bigAL

homophobia is embedded into our society in ways that so many people don't even recognize. the red cross, for example, doesn't allow men to donate if they have had sex with another man in the past 3 months (category Donor Deferral for Men Who Have Had Sex With Men). this ineligibility was determined near the beginning of the HIV/AIDS epidemic, which people blamed on the gay community. HIV/AIDS was referred to as the "gay plague." you can learn more about homophobia and HIV here.
 
outreach, inc. is a local organization that aims to educate the madison community about the damaging effects of queer violence, emphasizes the importance of understanding intersectionality, prioritizes enabling people with oppressed identities of all ages, and creates safe spaces for those who may not be able to find that elsewhere.

Well I don’t see the blood actually exiting your body, and the set looks as fake as the moon landing, but I’ll accept it. 

Well I don’t see the blood actually exiting your body, and the set looks as fake as the moon landing, but I’ll accept it. 

Rookie Rundown: Who Is Halifax’s New Defensive Signing?

 
Eaton Kuch is a young, talented kid from the rural communities of Northern Ontario.  His upbringing in hockey differed from most who typically make it to this level.  He didn’t actually play his first game of hockey until he was 14.  You wouldn’t have known if you had the opportunity to see him play in his minor career.  He led the league in points, with 119 in just 55 games.  He would lead his team to the international silver stick, which is where he first came onto my radar.  Watching him play out there, I knew I had to keep an eye on this kid's career.
 
The next season, Eaton signed with the London National’s, a Jr. B club in the GOJHL.  This may have been a mistake, as he hadn’t quite filled his shoes out yet.  Now among bigger and faster players, Eaton would have to advance his game if he wanted to compete in this league.  His first season with the team was nothing of note.  He played third line minutes, only scoring 17 points in 64 games.  This was nowhere close to the numbers the coaching staff was looking to see out of him.   It was time for Eaton to step his game up.
 
That next summer, Eaton stayed in London to train with the coaching staff and team.  I went out to one of their scheduled practices near the end of the summer to see how some of the returning players were looking prior to the season.  I barely recognized Eaton when I first walked into the brisk air of the arena.  He looked much taller and had put on some significant muscle mass.  I was looking to catch him after the practice to ask him about his hopes for the season, but I had to settle with talking to his coach, Colin Martin.  I asked him what he thought about Eaton, and what he expected from him in the coming season.
 
“He’s (Eaton) a good kid.  He works hard everyday, and he is always trying to find areas to improve his game.  I am really proud of the steps he has taken this summer to bring his game up.  We had him lifting a lot this summer to make him more solid out there.  As for what I’m looking for out of him though.  Well, one side of me hopes we have brought back the kid we saw Silver Stick.  The other side just wants to see him make progress.  He is still young and his shot is still very much alive.”
 
Eaton absolutely exploded in his sophomore season.  Scoring 98 points in 68 games. With his increase in size he was back to his ways of the outdoor rink.  He would go on to win league MVP the next season, as he almost single handedly dragged the Nationals to a  Cherry Cup.  Unfortunately they weren’t able to seal the deal, and lost to the Listowel Cyclones. It would be his amazing efforts of the season that caught the eyes of some VHLM managers, signing a contract within 24 hours of entering the Free Agency.  Now much like his coach from the nationals, we can only hope that Eaton Continues his ways while playing for the Halifax 21st.


 
Word Count: 550
Week: Dec. 6 - Dec.12
 

Merry Christmas everyone! I'll also be donating blood to the American Red Cross on December 15th (we're hosting a blood drive at the church).
This donation will also cover @Peace.
 

 
@bigAL here’s my update. Just gave blood today, December 15th
 

Davos was 18-1-0 in their last 19 games at the time of this message.
 
This season started, well, predictably for us here in Davos. Simon isn't a big fan of us in general, and that showed. But, as happened to me exactly once before in my GM career, way back in S74 when a late-season push took us from hopelessly out of the playoffs to missing it by a tiebreaker, change the lines once, and magic can happen. 
 
