miami represent ?

@Zetterberg can I borrow $20?

69th overall, just legendary

Cool, I didn’t participate and still tied with @Beaviss

Is this our S73 slogan?!

I don’t think you’d be saying this if you got drafted to somewhere like Halifax or Minny We’d be pumped to have you all season in Miami if that’s how it works out!

Thanks for all the love team! # @Ricer13GMOTY *claiming for doubles week July 19*

5D950134PK700012F $1M Player Store Cash 5 TPE Uncapped Doubles Week

No ferking way, atta be @a_Ferk

Happy Offseason everyone! 1. There's a lot of action going on this week. First up is the VHL Draft. Do you plan on getting drafted to the VHL? Where do you hope you go? 1b. If you're already drafted, how much do you think you'll play in the VHL next season? 2. Next up is the VHLM Draft on Wednesday. What should management be looking for with our plethora of draft picks? 3. Well, none of our playoff predictions were right. We thought the winner of the MIA-MIN season would win the Cup. What do you have to say about the Saskatoon Wild, S72 Founders Cup Champions? 4. What skill or stat do you hope to improve on this off-season? 5. How would you assess your TPE earning this season? Is there anything you will do differently next season? 6. It's the offseason, and I don't want to hurt your brain too much. What's your favourite number?

Season 72 has come to an end, and it was an eventful one. After expansion brought a new team to the VHLM, GM Ricer13 and AGM bigAL worked hard to assemble a first-gen team for the first-gen franchise. At the draft, management decided to prioritize culture, leadership, and engagement ahead of individual skill, stats, or the ability to ice a winning team. Miami drafted one player above 100 TPE in the S72 VHLM Dispersal Draft (our goalie, Bacon, was at 102), despite the fact that there were triple-digit players being drafted through the 3rd round. Our eventual captain, Andre LeBastard, was our most-skilled skater at 92 TPE, but team stalwarts Wolf Stannsson, Dakota Lamb, Kosmo Kramerev, and OhSens all came on board at the draft too. Our young team was buoyed by waiver pickups like Florent Vericel, Rocket, and later, Eoin Byrne. At the start of the season, the league wrote off Miami as an expansion franchise destined for an S73 lottery pick. By the end of playoffs, we had the Regular Season Champs on the ropes as we took the Minnesota Storm to Game 7 of our Round 1 playoff series. Our Miami Marauders played their hearts out during their inaugural season. The players rewarded management with a late-season standings-surge and an unforgettable 7 games in the VHLM Playoffs; it’s only fair that management reward the players for their unbelievable achievements this year. As such, Ricer13 and bigAL are happy to announce the creation of Miami Marauders team awards, along with their inaugural winners: The Andre LeBastard Trophy The LeBastard is awarded to the Marauder who displays exemplary camaraderie, leadership, and community-building on and off the ice. Our first winner embodies the traits required of a successful VHLM team captain. LeBastard was a staple in the Miami LR, and was a vocal leader of the team. He was always quick to defend a teammate from outside criticism, while doing what he could to pump the tires of his colleagues. Andre was always present with a friendly quip and a wicked joke. The first captain of the Miami Marauders has elevated the bar for all future team leaders, and has created a culture that will last long past his time in a Miami uniform. Congratulations to Andre LeBastard! The Dakota Lamb Trophy The dLamb is awarded to the Miami Marauder who led the team in goals at the end of the regular season. Scoring goals is proven to be the most effective way to win hockey games, and our first winner, Dakota Lamb, scored a lot of goals and won us a lot of hockey games. By the end of our 72 game season, Lamb potted 37 goals to lead the club. It didn’t get him on the VHLM top-10 goal scoring list, but it was good enough to get the goal-scoring trophy named after him. Congratulations to Dakota Lamb! The Kosmo Kramerev Trophy The Kosmo is awarded to the defenseman most integral to the success of the Miami Marauders. The inaugural winner, Kosmo Kramerev, led by example and was a force at both ends of the ice. Kramerev was an offensive force, scoring a