CowboyinAmerica

Yeah, for this one I've got nothing. Just to hope the luck turns around.

The loss sucks, but I think that's my first First Star! That's cool.

Just can't get those shots on goal. Can't be outshot like that.

Oslo might be on the worst run in VHL history. Can the past predict the future? Oslo -- When the VHLM contracted to five teams this past offseason, it was clear that they left five of the teams with the most history. The Ottawa Lynx won last season, the Saskatoon Wild last won in Season 52, the Las Vegas Aces/Bern Royals won in Season 50, and the Yukon Rush made the last two finals while winning back-to-back in Season 38 and 39. And then there’s the last team – the Oslo Storm. Historically, Oslo has won five championships and made 15 finals, more than any other franchise. But these days, those totals seem like ancient history. Oslo last reached a finals all the way back in Season 44, and the team shockingly hasn’t won one since Season 32. Bratislava, a second-year team during that Season 32 campaign, won six championships then ceased to exist in the time it has taken Oslo to win another. If you asked many impartial observers, it’s not a trend that’s likely to change this season either. The Storm currently sit fourth out of five teams in the standings, with the Aces running away as the presumptive favorites. However, that doesn’t mean all is lost. And you just need to look back at that Season 32 team to figure out why. A Good Goalie Goes a Long Way The Season 32 Oslo Storm had a number of top prospects, including three players who would go in the first round of the next season’s VHL draft in Keiji Toriyama, Felix Zamora and Karsten Olsen. However, perhaps the unsung hero of that team was goaltender David Poulin, from the agency of a previously more active member. Previously the eighth overall pick of the Season 31 draft, he had not yet made the jump to the VHL by the time Season 32 rolled around. Soon after the season began, however, he became active once again and topped the 175 TPE threshold in short order. Although his VHL career would not amount to much, nobody could beat him at the VHLM level. Sound like a familiar refrain? Oslo’s current goalie, Our Lady of Perpetual Motion (OLPM for short), was a Season 52 draftee of a previously more active member, but he has not yet made the jump to the VHL. Even so, OLPM is still increasing her TPE count as the season rolls on, going up to 123 TPE with an update just two weeks ago. With an overall at 52, OLPM ranks third among starting VHLM goaltenders, not far behind Chet Manley’s 54. I’ll trust the raw attributes more than her current .880 save percentage. A Dominant Team Doesn’t Mean Everything The main case against Oslo this year probably has nothing to do with the team itself, and instead everything to do with Las Vegas. After all, how can a team reasonably be expected to compete with somebody who has amassed that talent? I mean, is there any precedent to compete with a franchise that has, say, seven of the first 11 draft picks, including four of the top five picks of next year’s draft, and a mass of 175 TPE players by the time the playoffs roll around? Oh yeah. Meet the Season 32 Ottawa Ice Dogs. The dominant team that season, Ottawa ran away from all other competitors during the regular season, easily earning the best record in the league and a bye in the first round of the playoffs. But in one of the shocking upsets in VHLM history, they wouldn’t even go to the finals – an upstart Brampton Blades team would beat them in the conference finals. If Oslo had played Ottawa in the finals in Season 32 then things may have been different, but a little luck goes a long way. I Mean, Things Have to Turn Around Sometime, Right? The longest stretch between VHLM championships for a single franchise is 23 seasons, set by the Bern Royals (now the Las Vegas Aces), who went between Season 20 and Season 43 without a title, and the Minot franchise that did not win one after Season 19 until it was contracted following Season 42. If you do some quick math, this means that if Oslo doesn’t win the championship this season, they would now be tied on that less than illustrious list. For the past 11 seasons before this one, there were only 8 VHLM teams, less than the 10 that were active during the bulk of those Bern and Minot runs. This season, there’s only 5. And again, if Oslo doesn’t make the finals this season, the franchise will have not reached the finals in the past 10 seasons. Especially because of the lessened competition, there’s a decent argument that could be made that this Oslo run is the single worst franchise stretch in all of VHLM history. And in a world where Stockholm can be considered Continental Cup favorites, everyone’s fortunes have to change sometime, right? Just like the Season 32 team overcame the odds, maybe the Season 54 one can as well.

Hah, appreciated. After leaving the hospital I went straight to the airport though - missed my initial flight back to Minnesota while in the ER, but Delta was nice enough to put me on a red-eye for free. Just wanted to be home.