I write this article today because today was our second loss since said line change (yes, we're now 19-2-0 in the last 21, bummer), and I know it's something I have to write about before the sim inevitably decides to give us a good equalizer.
 
But who even noticed? A search of "Davos" in genchat gives me a few mentions of recent success, but that's about it. It's largely irrelevant, because who knows what the sim engine will throw at us on any given day (meaning that, yes, I get that it's more the result of luck than skill), but it's not often I get to write an article about how great my team is doing and I might as well do it while I get the chance.
 
The main takeaway from this is just that the sim engine is confusing as hell. With no changes to the roster, we go from typical underachieving to (probably just briefly) best team in the league? Please. Ironically, the ups end up being frustrating to deal with as well. But for now, I've certainly enjoyed it, and if it keeps up in any way, I'll certainly continue to enjoy it.

sooo having an opinion requires evidence?? huh?
 
Also it should be noted that all members of the BoG (which includes all league commissioners)  are strongly urged to support league projects (such as the VHLE) regardless of whether they personally are in favour of them or not. This is to show a united front and help grow the league in a positive light. So you going and asking a bunch of BOG/commishes what their thoughts are on VHLE is kind of a moot point since we are urged to answer with positive reinforcement about it. That's not to say the users you questioned  weren't being honest with their answers, but if anyone was against the idea of the VHLE per se, nobody would outright come out and say as much. 
 
You seem to be very polarizing and divisive with your posts and comments and I'm not sure why. You've only been here for a short while, why not try to acclimate yourself to the community a bit before stirring the pot so much?

Not really, but close enough. @frescoelmohas an awesome balcony that faces the sunset in the Windy City. When we hit our goal, he’ll live stream during golden hour. During his stream, he’ll hold a Q&A while drinking a six pack of beer. The highest bid gets to choose his beer!
 
Goal: $100
Minimum bid: $2.00

Nagy trade for nagyAL!

Woooooo, 2021 is almost over. Finally. Let's celebrate the holiday season all together as a VHL community.
A quick glance at the Season Schedule will show you that Theme Week is supposed to be coming up soon, but let's scrap that and do Theme Month. We've got our 12 Days of Christmas and Holiday Charity Auction, plus lots of other fun events coming up.
 
This year, we've chosen The Red Cross Canada / USA as our league-supported charity. As always, you are free to donate your funds to any registered charity anywhere in the world and count it towards the auction and our total numbers. 100% of the money raised by the league will be donated to the two organizations, and the VHL will not take any cut.
 
In addition to the Charity Auction, we will also kick off our Donation Drive and 12 Days of Christmas. How will it all work? Essentially the same as last year, but here are the exact details for each portion of our holiday season for 2021:
 
Charity Drive: December 9th - 19th
Starting right now, members can begin donating. Whether you do so through the league, by donating HERE, privately to either organization, or any charitable foundation of your choosing (receipt proof required for donations made outside the league), it will all count towards the overall contribution from the league.
 
From that overall contribution, the league will match donations up to $500 CAD, and add that to the donations through the league, splitting the total contribution (money donated through the league + the league contribution) equally to both organizations.
 
Please post all confirmations of donation, including Paypals through the league, auction wins, and private donations to THIS THREAD. Any donation of $5 CAD, or more, will result in an automatic personal reward of 2 Uncapped TPE + a Full Free Week (12 Capped TPE), as well as an entry to each of the first 3 tiers of the 12 Days of Christmas Raffle.
 
New this season as well we will be accepting blood donations in the charity drive. Blood is in high demand all year round, but especially at this time. Give the gift of life to someone. If you schedule and follow through with an appointment to donate blood that will count the same as a $5 donation and have the same rewards outlined above and below. For proof just post a photo from during your donation, it doesn’t need to include your face if you don’t want it to, a shot of the machine or your arm or whatever is fine, we’ll take your word for it.
 
As this is the season of giving, members may also donate on behalf of one other user.
 
Holiday Charity Auction: December 10th-17th
Full contest rules are available here. Go buy something fun offered up by our community members. Auction wins will count as personal donations for the purpose of individual rewards.
 
