jacobcarson877

F- Ronan Lavelle @JCarson

Alright let's get this thing underway! 1. @jacobcarson877 (GM) F - Ronan Lavelle F - Landon Wolanin F - Molly the Cat D - Phil Strasmore D - Pierre Emile Bouchard G - Jesse Teno 2. @JCarson lol, didn't realize you guys were together F - Sirdsvaldis Miglaskems F - Svatlopluk Puk F - James Teekirque D - Jake Thunder D - Brian Kowalski G - Lachlan Summers 3. @RileyL F - Daniel Janser F - Henry Eagles F - The Frenchman D - Biggie Cheese D - Callum Murray G - Clueless Wallob 4. @wcats F - Nico Pearce F - Sergey Preobrazhensky F - Larry Abass Jr D - Brian Payne D - Siyan Yasilievich G - Cole Pearce 5. @JB123 F - Leandro Goncalves F - John Jameson F - Todd Cooke D - Hammar Voss D - Jens Lekman G - Matt Murdock 6. @aimkin F - Tomas Sogaard F - Florida Man F - Igor Molotov D - Mo Probert D - Velociraptor Greg G - Henry Tucker Jr

Captain: Molly the Cat @JCarson Assistant: Leonard Triller @Triller Assistant: Siyan Yasilievich @badcolethetitan Honourary 3rd Assistant: Jesse Teno @aimkin FOREVER UNITED! (Praise be to Simon) ((except when he doesn't let goalies wear letters))

Delete the E?

To add to Spartan, there are 5 active F in FA, 1 active D and 1 active G, with 2 active prospects. IF I remember correctly from SEASONS ago, the lone active D is forum-only and hasn't been on the forum in about 10 days, so any interest from teams likely hasn't been read yet. The forwards SHOULD get signed by someone, assuming they respond. The goaltender absolutely will get scooped up by someone when they respond. But yes, one should earn at a rate according to the role that they want on a team, and with the amount of min-maxing done to stay competitive, D and G, the positions with the least amount of roster spots feel it the most.

1. My left eye for sure, I do most of my seeing through it. 2. Good at hitting the net. 3. @vincentlg2007 when is your player going to get good? 4. Well I can't imagine my cat holding a cup for very long. 5. Goals? Molly the Cat. Assists? Siyan. Points? Probably also Molly the Cat. 6. 3rd in EU, 5th overall.

So many great players cleaning up the awards!

1. Well I got a little better, so I expect to somehow do worse? 2. I expect a lot of fun and excitement, particularly with new waivers coming in! 3. I want to score 100 points, but I don't think that will happen 4. Praise Simon! (Praise be to Simon) 5. Excited to start with rookie Rip Wheeler, but everyone is a pleasure. 6. @cl4rk will be the most important player on the Marlins this season!

IF YOU WON INDIVIDUAL AWARDS YOU CAN CLAIM THEM FOR 1 UNCAPPED TPE EACH, THAT INCLUDES 1st 2nd AND ROOKIE TEAMS BUT NOT CUP WINS (Uncapped -> Offseason -> Award Win) link the award you won!

Agree with absolutely everything here! I hope time will prove just how great the VHLE can/will be!

And that's exactly what one should expect! You know your pick range, you scout in that pick range and you make the best pick based on the conversations you have and the data you've collected! (and you draft really really well, so everyone else take notes)

Sometimes I forget that me scouting and talking to prospects before the draft isn't me being a GOOD GM, but merely doing my job lmao Of course I do things overkill, that's my thing. I reach out to EVERYONE in the draft regardless of whether I have a shot at picking them. It's not for me and my draft, it's for making connections with the members and maybe being the only one who sends them a message leading into the draft. They used to mean so much to me as a first-gen, and the best waiver pitches/ draft interviews still stand out to me today. If you're not going to do the due diligence, just pass the picks. Teams do fine without being avid drafters all the time, if drafting isn't your thing just trade them for players idk

