Beketov

Matt “Tommy Gun” Thompson was born to play hockey. From a young age he proved himself an able skater with a shot that goalies in all age groups feared. For this reason it wasn’t uncommon for the young player from Vancouver to be pushed continually up age brackets, playing sometimes against people 2-3 years older than him. They were often bigger and stronger but catching up the Thompson would prove incredibly challenging, stopping him would prove nearly impossible. In his single Midget AAA season with the Fraser Valley Thunderbirds Thompson scored 132 points, 87 of which were goals, propelling him into the WHL draft spotlight. At 16 Thompson was selected in the draft by the Medicine Hat Tigers and would find the first level of competition that was capable of giving him a challenge. Opponents were faster, goalies were more agile. Speed and shot power no longer enough on their own Thompson bulked up and learned to play more defensively. His stats dropped from their Triple A levels but Thompson was still able to produce at a point per game level leading toward the NHL draft. Unfortunately disaster struck in his final playoff game with the Tigers. Thompson went knee on knee with an opposing player and was severely injured. Reconditioning proved fruitless and doctors believe the once great star may never be able to lace up skates again. Scared away by this, no NHL teams decided to take a risk on the 18 year old and he went undrafted. Determined to prove everyone wrong, Thompson decided to sign a short-term contract with the Yukon Rush of the VHL; a strong team on course for the Founder’s Cup. While the team did capture the cup and Thompson did receive a ring for it, his conditioning hardly improved. His ice time was low to help out his knee and he scored no points until late in the playoffs. With his Founder’s Cup secured Thompson went hard during the off-season and made sure his knee was ready when the following season rolled around. Drafted 7th overall by the Ottawa Lynx Thompson stormed onto the ice and quickly became a dominant force once again; become a leader on and off the ice for the Lynx. Unfortunately his knee would flare up once again and slow his point production near the midway point of the season but the Lynx would still perform at a high level; bringing Thompson to his 2nd Founder’s Cup final where they await game 1 against the Saskatoon Wild. Pros Shot It’s undeniable that Thompson’s main strength is his shot. He’s a natural born goal scorer who focusses on putting the puck in the back of the net as frequently as possible. His scoring ability is easily the main focus of his game and has made Thompson a danger to opposing goaltenders from anywhere on the ice. Speed If Thompson isn’t in a position to score you better watch out because he can get into one very quickly. Thompson is surprisingly fast for his size and his capable of bursting through defense faster than they can realize what’s happening. This ability makes it far easier for him to get into advantageous positions on the ice as well as get back quickly in the event his shot doesn’t land as expected. Defense While not known for his defensive play, Thompson does not ignore it. His size makes him dangerous and he is willing to play the body in the corners when necessary in order to get the puck. He may not be the guy likely to dive in front of a shot for the block but he’ll make opponents pay if they think they can easily get around him. If they don’t end up on the ice, they certainly won’t have the puck the next time they look down. Cons Conditioning Thompson’s knee remains a point of question. While his agency claims the knee is no longer a concern the fact remains that it does appear to flare up on occasion which can have odd consequences to Thompson’s reliability. One game he could score you 5 points and the next he’ll do nothing. If Thompson can get his knee injury under control the consistency is likely to come but until then he may be hit or miss. Playmaking Thompson was born to shoot, not to pass, and it shows. While he can pass and does get assists; most of those assists come from tip ins. Thompson can be a rather selfish player with the puck and will definitely choose to shoot before he chooses to pass in most situations. In a sniper dominated league like the VHL this could work out well but it could also destroy potential line chemistry if Thompson refuses to relinquish the puck. Ego Thompson’s ego on occasion can be one of his biggest strengths but more often than not it simply gets in the way. He believes he is a better player than his stats indicate which means he’s often harder on himself than he needs to be. This gets in the way of his play as he gets desperate to prove himself. Thompson will need a wakeup call and quickly if he wants to understand how to work well on a team in the VHL.

S61 VHL Draft Lottery Tuesday, May 29th, 6AM EST Results VHL DRAFT ORDER 1st - (From Toronto) 2nd - 3rd - 4th - ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Chance to Win the 1st Overall Pick (From Toronto) - 25% - 25% - 25% - 25% Chance to Win the 2nd Overall Pick (From Toronto) - 75% - 8.33% - 8.33% - 8.33% ------------------------------------------------------------------------ General Managers - @Banackock - @Beaviss - @hedgehog337 - @Tyler

Nah, I’ve done the bust thing already, I’m good. I rather think I’m due for another HoFer. My Update page is now also up to 61 TPE not applied so...yeah, that’ll help haha

Welcome to the VHL, TStach14! We're happy to have you. You should have received a PM with some more detailed information, but to get started quickly you will want to head over to the create-a-player forum. Once you're there, create a player by starting a new topic and pasting in one of the following templates (completed): Skater Template Goalie Template Once that's done, VHLM General Managers will be in touch with you about joining their teams. In the meantime, please feel free to ask any questions you have here or in your create-a-player thread. We're happy to have you in the community and we hope you stick around!

I haven’t so much “slowed down” as “was busy so didn’t update the last two weeks until this morning”. I missed 4 TPE last week but that’s it.

Apparently. I was expecting far more of a fight. You deserved far more of a fight.

Not sure which one is supposed to be which but this is the same link as game 5. Edit: Fixed the link for you. Good series Oslo, you held on. these last two games were really not as close as they should have been.

Big game for everyone, nice to finally get some playoff points.

