Eynhallow

Great color scheme. I also really like the design in the background. It certainly fits with the player lifting the Cup. Nice logo swap. I also like the excitement and joy shown by the player...great dynamic. The text for the players name could be a bit more clear, but that is a minor issue. Great work ! 9/10

1. With exceptions such as yesterdays 11 bomb, we seem to be a defensive team akin to the 1995 New Jersey Devils, who ended up winning the cup. Do you like our chances? In Real Life it has often been said that defence will win yoy a cup. However, we are dealing with STHS....... 'nuff said!!! 2. We recently made a somewhat controversial trade involving S79 draftee, which saw Nixon Caldwell and S81 first and second round picks coming back our way. What are your thoughts? I like the trade for the long term. Our cupboard is going to get bare relatively soon. Also, draft picks are a good form of trade currency. 3. What are your favourite and least favourite TPE tasks? I like TPE tasks that allow me to develop the backstory of my colorful player, Isau DaMoose. I am not too crazy about attempting any graphics. Mostly because mine look like a first-grader attempt by way of comparison to the really talented graphic folks out there. 4. Who do you think would be the prankster of the team? Muahahaha!! I wouldn't put it past GM Hedge @hedgehog337 of pulling a prank or two. 5. Is Malmo really this good? They are if the damned sim engine says so. But really, they do have a good collection of talent, so ya, they are pretty good. 6. If you had an unlimited credit card but could only use it on one store, which store would it be? Any gas station. With Premium fuel ( I need that for my outboard engines) at 1.65 a litre, I either need a credit card or have to mortgage my house.

Claiming Week 3

Great graphic. I like your choice of colors. The text is nice and clear, Again a good choice of fonts. What draws me in though is how dynamic the player is. Great work 9/10

Outstanding graphic. I really like the color caste (fire ?) Your text is easily read and very evident in the overall graphic composition. Makes me want to try Affinity Photo. 9.5/10

1. A roller coaster of a season so far. What are your thoughts on that? Without getting started on the vagaries of STHS, I think that we have played consistently well. The last three wins came at an opportune time for us and we have had great leadership from Driver @Tape-to-Tape and Cabe McJake @Red 2. The top 3 of our conference seems to be Malmo, Us, and Davos. Who do you think will come out on top? It looks like Malmo is staring to pull away a bit. However with more than 50% of the season left. I would think that top spot is there for the taking. It will likely come down to the last 10 games to decide. 3. Cabe McJake and Linus Zetterstrom have been lighting it up in the goals and assists as they lead those categories. Do you think they are the keys for our success so far? Ya, definitely, but I also think that it has been a total team effort. Also, as I mentioned above, we would be remiss if we did not include Driver @Tape-to-Tape in this conversation. When you look at the next 5 guys on our scoring sheet, they have combined for 128 points.........like I said.....team effort. 4. Anze Miklavz is 4th in rookie scoring. Do you think they can sneak in and get the top rookie this season? With the large number of games left, and how Anze @McKelvie has been playing, sure it is a distinct possibility. 5. Early season pick for the cup in the VHLM, who do you got? As a former Reaper I gotta go with my heart on this one. Hopefully the Reapers will get it done, but they are in tough competition !!! 6. What is your ideal summer vacation? Several weeks at my cottage, fishing, puttering, cold beverages, high calorie food.

Claiming Week 2

Yup, it appears that the Riga Reign has turned the corner and has started to experience the success that GM Hedgehog @hedgehog337 had anticipated when he drafted a stellar Season 75 group. From not making the playoffs in the past few years to standing second overall in the league, the Reign has certainly made a vast improvement. The addition of Zamboni Driver @Tape-to-Tape in net is the first obvious change. He is having a a great season with a a 14-7-1 record, a 2.38 Goals Against Average and a Save Percentage of 0.928. His performance is important as the Reign have only scored a total of 63 goals. This is quite low as compared to other teams. Their Goals Against, however is only 54. The best in the league. Other than Cabe McJake @Red who has 29 points, the team scoring seems quite well balanced. This means that everyone is chipping in with timely offense. Only time will tell if the Reign can keep up the pace. I am very confident in this group and expect to see them make a deep playoff run.

