Shindigs

1. It's probably been fuelled by the (not a drug) Clue Glue™ product that your GM seems to have infinite amounts of for some mysterious reason.
2. It's as much of a boost as having access to infinite amounts of Clue Thirst™ in the LR. It's what Hockey players crave, after all.
3. Abass is the GOAT. Elite two-way play all day every day. Vegas legend and probably also a Clue Flakes™ enjoyer. "They're NOT Drugs!"
4. Not getting drafted by Helstinki. Since Clue Glue™ is banned in Finland.
5. Clue Glue™ mostly.
6. I mean since I'm already buying a 4x5 this season. That's impossible. So would have to be a Full Doubles week most likely. Now, if they had Clue Glue™ products in the store, my answer would obviously be different. But they don't cause they're trying to keep us poor.

So as is pretty much standard by now, Bo is getting off to a hot start. Though in the last 4 games he's been without points in two of them. Is the this starts of the equally standard falling off a cliff that Bo tends to spend the rest of the season doing? Hopefully not, as I'd quite like for him to start actually getting some consistency in his game. And considering the somewhat atrocious S% he's still sitting on. If anything he's probably scoring less points than he should with the level of play he's been at so far in the season.
 
It's way too early to tell what effect Bo actually being captain in the sim and investing into LD is having on Chicago, but I think most of us can agree that Chicago are doing a fair bit better than we'd expect a team with with bots to do. Is this because LD actually does something? Or is it because the players we do have are just cracked? A very valid questions that we don't know the answer to. One interesting thing to note though is that although both Scotty Sundin and The Board Game Clue On Skates have high FO skills, they aren't runaway league leading by any stretch, in fact Scotty has mid 70s going up against mostly 80+ Centers on other first lines. Yet both of them are glued to the top of the FO% leaderboards, is this due to the LD ice tilt? Or are they just built different for some unknown reason? Another unknown, but certainly an interesting thing to look at. Since FO% is one of the most contained stats. Where it's just a straight 1v1 without any real outside factors. That's also measured in a very granular manner that's not particularly prone to variance due to the massive samples sizes we get with STHS just taking faceoffs on repeat.
 
Maybe having at least one high LD player set as C in STHS is the future of the VHL, maybe it's just some fluke early results. I guess only time will tell, and other players' willingness to try it out as well. Part of why I wanted to test it out is that I feel like although Jonathan Ori himself hasn't exactly been lights out for his TPE. The players who have played alongside him have usually overperformed with career years. And a Seattle roster that wasn't that inspiring did very well with him on the team. No idea if they had him set as C in the sim or not though. And Simon has confirmed that setting that actually does have game impact, now if it does in our version of the engine is another question entirely. But at least the placebo effect has been nice so far. Because when you're the LD player set as captain, even in games where your player does absolutely nothing. You can at least go "Well at least he's helping make everyone else perform slightly better", which is some nice copium to have access to.
 
Oh and in closing, if Bo fails to get Assist per Game this season, I'm going to #blamecole!

As usual, another completely reasonable James Teekirque/DAVID graphic. Yours are always a fun time and this is no different. A little bit more could be done with it by just adding small details like pricing/barcode/etc. to complete the magazine look. Possibly adding a subtle drop shadow to the text to just give a bit more depth and help readability. But overall, just a fun graphic highlighting what's going on in DAVID these days.

This was just something I was interested in so I figured I'd look into it. I looked into two different elements of this:
 
- First Gens who exceeded 200 TPE and have had a recreate exceed 200 TPE as well
- First Gens who exceeded 400 TPE and have had a recreate exceed 400 TPE as well.
 
The sample size that I used was from players in the Season 63 Draft Class (since that was the first class where I feel like we saw proper results from recruitment drives, although Season 62 was solid in this respect as well) up to players in the Season 74 Draft Class (with the reason I cut off there being I got to a handful of players in that class who, while still active with their recreate, had yet to make 400 TPE, so felt like carrying on using classes after that would skew the results.) 
 