I kinda like the realism of it. Making team Canada for the real World Cup is much harder than making team Sweden for example; it makes sense. To have Canadians randomly playing for Western Europe or something would just be weird. Especially since we already have the Merc team for those who don't make their actual national team.

Yeah, every WC is like that. It’s the reward / curse for picking Canada or the US. On the one hand you are nearly always guaranteed to medal BUT you need to make the team first which is much harder than other places because of the amount of talent.

Way behind on reading this but I agree that change is iffy at best IMO. Was brought up partly as a response to fewer PT's being done but doesn't fix that problem at all as it allows people to post less and get the same amount out of it. Where's the benefit there? If GFX guys make a wallpaper instead of a sig they don't get any extra (it's a bigger canvas after all) and if I record a 1 hour podcast instead of a 20 minute one I can't claim it for 3 weeks. So writing guys are getting a benefit no one else gets while also hurting the league's posting in the process. I think changes need to be made to the league but this one was kinda a "if it ain't broke" kinda fix. There really was nothing wrong with having MS' broken down into multiple parts of they were long. You get the same content and it's posted more frequently. We did used to have a rubric back when it wasn't auto-6. However there's nothing stopping you from still using one if you'd prefer to do your reviews in that manner. I mean the numbers would basically mean nothing but if it's an easier way for you to lay out your ideas than that's totally fine.

I'm not really sure why; I think people just don't think about it really. That or it doesn't seem worth it compared to say writing 150 words for a VHL.com article that's worth the same amount. Shifting the cap back down to 9 unless you review world make it far more enticing. However it would go back to limiting what people can do a little bit which was a complaint before we changed the weekly cap. I don't think people have really been embracing the options as much as we hoped though. most have seemingly just added a PC into their weekly routine rather than deciding if they want to grade or do a PC or what. The cap increase and PC's were supposed to bring diversity but they really haven't anyway. If we're just talking changes to pay I'm okay with what I proposed above but I'm also okay with considering a 9/12 system here reviewing becomes more important again. Open for discussion on both.

I think it's more complicated than just saying all jobs are now worth 3. We would definitely have to define certain ones as being PT replacements or maybe article / PC replacements or something to compensate. At that point is it really more streamlined than just stating what jobs get paid what? Streamlining is one thing but certain jobs are more necessary than others which is why they are paid more than others. Simming and Recruiting, for instance, are vital so they really shouldn't be paid the same as say reviewing which is important and nice to have but the league won't die without. Maybe we could have 3 levels though and it would keep things relatively streamlined: 3 TPE Job Pay: Regular starting salary for all jobs, basically as you discuss. 9 TPE Job Pay: Replaces your main PT plus gives the regular job pay. Would be used for PT like things (scouting report, etc) plus stuff like simming or Commish. Perhaps even updaters. 12 TPE Job Pay: Very rare, used for extremely important things such as Recruitment and offers the full cap without anything extra needed. I would be fine with something like that. Even in addition to what was described above which is growing on me a tad more since it would allow us to get more reviews which means more activity in addition to making traditional jobs seem a little more enticing because you are guaranteed that full cap more steadily; since a lot of people reviewing could mean not enough reviews to go around.

That seems a little much for kinda little IMO. The above would probably just extend the weekly cap while keeping the workload the same. So you'd just be able to do 12 for 3 instead of 8 for 2. So under a system like this the cap would be 12 for those with formal jobs and 9 for those without but up to 3 earnable from reviewing that could be used as part of the job 12 or to push the non-job to 12. The wording is a bit weird but the idea is there. Thoughts?

If you want to just keep your head on the curb for the next couple of games I would appreciate the continue stomping.

I can accept the streamlined argument but I have always hated that logic. Maybe it's just me but I like that the VHL rewards all it's members equally and jobs are just a different way to earn TPE; not an increased way. So like, I get 3 TPE a week for commish pay but that doesn't mean that I get to hit the 12 cap and someone without that pay doesn't; they just have to earn it in a different way. However a compromise here could be reviewing. Since reviewing is open to everyone already (and isn't really taken advantage of) we could increase it's pay to 3/week max and have it count as a job. That way those with more traditional jobs like commish pay or updating get their pay and the 12 TPE cap. Meanwhile those without jobs have a 9 TPE cap from traditional tasks but can get the last 3 only from reviewing. Would likely make reviewing a much more popular option, give that streamlined 9/12 that people are used to (we could make sure all jobs pay enough to get to the cap as well if they don't already), and still have the possibility that everyone can hit the cap just using different methods. I'm sure @DollarAndADream wouldn't complain about more reviews.

Damn busy weeks putting me behind. I should really try to write my bio and RP at some point.

Voted. Just a heads up @Beaviss I moved these votes to the league voting section. just makes more sense than crowding up the announcements.

Week of: May 14-20 Questions Asked: Novacek (x3), Cast (x2) answers

5

Welcome to the VHL, James Ratcliffe! We're happy to have you. You should have received a PM with some more detailed information, but to get started quickly you will want to head over to the create-a-player forum. Once you're there, create a player by starting a new topic and pasting in one of the following templates (completed): Skater Template Goalie Template Once that's done, VHLM General Managers will be in touch with you about joining their teams. In the meantime, please feel free to ask any questions you have here or in your create-a-player thread. We're happy to have you in the community and we hope you stick around!

It’s gonna be a goalie battle for sure. If you could just like, choke, that would be great.

Then you’d think you would have learned how to spell his name