I think we have all experienced the highs and lows of playing on team. Whether in person or through a forum based league, we have all felt the spectrum of emotions when it comes to winning and losing. Your team could be on a winning streak or struggling to get out of the bottom. Hell, they could have a winning streak and still be at the bottom. We also experience this along with the players on a team that we root for. Watching your favorite team in any sport shit the bed hurts and having them win big sends you screaming from the rooftops.
In the case of the 2024 Superb Owl where the Kansas City Cheats Chiefs got their asses handed to them by the Phantastic Philadelphia Eagles, we watched an apparent Dynasty in the making crumble like so many before them. What should have been a close battle for the trophy was simply a stampede of epic proportions. And had Mahomes not pulled out one good throw and given the Chiefs momentum, we might have been looking at the first ever shutout in Superb Owl history.
But what does this teach us about the VHL you might ask? Well, gentle reader; let me explain.
Every season, the VHL starts fresh. Like all other sports (real and simulated), a new season means a new chance for all teams to make it to the top. You may have the worst players or the best players but in the end, luck plays such a huge part in what happens. Talent? Sure. But sometimes that hair of room for a ball or puck to sneak past a defender is all it takes to determine if you’re scoring. With how fickle Simon can be, luck is really all we have sometimes in the VHL. The numbers are what they are but if the algorithm decides it wants to work differently today, then it will.
While we don’t have actual refs, Simon to some degree takes that part of the game of hockey into account. Players draw penalties seemingly at random though the amount they get is based on certain STHS stats. Ashoka Tano – my player- for example, had 66 penalty minutes this season. Now, that’s not a lot for a 72 game season and it’s nowhere near the top spot held by Helsinki’s Tommy Sleeves of 300 penalty minutes. However, what makes my player, with 0 points put into Grit, have any penalties at all? If anything, she should be a fucking goody-two-shoes who dances her way out of any type of penalty. And yet, the stat is what it is. So I think that that is where luck (good or bad) might come into account when it comes to the VHL.
Also, if you want to analyze some real luck, just take a look at my first player Jesse Teno. No way should they have been as good as they were for their whole career due to who they were up against – especially other goalies. And yet, they were the face of London and made a serious impact on VHL records.
Any player in the VHL, no matter their stats, can be grossly horrible or god-like depending on what Simon spits out. Sometimes, it really is just luck.
546 words for week ending 2/16/2025
I'm fully aware that this feels like an unfinished thought but it's all I had. It's also tax season and I can't believe I found the time during my work day to write this. Maybe next time I'll continue the topic and maybe then it'll make more sense lol.