For First Gens who exceeded 200 TPE, 45% of them have gone on to have a recreate that also exceeded 200 TPE. The Season 70 Draft Class had the most success on this front, with 10 of it's 14 (71.4%) 200 TPE First Gens going on to make another 200 TPE player, although this is a big outlier as the next best draft class in this category (Season 69) was quite a way down from that but still successful with 58.9%. The lowest draft class in this category was Season 72, with just 30.8% of its 200 TPE players getting a recreate over 200 TPE, but Season 65 (31.3%) and Season 74 (33.3%) were not too far ahead in that regard. 
 
For First Gens who exceeded 400 TPE, 54.7% of them have gone on to have a recreate that also exceeded 400 TPE, however this could rise to 57.1% if the active recreates that are still yet to hit 400 TPE from the S73 and S74 classes go on to surpass 400 TPE. The best draft classes in this regard were the Season 63 Draft Class (77.8%) and Season 66 (70.6%) and outside of the Season 74 Draft Class (which as mentioned before still has a handful of players that are active that can yet surpass 400 TPE), no class is below 40% in that category. 

I like to think we're mostly just depressed and half of us have stopped caring. Or maybe that's just where I am with things.
 
I also like to think "Gustav Svensk" would be a nice comically Swedish name, while satisfying my ever-present DEMANDS for WORSHIP. 

Hey Jardy, Poopy did actually set the single game assist record. So that's something he accomplished!
 
Oh and Björk is a surname, not a first name. Björn isn't actually that common. Also "Svensk" is a surname you can have in both Sweden and Finland, and it literally just means "Swedish". So hard to get more Swedish than that.
 
We've had like 2 VHLE lifer goalies btw (Orion D H Chiester IX and Anime Protagonist), and at least one dman (Zeljko Ranogajec). So sadly you won't be the first. And the Goalie Award is named after Orion, so that ship already sailed too. #blamecole
 
#RelocateVästerås
 
Have I ever left comments on a YouTube video? Only hockey ones, mainly TheHockeyGuy since his comment section actually used to have relatively reasonable discussion. (Unless it had to do with Buffalo, as their fans are pretty pepega)

For those who aren’t familiar with rookie signings, the standard contract for a rookie to receive upon being drafted to the VHL is $3 million in their first season (although this is usually lowered if the player goes straight up to the VHL in their first season) and then two more seasons of $1 million to take them through to the end of their rookie contract. This is because VHLM and VHLE salaries do not count against the cap and $3 million is the maximum amount a player not in the VHL can receive (at least that’s what the rules seem to indicate but looking at the $4.5 million Helsinki gave Dixon, Rask and Grimes, maybe I’m wrong?). The subsequent $1 million is supposed to increase to the players minimum salary bracket (but interestingly this doesn’t seem to currently work with players still classed as prospects in their second and third season, as players in the 300-400 TPE bracket still are getting $1 million deals that are reserved for those lower than 200 TPE) so as to avoid overpaying a player should they qualify for the VHL in the ensuing season. E.g. If I were to commit to offering a player $3 million in their second season in their initial contract, should they break 400 TPE and automatically qualify for the E, reduction of salaries are not allowed, so I would be paying them at least  $1 million more than their minimum salary and, with the salary cap as tight as it is, means I may have to make compromises elsewhere because I committed to giving a 400 TPE player a salary that usually goes to rookie contract players who are 600-700 TPE.
 
