JCarson

Cat’s Eye View, Article 1: Felicia Hardy This is Molly the Cat, retired VHL player and former captain of the London United. After several seasons sitting on the sidelines watching the VHL I have decided it is time for me to come back to the league. To come back and provide a different perspective related to the goings on in the league, to provide a voice for players to express what is important to them. With that in mind I have reached out to several current players to talk with them about the season, about their play and about anything they find important. My first interview is with HC Davos Dynamo defender Felicia Hardy. I had the opportunity to meet up with Felicia after their game 4 loss to Moscow Menace in the season 98 playoffs. Felicia, thanks for taking the time to meet with me. Unfortunately, this last series didn’t go as you wanted, and you are now on the outside looking in as other pursue the coveted VHL championship. However, that is not what I want to discuss at this time. I am wondering if you can talk about how it feels as a professional hockey player to make the playoffs and be working towards everything you have worked hard for and fantasized about? Molly the Cat, it is great to be here and to be speaking with you today. Having the chance to play hockey professionally is a great honor. It is such a fun game and the VHL has the best players in the world. Having the chance to play night in and night out to win the VHL championship goes beyond words. This season unfortunately it didn’t happen, but Davos is set to go back and try again next season. Felicia, let’s change topics, I am wondering if you can talk to us about your process for selecting equipment to play in, I have noticed that you have made some changes over the seasons? You are correct, I have made some changes over the seasons with my equipment. I have been working with one of the manufacturers to find a style that fits with my playing style. The biggest thing I have been working on is my skates. As a defense first defender I spend a lot of time in the shooting lane of top players. Making sure I have enough protection to block shots is important, but I also need enough flexibility to allow for comfortable top speed skating. As we don’t have a lot of time left, I want to give you a chance to talk about the fans, when you are playing how important is it for you to hear the fans cheering the team. Does the opposing team’s fans booing impact you at all. I don’t think there is any way to properly address how uplifting it is to hear your fans cheering in your arena. The energy of the stands helps in keeping up the pace when things are getting rough. Oddly enough the roar of the crowd in an opposition arena can have the same effect. If your play can pull the opposing fans into the game, it only affirms what you are doing and pushes you to drive harder. The more I am booed the easier it is for me get the energy to keep going. Thanks for taking the time to meet with me today and for answering our questions. We appreciate your candid responses.

The Cat comes Back The reporting of news, whether political or sports has become more business, more biased and less interesting. There is so much that doesn’t get reported, that is glossed over or even buried. Even worse there is the unimportant, speculative and just not true that catches the attention of broadcasters and gets airtime, over, and over, and over again. Unfortunately, many are now feeling that this is taking place in the VHL. The traditional sports news reporting companies try to do their best, don’t take this the wrong way. However, the writers are paid to make money for their respective companies. We all know that solid, fact-finding journalism unfortunately doesn’t draw attention unless it discovers some level of scandal. So much of the game, the details the fans crave to know go undiscussed because they won’t carry a top headline. Unfortunately, there is no way to solve the problem within the traditional news outlets. Any solution is going to need to come from outside of this group, is going to need to be grass roots and have a focus first on the sport, then on the news reporting. I am happy to announce that retired VHL player Molly the Cat has started an online hockey news reporting site. This new site called, Cat’s eye view will focus on providing interviews and research journalism that is focused on providing details about players and their careers from the perspective of the player themselves. The first article on the site is an interview with player Felicia Hardy, that was done soon after HC Davos elimination from the Season 98 playoffs.

Glad that you can put out a media spot. I have found this season really difficult for staying active. Not sure why but it has been later and later for me to put out the required pieces to get my TPE. I can't image there being an actual reason why I can't do things and still try to do things. Keep up with things do your best and try to enjoy things. I give this article an 8 out of 10. Thanks for being honest.

