tcookie

With about 20% of the season left to play in S93, contenders in the VHL's European Conference are in the midst of a potentially unprecedented race for playoff positioning. Just a couple of days ago, teams one-through-five in the EU were *all* tied with 36 wins and separated by just two points in the standings overall. For five teams to be so tightly-packed is incredible, and certainly makes for an exciting ride for the fans! The teams aren't just close in terms of points in the standings either, as they have the second-through-sixth place goal differentials in the VHL as well, with a range of +43 to +60. All five teams seem poised to battle it out for positioning right to the bitter end. Malmo Nighthawks Leading the EU with a 38-15-4 record and 80 points are the Malmo Nighthawks. The Nighthawks have, to an extent, had some issues offensively this season, but they are riding strong team defense and goaltending to a contending spot. Their 190 goals for ranks 8th in the VHL, but their 144 goals against is fewest in the league. Netminder Ash Sparks @DarkSpyro is in the league's top-five in SV% (0.925) and is second among starters in GAA (2.43) and shutouts (4). Viktor Jensen @Advantage is the star of the show offensively, leading the team with 68 points, although Malmo's offense features a pretty balanced attack overall with six players right around or above the PPG mark. All-situations defender Jacob Stone @scoop is having his best year in the VHL, with 67 points, 178 hits, and 138 blocks as the #1 defenseman on the league's best defensive team. London United The London United are actually tied with Malmo at 80 points, but have one more game played and one fewer win (37-15-6). The United boast a formidable roster that's a little differently-constructed than Malmo. They're a lot more top heavy with less depth, but equally effective, with Wann Kerr @VattghernCZ leading the entire VHL with 102 points and linemate Leonard Triller @Triller with a remarkable 85 points in 58 games himself. London has the sixth-best offense but second-best defense in the VHL, with certified superstar Jesse Teno @aimkin between the pipes. Teno is in the final season of an eight-year VHL career spent entirely with London, and he is authoring yet another excellent campaign. Prague Phantoms The Prague Phantoms come next, currently one point back of Malmo/London (37-16-5, 79 points). Prague has a bit of a unique roster construction as they have played most of the season with two fewer players than most VHL contenders. The recent pickup of LeBen Aky now leaves them just one defenseman short of a "full" roster. They have not been punished for this, though, as they've been on a roll all year long. Prague has some true star power in the lineup with John Jameson @Frank, Nikolas Kauppi @Tetricide, and Skor McFleury @Alex, and all three players are living up to the hype. Jameson is second in the VHL with 101 points, Kauppi leads the league with 46 goals (93 points), and McFleury leads the league in assists (62) and defenseman scoring (82) points - while being top-5 in hits (231) and blocked shots (185), too. Moscow Menace The Moscow Menace are fourth in the conference but they, too, are sitting on 37 wins (37-18-3, 77 points) and boast the league's second-best offense with 214 goals for. Moscow are a young team with a roster built similarly to Malmo's in that they're very deep and balanced, and having nine players at the 50-point mark is a testament to that depth. Axle Gunner @Steve has been the team's best player since his rookie season in S91 and continues to improve, having gone from 73 points to 94 to now pacing for 103 this season (83 points in 58 games). On the back end, Leif Reingaard @Zetterberg is having a stellar year with 68 points in 58 games so far. The second-year pro is already one of the league's best offensive blueliners. Warsaw Predators Warsaw (36-20-3) sits in fifth place, with brick wall Lachlan Summers @kirbithan having a massive part to play in that. Summers was brilliant in S90 for Davos and captured some individual hardware then - he seems poised, now, to fill up that trophy case a little further in his first year outside of Davos. Summers has faced a tougher workload than most starters - the only goalies that have faced more shots are Matthew McCagg, Karl Pederson, and Red Panda who all play for rebuilding teams in LA, Davos, and Riga (for perspective - Summers has 32 wins himself; LA, Davos, and Riga combine for 34 wins all together). Despite facing 260 shots more than the nearest goaltender on a playoff team, he's atop the league with a .935 SV% and also has 4 shutouts. Their offense has been keyed by breakout seasons from their entire top line of King Kisslinger @Kisslinger (88 points in 59 games), Thor Reingaard @N0HBDY (86 points in 59 games), and Maxim Anisimov @McLovin(85 points in 59 games). Their biggest weakness is a lack of depth - they have six players over 56 points, but then nobody else with more than 17 - but they did make a recent move to pick up Sunglasses Joyo @JetsGoalie101 to help remedy that. This will mark the 21st season since the league's expansion to 16 teams, and only twice in that time have teams 1-through-5 in either conference been separated by even less than 10 points: S87 when first-place Davos was separated from fifth-place London by 9 points, and S77 when first-place Chicago was 9 points ahead of fifth-place Vancouver, making this season's race potentially historically-close. For the vast majority of S93 so far, these five teams have not been separated by more than 5 points. Remarkably, the first-through-seventh place teams were only separated by 11 points in S87, so there were higher stakes in that case, as two teams didn't even make the playoffs. Still, if the level of play shown by all five of these teams so far continues through the final 13-15 games, we could be witnessing the hardest-fought battle for positioning within a conference in recent VHL history. --- 1032 words, for this week and next

