Aimee

the padawan becomes the knight!! onto jedi master you go, my friend. 

Man, who knew I would be going from hall of fame goalie to the number 1 defenseman in the final regular season of the VHLE. I mean geeze. Ahsoka just barely eked out number 1 in points by a single point over Steve French. And all season long she was way ahead, sometimes by double digit points, among all d-men. I am so proud of her, and I cannot wait to see what she can do in the VHL.

Ahsoka finished S95 as follows:
1st in Points - 101
1st in Assists – 73
1st among Defensemen
4th in Shots Blocked – 202
2nd in Powerplay Goals – 15

Overall Stats:
23 Goals
73 Assists
101 Points
+15
286 Shots
28 Penalty Minutes
67 Hits
4 Game Winning Goals

This was her best season so far and I am so pumped for her to join Helsinki in a few weeks. The post and offseason are going to be a lot of work just trying to max earn so that once the button is pressed, I can apply all 100+ banked TPE (currently at 107). 
 
181 words for week ending 9/22/2024

21st One Game Away from Elimination

Halifax forward Steven Nichols looks to the scoreboard after the Reapers score to take a 4-0 lead in Game 4
 
Philadelphia, USA - The quarterfinal Eastern Conference series began with the Philadelphia Reapers taking a 2-0 lead, winning both games on their home ice, but despite taking a much-needed 5-4 victory in Game 3 at home against the top seeded Philadelphia Reapers, the Halifax 21st are now on the brink of elimination after a lackluster performance in a 4-0 loss of Game 4. Despite the lopsided series result so far, up until game 4 the 21st hung right with the Reapers, losing both games by only one goal. In order to make a comeback, Halifax desperately needs to get a better performance out of starting goaltender Vladimir Trunov than they have received so far in the series. The S96 Russian netminder has given up 15 goals on 134 shots thus far, equating out to a .888 SVPCT and 3.67 GAA. It is unlikely that Halifax will go this route given that Trunov has been their man down the stretch this season, but perhaps Halifax management may indeed explore the possibility of giving S97 draftee Ricky LaFleur a chance to start the pivotal Game 5. Starting LaFleur would be a bold move, considering that the he only made 4 starts in the regular season, to the tune of a .911 SVPCT and 2.26 GAA.
 

Davos, Switzerland -- The first round of the VHL playoffs is over. And in the European Conference, we have what may not be an upset by seeding, but certainly by perception of where these teams were seen entering the season.
 
HC Davos Dynamo recently took the series against the Warsaw Predators 3-1, marking both another disappointing playoff series loss for Warsaw and the culmination of a rebuilding process for Davos. Warsaw won the first game in the series and did out-shoot the Dynamo in three of the four contests, but a combination of strong goaltending and sharp play by Grimgor Ironhide plus youngsters such as Antonia Bucatini and rookie Felicia Hardy allowed for the series comeback.
 
"I told you before the series, you can't count us out," said Bucatini, who was the First Star in both Game 3 and Game 4. "We may be young, but that just means we're hungry. I'm glad the hard work we've put in all season is shining through."
 
Will it continue into the next round? That may be a daunting task. The first seeded Moscow Menace captured the Founder's Cup this season, and they are unsurprisingly the most common pick to win the title. That means Davos enters knowing they're underdogs - but that may not be a bad thing, to hear the players talk about it.
 
"We have zero pressure entering this series. Nobody expects us to win," Bucatini added. "So when the game's close, which team is going to get tight? It isn't gonna be us. So I just plan to go out there, play, and let the chips fall where they may."
 
 

If there is an easy thing to say about the VHL general managers, it would be, “they know their shit.”  And I dont even know all of them and their pedigree.  The ones I know, I can safely say that they match the statement about their abilities.
 
Starting with Spartan, he’s got Moscow running the league and has been for multiple seasons.  It doesn’t matter where Moscow places in the standings, they are a playoff team.  The only thing that will keep Moscow down this season is the “VHL Curse.”
 
And Cole, better known as badcolethetitan, well he’s been so impressive taking Chicago up a notch ever since he took over and unfortunately for him, Chicago faces Vancouver in the playoffs this round.
 
I remember calling Alex a genius in the past, and that hasn’t changed.  He has got a lot of talent knowing what to do with players, and who to pick up to make HC Davos better.  He’s a very patient GM who is always respected by opponents.  I’m not sure how far Davos will go; however, because although David Jokinen is a threat for the team, its well known that he’s somewhat skiddish about playing against Vancouver, should Davos make the finals.
 
