CowboyinAmerica

Everybody thought the Calgary Wranglers would be in for a down year following their run of six straight playoff appearances dating back to S30. But this? This may be a new low in the history of the franchise. Through the first eight games, the Wranglers are 0-8, having not gained any points behind a core of Henrik Larsson, Rock Star, and… well, that’s really it in terms of players that have put in a single practice hour. Every single other VHL team holds at least 6 points at this stage? Could they be on their way to being the worst team ever? That’s hard to say right now. But since the VHL’s parity has remained unchanged for the most part since the addition of Quebec City and Cologne in Season 31, it makes sense to compare them to some of the past worst teams of the Expansion Era and see if Calgary really can make history. The Six Worst Records since S30 S35 Riga Reign: 5-65-2 (12 points) S32 Seattle Bears: 9-61-2 (20 points) S35 New York Americans: 9-61-2 (20 points) S33 Vasteras Iron Eagles: 7-58-7 (21 points) S34 HC Davos Dynamo: 9-60-3 (21 points) S31 Toronto Legion: 10-57-5 (25 points) What It Means For Calgary, looking at these worst records means that brighter skies are likely ahead. For one, you’ll notice that there are no repeat offenders here. Once a team was in the gutter, they only stayed there for likely one season before at least being semi-decent. That certainly looks to be the case with Calgary as they hold multiple first round picks and Martin Brookside coming up soon. But for this season, it could get ugly. I wouldn’t be surprised if they at least held second place under Riga, especially with the number of teams trying to win this year. And they very well could hold first place as well if GM Jason Glaser has anything to say about it. He has already made his intentions to tank known and could even sit Rock Star for all 8 of Calgary’s games against fellow basement-dweller New York this season.

Dude. I kind of want to buy this IRL.

