CowboyinAmerica

Yeesh. Well I'm lucky I haven't had too many of these games, I guess.

Bushito, still a damn thorn in my side.

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I appreciate the league's ending announcement thread. To be fair... actually yeah, there were a lot of assholes. #JusticeForMike

I like seeing the sophomore goalies do well. Should be a fun goalie battle for many years into the future

If Ruutu retires as planned, there will totally be an open spot for a wing on Calgary's second line. Just saying...

Back to back shutouts? Well, this isn't what I expected at all.

Seems that the Calgary players were not particularly happy with the Nike trade

Four seasons is kind of a long time tbh. What, 10 months or so?

Good stuff, pleasure having you on the team and hope you get more playing time!

I have no idea why CAL RW1 is playing, but he's officially on fire?

CAL G1`for Goalie of the Year, remaining undefeated. And hey there IR, not half bad.

Granted I should have done better, but I'll absolutely take 3 Zoidberg goals in his first 2 games.

I was the Ginzou Fujiwara. I just clicked on a team I knew absolutely nothing about and got lucky with the first one.

For the record, would have 130% supported you over Bushito for Seattle had I been active.

3-2 Davos

Wranglers Americans Express Vikings

Only if it's against A.C. Savage, who refuses to fight back

It's no problem, I tried writing a Survivor one of these before and ran into the same problem. As long as I'm not dumped unceremoniously, I'm good.

Clearly, I'm the Becky of this house. Here's to hoping I get hit in the face with a train or something.

I was thinking of coming up with a comeback but then I saw I gave up a goal 8 seconds into the game and I've just got nothing.

If Calgary wins it all and I get Goalie of the Year, winning both awards in 50% of my seasons gets me into HOF right?

Calgary, AB -- As we've learned before, sometimes the game of hockey does not go as planned. Sometimes, the Seattle Bears win the championship with the worst regular season record of any playoff team. Sometimes, Benjamin Glover retires without a championship. And sometimes, a second-year goalie coming off a 12-win season is on pace to have the second-best save percentage in the past six seasons. "Nope, I don't get it either," Calgary goaltender Hans Wingate told reporters after the team's most recent win against Stockholm. "I'm not entirely sure why I'm playing so well, but I'll take it." Wingate would go on to say that he fully expects to come back down to earth soon. Notably, he only needs to point to last season; Wingate held a save percentage around .920 for most of the year before failing miserably in his final ten games and plummeting down to .912. (That fall also helped Calgary secure the second pick in the draft.) However, there are a few encouraging signs on the horizon. While data analysts expected Wingate's struggles to start in the current Calgary stretch against Euro powers, where he plays Cologne (3 times), Stockholm (2 times) and Davos in six straight games, he has currently allowed just three goals in three games during the first half of that stretch. And with more talent coming to Calgary in the form of Sachimo Zoidberg and Teuvo Ruutu, it's conceivable that he'll face fewer shots moving forward as well.

Directions unclear, VHL Finals now being played on turf

The one-and-done GMs They may have done better than you thought. Sachimo Zoidberg’s tenure as general manager of the Toronto Legion is unmemorable, to say the least. Other than leaving a few contentious multi-part trades in his wake, a 10-22-3 record as GM is nothing to write home about. And considering that Molholt’s big move so far as GM is to sign David Blind to a free agent contract, something tells me that the season won’t end that pretty for Toronto, either. According to the very handy All-Time GMs list, there have been exactly five GMs that have been at the head of their teams for one season or less since the beginning of S17 (as far back as indexes go). Two of those GMs, Raymond Funk and Sterling Labatte, each combined for one season as Toronto GM in Season 23. All things considered, with sim leaguers often coming and going like the changing of the wind, that figure is actually very impressive. And with these GMs only taking control of the team for one season, it stands to reason that they all probably failed similarly to Zoidberg, right? Well, actually, not so fast. The history of one-year-only GMs is a bit more checkered than you’d believe. S43 Seattle Bears – Mitch Higgins Team Finish: VHL Championship Final Record: 39-25-8 (6th overall) Considering that this is recent history, just about everyone knows what happened here. Bushito suddenly left the Bears in a state of limbo, just as he did the Dynamo in Season 31, and just as he probably will when future commissioners decide to trust him after a rash of super-activity in Season 55. To replace him, commissioner and James Faraday-controlling Mitch Higgins, previously a title-winning GM of Helsinki himself, took up the mantle. It proved to be a shrewd move; not only did Seattle advance despite the worst record of all playoff teams, the Bears actually went on to take the whole title in one of the more unlikely victories in VHL history. Not bad for Higgins, who would hand the team over to Mike the following offseason. S39 HC Davos Dynamo – Mike Molholt Team Finish: VHL Finals Loss Final Record: 49-17-6 (2nd overall) Molholt may now be Jala’s replacement in Toronto, but this is actually his second go-around as a VHL general manager. And although his Season 39 Davos squad didn’t get the ring that Higgins’ Seattle squad did, this team was very likely even better. Taking over for Victor Alfredsson before the season, Molholt stepped into the perfect situation for a new GM: a team that had won two of the previous three championships, with most of the squad still in place. Although Davos fell in five games to the powerful New York Americans in the finals, Molholt still deserves accolades for holding the team together and managing a perilous cap situation, which would tear the dynasty apart the following offseason when Jack Reilly took control. S24 Riga Reign – Nick Baretta Team Finish: Missed Playoffs Final Record: 24-41-7 (6th overall) A testament to the strength of the VHL’s GM selection, there hadn’t been a GM who lasted a season or less before Molholt since all the way back in Season 24, when Nick Baretta (Fyodorov) lasted a partial season before yielding to Zack Gagnon (InstantRockstar) for the rest of the season plus Season 25. In many ways, this situation is the closest parallel to the current Toronto squad, and not only because Gagnon is involved once again. The Reign weren’t good, and they were never going to be a playoff team fighting against Davos, Helsinki and Vasteras. However, their 55 points at least beat out Calgary and Seattle, and that’s even with a GM-change midseason. Still though, I’m not sure this is the team Toronto wants to emulate—Riga had six different GMs during the 20’s before Mike gave the team 12 years of stability. S23 Toronto Legion – Raymond Funk/Sterling Labatte Team Finish: First Round of Playoffs Loss Final Record: 47-22-3 (3rd overall) Unfortunately, this is where my status as a recent (Season 31) addition to the VHL rears its head. I have no idea why Funk and Labatte each lasted less than a season as Toronto’s GM, especially since both were (and Sterling still is) well respected members of the community, and there’s no forum for me to probe and find out why. The moves are also doubly surprising when you realize that the Toronto squad actually did super well for itself. With 97 points, Toronto beat out Calgary by one for the best record in the North American Conference, only to see that same Calgary team beat them in five games in the playoffs. The Legion would get to the Finals (although lose in six) the next season as well, so it’s not like an exodus of talent scared them into giving the team to Jeff Hunter. Much like Higgins’ tenure in Seattle, the Season 23 Toronto team will remain an odd blip on the VHL radar.