There's lots of great items up for auction this year. Some are individual items, some are whole-team efforts, but all are fun things that you want to win.
 
12 Days of Christmas: December 10th - 21th
This year’s 12 Days of Christmas will be similar to last year’s, where there will be a daily thread to claim “tickets” into our final raffle, which will be drawn on a live stream. For this raffle, there will be 4 tiers of prizes, with each day contributing to your entry into each tier, as follows:
 
Dec. 10 - 12: Post in the corresponding thread each day for an entry into the Tier 1 raffle (1 ticket gained per day)
Dec. 13 - 15: Post in the corresponding thread each day for an entry into the Tier 2 raffle (1 ticket gained per day)
Dec. 16 - 18: Post in the corresponding thread each day for an entry into the Tier 3 raffle (1 ticket gained per day)
Dec. 19 - 21: Post in the corresponding thread each day for an entry into the Tier 4 raffle (1 ticket gained per day)
 
Number of Winners per tier:
Tier 1: 10 Winners
Tier 2: 5 Winners
Tier 3: 3 Winners
Tier 4: 1 Winner

Drunk Birb Holiday Charity Stream: December 18th @ 2PM EST
Resident VHL Streamer/Eggnog aficionado @Esso2264  will be doing a live gaming stream on Saturday, December 18th, where all proceeds will be donated/added to the overall league tally. The party starts at 2pm EST and ends at his funeral.
 
Rewards and Donation Milestones
As previously mentioned, there will be personal rewards to those who participate in the charity drive / holiday auction, as well as milestones to hit that will result in rewards for the community as a whole!
 
$5 Donation / Auction Win: 2 Uncapped TPE + Full Free Week (12 Capped TPE) + 1 Ticket to Tiers 1-3 of the 12DoC Raffle
$500 Community Donations: 2 Uncapped TPE for Everyone 
$1000 Community Donations: 4 Uncapped TPE for Everyone
$2000 Community Donations: PT Doubles Week for Everyone
$3000 Community Donations: 8 Uncapped TPE for Everyone PLUS a @Beketov Zoo Tycoon 2 Ultimate Stream
**Disclaimer: Rewards may only be applied to players created on, or before, December 25th, 2021**
 
Let's do this @Members!

We're so international eh? Our favourite Brazilian @Thunfish has generously donated his expertise in his native tongue. The highest bidder will receive three lessons in conversational Portuguese. 
 
Starting bid: $2.00
Minimum raise: $0.50

Doing anything for one year is absolutely a big deal! Cheers dude, we’re happy to have you. See you on the chess board soon  

No worries at all, I just like interacting with the reviews that make me consider something that I didn't. For me there are some graphics that I make with the intent to make it look as good as I can within the style of choice. My first one ever here and my sig comes to mind. Then there are ones that are just straight up memes. This one was mostly made to have a Clue sellout add to go with all the references I made to putting Clue Glue™ on Bo's stick that week. But I like holding myself to high standards, even when it isn't necessarily reasonable to do so. So I still want to make not just my serious, but also my meme graphics better.
 
Also @bigAL but quoting both would just wall-o-text to the extreme.

Hey dude, don’t stress or feel bad about it or feel like you have to make an excuse. There’s lots of other things in the world to fret about, go worry about those things. It’s still a sick graphic, a 7/10 is still a pass. The point of constructive feedback here is that next time you remember not to make your gfx look like “weeb shit”. Make art that you’re proud of, and if you aren’t proud of this because you couldn’t spend as much time as you wanted to, then fair enough. But no one here is trying to shame you or poke holes in your stuff, you’re doing great with the Clue theme, and there are people here who want to help you get even better 

Some may remember, some may not, most probably don't at all, but a handful of seasons ago I'd use my weeks without trivia in the offseason to write a VHL.com article where I went through the last season's index and talked about what I found. I stopped doing it after a bit, for reasons unclear to myself.
 
But now that there's no trivia, and it's Sunday night and I don't have a PT submitted, and I'm in the middle of a 40-page report and I don't want to crank out 2,000 words for the thing I'm still also writing for this forum, I'm going to bring it back. And hopefully it will be interesting.
 
