Beketov

We only expand when we need to but ultimately the league has never wanted 4 full lines. We're too full to be doing anything but expanding so we'll do it when we need to. Intentionally went big this time to hopefully slow it down.

As per the OP (nice reading there :P) Berr did London and LA

It was originally gold but @Josh want Silver. Also Moscow isn't gold enough?

Funnily enough most of the BOG likes those ones the most. We wanted a few simpler ones.

Oh yeah, we put together a 4 team expansion in a couple of days all because of him.

S73 Expansion Friday, June 12th, 3:00PM EST @Members In December of 2017 the VHL made a very difficult decision to revert our expansion and return to the original 8 teams that we had when the league began. If I'm being honest with you all this was done as a last ditch effort to try and save the league which was floundering at the time. Recruitment was way down, old members were burning out, and the league could not adequately sustain 10 teams anymore, thus the unfortunate demise of the Cologne Express and Stockholm Vikings. It took just over a year before we added another team, the Moscow Menace, to the mix in January of 2019. After that things took off. Only 2 months later we added the Malmo Nighthawks and then 6 months after that both the DC Dragons and Prague Phantoms. In under 2 years the VHL went from 8 teams, the lowest it ever had, to 12. But we aren't done. It is my absolutely amazing honour today to announce yet another expansion to the VHL and this time it's our largest expansion in league history. Bigger than Moscow or Malmo, bigger than DC and Prague, even bigger than the three team expansion the VHLM went through when Moscow was added. Today we announce that four new teams will be joining the VHL for the start of S73 which will bring our total up to 16 teams. Double what we had when the league began almost 13 years ago and more impressively double what we had in December of 2017, not even 3 years ago. This is thanks, in no small part, to the amazing work of the @Recruitment Crew bringing in members like crazy, as well as the Dev Team (who can't be tagged but are no less appreciated) who continue to make the VHL portal the best site extension the sim league community has ever seen. It's also thanks to all of you though, we're a community first and whether you wear many hats or just "member" you are no less appreciated. When the VHL started with 8 teams people thought it was too much, that it couldn't be filled. To see the league double in size is absolutely phenomenal and I can't express how amazing it is. Who am I kidding though, none of you want to read about me getting nostalgic any longer. We've got some teams to announce do we not? Let's cover North America first and then travel east. So, starting on the west coast we find ourselves in the city of angels. The VHL has gone a long time without the glitz and glamour of Hollywood but no more. Let me introduce the Los Angeles Stars! Moving east we hit another city that has been sorely missing out on a VHL franchise for what seems like far too long. Once ravished by a fire and burned to the ground this great city rose from the ashes which brought inspiration to it's VHL team, the Chicago Phoenix! With the North American conference handled we head across the pond to the European conference. Once known for expanding it's empire across the globe the United Kingdom has been sorely missed in VHL expansion for too long, that changes now with the London United! Last but certainly not least the VHL moves once again into uncharted territory for the league, Poland. Once nearly completely destroyed by war this great city refused to go down without a fight. That fighting spirit lives on in the Warsaw Predators! The league would like to extend its greatest thanks to @Da_Berr who put together the Stars and United logos for us as well as the @VHL GM 's and @BOG who have kept the lid on this closed over the past few months to keep it a surprise. This is an absolutely amazing achievement for the league and we're excited to see how adding four new teams shakes up the landscape of the league. Now then, to business. There are also going to be some fairly significant changes to league rules and scheduling that are required to make 4 teams work. Season 73 VHL Expansion Draft We'll start with the S73 Expansion Draft, which will obviously be the largest in league history. In order to accommodate that fact there will be more than players from existing teams up for grabs. In fact, there will be supplemental picks in the 2nd round of each of the next two VHL Entry Drafts (S73 & S74), as well as the opportunity for the expansion teams to select their own draft slot for the S73 Entry Draft! The full details of the S73 VHL Expansion Draft can be found below. Scheduling / Playoff Format With 16 teams, there will obviously be a need for a new scheduling format, as the current 8/8/5 format would result in a nearly 100-game schedule. Going forward, teams will play Divisional Opponents a minimum of 6 times per season, Conference Opponents a minimum of 5 times per season, and Cross-Conference Opponents a minimum of 4 times per season. The remaining games will be randomly decided by the STHS Scheduling formula. This is subject to change if testing proves the math wrong but is the intention. The next major scheduling change, as a result of growing to 16 teams, is the need for a new playoff format. With 4 expansion teams added to the mix, the playoff structure will expand to 10 teams, 5 per conference. The playoff format will be as follows: Draft Lottery / Draft Lottery Tournament With 6 teams now missing the playoffs, there will be some major changes to the Draft Lottery format. The first of which is the need for new Draft Lottery Odds. For the purposes of the Draft Lottery, all teams that miss the playoffs will be considered seeds 11-16 in the Regular Season Standings, and their draft odds will start as: "Draft odds will start? Draft Lottery Tournament?" Indeed, with so many teams missing out on playoff action, the league has decided to add a new wrinkle to the Draft Lottery, which is a tournament that will decide the final Draft Lottery Odds, the format for the Draft Lottery Tournament will be as follows: So, in conclusion: 4 new teams, new scheduling and playoff formats, new Draft Lottery Odds and Draft Lottery Tournament. Much excitement, and much congratulations to everyone who made this possible. As the league enters its 13th year of operation it is a source of pride to see the community grow to where it is today, and where it can continue to grow as we move forward! @Commissioner @BOG