team-high 106 points and 77 assists. Kramerev was a warrior, leading the team in blocked shots (142) while posting a (not as bad as it sounds) -28. This defender has blown the socks off the VHLM, and will look to build on his scoring prowess in the big leagues soon. Congratulations Kosmo Kramerev! The Eoin Byrne Trophy The Byrne is awarded to the most valuable player who joined the team after the VHLM Dispersal Draft. Miami secured between six and eight active players in the draft that would play out S72 with the team, but management needed to bolster the lineup with players on waivers. As an expansion team with a sometimes-lousy record, it was difficult to attract free agents to Miami. The few players that joined us all made fantastic impacts. Florent Vericel started off the season on a mission, but slowed down as the weeks dragged on. Rocket, the one-named Cher of our team, made frequent appearances on the ice and in the team facilities. But the waiver signing that made the biggest impact on the Marauders was a player who only suited up for 5 regular season games: Eoin Byrne. Byrne jumped into the league with a bit of prior sim league experience, but blew the Marauder management away with his eagerness, professionalism, and foreignness. He entertained us in the room, and became a playoff shot-blocking hero with 10 blocked shots and 9 hits in 7 playoff games. Congratulations to our favourite Argentinian, Eoin Byrne! *** The above awards were chosen by Miami management, Ricer13 and bigAL. The below awards are all voted awards, with unique judges and purposes for each: The MVM Trophy The Most Valuable Marauder is awarded to the player deemed most valuable by the roster plays of the Miami Marauders. The players have spoken, and chosen their goaler Bacon to be the S72 MVM. On a whole, Bacon’s stats didn’t wow the media this season. He finished with a .827 SV% and a 3.68 GAA - both great improvements and career highs, but not enough to land on the Top-10 VHLM lists. What impressed his teammates, though, was Bacon’s clutch ability to not let a game slip away. In 72 regular season games, Bacon got Miami past 60 minutes 7 times. He sometimes let a greasy goal slip through in those extra frames (3 wins, 4 losses), but the team loved him for giving us the suspense of close games all season long. Congratulations Bacon! The bigAL Trophy We know it’s a bit presumptuous to name a trophy based on longevity and potential after a first-gen rookie manager, but hey guess who gets to name the trophies? The bigAL is awarded to the Marauder who best projects to have a long, successful career in the VHL/M. The winner is chosen by a panel of VHL/M managers who are familiar with the Miami LR. Like bigAL, the inaugural winner is on the fast-track to management. Our winner is a graphics whiz, who makes some of the most beautiful signatures in the M. This player is active in both the Miami LR and the VHL general discord server, and is eager and excited to be involved in everything happening in the VHL. We are proud to announce the winner of the first-ever bigAL trophy is… Dakota Lamb! Graphic of the Year The Miami Marauders Graphic of the Year is a very subjective category. This year’s winner stepped out of his comfort zone to try something new. The work was applauded by the community for being creative, informative, and outside the normal scope of VHL graphic work. Thank you to everyone who applied, and congratulations to Dakota Lamb! https://vhlforum.com/topic/86338-d-lamb-rookie-season-infographic/ Media Spot of the Year The Miami Marauders Media Spot of the Year is also a very subjective category. This year’s winner poured his heart and soul into this piece of writing. He overcame a language barrier to create a whopping 2100 words intended to pump the tires of his teammates ahead of the VHLM playoffs and VHL draft. This media spot took days to perfect, but perfect it is. Thank you to everyone who applied, and congratulations to OhSens! https://vhlforum.com/topic/86400-miami-marauders-late-playoff-preview/ Finally, a big thank you goes out to all the Miami Marauders who came along for the first season. We couldn’t have a VHLM franchise without VHLM players, so thank you. out, bigAL, AGM Ricer13, GM Players mentioned: @Ricer13@Andre LeBastard@dlamb@Mongoose87@Bacon@osens@ahockeyguy@LatinViking@dart @Rocket

