In a randomly selected lottery of players throughout the league, some foolish league officials rewarded A.C. Savage with 5M in VHL cash. This "reward" will likely bring about the destruction of the league itself.
A.C. Savage has toiled away this season with the league's best ever fighting ability, while no one has dared to drop the gloves with him. Well, no more. Savage will be compiling his 3M in the bank, the 5M reward and next season's 3M paycheck to purchase what the VHL calls a "TPE re-roll." It is essentially a mystical machine that allows a player to re-allocate his abilities. Real high-tech stuff. Savage is a phenomenal fighter, that won't be changing anytime soon. However, his sub-par abilities at basically every other facet of the game will be going down to pathetically miserable levels. He will instead be focusing his time on learning how to check players into oblivion, and will couple that with an intense strength regiment that will boost his overall bulk and ability to use it. Savage will be sporting these new traits:
Fighting: 95
Checking: 95
Strength: 95
He will incite riots on the ice, both from opposing players and fans. He will hurt someone, perhaps kill someone - hopefully on a nightly basis. He will lead the league in fights, and he will not lose.
A.C. Savage isn't out for just blood, he's out for murder.
Note* Math was wrong, 5 more points to strength.
Note* He will use his remaining 1M not for charity, or any good cause, but instead to force the magazine to put his cold-blooded image on the cover, with an accompanying article detailing his feats.
Back in Season 40, as part of the 40th season celebrations, the league put on a team point task. Since it was wildly successful and enjoyed by all, the BoG and Blue Team decided such events should be held more often.
You can now look forward to seeing and participating in a Team Point Task every 3 seasons; on those seasons where no World Cup or Super Cup is held. Luckily for you, this season happens to be one of those seasons. So, here's how its going to go down this season:
Each team will choose one season from their franchise's history that they deem a 'defining season'.
With a season selected, you will write about it, adding graphics, videos, or whatever you want to tell the story of that season and why it's a season that defines the club.
Try to get all team members involved in some way. The forum has plenty of historical resources that should allow everyone to contribute, plus older members can help out new guys.
TPE will be handed out to whole teams based on the quality of the final submission. Submissions will be judged by the Blue Team and the BoG. While unaffiliated VHLM players won't be able to participate, some TPE will be left behind for them.
Good luck, and feel free to ask any questions in this thread. Submit your final submission to Draper via PM by:
Smarch and Victor..congrats on great HOF careers. Wish you could have went out better but still dominant runs for eight years.
Sucks though to say the least. There will be a lot of turnover here as you all know. Not because I don't think we could give it a go next year, but more cause I need to get some assets for a rebuild and you guys who are still around deserve runs on teams coming up.
Took me two weeks to realize, but still I told everyone I would leave if minot left. I'd rather stick to my word than lie. Plus, I was only updating here so I didn't have to listen to Kesler bitch.
Regardless of what happens this playoffs..wanted to let you guys know it was awesome having all of you. Smarch and Victor's last years here...Sterling's and potentially Fong's as well. If I decide to really blow it up..perhaps others as well..
This has been the best years of sim leagues I have ever had (being GM of New York) and it's great that we were able to put together a dynasty team.
Four of you guys are guaranteed Hall of Fame Players (Low, Slaughter, XXX, Bentley) and that's pretty awesome. 3 Moons and Klose are also really young and have a great chance to carve out similar careers for themselves as well.
3 Moons and ideally Klose back and I am getting Barnstormer in the off-season guaranteed along with some other pieces.
I plan on staying on for at least five more seasons to pass Jason for most years as GM, and the goal is to re-tool and try to keep making the playoffs.
In Season 41, the New York Americans and Riga Reign met in the Continental Cup finals for the second year running, the Americans' Game 7 victory exacting some revenge for the Reign's ridiculous brief run as the best team in the league (timed perfectly for the playoffs) in Season 40. That was the end of this particular instalment of this inter-continental rivalry, as Riga went into a rebuild, a fate which likely awaits New York after Season 42 as well. It wasn't a classic series of match-ups, but had it not been for a Game 7 loss to Davos in Season 39, we would have witnessed three straight Riga vs New York finals immediately after three straight Toronto vs Davos meetings. Alas, it wasn't meant to be and on the balance, the Americans definitely experienced more success over this half-decade, with four Victory Cups, three finals, and two Continental Cups, and still a sold chance to increment all those numbers.