I like this sig overall. The "torn" look works quite well. Also I like your choice of colors and the logo swap. As mentioned above, the only criticism I would have is the somewhat hard to read text. But that is pretty minor. Good work 8.5/10

Nice clear render. I like your choice of color palette. The cityscape in the background is also a great choice....and how can you go wrong with Sid !!! Great work. 9/10

pls gib ping

1. It's finally happening! The Reign are first in the league! What are your thoughts? As many of us have, we been through the STHS Wars and are approaching regression. So.....IT'S ABOUT TIME !! Go Reign !! 2. What has been the key to our success? Is it depth or a locker room factor or what? I definitely think that Driver makes a difference, but also there is a core group that have matured together and hung in there during the lean times. Its now paying off. 3. We all know that Driver has been an absolute force between the pipes, but is there anyone else who sticks out with their performance? I think this success is a team effort. Take a look at the point production from our team. It is really quite balanced. That means we are all chipping in. 4. What is your favourite kind of sugary cereal? Don't eat sugary cereals. Never did. 5. if you follow the NHL, what was the best free agent signing from the past few days? Grubauer signing with the Kraken. Gives them solid goal tending. 6. What is your favourite breed of dog? Black Lab.

Isau’s Mid-Career Thoughts Every now and then I wax a bit philosophical about the VHL and the site as a whole. I will attempt to get together some of my thoughts that have occurred to me over the last 10 months of my being here. Firstly, let me tell you how I very much enjoy the site, the people, and the overall operation of the VHL. If it wasn’t a lot of fun, I would have abandoned this a very long time ago. Having said that, there are some pitfalls that can pop up periodically. The Flame Wars I enjoy reading the forums and go to the new content as much as possible. There are some really good articles and graphics produced by our members. But with every open forum: They happen. When they do, despite what I KNOW about this stuff, I am inevitably drawn to them like a moth to a “FLAME”. I look at flame wars as a source of entertainment. I have to read what everybody says and snicker at a lot of the opinions that are aired. It is sometimes a real struggle not to participate. I try to hide my keyboard somewhere until the feeling passes. If a person MUST say his/her/its piece then be prepared to be squished like a bug on a windshield. We have some very brilliant, quick-witted folks here who can do the “one up” stuff very, very well. The wisest move is to stay uninvolved and watch the soap opera play out to its inevitable end, or at least until the next episode. Maybe instead of the off-season “Town of Salem” games, there should be an open “Flame Off”. Good for those who love that stuff both as a participant or as a lurker. Patience is a Virtue Joyce Meyer said that patience is not the ability to wait, but the ability to keep a good attitude while waiting. So how does this apply to the VHL ??? Well, I know how some folks want their newly created player to be an instant rockstar. That attitude may very well be a product of our times...instant gratification and the like. It doesn’t work like that in the VHL. There is only a limited number of TPE that a person can earn at any one time. Even with donations and purchases from the Player Store, your new superstar centre just is not going to be an overnight success. Hence patience. You have to max your earnings each and every week. Apply the TPE in such fashion that your player will succeed in the role in which you cast him/her. If things have gone horribly wrong, you can always retire your player and recreate a new one, of course trying at this point not to fall into the same traps as you did before. There are also some very knowledgeable GM’s out there that can help you get your player off on the right track. Not every player will score 100 points a season nor will every player make the Hall of Fame. Have fun with what you got. Participate Over and above doing the things that get you max TPE, I think a person must participate in some of the other social aspects of the game to really get full enjoyment from their time spent here. Offsite there is Discord should you wish to participate there, or there are the on-site Locker Rooms which can be equally as busy as Discord. Most teams post the TPE earning opportunities on their Discord channels, so you won’t miss an opportunity or forget to do something that is time sensitive (i.e. Training Camp). Of course, if you are interested in team organization or a role with the league as a whole, there are opportunities for jobs such as these posted as they become available. Although I am not interested in doing these jobs, I certainly appreciate all the work that goes into making the VHL run. Heartfelt appreciation to all those individuals, from the Commish to all the AGM’s. A job well done !! The Whiner Don’t be THAT GUY. All too often I have come across a newer player who wants it all right now. That person has just joined the league and