Aimee

And with that last buzzer and a terrible shutout loss against the Ottawa Lynx, the regular season is over for Jesse Teno and the Saskatoon Wild. A long and hard season sees them clawing their way into the VHLM playoffs as they take 8th in the regular season standings. Mathematically, by the last few games, it was impossible for San Diego or Miami to jump the Wild in points. Now they face the literally impossible task of going up against the number one seed in the VHLM; the Las Vegas Aces. One would have to imagine it will be a sweep of a series. Honestly it’s not even fair how lopsided this battle will be. A full roster team going up one that barely has any on-ice presence. It’s going to get ugly. But enough of the Wild and their inevitable downfall, let’s see how Saskatoon’s go-to goalie fared this season. Jesse Teno has finished their first and only season in the VHLM with a 22-47-2 record including 5 shutouts, and 4 shoot-out wins. They also lead the league with a perfect shootout record, having not let in a single shootout goal from 13 shots. And on top of that, they finish the season with a respectable .904 save percentage. While Jesse does lead the league in shots against (2,386) and losses (47), it can’t all be blamed on them. Between Saskatoon severely lacking in any real shooting power, being the only goalie for the team up until the third to last day of games, and having a league leading 4,280 minutes of ice time among goalies, it’s easy for all of those aspects to have worked against them. So, after a career starting season like this, where does Jesse go from here? At this point in time, it could be anywhere. The VHLE is a whole new step and location for Jesse. Despite their win / loss ratio, Jesse is an incredibly active goalie with a long career ahead of them. They are talented, bright, and hard working with no signs of stopping. Numbers don’t always tell the full story. Sometimes the facts surrounding circumstances can have a major impact. Is Jesse the number one goalie in the VHLM? No. Is Jesse in the top 5 of VHLM goalies? Probably not. What Jesse does have is hard work and dedication to hockey and the VHL that will carry them further than most and we cannot wait to see what is next in store for this goalie. Jesse posted the below to their social media after the final game: I want to thank Saskatoon and the people here for standing behind me during my first season. I know we’re not where we want to be but I promise I tried to get us there. This whole season has been a time of real growth and learning. I left home for the first time, played on my first non-school based team, and I have doubled down on my love for the sport of hockey. I hope to make Saskatoon proud in the playoffs but I think we all know the odds we are facing. All I can promise the fans is that I’m going to give it my all. 539 words for week ending 8/7/22 [Pictured below, a sad goalie.]

Applying! Would love to give this a shot.

That would be 13 PS with 100% save rate lol

With only a few more games to round out the season, Jesse Teno finds themselves sitting in the top 10 of their draft class. It’s not something they imagined themselves being but the numbers do not lie. Jesse Teno from the start has been a hard-working goalie who wishes to better themselves every day. Jesse comes into the final week of the season with a 21-41-2 record but a surprising 5 shutouts and a .902 save percentage. The one thing really on Jesse’s side numbers wise is the fact that they have been shot on so much yet have never let more than 7 goals through in a single game. Amazingly, Jesse has also led the Wild to a win in every single shoot out game of the season. If anything, this proves how great of a goalie Jesse Teno is turning out to be. Despite not having the best numbers overall, Jesse is still an impressive goalie who will be able to go far in the VHLE next season. 170 words for week ending 8/7/22

1. Some more wins would have been nice but 5 shutouts and a save percentage over .9 makes me feel good. 2. I think Vegas is going to repeat unless the Hounds manage to pull a fast one. 3. I like breakfast *for* dinner. 4. Spicy pork and broccoli 5. The Panic at the Disco version of "Into the Unknown" from Frozen. 6. Just simply not being good enough and having that hard fight end up in a loss.

It was posted I want to say probably the first week in June and it was from the VHL account.

Yup!

Well this is a first for me. Writing a meta article isn't something I had planned on doing but as someone who just sticks to their player and is a bit quiet, I wanted to toot my horn just a little bit today. I have been in this league a little over a month and I gotta say it's been amazing. And I'm excited to say that with this article and these minimum 150 words, Jesse Teno will be the first First Gen of the s84 vhlm draft to hit 200 tpe. By nature, I'm not a highly competitive person outside of my friends and family. So when I started finding out where I was in the stats, how I was doing against others in my position, and how high up I was ranking, it lit a fire in me that I wanted to feed. And here we are. Last week I ranked in the top 5 of top weekly earners and top 10 of top monthly earners. So I'm just going to say thanks to whoever it was that posted in the Pittsburgh Penguins subreddit about this league and to @Shindigsfor being an amazing mentor and to everyone for being so welcoming and making this feel like a load of fun every day. 215 words for week ending July 31st

