CowboyinAmerica

Most excited for guys like Lowry and Gasol that have been waiting a long time for this one. And honestly for somebody not Golden State to win.

Hi there! The defenseman battle in this draft is gonna be downright insane, that's for sure.

Welcome to the VHL! Let me know if you have any questions, VHL newcomer.

Actually though: I hit 900+ in the MSFL, but not actually 1k. That, not the trophies or awards or any of the other stuff, was my real goal with Hans Wingate. The stability of the VHL gives a great opportunity for it. Best of luck to you, it's a fun one to chase

Answer 1: Vasteras Iron Eagles v. Oslo Screaming Seamen Answer 2: -2 times

Halifax, NS -- This time last week, English defenseman Lance Flowers didn’t know where he’d be beginning his VHLM career. But now, Flowers has not only found a home, he’s integrated himself into the team structure quite well. After receiving offers from a number of top teams, Flowers decided to sign with Halifax 21st, currently sitting fourth in the VHLM. For Flowers, Halifax represented the perfect combination of playing time, the ability to win, and attitude fit. Plus, the work of the team’s management team certainly didn’t hurt. “There were a number of teams that talked about getting me publicly, but only one actually reached out privately to talk the team’s vision. That means a lot to me,” Flowers said. “If they’re willing to go the extra mile and take time to recruit, I figured they’d do the same out on the ice as well.” Flowers slotted onto the team’s second line immediately, putting up an impressive 6 assists, 7 points, 10 shots blocked, and 7 plus-minus in his first 10 games on the ice. And in that time, Halifax hasn’t been half bad themselves, with a recent loss to the Hounds as the team’s only blemish since he joined. However, Flowers has loftier goals as Halifax heads down the stretch towards the postseason – not only a top three seed, but a larger role for himself. “I’d certainly like to be on the first line by the time we hit the postseason. I’ve put in the work, and I don’t think it’s out of the realm of possibility,” Flowers recently told reporters. “I’m cool with whatever the coaches want to do, but I feel like I have a lot to offer. Whatever happens, happens. I just want to win however possible.”

1- If you could ask your Gm any Question what would you ask Him? Why is Him capitalized? Are you God? Oh shit, you're God, aren't you? There are so many questions to ask. What is the meaning of life? Why are we here? If you put a KFC double down inside a KFC double down, would it be a quadruple down? Alas, I'll never receive the answers to these pressing questions. 2- Are you coming back to the VHLM to play a victory lap? Why or Why not? Well, I don't have much of a choice in the matter given that I'm a S68 draftee, but sure, you can call it a victory lap. VHLM GMs with high draft picks, you can catch me on my mobile. 3- You are Hungry after a Game where are you going? What did you Order? I went to KFC, and tried to order a quadruple down. They had no idea what I was talking about, and even if they had guessed, it probably would be a legal liability to give me one. And the pressing questions of our age live on... 4- What VHLM team you would like to see lose the cup and why? None of them. In my perfect world, we'd all live in harmony and be able to share the cup, all for one and one for all. Achieve hockey league peace is one of my main goals, and I think it's achievable in my lifetime. 5- What VHLM team you would like to see win the cup and why? Halifax. Fuck everybody else. 6- If you got stuck in an elevator and were forced to listen to one song for the next five hours, what song would it be? I would go with "This is the Song That Never Ends." Look, I'm pretty losing oxygen after five hours anyway, and there's a high chance that I'm already going to go crazy. Speeding up the process seems like a net win, quite frankly, because I'll forget where I was after the first half hour.

Flowers +5

Well, it's settled. Every game I get a goal we lose, every game I don't get a goal we win. Off to never score again!

Halifax 4 First Place, heard it here

I like this whole beating Ottawa thing, we should keep trying that.

