ctots

Bruise Banner has never been the 1C franchise cornerstone that some centers are - he’s a depth guy that can get the job done. Or at least he used to be. During his season in the VHLM, Banner tallied 48 points over the 72 game season. Those numbers aren’t earth-shattering, but they’re respectable. Smash cut to season 90, where Bruise Banner has suited up for the Rome Gladiators in ten games and has only a single point to show for it. At this rate, Banner will finish the season with a paltry 7 points to his name, a far cry from the production he achieved in Ottawa. Is it the yips? Sophomore slump? What could be the problem? No one has a firm idea of what might be causing this drastic performance drop off, but it’s a huge concern for everyone - Banner, his coaches, trainers, fans, and family. The only people gaining from Banner’s performance are his opponents. Will Banner find the next gear and rise to the level of competition he faces? Only time will tell.

Game 51: Ladies and gentlemen welcome to Game 51! The Americans clash with the Wranglers in an early season contest. The tale of this game is an usual one: despite New York’s relentless offensive pressure, the team found themselves unable to get past Merome Dilson, who saved 28 of 28 - an incredible effort, rewarded with a shutout. Scoring was distributed across several lines in Calgary, which is a testament to their depth. I think both teams can walk away from this one feeling good - NYA got goalied, Calgary find a way to win against a more active offense. A great game by two great teams.

https://anchor.fm/ctots/episodes/Drafted-e284upe thanks for listening, ya goofs

https://anchor.fm/ctots/episodes/Get-re-hype-drated-e27mmtc k thx

https://anchor.fm/ctots/episodes/July-28-e27fool thanks for listening

A lone reporter stops Bruise Banner after practice to ask some questions. The man looks disheveled but optimistic. Not someone I recognize from the media circuit, Banner thought. Maybe he's a blogger. Guess it couldn't hurt to stop for a minute or two. "Hey Bruise! I'm Todd from Degenerate Hockey Gambling Website, hoping to talk to you about your team's upcoming playoff run! Seems like you guys barely squeaked into the offseason, how are you feeling about it? What's your confidence level?" Ah, cool, I can just give this guy canned answers. "The team has been getting tuned up throughout the season and we're really in a great position to show the rest of the league what we're made of. Spirits are high in the locker room, that's for sure." Todd nodded along, holding his cell phone like a microphone to record the impromptu interview. "What adjustments are you making to face the increased pressure of the playoffs?" "A strong focus on fitness and diet, warmup and recovery. The key is to avoid injury: the offseason is going to be a long road, and only the toughest teams are going to make it to the finish line." Banner said into the microphone, practicing for his future media appearances. "Thanks for your time, I have to get to an appointment. I appreciate your support."

the sam without the x. I won't tag them again because we all know you're the true sam

This is new information for me - I assumed your history was littered with totaled vehicles. Let’s go on a road trip