Not that anyone would know this due to their hockey career but Jesse Teno was a history major at the University of Vermont. So when they were drafted by the Saskatoon Wild, the idea of going to a new place with lots of history and museums to explore made Jesse very happy. It took them a while into the season before they were able to go out and explore freely due to just trying to get their feet under them. But with a few days off here and there, Jesse was able to venture out and visit every museum they could. With each one, Jesse wrote about what they saw and what interested them the most. This publication was actually sent these blurbs as personal reviews from a new local favorite and we have compiled them into one article. All of the below was written and submitted by Jesse Teno: It’s not every day that I get to go into an oddities museum but when I looked at a map of Saskatoon and saw that there was one in town, I just knew it had to be the first one I went to. Early on in the season, when things were rough, I decided to step into Glitchy’s Oddities Museum. Between the two headed cow calf, the piano playing squirrel, and the Zoltar Machine, I was enamored. The charming and well lit room made the strange and unordinary seem like any other display. I will personally say that dolls are not my thing and do creep me out a little bit but otherwise I enjoyed my visit and I hope to come back in a few months and see something else totally new. Growing up in Vermont, there isn’t much room for airports and not a whole lot of planes flying around. So when I found out that there was an aviation museum in Saskatoon, I just knew I needed to go. The Saskatchewan Aviation Museum has recreation planes, military planes, a simulator and even a plane that I watched kids jump into; this place is amazing. Replicas, real and current reconstruction projects take over the tour as you walk through. It wasn’t a quiet visit given that there seemed to be a school trip but I think that made it all the more fun. Hearing kids ooh and ahh at the planes (me too, let’s be honest) brought a smile to my face. Given the current state of the world, especially in Ukraine, I decided to go to the Musee Ukraina Museum. What looks to be an old converted church - and I believe is still a working one - is also a museum to the history, culture, and religion of Ukraine. Gold artifacts and adornments fill the room and, despite not being religious myself, I found it quite awe inspiring and calming. Given the nature of the building it was quiet and serene inside, allowing everyone to just slowly take in the beauty of the building and the history of Ukraine. And with that, we end our little tour with Jesse Teno. Hopefully in the future they would be willing to contribute some more writing about our beautiful city. 529 words for week ending July 31 [Not included in word count] Author's Note: All places described in this article are real! So if you’re near or ever go to Saskatoon, check them out!

Recruited @RElblein

1. Night owl who needs to become an early bird. 2. By writing a ton and cashing in that TPE lol 3. Sad to see the two guys go but it's how these things go. 4. I don't know if we're going to make it out of the basement and into the playoffs but I think Jesse is doing really well considering the win loss ratio. 5. Channukah 6. Rocky Road. Love me some marshmallows in ice cream.

Thank you! I definitely will. ☺

Transaction ID: 2JM95903152816914 $1M Player Store Cash - claiming week ending 7/24 5 TPE Uncapped - claiming week ending 7/24 Doubles Week - tbd

Where From Here... Only halfway through their rookie year in the VHLM and already Jesse Teno is making a name for themselves. Opting for a draft in which goalies were in high demand, Jesse went in already being wanted and needed by a lot of teams. They had no idea where they might end up and were eventually drafted 30th overall by the Saskatoon Wild. Saskatoon was far from home but for a kid who didn’t see much of the world, this was Jesse’s chance to get out of Vermont and be somewhere new. As the starting goalie, and with no backup, Jesse Teno would be the one and only goalie for Saskatoon to rely on. In the first ten games, Teno went 2-8 and they had expressed in interviews how frustrating it had been. What didn’t help was multiple games against the defending cup champions the Las Vegas Aces and other dominant opponents. More than halfway through the season now and Teno sits with a 13-28-1 record with 2 shutouts. They lead in total Losses and Shots Against and are second in Goals Against. But for their efforts, Teno currently boasts an impressive .901 save percentage, 2 assists, and surprisingly, only 2 Penalty Minutes. Jesse has stated in the past that their weakest points are rebounds though they seem to have improved that aspect of their game considerably. In their last 10 games, Saskatoon has gone 5-5. It might not be the biggest change from then until now but given that the goals against in the first 10 games amounted to 38, compare that to the last 10 games with goals against at 20, it’s clear that Teno has made significant improvements. Jesse plans to continue to improve their skills overall, currently putting a lot of energy into their Reaction Time and Hand Speed. With the overwhelming number of times that Saskatoon has been out-shot, it’s no surprise that those would be Jesse’s main focuses at the moment. No better way to stop of a barrage of shots than to work on stopping the pucks. With the remainder of the season, and the impending off season since Saskatoon will definitely miss the playoffs, Jesse is looking forward to using their free time to work harder than ever in order to be ready for the next draft and the next season. “I don’t know where I’ll be at the end of this season or the beginning of the next, but wherever I am, I’m going to give it my all. I don’t plan on stagnating and I don’t plan to give in even when it gets hard.”

