scoop

Whoops! Switched my pick to Erlantz Jokinen.

D - Hammar Voss D - Erlantz Jokinen @Beketov

From Season 80 to Season 84, the New York Americans were a model of consistency in the VHL, finishing 6th in the North American Conference five straight times, and it was never even a close finish. Never during that stretch was New York within fewer than ten points of another team, in either direction, in the conference standings. It's actually somewhat remarkable how they were able to create such separation from the other teams time and time again. This came to a crashing halt in S85 when they not only finished 7th in North America, but they ended with the exact same record as the Los Angeles Stars. Beyond that, there were three other teams with point totals that were within nine of New York. It does make sense that the 6th place team is potentially going to be on a bit of an island when it comes to the standings, given that five teams make the playoffs and not every other team that makes the playoffs will be trash. But now that New York doesn't have that streak to maintain, it's time for the Americans to play to win, so you'd better look out VHL. 5th Place New York 7th Place S80 80 (+10) 70 52 (-18) S81 79 (+21) 58 38 (-20) S82 81 (+18) 63 32 (-31) S83 68 (+14) 54 43 (-11) S84 86 (+25) 61 51 (-10)

1). New season starts this week! What personally are you looking most forward to with your player? Scoring my 300th career goal. I only need 57 to get it done! 2). Do you think New York will do better or worse (record-wise) than Season 85? Looking at how I would rate our roster particularly compared to the rest of North America, I think we have a good chance to improve upon last season's record. Granted, I though we would have done a bit better last season. 3). What team statistic do you think New York will do surprisingly well in? Goals scored. Certainly if the expectation is that we are as poor as we were last season. I think the roster changes will be for the better as far as goal scoring is concerned. 4). Is there a trend your player has had in their career so far that you are hoping changes in Season 86? The trend of Mourning's career is that my performance stayed relatively similar from my odd-numbered season to the following even-numbered season. So my first and second seasons were very similar; my third and fourth seasons were very similar; my fifth and sixth seasons were very similar. I absolutely hope that trend does not continue, because last season was my worst since S80 and I would hate to have a similar year in S86. 5). Who is New York's primary rival? To be honest, it's hard to have a rival when you have been consistently bad for so long. I guess maybe Los Angeles, but only because they have been the next worst after New York in the time that they've been in the league. Plus we had the exact same record as them last season, but because they had the head-to-head advantage, they ended New York's five season "6th in NA" streak. 6). Should @thadthrasher grow a mustache? No. Unless he wants to then sure. I don't care.

F - Daniel Janser F - The Board Game Clue on Skates @Beketov

Taylor Mourning - OV

Maybe next season I look beyond the Americans when drafting my team

That makes sense. My assumption had for some reason been that the career clock followed that same guideline, and I had always thought that was kind of weird because you could basically chill in the minors forever. I never bothered to figure out how it really worked until now that it's affecting me. Deadline retirement it is.

So the clock on your career starts from your draft, but your clock on depreciation starts from when you enter the VHL? So it would be possible for someone to end up being auto-retired after never having to depreciate, if they spent 4+ seasons in the M/E?

Thank you I will consider your application and will not be in touch.

With just one season left on Taylor Mourning's ultimately disappointing career, I'm definitely looking toward my next player. With the details of my player determined, the question that remains is when do I announce Mourning's retirement and officially create Jacob Stone (if that is still the name I've decided to go with)? It used to be that the best time to create a player was the trade deadline. This would give you the most amount of time to earn TPE before your draft. If you lose out on a few weeks, other players in your class would have an edge. This was important, because your career clock started with your draft year. Things have changed since the league added the VHLE. Your career clock, so far as I'm aware, begins when you enter the VHL. I'm not entirely clear on the rules so far as when you are forced to go to the VHL, but as I see it, the way to maximize your skills in the VHL is to be at whatever the VHLE TPE cap is on the cut-off week, then spend that entire season in the VHLE banking TPE. This is how you can begin your career as a rookie in the VHL with the most possible TPE. This also would allow someone to take it easy for a while before becoming a TPE whore if their plan is to do so. Despite my last several seasons of Mourning's career possibly suggesting otherwise, I do intend to earn quite a bit of TPE with my new player at least early on in his career. TPE becomes less valuable later in their career, which makes it easy to not care about earning as much. The fact that your career clock doesn't begin with your draft year means that creating at the deadline doesn't matter as much anymore. Unless, I suppose, you had aspirations of specifically being the highest TPE player in your draft at the time of the draft, or you wanted to go straight into the VHL after being drafted. The biggest upside to going straight to the VHL is that you can get a 9th season in the VHL. When this first came out, I think someone wrote an article about why a player will be better off with an 8-season career, but getting to play 9 seasons is still something, and I'll have to investigate that a little bit more on my own to determine if that's what I want to do. As I see it, I'm considering three different times for retirement/re-creating: 1. Retire Mourning as soon as I can so that he still plays an eighth season. The TPE I would earn for him during his final season would have minimal impact, so I may as well move on to my new player. 2. Retire Mourning at the S86 trade deadline. This would be the choice if I ultimately decide I want to go for a 9-season career with my next player. If I do that, I'm pretty much committing myself to earning max TPE from the start. 3. Retire Mourning in the off-season following S86. I believe this would give him the opportunity to play in one more World Cup. However, it would delay the creation of my new player the longest.