ß-DCD G is 5th in the league in SV% with a .916. That doesn't stop DC from getting hammered every game, though, as ß-DCD G's GAA is 4.56 with a 4-19-1 record. I've thought for a long time that STHS has a weak "equalizer" mechanism where goalers on super weak teams don't give up quite as many goals as they should, under the volume of shots they receive, and I think this might be an example. It's clear that the whole "meta team" thing works (sadly), but there's always been some discussion questioning the legitimacy of the ridiculous shot numbers these teams put up (i.e. "are they good shots or is everyone just shooting it wherever?"). I could do the math, but I'm lazy--instead, I'll just note that the teams with the most shots are in general the teams with the most goals. There are some exceptions (Seattle with 74 goals on 1857 shots versus Prague with 85 goals on 1639) but the general correlation isn't being broken.  SB is a stat that gets inflated on a lot of bad teams, but Vancouver has two players in the top 10. Everyone not on Vancouver in the top 9 plays for DC, New York, Toronto, or Chicago, teams with some space between them but with very little chance at success this season. Taro has 69 points. I was really high on Phil The Rock Johnson for fantasy this season, and so were some others. It's one thing to say that his point output has been somewhat underwhelming, but it's quite another to look at the numbers--he's only shooting at 4.84% this season, giving opposing goalers a .952 against him. Don't just shoot--shoot to score! Leading the league in hat tricks this season is Muffbeav, with 5. He's having a good season, but I haven't seen much mention of him. The only player with a face-off percentage over 60% is Paul Atreides, and third on the list is Aloe Dear, who's officially a winger. Most good face-off players are also good point-getters, but one notable role player is Helsinki's Jonathan Ori, with 29 points and a FO% of 55.49%. Leading the league in times selected as first star is ME, tied with Malmo's Taylor Mourning with 8. I'm almost definitely not winning MVP again, but I can be proud of something. Also speaking of stars, in more than one sense, LA's Pistil Stamen has been selected as second star 5 times and third star 4 times...but never first.

Linking to player pages 😍. Underrated level of effort, love it!

All Aboard the Express - Sergey Preobrazhensky

Moscow - There were mixed emotions around the league today as countless moves were made around the league in the past week. One of those trades included none other than our very own, Sergey Preobrazhensky. Yes that’s right, Sergey Preobrazhensky was heading to Cologne Express! While Geneva received Pippo Coca and a S82 Second Round pick in return for the rising young star.

This wasn’t a surprise to many although, there were many lingering signs that Geneva was going to tank and sell this season. The new expansion team knew they just couldn’t keep up with the likes of the Watchmen, Red Wolves or the Gladiators. Sergey wasn’t their only player they traded away though. The young and mighty Zaza Colors was involved in a trade between Geneva and Stockholm, in return Geneva received Brent Skimmer with an addition of a S83 1st rounder and 3rd rounder. Lastly, George Sanderson, a physical defensemen was to be joining Zaza in Stockholm, with Geneva receiving Jyuunya Pureya Oneri Desu and a S82 1st rounder. Which in result, meant that Geneva traded all of their draftees picked in the Season 81 VHLE Entry Draft that are playing in the VHLE as of right now.

“I don’t blame them for sending us all out, something clearly wasn’t working out there in Geneva. Both we as players and the organization knew that rebuilding was their best option as a newly formed franchise. Whatever happened in Geneva is now in the past, I’m not here to dwell about it. I’m pumped to be a part of a contending Cologne Express, I’ll do my very best to perform to the best of my abilities and help this team and it’s fanbase to bring them the success they deserve.” Sergey announced at his press conference in Cologne.

Sergey got put on the 2nd line as a center behind his teammate Alexandre Leduc. Although visibly infuriated at being told to play below Leduc, he knew that these were the struggles of being with a new team. He had to cool his head and let his performance do the talking, and with any luck, he would move up to the 1st line.

So far, Sergey has underperformed in his standards since coming to Cologne. Scoring 11 points in 14 games, (5 goals, 6 assists), he hopes to turn his slow start around in the future. Other notable stats are 11 hits and 5 shots blocked with his tenure in Cologne.