IRL, stripper part's not real, but I did spend five hours yesterday in a Vegas ER with food poisoning. God I hate that city so much. (And I'll have to be back in August for work again.)

Saskatoon -- Adjusting to the VHLM is not particularly easy for many rookies, but often, the issue comes on the ice. That doesn't seem to be the case for Gabriel McAllister, however, who has already put up 10 goals and 6 assists in 15 games. Instead, the issues for the winger have come off the ice, particularly after a recent team trip to Las Vegas. Sources say that following a Wild 3-1 loss to the Aces, McAllister and few teammates went out to the Hustler Club off the Las Vegas Strip to blow off steam. Reportedly, a stripper at the establishment who goes by the stage name "Candy" enticed the young McAllister to use his teeth to grab a lollipop stuck inside of her lower regions, a request which he obliged. Some indeterminate time later, McAllister was treated for what is being called "food poisoning" at a local Las Vegas hospital. "Yeah, I guess I'm feeling better," McAllister told reporters upon arriving back in Canada. "Still feeling a bit queasy though. I feel like that might not have been one of my best ideas." According to team doctors, McAllister should be feeling better in time for the playoffs. The team, though, likely echoes the statement that McAllister had as he left the press conference in Saskatoon: "Fuck Vegas."

User Name: CowboyinAmerica EASTERN CONFERENCE (A2) Ottawa vs (M2) Pittsburgh Winner: Ottawa # of Games: 6 WESTERN CONFERENCE (P1) Anaheim vs (W2) Nashville Winner: Nashville # of Games: 6

3-2 Legion

Meute Riga Helsinki Wranglers

Hey @Frank @Higgins, this one good so I can be put back on the team?

Nvm, gonna post in the waiver thread

Lied, didn't know I already did this one.

Rather than write out a long explanation why this doesn't make sense that you won't read, I'll simply ask: What's your source for believing premiums will drop?

If that's the case, @TheLastOlympian07 wanna do them now and put me on first line? Also, yay two assists and the win!

30 seconds in and then... nope.

Hey, it's my first goal! Too bad it came in this sort of game, but we'll get there.

Welp, not a particularly great start.

I don't know whether I'm more impressed by the idea, happy about it was implemented (including the predictions), or pissed at having to copy/paste for every single article that includes him.

Weeee this draft is gonna be fun. Also, I think the Ron Mexico Trophy is something you actively try not to win?

That's pretty much where I'm at too. It's also a personal rule of mine to never take something like a commish/global mod/GM job that would allow me to be less flexible with my time - nothing against those that do, just how I enjoy sim leagues best myself.

I accept, let's go Saskatoon! @Higgins if there's any chance I could be put on for the next sim (with updates if you're feeling generous?) that would be cool.

Chicago -- As he sits at home preparing to sign with a VHLM team, Gabriel McAllister has had some time to think. Specifically, he's put some thought into areas he particularly wants to improve in practice. And, perhaps more notably, he's given some thought into areas he doesn't want to improve. "I don't want to be a player that hits somebody," McAllister said. "All that checking and being an enforcer and making plays from knocking people off the puck - it's not me. I'd much rather skate around guys than go through them." In that way, it's expected that McAllister will be a playmaker, with high skating and scoring marks, according to early scouting reports. With enough effort, he likely will be in contention for the Virkkunen Trophy many years. And, in fact, it's a recent Virkkunen winner that McAllister sees as his closest VHL comparison. "From what I've seen, I like Tom Lincoln's game a lot," McAllister said of the Season 47 forward. "He's near the top for points, he has one hit the entire season, and he's done it all in style. What's not to like?" With that in mind, VHL scouts should probably pair McAllister with a more physical forward; those personnel decisions are far in the future, though. For now, McAllister is content getting his scoring and skating to a serviceable level before anything else.

