CowboyinAmerica

*Fist bump*

Some changes have been made because of splitting salaries due to trading mid-season. No team was effected too harshly. Any discrepancies, please let me know.

Yeah I was about to say, definitely have been keeping up to date. Anything wrong, please PM me.

Meute Bears Titans Legion

Express 3-1

Weeee! This one is big.

But then it feels doubly good if it happens by some miracle!

Coming into the year, Karsten Olsen hoped to be a candidate for the Labatte Trophy, given to the top defenseman in the VHL. In fact, he placed himself in that position on his yearly ballot turned in to the league office, and many others did as well. Now that the Bears and the rest of the league are roughly two-thirds into the season, is Olsen maintaining a Labatte-worthy pace? Based on the stats, the verdict is a definitive, "Ehh..." Olsen sits only sixth in defenseman scoring, including fourth in the North American Conference, with 45 points. His 38 assists are surely up to par, but his 7 goals are somewhat disheartening for a player with 90 scoring. Meanwhile, his 71 shots blocked aren't in the top ten and are second on his own team behind James Lefevre, and his 151 hits are solid, but not great. "Yeah, I definitely expected more," Olsen said. "Especially when guys like Connor Low are performing spectacularly with fewer hours practiced, it makes me believe that I should be producing more. I don't know. Maybe it will happen." But how will it happen? A lot may depend whether the Bears are able to make some moves late in the season, most notably with their lines. Perhaps a change or two is in order, even including Olsen himself...

Author's Note: Kind of wanted to learn about the history of the league a little bit more, so decided to do a series of medias that required some digging. Sorry if some stuff is off, relied exclusively on old indexes here. Part 1 and Part 2. --------------- Six teams down, two original VHL franchises to go – our look at the worst team stretches in VHL history concludes here. Davos and Vasteras seem like polar opposites in terms of franchises. Davos is tied for the most championships in VHL history with 7; Vasteras is tied for the least among the original franchises with 2. Davos has made the playoffs 20 times in 35 seasons and will seemingly tie Calgary atop the charts after this season; Vasteras has made the playoffs just 13 times, or four less than any other original team. Since going back to back in Season 1 and 2, Vasteras has made the finals just twice; Davos has made the finals 10 times in that span. When looking at the two teams’ lowest points, as with fits with tradition, Davos and Vasteras came about dark times in completely different ways as well. Davos simply let their older stars retire and didn’t have the pieces to reload, while Vasteras tried to reload and failed miserably. HC Davos Dynamo Longest Playoff Drought: Four seasons, S2-S5 and S15-S18 The Season Before: It may seem odd now looking back, but the Dynamo weren’t exactly a powerhouse in the early days of the VHL. Through the Amstel/Avangard/Davos franchise’s first 18 seasons, the team made the playoffs just seven times, a paltry 38 percent success rate that was only outmatched by Hamilton/New York at the time. However, if there were good times it came in Seasons 10 through 14, with playoff berths in four of five seasons. S10 and S13 saw Davos win the franchise’s second and third championships as well. By S14, however, the wheels were starting to fall off. Sure, they had Benoit Devereux’s second-best .921 save percentage, Leander Kaelin’s VHL-leading 46 goals, and Tomas Jensovic’s VHL-leading 78 assists, but Helsinki bested Davos by two points in the standings and defeated them in the first round of the playoffs. What Happened: Strangely enough, it wasn’t a sell-off that doomed Davos like it did other teams. Those three S14 stars I mentioned? They were all there in S15 as well, and Devereux even survived to S16. They just didn’t have the same production they once did. Not a single Davos player finished in the top nine in goals or assists in S15 (three had done so in each category the season before), while Devereux’s save percentage dipped to .916 in S15 and .910 in S16. Davos’ S15 through S18 is a textbook case of a team that hung onto its stars into retirement for a chance to win one more without reloading, and it haunted the franchise for four seasons when depreciation finally caught up to them. The Season After: But of course, Davos’ S15 through S18 was also a textbook study in bottoming out in exchange for future glory, a pattern that VHL teams would soon emulate all the way up until the modern age. Starting in Season 19, Davos would make the playoffs a then-unprecedented seven straight seasons, a feat that would be matched by Toronto step-for-step. That first season, it was the two-headed monster of left winger Marek Schultz and defenseman Patrick Bergvist who would lead Davos to glory; the two finished second and fifth, respectively, in scoring. But in the long-term, it was goalie Daisuke Kanou who held the team together with his incredible run in net. Although Kanou only finished third in save percentage and sixth in shutouts during that S19 season… well, let’s just say there’s a reason he’s a Hall of Famer. Vasteras Iron Eagles Longest Playoff Drought: Six seasons, S19-S24 The Season Before: Just as Davos was mired in the muck in its own streak, the Vasteras franchise was enjoying what was perhaps the best mini-stretch for the franchise since its back-to-back finals appearances in S1 and S2, and perhaps oddly, it came while the Iron Eagles weren’t even in their historical home. While branded the Madrid Thunder, the franchise made the playoffs in both S17 and S18, one of two European Conference participants along with the Riga Reign. In S18, Madrid finished with the best record in the VHL, storming to the finals behind Zach Voss’s VHL-leading .925 save percentage and David Henman’s VHL-leading 97 assists. But when they got to the finals, the team lost to Calgary in six games, thus continuing a streak of futility that at that time had last 17 seasons. What Happened: And the futility would continue to occur, thanks to a complete overhaul that didn’t exactly work as planned. Zach Voss took over as GM in S19 from the successful Zach Arce, and seeing as Voss’s own goalie retired following S18, he decided to ship out the rest of the team to build around him. Gone were Henman and the other stars. And in their place was rookie Gordon Shore, who finished with 42 goals in S19, and… well, that’s about it, really. After Shore eventually flamed out and was off the team by S22, the Madrid/Vasteras franchise could get simply nothing going on offense. Not a single Madrid/Vasteras player finished in the top ten in either goals or assists until Lars Berger in S24. The Season After: Vasteras began to show signs of life in S24, especially with Berger finishing just one goal behind the VHL lead with 57 in S24. Berger didn’t have much help offensively, however. But that lack of offense changed in S25, despite Lars Berger’s retirement. Lasse Milo led all centers with 108 points, James Bencharski finished third among defensemen with 101 points, and Peyton Nedroj finished eighth in goals scored with 46. Despite Andreas Bjorkman’s average goaltending, Vasteras finished second in the European Conference with 101 points, just one point behind now-fading Davos. The next season, Vasteras would win its second Cup, its first since S1 and its last up until the present time.