15 Years of the Victory Hockey League. I mean, I feel like that short sentence says so much already. But what does it mean to me? Not a whole lot to be honest. 15 years ago this week, I would have been working my final summer job before heading off to college. I was excited about being about to finally make a Facebook account because I had an edu email address. And personally, I was struggling with who I was. I was bullied a lot from first grade all the way until I graduated high school (ages 6 to 18 for the non-Americans). Near the end of my high school days, I started to get bullied for an assumed sexuality that I did not identify with. This meant that as soon I was out of that environment and could get a clear head, a lot of thinking was done. That summer I came to identify as being bisexual. Over the next year and a half at college, I changed that to being a lesbian. And just a few months ago, it developed once again and my gender changed from female to non-binary. In the real world, I still go by she/her pronouns and have slowly started to incorporate they/them. (So either one you call me personally is fine.) But this meant that I could use the internet to test it out. To see how it felt and to find out if it really was me or not. When I joined the VHL only a month ago (boy time does go fast), I, as someone who has spent over 20 years on the internet in male dominated spaces, was hesitant to even give a whiff of being anything other than a straight cisgendered male. Also, as most if not all of you are, I too am a hockey fan which means I also understand how toxic fans can be both in real life and on the internet. I was worried about coming here and not knowing if I would be safe and was going under the assumption that there would be no female presence on the whole site. Man am I glad that was proven wrong. What surprised me though, and made me feel safe right off the bat, was the fact that I had the chance to set my pronouns on my profile. I had not seen this in many spaces online outside of the big social media sites. So when I was given the chance, I took it. I figured I was an anonymous nobody who was checking out something that I could always just walk away from. It then came to my attention, thanks to @Shindigs, that this was a recent change made in the VHL. And not only that the option was given, but that the Code of Conduct has been re-written to be more inclusive. I also spoke with @fishysince it seems that they were the catalyst that kicked off these changes so I do want to thank them for being so brave and taking that first terrifying step that the rest of us get to safely follow. Now, I can’t speak at all to what the league was like prior to these changes since I was not here nor do I dare to dig through the forums to find anything unsavory that may remain. But I will speak as someone who was hesitant to be open at all. When my player’s name was mentioned in their first ever article, the author used ‘he/him’ pronouns. Now, of course male is pretty default in this environment so I get it. But what made me realize that the VHL was different, was that someone commented that Jesse Teno’s pronouns were ‘they/them’ and the article was updated. So simple and easy that it makes it seem like child’s play. I know I haven’t been here long, and I know I have a lot of learning still to do. But I do think that if the VHL can be as inclusive as it is, if not more, over the next 15 years, then I think the diversity will grow. If people like me and others who are different can find a home here, then the VHL will get through another 15 without issue. 714 words for week ending 7/24

Jesse! You just put on one of the most amazing performances we have seen out of you yet. Your first professional shut out! How does that feel? Oh man it feels amazing. I’ve been close in a few games but it feels great to finally get it over with. Honestly, it’s like a weight has been lifted off my shoulders. You also got the first star of the game; I believe a first for you as well this season. That feels great too. Not only to get that kind of win but also to be recognized for it just feels really good. Think you have any more in you before the season ends? Well, we’re a little over half-way through and I feel like my game is getting better the more I play. So hopefully I can manage even just one more shut out. That would make me pretty happy. I also heard this morning that your teammate Nikolas Kauppi @Tetricidewas traded to Mexico City. How is the locker room after the news? Pretty quiet. Kauppi was a great teammate and I’m going to miss him. Shame to see someone so good go but I know that that’s how these things happen in hockey. 204 words claimed for week ending July 24

Sorry to see you go @Tetricide. You were a good teammate. Good luck in Mexico!