I only just realized after writing the title that this idea is pretty much just the lottery tournament, but during the season, eliminating the hassle from the sim team, and actually having meaning beyond minuscule odds changes. I could’ve sworn I wrote about this before, but with the lottery tournament being killed and static odds being put in place I thought it would be a fun time to talk about my favourite draft odds method. First created in 2012, and then more accessibly summarized in 2020, let’s talk about the Gold Drafting method. It has a few goals that guide its design. Those being: Every game for every team in every season has meaning and excitement. Particularly exciting at the end of the season. End to tanking. End to the lottery. Instead of rewarding the team that tanks the hardest with the best picks, reward teams for winning even after being eliminated by giving the best picks to the teams with the most points after being eliminated. The worst teams will have the most time to accrue these “Gold” points, even if they do so at a worse rate. The best worst teams will have the least amount of time to accrue points, but will be frantically trying to win even after disappointing playoff elimination. A particularly interesting tweak to the original idea is that teams can declare themselves eliminated starting at a certain point in the season (I would suggest the trade deadline), where regardless of their standing points at the end of the season, they can not make the playoffs, and begin accruing “Gold” points immediately. Of course one would have to cap the number of teams that can be eliminated, so that the playoff structure still exists, but it allows teams who went on a weird early run but don’t have the talent to win, or would not gain from an early playoff exit to tap out, and increase their pick odds. I think this works nicely in a sim league format, allowing GM’s more control over their destiny, and making even the worst teams have a reason to compete every day. Every sim is exciting right up until the very end, and underdog teams can ride miraculous runs to a great pick, an exciting prospect for those on the team long term. Another important note is that picks accrue Gold Points based on the original owner, not the current holder. Therefore there is no incentive to screw with the results, assuming the original owner makes the playoffs, and if they don’t they are no more likely to want to lose than they would under a traditional lottery system. Oh and here’s the link to the post that I’m referencing: https://hockeyviz.com/txt/gold Curious what others think, the article is a pretty short read and pretty clear, so I’m curious how people would feel about it.