There is one general manager that sticks out above the rest.  Frank, is a notch above and is unmatched when it comes to running a team.  His eye for success comes out when needed most.  Taking Vancouver from the bowels of the division after losing the first five games, thanks to Bollos de Trueno, to home ice, Frank had no fear whatsoever that the Wolves would be a dominating force.  Perhaps he was leading other teams into a sense of confidence when they played Vancouver, or he had other things in mind, his adjustments to the team and lineup has given the Vancouver Wolves the best chance to get a cup.  It is because of his decision making and his dedication to the team that Frank should easily be awarded the David Knight trophy.
 
341 words

Alagsantere Grønvold is a hard-hitting, defensively-minded defenseman. His defensive readings and instincts are top-notch. Combined with his elite four-way mobility, he's a nightmare to play against, especially in transition. Discipline has been a concern in his game, as has his lack of composure with the puck on his stick and very limited offensive upside. Grønvold will probably never be your team’s top scoring defender, but he could be the perfect counterpart an offensive defenseman needs to fully unleash their potential.
 
Grades:
 
Skating: A
Puck skills: C
Goal scoring: B-
Playmaking: C
Hockey sense: A+
Physical: B-
 
Observations:
 
June 24, 2024: Upon finishing his senior year with the Greenland Youth Academy, Grønvold signed a contract with the Mexico City Kings, who will hold his rights until the upcoming VHLM draft. He looks like a good fit to complete the Kings’ blue line. Due to some visa issues, he's expected to miss the first few games, but he still should have enough time to build chemistry before a potentially very deep playoff run.
 
July 4, 2024: The fatigue from jumping straight from the Greenland Youth Academy senior year into the VHLM regular season has clearly affected Grønvold's game. While he hasn't looked overwhelmed thanks to his awareness and defensive IQ, he has been struggling to adjust to the VHLM pace and to leverage his physical tools. Still, he became an impact defender for the Kings, finishing the regular season with 3 goals, 7 assists, a plus-1 rating, 28 hits, and 23 blocked shots in 16 games.
 
July 13, 2024: Eleven playoff games is not a big sample size, but Grønvold definitely looked more comfortable than he looked in his regular season games. He held his own pretty well, especially considering five of the 11 games were against heavy favorites. Grønvold ramped up his intensity with 19 shot blocks and 20 hits, recorded a single goal and team-leading 7 assists with a minus-2 rating.
 
August 5, 2024: Despite a strong defensive showing at the Junior Showcase Tournament with the tournament-winning Rush team, Grønvold wasn't selected to take part in the World Junior Championship, which arguably hurt his VHLM draft stock as he fell to the 7th overall pick, going back to the Mexico City Kings for season 95.
 
September 13, 2024: In his first—and what should be final—full VHLM season, Grønvold surprised everyone with his production with 18 goals and 48 assists for 64 points (10th among VHLM defensemen). Some of hockey’s best coaches say the better you defend, the less you have to do it, and Grønvold was a great example of it. While his traditional defensive stats were unimpressive—plus-8 rating, 137 hits, and 112 shots blocked—his defensive impact went beyond the box stats, as he was the most deployed player on the league's best defensive team. It's hard to record hits and blocks when your team is on the puck most of the time you're on the ice. Grønvold remains a bona fide mid-first round talent, and a strong playoff performance could even propel him into a top-5 consideration.
 
September 16, 2024: Let's not talk about Grønvold’s performance in the four playoff games Mexico City played. As the draft approaches, Grønvold remains one of the premier blueliners and one of the more VHL-ready prospects, but another year of development before jumping in the big league would be the best approach to his future. He is set to play another season with the Kings now that the VHLE announced the end of their partnership with the VHL and its affiliated leagues.
 

Well, here it is, another week and next to no desire to record a Mad Villain episode. I think it might be dead now but perhaps I’ll continue to linger around here a little longer. I really don’t care too much that the VHLE has ended, only for the fact that I will never be drafted by a VHLE team. Which is kind of interesting considering there have multiple chances to do so in the past.
 
I’ve been spending a lot of my free time writing my own stuff, and feel more comfortable in that role. I think sim leagues as a whole are dying for me as I feel the same way about the SHL. Not trying to mention them but just don’t have the desire as I used to. I find the effort it takes to create weekly PT’s not worth it. I don’t really care about my player or how well he does, I do want Vegas to win in the VHLM but just so I can be a good teammate. Should I just hit the retire button and go inactive permanently? Perhaps one of these weeks I will.