Inside Gabriel McAllister's VHLM Free Agent Choice He's ruled out Las Vegas, but where does he go from here? Today was a big day for Chicago’s Gabriel McAllister – he officially declared for the Season 56 Draft. But there’s a wrinkle to that, because for the next season, he will be playing in the VHLM, the VHL’s five-team minor league system. And, because of recent changes to the VHLM, there is a new wrinkle. Past Warren agency clients could not choose their first VHLM teams, being automatically assigned to one of the league’s ten teams via a waiver system. Now though, not only are there five teams, but McAllister has his pick of the litter. As of this writing, three of the league’s five teams have reached out, and it wouldn’t be a shock to see the other two do so in due time given McAllister’s high upside through the rest of this season. So what exactly is McAllister looking at when signing with a team? We decided to ask him, in his own words, with a (well, kind of) ranking of his potential destinations. 5. Las Vegas Aces It certainly doesn’t help that the GM was (is?) a dick, particularly to one of the Warren agency’s past teammates and favorite people in Stevo. It also doesn’t help that the co-GM that has seemed to pick up the reigns publicly endorsed that behavior, not to mention him quitting on his own team at the beginning of the season. I might not have been in the league, but don’t think I haven’t seen these things, and that sort of toxic environment isn’t one I’m readily eager to step into. But ultimately, perhaps even more, it comes down to the fact that I hate frontrunning with a passion. So I play the second line on a team that doesn’t need me and get a cheap championship; is that supposed to be fun? Where’s the challenge, the ultimate goal of building and bonding with teammates? I have no ambition to have a championship with an asterisk. I want to earn it. 1d. Yukon Rush Outside of Las Vegas, I honestly see positives and negatives to signing with every other team in the VHLM. With Yukon, it would be the opportunity to explore my own potential from the very beginning. Already, due to the retirement of Fuk D. World and the inactivity of Pastrnak and Aho, I would be the team’s leading scorer from the first day, and might be better able to show potential VHL GMs what I could do. However, despite what I said in the Las Vegas section, it’s not like I don’t want to have an opportunity to win. It does scare me to join a team at the bottom of the standings, and I’m not sure that I could be able to lift the team to a championship myself. Honestly, a lot may depend on Key Perought – if I were to join Yukon, I would need to make sure that Yukon had a goalie that could make up for any other shortcomings. 1c. Ottawa Lynx Joining Ottawa would be all about the people. In a vacuum and based on past VHL experience, Jardy would be the GM I’d be most excited to play for. The VHL GM that drafted my agency’s last player, Hans Wingate, is on the team. And out of any agency in the VHL, it’s actually the Jones agency that the Warren agency has the longest association with. It would be a blast to join this team and help lead fun people to victory. But with that said, similar to perhaps Yukon, there just isn’t much in the cupboard to help me in the beginning phase of my VHLM career to lead a team to a title. In particular the goalie situation worries me – with Perought heading to Yukon, this might just be the worst goalie situation in the league. And while the team does have some established talent, it also happens to be at the same position I play, at left wing. 1b. Saskatoon Wild The first ever VHLM team for the Warren agency, a return to the Wild would mean a return to the same team as the Dollar agency. And pairing myself with the future Legion star Bo Boeser, especially as I would instantly become the second-best offensive star on the team, may be an opportunity that’s too good to pass up. If there’s a team that combines winning and being a star, this is it. It also doesn’t hurt that Saskatoon holds Yukon’s first round pick, and the thought of being on the team for more than one season is appealing. However, would me and Boeser be enough for a title? I’d argue that this team has less offensive talent than Ottawa, and perhaps even Yukon if World is allowed to unretired and come back to form. Outside of Boeser, there also isn’t anyone that the Warren agency has had much contact with previously, including the general manager, and I would be going into the situation more on a whim and a prayer (though some could argue this also could be a positive). 1a. Oslo Storm On its face, I think that this is the best team to take on the Aces in terms of talent. Johnny Styles is one of the best passing centers in the league, Xavier Laflamme is growing into his own as a top winger, and despite what the stats may tell you, Verner Reinholdt might just be the best pure talent in the entire VHLM. Add to that a serviceable, growing and fun teammate in Our Lady of Perpetual Motion, and Oslo would be an excellent landing spot. But similar to the issue with Las Vegas, does Oslo really need a player like me? With Laflamme and Reinholdt established on the wings, I’m not sure I’ll be able to break through and get the playing time I desire. Sitting on the second line wouldn’t showcase my talent to VHL scouts that well, and though it’d be fun to win, I’m looking for more of a balance. Past periods of going missing at random times from the GM worries me as well, as does not actually having a contract offer from the team.

Sexy, I love it, especially the play on the name. And juxtaposed with Solas's (because putting both in my sig right now), have a kick ass heaven and hell thing going on.