The choices players have to make each season, particularly when contracts are ending makes for interesting thoughts. How will Woods decide, will they continue with Moscow, will they go their own way and try to find a place where they can play a bigger role. We will see how this progresses. This article is well written, provides depth for the character and the extended storyline. I give this article a 9 out of 10. Keep it up, continue building on the story,

So as today is Easter, well at least for my family it is. It got me thinking about the food selections we choose when we celebrate. For today’s meal we did something slightly different. Today’s menu had smoked ham, turnip, peas and hash brown casserole. Not our traditional meal but it was very tasty. I should also note we had bread pudding and custard for dessert. What I am wondering is what other people have for their holiday celebrations. Do you do the same thing each year, at each holiday or does it change and vary. it is very common for us to do turkey at Thanksgiving and Christmas but we do sometime vary at Easter I would like to hear about how the rest of the VHL celebrates, especially when it comes to food. If you have something extremely tasty and can share the recipe please do. I may decide to try it and may provide my review. For those who aren’t of an age where you are taking part in the cooking of your holiday celebrations, which dishes or meals do you enjoy the most, have you considered being part of the process so that you can learn to share with your future family. Keeping traditions, especially when it comes to food is a great way to share and remember. My mother passed over 23 years ago and I still have recipes that she made that I do for my family and I expect will be things that my son will do with his family.

1. It was acceptable, was hoping for a little better based on the first 20 games 2. I don't know but I don't expect many of them to finish a complete career. 3. Poorly, very poorly 4. Felicia shoots left 5. Nothing yet, that was the last thing i decided for this player 6. Yes, a while ago, they were first in their division 7. Rugby has to be at the top, or at least close to the top of that list. 8. Not really, probably the marvel films.

To get into the playoff mood, I set up a system that allowed both of my cats to choose the potential winners of the first round of the VHL playoffs. It is something new that I have done for this season, part of this will be looking at how this goes. So, what will follow is the selections by each cat and how many games they determined it would take. I am not going to go into details of my secret methodology as I also use it for choosing the NHL playoff winners and I don’t want to give away anything. If this works out, I don’t want to have others using this methods and using it to profit. First up will be the selections according to Molly the Cat. The first games chosen by Molly the Cat will be London versus Davos. After taking some time to get Molly to focus and make a choice she chose Davos is 4. For the New York versus Vancouver series, she chose New York in 3 games. So, to summarize, Molly chose Davos and New York as her winners Second up to choose will be Seamus. Now for those who haven’t had the opportunity to meet Seamus he is not the smartest of cats, but he is a very cute black tabby. It took a while to get Seamus to realize how to make his decisions, or that he was to make a choice but once we got through that here is how he chose. In the London versus Davos series Seamus chose Davos in 5 games. In the New York versus Vancouver series, he chose Vancouver in 5 games. What was unique is that Seamus first chose the number of games before choosing a winner. To summarize Seamus believes that Davos and Vancouver are going to win. So, there we have it. The selections are in, and they are not unanimous. Both cats were clear that Davos should take the series although they differ on the number of games it should take. Where they split is with the Vancouver and New York series. Both the choice of winner and how long it will take varied by each cat. We will continue to monitor the choices they make for each series set and hopefully we will get a clear picture of which cat is the better predictor of winners. Once the current series are completed, we will look at making choices for the next series. I will look at gathering those details and putting together the choice of winners by cat at that point. It will be interesting to see how this experiment ends, seeing which cat gets the predictions correct. To make this a little more of a competition, I have set a reward for each of the cats that they will earn for every series they get correct and a bigger reward if they also get the numbr of games correct. This will be fun for sure. Molly versus Seamus has begun.

This is a well written story. It allows you to connect with the writer and character. There is a level of emotional connection in this story I want to give the writer a thumbs up on this one. Well done, I am going to give you a 10 out of 10 on this. Keep writing like this and you will add to the overall community. Keep having fun and enjoy.

Have to say that this article only says what many of us are thinking. Ricer makes a great addition to the VHL GM roster. After spending many seasons in the VHLM he will bring a great level of insight into the role. Having connected with VHLM players will help in building a team roster. Will be interesting to see how they succeed in the role. Great article, I give it a 9 out of 10.

As part of this week’s Press conference the author of the questions wanted us to discuss Ovechkin versus Crosby. That got me thinking about the concept of generational talent in sports, particularly hockey. My only issue with the concept of generational talent is that it should mean that there is one player in every 25 year period that is considered exceptionally better than everyone else. As I look back over some of the decades there is never only one player that stands out. Even if you look back at Gretzky who is considered one of the best players to ever play the game, he competed against the likes of Lemieux, Roy, Coffee, Bure, Federov, and the list could go on. Maybe it is the competition, the constant comparison that makes a player stand out over others. Would Ovechkin be the player he is if he didn’t have Gretzky before him, Crosby beside him. McDavid has MacKinnon. Great players don’t stand alone, the play alongside others who push them for more. Greatness takes a community of players to build each other up. We will see how these new players. Generational talent, star players, whatever you want to call them, they are the players who draw attention to the league. For sure the push by Ovechkin to overtake Gretzky for all time scoring leader has definitely made this season one that people have been watching. The only concern now is that with it over, what is next, what will pull people in. We will only see.