Right now that's me but I don't think that's going to be the same way by the time the draft comes along. With Acydburn making their player and a tight race between the top 3 TPE earners I don't think I have the majority chance of being picked 1st overall. One look at my player history and you can see a lot of burnout, pump and dump, and otherwise fleeting earning.

I message my locker room every day, check the website regularly and take breaks between VSN articles. Whether this is a long-term strategy is beyond me. What I do know is that I've never had an opportunity to be 1st for many things. I let the pressure get to me. The disappointment of expecting first and then not being given that reward is a feeling all too common. Maybe this time will be different? Ultimately, it'll just come down to whether a GM looks at my profile and can get over the recurring history of potential. 

That's all my players have ever been. Potential.

The Oatmeal debate.....
 
The question was asked last week or at least mentioned in a sarcastic comment about players taking about the Oat meals or cereal that they like to eat. After some thought, yup a full second later as my own sarcastic mind was like that is actually more interesting topic then the person in question actually might give it credit so here I am going to talk about what PMB would eat; Oat meal or Cereal?
 
Starting off with a disclaimer I guess that since I live in Japan now Oat meal isn`t really a thing and cereal is even questionable with cornflakes being the likely choice here. This actually makes me (not PMB) actually crave Oat meal and Cream of wheat as breakfast option. Not to mention I wasn`t a huge bacon fan when living in Canada but when you cannot get real bacon but once, maybe twice a year. It becomes heavenly and a must have!! I also drive an hour to eat Wendy`s so that I can have real chilly and “The Baconator” or spice Chicken burger that I used to take for granted when living in the CA. And here I go off topic again ….
 

This ad was brought to you by Wendy`s
 
Cereal versus Oat meal ….. I am a cereal guy but with my cereal being a oat product ….. yup, if you have guessed I eat Oatmeal Squares from Quaker rather than there Oat meal!! Doesn`t really matter which one either between brown sugar or cinnamon but I tend to lean towards the cinnamon one more ….. Again this isn`t a product that we can get here in Japan and I am craving the shit out of it… I guess that is why I really wrote this quick article talking about Oat meals!!!
 

 
Oh, I just also seen and forgot about LIFE cereal also made by Quaker!!
 

Idea came from @rory comments about AI!!

Well…I spent the weekend in Nashville Tennessee to visit some friends and was shocked to see a forum post that the VHLE had been disbanded.  Now I know there are a lot of opinions about the VHLE, some pretty emotional on both sides. 
 
I came into the league in S81 as a free agent and my S83 year was played in Bratislava with GM @FrostBeard and some truly high caliber players like @Shindigs and @Girts, whom I have played with more most of my career with two players. It was in the VHLE that It (THE VHL) finally clicked and I could prepare a player that could be good.  
 
Fast forward to Logan Ninefingers and I again spent time in Bratislava where I was fortunate enough to win a championship with GM @roryRory.  Again, I had a fun time and was a great locker room to be a part of. 
 
I understand the logistics of the decision and I think it will be a positive thing for the league will be In the long run but cheers to my time in the VHLE and a thank you to all who made the VHLE a fun place.  

E abolishers win before gta 6? Damn. 

It's been an absolutely mind-boggling last week since Linkin Park came back and it's been a true rollercoaster of a ride. From actually returning with a majority of the band's old members, to bringing in a new singer and drummer, then also revealing that Brad Delson will write songs but won't tour. Let alone the whole Scientology debate over Emily Armstrong and the whole "Linkin Park is going to do the League of Legends 2024 World Championships song" thing. Crazy past week and I'm strongly debating going to see them in Brooklyn in a couple weeks.
 
Usually I'd segue my rollercoaster analogy into talking about Moscow but this season has pretty much just been a rocket straight up and I guess we're just waiting for either a catastrophic failure or a mission success. We're poised fairly well for the Victory Cup which I absolutely don't want to win due to how jinxed it is, but it's hard to just accept not being the best at all times. Hopefully we don't take much stock in the curse, but given how strong the EU has been this season I think upsets will be pretty common on our side of the playoff bracket.
 