The Biography of Lance Flowers, Hockey Player The Itch There are a few things that you need to know about London, before we begin. The first is that while it gets cold, it doesn’t particularly get cold. Sure, snow isn’t an unheard of event; the people of London have been known to walk past a snowman or two. But it certainly hasn’t become a source of pride, like a Calgary, or a constant source of consternation, like a Boston. It’s simply there, and then it’s gone, as the urban heat eradicates whatever may fall. The second thing that you need to know about London is that it’s a sporting town, but only the right kind of sports. Football, sure. Cricket. Rugby. Wimbledon, of course. And there’s enough space for a few others, in the right spots, but the expectation is that you’ll cheer the Gunners or Blues or Spurs and you won’t need too terribly much more than that. Lance Flowers didn’t need too terribly much more than that. Born to second generation Nigerian parents himself, Flowers was born a giant and progressed into a goliath. Already by his twelfth year, he neared six feet, weighed 200 pounds, and probably wouldn’t have carded if the owner of the local pub hadn’t known his family for years. It shouldn’t be any surprise, then, that Lance was drafted to play sports right away—the right ones of course, a fullback in football and a prop in rugby. And truth be told, given his determination and his head for sports, he probably would have made a solid living in League One or on a local rugby side. But then the magic snowfall occurred. It was not magic for some—in fact, right around Christmas time, it actually became a giant headache for London’s last minute shoppers. For Lance, though, it was fortuitous time, particularly when the neighborhood kids came around to play ice rugby. Dangerous? Of course, but 12 year olds have a penchant for sugar and concussions. Lance stepped onto the hose-made lake and found... well, that he could move quite easily. Even playing in sneakers, he enjoyed sliding, enjoyed hitting, enjoyed being in a place that seemed natural. He couldn’t get enough. Like any kid his age, the next stop was Google and Youtube, trying to find if ice rugby was actually a thing. It wasn’t, of course, but this odd sport called hockey was. Enthralled, Flowers asked his parents for an emergency Christmas gift: a pair of ice skates. The closest rink, it turns out, was only a 15 minute tube ride away. The Growth There are a few things you need to know about Oulu, Finland, before we continue. The first is that it is very, very cold, with full sunlight only coming an hour or two a day during the worst parts of the winter. If you’re not from Scandinavia, and especially if you’re from, say, a major city in the relatively balmy British Isles, you’re going to want to stay inside as much as possible. The second thing that you need to know about Oulu is that it’s not the most conspicuous place for a black 17 year old from the west side of London. Oulu is a larger city for the north side of Finland, sure, but also a size that would be considered a mid-size suburb of London. The bigger issue was that more than 97 percent of people in Oulu spoke Finnish, with only about 600 people in the city from elsewhere in the EU, and being in the latter category and not the former was not a fun place for a teenaged Lance Flowers to be. However, Oulu did offer one thing: a chance. Oulun Kärpät has been one of the most successful teams in Finland’s SM-liiga over the past two decades, after all, and being able to play in a top-flight, foreign club isn’t exactly an opportunity afforded to many players who picked up their first stick at the age of 12, let alone those that came from the UK. When Lance received an invitation from a scout one year ago to try out for the team, and further when he actually impressed enough at the tryout to be given an offer and a small salary, how can you say no? So here he was, not yet a man, perhaps somewhat considered professional considering his salary, and living in a place where he didn’t know the language or the culture. With that bearing down on him, it would have been extremely easy to bow to the pressure, to