hedgehog337

So, this is the draft night. For the first time since like S66 I have so many picks. I was trying to contend for as long as possible, but now it's time to make a new era Riga. And I meant it when I said new era. What that means though? You will see in this draft. don't miss it! So many active first gens and recreates are trying to not fell behind them. SBA guys are also making their presence known, especially the Hatty/Emidas/Molholt trio. By the way it would be poetic if Mo would be drafted by Toronto. It's for sure gonna be a long draft. We already have 6 rounds, but imay even go to 7 if we will find a good chunk of actives left. Maybe someone who was drafted below 100 other guys could make it to the VHL, that would be fire. At this moment, the lowest ever pick that did it was 78th overall (if I'm not wrong) and that actually happened in S66 draft. That draft was the biggest before this one by the way. Now waiting for another big draft and then another expansion because Beaviss can't stop thinking about it. I hope I won't fall asleep of course, that is a real danger.

1. Riga is officially in rebuild mode, what was the most shocking transaction you've seen so far and why? Being able to get a mid first for Pengu. 2. With so many picks in the draft, if you were GM of Riga, who would you draft first and why? Not Sirkants. 3. Do you think Riga will make the playoffs next season? I'd imagine that not. Simon won't be that weird for doing that. 4. If you could create an alternate jersey for Riga, what color scheme would you use/go with? Dark red and white I guess. This makes sense to me. 5. What's the training plan for this offseason or are you going to say to hell with it and take a vacation instead? I'm on vacation right now. hell with it. 6. What's the best sandwich at Subway, bread of choice, and toppings? Italian, bbq chick, cheese, spinach, onions, jalapeno, paprika, some sauces, chilli included. Guess that's decent.

Sirkants Klamasteris is the big 6'5'' 235 pounds goalie that is coming from a small city named of Kuldīga. Since an early age of 4 he was into the hockey as his parents were big fans of hockey. Also, his father was playing professionally in Latvian championship. During his childhood and teenage years Sirkants was playing in different tiers of Latvian leagues before he was noticed by a Hedgehog agency. The agency that already produced one VHL Hall of Fame goalie Kallis Kriketers was impressed by his size and ability to use this as the asset. After he turned 18 he started to play in higher tier Latvian leagues and Canadian junior leagues, but the biggest achievement so far came 7 years later when he declared for the VHLM draft. He was drafted 6th overall by the Ottawa Lynx team. In S74, he performed admirably. In regular season he had a 36-28-8 record with the .899 save percentage. In playoffs he continued his good play, but even his .905 performance didn't save his team from being eliminated in game 7 of the quarterfinal series. Now let's looks at his strengths and weaknesses. STRONG - Rebounds. In the minors Sirkants learned very well about the rebounding technique. Even before his first VHLM game he was decent with it, but he definitely polished this skill during his minor year. You would rarely see him letting the puck in front of him. Having a good rebounding will be huge in the majors as the league definitely has guys that like to shoot the puck literally from everywhere. - Having a sound skillset. I think this explains everything. Good rebounding skills? Check. Good hands movement? Check. Reaction? Check. Ability to work with his size? Check. It's been proven that if you want to be a good goalie in this league you gotta have these attributes on bag. Seems like Sirkants is aware of that and I think this is definitely one of reasons why he was performing good in minors. WEAK - No agility. While the big Latvian was focused on developing his main skills he seemed to forget that he has to get other attys on check too. Like agility. He has the size and he knows how to work with it. But I just can't deny that he tends to be clumsy during some plays. He gotta understand that he won't win games with his size alone. - No speed either. Like, he is a goalie and not a player. However, that doesn't mean that he shouldn't pay an attention on skating in practice facility. At this moment, you better hope he won't try to play the puck from behind because I feel like he just won't be able to reach it before the opposition comes to it first. IN TOTAL It looks like Sirkants knows what to do in order to being successful in this league. But I also think he isn't paying enough attention to little details that also could be very important in the big league. In overall, I think he has all the chances to follow Kriketers' footsteps and become the second Latvian goalie that made it in the Hall of Fame. You just can't deny that his size is an asset and if he can manage to make it work perfectly the opponents won't find many holes to shoot in. It just now depends on his work ethic and if he would be mentally better than Kallis.