Also a couple shoutouts to @jRuutu, @Grape and especially @Knight for some league leading performances this season, as all three lead the league in their respective forward and defense positions. With just 4 games left to play I cautiously think Rashford and Ruutu have locked up the scoring leaders (and it'd be sweet if they could tie), while both are still strongly in the race to win the goal and assist leader categories too. Obuz has a decent lead for defensemen but I wouldn't count out any of Oven/Stone/Leitner to have a surge in their last few games. @leandrofg should comfortably win the rookie race too which would be sweet to see the Stolzy come back to Moscow where it's spent a lot of time recently. And of course the underrated @Viper for being a great defensive partner with Obuz and joining the afourmentioned folks as plus/minus league leaders.
 
We've got our sights set on the playoffs now so we'll see how that all goes. As mentioned the EU should be a bloodbath yet again, but hopefully we can repeat as champs and start off this new generation of players' careers off right. Also excited to have another lottery pick (plus a couple other firsts, no biggie) and see what we can do in the draft. Always fun to keep adding talent to a team that just never seems to lack it. Ciao!

One of my biggest ideas ever took almost a whole year to even become a work in progress.
 
 
Something that you may have noticed by reading other installments of this series is that I generally do my best to evaluate myself fairly. I've owned up to a few things I would have gone about differently today, and I usually don't try to sell myself or tell you that I'm perfect. A possible exception to that is in my writing about my time as a VHLM GM, a job I would say I was damn good at and I won't apologize for thinking so. With that, including the fact that I was one of the better ones at securing and developing waiver players, one would expect that to be one of my favorite parts of the job.
 
In those days, a GM had lots of control over the course of their team's roster as it related to waivers. A particularly active GM could take advantage of this by offering to lots of players and usually being one of the first to do so. A particularly active GM could also offer to players in unique and personal ways that could sway a player's perception toward their team. With this being what it was, forum-based waiver offers were something that reflected positively on those who did their job well.
 
The thing was, it wasn't always fair. Waiver players were great for non-competitive teams looking to fill spots and end up with a more active locker room, and they were also great for fringe teams who had a few good players but lacked depth. From the objective standpoint of winning games, though, waiver signings were bad for highly competitive teams with a real shot at the championship. Especially as the trade deadlines approached, fewer and fewer teams offered to players who would bring the average down at their positions, and some who I won't name specifically went on to win the championship in seasons like (hypothetically) S70 and S73 off of rosters full of then-legal capped inactives. It didn't help that the S70s were marked by a huge crackdown on VHLM management, which went from almost completely unregulated to highly structured with rules that both helped and didn't help.
 
There was really nothing that could have been put in place to make people make waiver offers, though, and the best that could really be done rules-wise was just a general "please be nice" statement that didn't really mean much. With rules changing and systems changing with it, I wrote an article that I'll talk about much more extensively in a future part of this series: a lengthy response to all that had happened so far. At the very end of the article, I first speculate on what would happen if we were to do something new and put the VHLM's waiver system on the portal.
 
It just so happened that right around the same time, the Board of Gustav had an ongoing thread about VHLM changes in a general sense. I brought this up there and pushed for it for a bit, getting some positive feedback that included the first and last time @Victor will ever say this:
...but things were very jumbled in that thread, support wasn't universal, and it mostly got buried.
 
This first happened in October of 2021, and when December rolled around and my semester was over, it was still on my mind enough that I took it to its own thread. I was really hyped about the possibilities that a new system like this would bring. First, automated waivers would mean no dodging new players, with the availability of roster spots becoming a guarantee rather than an option on the part of the GMs. Players would also gain control of their own destiny, choosing to join a top team and win a championship or go to a place able to offer them playing time and star status. It would also get rid of something else that annoyed me, which was sneaky GMs trying to lie about a player's opportunity ("we'll put you on the first line!" regardless of roster makeup) or their team's status ("we're the Cup favorites!" was thrown out there by at least three different teams in S68). The thread was somewhat active for a couple weeks, and then it died despite positive feedback. It just wasn't 🤩exciting🤩 enough for the group to want to bang it out.
 
When putting things in place, especially big things, there's always some understandable pushback. But this thread really didn't have all that much of it. My biggest concern was whether it would be doable on the portal end, but @Dil was both very willing to do it and not at all concerned about the workload. The thread crawled its way into early January with only minor issue taken with the original idea, but the necessary "let's do it" drive never showed up and the meta conversation was happening around the same time anyway. It received its first of many bumps around this time, and it was decided at this point to have the VHLM Commissioner team at the time poll their GMs about it. I thought this was pretty fair.
 