1) Honestly about the same. After my hot start I had hoped to sustain it a little better, but I figured somewhere around PPG or slightly above was a good target for this year and that's where I am. 2) Detroit 3) I've never gotten to play a season as a player with @Ricer13 and still would like to get to do that at some point, just because of the fond memories of the season I joined the league in Miami with him as GM. One of these days! --- 1) Who do you think is the VHL MVP so far this season? 2) It's a playoff game 7 and your starting goalie goes down, but fortunately you can pick any other VHL starting goalie to fill in that night... who are you picking? 3) What's your favourite pre-game meal?

In the midst of an incredible battle for first place in the European Conference, where first-through-fifth place are separated by a total of three points, Phillip Rave's breakout season has continued for the Malmo Nighthawks. Although Rave isn't scoring at quite the pace he was to start the year, he has maintained a better-than-PPG average with 27 goals and 57 points in 53 games. The Nighthawks have five players at the PPG mark, and forward Savaisk Tzesar is not far behind, giving them a very balanced attack. "It's obviously always nice to contribute, so I'm happy I've been able to produce. It feels like the work I've been putting in is paying off on the ice, which is always a great feeling," says Rave. "Obviously with the state of the EU right now, you need to be on top of your game every night. You lose a game or two and you can drop from first place to fifth. It seems like the five playoff teams are settled, but the positioning matters. And I think our whole team, myself included, can be a little better with that consistency aspect." While Rave likely had a chance at one point to take home the Dustin Funk Trophy, as his production has slightly tailed off it's beginning to look like there are other, more impressive candidates. Still, it's a marked improvement from year one for Rave, and the Nighthawks have to be feeling like they have a future star on their hands.

1) Honestly looks like the top-5 EU teams could end up in almost any order at this point, but I think we'll pull it out and end up 1st or 2nd! 2) I thought Calgary would be a lot better than they are. 3) Winning the Continental Cup this year 4) Sparks has stood on his head a few times. I think there was a game we beat Calgary(?) despite being outshot like 60-30, so I'll go with that one. 6) PC 7) Honestly probably Halifax, even though "21st" sounds a bit awkward. It has a strong meaning & connection to the area, and being for a VHLM team (ie. the entry point to the VHL) it has another layer of meaning to it there. Malmo, Prague, and Riga are my favourites in the VHL.