expects his player to win the scoring title. Now, having expectations is OK, but THAT GUY will whine about it. THAT GUY will say, “Why can’t my player perform and score just like Aloe Dear right now ???” It all goes back to what I said earlier about patience. Another source for whiners are those who don’t read a bit and think things through before creating their first player. Most notably those who create goalies. The whine is always “Why isn’t my player starting or playing more games?” Those people haven’t yet realized that there is less opportunity for a starting goalie than there are for any other position. For example, a team will start their backup goalies 6 times and play their starter 66 times. Whereas, that same team will carry 6 defenseman who will all play in 72 games. Choose wisely, grasshopper !! Another great source for the occasional whine or rant are the vagaries of the sim engine, commonly referred to as STHS (SimonT Hockey Simulator). This is the sim engine we use and that’s all there is to it. It is unpredictable in a lot of ways, but that is, perhaps, how it duplicates the unpredictability of real life. I personally whined and ranted about this when my player who was playing on the second line was actually on the ice less than our fourth line guy. All to no avail. Nothing was going to change, so why waste a lot of time complaining ? (Unless, of course, its for a bunch of TPE !!) The Facilitator Be THIS DUDE !! Now here is the kind of player you want to be. It seems every team has a p[layer that reminds others of all the TPE earring possibilities there are each week. It reminds you to make those season predictions that you can easily forget. This same person will always help you out with trivia answers and, most likely, will post the answers on Discord. In addition, this person is likely in charge of your team’s weekly Press Conference. Overall, The Facilitator works for the good of the team all week, every week. I can see where this role can be time consuming and lead to burn out quite quickly. Perhaps we should make an effort to help reduce the workload that The Facilitator takes on and not just take it for granted that someone will do all this. The TPE Whore This means trying to wring evry last TPE from the system that you possibly can. I do this for two reasons. Firstly, as mentioned above, to make my player as competitive as possible. Allowing him to benefit his team in the best possible way. Secondly, when your player retires and you want to create a second player, you get a 4% TPE carryover from Player # 1. The maximum carryover is 50 TPE. To get the max it seems that you have to retire with 1250 TPE. I missed this thinking early on in my VHL career and didn’t do very much for the first 6 weeks or so. This has cost me at least 60 TPE. I have a feeling that this will come back to haunt me at retirement. The Reactor There are quite a number of articles and graphics posed on the forum. Ya, you can choose to ignore them and just do what you have to do in order to get from week to week. However, some people have put a LOT of effort and thought into what they have created. Because of this I try to read or view as many of these submissions as possible. Sometimes I might make a comment, but at the very least, for those good articles or graphics I will hit that “REACTION” button. I think people like to be recognized for what they do outside of just the TPE earnings. I don’t know if those reactions count for anything in particular, but it is a nice touch ! So to conclude my thoughts about belonging to the VHL. I have to say that I had a lot of fun creating the legend behind Isau DaMoose, Nikki Starr and Gale Force. If you managed to read the interviews with Isau, Moose Tracks (or Droppings !!) you would know that all of the places mentioned are, in fact, real places here in Northern Ontario. I used mostly ghost town sites that I had visited at one time or another. Nikki Starr (under another name) is, in fact, my partner and many of the stories about Nikki are (embarrassingly) true. The Gale Force character was pure fiction. But I needed her as an agent to present the interviews with Isau and Nikki. Despite a few wobbles, this is a well run site with many great people. Thank-you. Word Count: 1507

Things are finally starting to look good for the Riga Reign. Off to a 9 - 3 start. This is the best for Riga in many seasons. The 9 - 3 record is tied with Malmo for the best in the league. The Reign managed to keep most of their very many season 75 draft picks. These players are now in their prime and are quite competitive. The scoring seems to be quite evenly distributed, but leading the way are Cabe McJake @Red and Linus Zetterstrom @Ledge and Dairy with 12 points each. Scoring, however, is down. In their 12 games, the Reign have only managed 33 goals. A very low total as compared to Malmo’s 59 goals. Zamboni Driver @Tape-to-Tape is making a huge difference in the Reign’s success. Sporting a 1.98 Goals Against Average he is keeping the Reign in games and giving them a chance to win. Only time will tell if the Reign can keep up this level of wins vs. losses. I, for one, am very confident that the Reign will make a deep playoff run this season. Go Reign !