Happy birthday VHL! I'll take some free tpe any day.

I'll apply! Assuming you accept newer people

Game 159 Recap: Given the second-place position of Mississauga vs basement dwelling Saskatoon, this game ended up being a proper spanking on Thursday night. After a volley of shots resulting in three goals in the first period, the Hounds continued to dominate the rest of the game. Saskatoon was unable to get anything going between the barely-there offense and a defense being held together with some string and gum. It’s possible that not even MacGyver himself could have helped the Wild through this one. This was probably one of the least stressful games for the Hound’s goalie Boudreaux. 95 words for week ending 7/24

1. Jesse's performance certainly could be better but I think their save percentage given the number of shots faced it pretty good. 2. Probably the skating 3. Penguin! 4. The ability to steal other people's super powers on demand. 5. Jesse tends to take out their frustrations in the gym and in practices. They know the only way to get better and to move on is to work hard. 6. Minor league baseball! Small crowds and lots of fun theme nights. One of the best sports to just chill at and have a great time.

After a serious slew of losses result in 17 goals against over three games, Jesse Teno may finally be seeing a turn-around. Three brutal losses (Game 102 vs Mexico City Kings [4-2], Game 106 vs San Diego Marlins [3-6], and Game 117 vs Mississauga Hounds [7-1]) with a combined total 100 shots again, can only hopefully give Teno the experience they need. Despite their personal stats and impressive rise among first-gen players, the on ice stats and production do not seem to be able to match up. This major gap has left Teno wondering where all of their hard work is going if it isn’t showing where it matters – on the ice. Game 102 against the Mexico City Kings was a close one with a final score of 4-2 and shots on goal 24-22. It’s one of the closer games that Saskatoon has managed in regards to shots on goal. Teno let two in from Halvar Torbjorn during the first period, though managed to hold off Mexico City during the second, with the other two goals coming in the third period. Saskatoon was able to rally a bit in the second and third periods, matching Mexico City in number of shots, but they just could not seem to get enough past Mexico City goalie Jeremy Swayman. An easier game shot wise for Teno and one they could be happier with given how even it seemed to be for most of the game. Game 112 against the Mississauga Hounds, however, is a totally different story. With shots against being 24-45, it was a constant onslaught of pucks that resulted in an ugly 7-1 loss. It also showed in the number of penalties from Mississauga, including goalie interference. Though that didn’t seem to bother Teno. In fact, after that penalty call, they seemed to be on the ball, not letting any other pucks cross their net for the remainder of the game. It might have also fired up Nikolas Kauppi as well, who scored the lone Saskatoon goal 2 minutes and 19 seconds later. Teno seemed a bit shaken after the penalty but brushed it off and held the score where it was. And the turn-around mentioned earlier? Well that came in Game 117 against the Miami Marauders. It was the first time this season that the two teams met; and both being at the bottom of the VHLM standings meant that it was a more even match than any previous game could have been. Despite that, Saskatoon once again was outshot 20-40; one of the highest shots games that Teno has been in. They managed to hold off yet another onslaught and only let in 2 goals. Thankfully, with the hard work of their teammates, Saskatoon managed a 5-2 win. The barrage was light but the aim was spot on. Yes, the Saskatoon Wild have been out-shot in ever single game. But what matters, and what we can all see from this game, is that it’s the quality and not quantity of the shots. If Saskatoon can keep making quality shots and if Jesse Teno can hold things together in the net, it’s possible that the Wild could make a significant turnaround in the second half of the season. 538 words for week ending July 17, 2022

Thanks for the encouragement! I appreciate it.

Jesse, sorry to bother you after such a bad week. I promise I won’t take up too much of your time. You’re now 6-15 for your rookie season in the VHLM. Last week a lot was said regarding the shooting you’re facing being a major factor. How do you feel about that? I think it’s right. I think if you look at the current stats, I am number one for Shots Against and I’m leading by a large margin too. I’m not blaming the team. They can’t always prevent other players from taking a shot. But there’s only so many times a goalie can face shots like that and manage to stop them. And despite that, most games have been quite close and tight. You only let a few get away from you against top teams. But I guess this is taking quite a toll on you, isn’t it? Yea it is. It does a lot for a player’s morale when their one job is to stop pucks and the stats are what they are. I knew I would face some real adversity coming here right out of college but I never imagined it going this way. I guess it did feel good to keep those Mexico and Vegas games tight. 211 words for week ending July 17