However, one thing that is available for GMs to do is, before the off-season ends and once it is clear that the player is going to remain a prospect for their second or third contracted season, offer up a bonus that takes them up to that maximum $3 million they can earn while still outside the VHL. However, a lot of GM’s don’t currently do this which is interesting given that giving a player a greater salary is really the only direct way that a General Manager can help get a player on their team more TPE (or lose less TPE if this subsequently helps them be able to afford more depreciation packages in the future). So as you can probably guess by the title, there is one General Manager who is currently engaging in this and that is Frank. Of the 37 active players in prospect pools currently in their second, third or later (for players resigned after their rookie contracts expired who are still in the prospect pool) seasons, only one was offered a bonus, and that was Alex Bridges III who, while currently a Toronto prospect, was offered the deal by Frank while on the Vancouver Wolves. The same is true for the previous season (Season 85) as Vancouver offered bonuses taking  four players who fit this bill (Dens Oden, Jimmy MacElroy, William Futch and Alex Bridges III again) to $3 Million deals as prospects something that only one other player outside of Vancouver received (Brodie Landry III on the Toronto Legion).
 
So yes, well done to Frank for doing this, I like it when GMs to their best to set players up to be the best that they can possibly be.

As a quick review of this article:  I like the fact that the author is being completely honest about how they are feeling with the change in position.  I have never been a GM so don't know the difficulties associated with the role.  But i have had enough conversations with individuals that are getting job pay to realize that it can be very difficult for them to write media spots, articles and other piece to earn TPE.  There is numerous aspects of this VHL experience and the constant parade of TPE earning can begin to become a challenge.  For anyone dedicated to being a full TPE earner I want to acknowledge your dedication to what you do.  Keep going.
 
Give this article a 10/10, purely out of respect for the honesty.

So there's a pretty common trend among people who step down from GMing, especially in the VHLM. Of going either full clicker or basically IA. And having now stepped down as VHLM GM, I certainly can see why that happens.
 
First of all, doing VHLM GMing well is kind of a passion project. You put a lot into it and you get very invested in it. So when you step down from that, it's probably because you're burned out (or close to it). Meaning that really you're stepping down because you need a break, and with how much of your weekly pay (especially now with the 4 a week pay) comes from the job. You suddenly need to do quite a bit more work ever week to max cap. When you're in a situation where you stepped down to do less work. Which to be fair 2 PTs vs. being a VHLM GM isn't even comparable. It's more like you're not likely to want to take on new stuff, when you just stepped down to take on less.
 
The other part is that when you become GM you start caring a lot less about your player, sure it's nice if it does well. But your primary concern is your team, and it doing well. I think just about every GM would tell you that they'd trade away every single award/HOF recognition/etc. on their player to win a single cup as GM. Because it's just that much more important to you. So how do you "un-flip" that switch when you're no longer GM and go back to caring only about your player (and by extension your player's team)? That is a tough one, and I don't think there's any one answer to it.
 
I'm still fully max earning like I always am, but I can't deny that I no longer care anywhere near as much about doing so as I did before I had Vegas. At this point I'm kind of flirting with the idea of if I'm even going to recreate after Bo or not. I see pro's and con's to both doing it and not doing it. So that will be a later decision. But it's no longer as given what it will be as it used to. Considering I already have the whole career of my next player planned out with depreciation plan and everything.

So can I add the discussion this article caused as added word count. Rebrand this as a MS and claim it for the next 2 years, or no? 🤔

So there's a pretty common trend among people who step down from GMing, especially in the VHLM. Of going either full clicker or basically IA. And having now stepped down as VHLM GM, I certainly can see why that happens.
 
First of all, doing VHLM GMing well is kind of a passion project. You put a lot into it and you get very invested in it. So when you step down from that, it's probably because you're burned out (or close to it). Meaning that really you're stepping down because you need a break, and with how much of your weekly pay (especially now with the 4 a week pay) comes from the job. You suddenly need to do quite a bit more work ever week to max cap. When you're in a situation where you stepped down to do less work. Which to be fair 2 PTs vs. being a VHLM GM isn't even comparable. It's more like you're not likely to want to take on new stuff, when you just stepped down to take on less.
 