VHLM teams were originally linked in that manner before we switched over to a more CHL setup. The main drawback was the minor GM’s are Pretty handcuffed with what they can do because obviously you can’t trade away a player if you are linked to a VHL team. That combined with players not really loving around much anyway since there’s no injuries or anything that would warrant a player being moved. Made us need a super complex waiver system and stuff for the sake of having a less interesting minors structure.

Good to see you back, you had me worried there bud.

Just link to the topic, you don't need an individual one. Using the main announcement link is fine. The updater note was just because people were claiming it as other without a link and it was hard to tell where the doubles was coming from.

And anyone else I may have missed. In the future you don't need a separate link for claiming, just link to the OP. The updaters already need to check that you did a PT anyway so having a separate claim link in here doesn't add anything but extra messages to dig through. The limitation of not using the same link multiple times exists only on an individual basis so everyone can link to the OP without issue.

I find it odd we've both been around so long and I can't recall ever having a full conversation with you. How have we avoided each other so thoroughly for so long?

Terrible was a little harsh I'll admit.Frozen for me is tough because everyone lost their damn minds over it and said how amazing it was to the point that when I got around to seeing it I was underwhelmed. It's okay but it's not this amazing genre defining piece of animation everyone seemed to make it out to be.

Lilo and Stitch doesn't even have that much music and most of it is Elvis. Film totally makes up for the iffy music. Frozen 1 can fuck off, it's terrible. Frozen 2 is solid but I've only watched it like twice so it wasn't annoyed me.

@GustavMattias @Esso2264 @Beaviss Just so you guys know, I had a couple of minutes so I updated the index to reflect this deal.That way the roster changes have been made and you guys and put in proper lines for the sim later.

God he was big when he was still on roids... Also quit it with the three way trades, they are a pain

Skittles has been telling me for years to taste the rainbow.

The optics of this confuse me

Was wondering what jumped his S% up so high haha

Moana is delightful but without a doubt Shiny is the worst song of the bunch.

Way closer than it should have been given that shot total... Also @Jubis I let you have a sim of scoring for a change, you're welcome.

@Enorama got pretty busy and @Corco filled in a bit but we've got a bit of a back log of articles here that we'd like to get handled so we're going to open this back up to the public. Please make sure if you claim an article it gets done but also make sure you take a look at past HoF articles to get the formatting more or less standardized. Pay got a bit confusing over time so to be clear, the pay per HoF article (player or builder) will be a Free Week (6 capped which replaces a PT) + 5 Uncapped per article with the caveat that you cannot claim HoF articles as Media Spots. The current list of articles that need to be written is updated in the OP. If you'd like to write one just claim it so that we don't have multiple people writing the same ones. Once those are handled we can look at the other project we had intended to do which is updating any out of date builder articles but that is less important.

We do not make 12, we make 6 I think. My pay is a bit different because of simming so I don’t remember. No one makes the full cap from one job though. Also if I’m not mistaken we offered fong more when we reworked pay and he said he didn’t think it was necessary. I might be remembering wrong mind you. If we lean on moderators more I see no issue why they shouldn’t be paid more.

Only took like 6 tries.

Now just try and hit my Shutout record, see how that goes for you