week 4 as well

week 3 claim

I'm on vac and I'm bored a bit. So here's 16 possible picks in an upcoming VHL draft. 1. C- Pistil Stamen @DMaximus For me, it's a no brainer. LA has a defensive and goaltending youth on lock. However, forwards is not. It's just not going to be enough with Pines and they will need bolster that position. Here comes Pistil Stamen, a player who comes from a well known agency of DMaximus. It already produced a good defenseman before, Charlie Paddywagon. Max is also a GM of a minors team Philadelphia Reapers. I think that's a match made in heaven situation right here. 2. D - Jolly Greene Giant @DoktorFunk Another VHLM GM who already has a history of creating a good player. For truly competing London needs some fine forwards, but I don't think Wolf is planning to go all in and instead closes his 4th defenseman hole with Giant. Gonna be a fine pick for sure. 3. G - Kunibuni UnGuri @Berocka I was thinkinging for a bit about what Davos even needs, but UnGuri makes sense. First off, Berocka is an AGM of Davos. Also, their current goalie Bruden is slowly becoming older and will start face the problems with regression soon. In this case, this youngster will be ready to take over while Bruden just going to backup position. 4. D - L @gorlab One thing's for sure. Gorlab won't get his one wish and be the first overall. What he will get is playing with his buddy Kylrad in same team. Pretty much sure this is the reason why Jeff decided to sell his S76 first for having another lotto pick in this draft. Only Matty Socks is considered as the future defensive stud of Chicago so taking two more to almost close this position, I think that should be very good for this team. They will always have seconds/thirds etc to get good forwards anyways. 5. LW - Cabe McJake @RedSus I was thinking about putting him lower, but one of Sus' answers in his today press conference made me think Bird already set his sights on this very promising Irish forward. It may seem a reach, but it's not really a reach considering his booming activity so far and I'm sure his LR presence will be wonderful as well. Something that NY will for sure appreciate. 6. D - R @Kylrad I don't think I need to explain why this particular player goes sixth overall. 7. D - Ove Dyrdahl @GRZ I may be known as a guy who can fall asleep right before the draft. But I also like to make some out of the reach picks if I feel like I want to do that. Although this may not be the case. That pick could basically signalizing that I'm ready to fix a mistake I made in one of expansion drafts when I left him unprotected. Well, GRZ has no regrets about that tough. He's a certified DC legend now. 8. LW - Dolant Fertitta @Dolant I picked a IRL Latvian a pick before. Well, let's pick a IRL Lithuanian as well. What could be better than Braluikas connection in Riga, especially when Dolant is earning 14 TPE each week and never slowing down. What a shame there is no Estonian member in this draft class. 9. C - Taro Tsujimoto @GustavMattias Self explanatory. GM player pick. 10. G - Sirkants Kalmasteris @watch him, he's about to fell asleep at Monday, 7:50 PM EST Self explanatory. GM player pick. 11. D - Muffbeav @.sniffuM Self explanatory. GM player pick. 12. D - Scotty Kaberle @fromtheinside One thing is for sure, Beaviss loves to pick first gens unless it's a very proven veteran with a couple of HoF players on his resume. Knowing champs' potential problem with a defense position, Beav will go with Kaberle. Yes, he is like 30-40 TPE behind some other players in this draft, but I feel he is more active on boards and that's exactly what 'Couver GM wants. 13. D - Chicken Wing @chikn Another team that really needs a defense. Peace nicely set up his forward core, but I can't say the same about the blue liners. Chicken is a bit less active on boards, but still earns a good chunk of TPE and Toronto will go for it. 14. G - Thadius Sales @thadthrasher I'm sure Beav would've been interested to pick someone else like McLaren, but his forward core is so set on place he won't go for that. I think he's just going to pick the activity once again. But what about Emerson who literally blew off right after the last draft? Well I guess is going to be a dog fight between him and Sales then after Spyro is gone due to a retirement. 15. D - Gustav Hjalmarsson @McLovin Well yeah, there are more interesting draftees left, but knowing how productive Lovin's and Jubo partnership was during Hafkey's career. I think both could be happy with restoring this in this draft. And also, some guys like Summers and Bolonee are becoming old so this team will need some young blue liners soon. 16. G - Rara Rasputin @Victor Self explanatory. GM player pick. So there it is, my lil first round mock draft. Now, there could be a question - did I forget 5th and 7th ranked draftees, RJ Thatcher and Joe Kelly? And the answer is, no I didn't. I just couldn't really fit them in the first round properly despite of their superior TPE number. 4 GM player picks, some very active members and previous relationship factor seemed to be important enough for me to make that mock how it is. Anyways, even if that indeed happens, their lowest draft overall will be 17th and 18th. I think both NY and LA will be more than happy to take them at that stage of this draft. Ok, I'm too lazy to make more rounds and I'm not in VSN anyways. That's it and I'm out. Draft hype! not claiming TPE because I already have an article to claim. just for draft hype purposes.

This was Warsaw. GM's are usually trying to not pay first round pick for pending FA unless they're 100% sure they will sign that player. So I guess I'm fine with this return.