The other part is that when you become GM you start caring a lot less about your player, sure it's nice if it does well. But your primary concern is your team, and it doing well. I think just about every GM would tell you that they'd trade away every single award/HOF recognition/etc. on their player to win a single cup as GM. Because it's just that much more important to you. So how do you "un-flip" that switch when you're no longer GM and go back to caring only about your player (and by extension your player's team)? That is a tough one, and I don't think there's any one answer to it.
 
I'm still fully max earning like I always am, but I can't deny that I no longer care anywhere near as much about doing so as I did before I had Vegas. At this point I'm kind of flirting with the idea of if I'm even going to recreate after Bo or not. I see pro's and con's to both doing it and not doing it. So that will be a later decision. But it's no longer as given what it will be as it used to. Considering I already have the whole career of my next player planned out with depreciation plan and everything.

This assumes some things that aren't entirely true anymore though. It ignores the case you reach at some point as a max earner where BC becomes the (by far) cheapest source of DF. So the actual relevant comparison here isn't if no CK + no DI is better than CK+DI. It's if BC+PO, allowing you to get significantly more DF. Is better than just peaking lower and getting neither DF, CK or DI. Since you can't just redistribute that TPE elsewhere, as doing so would yeet your depreciation plan. So the relevant comparison is this: Is 11xx TPA peak with no CK and less DF better than 13xx TPA peak with off-setting CK/DI? Which the answer might very well be the former, but that depends on just how useful that extra DF ends up being. Hence trying it out.
 
Also this completely ignores the LD part of Poise, which is no small part in why I'm getting it. Since I'm wanting to try if now that we don't all have 99s in all the good attributes. Maybe LD actually becomes the "least bad" attribute to work on at these TPE levels. Since Bo adding TPE at this point doesn't actually change his cap bracket at all. But even assuming a worst case scenario where LD is so shit Bo getting 99 of it as the captain will only add +1 attribute to teammates. That's still "free" attributes from a cap perspective. Meaning that together with Experience it's one of only 2 ways to get "free" power without paying a cap hit for it. Something that will hopefully have a fair bit of value in this cap hell era.

Yeah, I really don't know how I missed out on talking about wanting to get the biggest DI-CK possible for Bo. Like c'mon it's right there dammit! 😅

This assumes some things that aren't entirely true anymore though. It ignores the case you reach at some point as a max earner where BC becomes the (by far) cheapest source of DF. So the actual relevant comparison here isn't if no CK + no DI is better than CK+DI. It's if BC+PO, allowing you to get significantly more DF. Is better than just peaking lower and getting neither DF, CK or DI. Since you can't just redistribute that TPE elsewhere, as doing so would yeet your depreciation plan. So the relevant comparison is this: Is 11xx TPA peak with no CK and less DF better than 13xx TPA peak with off-setting CK/DI? Which the answer might very well be the former, but that depends on just how useful that extra DF ends up being. Hence trying it out.
 
Also this completely ignores the LD part of Poise, which is no small part in why I'm getting it. Since I'm wanting to try if now that we don't all have 99s in all the good attributes. Maybe LD actually becomes the "least bad" attribute to work on at these TPE levels. Since Bo adding TPE at this point doesn't actually change his cap bracket at all. But even assuming a worst case scenario where LD is so shit Bo getting 99 of it as the captain will only add +1 attribute to teammates. That's still "free" attributes from a cap perspective. Meaning that together with Experience it's one of only 2 ways to get "free" power without paying a cap hit for it. Something that will hopefully have a fair bit of value in this cap hell era.

Nice short little break.

I see what you did there 😏

So can I add the discussion this article caused as added word count. Rebrand this as a MS and claim it for the next 2 years, or no? 🤔

I think stuff like this is a natural process of just...going through the stages of being a member. I'd also argue that in a lot of cases, people step down because they're less invested, rather than the other way around, but that's a discussion for another time.
 