Shit. I should have known that that name needed some color

16 whole dang years! Congrats, VHL

I don’t know about you guys, but the news that the VHL is 16 years old really blew my hair back. That’s a long time for fellas to gather around a pretend hockey league, and I love that. It speaks to the power of community, and specifically this community. You guys are great. In honor of all of you and in honor of the VHL’s 16th birthday, I’m giving out 16 shoutouts to users who help make the league amazing. @JardyB10 – Starting off strong with the influential legend himself. Jardy my dude, your podcasting skills are unmatched. Truly something to behold. I sincerely BjorkBjorn breaks their ankles in Europe and is forced to retire early just so you have an excuse to make more content. The people demand it, Jardy. I know your adult life driving on rural roads and heating minerals is thrilling and wonderful, but you can do both. You can do it all. @MubbleFubbles – our first interaction was me asking you to be my co-gm in the OST for Team Royals, when Team Clue was an option and your player was TBGCOS. I had no idea that’s who your player was, and I’m glad that I made that faux pas because you’re a cool dude and I enjoyed learning about GMing from you. It’s a fond memory from my early times here. Your podcasts are always enjoyable and insightful, too. Top marks all around. @Lemorse7– No one in the VHL thought to ask if we needed more red pandas around until you got here and made it clear that the league needs at least one red panda around all the time. You’re a true discord amigo. I don’t even think we’ve played on the same team before, and that’s beautiful to me. @Thunder – My favorite shark in the league by far. So glad I got to spend some time hanging in the locker room with you. I really appreciate being included in your media spots and stuff – nothing delights me more than getting a ping from one of your articles. @JB123 – Oslo’s best GM ever, hands down. Your welcoming attitude when I came on as AGM was really reassuring. Thanks for all the good that you bring to the VHL. @Enorama – Eno! You got Baxter Arcanum a cup! D.C. is legendary (in my mind) and it’s all thanks to you. From the dog pics to the gallery wall to the book discussions, I ate up every bit of that locker room. Somehow you filled it with delicious culture, and I’m sure it wasn’t easy. You’re a master of your craft. @FrostBeard – Third in the shoutouts in terms of my former GMs, but #1 in my heart. Bees and streaming, what more could we ask for? @Grape – Thanks for keeping Ottawa competitive this season. We’ve had some struggles with bad luck and OTLs, but spirits are high and we all appreciate the effort that you’re putting in to lead the team. @thadthrasher – Thad, you’re the moral compass that this league needs. Or really you’re just a generally good person who cares, and those are rare qualities. I encourage you to continue being great. @samx – You do too much. You’re in all the discords. You might be AI. In spite of all that, you’re a really important part of the community. VHL wouldn’t be the same without you talking about how much you don’t want to be around the children under your care. @Berocka – Berocka for Elmebeck. Every season. All of the work you do for the league is valuable. I love Super Coach! I also love Bite Sized Berocka. Bonus shout out to your kiwi friend Buruku. You’re lighthearted and positive and that provides good balance to some of the gloomier figures in the league. @dasboot – I’m sorry I missed the heyday of you and Berocka doing VHLN Australia, but I’ve listened through a lot of the backlog in the last year or so. You make a great teammate in the Lynx LR, and I hope we get a chance to play together again in the bigs. @Spartan – When I think of forum activity, I think of you. You’re always approving my updates, which is much appreciated. You also tend to be one of the first people to react or comment on my content, which is super cool and shows how involved you are. I’d be scared to get in a car with you, but I’d trust you with mostly anything else. @Daniel Janser – You know in the Avatar movie, where there’s that big bird dinosaur thing that just cruises high in the sky without a worry because he’s so strong and well-respected? You’re the VHL version of that weird dinosaur bird. I mean this in the kindest, most respectful way possible. You’re an unstoppable force. Respect. @Tate – I haven’t heard from you in a while but I found your podcasts to be super relatable – our kids are around the same age I think. Also really love your delivery of *PACIFIC* when reading the time. You’re a swell guy. @jRuutu – You’re the resident pot-stirrer of the league, and that’s what I love about you. You really know how to get the people riled up and create some conversation. You raise interesting points, too. Thanks for keeping an eye on the people in charge for us. Thanks for making the VHL a good place on the internet.

The problem with this kind of guidance, maybe, is that building a "style" of player is pretty far divorced from what is visible from the simulation. When we only have the stat lines to go off of, there isn't a lot of flavor to draw on to get the sense that your player is doing what you had hoped. The only real feedback from the sim is what you see in the box score, and that feels (to me, maybe not to others) like if you're not producing stats, your player is "bad" even if they're making the correct plays. And I guess the other thing is that if someone says "I want to play an Enforcer" there should probably be a conversation along the lines of "making that choice will make it impossible for your player to chase most awards, etc" just so that they don't pursue a build that is totally out of line with their goals in the league.

Hey, that’s neat! Really wish I knew that was a thing at any point in the past. Thanks for bringing this to my attention

Bruise Banner just recently hit the 200 TPE cap for the VHLM, and I think that’s a good jumping off point for a discussion about TPE. The cap comes quickly, and it’s a part of player planning and strategizing that I should have considered more when I was applying TPE up to this point. A wiser user would have planned out a 200 TPE build to work toward – maybe even have a 100 and 150 TPE build to use as checkpoints so that your statistics stay roughly proportionate along the way. Mistakes 1. I didn’t have a buld in mind when I created my player. “I want to be a center” isn’t a great picture of the kind of player that Bruise Banner is working to be. A stronger concept would have guided my TPE spending toward a more useful archetype, I think. 2. I have a piss poor understanding of STHS attributes, and an even poorer understanding of their relationship to the hybrid attributes. Studying up to learn which attributes in what proportions lead to success on the ice – or at the very least consistent behavior. 3. I started late. Behind the top players of the draft class because I created a week or two after the TDL really took the wind out of my sails for a while. It doesn’t feel good to be 50+ TPE behind other players at the start of the season in the VHLM – it’s an exercise in getting bullied. Lessons 1. Nobody gives a shit about your player. Whether you’re building perfectly or creating an absolute dumpster of a player, there is nobody around to witness that and tell you that you’ve made a terrible, permanent mistake that you can only sort of resolve by applying even more TPE in the correct places, but you’ll never actually catch up to a player who spent efficiently from the beginning. The only person who is going to check your work and make sure that your player is shaping up correctly is you. Don’t rely on teammates, don’t rely on your GM, don’t just copy players who are performing well. The only way to create a good player is to pre-plan wisely and follow that plan consistently. 2. Knowledge of real life hockey is totally useless. Not that I have a ton of that to rely on anyway, but it’s entirely abstracted in the sim to the point that applying real life information is probably counterproductive. Actually, one thing that might be pretty cool as a tool/guide for new users would be to list up some ‘example players’ with stats for well-known NHL players. It could help serve as a build template, more or less. 3. The value of timing is absurd. Every earning opportunity lost relative to the rest of your draft class will have a lasting impact on your career. Mistiming your player creation by even a couple of weeks will leave you permanently hobbled - the longer your career runs, the more you can try to make up for that initial disadvantage, but there's no way to "make up" that lost TPE, so make sure you get it when you have the opportunity. I can only hope I remember this in a couple of years when I’m ready to recreate again instead of learning all of this stuff all over again.