Why Bratislava Won't Win the Founder's Cup You would think that players would learn, but somehow, they never do. Four seasons ago, this particular author made a bold prediction, one that has unfortunately been lost to the annals of history in the publication known as the “Old Board”: The heavily-favored Ottawa Ice Dogs would not win the Founder’s Cup in Season 32. It was a fool’s prediction, to be fair. The Ice Dogs held the first three picks of the draft, as well as seven of the first 11. They featured players who would go on to become VHL stars: Wesley Kellinger, Odin Tordahl, two Valiq brothers and others. They traded for goalie Mack Hudson before the season, who held more TPE than any other goalie. Oh, and they ended up losing to the Evgeni Chekhov-led Brampton Blades in the North American Conference finals. That happened too. This year, the Bratislava Watchmen are expected to run away with the VHLM, with everyone essentially appointing the crew as Founder’s Cup champions before the season ever starts. With Brookside, Slaughter, Fjorsstrom and others leading the way, how could they not? Very easily, this author says. I believe the Watchmen will not be your S36 VHLM Champions, and one only needs to look to VHL examples in the past to figure out why. A Good Goalie Goes a Long Way Look at the recent VHLM champions, and you’ll find an obvious thread – solid, and active, goaltending. For S35 Ottawa, it was Mike Szatkowski Jr. In Yukon’s S34 run, it was Lennox Moher. S33: Eggly Bagelface. S32: A then-active David Poulin. S31: Skylar Rift. And you can just keep going down the list. In recent years, this means that only a few teams have had a chance, because solid goaltending has been few and far between. In fact, Season 32 was the last time that we saw a preponderance of solid goalies throughout the VHLM, with Poulin, Hudson, Chekhov and Zach Fucale all active at the time. It was having to face those solid goalies that brought the Ice Dogs down. This year, Bratislava will have to face the same type of opposing goalie pressure. Within the European Conference itself, Oslo’s Kimmo Salo and Bern’s Blaine Olynick look to have a substantial amount of TPE under their belts by the time the playoffs roll around. And over in Yukon, Santeri Heikelä will be holding down the North American Conference with his own budding talent. This year, it isn’t only future Wrangler Martin Brookside who will be holding down the goaltending fort. Activity, Activity, Activity In Season 32, the Ottawa Ice Dogs got a steal in Odin Tordahl at 11th overall, who declared for the draft just minutes before it began (and consequently, after Oslo GM Mike Boss had already sent in his list for picks). However, they were undone when some of their other first round selections such as GIYGAS, Mattis Trumbauer and Jamie Shetler, did not show the post-draft potential that they once did. They simply couldn’t catch up to the high-TPE players already in the VHLM, which allowed Lucas Smith to shine in the playoffs. Unless GM Vincent Wong is extraordinarily proactive with his own high-TPE picks, the Bratislava Watchmen may fall to the same fate. Fourth overall pick Phil Villeneuve claims to be around for the long-haul, but some insiders believe he may be burned out after previous player Phil Rafter. The same principle applies to his brother in crime David Januzaj. And while Kai Randal looks to be solid moving forward, the Watchmen hold little else in the way of up-and-coming talent that prevents against burn-out. Randomness Given an 82-game sample size, you know who the best players are going to be in the regular season. For example, take the S26 Vasteras Junior Eagles. The team went an absolutely insane 64-6-2 during the regular season, capitalizing on a slew of future Hall of Famers (Chershenko, Rafter, Smalling) and other players that would hit high TPE totals (Qin, Riopel, Byer, Incognito, Muller, Satan, Henchoz) to utterly destroy the rest of the league. The next-closest team, Brampton, finished 29 points behind. The third place team, Bern, finished 53 points behind. However, anything can happen in a seven-game series. After storming through the first series against Bern 4-1, Vasteras seemed poised to win it all in an easy finals series against Brampton. After going up 2-1 in the series, they had to feel even better. But then things didn’t turn their way, and they lost two straight, and even after forcing Game 7, three Blades goals in the first 17 minutes helped put the presumed champs away. The point is this: Anything can happen. While a preponderance of inactive teams may lead to some easy victories and a preponderance of strange multi-page complaining threads about various VHLM GMs, there’s a reason why they have to play the game in the end. And for S36 Bratislava, the walk to the championship may not be as easy as it seems. In fact, I’d bet on it.

Do you know the Muffin Man, the Muffin Man, the Muffin Man? Do you know the Muffin Man? He will fuck your shit up.

Pssh, not as effective as Seattle's LR discussion about kicking him in the nuts after the first two sims.

Riga 3-2

Dynamo Meute BEARS Legion

If I can be an MVP candidate after never making even an All-Star Game, I will be pleasantly surprised. Thanks for the props!

OK, about to show my noobness. I don't get the Vasteras hate? I don't plan on reaching FA any time soon, but I'd think playing the role of cursed franchise redeemer would be fun.

JUST LOOKING OUT FOR YOU BUDDY

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WpYeekQkAdc The VHL season is almost upon us, and Karsten Olsen and the rest of the Seattle Bears squad are gearing up to make a playoff push for the first time in five seasons. However, it’s not just the team game that we at the Seattle Times are focused on – it’s the individual awards as well. And, it seems according to the VHL predictions, not many Bears are on the prediction ballots to win awards this season. Case in point: Defenseman of the Year. With Marcellin and Sullivan retired, the award is now seemingly up for grabs to any defenseman who can claim it. Most of the predictions, however, say the award isn’t up for grabs at all. With ballots filed into the league office, almost 90 percent of all VHL representatives believe one of the Valiqs, Alexander or Niklas, will win the award. And that makes Bears defenseman Karsten Olsen displeased. “Of course I feel like I have a legitimate shot,” Olsen told reporters before Seattle’s first preseason game. “Alexander Valiq is on the downslope of his career, and Niklas Valiq only has me by about 30 practice hours. I think it’s more of a toss-up than a clear Valiq victory, and you could probably throw my teammate James Lefevre, Willie Weber and Malcom Spud in there as well. It's wide open. Really, I just wanted a few more votes away from the Quebec duo.” On his own personal ballot, Olsen’s agent Zach Warren placed three Bears in prominent spots – Olsen for Defenseman of the Year, Sebastian Ball Jr. for Most Improved Player, and Greg Harbinson for GM of the Year. Ball will likely be the scoring centerpiece of the Seattle offense this season, and if Seattle indeed makes a run, Harbinson should be honored for completing the Bears’ rebuild.