Huge one. Love picking up this win.

But wouldn't have Slobo named his character before this guy was elected chairman in 2012? So he randomly chose the Vice Premier of Ukraine for one year from 2006 to 2007 as his namesake?

So there's a bar near me that does a tall PBR, a shot of Jameson, and a large slice of pizza for $8. I had three. Tonight was a good night.

Well yeah. SEA G is the better goalie. /Half-sarcasm

I just don't get it.

2-1 Americans

Legion (by exactly one goal) Meute Iron Eagles Titans

Could've sworn you were for a bit. Still exists but I don't have admin access anymore. Looks like the only one who does who has even a little connection to the VHL is The Q.

Active? At least you, me, fresco, Knight, Mike (although more active here than there), CoachReilly, Boom and D_A (although TBH don't remember who either were there), Aenir apparently (had no idea he was in the VHL until this thread), probably others who I don't remember being there. Plus Turner, McJones, The Q and a few others that have been here recently but are inactive now. And <-- commish who probably helped cause epic flai? (Although I had a good 4+ season run there)

I feel old. Also, IIRC, Aenir still owes me a hot dog at some point that he said I'd get after moving to Chicago.

The Seattle Bears thought they had it all figured out - with three games in five days against the Calgary Wranglers and Riga Reign, the team would play backup goaltender SEA G in three of his required eight games. That would get his appearances out of the way so regular goaltender Steven Smyl could play against tougher opponents in games Seattle absolutely had to win. Of course, that was the plan. But a few shady characters disagreed. "They... they locked me up," SEA G told reporters at Seattle's practice facility after Seattle's most recent win against Riga. "I didn't see who did it. It was a seemingly intoxicated guy in a hood and a Canadian accent and... it's too painful to continue, I'm sorry." Due to SEA G's disappearance, later revealed to be a kidnapping, Smyl was forced to play each of the team's games against Calgary and Riga. Seattle indeed won each of those games, but defenseman Karsten Olsen believes that the team would have likely won with SEA G between the pipes as well, especially since they won each game by at least two goals. "We need Smyl for the tougher games man, not for this stuff," Olsen said. "[GM] Greg [Harbinson] said he tried to put SEA G in net, but why would somebody kidnap him? It makes no sense." There are various conspiracy theories going around the Seattle practice complex, but none of the players the Seattle Times spoke with would elaborate further. The only clue is a recent tweet from Olsen, which said nothing but the hashtag "#KickJardyInTheNuts".

Author's Note: Kind of wanted to learn about the history of the league a little bit more, so decided to do a series of medias that required some digging. Sorry if some stuff is off, relied exclusively on old indexes here. Part 1 can be found here. --------------- One week after examining the worst stretches in the history of the Calgary Wranglers, Toronto Legion and Seattle Bears, VHL News’s Zach Warren is ready to move on and examine the worst stretches for three more VHL teams: the New York Americans, the Riga Reign, and the Helsinki Titans. When it comes to long stretches of futility, the Americans take the cake — their seven-season drought between S5 and S11 is the longest playoff-less stretch in VHL history, while they also have another five-season drought between S19 and S23 to their name. But that doesn’t mean that the Reign and Titans are completely devoid of long stretches without a playoff birth themselves, as both teams went five seasons without reaching the holy land at one point, a mark only surpassed by New York and Vasteras. New York Americans Longest Playoff Drought: Seven seasons, S5-S11 The Season Before: It’s hard to say the Americans were even an Ant-Man-level force in the early days of the VHL, as the franchise made the playoffs just once in the league’s first 11 seasons. At least in Season 4 the franchise was able to put together something resembling a solid team, as the franchise then-located in Hamilton finished just four points behind Seattle for the best record in the VHL. Led by goalie Jesus Christ, who led the VHL with both a .918 save percentage and a 2.58 GAA, and winger Christian Stolzschweiger, who finished second in the VHL with 63 goals, Hamilton took Seattle to six games in the first round before bowing out. What Happened: The problem was always one side of the ice or the other. After Stolzschweiger went to Stockholm (now Riga) and Tahk Paccenn regressed after an excellent S4, the franchise did not manage another top-seven goal scorer until Fabian Brunnstrom tied for fourth and Brandon Best tied for sixth in S8. But of course, by that time, Jesus Christ had stepped down as both goaltender and GM (following S5), and the new management of Robbie Zimmers couldn’t find an adequate replacement between the pipes. With the pitiful Max Weinstein in net, Hamilton went 5-66-1 in S6 for a pitiful 11 points, then Travis Willcox finished third-to-last in save percentage himself in S7. Greg Eagles provided stability but not production, finishing in the bottom half of save percentage each year between S8 and S10, then Vase Trikamaki was just too young in S11 with his .895 percentage. The Season After: The Americans didn’t really do that much terribly right in S12, but at least the team under Brandon Belt showed some signs of life. It was a full team effort for New York this season to finish