Except that a week later, GMs still hadn't been asked. The thread was bumped again to make this happen, and we thought it would. We then spent the next month going bump --> larger objection and alternate proposal --> bump --> bump with nothing happening and no feedback from the GMs. Portal waivers were sort of dead in the water at that point.
 
This wasn't exactly helped by feedback from the VHLM GMs at the time, who weren't happy that the system would be taking away a level of control from them. To be fair, this is understandable. The league already has its contentious situations at times where the updaters need to draw lines between what is and isn't acceptable for TPE, or when the mod team decides to make decisions about who can and can't be hired into jobs on behalf of commissioners, and no one really likes to hear that something they've always been able to do, to an effect that they likely see as positive, is no longer going to be something they're allowed to do. On top of just losing control, though, a very fair take is that it strips those particularly active GMs of their ability to out-waiver the others through effort. 
 
We did, thankfully, choose to roll ahead with this anyway. A workaround that we'd decided on was that GMs could still make their own waiver pitches to be automatically available on the portal, and a decent counterpoint that we used to justify the rest was that the amount of work needed to constantly be available and offering to outdo the others was unrealistic to expect from a GM anyway. And, eventually, after about three months of kicking around the BoG, Dil finally proposed moving forward with portal waivers by starting to work on it.
 
And got no response, because the idea wasn't 🤩vibes🤩 enough. Continuing to bump the post elicited replies along the lines of "I thought we were all done talking about this," when clearly we weren't because nothing had ever come out of it to conclude it.
 
Some things had happened in the background as well. I had talked with then-VHLM Commissioner @McWolf personally about some ways to address VHLM GM issues with the system, and I had a very good conversation with one of the proposal's larger opponents in @Spartan  that resulted in us finding a solid middle ground on the issue. Namely, he was concerned about my idea of auto-assigning players to teams when some may not even exist long enough to accept a contract, and we eventually agreed that it would probably be best to still require GMs to make offers officially by themselves. As far as I could tell, there wasn't anyone left in BoG that was against the proposal, so it was really frustrating to see "are we good to go?" met with literally nothing. Eventually, it got the green light from the blue team, and my* proposal finally was put into work.
 
*this was suggested before I ever brought it up by @Berocka, apparently, who has an angry podcast about my taking credit for it somewhere. I don't have any memory of that ever happening and always thought I came up with it independently. Let's just be happy it was pulled off.
 
We were promised a "by next season" in early May, but like all big projects, this wasn't the case (no hate here; I'm not exactly done with this series and my 31st season is coming to an end). Later on in 2022, Spartan and I became VHLM Commissioners ourselves, and that conveniently lined up with the system becoming ready. Portal waivers were finally rolled out in November of 2022, over a year from when I had first brought them up.
 
For better or for worse, portal waivers are still a thing today! Some aren't convinced that the system is perfect, and I understand that. But a year of fighting for it to happen finally paid off despite the best efforts of those of us in power to not care about it.
 
That part is mostly joking, to be clear. I love and trust most people in BoG and there are legitimate reasons why not everyone is rushing to implement all of my ideas all the time. It is times like these that make me wish that I could snap my fingers and make things happen instantly, but I also get that the league would probably have run itself into the ground by this point if I got to do that. Looking over the thread, I found that I actually did a lot less of the bumping myself than I thought, and it really was a group effort that contradicted the "I singlehandedly forced the system through" narrative I originally intended to take to this article. As a whole, no matter who it was, portal waivers took a really long time to make their way through the system, and I think that justifies this article's title anyway.
 
 
 

Read my other articles for the full Gustav experience:
 
#1: Lightning Glory Gonna Be My Name
#2: Can't We All Just Get Along?
#3: Who Needs Cybersecurity Anyway?
#4: The House That I Built
#5: Can We Fix It?
#6: American Beauty
#7: The Kids Are Alright
#8: Dogs In A Pile
#9: I Just Wanna Grill For God's Sake
#10: This Old House
#11: Go Directly to Jail
#12: If You Can Dodge a Color, You Can Dodge a Ball
#13: How I Messed Up Davos
#14: Ello Gov'nor
#15: Weewoo
#16: Jolly Kranchers
#17: How I Messed Up Davos, Part 2
#18: I've Been Everywhere, Man
#19: The Sun Also Rises
#20: Ripple In Still Water
#21: How I Messed Up Davos, Part 3
#22: I Hate the Meta
#23: I Hate the Mods

I gathered the data for the current predictions from the playoff bracket challenge. There were 53 submissions at the time. The preseason counts are based on the 71 submissions at the beginning of the season, excluding any submissions that did not select any team to win. There were 65 total picks for the NA champion and Continental Cup; there were 64 total picks for EU champion.
 