That’s fine, just don’t deny my claim for this podcast out of rage lol

https://anchor.fm/ctots/episodes/We-Demand-Discord-Teeps-e26rq4i Laying out another scheme for me to make TPE off effort I’m already putting into the league. Pretty sure this is my best idea yet

Well gang, we're steadily making our way through the season. The trade deadline is this weekend, so rosters will be locked in pretty soon. Unfortunately, Ottawa has been struggling to find wins all season long and is falling to the bottom of the conference, currently sitting 4th in the standings. The team isn't giving up, though - we're young and growing and getting better week in and week out. There is nothing that you can't do with enough hard work and TPE. The team is going to be fighting as hard as we can to make some noise between now and the end of the season. Things have been slowly improving over the last couple of weeks, and I think the tide is going to turn for us in the next few days. I'm not delusional enough to think that we're going to win out for the rest of the season, but I think we have a strong shot at rebounding to second in the east over the course of the second half of the season. Halifax and Mississauga have proven to be strong so far, but the Lynx are on the hunt.

Some genuinely good ideas in here, especially the part about getting more and more TPE for podcasting consecutively. Oh, and the trivia thing. Trivia is disproportionately difficult. Thanks for tagging me Thunder, always a pleasure to read your work!

As commish for a day, I would finally have a chance to implement my new point task option: discord interaction. The VHL discord server is a pretty cool place, but it would be cooler if there was more traffic there. Supporting evidence: Spartan said 'chat dead' earlier today. That's ironclad and factual. "But temporary commissioner Bruise Banner, won't that drive people away from making content on the forum?" Good question, random audience member, but you're stupid and wrong. If we reward folks for spending time in the discord, it'll grow the overall discord community of the league. New people will join up more often to the discord server, and will have more abundant access to people who can teach them the ins and outs of the league from inside a familiar social media application. Secondary benefit: retention. Discord is a multi-use chat app. People who use discord for VHL are also using it for other things - gaming communities, keeping in touch with friends, degenerate behavior, etc. Connecting our player base to their discord accounts will help us keep in touch with users, and thereby retain them for longer. A player who doesn't use the discord is as good as gone if they don't remember to visit the forums; a discord user is only a ping away. "What are the specifics of the proposal, oh brilliant temporary commissioner?" Listen, random audience members, this isn't really a town hall situation. This is really more of a case where I'm making a decree and you're obligated to follow it. It's not a leader's job to come up with a good coherent plan, it's my job to make a bold declaration. But since you've already interrupted and distracted me, sure, let's figure this out as a team. Probably 2 TPE as a supplemental point task for discord activity would be fair, I think. You couldn't verify the amount of words typed into discord, but you could verify the number of posts sent, and that would serve a similar purpose. You could just search the server for posts by:[user] after:[last week date] and it would return the number of posts. I'm not sure how much activity would qualify for payment, though. Maybe something like 25 messages for 1 TPE, 50 messages for 2 TPE. Post up a claim thread, make users screenshot their own post totals & post that to the thread for the convenience of the updaters. Bing, bang, boom, we've got a brand new functional supplemental point task that will increase user engagement across both the discord and forums. You're welcome, VHL. Now that I've cracked the case on that project, I still have a little time to tackle priority #2, the cash store. Money has a weird place in the league, and I'm only now starting to get a handle on the value that it represents to a player's career. I'm going to double down on my philosophy of solving two problems at once with my second action item: recruitment is no longer rewarded with TPE, but instead you get paid in store dollars or whatever they're called. In an ideal world, you'd set the dollar value such that a player could buy the same amount of TPE as they could have earned under the old recruitment system, but there's also some value to the flexibility of money over receiving TPE directly. The point is: there would be more money going into and out of the store, players would be more heavily incentivized to recruit individually, and a cool-but-underused feature of the league would get to see a little bit of new life. Just like any good leader, I'm going to hang up my hat early and retire on a high note. Those two changes should set the VHL up for success long into the future.

Explicit language. Thanks for listening. https://anchor.fm/ctots/episodes/VHLM-Lynx--Such-e26gelt

F - Dogwood Maple @scoop

G - Bubbles Utonium @cLoWn

Doubles Week (claim 6/22) 5 Uncapped TPE (6/22) Free Week (6/26)