Those first two rules seem to be contradicted by the third. I don't know if updating those retirement rules was missed when the VHLE came into existence and the new rules were made, or if possibly the new rules were reversed? Depreciation in the 9th season would obviously not be a thing if there is no 9th season, which is what the first two rules would imply.

Hey, I didn't know who you were either for a while after I returned.

I'm in the last couple season's of Taylor Mourning's career, so really it's only like 2-3 months before I create my next player, assuming I create them at the deadline next season. I've had in mind what I'm going to do for a while, so I'll write some words about it now. I'm not dead set on the name yet, but I'm leaning towards Jacob Stone. As with all my players, the name associates with my interests. Taylor Mourning, for example, is derived from Taylor Swift and Alkaline Trio, specifically their album Good Mourning. Use of the name Jacob is inspired by the actress Gillian Jacobs (who played Britta Perry in one of my favorite TV shows, Community) and television producer Michael Jacobs (creator of another of my favorites, Boy Meets World). Stone comes primarily from Rockman (Mega Man), because stones are rocks but stone sounds better as a name. I'm pretty set on using Stone as the last name for my player in part because the Mega Man franchise is an all-time favorite of mine. It has actually been part of the inspiration for a couple of my previous players (Keiji Toriyama and Lloyd Light). Additionally, my next player will be a defenseman, and I think a name like Stone is a fitting name for a defenseman. The naming of this player is of particular importance to me, because I intend to have him be the grandson of Benjamin Glover and the niece of Diana Maxwell, two former players of mine (the only two I have in the Hall of Fame). Furthermore, every player I make going forward will likely be a part of their family, with one of those three surnames. Every Glover will be a goalie, every Maxwell will be a forward, and every Stone will be a defender.

The New York Americans signed three top free agents this past off-season, thanks in large part to the lack of interest from other teams in signing the aging stars. Two of these players, Poopy Peepants and Taylor Mourning, were shut out from their old team, the D.C. Dragons, with whom they had spent the previous two seasons. The Dragons instead opted for younger players, signing Milan Dvorak and Nezuko to take their places. Despite the additions that the Americans made, expectations coming into the season were still relatively low due to the competition in the North American Conference and New York's history of mediocrity. They began the season with a 2-4 record before coming into their first match-up against the Dragons, with whom they could end up battling for a playoff spot down the line. Mourning was quick to strike back at the team that cast him aside, scoring the first goal of the game, including an assist from Peepants. By the end of the game, Peepants had four assists while Mourning added an assist to his stats as well. The two of them helped the Americans come out on top 5-4, earning the second and third stars of the game. The real star of the game, however, was New York's other big free agent. The last to join the team, Henri le Massif, scored a hat trick in the game. Two of his goals came in the third period to secure victory. The Dragons still have a slightly better record at 3-3, but the Americans struck first in the head-to-head. The two will play each other again soon, and undoubtedly, Mourning and Peepants would like to take further revenge.

1). How much do you HATE the VHFL format? I don't like it. Personally what I think I would like to see is no groups, salary cap league in which you can make weekly roster changes. I do think one issue with this is that it becomes obvious which players are performing the best and thus rosters will eventually become very similar among the people who are actively managing their roster. Still, this rewards people for being active in the fantasy as opposed to just rewarding people for being good at predicting. 2). On a scale of 1-12 (12 being the most, 1 being the least), what would you rate the month of April? I'd give it a 4. It's slightly more than March, but a little be less than May. 3). Who do you think is an under the radar player on New York that no one is talking about as a prediction award recipient? I didn't look over all the predictions so I'll just list three and you can take whichever is being the least talked about as my answer. Sven Eightnine as a repeat winner of the Jake Wylde Trophy; Poopy Peepants leading the league in assists; Weenuk Warrior winning most improved. 4). What ring tone do you use on your personal cell phone? I just have my phone on vibrate or silent all the time. 5). Who do you think will be last in the blood bath that is the North American conference? The easy choice I think is Los Angeles. They have a very solid core of young players, especially on the back end, but really I see just one above-average player on their roster and I don't think that's enough. 6). Pringles? Yes

I'll sign up. I'll play some games over the next few days to get a rating. 799 rapid on chess.com

F - Maximus Decimus Meridius @STZ

G - Augustus Kennedy @Girts

F - Yun Chiang @STZ

Taylor Mourning @Girts

Poopy Peepants @STZ

This happened with Bushito and the S31 Dynamo as well.

D - Sven Eightnine @Girts