Yeah, it is what it is. Onto the new era Riga!

Wow. How yall even doing these videos. This video made a bit sad that I went to rebuild lol. But hey it's been a blast to play with you all for all of these seasons. Now go and kill it with your respective teams. I hope we will be teammates again one day!

you don't even need to pray for that, we're for sure gonna be at the bottom next season.

because you asked me @Josh

I do hope that @Jeffie43 finds a motivation to fully come back after this fresh start.

yup. S75 picks here we go

Note: Riga also receives S75 NYA 4th, S75 CGY 5th and S75 CGY 6th in this trade. @Commissioner

Finally I'm making trades too. Welcome to Riga @Rocket! I'm pretty sure you will get some nice stats in our team

yes

since when you became @tfong ?

ofc not. nothing to do today so I need to spread some fake rumors

Have nothing to do except of drinking some rum so here's something rumors for you before trades actally happen. - First off, it's worth to mention that the star defenseman of Davos Roque Davis isn't pleased with his team's performance and it became known way before VHL finals that he is set to leave Switzerland; - Anyways, Davos most likely already found a potential replacement for him. His is rumored to be younger than Roque. Also, a first round pick is involved into this rumored deal; - Speaking of Davis, his right were most likely sent already. My guess is to another established EU contender; - Yet another EU contender may not have the same roster as they had this season and that's not because of retirements or players leaving to FA. Nothing known more than that, though; - Yesterday, Calgary GM @Jubis sent a public message to all S75 draftees where he said he won't be drafting anyone simply because he won't have picks at all. Assuming that he isn't lying, this team had a busy trade talks with multiple teams. My guess that one of teams could be Riga (already known they're heading to the rebuild) since they can supply teams with forwards, the position that Calgary totally lacked this season. - One of top NA teams is rumored to try flip S75 picks to future ones because they're feeling that they just don't need prospects as of now; - Also, watch some lower TPE call ups being on the move as their current teams don't have either cap or roster space for them. Their most likely destination would be rebuilding teams. yeah some vague af writing, try to guess about which teams I'm talking about and stuff

This seems entertaining. I'm just like every middle class foreign watching this from outside with a bag of popcorn in my hands. Preparing for some shitshow right after final results are in.

1. What costume did you wear for Halloween, if you didn't end up wearing one, what was the best costume you ever wore? I don't think I ever wore any costumes. 2. How did Halloween night go? Trick or treating? Fireworks? Anything!? Nothing. 4. Who wins the Continental Cup? Helsinki. 5. Does the NHL have a full season of games next year or a shortened year? How many games do you think? Shortened, probably not more than 50 games. 6. What's the plan this offseason for your player? Preparing for being Kallis Kriketers Jr. 7. Who goes first overall in the VHL draft? Pistil Stamen. 8. Who goes first overall in the VHLM draft? Cabe McJake perhaps.