I still bring up just how active I was as a noob as an example for these types of things because I feel like that's a very good example to have--I joined in February of 2019 and I distinctly remember a time in summer of 2019 when I was writing multiple (long!) media spots a week just because I felt like it. These days, I have trouble coming up with ideas for my one article a month-ish (I can always do the smaller stuff instead when I want to, and often I opt for that instead) and I couldn't imagine spending my entire life on the forum even though I used to do that.
 
I think a lot of this ties into the idea of drive-reduction theory, especially among the most active members. In short, the idea is that just about everything you do is because of a "drive"--not necessarily a motivation, like the word is often used, but more so a disturbance that causes someone to act in a way to reduce that disturbance. Especially for someone newer, that drive is to be accepted and to earn respect from more established members. I know because that was absolutely the case for me--I still remember thinking things like "holy shit, a real live VHL GM just liked my post" and "I bet I can get a ton of replies on this article if I tag everyone I talk about in it", things that never cross my mind today. I also distinctly remember talking to other VHLM GMs, when I was one, who straight-up said that their goal as a VHLM GM was to get "promoted" and earn a cooler-looking position.
 
There's a lot of (unintentional) attention-seeking behavior from newer people because of that drive to earn respect. I did it for sure. I'd say you've done it as well. And don't take that the wrong way, because I'd say I noticed exactly that from most people who joined after me and are now household names in the league. That's just how it goes, and it's 100% natural. 
 
But now that you've earned your respect, where's your drive? You're happy with what you've done as a VHLM GM, you're on top of the reputation leaderboard for the year (something I myself talked about a lot when I first ended up on top of said leaderboard), you're on the BoG, and absolutely no one will wonder who you are if you log onto Discord. You've reached that "equilibrium" state that the whole drive-reduction theory thing talks about, and you're asking perfectly natural questions about it--why, for example, should you plan out an entire next career of max earning? There's not much more respect to be earned from that, since you've already done it. I wasn't getting any more respect toward the end of my VHL GM career, and I had people ripping on me as Davos prepared to implode again, so I'd basically peaked. I was happy with what I'd done to change the culture of the team and I was ready to hand it off. Likewise, I'd imagine that if I can ever get the VHLM to look exactly the way I want, I'd probably be done running it.
 
I think the answer lies in realizing that that equilibrium state means that you've taken care of those disturbances in your mindset, and it's a good thing that they aren't forcing you to obsess over how active you can be anymore. Theoretically, this should be the most stress-free mindset you've ever had in this league--it just feels off because a lot of that stress is gone.
 
AND THAT'S OKAY. At the end of the day, it just involves coming to terms with the fact that your original goals as a member have been met and moving forward the way you want to--even though you don't quite know what that means yet.

With Draft Doubles week over in our evil competitor SHL over, I no longer have to do stuff and things there. So it's back to business as usual in my sim leaguing. Which now includes my science experiment of going Poise and Leadership on Bo to test something.
 
So far the test has been interesting in that I was under the impression DI and CK cancelled out and my 64 DI is supposed to essentially cancel out my 66 CK and make Bo no longer hit/take random penalties for no reason. It would appear this is NOT the case however, as Bo has 22 PIM in 13 games so far. Which for reference is only 6 fewer PIM than he had all season as a rookie with 40 CK. So either something has changed since the testing that said CK and DI cancel was done, or that testing was done poorly and lead to incorrect conclusions, or Bo is just getting absolutely Simon:d. Either way, it's interesting and quite unexpected.
 
In other unexpected news, Chicago are doing great! Despite the fact that our 2nd line and 2nd d pairing has 1 bot each with the one dman on the 2nd pairing having like 300-something TPE. Now I'm not saying this is because of Bo's veteran leadership. But I'm also not saying that it isn't because of that. Who knows, maybe we just inherited B-WAR D from a couple season ago as our bot dman? Anything is possible.
 
Or maybe another possible explanation is that Cole Pearce isn't playing like a bot goalie this season. Though I do doubt we can explain us somewhat consistently outshooting good teams *hard* on his goaltending. Because that would be a pretty silly explanation. Even by Simon standards.
 