Given that we have the ability to see who other people have picked for the playoff bracket challenge, I thought it would be interesting to take a look at the preseason predictions and compare them to the current predictions. As you can see, in the pre-season, people were a bit down on Toronto and Moscow to return to the finals. New York had actually been favored to win the Devon Marlow-Marta Trophy, and they failed to make the playoffs at all. Toronto only garnered 18.5% of the predictions, compared to over 50% of users picking them now. Riga had been favored in the preseason, just barely over Moscow, but the Menace are now heavy favorites. What I find particularly interesting with Moscow is that in the preseason, more people picked them to to win the Continental Cup than the Terence Fong Trophy. While I often will pick different teams just to hedge my bets, I didn't realize that many others do it as well.
 
I agree with Moscow being the favorites, and Malmo and Riga being split. I am, however, surprised at Toronto being the favorites in North America. Obviously they are the number one seed, but I thought people would be more concerned about Toddly Bobbly now that we are in the playoffs. I actually have Seattle winning over Toronto in my predictions, but Vancouver is my pick to ultimately make it to the finals from North America.

(graphic courtesy of Leandrofg)
 
 
So the fat lady sang and unfortunately, it was not a winning hymn for the New York Americans. Except for maybe the last ten games, the Big Apple franchise has had one if not the best defence in the league. But they had offensive woes for the majority of the season, which could never entirely be solved, despite Vince Wong's best efforts. One could argue, that having two of the most penalized players with Kadachi and Janser on the roster sheet, who only had Sleeves ahead of them, did not help. And that would not be an entirely wrong assumption. However, NYA's penalty killing unit was third in the league, only behind Moscow and Malmo, and the Empire State team even managed to score the second most shorthanded goals league wide. The power play was insanely efficient with 0.09% behind the primus Vancouver.
 
36xW's goaltending may not have been best in class and probably does not warrant any silverware, however, a save percentage of .923 is nothing to be sneezed at and was 5th for all starting goaltender (for this article's purpose, we did not consider Lovstrom as a starting goaltender as the Malmo net was almost tended on a 50/50 basis by him and Herzlich). So the misery cannot be pinned to the Americans' netminder either.
 
The devil lies in the mediocre goal production. The highest scoring player in a blue-red-and-white Jersey is Jeb Amish, a defenceman of all things, which as the only player on the roster eclipsed a point per game (73). From the forwards, aggressive leader Kadachi was the closest to get to the ppg benchmark with 71 points to his name. Of course that does not mean that the forwards are bad per se. It just means they did not have the puck luck they needed to push further. It also needs to be considered that there is something like a salary cap (even though some NHL franchises successfully dodged that in the past, the VHL does not tolerate such shenanigans) and if you spend money on the netminder and the D, one has to make compromises in the forward section. At the end of the season the strikers looked like a motley crew of young talents and veteran depth players. It deed not help that Janser took a step back in production from last season, however scored four game winners doing so.
 
Now with the past dealt with, what will the future look like? The Americans have three potential callups. First, winger French, who just had a 100 point campaign for Bratislava and has scored two points in the one playoff game his team played in. So there is hope that he may be part of the answer to New York's scoring woe, given time.
 
There are also two backs in the pipeline who potentially are VHL ready, come season start. Cheese and Toland both have scored 60+ points for Vasteras and Cologne respectively and promise to be solid defense men.
 
There you have it: An inconclusive attempt to analyze 'Wtf is wrong with the Americans?'
 
For good order's sake here are Janser's stats for this past season:
72gp, 13g, 55a, 68pts, +7, 241 PIM, 274 hits, 132sb, 6ppg, 4gwg, 2 First Star Awards and a 2-0-1 (W-L-T) fighting record
 
 
https://vhlforum.com/topic/149403-the-cgy-janser-story-part-xxxii-fighting-for-the-playoffs/
https://vhlforum.com/topic/149543-the-cgy-janser-story-part-xxxiii-wildcard-games-sail-ho/
CIA’s Long, Undoubtedly Wrong S95 VHL Mock Draft - Media Spots - Victory Hockey League (vhlforum.com)
https://vhlforum.com/topic/149784-the-cgy-janser-story-part-xxxiv-a-season-summary/
https://vhlforum.com/topic/150926-the-cgy-janser-story-part-xxxv-a-meet-up-with-family/
 
547 words

Season 95 is complete. Well at least the regular season is.  That gives Felicia Hardy the chance to sit back and think about how their rookie season went. 
 