*if you know what I mean. except I'm not going that far.* It's no secret that the result of game 5 between Malmo and Riga marks the end of our record 14-season playoff streak. I do hope that I can top that in my another attempt. But for now, let's go back in time and see how my team was doing in each of these 14 seasons. S62 Oh, good ol' scoring madness that was still a thing in VHL before the recruitment started to make moves. Never forget the 174 from Podrick Cast as well as other notable performances. Not only Riga was benefiting from this, couple of other teams were also having high scoring guys. I never was expecting to make the playoffs since we didn't have a good goalie, but our scoring got us to the wild card round. It ended in 3 games at the hands of Seattle. Still, it was a fun season. S63 Like I was doubting us making the playoffs in S62, I never was sure if we can have a great championship chances in S63. Esepcially with the sub 400 TPE dude like Kallis Kriketers who was created to replace the bust Arvid Aamo. Anyways, I decided to give it a try. First I was ready to give a first pick for an established player Sebastian Ironside. It never happened due to complicated issues so I just drafted Ryan Kastelic who was a definition of a TPE whore back then. I also tried to bring free agents here and surprise, THREE players decided to sign with us (Bassolino, Shepherd, Gow). Suddenly, our team got better although I was still unsure due to a rookie goalie. And to the surprise of no one he didn't perform that well. Unlike the team, especially another tookie Ryuu Crimson who just ran over teams after his hat trick against Quebec in semi finals. That performance made him the first and only player who won the playoff MVP award as a rookie. But most importantly, we won a championship so my doubts were shattered after game 6 in finals. S64 We were coming hot from the S63 championship. Despite of two players departing the team due to retirement (Shepherd and Gow) our team was still strong as ever. All of our previous draftees were only getting better and it showed in regular standings where we finished close second. It seemed like we would witness the Seattle vs Riga finals, except we got Helsinki in semi finals. They were doing more or less quiet in regular season, but when the time came we suddenly found ourselves with a 1-3 deficit in series. We managed to force into game 7, but that was all we got. Game 7 loss and our back to back dreams are gone. Disappointing result, but not the worst I've ever experienced. S65 Another good regular season although we visibly slowed down at the end. Seattle once again finished first and it seemed that maybe finally we will clash in the finals to decide who is really better. Except we got Toronto in semi finals. I'll go ahead and say that this series was the least favorite of mine in my 21 season tenure so far. I didn't see how Toronto was better than any other playoff team with the 500 something TPE goalie. Instead, they managed to beat it in mere 5 games which I still think was a bullshit. I never saw them being that better than us. In fact I never saw they were better at all. This was the time when I started to be frustrated by STHS as it just was a bad result with zero logic in it. I had so many disappointments after this series, but this probably the only one result I'll always be salty about. S66 After another frustrating result I decided to go more younger and sold couple of older players, Crimson and Glade for picks. At the end of the day I had four S66 firsts, including the first overall. As the result of that change we entered the season with 9 forwards which was an experiment from me since I never had so many forwards in my team. I must say that this experiment ended up...decently? I guess. We managed to secure the playoff spot rather comfortably, but personal stat wise it wasn't that pretty. Our star Podrick Cast performed below his expectations and it seemed like so many bodies was only distracting us from showing our true form. We would never know what was the true answer as we just got swept by Davos in EU conference semi finals. This was a notable event for two reasons: the first ever sweep loss in my VHL GM career and this was the last time we lost in the conferene semi finals before S74. So yeah, 7 season streak of being in top 4, I guess that's decent. S67 More disappointments, more changes. The longtime Riga leader Podrick Cast was shipped to Moscow alongside with my own player Randoms. It marked the end of the EdwinCast duo as I was almost always playing them together in same line. In return I acquired from Davos younger guys like Pat Svoboda and Elias Dahlberg. That also was a beginning of a long time partnership with the member named Nykonax who eventually became the AGM with his second player. Also also, this was the debut season of a defenseman who then will become the cornerstone of Riga success in early 70's. But then he was just a rookie named Lincoln Tate. As about this season? Nothing much to write about. We started our long time rivalry with Moscow in a quick fashion, winning the series in 5 games. Despite of that, we never were a true powerhouse and it showed in the EU finals between us and Helsinki. It seemed like they were just a little bit better than us and that showed in the scoreboard. 4-3 loss and no finals yet again. S68 Another season, another try. I made another good team, but for the good chunk of the season were rather sitting at the mid-table. Then I decided to take actions and realize that Beav isn't happy to see his player HHH underperforming all the time. As of the result the VHL saw a player swap between Quebec and Riga. HHH to Beav, Rauno Palo to Riga. That brought some life to us and we started to catch up other teams and actually were very close to win the Victory Cup. In EU semi finals we managed to banish our Helsinki demons in a low scoring series. It seemed like we can finally bring another finals performance at least. Except we got Malmo and Thompsson. I never thought Malmo was something special without Matt (still don't), but he just made his team 100x times stronger. Despite of Palo effect, our offense was still not ideal and it showed. Loss in 5 games, another frustrating result. S69 Yup, another try. Interesting fact - I was interested to sell Palo for younger guy or picks, but decided to keep him. It seemed like a good option as our team was performing better in that regular season. Especially our defense and Kallis Kriketers who were holding on the fort all season long. Kallis posted his career best stats which was also a big thing in the leaguewide. At that moment, goalies were usually sitting around .922-.925 or even less, but .931 with a very low GAA was something special. It continued in the playoffs where opponents offense were just smoked by our defense and Kallis (Helsinki and Moscow appeared to be the victims) And finally, after all of these years of failures we managed to make into the finals. And against Seattle! A S64-65 dream matchup, only it happened a couple of seasons later. And this series started great with a 4 OT showdown. First 4 games were really close....and then Kallis crumbled under the pressure. It was very unfortunate becasue we were outshooting them all six games long, but it all got annulated by our goalie who couldn't fuel himself anymore. 