Overall though it's nice that we're doing as well as we are with as limited a roster as we have. Brings back memories of S83 all over again, and also takes a lot of pressure off. Since if we keep this up there really is little to no reason to try and fill the roster until TDL where we could get an awful lot more bang for our buck. So it's pretty much smooth sailing.
 
For Bo's personal performance so far, outside of being a PIM machine. He's only just scored his first 2 goals last sim. Before that it was all assists all the way. Since Bo mainly just scored goals on the PP last season and was being double shifted on it (which he isn't this season) that's large part in why he isn't off to as explosive a goal-scoring start. Also our PP being like 15% is likely not helping that either, though on the flip side. The reason our PP% wasn't bad to start last season was because Bo was scoring on the PP at almost twice the rate of the rest of the team. So cause and effect, but for actually winning games. I'd rather we use Bo's 30-31 minutes of IT on him playing more ES, than on stat padding on the PP at the end of the day. The double shifting was a cool experiment, and it did a thing. But just wasn't really worth it in the end as it seems.
 
So is this the season Bo will finally win a Beketov? Unlikely, I see Thunder as the winner (and predicted as such) and Kisslinger is off to an insane start sitting up there with the dmen at the top in assists. Though historically in the hybrid era dmen have dominated the Assists leaderboard, so I doubt he will keep it up. Meaning that as long as Bo and Thunder keep battling it out for the Bek, I've got 1 TPE riding on either horse. So it's a win/win.

Sometimes it be like that, this is one of those times.

So there's a pretty common trend among people who step down from GMing, especially in the VHLM. Of going either full clicker or basically IA. And having now stepped down as VHLM GM, I certainly can see why that happens.
 
First of all, doing VHLM GMing well is kind of a passion project. You put a lot into it and you get very invested in it. So when you step down from that, it's probably because you're burned out (or close to it). Meaning that really you're stepping down because you need a break, and with how much of your weekly pay (especially now with the 4 a week pay) comes from the job. You suddenly need to do quite a bit more work ever week to max cap. When you're in a situation where you stepped down to do less work. Which to be fair 2 PTs vs. being a VHLM GM isn't even comparable. It's more like you're not likely to want to take on new stuff, when you just stepped down to take on less.
 
The other part is that when you become GM you start caring a lot less about your player, sure it's nice if it does well. But your primary concern is your team, and it doing well. I think just about every GM would tell you that they'd trade away every single award/HOF recognition/etc. on their player to win a single cup as GM. Because it's just that much more important to you. So how do you "un-flip" that switch when you're no longer GM and go back to caring only about your player (and by extension your player's team)? That is a tough one, and I don't think there's any one answer to it.
 
I'm still fully max earning like I always am, but I can't deny that I no longer care anywhere near as much about doing so as I did before I had Vegas. At this point I'm kind of flirting with the idea of if I'm even going to recreate after Bo or not. I see pro's and con's to both doing it and not doing it. So that will be a later decision. But it's no longer as given what it will be as it used to. Considering I already have the whole career of my next player planned out with depreciation plan and everything.

Now that makes a whole lot more sense. I assumed that since most people who take DI do so "accidentally" it would often be on players that just spread attributes in everything and thus had CK too. Seems I was correct in that assumption.

I think looking at the DI-CK difference would probably give more useful data. Since if you have players in there with both CK and DI (assuming they do cancel at least somewhat) then that will throw it off a lot.

1. I watched Juan Ceson highlight reels (It's mostly just tape of him in the Penalty Box)
2. No, not really. International play tends to be pretty lukewarm.
3. The team that wins against the, probably.
4. No. But I can post some Burger King gifs throughout the season to help the morale.
5. The team that scores the most goals in the finals, most likely.
6. I'm not that big on soups and tend to have horrible appetite when I'm feeling ill. So none, but I usually like mushroom soups when I do have soup.