The Season as a Whole 
Season 95 was good for Felicia Hardy and the HC Davos Dynamo.   In an extremely tough European conference making the playoffs is a good start, which is an improvement on the prior season. Overall Davos was able to compete against any team, which puts them in a good position for the upcoming playoffs.  How they will finish is yet unknown, but they do have the ability to stand up against any team they face. 
 
The Team 
Being drafted by HC Davos Dynamo may have been the best thing for Felicia Hardy.  Joining the team and taking on the position of second line defender in their first season allowed them to enter with a lower level of stress, allowing them to focus on doing things right and focusing on just playing the game.  Being on the top line with that higher level of expectation can sometimes be difficult for rookie players.  Felicia Hardy feels that they found their groove part way through the season and once that was achieved regular production started to happen.  
 
In addition to getting regular ice time in the VHL, joining a team with veteran, and well-respected Defender, David Jokinen helped significantly.  To be able to work and train with someone who possesses that level of talent and experience helps a young player immensely.  It is the little things that differentiate the excellent players from the good players in this league.  It is the slightly different approaches to the game, being able to watch and learn from a player who makes those little things look so easy definitely helped Felicia Hardy excel this season. 
 
Lastly, HC Davos Dynamo has a wonderful training staff, dedicated to helping their players achieve the best results they can.  Working with them day in and day out has been extremely helpful with Felicia Hardy’s development. 
 
Performance 
Felicia had a tremendous season when it comes to overall offensive production, especially since Felicia Hardy considers themselves a defensive defender.  Ending the season tied for second among all rookies in points was beyond their expectations but something they are willing to build upon. Starting your career out with a better-than-expected performance on a team that is quickly improving should mean remarkable things going forward for Felicia Hardy. 
 
Season 96 and beyond 
With David Jokinen retiring this season that will open a first defensive line position, one that Felicia Hardy will position themselves to take over. The added minutes with the team's top players should move Felicia Hardy to the next level in their game.  It will be a big step and one they will need to earn, but Felcia Hardy feels that they are ready for the challenge. Felicia Hardy is looking forward to Season 96 with excitement.  Before that can happen, Felicia gets to experience their first playoffs in the VHL and is going to put everything they have into that experience.   

I am two seasons into my most ambitious player, in terms of personal goals, in about 30 seasons, having been through a GM player (Pavlov), a GM player / goalie in the meta era (Rasputin), and a subsequent hiatus. So with the stated aim of getting back into the Hall of Fame, how do Gianfranco Del Rocco's first two seasons compare to my previous three HOF forwards?

 
Podrick Cast
We'll start with the most recent previous forward, for the primary reason that he's not really comparable at all. Cast had the best first two seasons ever of anyone not named Scotty Campbell or Brett Slobodzian, helped in no small part by a 174-point sophomore season that was the greatest in VHL history. Both Cast's rookie and sophomore seasons were better than any put up by Del Rocco to date, but just that second season alone is superior to Del Rocco's career totals. If anything, I'm hoping that Del Rocco is the inverse of Cast who peaked very early and had a relatively underwhelming second half of his career, both in personal and team achievements.

 
Alexander Chershenko
Ah, my favourite son. Chershenko was remarkably consistent, only dropping below 100 points twice in his career and his worst season, his first, was still better than Del Rocco's output to date, with 84 points as a rookie. Despite that, Del Rocco is only 44 points off the pace, in a more competitive league and playing for a cup contender whereas Chershenko started off on the rebuilding Wranglers. Indeed Del Rocco is already in his second postseason whereas Chershenko only had 7 playoff games to his name by the end of his third season. That said, it would be foolish to aim to outdo the Ukrainian's playoff record, which is another one in the “probably better than anyone not named Campbell” category.

 
Lars Berger
Heading into the depths of VHL history here and again it's nothing to get too excited about for Del Rocco – Berger already had over 200 career points by this stage of his career and was en route to a surprise Continental Cup victory with Calgary as a sophomore top line center. Berger came into his own later, as seen by recent updates to the Toronto Legion all-time stats where he features prominently despite only spending half his career there, but definitely had a quick start as well, landing in the top five all-time scorers at the time of his retirement (and still sitting in ninth place). His trophy case didn't grow massively even at his peak though, so that is something that can be improved on by Del Rocco.