Nice mirror image and fade. The text could be a bit more pronounced to make it easier to read. Good colour palette. Overall nice work. 8/10

Overall I like the graphic. Good work on the logo swap, although perhaps you could have softened the edges a bit. I am a big fan of the mixed colour and black-and-white. Nice work !! 8/10

1. The draft is over and we have some new faces to the team. How do you think we did? I think we drafted well. As usual it will take a little time to see if our selections pan out, but I remain hopeful. 2. What do you think of the draftees, Erlantz Jokinen, Donny Carter, and Jeremy D? I am excited to see what these guys can do.... 3. After the draft, how confident are you about making the playoffs with this team? I feel quite confident that we will make the playoffs this yea. We have to score more goals.... 4. Who do you think will be the surprise MVP for the team this season? Likely Driver. One great goalie who could make a huge difference for us in the playoff picture. 5. How are you training for the upcoming season? I am on a strict diet of poutine and beer. 6. What was the last movie you saw in a theater? Frankly, it has been so long since I have seen a movie in a theatre that I don't remember.

Thanks for the TPE. Happy Birthday VHL

Hahaha. Ya, definitely not your standard graphic. I love it. The net seems to make the graphic a bit busy what with the character's head and the text colliding at the same place. Great stuff 9/10

I like the graphic and its blue tint. I also like the concept of being stuck in VR. I feel like that most of the time. However, I find the text quite hard to read and this distracts from the overall effect. Keep up the nice, creative work. 7.0/10

A DaMoose family reunion can be “interesting” to say the least. Overall, such events are filled with joy, merriment, good food and strong drink. However, because of the very many branches on the family tree, there are some unusual family members who sometimes make an appearance. My mom is a classic fey woman: You know, the red hair and green eyes…. What is even more disconcerting is her eerily accurate way of predicting the future. She did say that if I worked at it, that I could play pro hockey. She has been a supporter of mine forever !! Uncle Charlie and Aunt Beth usually descend upon the reunion with their family in tow. Charlie and Beth were not the most creative people when it came to naming their kids. A boy and two girls, Dancer, Prancer and Vixen. All I can say is that it is a good thing that they were not named after any of the Seven Dwarfs or the Seven Mortal Sins. In any event, I have already introduced you to Dancer. He is currently playing junior hockey in Swords, Ontario. The two girls, Prancer and Vixen, certainly live up to their names as well as they break hearts wherever they go. It's like a mission !!! Finally, I would like to mention my cousin Bela. She is from Romania and is a self-proclaimed gypsy witch. So, she always shows up with her coven because, well, they are family are they not ??? Now don’t get me wrong. These young women have definitely not embraced the dark side. In fact they are a lot of fun to have at a family party. After imbibing a young ocean of Grey Goose, they cast love spells on everyone. Now, I cannot attest to the efficacy of their spells. But suffice it to say that I am in no way attached to a being from the Netherworld (Nikki Starr not withstanding). Such is life at a DaMoose party. Word Count: 329

1. A couple days before the draft, we have acquired a starting goalie in Zamboni Driver and Jared Carter has moved to forward. Do you think we have a playoff team? Well, we definitely needed a goalie nd it was great to see Driver join us. It think with the moves that have been made and the continued growth of our core we should make the playoffs. However, what with how the sim engine loves us so much, nothing can be taken for granted. 2. Who was your first ever mentor in the VHL? Perhaps your first VHLM GM or AGM? Likely hylands @hylands of the Mexicio City Kings and Dmaximus @DMaximus of the Philadelphia Reapers. 3. If you had to change one VHL or VHLM logo, which one would you change? I would like to see the logo for Davos modernized a bit. 4. DC or Marvel (or neither) and why? I am not really a fan of either universe. 5. What is your dream car? 2020 Shelby GT500 6. What is your least favourite social media platform? I conscientiously stay away from social media. Too many pitfalls.

Week 2