It's theme week in the VHL, and this season's theme is "rebrand". In recent years, rebranding has been rare for VHL teams, but rebranding can be an exciting time for a team, especially if they really nail the new look. There seems to be a lot of picking on the low-hanging fruit in the London United and to a lesser extent, the New York Americans, so I decided to look at some other teams. Overall, I think the VHL branding as a whole is actually quite strong, so don't take this too seriously! Seattle Bears I don't have anything in particular against the branding of the Bears, I don't think they are in dire need of a rebrand or anything like that. There's nothing I find inherently bad about the Bears' branding, rather, I just find it a little bit plain. Varying shades of red/blue, like their primary colour maroon, are way overdone in professional sports as a whole and the name "Bears" is pretty generic. Seattle is sometimes known as the "Emerald City" for its year-round greenery, and I love seeing a pop of green in a teams' colours. Calling the team the Seattle Emeralds and featuring a prominent green/white colour scheme, maybe with black, silver, or teal as an accent colour as well, would provide a unique, sharp colour scheme and also give the team a name with strong ties to the area. However, there is a lot of history associated with the Seattle Bears name in the VHL. They are a team that as been around since S1 and have won more Continental Cups than any other franchise in VHL history. Although none of that is erased with a name change, it still creates a situation where rebranding is unlikely. Los Angeles Stars This is another team where the branding just feels a little bit generic, probably because of the name "Stars", which admittedly is a little unfair because the connection with the name "stars" and LA actually makes a lot of sense. The colour scheme lacks any real, well, colour. There's a big city a little further south in California that recently lost its football team and is pretty empty in the way of major professional sports right now, so they could be very open to supporting a VHL team in the area... I'm talking about San Diego, of course. I think we can move the Stars to San Diego and call them the San Diego Pandas! After all, (almost) everyone loves pandas. Think of all the merchandising opportunities! The San Diego zoo was one of the more famous places to see pandas in North America until they returned them to China in 2019, but recent developments indicate that San Diego is likely on the way to getting their pandas back. Of course, we can't do much about the "boring" black/white colour scheme with this team name, but a little pop of colour - replacing the silver accent colour with a bamboo-green accent - could go a long way in making the uniforms a little more interesting.

I would probably care a lot more about the international tournaments if teams were actually just international teams representing one country, and teams that qualify for any given tournament were picked based on the number of eligible players they had or something. But that would mean completely leaving some people out, some teams being completely outclassed, etc... so I definitely get it. I created a guy from Lichtenstein so I'd never get to participate (short of trying to get a bunch of other people to create Lichtensteiners too). It just doesn't really feel like international play to me so it may as well be just another off-season tournament variant.

With the VHL season just across its halfway point, there is no shortage of jockeying for position in a jam-packed European Conference. The Moscow Menace lead the EU with a 26-9-3 record for 55 points, but it's about as tenuous a grip on first as you can find, with second-through-fourth each having 52 points themselves. Malmo has a game in hand with a 24-9-4 record while the Prague Phantoms and London United are each 24-10-4. While all teams are very tightly-grouped in the standings, there are big playoff implications at play for this group depending on the order of finish, since whoever finishes 4th will have to play an extra playoff series against the 5th-place team in the conference. Home ice matters too, but getting to avoid the wildcard round is an extra benefit. None of these teams want to get that extra wear on them at the toughest time of the year. We are set up for a very interesting second half of the season in the EU as all four teams have strong teams and legitimate Cup aspirations. It's rare to see a conference with four powerhouse teams so closely grouped for an entire season. Will anyone be able to separate themselves from the group to claim top spot, or will this be a heated battle that keeps fans on the edge of their seats right down to the season's final game?

@hedgehog337 you took a shot on me as a first gen in that stacked S75 draft, made me the 8th overall pick... I wish that had ended better for both McLaren and for Riga, but it was still fun times there with that crew and I appreciated your willingness to give me a shot. Appreciated the way you handled it when the team didn't do as well as we should have and you had to make some changes, too. you're a VHL legend man, one heck of a run as Riga's GM here. Best of luck in whatever comes next for ya and I hope we still see you around once in a while

1) I'd like to see something that competes better with the value of just saving money for regression fighters. But besides that, what can you do besides give TPE that's actually enticing? It's a tricky situation and I don't really have any great ideas myself 2) It'd take more than just underperforming. I'd have to be *really* bad or not like the team situation or something that is causing it to be very not fun to continue my career. I don't really feel any pressure to go 8 seasons if I'm not having fun, but just underperforming a bit isn't enough to bother me 3) That's a lot of pressure lol, and I don't listen much to full albums anymore, but I do remember being a big fan of Rise Against - Appeal to Reason --- 1) LA is off to a 1-36 start, how many games do they win this season? 2) Where would you go for your dream vacation? 3) Do you follow sports outside of the "big 4" in north america (NHL MLB NFL NBA)? if so, what's your favourite?