So how did these two teams reach their peaks? Today we look at how New York and Riga's cores were simultaneously built and how, with the exception of three weeks in Season 40, the Americans ended up a dynasty for the ages and the Reign merely a memorable championship team.
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The Firesales
New York bigger than Riga? Spoiler alert.
New York and Riga's histories have been intertwined for a while, with the two teams meeting in back-to-back finals in Seasons 32 and 33 as well, splitting the two cups between them (ironically both won in the seasons they were heavy underdogs). The Season 34 playoffs ended disappointingly early for both teams and so a rebuild beckoned. The Reign had a few extra pieces and used this to their advantage, but when the Americans had soon-to-be Hall of Famers Alexander Labatte and Ryan Sullivan to dangle in the trade market, they were not going to fall to far behind. Both teams sold to Davos and Calgary, with New York also dealing with Helsinki, while Riga's other trade partners were Quebec and Cologne.
Main pieces moved and acquired:
From New York: RW Thomas Landry, D Ryan Sullivan, G Alexander Labatte To New York: S36 QUE 1st (David Januzaj), S36 HSK 1st (DuJuan Cook), S37 CGY 1st (Jakob Linholm)
From Riga: C Keiji Toriyama, RW Jarkko Olsen, D Shane Baker, D Malcom Spud, C Michal Wozniak, LW Miles Larsson To Riga: S35 COL 1st (Edwin Encarnacion), S36 DAV 1st (Robert Gow III), S36 COL 1st (Sami Kravinen), S36 CGY 1st (Phil Villeneuve), S36 CGY 2nd (Johan Hallstrom), S37 QUE 1st (Travis Boychuk)
Well, there was only one winner of the two teams' firesales. There's a few caveats of course: the DuJuan Cook pick was traded before New York used it, while the Jakob Linholm selection was one of three consecutive top four picks they had in S37, with the actual BPA player being Tom Slaughter, who allowed the first-gen Linholm to go second overall and thus took away the opportunity to have Labatte traded for Slaughter. Nevertheless, though Riga also didn't hang on to all their pieces, they got considerably more VHL players and trade pieces, including some players who would make up their contending core. Advantage Riga.
The First Pieces
Before their respective firesales began to bear fruit, both the Americans and Reign set up some rebuild foundations going into Season 35. Both GMs Chris Miller and Mike Szatkowski wisely brought in S36 goaltenders to grow with their core, which they successfully did, as Brick Wahl and Mike Szatkowski Jr. have become top netminders in the VHL. The two teams also had consecutive draft picks in the S35 draft, New York having kept their own, while Riga got one from Davos and traded up to fifth overall by trading Spud to Cologne. Both GMs opted for defencemen to start up their teams, with the Reign picking first and selecting Edwin Encarnacion. The Americans of coursed used the following pick to draft Conner Low. It goes without saying who won that draft, even though Riga ultimately recovered their own pick eventually (seventh overall immediately after Low) by trading Encarnacion midseason to Seattle in a straight swap for Brennan McQueen. McQueen went on to be the VHL's longest-serving ever captain and won playoff MVP in Season 40 but Hall of Fame hopes are low, unlike, well, Low, who will be undoubtedly a first ballot inductee. Verdict: New York bounce back from inferior firesale.
The S36 Draft
By setting some bottom of the league records during Season 35, Riga and New York made their intentions clear: this was the draft to propel them back to prosperity. After a few moves up the draft (remember Cook and Kravinen? They were used to move up to 6th and 4th overall, respectively), the two teams held a whopping seven of ten first-round picks, including five straight after Seattle's first overall. The time to make a statement was here.
New York picks: 3, 6, 10 New York players: RW Xin Xie Xiao, D Andrey Zadorov, D David Januzaj
Riga picks: 2, 4, 5, 8 Riga players: C Robin Gow, C Damon Tyrael, RW Robert Gow III, D Phil Villeneuve + BONUS second round steal LW Johan Hallstrom
All in all, not too shabby for Riga but quite disappointing for New York. Though both teams picked three players who would feature on at least one of their cup-winning squads, only XXX for the Americans was a key part of their wins compared to two for the Reign (Villeneuve and Zadorov could be considered core too in which case the score is 3-2). Tyrael and Hallstrom definitely win this draft for Riga although Tyrael asked for a trade after just one season (compensation was Mikey Blade who retired before the Season 40 championship) while Hallstrom was sadly traded for cap reasons during Season 40, taking away his chance to win the cup (though increasing the Reign's). Even so, Riga's benefits from this draft, which was the direct result of a better firesale, meant they could afford to start competing a season earlier, which they duly did with the trade deadline acquisition of Kameron Taylor and old acquaintance Malcom Spud in Season 37.