It’s been an adventurous stay in the VHLE to say the least for Sergey Preobrazhensky, from a doozy of a draft, to being selected by a newly-made franchise with high hopes and then being shipped off to the Express. He hopes to have a mesmerizing time with the team, and help them on their road to the VHLE cup. Although playing very mediocre as of late, he hopes to kick things into high gear. All in all, although going through a rollercoaster of a ride in the VHLE, he’s excited to hop aboard the Express!

Current state of Bratislava Watchmen and Frosty
 
I have to say, as a GM, I am pretty intrigued on where our team is heading and what is going to be the next step for our team. I like our roster, might have to introduce some minor changes to our defensive core but all that is completely fine. Scoring wise, super happy to see Nils Godlander dominating and few others keeping up with him. 
 
Goaltending situation still makes me a bit worried. Even though our starting goaltender Orion is really playing strong, we are having some issues overall and I am not really sure how we can really deal with all that considering I am not interested in playing our inactive goaltender majority of games even if he is doing better. Will see what happens though. 
 
The future is pretty good, we haven't traded any picks right now, have not really spent any extra value on any trades, that might happen soon though. Still, will try my best to keep my hands tight on those picks as I find them pretty much too valuable to actually trade them right now. 
 
Probably our locker room is at the all time quiet mode due to me being away for most of the day and in the evening kind of trying to chill either via streaming or just chatting to people. Will improve though quite soon as some of my day activities are gonna be done. Sadly, due to that I might become even more annoying and bother people of the VHL even more. 
 
Cheers, that is all from me!

Crazy to think that in a little more than a month I have been here for an entire year, something I thought I would never do. When I first joined the vhl I thought it was something that I would quit in a month or two but no, soon it's one year and I could not be happier with all the memories I've made, the friends and all the fun times I've had here. On my 1 year anniversary day I will drop a fun little text about it and hopefully be able to summarize it for people who don't know me too well, or people who have been my friend for a while and just want to catch up with what has happened to me and my player throughout an entire year. For some people a year doesn't sound like it is much like people who have been here since 2007 (!?!?) But for me it's something to celebrate so why not.
 

yep, throwing a ditto on this
 
i'm out here just saying shit for 1 tpe. i've made some absolutely rancid graphics, one of which someone literally reviewed at a 0.5/10. like al said, make things that you're happy with. if that standard changes, cool, my standard for myself varies depending on how i'm feeling, how much time i've given myself, etc. it doesn't matter whether i think the text on your graphic should be in a different place because it's not my art
 
right on with the clue theme, it's fun and makes you easily identifiable. keep at it, you're making things that i couldn't unless i devoted hours to figuring out how

Hey dude, don’t stress or feel bad about it or feel like you have to make an excuse. There’s lots of other things in the world to fret about, go worry about those things. It’s still a sick graphic, a 7/10 is still a pass. The point of constructive feedback here is that next time you remember not to make your gfx look like “weeb shit”. Make art that you’re proud of, and if you aren’t proud of this because you couldn’t spend as much time as you wanted to, then fair enough. But no one here is trying to shame you or poke holes in your stuff, you’re doing great with the Clue theme, and there are people here who want to help you get even better 

i like the general concept of the graphic and your persistence with the name. truly, you started the bit, and you're sticking with it, and i can only give you props for that
the placement of the text feels off to me. my eyes aren't sure whether to read top to bottom or left to right. i'd move your top right text to the top left, and vice versa with the bottom text.
 

 
otherwise imo you have a don't dead open inside vibe going on
 
other than that it's a 7/10. great touch with the "clue" in the background

Turns out their hair gel is so strong it can be used to maximize the grip of your stick, to get those extra smooth outlet passes we all crave!

*SELLOUT INTENSIFIES*
 

@Dom offered up his Discord name to the highest bidder, and former moderator @fonziGG said he’d match. Let’s put the two together and make them a package deal!
 
Starting bid: $2.00
Minimum raise: $0.50