You're talking to a player who has been on the Bears most of that time, who were also going after all of the same players and have also went 0-for-everybody. And the Wranglers have not only not signed anybody, but they've lost players (Grigs, Rift, Salmon) and had to mortgage the future from here to oblivion to trade for pieces to win.

But actually... this is kinda my opinion, in a fucked up way. There are, what, three FA's in a given season that actually mean something legitimate? That means that each year, 70% of VHL teams are sitting doing nothing in FA, more than that if two players decide to team up as Grigs/Rift did. Yeah, the Express haven't signed any free agents. But neither have the Bears, or the Wranglers, or the Iron Eagles for a few years, or the Legion until they nabbed Salmon this year. It happens when everybody's going after a limited pool.

Oh. Gotcha.

More like Toronto creating cap space. I see your game.

That kind of works both ways though. John Calipari at Kentucky actively recruits those guys, knowing the likely one-and-dones are supremely talented but are less sought after. That way, he can chew them up and spit them out like the basketball factory UK is without ever having to worry too much about having them maintain academic eligibility for more than a semester. Believe both sides can be at fault here, the players for not wanting more and the schools for not caring enough to push them further. Although with that said... fuck the NCAA and their terrible system of ineffectively mixing academics and athletics in general.

I would argue that they have a decent amount of autonomy. The top writers for sure - of which Zach Lowe is one - aren't simply parroting talking points and are much more analytical than the typical ESPN writer. Anyway, I don't like the wheel rotation thing for a couple of reasons. 1. I feel that the anti-small market teams argument has merit, and I'm also typically never a fan of situations where the rich get richer. How are you going to achieve more interesting outcomes? It's not through propping up a wide variety of teams in the draft, which is an arbitrary promotional tool as it is and doesn't hold as large of an audience as it does for the NFL. It's through propping up teams during the regular season so that teams are evenly matched. That's why I'd much rather see a change such as an MLS-style hard cap (hard number + exception for one superstar) instead of any change to the draft. 2. There was an argument made on Reddit that I saw that I think makes sense: You're going to see many more players staying in school to wait for a team that they want and manipulating the draft. What if Andrew Wiggins knows this year, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that he's going to be going to some terrible situation that he doesn't want to go to like the Kings. Why not just wait in school for another year until, say, the Heat have the #1 pick? At least with the lottery, there's a wider variety of teams that a player could go to.

Watchful Seattle Bears fans may have noticed last season that Karsten Olsen didn't exactly... improve any. He had worked hard in the S34 offseason, sure, but once the season actually hit, the defenseman the Bears saw on Game 1 was the same defenseman they saw on Game 82. It wasn't that Olsen was lazy, it was just that... OK, he was lazy. "Lazy as could be," Karsten Olsen said in an interview with the Seattle Times earlier this week. "I just didn't want to do anything." That long time off, however, may have had some unintended consequences. Because Olsen was gone so long, there were many practice hours that he accumulated along the way that he was never able to apply. Practice from donations, predictions, giveaways and other fantasy events simply sat by the wayside as Olsen did nothing during the regular season. But now, when those points are coupled with various offseason upgrades, Olsen may just be one of the most improved players in the entire VHL heading into next season. "Before, I didn't have anything maxxed out," Olsen said. "But now, I'm going to be one of the best players in the league in passing, defense, checking and skating, and that's just in one offseason. It's going to be a big increase." A quick look at his numbers backs him up. With an expected update around 120 practice hours heading into Season 36, Olsen will now be able to increase his scoring and puck handling slightly as well. While Olsen did not perform well enough to even make the All-Star Game in S35 (despite holding the third-most votes in the North American Conference, but that's another article for another time), I wouldn't bet against him being a Defenseman of the Year candidate in S35.