second in the NA Conference — centers Grimm Jonsson and Nicholas Miller, left wingers Ryan Tannerd and Devon de la Soul, and right wingers Jack O’Riley and Brandon Avezedo all finished in the top ten in scoring at their respective positions. The franchise would make its first finals one year later and get its first Cup two years later. Riga Reign Longest Playoff Drought: Five seasons, S22-S26 The Season Before: Just call them the Rangers — the Reign made the playoffs each season between S15 and S21, but the franchise could only come out with a championship in S16. In Season 21, Riga felt it had as strong of a chance as any season, especially after winning the European Conference during the regular season with 96 points behind Olivier Scarlett’s league-leading 80 assists. But then the franchise lost to Davos 4-2 in the first round of the playoffs, continuing a streak of not making the Finals that would eventually extend 14 seasons, S18 to S31. What Happened: It’s tough to have a strong team when the front office is less stable than a Kardashian sister. Brian Svec, Dustin Funk, Nick Baretta, Zack Gagnon and Kyle Dowd all took a stab at leading the Reign between S22 and S26, but none lasted more than two seasons at the top post. This instability at the top especially manifested itself in the GM-less goalie position, as Ma’a Nonu (S22-S23) and Matthieu VanCoughnett (S24-26) each finished in the bottom three of save percentage each season. Preexisting VHL dynasties didn’t exactly help matters in allowing playoff positions, as Toronto finished a run of seven straight playoff births in S25, Davos finished a similar run of seven straight playoff births in S25, and New York started a run of 11 straight playoff births in S24. The Season After: Oh, what a difference a solid goalie can make. New goalie Andreas Bjorkman led the VHL with a .931 save percentage, which led Riga to finish with a third-best 103 points on the season. Ansgar Snijider’s fifth-best 54 goals didn’t exactly hurt matters, either. Riga could not get it done in the playoffs, falling to European Conference Champion Helsinki in the first round, but at least times were temporarily looking up for the Riga franchise. The next season, Mike Szatkowski would take over the franchise and would eventually lead them to a title in S33. Helsinki Titans Longest Playoff Drought: Five seasons, S17-S21 The Season Before: It’s always nice to see some parity at the top, as four different VHL teams, including the Titans, finished between 110 and 96 points in S16. The Titans were led by their offense this season, as Leander Kaelin led the VHL with 55 goals, and Carl Jacobs and Brandon Rush each finished in the top five in goal scoring. Vase Trikamaki also finished second in save percentage with .917. But Helsinki could not win its second straight title after losing in the first round — Riga eventually won that honor — and the rebuild began. What Happened: Poor Joey Kendrick. The sim engine just doesn’t seem to like him. That’s certainly the case in S36, with the Cologne Express holding one of the strongest teams but struggling for a playoff birth, but even this season pales in comparison to his tough run at the helm of the Titans. In each of his first five seasons, the Titans missed out, but not for lack of trying. After bottoming out in S17 and S18, the Titans finished with the fourth-best VHL record in S19… but third-best record in the European Conference, as Toronto slipped in with a worse record in North America. Then, the Titans finished 37-30-5 in S20, only to run into the Davos and Riga juggernauts once again (each with 113+ points). And in S21, the poor Titans actually tied Davos for the final playoff spot, only to see their Swiss counterparts advance to the playoffs (and later their third straight Finals) on a tiebreaker. The Season After: In his final season as Helsinki GM, Joey Kendrick was finally able to break through and complete his rebuild. Thanks in part to a Riga team that freefalled from first in the European Conference (and started their own streak above), the Titans were able to grab 99 points and tie Davos once again, this time for first in the conference. Right winger Cam Fowler was the centerpiece behind this run, finishing seventh in the VHL with 44 goals, fifth in the VHL with 66 assists, and picking up 13 more points than any other player at his position. And the best part? Despite finishing 27 points behind league-leader Toronto during the regular season, Helsinki took the Finals 4-2 from the Legion for the franchise’s first championship since S15.

#TeamKickJardyInTheNuts

Appreciate the props. I write for a living, kind of comes with the territory. So happy I'm past those days high school days though. Good luck on the college apps man.

So by Shakespearean sonnet, do you mean iambic pentameter as well? Because that's a little bit too much thinking for me right now. Otherwise, if just rhyme is the point, you could just do something like C – Thy create warriors that are rejoiced D – Or, thy create cowards that are despised C - For until the last warriors' cries are voiced D - Above all courage shall remain prized E - Time again all seek courage's sweet call F - But few find solace within its foreboding arms E - Because those who seek, immense or small F - Find little to speak of its roughshod charms G - Courage to prevail is what I seek G - If only to prevent a place among meek NOTE: Created this in about 10 minutes while half watching the Blackhawks game. Don't take as gospel please. And also, I consider this night your punishment for taking damn AP Psych.

Not topping this, but I'm in.