engage in some sort of excess, or to give in to his laziest impulses. But what Lance Flowers did was work; he didn’t know what else to do. In the first of Lance’s two seasons with Oulun Kärpät, he played a grand total of three minutes per game, averaged out. In many cases, he floundered—only 16, playing against grown men who could probably skate before they could walk, how could he not? But still, for every time he was out of position, or for every time his pass was intercepted, something was there. It might have been one check at center ice, causing a huge turnover. Or it might have been his hustle stopping a two-on-one break, saving a goal. Or maybe it was his general demeanor in the locker room, where he couldn’t understand the talk but always kept a smile. Something about Lance stood out, showed that he could be special. At the end of the season, Oulun Kärpät’s front office gave Lance a choice: He could go home, work on his skills a bit, and come back when he was older. Or, he could stay with the first team over the summer, where the workouts would be brutal but he would learn. It was never an option. Continuing to be battered and bruised repeatedly, Lance slowly but surely made progress in Oulu that summer, both on the ice and off. Coming into his own, he learned that living on his own was actually achievable, and in broken Finnish, even made a friend or two. His second and final season with the team saw a new Lance. No, he wasn’t a superstar—he scored exactly one goal on the season, after all. But he was confident, earning consistent second line minutes, and tallying 0.6 assists and 7 hits per game. He would be caught out of position on occasion, sure, but the growth was rather evident. Everybody with Oulun Kärpät saw that the team may have a future star on their hands. Unfortunately for them, scouts from the VHLM saw too. And they came calling. The Future There are a few things you need to know about Lance Flowers, before he dives into his VHLM career. The first is that he has only been playing hockey for six years, and this is still all a bit of a whirlwind. Upon arriving in Halifax to sign his first VHLM contract, it struck Lance that he’d be moving to his third different country, his second living on his own, in four years and all before he’d be allowed to drink in Nova Scotia. For all intents and purposes, Lance is still a child. But the second is that his personality is to take it all in stride. A number of the VHLM’s stars have been playing hockey since the moment they were born, seemingly destined to pick up a stick. That was never Lance, and thus the cruel weight of expectations unceremoniously avoided his rather large shoulders. At this point, Lance stands 6’7”, 244 pounds, an imposing force of a man that masks the youthfulness underneath. Youthfulness, however, does not mean naiveté. From his past experiences, Lance knows exactly what it takes to succeed, especially at another level of hockey and another physical location that he had never even dreamed of achieving. And so, he works. There Lance is, skating after practice with the 21st coaches. There he goes, watching film of the team’s latest game, or a Wild match to see if they can catch up in the standings. There he sits, chatting with teammates about their experiences—at least they speak English in Halifax, or as near an approximation as Lance can get with the local Eastern Canadian accent getting in the way. He has found home, or at least home for a while. Home for a while, though, is all he needs, as long as he has his love the ice. Scouts have already begun to say that Lance will be a first round pick in next season’s VHLM Draft; in all likelihood, that means he’ll be uprooted once more, maybe this time to America and yet another foreign country. Past that, maybe a trip to the VHL and… Switzerland? Sweden? Russia? The future holds so many possibilities and so much promise, it can be impossible to comprehend unless you really try. The endless threads of the future spinning out from one moment playing rugby in the unintended and serendipitous snow in London. But there is one thing you need to know about Lance Flowers: He’s ready.