The VHLE is something of a personal dilemma floating around in my head semi-regularly, and it is a battle between logic and sentiment that I can’t quite win. I’ve been vocal in the past about how I think the VHLE is an incredibly useful tool in the league’s development system and should be the perfect way to increase engagement and parity, and provide a buffer space to account for natural fluctuations in league membership. Reducing stagnation and continuing to stimulate members as they work to progress to the point of being useful in the VHL sounds like the logical decision. Allowing for members to have the opportunity to meet new people, work under different management and face new levels of competition just makes sense. Not launching a 250TPE player into the VHL against 1300TPA monsters sounds like a good way to keep player’s producing in a way that motivates them and doesn’t leave them seasons away from having a shot at being moderately useful. Having more GM's, AGM's and commissioners to help support league activity and provide more points of contact for any given new member makes sense. Easing players into the concept of competitive cycles, roster construction and player roles sounds like a good way to approach it. So why is the VHLE not working? Well there are a few reasons why in my mind. There is an overwhelming crowd of people who were moderately inconvenienced, put off or delayed from making it to the VHL upon conception that have been vocal of their dissent towards the decision. With very few openly praising the VHLE, the quiet minority have become the dominant voice in the conversation. I don’t think there are many people absolutely enthralled by the VHLE, and thus there really is no push-back against whatever people want to say against it. It has been a long time since the VHLE started, and yet it is still viewed as something new. Nearly everyone has had the opportunity to be a part of the VHLE by now, excluding our newest members. Not many remember the circumstances leading towards the creation of the VHLE in the first place, and to be fair, those conditions no longer exist. While recruitment is fine, and we maintain decent draft classes, they are nothing like they were in the mid-70s during peak Reddit recruitment and well, peak COVID boredom. At the same time, the VHLE is no longer new and exciting. Most players affected by the launch of this new league at the time were excited to be a part of something massive and new. It was a chance to take their talents to the next level, and essentially duke it out against their draft class again. Now that everyone has been there and done that, the charm has worn off quite a lot. GM's often see the VHLE as a steppingstone into a VHLM or VHL position, or simply want to GM without caring about the goals of the league. The VHLE is all about hunting down players, forcing retention in players that aren’t themselves internally engaged, building pipelines from the VHLM to the VHL and encouraging growth constantly in those who don’t earn at their potential. It is a ton of work, and not everyone is prepared to give that much to the VHLE. Not every GM style works for it, and not every GM candidate would make a good VHLE GM. This heavy workload also means it is draining on the GM, and leads to turnover. Turnover means more transitions which only lead to more lapses in activity and eventually leaving altogether. There is also a growing group of members who aim to skip the VHLE entirely, and it remains possible, rather simple if you earn well, and does not have really any drawbacks in the long run. Many people would rather stay in the constant chaos of the VHLM or propel themselves to the VHL right away to begin the important part of their career. The VHLE has none of the waiver hype and none of the meaning that its competitors have. You either earn moderately well and end up right around 200TPE and stay down or earn so much that you get to a place where VHL teams will want to call you up early. At least that seems to be the goal of a vocal minority in the VHLM. This leads into the real problem, and the snowball effect. There simply aren’t enough active players in the VHLE to make it interesting. Cap structuring in the VHL encourages calling up prospects in the 300s, the lack of activity spawns more inactivity, transitions lead to opportunities to go inactive, losing the chaos of the VHLM can bore members, members might overwork in the hype of the VHLM leading to burnout in the VHLE, GM's with their empty rosters might themselves lose interest and not do enough for their players, inactive players cost less (no pick needed) and perform better on average than active players, boom and bust cycles are vicious and essentially knock out 2-4 teams before the season even starts, anyone who is earning consistently graduates and anyone earning inconsistently goes inactive. So, what is the answer? Well, I think it begins with education. I think looking at the VHLE logically is the best way to approach it, and to understand that it only works if we as members of the league embrace it and use it for the purposes that it is intended to be used for. My VHLE experience was great because there were a handful of people that committed to making the experience fun, and we weren’t even that great of a team. We knew we were there to mature a bit more for the VHL, and we tried our best to keep all the semi-active players participating in the league that best suited their activity. Us who earned well got the chance to give being leaders a shot, and got to fulfill important roles, instead of being on the fringes of a VHL squad that really didn’t need us taking up precious ice time. The VHLE is a great experience when players invest in it. There is a lot of bad press to undo in order to turn it around, and that starts with the older members, and carries down into the VHLM, and those players making their decisions on where to play. GM's need to be advocating for the VHLE, hyping their players up to go play there, and making it feel special. The VHLE also needs to carve out its external motivation, finding some way to increase parity, and following, competition. With so few teams the playing field should be incredibly tight, and yet it consistently seems to be a 2-3 horse race. With short player cycles, every season needs to be a competitive opportunity, something the VHLM has embraced under current leadership. If every season in the VHLE becomes a shootout, a star-on-star battle, every game a feature affair, then the VHLE has something that separates it from the other leagues. As is, its simply the VHLM of 10-20 seasons ago without the waiver battle. I do think the VHLE missed its greatest opportunity to claim its identity, and it was only just recently that I came to that conclusion. Not that all hope is lost, and they should tear down. Not by any means. But if you look at the GM group the VHLE had compiled a couple seasons ago, it was made up of some of the most prominent voices in the league, who have mostly left those positions for their own reasons. There was a group really committed to creating an identity for the VHLE, and well now there’s a completely different group. Even VHLE GM's have been joking about how they’d rather be AGM's in other leagues than GM's in the VHLE, and while I imagine that is more joke than fact, it isn’t entirely unreasonable that the sentiment might feel relatable to the consensus view of the member base. I’d like to see this GM group really embrace their positions and drive for a better VHLE, not simply a better resume for their later careers, and not simply for a little more power to their name. Another concern I have since becoming a GM, so for a while now, is that our supply of streamers, staff and admins have been sorely lacking when it comes to draft day. We had to beg someone who didn’t even have a microphone to come on and stream the VHLE draft, and while I hear it went well, the league had no plan leading into the draft, and there was no incentive for anyone to step up and do it. I swear there used to be designated streamers, and they used to get pay to do so. If I’m mistaken and that never existed, that really should. Organize the draft dates around when commissioners and streamers can stream, the GM's can figure it out, and that’s coming from a GM. 1500+ words.

You're right I do need to reapply my TPE at some point! (amazing work as always!)

Awesome additions! Excited to see a new wave of members tomorrow!

VHLM ain't ready!

I'll sit down and actually listen to this at some point, but great content from the couple minutes I listened to! Thanks for the kind words!

Welcome!

Excellent addition! Excited to see more great members making their way up the leagues!

If my offer is to be accepted, it will need to be fixed to be a 2-season deal, no options, as discussed with the player.

Sounds quite fun! Similar in concept to Lucas Grey's not applying TPE until the VHL, but way more hardcore. And honestly at the rate you earn, those ~300 TPE won't affect you long term, should still be a great player.

Applying