Malmo forward Phillip Rave is off to a hot start in S93, with 18 goals and 35 points in the first 28 games of the season. He surpassed his rookie season's total of 16 goals in Malmo's 26th game, and he's not far from eclipsing the rookie year's point total, too. Rave is on pace for 46 goals, 90 points, and 444 shots on goal - numbers that would be a huge improvement on the 16 goals, 41 points, and 252 shots he compiled in his rookie campaign and would surely leave him a candidate for the Dustin Funk award at season's end. Meanwhile, the Nighthawks are 19-6-3, sitting within a clump of teams in the top-5 in the VHL standings. They are tied with the London United and one point behind Moscow for tops in the EU, but have a game in hand on both teams. On a 6-game winning streak, both the Nighthawks and Rave will look to continue their strong play against Prague later today.

Claim week 2/2

Thank you! It was fun to write something a little more creative for this one!

It’s March 7, 2021, and a just-turned 21-year-old Lichtensteiner stands atop the slopes of Austria’s Saalbach-Hinterglemm. He’s the second-youngest skier in the field today, and he has a chance to do something remarkable. He steadies himself in the starting gates and prepares to receive the countdown. He closes his eyes, takes a deep breath of the crisp, cold air and envisions the line he wants to take… and then it’s time. Out of the gate, the start feels smooth, controlled, perfect… everything is going according to plan. He’s confident and sharp in his turns, gathering speed, and staying precisely on the line he wants. He doesn’t know it yet, but the pace he’s on in the top half of the course would give him a silver medal time and a spot in the 2022 Winter Olympic games. He may not know it's a silver-medal pace, but he does know that this run feels pretty darn good. His mind wanders a little, feeling what it might be like to ski in Beijing, and - no! His left ski cuts out too far on a turn. He recovers to stay on his feet, but the next turn is no better and produces a huge, pronounced wobble. He doesn't fall, which is probably good for his knees, but... it can't save his time. One lapse in focus… it’s over. He’s already distraught as he crosses the finish line, unable to fight off the tears welling up in his eyes. The announcer calls out, “Phillip Rave, time of 1:27.49. 22nd position out of 27 skiiers,” but he doesn’t hear. He doesn’t need to. He already knows. By the end of the event, he’s 36th. A few months earlier, Rave was the talk of the skiing world. 20-year-olds don’t ski in world cup events very often, and while Rave was very much a super-G specialist, he’d captured two top-five finishes in the season’s first three super-G events by posting blazing-fast times of 1:02.04 at Val-d'Isère (4th) and 2:27.51 (5th) at Alta Badia. Just for reference, 2021 World Cup Champion Alexis Pinturault won Alta Badia with 2:27.19. The most dominant skier of the next three seasons, Marco Odermatt, finished fourth with 2:27.47. You see, four years ago, Phillip Rave had very different aspirations for his life - and he was right on the cusp of making his dreams come true. But after that hot start, he struggled badly for the rest of the 2020-21 season, culminating in his worst finish of the season at Saalbach-Hinterglemm, and the barriers to Rave’s success were now on the mental side. He was starting to become resigned to defeat, to feel like he would simply never be able to grab the opportunity that was right in front of him. Now, every race was just a disappointment - another failure to earn that Olympic qualification berth that had become his life's sole mission. Rave did have one last shot at qualifying for the 2022 Olympics. It would have taken the ride of his life at Lenzerheide, Switzerland, eleven days later. He never left the gate that day, as fog and heavy snowfall forced the FIS to cancel the race. Rave raced in his second career world cup giant slalom event a couple of days later at Lenzerheide, though by then, he had no chance to qualify for the Olympics anyway. He crashed out of the race halfway through, and he’d never ski competitively again. Today, Rave says some combination of being burnt out and not really knowing how to handle expectations contributed to his demise as a skier. “I mean… yeah, I was good - I’m not gonna sit here and tell you I wasn’t,” he laughs. “I had some results that, looking back, are pretty unbelievable for someone my age. I started that season off skiing so well in the super-G and I started hearing my name… people talking about me all the time. I just didn’t know how to handle it. I wanted to be great so badly. I wanted to compete at the Olympics so badly… and I just put so much pressure on myself. I couldn’t handle it… and everything fell apart. I was terrible for the last four months of that season, and by the end of it, I felt like I hated the sport I’d loved my whole life.” Rave took what was planned to be a brief mental break from skiing and got back on the skating rink, instead. Oh, did we mention he was a world-class speed skater in his youth, too? This time, it wasn’t speed skating, though. Rave was taking a more serious interest in hockey. But come on - a world cup skier switching careers and actually succeeding at playing professional hockey at the highest level? Even for someone with the natural athletic gifts that Rave has, that was preposterous. In just a few years, the progress that he has made is remarkable - or probably more accurately, unprecedented. There was about six months of training and a season spent with a semi-pro team in Austria - where Rave occasionally looked like the best player the league had ever seen and also occasionally looked like he’d never played a game of hockey before in his life; a fascinating combination of athleticism, talent, and baffling inexperience. He showed enough, improved consistently enough, over that time frame to earn himself a look from the VHLM’s San Diego Marlins. And the more Rave played, the more he looked like he belonged. Just two levels away from professional hockey’s highest tier - the VHL - Rave was excellent, stepping right into the lineup of the VHLM’s best team and putting up 76 points in 72 games. He was drafted by the VHL’s Malmo Nighthawks 17th overall in the S91 draft. He was picked even higher - 9th overall - by the Cologne Express in the VHLE draft, and he would spend a year there further refining his skills, albeit playing much less than he did in San Diego while focusing on learning the game more and developing his overall skillset. And now, if you go to a hockey game some 1500km north of the slopes upon which he posted his best-ever finish in world cup skiing in Val-d'Isère, you can watch Phillip Rave take the ice in a Malmo Nighthawks jersey. 12 games into his second VHL season, Rave has 8 goals and 16 points. Not too shabby. He now understands the game. He takes advantage of his athleticism and powerful skating stride to protect the puck, to find open space, to fend off defenders in front of the net. Rave isn’t physical, but he’s kind of a power forward anyway. And he’s very, very good at it. “I’m the kind of person that… when I set my mind to something, I put every fiber of my being into it,” says Rave. “That’s why what happened with skiing was so hard on me. That was my life on those slopes. That’s why not qualifying destroyed me. That’s why my “break” turned into this. It’s not always a blessing… there was simply no way I could be that hard on myself and continue skiing. It would have been terrible for my mental health. But… it’s helped me pick things up quickly my whole life. It’s certainly helped me with hockey. My life for… basically 3 years straight was, ‘how do I get better at hockey?’ I watched so much film, read, practiced… it was an obsession.” He smiles and adds, “I guess it’s worked out for me.” Phillip Rave seemed destined to reach the highest level of competition in his chosen sport. And through his dedication, perseverance, and natural athletic ability, he has found a way to get there after all. Just what we expected. Well… almost. We didn't expect the skates. --- 1300ish words, this week and next