Editor’s Note: This author had previously written a series concerning Karsten Olsen’s disappearance from the VHL, but he’s bored with that particular subject. So for now, he switches gears. ------------- Seem like it has been a while since you made season predictions? That’s because it has: The last time most VHL members tried to make predictions for the start of the year, the Willis Tower was the tallest building in America, Rob Ford was just some slightly eccentric Toronto mayor, and the Houston Texans were ready to make a Super Bowl run in the NFL. It’s understandable if most of those casting their VHL prediction brackets have lost a step or two. That’s why we’re here to help. Coming in installments over two weeks, we’ll go over some of the key awards up for grabs this year. But it wouldn’t just be enough for this particular author’s prediction: We’ll give a dark horse as well that not many people are talking about but could easily come from nowhere to win the award. Championship - Continental Cup/ Best Regular Season Record - Victory Cup Our Favorite – Quebec City Meute: A bit of a copout selecting the defending champs to defend their title? Perhaps. But there’s a good reason that I believe the Meute could be the first repeat champs since the Dynamo is S24 and S25. Yes, the Meute may have lost Miles Larsson, but they’re not the only contenders from last season to lose key players, as the Titans lost long-time center Brody Hodgson and defenseman Ryan Sullivan, while the Wranglers have lost literally everybody. Especially when gains from the Valiqs, Wesley Kellinger and Doug Clifford are factored in, I don’t see anyone rising up to challenge them immediately. The Dark Horse – Cologne Express: Cologne, Toronto or Seattle could all be in this spot, but Cologne has one distinct advantage over the other two teams: The European Conference is still significantly weaker than the North American Conference this season. Vasteras and Davos still seem to be a year away, and Riga will be about two or three years before they are a major factor once again. And if Helsinki does indeed lose Odin Tordahl to free agency, Cologne could very well be the favorite heading into the season. North America Conference Champion - Devon Marlow-Marta Trophy Our Favorite – Quebec City Meute: We made the case for Quebec City as Continental Cup winner above, and there’s no reason to believe any differently for the Devon Marlow-Marta Trophy. The play of Skylar Rift should be a major factor in how far Quebec City goes this season, and there’s no reason to believe he’ll be anything short of spectacular. The Dark Horse – Toronto Legion: Especially early in the season, before some of the younger players that litter the league are able to build up more of a TPE base, a high-TPE goalie is one of the best weapons a team can wield. For the Legion, it’s a good thing, then, that Remy LeBeau is the highest-TPE goalie in the conference with the retirement of Alexander Labatte. The lessened TPE-earning abilities of Teemu Lehtinen (assuming he re-signs), Nikita Lebedev and Jamie Shelter may hurt them as teams such as Seattle catch up during the regular season, but they could certainly get out to a large enough lead early for it not to matter later. European Conference Champion - Terence Fong Trophy Our Favorite­ – Helsinki Titans: The argument for the Toronto Legion holds here for the Helsinki Titans, except for one key piece: Tuomas Tukio has had even more VHL success than Remy LeBeau. A strong goalie can make up for a lot of deficiencies, especially defensively where the current Weber/Merritt first line pairing looks a like weaker than the Sullivan and Riopel days of yore. Cologne may be a dark horse for the championship, but much of that is based off the team’s ability to generate TPE throughout the season. The high TPE earners of Osbourne, Tukio and Zhumbayev are already there, and stars shine brightest in the playoffs. The Dark Horse – HC Davos Dynamo: Selecting the European Conference and North American Conference champions is always somewhat of a crapshoot. The selection all depends on who can win in a limited sample size, a seven game series. Well, know which team will be earning a potential boatload of TPE throughout the season? Davos. Brovalenko is already there, but don’t be surprised if Moher, Landry and Bentley each move into the top 5 in TPE at their respective positions as the season moves on. It would be a longshot, but Davos has won on longshots before. MVP - Scotty Campbell Trophy Our Favorite – Kameron Taylor: Some may argue that Taylor should be the S35 MVP, but with Wozniak, Rybak and more now on the sidelines permanently, it should be Taylor’s chance to shine. Taylor’s scoring and skating ability speaks for itself, but the reason I’m most high on him as MVP may not be his individual abilities at all. The development of Reggie Dunlop and David Collier as fellow first-line wingers should provide Taylor more set-up opportunities than some of the other top MVP contenders like Brovalenko or Osbourne (if Tordahl doesn’t re-sign) and allow him to score goals on a whim. The Dark Horse – Wesley Kellinger: Yuri Grigorenko has been the focal point of the Quebec offense for each of the past two seasons, and many will believe that he should continue that role this season. But don’t forget – Grigorenko is also in his seventh season, and regression will begin to hit him much harder this year than in years past. Know who’s still only on the upslope of his career, however? Kellinger. He looks to be moving into the top point-producing position on the best team in the league with A. Valiq also on the downslope of his career, and he has a strong cast around his with the two other Valiqs on the top line as well. After not even making the All-Star Game in S35, this could be the year the former #1 overall selection breaks out. Watch out next week for even more predictions before you file your own ballot!