 
So, on the face of it, some grim reading a quarter of the way through Del Rocco's career. I didn't expect to be competing with Cast at this point, but even 40-60 points off Chershenko and Berger's pace is not ideal. However, it is first of all a reflection of the era we live in – since the start of the hybrid era in S83, only six players (Axle Gunner, Jake Thunder, Tomas Sogaard, Bo Johansson, Molly the Cat, and now Antonia Bucatini) have cracked the 150-point mark across their first 2 seasons. None of those players accumulated more than 180 points and only one has so far been inducted into the Hall of Fame. Secondly, I am comparing Del Rocco's start to three of the top 15 scorers ever, so it is bound to be a sobering comparison. The trajectory is positive and the team results have been strong as well so let's see what the next few seasons have in store.

The Toronto Legion wrapped up the regular season at 48-19-5 with 101 points, good enough to finish first in the North American Conference by 6 points and fourth in the VHL behind Moscow, Malmo, and Riga. The Legion finished with a +57 goal differential, fifth best in the VHL, along with the seventh most shots for and fifth fewest shots against in the league. With a regular season less dominant than last season, it's looking like a tougher task to make it where they want to go this season.
 
The Legion will face the winner of the Seattle Bears/Calgary Wranglers series (Bears currently lead 2-0), and both teams would present a tough matchup for Toronto. Seattle in particular looks like a challenge, as Toronto struggled during the regular season against them. The other series in the NA Conference features Vancouver and Chicago. 
 
In the final season for Captain Mac Atlas and Jimi Jaks, the Legion will look to do the thing that they couldn't do for Joel Castle last season and send their franchise players off into retirement as Champions. The trip to get back to the Continental Cup Final looks tougher than last season for the Legion, especially following up a year where the Legion littered the VHL Top 10 stats sheet with a season that saw very few league-wide standout performances.
 
In the end, the playoffs for the Legion will come down to how well they can defend in their own end to limit chances against, and how the big forwards perform up front to add timely scoring. If the Legion want to go all the way this year, it's going to take a full team effort to get the job done without being disappointed at the end.

@Schnee

I hit a wall this week creatively after such a great one last week. But Mondays and Tuesdays are as close to weekends as I have at the moment, so I will appreciate getting to stay home and attend school, than go to school and attend school. Woods feels a bit the same to me right now. I feel like this is the slowest I’ve ever earned TPE, and while I’m about to cross 800TPE next week, it feels like I should be at way more.
 
On another note, we killed the VHLE. It was a huge, long, well-discussed, and for a long time completely misunderstood conversation that’s been going on frankly for a few seasons now. The current resolution is something that is the more moderate approach between my proposal and another proposal. Bipartisan politics if you will. I would have loved to have been more aggressive with roster sizes and player distribution, but this should be a very sustainable model for a while to come.
 
This takes a bit of load off of Recruitment as well, but they desperately need some more hands on deck. If you can manage some time and effort to do some social media posting, graphic scrounging, writing some emails, and generally scouring the internet, say hi to @Banackock.

Members @BryceP and @Pifferfish have both received 2 week TPE bans for account sharing
 
Member @Pifferfish will not be able to assume or accept any general manager or assistant general manger position for the next two seasons (S96, 97).

Forgive me for the modified Smashing Pumpkins reference in the title. Marshall Frostbeard's career as a VHL General Manager is over. At least for now - never say never, right? I alluded to this in the past but Frostbeard has been a tremendous leader; now that I've played for him with a second player, there's no doubt in my mind. He's also a very chill dude, who I'm looking forward to getting to know better whenever we end up scheduling the first of our hopefully many podcasts. I think in a lot of ways he's in a similar place as I am: stretched too thin but still striving to be the best he can be. It's a tough thing to maintain, and I know I'm teetering on snapping outright, and I hope he's doing better than I am.
 
I feel a certain level of guilt that I wasn't able to do more, either with Sakamoto or Shevchenko, to get Frostbeard a league title. Sometimes it just doesn't work out, as we're all aware, but this is a guy who deserves to go out a champion.
 
Still, I raise my glass - or in this case, my mug of cinnamon horchata stress-relief tea - in his honor. To Frostbeard, for his dedication to the VHL, to the D.C. Dragons, and to being a damn fine human being. Cheers, my friend.
 
@FrostBeard