The Malmo Nighthawks got off to a hot start this season, sporting a 6-1-0 record through 7 games, but have suffered a recent lapse in play that leaves them in the middle of the pack in the VHL standings. The Nighthawks have lost 4 of 5 including allowing 1-10-1 Davos to claim their only win of the season, 3-2 in a shootout, earlier today. Sophomore centre Phillip Rave, who has personally had a successful start to the season with 8 goals and 16 points in the first 12 games, didn't seem particularly fazed by the recent slip-up. He did acknowledge that they can't let it continue, though. "We had a cold spell at the start of last year, and a pretty up-and-down first half of the season... then we really got it going. So hey, it's early, I'm not going to read too much into this. But obviously, losing 4 out of 5, not something you ever like to see. So it's far from panic time, I still completely believe in this group of guys but yeah obviously we need to get this thing turned around. Need to start playing the right way." Ten of the VHL's 16 teams are group within a 4-point gap (12 to 16 points) thus far, so that "middle of the pack" is pretty competitive right now, and every point counts. Positioning in the standings can be huge come playoff time, and the Nighthawks still have aspirations of a second-consecutive Victory Cup. We'll see if they can right the ship as they get back on the ice tomorrow for a rematch against Davos.

I think it would be completely fair to allow anyone to submit a makeup PT for one that's declined within something like 48 hours, rather than just ending the week on them. Also, although I do completely agree with whoever declined your update, I don't quite understand why the "similar" one was ever allowed through either, so... totally valid complaint lol