Story of the MIA season. Great work Pat!

I better put on some pants because it is draaaaafty in here! Great stuff as always from Shite Sports Network! The VHL GMs care a lot about the type of player they draft. I bet you could pump out another 500 words talking about the on-ice abilities of LeBastard. What kind of centreman are you? Are you happy/surprised/let down with those S72 stats? Is there a NHLer or VHLer that you’re comparable to? At his peak evolution, what attributes will be the highest? Maybe that will be your VHL.com article this week

Draft Groovy Dood 1st Overall by: bigAL, agent Groovy Dood, hockey player extraordinaire The S73 VHL draft is just around the corner, and there’s some controversy at the top of the list. My man Groovy Dood is at the centre of it, but I’m here to tell you that it’s all good, man . The traditional scouting and drafting philosophies inherently favour a recreated player. And really, fair enough. Recreated players are handled by agents with a proven track record. Each GM may value that track record differently, but at least there’s proof of longevity, commitment, and real investment in the league. These players know the ropes already, they’re cool under pressure, and they know what’s what in the VHL. They’ve tasted VHL success and are hungry for it again. They’ve spent a season marinating in the VHLM and are eager to get to the bigs again. A Tyler Walker has been there, done that, and knows how to change a VHL franchise alone. Micah Adrienne, puts his head down and scores points like a madman, doesn’t need much coaching. I get the appeal of taking one of those two players, represented by legendary agents, in the first two spots. They’re safe picks. But who likes to play safe?! Let’s stare at the sun during an eclipse, wear flip-flops on a construction site, and keep the safety *always* off. Groovy Dood is your high-risk, high-reward pick for first-overall, but he’ll settle for a top-3 lottery pick. Let’s recap the young lad’s short career arc. We both showed up here in March or April. bigAL’s been looking for a creative outlet to do some writing, community-building, and team management for a while. We used to have a place for all that, but that group got radicalized and bigAL wasn’t up for that shit. I saw an ad for open tryouts on reddit somewhere, scoped the place out, and liked what I saw. The big draws of the VHL for me were: - A place for content creation: bigAL’s a writer with nothing to write. He’s spent the last 23 some years in school, all the way from kindergarten to grade 12 to grade 18 (BA hist/geog/poli sci/Canadian studies/Education) to grade 19 (BEd) to grade 23 (MEd), and has just been reading and writing steady. Then, I went to work as a Museum Curator and wrote more and more. Now, I’ve settled for a bit as an ESL high school business teacher, and don’t have much writing to do. I’ve got to read, make PPTs and assignments, but no real putting words together on a page to communicate an idea. The VHL has already gotten a wide range of the bigAL writing menu. You’ve got the short story from his VHLM draft day; his player quote from when he hit a career milestone (First Gen Newcomers Bonus); bigAL’s also done some great work including his role as Miami Marauders’ AGM (like this team scouting report); his daily media addresses as Team Canada’s WJC GM. He’s even downloaded Photoshop and started to mess around with some infographic-style things like this. The bottom line is that you don’t have to worry about Groovy Dood not capping out each week. - A place to be social – damn this discord thing is cool! After years of reading and writing and reading and writing, the ol social skills and networks were a bit rusty. Things were trending up when the pandemic hit. In March, the whole world moved online. Families met by Zoom, schools used Google Classroom, and everyone moved to the cloud. That’s when I kinda realized, “oh, right, I can go make friends online. That’s not actually weird at all.” There’s still some weird things, like 12 year olds and racists, but there’s less of them around than ever before. I’ve thoroughly enjoyed being a part of the Miami Marauders LR, where we really bonded as a team with our all-first-gen lineup. I’ve enjoyed being in the Minnesota LR, and being in the VHL general server lots. It’s awesome to have a big group of people that you can hang out with any time of day, play any sort of game, and cheer for the same sports together. It’s been fun being a part of the group. - Hockey: frig I miss hockey. I grew up poor, and so only one of the kids got to play hockey (spoiler: it wasn’t me). Everyone in town and at school played hockey, except me. I was reading books and playing Gameboy and doing niche sports like curling and cross-country skiing and karate. All grown up, I found an “adult beginner’s league” for people who didn’t play hockey growing up. It’s been awesome to play with other people at my level. Now I’m in the Major division, where it’s essentially a co-ed beer league with half-decent hockey. The VHL gives me another sport to follow since I can’t play or watch much else. Once bigAL and Groovy Dood made it to the VHL, the momentum carried Dood into an important role on one of the most dominant regular season teams the VHLM has ever seen. He finished with a statline of 9-48—57. Groovy Dood is a physical, playmaking forward that passes first and celebrates second. He started as a LW, but circumstances dictated that the Minnesota Storm needed a centre. I persuaded Groovy to practice on his faceoffs a bit, and next thing you know, he was the top centreman on the Storm for a bit. His team did unreal in the regular season, but went 50/50 on Game 7s, winning round 1 vs Miami and losing round 2 vs Mexico City. With any luck, that game 7 was the last Groovy Dood will play in the VHLM. As a player, Groovy Dood plays like a vintage Ryan Getzlaf. At his final evolution, Groovy will have excellent playmaking skills (DF, PA, maybe FO); great physical skills (ST, SK, CK); and good supplementary skills (SC, PH, DI). The DF, ST, CK skills shut down the opposition when they get the puck, while the PA, FO, SK make sure that the other team doesn’t get that puck back til they fish it out of the net. If drafted to a team with a logjam at C, Groovy is happy to stop practicing faceoffs and spend time working on something else. The biggest thing to know with player development is that Groovy Dood is coachable, and will happily work with the drafting GM to create a player development plan that best fits the team’s needs. I want all you VHL managers to take notice. It’s risky to take a first-gen player with a lottery pick, but the upside is unmatched. For starters, you get to be bigAL’s first VHL team. Everyone fondly remembers their first. His entire VHL experience will be viewed through the lens of your team. All his passion, creativity, and energy will be dedicated to making this VHL team great. With proper coaching and development, this energy can be harnessed to get some shit DONE. Groovy Dood being a first-gen star will help attract other strong first-gen talent to the team, too. He’s a great mentor and leader for other new players, because he’s also learning the ropes himself. So, VHL teams, I want you to big-brain this. Don’t fall into the trap of doing the same thing over and over and over, because it’s the way it’s always been done. Think outside of the box; find that extra 1%; and exploit that market inefficiency. @VHLGM @VHLGMs: Pick Groovy Dood with your lottery pick. Pick Groovy Dood first overall. Pick Groovy Dood for President. Pick Groovy Dood for whatever you can. Just, pick Groovy Dood.