6 games loss and no cup. The most disappointing result in my tenure so far, but not the worst. S70 Some of our main forwards retired after that season (Dahlberg and Palo) and I had to decide what to do next. Sell Kastelic/Svoboda and make a hard retool or compete again? I chose...something between that. Dubious deals for ACL Tear and Aston Martin with one decent one for Codrick Past and nothing more than that. And that with my plans on getting multiple big TPE players. Well, shit. Our team still performed nicely, but I didn't have a feeling that we can take out the Moscow powerhouse. And you know what? I was right. We managed to pull a revenge on Malmo in EU semis. And then predictable happend. We were no match for the Menace. 5 games loss, we out. S71 You already know the drill. Another try. This time I decided to not throw picks away and actually draft with them. The first round picks were Kyl Oferson (Nykonax) and Pengu. Then I brought a free agent Dan Baillie with an idea to finish his career in a team that drafted him. We were once again decent, but never spectacular. Just sitting somewhere in the middle in standings and trying to secure another playoff appearance. And then the bomb happened. Malmo's new GM was not believing they could do anything anymore so he decided to make a firesale at the trade deadline. I took the chance and made a blockbuster trade. Bunch of picks, Aston Martin, Dominique Williams and Dan Baillie to Malmo; Phil Marleau and Acyd Burn to Riga. This was an exciting moment, except there was one big black hole in this: I never fulfilled my promise to Dan Baillie that he will finish in his OG team and sent him to a team that wasn't competing much anymore (still made the playoffs though). Still feeling uncomfortable about this. Anyways, that was really a big deal that was supposed to elevate us to the legit contender status. Except it didn't really happened. We were still somewhere at the middle of the pack trying to fight for the playoffs. Acyd Burn never meshed up well with our guys despite being a high TPE forward (nice joke, Simon) and we were still inconsistent. We even dropped the first two games to Prague in EU semis (mind you, the only two playoff wins in their history so far) but managed to turn this into our favor as they were just gooning instead of playing a hockey game. And once again, we face Moscow in the conference finals and this time we came a little bit close. Still, loss in 6, we out. S72 We entered this season without Acyd Burn whos FA right were shipped to Davos. Other that, not much roster changes were made. So our offense was still doing very inconsistent...at the first half of the season. I was starting to fully believe that having higher TPE defensemans that forwards isn't going to do much wonders for us. Then something interesting happened. After another lines change our offense started to mesh well together and we started to climb in standings after a taking all of our three or four games in a row against Davos. At the end of the season we finished first in EU and things were looking fine. I still was exepcting a good fight between Davos and the Moscow in EU playoffs. Except we got two sweep wins in a row. Our offense was running wild with our defense doing a legit ''quarterback'' job and Eagles stealing games all the time. We made the finals once again and this time we were facing a very scary opponent in Calgary. And first two games showed that it won't be easy for us. I once again was expecting a very tight fight. Except another lines change happened which basically put Calgary to sleep. The other three games were taken by our team and that was it. 4-1 series, 12-1 playoff run in total, we are champs once again! S73 Since we became champs I didn't change my roster much. Unfortunately we had to say our goodbyes to Busser and Hackett. But I still thought we could be good enough to make the finals once again at least. The regular season was fine. We didn't finish first in EU conference, but I felt we can make it happen in the playoffs again. And at first it seemed very good for Riga. Taking our rivals Moscow out in 5 game was a great start to do it. Except we got Helsinki that scored a lucky game 7 against Malmo (which was never supposed to happen, in fairness. Helsinki was better than that). I'm not sure why Simon decided to turn on us so quick, but we suffered a sweep loss at the hands of our another long time rival. Perhaps the loss of Hackett and Busser finally showed up and our defense wasn't as much powerful as before. S74 Well, another try then. Another season with no much changes in roster since the trade market was pretty weak, especially forward wise. Some of our players started to regress and our first round pick Jeffie never panned out so our depth was not at the top level. And what a surprise (/s), we didn't look like a true powerhouse except for the start of the season when we went like 17-2. Individually, this season was fun. Tallinder with the most points in the regular season, Oferson hitting 100 as well. Tate and Sasakamoose with great numbers too. Still, it was the depth that brought us down. And yeah, you know the drill. It showed. In the EU semis against Malmo. I was expecting more tight series, but they just expose our lack of depth by taking the series in 5. Not the best way to end our playoff streak, but it is what it is. Well, these were interesting times for Riga. Consistently being in the hunt, winning a couple of championships, great individual stats and some frustrating results. Regardless of anything, this was a memorable run, but now it's time to pull myself and go to sleep for like two seasons or so. In any case, we will be back! That's it and I'm out. 25/10 - 01/11 02/11 - 08/11 09/11 - 15/11 16/11 - 22/11

Sirkants Klamasteris, a goalie.

Honestly, very garbage way how to end it all. This was pretty much "passing the torch" type of series, but I would prefer lose in 7 for more drama effect, than that boring shit. Fuck you simon. gg @FrostBeard, now you'll have to be another Latvian GM who win it all.