Extremely biased, the S44 semis between Calgary and Quebec is still my favorite series of all-time. That was a rivalry with real bad blood, and the meltdown when Calgary won in 5, and decisively, was a scene.

Man, they're sleeping on you. I guess you just have no choice but to be fully hyper active and prove yourself

Another big win, liking how Halifax is on a roll at the right time

First game, a win and two assists. I'll take it.

Wooo! Nice one to pick up

Name: Lance Flowers Birthplace: London, England Birthdate: 2/24/2001 Team: Halifax 21st Height: 6’7” Weight: 244 Number: 11 It’s safe – and accurate – to call Lance Flowers a raw player. Growing up in the Chelsea neighborhood of West London, the dominant sport was football, then rugby, then more football, and certainly nothing to do with ice hockey. And yet, at one glimpse of the ice upon a chance trip north when he was 11, Flowers fell in love with the sport. An odd thing occurred when he began to practice though: Most young phenoms isolated from team play would picture themselves as elite Matt Thompson-esque scorers, but Flowers went the exact opposite direction. Perhaps it’s the rugby influence, but he developed into a bit of a bruiser, more willing to knock somebody off the puck than make a good play on it himself. Now, entering the VHLM just ahead of the playoffs, a number of scouts have inquired on this enigmatic defenseman to see just what he can do. Here’s what one of the few who saw him play in the UK have reported, to his now-team Halifax 21st and others. Pros Defensive Instincts­ – For a player who hasn’t played much organized hockey previously, Flowers does have an uncanny knack to make a play on the puck at the right time. Perhaps it comes from a childhood playing fullback on the football pitch and knowing when to step up and challenge or when to fall back, but even at the light speed of hockey, Flowers makes the correct decision more often than not. Passing – In an age where more and more players want to be the star, Flowers has committed to working on his passing ability from the blue line above all else. I wouldn’t go so far as to call him the star of the power play quite yet, but he’s quickly becoming more adept at finding the correct lanes for snipers to bury it home. Given that Halifax is loaded with scorers, Flowers should have plenty of opportunity to perfect this part of his game, quickly. Teamwork – The CIA agency has had its fair share of individual success with recent players – both goalie Hans Wingate and forward Gabriel McAllister have MVPs, Finals MVPs and a good number of other trophies to their names. For Flowers, that’s decidedly not the goal from the start; he just wants to be a team player with teammates he enjoys, and try and win a championship or two. And if anything more comes from his play in service of that goal, so be it. Cons Scoring – Frankly, Flowers isn’t quite sure he’s ever going to work on his scoring ability during his entire team in the VHLM or VHL. It’s not that he doesn’t like to score; everybody likes to put the puck in the net. It’s just that there are enough other players out there with that goal, and he feels like he can contribute more in other ways. If Flowers ever reaches a double digit goal total in a season, it may be a miracle. Team Pickiness – Remember that Teamwork section, where we mentioned that Flowers wants to be on a team with teammates he enjoys? There’s a flip side to that: I wouldn’t expect Flowers to necessarily be an eight season, one franchise type of guy. Especially if he’s going to be uprooting his life to go play hockey in Malmo or Vancouver or wherever, he’s going to want a team that’s as committed to winning as he is. And if he doesn’t feel that’s happening, sources say he’s not afraid to travel the free agency route. Leadership – The VHL is at one of its strongest points in the last 30 seasons, with a large influx of players ready to come in, work hard and make an impact. It’s not that Flowers isn’t that type of player, but especially coming from the CIA agency that has been there before, the young defenseman is willing to take a back seat to other, more vocal leaders. Flowers is the type that prefers to lead by example; don’t expect any particularly juicy post-game quotes or big speeches to get the team fired up.

1.) There's a 50/50 chance of a 20 foot python who hasn't eaten in five months in the hallway. Out of everyone in the locker room who is going out first? That's a trick question, because you'd think it would be someone like Gaudette wanting the star treatment and taking initiative. In reality, let's just say Papa Gage's checking and strength may have something to say about it first. 2.) How do you get fired up going into a game? Literal fire. Put some hot coals on the ground, take your skates off, and walk barefoot across, revival preacher style. When you can do that, you can do anything. 3.) Something funny I should know about you as a player as your new AGM? No. There is absolutely nothing funny about me, just your normal down-to-earth, likes to walk across hot coals, once killed a man in South London guy. You probably shouldn't look too far into it. 4.) How do you think we finish off the regular season? Third seems reasonable, though there's some tough games against Ottawa ahead. Still, hopefully I'm able to help out and get the team at least one playoff position before it's all over. 6.) What is the craziest thing a puck bunny has ever done for your attention? Remember that girl who took her top off and pressed up against the glass at the Caps' Stanley Cup? Same thing when I was playing a game in Sweden - except her bottoms. She was flexible though, I'll give her that. 7.) What color hockey tape do you use? Red. I like to consider myself a bullfighter out there, and unsuspecting forwards are the bulls. They see red, go in for the forecheck and... nope. I'm out of the way, you're off balance, and I'm on a fast break.

Oh hey there. (Yeah, a 6'8", 250 lb goalie who's 32 years old is about what I would've expected)

Lol, appreciate the sentiment though. I do hold a soft spot for Saskatoon though and hope y'all do well, I'll take beating you in the finals

295 Helsinki Titans @ Malmo Nighthawks 296 Toronto Legion @ Calgary Wranglers 297 New York Americans @ Helsinki Titans 298 Riga Reign @ Moscow Menace

3-2 Calgary

I accept. Happy to be joining up

Yeah I count two of those with the finals loss in the middle, plus a few others that fit the criteria