The Empire Strikes Back
So, with a clear headstart, how did the Americans catch up to and then overtake the Reign? In truth, they didn't for a while, despite the best efforts of rookie and sophomore stalwart Conner Low, failing to make the playoffs until their first Victory Cup win of Season 38 (though they did give Seattle quite the scare until the last day of the regular season for two seasons in a row). Then, much was attributed to New York's signing of not one, but two free agent stars in center Wesley Kellinger and goaltender Tuomas Tukio. The latter made a significant difference in a season where Wahl was still too young to not have the odd bad game, but these were just two final pieces for a good core.
The core itself, containing Xiao and Low, was boosted in the off-season of the S37 draft. Then, the Riga/New York pick duopoly continued, with the two teams owning the top five selections. The Reign moved up to fifth overall but in truth downgraded Travis Boychuk to Konstantin Azhishchenkov (another Season 40 cap dump), which was cancelled out in part by the Americans holding on to two of their lottery picks, Linholm and Logan Laich, for just two seasons. The real story was about the draft's runaway top two prospects, defenceman Slaeter Fjorsstrom and Tom Slaughter. With Riga having just one blue-liner from S36, their chose of Fjorsstrom first overall was anticipated, leaving New York with three straight picks to draft Slaughter. There was an element of luck to the Americans having those selections, first the foolish Labatte trade by Calgary, then the even more foolish Keiji Toriyama to Vasteras trade the season before the draft (Vasteras suffered a famous collapse thereafter and missed the playoffs), but the fact remains that New York got the better player. Fjorsstrom did his best to keep up but went inactive before Riga won the cup, remaining a good but not elite defenceman.
Finally, with Slaughter secured, GM Chris Miller could focus on wrenching out disgruntled forward Odin Tordahl from the champions in Davos. There is a good possibility that Tordahl would have ended up in New York through free agency but the team opted to give the Dynamo something, getting the winger for just one first-round pick (albeit a top four one). Tordahl was already establishing himself as a premier power forward in the VHL but hit his prime with New York and his immense achievements in the next four seasons need not be recounted. In one off-season, the Americans leapfrogged the Reign and the following year's free agency containing Tukio and Kellinger was the icing on the cake. Meanwhile, Riga certainly did not fail in their rebuild but were forced to watch the start of New York's dominance from the context of three consecutive conference final eliminations at the hands of their rivals from Davos.
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The moral of this story is it doesn't matter how well you sell and draft, if you pass up two Hall of Famers to be snatched up by your rivals with their next pick (Low and Slaughter) and then watch them prosper in free agency, by the time you catch up, you'll be resigned to being a historical footnote. The Riga Reign performed respectably from Season 37 to 41, but this generation will be defined by the performance of the New York Americans.
no... I was supposed to do Taylors... got half way through it ... and muffins posts a HoF article on Taylor and not Sullivan because he hates me and likes me wasting 2 hours of my life
I am doing Sullivan's... just have to hold off until the end of next week when classes are done.
Its pretty neat how most franchises I've been to, have had little to no issues keeping me when I expressed that I'd like to stay long term with most of the teams I get drafted to.
I mean if we're talking about loyalty, most of the franchise I've been "loyal" to have continuously made the playoffs. I put a lot of credit of course on good GMing.
I know Chris had to put in a lot of thought to be able to keep me in NYA but then again Frank managed to keep a good core contending while I was in Davos as well and so on and so forth. I know he has spent the time crunching the numbers and that's how they made it fit.
So from experience alone, keeping a team of loyal players that want to stay can be challenging but not impossible. Obviously players will get moved but for the most part a core of players that want to stay and play well can generally be had without needing extra cap space as I've noticed currently.
On restructuring of contracts...well that's just bad cap management in the first place.
I have been in favor of raising the cap for a long time but seeing that I'm on Kesler's and Trifecta's side in this argument and seeing the points that they make makes me wonder if I have been wrong all along
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