Player Name: Karsten Olsen Cash you have: $7.25 million ($3.5 million previously + $3.75 million for S36) Workout Name: 20 TPE package Cost of Workout: $7 million Cash Left: $250,000

Happy to have you longer-term!

Now that he has returned to practice, Seattle Bears defenseman Karsten Olsen hasn't exactly been shy in talking to the media. Assorted members of the press, including the Seattle Times, caught up with Karsten after he was finishing an offseason training session with former Bears star Mitch Higgins. Q: So Karsten, now that you're back, how do you think the team looks? Better than ever, I'd have to say. This is what we've been building towards, this upcoming season here. I have three years under my belt, and so does Ball. Blade and Smyl each now have two. This is our time, and if Seattle doesn't make the playoffs next year (especially with Calgary and New York's problems), I'll be positively shocked. Q: But are playoffs really the goal? Will you be content with that? No, not really. I mean, it will be nice to get there, since I haven't yet. But I'm a firm believer that once you get to the playoffs, anything can happen. You just need to take that first step. And I'd put our in-year improvements up against anybody else in the league - we're young and active, the best combination for our training actually meaning something by the end of the season. Q: And you have the number one draft selection joining you as well, as well as any free agents. That we do, helpful journalist man. I've seen rumors and sly hints from our GM that we'll be selecting Godavari Yumalatopinto. I know as much as you guys do, but man, wouldn't that be a spectacular defense? In an age where pretty much everybody other than Quebec is having massive amounts of trouble finding defensive talent, we'll have four of the best young defensemen in the league with him, myself, Lefevre and Encarnacion. That's just positively deadly. Our offense will be fine with Ball and Blade and Sound and anyone else we bring in, but that defense, that could be a cup-shifting strength right there.