1 I do it for the TPE, if the eliminated it or changed it, wouldn't matter to me. 2 Obviously Grimgor Ironhide 3. Having a few days of information I am going to say not at all 4. VHL was a chance for me to share something with my son, it has done that. 5. Defense for sure 6. I haven't been paying attention, i expect that many of them will do season 100 and dissappear 7. Last place I travelled was London 8. McDavid, honestly.

This season I set my media spot topic to be the quest for 100 points. As my player has been a point per game player or better for the last number of seasons and Davos has been growing it seemed like a very reasonable target. Now that said I did not expect that it would be an easy goal to achieve but I expected it would be something that my player could fight for and so it would be an interesting set of articles. Wow I was completely wrong about that. Even though Felicia Hardy started strong and had a good 15-20 games to start things off and was well above point per game. Somewhere along the way something happened, in fact something major happened and Felicia Hardy fell off the productivity wagon. No that is not quite right, Felicia fell of the wagon, got stepped on by the horse and then was run over by all 4 wheels. It became a dramatic free fall. Game in and game out, even if Davos put up numbers Felicia was held off the scoresheet. The odd thing is that I can’t even explain what happened. It is the complete 180 turn that has me wondering if there is something about this that I just can’t explain. Here are some theories that I am tossing around. The most likely reason for Felicia Hardy’s 180 turn on production must be that the Moscow Menace have paid some Russian witch to curse her. We all know that Moscow fears Felicia and the Davos Dynamo. Cursing the teams assistant captain and defensive defender could be the only way that Moscow can keep up their winning ways. Everyone knows they don’t have the talent to win so resorting to the mystical arts to take out the competition is the only logical answer. The second most logic explanation is that someone is tampering with Felicia’s equipment. Statistics show that for some reason Felicia is sower on average this season than in others. Tampering with their skates could be an explanation for that. Felicia has also complained on numerous occasions that their visor keeps fogging up making it difficult to see what is going on. Lastly in the latter half of the season Felicia has an increased amount of stick breakage than would be considered normal. All these things could point to someone tampering with Felicia’s equipment. Lastly, there is the option Davos is tampering with Felicia. It sounds odd to say but with Mina having a fantastic year. There has been a considerable shift in teammate confidence in relation to Felicia. Passes have been less frequent; ice time is down slightly from prior years and the overall chemistry with other players seems to be down. Well, no matter what it is, something is impacting the productive ability of Felicia this season. The good news is that the regular season is almost over, and we all know that the playoffs are a different animal. Felicia is working on putting everything from this season behind them so that they can attack the playoffs with new energy.

Opinion pieces are always a great read. You can't take them seriously much like the commentary of TSN. If you dig deep enough there may be some aspect of truth but then this is opinion so maybe not. Either way it was well written, easy to read and had its' funny moments so what more can you really ask for. This is also a fun article as it breaks out of the mold of the theme weeks articles that are currently filling the media spot page. Expected but not overly original. As this is my opinion and i don't have to justify it, I am giving this article an 8 out of 10 on my imaginary scale. Well done.

Personally I am working on my second player so to be able to do a comparison of this nature would be impossible. I find it very intriguing that you can't even do the comparison on all your players as some of them the stats are so old that they are no longer on the system. For a self serving theme week article this is pretty good, i say take the extra TPE and in honor of the theme week add a little toughness to your current player. I give this article a 9 out of 10.

1. I think it will be an easy topic to discuss so is some easy TPE 2. Felicia doesn't take concern over April Fools day 3. Black on the blade, white everywhere else 4. no-one in particular 5. i joined in season 84 6. Obviously Davos 7. My lucky number is 11 8 Favorite movie is tough, there are so many good movies that have been done over the years. I will suggest the Lord of the Rings Trilogy,