This is the second part of an ongoing series explaining Karsten Olsen’s absence from the VHL. The first part can be found here. ------------ The Disappearance of Karsten Olsen, Chapter Two Somebody's Watching Me https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7YvAYIJSSZY Actual message received in Karsten Olsen’s inbox, Oct. 26, 2013, three weeks after Karsten’s disappearance, from the Commissioner’s Office: “Oh, isn’t that cute?” Satan said, staring down at the ice where he had kicked former VHL defenseman Karsten Olsen just moments before. “Look at this nice message from Victor. He doesn’t even know you’re gone. In fact, nobody does. You’re nothing, just a weak, pathetic piece of trash. You don’t even have any reason to be looking at these emails anymore, do you?” The cell phone crunched mercilessly under Satan’s skate. Karsten had not seen his cell phone for three weeks, not since he had been thrown in the basement, but it still felt like a piece of him was among the shattered glass blending into the ice. His last link to the outside world, one of the final ways he could escape, was now becoming one with the shabby rink he was forced to call home. He had become well acquainted with this dilapidated arena. Once an offseason training facility for the VHL’s Hamilton Canucks, the arena in Marietta, Georgia, had sat vacant since the Canucks left the VHL in Season 7. The Alliance for the Thrashers Reborn (ATR) had attempted to fix up the place, but he could tell that there were no professionals among his captors. The ponds outside in Davos had a smoother ice surface than the one he was forced to skate on. Karsten even would have preferred playing outdoors to... this thing. For one week, Satan and the other captors pushed him. He was to play defense on this makeshift team — he had once been the top defensive selection in the VHL Draft after all, and that wasn’t too long ago. However, Karsten found it hard to try and play with the motley crew the ATR had cobbled together. In net was Satan, and Olsen could tell that he hadn’t played real hockey for a while. His partner on defense was Edward Eldred, whom Olsen tried to befriend but gave up when he realized the man literally said nothing but curse words. The offense wasn’t much better, with Chief Runningwater and Captain Bacon looking like they had never played a minute of organized hockey. And then there was Walter Mitty, the left winger with the English name who spoke with a mysterious Irish accent and looked like his mind was always somewhere else. Mitty could play a bit, but the rest weren’t worth a damn. But that didn’t stop the captors from running drills and working their players into the ground. Shooting target practice: Do you think you’re supposed to be Michal Wozniak or something? You’re shooting like you have five concussions… from yesterday! Working on big hits: You wimp, Jason Waterfalls hits better than you, and his name was taken from a girl group named “Tender, Love and Care!” Skating around cones: Man, if Greg Harbinson could see you right now, we wouldn’t even need to keep you here! He’d cut you and you’d have nowhere else to go! The constant put-downs never stopped against Karsten Olsen. He couldn’t give up, however. He just needed to find a way, any way, out of his situation. It wasn’t going to happen at night; he was still locked in that godforsaken basement when he was supposed to be sleeping. It wasn’t going to happen at practice; Satan never let them have a break, besides. It wasn’t going to happen in the locker room; nobody talked in there, and anything out of the ordinary would be noticed immediately. Day seven of “Thrashers” practice was Olsen’s lowest point. He slumped out of the locker room, dejected, waiting for the rest of the players to change before they could be smuggled back into a car, taken to their cold and foreboding home once again. Edward Eldred was the first player out, he greeted Olsen with a warm and friendly “Cocksucking motherfucker son of a bitch ass titty” before making his way outside. Chief Runningwater was next; he almost tripped over his own feet while attempting to open a door. Then, it was Walter Mitty. Slyly, Mitty worked his way over to Olsen’s spot. “Ha-ware-ya today? Hey, hey kiddy,” Mitty said, clearly trying to not be noticed by the Thrashers representatives waiting just outside the arena. Olsen looked around, then made his way over. “You want a way out, don’tcha now?” Mitty asked. Olsen slowly nodded his head. “Then I gotta way ta’ help, ya see,” Mitty said. “There be an exhibition at seven o’clock in the evenin’ this Thursday. The Thrashers versus them Minot Gladiators. They be letting us use the Atlanta rink and all. Should be a bloody good time. And the best part? There just happens to be a tunnel that leads from the ice to the parking lot if ye be quick enough…” Olsen could see a glint in Mitty’s eye as he quickly scampered away, following Captain Bacon quickly so he wouldn’t be the one forced to ride in the trunk once again. But this time, Olsen didn’t even mind the cramped conditions on the way back to his basement. He saw a way out, and a plan was slowly forming in his mind.